I’m just letting everyone know that my blog address has moved!  From now on, you can find me at my own domain site:  www.sarabethgaley.com.  The site was a Christmas present from my boyfriend–how thoughtful!  It might be a few days until I get it all caught up, but hang in there, and make sure to check back!  I’ve got some great stuff planned for 2010 –most notably, I’ll be trying to travel and explore our own state, Florida, a lot more, and blog about those adventures.  So stay tuned!  And Happy New Year everyone!!

Also, I got great news this week–my transfer went through, and I start as a Full-Time Captain on January 3!  I didn’t expect it to happen so soon, but I’m thrilled (especially because if I have to call in soon, I won’t have to worry about meeting transfer guidelines anymore).  So the next schedule I get will be my last as a performer.  Sort of sad, but it doesn’t mean I won’t ever perform again.  I just have to pick up those shifts day of.  Most importantly, I’ll be making more money!!  It’s not much more, but enough to give me a better cushion.  Maybe I won’t have to stretch paycheck to paycheck as much from now on.  I’m a little nervous about the responsibilities of my new job–it looks like I’m going to be out in the park a lot, making sure things are running smoothly and dealing with any problems that arise.  But I’m sure I’ll get used to it quickly.  I also hope this means that soon I can be trained in other roles, like working at the duty desk, scheduling, or Parade Captain.  Lots of possibilities; it’s very exciting.

So it’s been a very busy week.  I wrapped the last of my presents this morning, and I have to start packing tonight.  We’re probably going to end up moving our vacation up by a day, since I’m having difficulty getting rid of my shifts.  Which means we’ll be leaving Monday night after work, around 6 pm.  It’s a long drive–about 15-18 hours–but we’ll be switching off and we’ll have iPhones and books to keep us busy.  hopefully we’ll arrive at Washington by morning, and the tentative plan is to go into the city for a few hours to see some of the sights.  I also want to make cookies this weekend, but I might not have enough time!  So much to do.  Christmas is right around the corner!

My Christmas shopping is DONE!  I just need to wrap a few more things and pick up some Florida oranges to take with us on the way out.  A slight damper has been put on the trip for now however…I got scheduled seven days next week!  Yeah, screw you too evil Company.  I was counting on having at least that one day off.  So now I have one more day I need to get rid of.  Groan.  Like I need any more stress.  Plus it’s Christmas week, so no one’s exactly picking up.  I may be forced to alter the dates of my trip a bit.  I don’t want to mess up my transfer status, since I’m still waiting to hear about the Captain position.  For now I just have to hope for the best, and try to ignore this monkey on my back that’s threatening to ruin my holiday.

This past Saturday, my boyfriend and I explored the town of Winter Park, just north of Orlando.  The fake Pleasantville facade of Celebration has nothing on this authentic, quant, and homey-feeling Central Florida town.  Winter Park is adorable!  Finally, somewhere around Orlando I’d actually want to live.  We began our late morning at the Farmer’s Market, which I’d been wanting to do for weeks now.  It wasn’t that big, but had tons of fresh produce and flowers.  All the food stands were great; I had a hard time deciding what to get for lunch (I settled on a delicious hot dog).  There were lots of baked goods too.  After the market, we walked over to the village where we spent the afternoon shopping and drinking coffee.  I even explored my first antique shop, where I unexpectedly found the perfect gift for my Mom.  I never thought to look in antique stores before; you can find some great stuff in there.   I was surprised at all the dogs that were out walking around.  They’re even allowed in restaurants, and apparently, The Gap as well.   The Amtrak train goes right through the center of town too, making it even more picturesque.  All in all, the perfect place to spend a Saturday.  I hope we find more places like that when we do some Florida mini-road trips later this winter.

Time to go upstairs and start my packing.  Not sure exactly when I’ll be leaving–hopefully that will become more clear tomorrow.  Whenever we go, I sure hope it snows while we’re there…

I’m happy to report that my Christmas shopping is DONE!  Well, just about.  I need to pick up a book I want to get my family, and then some oranges, but that’ll have to wait until right before we leave.  But ostensibly, I am finished!  I still have a couple weeks, so I’m sure I’ll probably pick up a few items as I come across them as well.  Hurray for being on top of it this year!  The fact that I’m going home helps, I’m sure.

Speaking of home, my parents informed me they got a lot of snow this week!  I’m sure it’ll be gone by the time we get there, but there’s now hope that it’ll snow while we’re there!  That would be great, since I haven’t seen snow in over four and a half years–since my last semester at Pitt.  I miss it so much!  Despite living in Florida, I’m not a tropical weather kind of person.  I much rather have cold and snow.  It seems more like the holidays that way.

It’s nice having a chance to relax this morning after the crazy day I had yesterday.  First, I was Captain for a tea party at one of the resorts.  I had to wear a special costume, which was just black pants and a white collared shirt.  Ok fine.  I showed up at Costuming early to make sure I grabbed the right outfit.  I checked out, and as I was heading out the door, one of the costumers stopped me because I had a man’s shirt.  Who cares?  But they wouldn’t let me leave with it.  I had to go find someone, and of course they had no idea where the ladies’ shirts were.  Long story short, by the time I finally got to work, I clocked three minutes late.  Luckily, I explained my story to the manger, and they didn’t mark me as being late.  That’s great, since I’m trying to transfer and have to watch my attendance notations.

Then I was almost late again for my second shift that day.  Since I had about a three hour break between my shifts, I headed up the road to Winter Garden Village to do some Christmas shopping.  It was fantastic; I found all the gifts I needed and then some.  That place is huge!  Well, I underestimated just how far up the road it was, and found myself stuck in traffic coming back.  I thought for sure I’d be late this time, which would be especially unfortunate considering the fact that I’d already gotten out of being marked late once today.  Luckily though, I parked, ran to the bus, and made it with two minutes to spare.  I’ve got to work on my sense of timing!  Needless to say, I was exhausted for most of my second shift.  But at least I got things done, and made some extra $$!!

Time to go make some lunch before I head out to work today.  I’m definitely going to make sure I leave early for once…..

My holiday caffeine levels are up as well, since there are so many good holiday-themed coffee flavors for this time of year.  Every year I look forward to Starbucks’s seasonal beverages.  Mmmm, white chocolate peppermint mocha.  Gingerbread latte.  Who could resist?  Even hot chocolate seems perfect for this time of year, whether it’s cold out or not (because it definitely isn’t here–big surprise). 

Speaking of Florida’s general suckiness, I found some great books the other day while browsing at Barnes and Noble, about mini day-trips you can take within the state–and I was totally hooked.  I immediately placed a bunch of them on my Amazon wish list.  Travel is one of my great passions, and I love nothing more than to explore the world around me.  I had so much fun on our St. Augustine trip last week, that I want to do many more trips like it.  So after paging through some of those books, and pouring over the iPhone’s googlemaps feature, I think I’ve discovered a bunch of fun day trips we can take.  It’ll have to wait til after the holidays though, when we have money for gas again.  But I’m definitely psyched.  I’ve lived in Florida too long not to have seen some of these things by now.

I’ve also been very pleased this week with the way the novel’s coming along.  I haven’t had a lot of time to work on it, but I’ve already got two solid chapters.  It’s just a matter of figuring out how I want to word the next chapter–that scene’s all narration in the script–but I’m well on the way with that too.  I can’t really say if it’s good or not, but I’m hopeful that it’ll turn out pretty decent.  For now I’ll just keep plugging away….

Still a busy week.  Just finished the prologue–or what might turn out to be the first chapter–of the novel I’m working on.  So I was psyched about that.  Also, last night, while I was the spare for one of the parks, I got pulled to be in parade–in one of my favorite roles that I haven’t done in forever!  (Let’s just say it involves a harp and about thousands of electric lights).  Also very exciting.  And of course I’m still busy planning and getting together gifts for everybody. 

As exciting as this time of year is, it’s also very stressful too.  I’m usually not stressed out by the effects of the season, since I just love Christmas so much.  But this year is out to get me.  My car is acting up again.  Judging from the oil spots on the driveway, I think I have a slow leak.  It also sounds funny, which probably means the timing chain’s about to go.  Plus my radio dial came loose, and it’s just really hard to turn the volume up and down now, which isn’t that big a deal but is just really, really annoying.  Well, I hope my car hold out until the new year, because there’s no way I can afford repairs now.  Why do things always wait until right before the holidays or vacation to break on you??  It’s Murphy’s Law.

Besides the car, I’ve had some weird health issues lately that have been freaking me out.  It’s no big deal, I just mentally freak out about anything wrong with me.  Like, why am I so tired this week?  Oh my God, it’s cancer, right?  I’m not really a hypochondriac, I think it’s just cancer that I fear is lurking behind every dark corner (shudder).  Anyway, I’m pretty sure I can trace this back to Coke Zero, which I recently started drinking.  My boyfriend pointed out that the artificial sweetener they use, Aspartame, is a particularly harmful chemical.  We googled it, and you would not believe all the awful side effects that were listed!  Apparently some people it can affect right away, and others over time.  I must be one of the “immediate reaction” people.  Needless to say, I’m off the stuff for good, whether or not it was really the culprit.  Why are we putting stuff like this in our bodies??  Yup, it’s back to good old-fashioned sugary Coke for me (hey no one’s perfect). 

And of course, the everlasting, big-gunned holiday stress factor–money.  You’ll never have enough, and you’ll always spend too much around the holidays.  Already this week, after paying rent, I have like 30 bucks til my next paycheck.  And I have to do some more shopping this weekend.  Sigh.  What’s the point of paying off your credit cards all year when it just goes right back on during Christmas??

Multiple stress factors can easily make a person go crazy at this time of year.  Somehow though, it’s not enough to make me forget how exciting the season is.  Money, health, and car problems will always be there.  But Christmas is only once a year.

Speaking of St. Augustine, for your entertainment, I’d now like to bring you a scene from our charming weekend excursion:

     We’re about to leave the city for the night, when my boyfriend pulls over in front of a row of port-a-johns, which for some odd reason are leaning against the fence of one of the most ancient cemeteries I’ve ever seen (Just think of the irony–you in your rectangular, enclosed and smelly tomb, and them in theirs).  He leaves the car running and hands me the remnants of a giant candy cane he was working on. 

     “Here, hold this for a minute,” he says.  “I’ll be right back.”

     “Ok, but I’m getting out to take pictures of the cemetery,” I say mostly to myself, worming my way out of the car and over to the fence.  I gaze into the shadowy depths, taking a few pics with my iPhone, but without much luck.  I especially check out one large headstone in particular, where I heard a face will appear if you stare at it long enough.  Then someone came up behind me.  I knew it was my boyfriend, but it startled me nonetheless. 

      “Aaah!” I exclaimed. 

     He laughs.  “Where are the keys?” he asked.

     “I left them in the car.”  I point.

     “No, I gave them to you when I got out.”

     “No, you gave me your candy cane.”  We go back and forth like this for a minute.  I show him the candy cane.  He wonders where the keys are.  He looks over and eventually realizes the car is still running.  Now it all makes sense. 

Funny thing was, I was the one who was sort of drunk at this point.  Otherwise I probably would’ve been to chicken to go up to the cemetery gates in the first place.  We laughed all the way out of the city, him finishing his candy cane and me scrutinizing my pictures for possible apparitions.  I can’t wait to go back.

It’s been a very eventful weekend.  Following our crazy Black Friday all-nighter, I had to work until 11pm, yet somehow I managed to stay awake.  After sleeping in on Saturday, we didn’t have any plans, so my boyfriend suggested we head up to St. Augustine for the day.  I’ve never been there, and I love history, so I’ve been wanting to go for awhile, but we keep postponing it.  After several hours of car trouble-related delays (James’s car stalled out, we had to double back to his house from Sanford, but he fixed the problem), we didn’t start out until around 3:30pm.  I thought we’d probably just hit the outlets or something–I didn’t realize all the historic stuff downtown was open late!  On the way there, my boyfriend drove us through the woods around Ormond, where he used to fish as a kid.  It’s so beautiful out there!  This is the Florida I want to see.  Then I looked at Googlemaps and realized the ocean was right on the other side of the forest!  So we drove up the A1A, just outside Flagler Beach.  Having only been to beaches like Daytona and Cocoa, I was pleasantly surprised at the quiet, beautiful, and non-touristy beaches on the northeastern coast. 

We got to St. Augustine and stopped at the lighthouse first.  It was totally weirding me out–it looks just like the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse I’ve seen all my life (except for the red top), but like it’s in the wrong location!  I also recognized a lot of it from that famous episode of Ghost Hunters.  Our timing was perfect; we got there right at sunset.  We did the climb to the top, and the view was inspiring.  Pristine beaches, a sleepy little harbor, a huge historic stone fort….all part of the oldest city in America, from one of the most supposedly active haunted locations in America (no ghosties on this trip though).  You can even make out the lights of Jacksonville, waaaaay out there on the horizon.  We explored the museum, and I even got some Christmas gifts from the shop.

I was surprised that it was still early when we left the Lighthouse, so we drove across the bridge to the historic downtown area.  It was completely beautiful!  Every building was decorated for Christmas, and the town square had lights on every tree.  The fact that it was cold out that night only added to the Christmasy atmosphere.  We spent the next couple hours exploring the shops, and I found some more gifts.  All the buildings date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and we saw the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the country.  My boyfriend showed me a centuries-old cemetery, and we walked down to the old Spanish fort that once guarded the harbor.  I always complain that Florida has no interesting history, and on this evening I was pleasantly surprised and happy to be shown otherwise.

So I’m definitely going to have to go for a return visit sometime soon.  I have more to add….but my break/shopping time is slipping away!!  Also, we’re hosting a late Thanksgiving/early Christmas party at the house tonight.  Lots going on, so that means lots to blog about later!

We found a lot of great deals at the outlets, and before we knew it, someone mentioned it was 3:30!  It certainly didn’t feel like we spent that much time there.  I got a few gifts, but also ended up buying a lot for myself–something I had promised I wasn’t going to do, but the sales were so good I couldn’t pass it up.  It was busy, but not so bad you couldn’t look…except at the Coach store, which had a line outside all night    Since it was already 3:30, and we were still wide awake, we figured we might as well go to the 4am sales!  We headed over to The Loop in Hunter’s Creek, and visited Old Navy and Kohl’s, with a much-needed coffee break at Panera Bread.  Our timing for Old Navy was terrible.  They were having great sales, so we all wanted to get stuff, but the line circled the entire store.  And it was a HUGE Old Navy.  We ended up waiting an hour!  Probably not worth it, but you know how it is–once you wait for a little while,  you keep telling yourself, I’ve already waited this long, I can’t leave the line now!  Of course I ended up tossing stuff in my bag as we threaded through the store.  More stuff for myself…not good.  At least it was cheap. 

It was now sunrise, and that seemed to give us the boost of energy we needed to see us through the rest of our shopping agenda.  We headed over to Target, which was sort of a madhouse, but there were lots of great deals.  $4 DVDs, $5 t-shirts, etc.  At least we didn’t have to wait in line.  We finally parted ways after this, as two of us had to work in a few hours, and desperately needed sleep, even if that was only a pipe dream at this point.  I made one more stop before home–at Walmart, since it was on my way anyway.  I got a couple more cheap gifts.  As much as I usually loathe Walmart’s interpretation of “fashion”, I actually got a few things for myself.  I even found the perfect black skirt I was looking for!  Just like I found the perfect grey boots there a few weeks ago….what kind of Twilight Zone is this where Walmart has items I’m not embarrassed to be seen in??  Let’s hope they keep it up.

I managed to get a shaky two hours of sleep…until Mom called from whatever noisy mall she was in to ask me what I wanted for Christmas.  I was so tired I was completely blanking.  I put on a new outfit–purple Michael Kors billowy shirt ($16 on clearance!!!), perfect black skirt (Miley Cyrus’s music may be detestable but her Walmart line isn’t half bad!), grey tights, black boots, and purple owl necklace to match shirt.  Now if only I felt as good as I looked.  Only seven hours of work left…..

So ends the madness of our 2009 Black Friday Shopping Extravaganza.  I left the house around 11:15 last night, and didn’t return until 9:30 this morning.  I spent way too much money, but at least I got some important Christmas shopping done–and a few things for myself as well.   Still so much to do though.  I guess it wouldn’t really be the holidays unless I’m completely broke. 

Automotive rants aside, it’s been a busy week.  We saw New Moon on Thursday night, which turned out to be pretty good.  A little long, the big emotional scenes could definitely have moved along a little better….but the werewolves, Volturi, and action sequences were awesome.  I’ll have to see it again to really judge, but I think I’ll wait until it comes out to rent.  And I’m NEVER going to see a midnight premiere of one of those movies again, it was filled with screaming, obnoxious teenagers that almost got into a fight several times.  I’ll wait at least a week for Eclipse, thank you very much.  I also didn’t like how damn morose the movie was….I know the book is like that, but Edward never once looked happy the entire movie, even when he was with Bella.  I question what the attraction to him is, especially when you could have a ripped, smiley, full-of-life guy like Jacob.  It just doesn’t make sense.  At least they took off the blue/green filter from the first movie…

On a more positive note, I officially started Christmas shopping this week!  I’m very excited for Black Friday in a few days.  I know it borders on dangerous to attempt the mall on this day….but I’m going out with a battle plan in hand.  I’m planning to scour the ads ahead of time, pick out gifts, and go for those specific items.  If I get sidetracked by a $10 sweater or two on the way…..no, no, NO, I must save money for our trip!  I booked the hotel last night, so it’s all coming together.  Now I just have to make sure I can get rid of my shifts.  I can’t wait!  I also put up my tree last night.  I figure it’s only a little over a month til Christmas now, so I’m fully coming out of the closet with my holiday obsession.  I’m tired of hearing everyone complain that it’s “too early for Christmas”.  Hell, given half a chance I would celebrate Christmas all year round.  It’s the best season there is.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I’ve finally got some great writing projects underway.  Right now, I’m about to start on my friend’s script.  I finished reading it last night, and overall, I’m a big fan of the story.  I have some extra plot twists in mind, and I’m going to expand on the characters’ back stories a bit.  I’m excited about this project; I think it’s going to turn out pretty well. 

I still can’t believe Thanksgiving is in two days!  I don’t really have any plans this year.  Watch the parades, maybe grab some turkey when I go into work.  I’m a spare that day, which kinda sucks.  Oh well, I’ll get holiday pay, which will be great for all the shopping I’m planning to do the next day!!