I don’t generally enjoy the year-in-review articles and lists (except for Tom and Lorenzo’s Best and Worst Dressed lists – those are awesome), and I’m not going to do one myself. I don’t know what would be on it, anyway. But it’s New Year’s Eve, and we can all say goodbye to 2014 (and good riddance) and hello to 2015. In 2015, we WILL move out of this house. We WILL.
Cheers!
What should one do when one can’t think of anything to write? One could stay far away from the blog, to avoid publishing the vapid contents of one’s brain, but I’m afraid that cat is out of the bag. One could surf the internet looking for inspiration, but that assumes one isn’t working and should not be on the internet at all. One could rifle through one’s memories of the past week, full of holiday cheer and conviviality and whatnot, searching for stories to tell one’s adoring readership, but then one might remember the last week was rather low-key and was already mined for interesting tidbits. One might consider regaling one’s public with details of the sinus issues one is currently experiencing, but one might reconsider, as that would be unseemly, impolite, and gross. One could try changing one’s writing style, but one might be worried about sounding stilted or snobbish. One wouldn’t want that. Best not to try it.
Warm toast is one of the best smells. Have they made a candle scented like that yet? Probably, but why don’t I have one? Hm. It would make me hungry. I should stay away. If you love toast, too, children, please enjoy the following video (introduced to me by our very own Sparky).
The holiday season sinus problems have begun. Well, they started yesterday, but last night was bad, and this morning I just can’t breathe through my nose. I’m not enjoying my status as a mouth-breather. Other than that, I feel fine. Mostly.
Hm. Maybe I don’t feel fine. I’m going to sit here on the couch and stare blankly at my book. I believe we will be postponing our anniversary dinner.
I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I’m always relieved to pull into our driveway after a few days’ absence and find the house still standing. And there’s always the relief of being HOME. I’m HOME. I’m wearing comfy pajamas and sitting on my own comfy couch about to finish watching Broadchurch and what on earth am I still doing online?
This is the oddest Christmas. We’re enjoying ourselves, but it seems like we’ve spent most of the last few days waiting. Tuesday, we were waiting for work to be over so we could hit the road. On Christmas Eve, we were waiting for Tom and Tania to arrive. On Christmas Day, we were waiting for Emily and Sean to arrive. None of this is bad, and we’ve certainly enjoyed ourselves while waiting, but it’s so different from other years. Much more low-key. It’s been a very nice Christmas, actually, odd and all. Very late nights, though. I’m SO tired.
It was a rainy Christmas Eve, and our plans to walk around the historic part of the nearby town were scuttled (it’s a lot less pleasant in the wet), so we had a cozy day inside. Molly and I started a puzzle, we played some card games, watched Superman (Molly had never seen it before), went out to dinner, played Cranium, and then played several rounds of Bananagrams while waiting for Tom and Tania to arrive. We had a good time, very low-key, but I’m exhausted. Now it’s a foggy Christmas Eve (although it’s past midnight, so I suppose it’s actually a foggy Christmas – regardless, it looks like Rudolph has some work to do), and I’m heading to bed.
Last night we found ourselves driving through the rain in the dark, singing along to the radio (Christmas songs and others), and what should pop into my brain but “harses, harses, harses, harses”. We did not immediately switch to Delilah or Dr. Laura or whatever (my Meg Ryan channeling has its limits), so I missed my opportunity to star in a romantic comedy.
The prep is almost over. We’ve bought all the Christmas presents, wrapped everything, and picked up everything we’ll need. The laundry is done, and the house is not a complete disaster. All that’s left is to pack and do a little light cleaning.
I was going to post something last night, but Broadchurch is finally on Netflix. (!!Yay!!) We watched the first episode on YouTube months ago, but that was kind of a pain, so we figured we’d wait. Last night we watched three episodes (hence the lack of posting), and only the knowledge that Doug would beat us senseless if we were too tired to defend ourselves in class this morning kept us from watching the last two. Now we’re going to have to wait for the weekend. It’s going to be difficult. Turns out I missed seeing David Tennant on my television screen. (Sigh. I love him.)
So we went to bed, but my book kept me up later than I’d planned (I just started Attachments by Rainbow Rowell), and then I had a dream about a zombie woman who was attacking my car (which has NOTHING to do with my book – there are no zombies (yet)), so I’m pretty darn tired this morning anyway. Starbucks helps. At least my drink was right today. I went Monday morning, and for the first time in forever (who’s singing with me?), they got my drink WRONG. Like god-awful wrong. And I didn’t realize it until I got to the office. It didn’t ruin my morning or anything (I’m not that much of a drama queen), but it was awful. I like mint, and I like mint chocolate, but I don’t want mint anywhere near my coffee. A peppermint white mocha smells horrendous and tastes worse. I shudder just thinking about it.
It’s that time again, kiddies. Time to bake ALL the cookies. 138 of them, to be exact (although it’s 137 now – we ate one). Not as many as last year, somehow. Did I bake bigger cookies? Or did John eat more batter? Anyway, the cookies are cooling, and two more sweet potato pies are in the oven. The toffee bark and peppermint bark get made tomorrow (they’re way easier – melt, mix, freeze, break into pieces).
We’ve determined that we are NOT going to the mall tomorrow. It would have been just for fun, anyway, since we’re done with the shopping, but why make the trip if we really don’t have to? No open house tomorrow (we’re taking the next couple of weeks off, although we’re available for showings, of course), so we don’t have to scramble to clean up or disappear. It’ll be great. We can sleep in, wrap some presents, leave the house if we feel like it… That works for me.
We watched Knights of Badassdom last night. Mom, you’ll hate it. Don’t bother. Same goes for you, Margaret. Everyone else who hangs out around here would probably enjoy it (if you haven’t already seen it – I’m looking at you, Randy. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?), silly as it is. Full disclosure – it’s about LARPing. And there go Mom and Margaret. Bye, guys! We still love you!
It was fun, and we liked it. Great review, right? That’s what they pay me for. Except for the paying part. And the “they” part. There’s no “they”.
I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I have been roped into agreeing to do karaoke with coworkers at some future happy hour. It’s one of those things I can’t really back out of. I love to sing (haaaaaave you met me?), so I wouldn’t have thought I’d be nervous about this, but I’ve never done karaoke. I’m more than willing to try it (I think it sounds like fun), but I’m not as comfortable trying it with coworkers. I like these people, but they’re not my best friends at work. They’re also not total strangers. I think I’d be more comfortable in front of total strangers.
Anyway, it’s not that serious, and I’ll manage when the time comes. That time was supposed to be last night, but the central instigator had to bail (he’d forgotten about his daughter’s Christmas pageant), so I escaped, relieved. I need more time to figure out what my song possibilities are. Gotta have options, right? Now I have more time to overthink this.
We have a decorating contest at work every year. I never participate (I don’t even decorate at home, most years), but some people go all out. It’s amazing. I share an office with one of the contest judges, and she likes to decorate (we can’t compete, but still), so I now work in a winter wonderland. Sort of. It’s like a winter-ish okay-land. She put fake snow on a couple of shelves and on her desk, added some plush snowmen and a snow globe, and she hung little ornaments on my fake plant. I think the fake snow looks like clouds, like we should have Care Bears instead of snowmen.
There’s a remarkable resemblance, right?
On my fake plant, the fake snow looks like fog.
My plant is hidden in the mist. Very mysterious.
And then we have South Park snowmen frolicking on the window.
So festive. (Such fun!) Our office is NOTHING like the cubes belonging to the people who take this seriously. One guy built a gingerbread house around his cube. Roof, walls, and a door. It looks great. Another guy painted 12 pictures, all Christmas-themed but patterned after famous paintings, and turned his cube into an art gallery. It’s incredible. This guy goes all out every year (he recreated the Grinch Who Stole Christmas last year, complete with security video of the Grinch stealing Christmas), but I think this year is his best. The paintings are REALLY good.
I’ve been pretty good about the exercise part of “eat right and exercise”, but eating right has been difficult. I’m sure it would get easier if I EVER went grocery shopping, but I don’t do that. (Let’s not be crazy.) Eating out for nearly every meal can be done in a relatively healthy way, though (and it can be done without spending THAT much money, too). It’s not bad when I’m out already, like at work, or on the way home from work. Panera is a staple of our diet – they have lots of healthy options and they make portion control pretty easy. (We might be keeping them in business.) We run into a problem when we’re home, we have no food in the house, and we don’t want to go anywhere to get it. That’s when the bad choices get made. Don’t want to leave the house? Order a pizza! Tired of pizza? Order Chinese! Don’t want either? There’s a pasta place that delivers enormous portions of everything. Really? Sounds great! So weekends kill me. I wish Panera delivered.
I want to want to go to the grocery store. I want to want to plan ahead and have healthy lunches and snacks. That’s a good first step, right? Step 1: Want to change. Hey, that might be step 2.
Step 1: Recognize the problem.
I eat like crap.
Step 2: Want to change to fix the problem.
I don’t want to eat like crap anymore. I want to eat healthy food like a healthy person.
Step 3: Make lists and plans for change to fix the problem. (You thought Step 3 was going to be fixing the problem, didn’t you? Ha ha! You were wrong.)
Step 4: Fix the problem.
I’m at Step 2, contemplating Step 3. I do have small victories here and there. There’s a SuperTarget near my office, and twice in two weeks I’ve picked up a small package of veggies and dip for lunch. It’s delicious and healthy! Good for me and makes me feel good! And then I’m hungry again by mid-afternoon, but this is an obstacle I can overcome with more healthy snacks. That I will have to go to the store to get. Drat! Foiled again.
I’ve been in need of a new laptop for a while now. I can’t even upgrade my poor pretty pink Dell to the latest Ubuntu version. My graphics card can’t handle it. I bought it…6 years ago? Maybe? It’s been a while, anyway. It’s slowing down, and sometimes the fan rattles, and it just can’t do anything anymore. I’m in need. In support of The Plan, we both need laptops that can handle work needs (I’ll need Windows, John needs processing power), and sure, we haven’t sold our house yet, but that’ll happen any day now, right? And in the meantime, I really do need a new laptop. Really. So….why not get a cool one? The coolest one out there? We decided that new laptops would be our Christmas presents to each other, and once we found the ones we wanted, we didn’t see any reason to wait. 🙂 They arrived last week. And mine is SO COOL. I got the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro. Lightweight, touch screen, pretty powerful. It’s COOL. And pretty. I got the silver one.
I’m feeling grumpy today. It’s Monday, for one. I’m not Garfield (I do love lasagna), but I don’t know anyone who’s truly pleased when Monday starts. We were both sound asleep when the alarm went off, so dragging ourselves out of bed was difficult, and then small tasks seemed to be too tricky to handle. Before boxing this morning, an eyelash tried to stab me in the eye, so we lost time getting that taken care of, and then John couldn’t dig his keys out of the small bag they were hiding in, and I had trouble keeping my wraps from twisting while I was putting them on (in the car, in the dark). And that’s all before 6am. Not a good start.
Work didn’t help (although nothing happened, so work didn’t hurt, either), but I would really appreciate it if I could get my weekend back, have a do-over, and try Monday again. Actually, since doing Monday AGAIN doesn’t sound all that appealing, how about if we just skip ahead to this coming weekend? I don’t have anything all that important going on this week anyway.
It’s been a week, but I finally added a few more decorations to the house (thank you, Target).
In the dining room:
Over the fireplace (I’m pretty sure it’s the camera that’s crooked):
Meet Bird and Bird:
Last night, they were hanging out under the TV with the TARDIS. They spent today on the island chatting with the little hedgehog that hangs out on the lip of the avocado pot.
So far, that’s it for decorating. It’s more than most years.
I’m pretty sure it’s common knowledge to you people that I can’t tell a joke. I’m terrible at it. I laugh through them, get the details wrong, and I almost always screw up the punch line. Every once in a while, I start with the punch line. I have to practice before I can do it, and by the time I’m ready, the moment’s gone. So I generally don’t tell jokes. I need to expand that personal rule to include relating funny incidents. I was SURE the lines that had me laughing ’til I cried over lunch yesterday were objectively funny, and that John would appreciate that when I told him the story. And you know? If ANYone else had told him the story, he probably would have laughed, too. But I SUCK at it. It was something to do with a guy from eastern Europe or Russia or somewhere who bench-pressed cows instead of lifting weights and how he refused to go to a regular gym here, and then a coworker of mine took that idea to its logical conclusion of imagining what that guy would say when offered a gym membership that didn’t include livestock and I SWEAR it was hilarious, but honestly, what I just wrote is pretty much the best I can do. You’re not laughing, are you?
Update: John objected. He says he promised me he would laugh when I told him the story. He did. But it was a fake laugh. A pity laugh. Doesn’t count.
I was in the middle of training a new employee when John sent me something funny. I should have waited to look, but I didn’t. Then I had to explain the giggling. Or not explain it, since I didn’t share. I apologized instead.
I’m sure this came from Reddit, but I don’t have the link. I hope Mr. and Mrs. Cuddlebun will be very happy.
I’m skipping yoga tonight. I don’t remember how many times you’re supposed to do something before it becomes a habit, but I’m pretty sure going one week, skipping three weeks, going one week, and then skipping the next week is NOT the way to do it. But I’m tired (today was a long day), and I have a headache, and I want to go to bed early, and wow, can you hear the whining? Anyway, I’m comfortable here on the couch, and that’s where I’m staying.
Now, pardon me while I have tea and a croissant for dinner.
Today was a long day. It wasn’t long in actual, objective time (it was normal), but it felt like it was going on forever. It was nonstop, no breaks, and the whole week is going to be like that. It’s only Monday. I’m home now, and I’m going to put on soft pants, sit on the couch, eat my dinner, and watch TV. And go to bed early. Grump grump grump.