holidays

Another linking post

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It’s been a link-filled day.  Actually, it’s just been a link-filled couple of hours, and that includes the time from the morning.  Not much time playing on the internet today.  Lots of time running around a federal building downtown (from corner to corner and up and down nine floors (yay for elevators, but I really wish this building would put in those moving sidewalks like in the airport)) and then lots of time in a cramped room that can barely be called a conference room.  It’s more like a storage closet that happened to have a LAN drop and a phone.  But hey, I’m home, I’ve had dinner, I’ve watched an episode of The Inbetweeners, and I’m about to run away to my room to dampen the sound of the band in the basement.  It’s not fair that I complain about them all the time.  I like them, and they’re good, and I (mostly) like their song choices, but listening to the same songs over and over at such a high volume, in the evening after work when all I want to do is relax (and write run-on sentences), gets old.

Anyway, the links.  Dooce made me laugh again, but I’m a little scared that leprechauns are going to tap at my window in the night.  Also, check out these pictures at Desire To Inspire.  Min, I can see you in this house.  Some of the rooms more than others (the 1st, 6th, 9th, and 12th pictures in particular).

For Mom, here’s a link to a really funny Passover-ish post at Three Word Chant.  Happy almost Passover!  (At Wegman’s, of course, Passover started two weeks ago and will go on for quite some time.  No procrastination for them.)

http://www.desiretoinspire.net/blog/2010/3/10/kate-morris.html

Should a post have just one subject?

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My day didn’t quite live up to its promising start, but how could it have?  I had to go to work.  Not that work is a bad place.  But it’s work, so it can’t compete with anything that’s not work.  No, that’s too big of a generalization.  There are lots of things not-work that are worse than work.  LOTS of things.

It rained today!  That’s the first non-snow precipitation we’ve had since early December.  Well, maybe not, but it’s the first I’ve noticed, and it made a big difference in the amount of snow left on the ground.  I’m SO glad.

I finished The Pillars of the Earth a few days ago.  The last third was much better than the rest, starting just before the (very quick – really, I was surprised)  grand tour of France and Spain.  But I’m not in a hurry to pick up the sequel.  I started a Stuart Woods mystery/thriller instead.  Actually, I read the first Dresden Files novel first (it was okay).  Almost forgot about it.

I haven’t mentioned yet how nicely John planned my birthday.  We got up early to go to Ikea for the shelves, but not before waiting half an hour or so for this woman who answered the craiglist ad to show up to take the old dining room table.  She didn’t show, so we left.  In the car, John said, “I got you this for the ride to Ikea,” and handed me a card and the new Michael Buble CD.  At least half of the songs are standards, with a couple of new originals, and another couple of covers.  I really like it.  We went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast (yay bagels and boo coffee), and then we shopped at Ikea, which is always fun.  When we got home, John put all the shelves together, and sometime in the middle of that, the other woman who answered the craigslist ad showed up for the dining room table.  So it’s gone.  We went out to dinner at the  Woo Lae Oak in Tysons Corner (it was really good), and as we were leaving, John said, “I didn’t bake you a cake, but we can’t let your birthday go by without dessert, so what do you want?”  I decided we should go to Wegman’s and visit the bakery ’cause they were likely to have chocolate-covered strawberries.  They actually didn’t, but when I asked them if they knew where else I might find some, they said they’d make some for me.  🙂  They did, and they were yummy.  So we got home (with the chocolate-covered strawberries and some peanut butter fudge for John) and I found another card and another present on the coffee table.  John planned our evening, too, and bought me a copy of the movie Clue, which neither of us had seen in I don’t know how long.  So we sat on the couch with our chocolate-covered strawberries and fudge, opened a bottle of the dessert wine we bought in Charlottesville when we were there for Jess and Chuck’s wedding, and watched Clue.  Pretty much until we fell asleep.  I couldn’t have been happier.  And that’s why my birthday was so wonderful.  John planned it.

Happy New Year!

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So it’s 2010.  (I’ve decided to say “twenty-ten” and stop this “two thousand and ten” nonsense.)  The party (which was very fun) is over and everyone has gone home.  We cleaned a little (although the house really wasn’t a mess) and then decided to revisit the idea of rearranging the whole first floor.  I think we’re gonna do it.  Like, this weekend.  🙂  We have a three-day weekend, and once John’s semester starts, he won’t really have this kind of time.  The furniture moving really won’t be that hard.  The hardest part (or at least most complicated part, even though it’s not really hard.  According to John.  I think it’s hard.) is wiring the living room (which will become the family room) for the TV.  There’s no cable outlet there right now.  So we’re going to take the opportunity to run the TV cables behind the wall, hiding them from sight.  Means cutting holes in the wall (one behind where the TV will go and one near the floor) and running wires up from the basement.  A trip to Home Depot or Lowe’s is in our immediate future.

But right now, John is in the basement fixing the dryer.  The other dryer.  It’s the one we moved with, the one we bought when we moved to VA in 2003.  It started squealing shortly after we moved to this house, so we switched to the dryer the previous owners left behind.  Anyway, he’s fixing it, and once that’s done, we can move the extra washer and dryer to the garage and put them on craigslist.  I’m pretty sure none of our friends are in the market for a washer and dryer at the moment.  If you’re reading this and you need a free washer and dryer (they work great, we just don’t need two sets), let me know.

The fun part about rearranging the house will be discovering what new furniture we need and/or want.  Obviously, this will work great for our new dining room table (that we still haven’t bought yet).  I want a little bistro table and two chairs for the bay window in the dining room that is turning to the living room because I like having breakfast in that room.  It gets lots of sunlight.  I want a little armchair and a very small table and lamp so I can have a little reading nook in the dining room, next to the fireplace.  We’ll need a little loveseat and chair or something to go in the middle of the new living room (that used to be the dining room).  We’ll need to go find the entertainment center we’ve been discussing for years to go under the TV in the new family room, and, of course, we’ll need lots more bookshelves.  A big reason for doing this whole rearrangement thing is to free up wall space in the family room (new dining room) for bookshelves.  At least four big bookshelves will fit in the new living room, with room for some narrow shelves or a corner shelf in a couple of places.  The new family room will have at least two big bookshelves flanking the TV, and there should be room for three or four bookshelves (at LEAST) in the new dining room.  That’s at least three or four more big bookshelves than we have right now, plus the smaller ones.  And we desperately need them.  My poor books are doubling up on the shelves so you can’t even see half of them.  Poor, sad books.

Okay, change of plans.  We’re still going to rearrange the house, just not this weekend.  There are other things John wants to do, and I can use this last bit of extended free time to try to finish my filing project.  I’ve got six boxes, plus a few things in random plastic filing cabinets.  I want to knock out at least three of those boxes.  Hopefully more.

John fixed the dryer.  He’s very handy.  🙂  Now we just need to make sure it still, you know, dries.

Happy New Year!

Ci a bachgen

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We’re learning Welsh!  Ci a bachgen are the first words John and I learned .  We’re using Rosetta Stone (it was his Christmas present from me).  Means dog and boy.  I think.   🙂  Could be dog with boy.  It’s hard to tell with just pictures.  We’ll probably buy a dictionary (if we can find one) this weekend.

I checked in an online Welsh-English dictionary.  A means and.  When it has an accent thingy on it, it means with.  So I wasn’t far off.

I checked off the last item on my to-do list (it kept getting bigger), and I still have at least an hour and a half before any people arrive.  And I just thought of one other thing I need, so I’ll come back to this.

I’m back.  I had to go to Hair Cuttery to pick up my hair spray.  They complimented my hair.  🙂  Yes, I know they’re paid to do that.  I think I’ll probably just go to them when it’s haircut time again, though.  I went to the new salon that opened right next to our neighborhood Bloom on Tuesday.  I had a 1pm appointment.  I got there about ten ’til, and Theresa, the woman I made the appointment with, told me that she was short a girl for some reason or another, and they had another one o’clock.  I wasn’t in a rush, and I had my book, so I let the other woman go first.  Really not a big deal.  They were playing spa music, and I very much enjoyed my hour of reading.  ‘Cause it was an hour.  Theresa popped by a couple of times to apologize.  Then it was my turn (and the woman’s haircut (the one who went before me) was really cute).  Theresa and I were chatting while she shampooed my hair, and I had just asked her if she lived close by and for how long.  She answered after she turned the water back on, so I have no idea what she said.  Things like that kept happening.  She did the same thing with the hair dryer.  Does she not realize that water and hair dryers make noise?  On top of that minor annoyance, she talked about God.  A lot.  God blessed me, God blessed her, God blessed me again, things’ll be fine as long as I’m communicating with God, etc.  Too much God!  And it’s awkward to ask someone to stop.  I mean, I could have, sure, but then she would have been uncomfortable (yes, I know I’m the customer), and I’d feel weird about going back.  I don’t feel weird about going back, but there were just enough annoying things to make me think I probably won’t.  But I like my haircut!

Review #2: Animal Au Paws.  They’re a local pet-sitting service, and I love them.  I love our sitter, at least.  She was assigned to us and came over before we left to meet the dogs.  And us.  She came over three times a day while we were gone and stayed half an hour each time.  She walked the dogs, played in the snow with them, and gave Riley lots of attention.  You know how I know all this?  She left notes!  There’s a note for every visit.  We read them in order when we got home and it was like reading a journal.  (Or a blog!  Duh.)  Very cool.  And they’re very reasonably priced.  The dogs seemed to do very well.  It’s nice to have an alternative to the kennel.

Okay, half an hour (assuming no traffic) before Jess, Chuck, and Cody get here.  Happy almost New Year!

I love gift cards

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I know there are people out there who think gift cards are the cop-out gift, the gift that says, “I didn’t put any thought into what to buy you for this occasion”, but I’m not one of those people.  I suppose a gift card could say that, if you received one for something you have no interest in, but I’m talking about the ones that say, “I know you really like books, but I have no idea what you have already or what you might want, so here.  Go shopping.”  Or, “You said you need clothes, and you want clothes, but I’ll just mess up the sizes or the colors or the style, so here.  Go shopping.”  I LOVE those.  And my family tends to come through for me, as evidenced by the years of Amazon and Ann Taylor gift cards.  They’re perfect.  I don’t mean to say that I don’t appreciate the sweater or the DVD, ’cause I do, and I like them very much, and I’m thrilled that you know me well enough to pick out the right sweater and DVD.  But it’s so much FUN to actually do the shopping and the picking out that I feel like I got TWO gifts.

My point is that today was my big shopping day.  By 11am, I’d been to three stores: 1) Kohl’s, so I could exchange pants for John, 2) Target, ’cause John needs cushion-y socks for his work shoes, and 3) the Ann Taylor Factory Store in the outlet mall so I could spend my fabulous gift cards on fabulous work clothes for my new job (that starts next week!  Yikes!).  From there I went to the mall mall to look for a headband at Lord & Taylor (which I did not find – maybe it’s supposed to be at Ann Taylor Loft?) and to use my Banana Republic gift card.  I could have used it at the Banana Republic in the outlet mall, but I cruised quickly through that store and didn’t see anything I liked.  At the one in the mall mall, however, I found that sweater I was drooling over with Mom in the mall in KY in the perfect GREEN shade I like so much, and I bought it for $34.99!  (It was $59.99 two weeks ago.  Yay for sales.)  And I got a cream cami (with satin-ish trim) to go under it AND they gave me an extra 10% off just for using my gift card.  Yay for retail desperation.

Here is a badly aimed (and blurry) picture of the two of us outside the restaurant before dinner last night:

Blurry as it is, this picture is far better than our other attempts.  We asked the hostess to take one before we were seated, but it’s too far away and overexposed.  The ones we took after we got home have strange expressions and double chins.  (The photos themselves, not us.)  Not okay for internet viewing.

Christmas Eve, Take Two

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So our plans changed.  Instead of the mall and a movie, we drove to Long Island this afternoon to see John’s grandmother, Rose.  We hit some major traffic in NY (going over the bridge and beyond), but that was mostly rush hour.  Instead of three hours, it took us about four and a half.  But I had Molly and Emily in the car with me (John went with his parents), so we had a good time.  (Big sing-along.)  We had a good visit (2 to 3 hours) and ate a ton of Chinese food, and then we headed back home (after a stop at Dunkin Donuts).  This time I had Pat and Molly (Emily went with her dad, and Tom and John drove together – we picked up Tom at Rose’s place), so after we sang the entire Bing Crosby Christmas album, we sang the whole soundtrack to The Sound of Music.  The trip flew by and all of a sudden, we were home and it was midnight.  So Merry Christmas.  I’m going to bed.

My first white Christmas

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Assuming, of course, that the snow doesn’t melt away today.  It’s Christmas Eve morning, and John and I are sitting at the kitchen counter in his parents’ house in PA.  John’s dad is sitting at the desk in the kitchen, and the three of us are ignoring each other in favor of our laptops.  John is working (let this be a lesson to you all: work sucks), and I just applied for two jobs (required for unemployment).  Emily and I went for a jog with Mabel this morning, John went for a jog by himself, Molly slept in, and Pat went to work at an absurdly early hour.  I was awake then, too, because I blocked her in last night and she had to wake us up so we could move the car.  She’s on her way home now.

We decided to use a pet-sitting service instead of the kennel this year.  We’re a little nervous about leaving the dogs loose in the house for so many days, but the sitters have five different ways of getting in touch with us, so we should find out pretty quickly if disaster strikes.

I’m just babbling now.  The plan for the day (since no one has any emergency shopping to do – a first!) is to go to the mall (outdoor mall) to soak up the Christmas ambience and then maybe go to a movie.  After breakfast, I hope, ’cause I’m getting hungry!

Not enough time

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I still have over three full weeks before I rejoin the working world, but I feel like I don’t have enough time.  (I know, stop whining (for any number of reasons).)  I’m just amazed at how quickly all this time filled up.  I’ll be visiting Mom and Dad all of next week, and then we’ll go to PA for Christmas sometime the week after that.  In between, I plan to spend a day or so with Jess in MD.  We’ll be back from PA for our anniversary (I think), and then New Year’s will be on top of us.  And I start the Monday after New Year’s.  So I have somewhere between 10 and 12 whole days with nothing planned in them.  Maybe 9 to 11.  And now that I’ve counted them out like that, it sounds like more free time than before.  It’s just when I look at it week by week that it looks super busy.  I certainly don’t want to NOT do any of the things I have planned.  And I’ll probably feel better about it when we know how many and which days John will have off from work.

Christmas week

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Let’s see how long this post gets.  And to make it clear who I’m talking about, I will try to refer to my John has John VIII, his dad as John VII, and his grandfather as John VI.

Christmas Eve

Tom and Tania arrived just around 9pm, right on time.  Toni (John VII’s sister) sent lobsters as her Christmas present to John (VII) and Pat.  I’ve had lobster before, but I think it was just the tail. And I’ve had lobster meat before, of course.  I like lobster.  I’m saying all this because I’ve never had someone drop a whole lobster on my plate before.  I didn’t think it would be a big deal, though, since I’ve eaten crabs like that and I love crab legs.  Wait – I really should have seen this coming.  I don’t eat whole crabs anymore because I freaked myself out about it a long time ago.  My freshman year in college, on a retreat in Delaware with the Troubadours, we were eating crabs.  Someone had shown me how to get into the shell and pointed out what to eat and what not to eat.  By my third crab, I realized that I had probably eaten some of what I wasn’t supposed to eat, and I was no longer sure what was safe and what wasn’t.  So I got kind of grossed out and decided not to eat whole crabs anymore.  Anyway, I figured that since that episode was more than 11 years ago, and since I had plenty of veteran lobster eaters around me, I could handle whole lobsters.  I got up close and looked in the box and saw that they were, in fact, still alive, and I watched John (VII) drop them in the pot.  And then we watched the pots and heard the lobsters rattling around in there.  That was all kind of fascinating, and I’m pretty sure it did not contribute to me wussing out later.

Dinner was served, and all of a sudden my plate had a big lobster on it, looking up at me.  I had no problem pulling the claws off and apart (just like crab legs, right?), and I pulled the tail off just fine.  But then I looked inside the body of the lobster and I realized I just couldn’t dig around in there and sort out what to eat and what not to eat and not think about what exactly what it was.  I started to turn a little green, and Emily and Molly helped me give the body off to someone else.  I did finish the tail, but John (my John, wonderful husband that he is) got the meat out for me.  I just totally wussed out.   As a general rule, I’ve realized that I just can’t eat something that comes out to me whole.  My shrimp can’t have heads or legs, my crabs need to be legs or meat only, I know I don’t want my fish to come out whole, and I don’t think I could ever eat one after gutting it.  I don’t think that’s weird or too much to ask, so I’m pretty sure I can get through most of my life like this.  Without making a big deal of it.  I may have some issues in Asian countries (that’s where I developed my rules about shrimp and whole fish), but I’ll deal with them as they come up.  🙂

Christmas Day

Christmas this year lost a lot of its urgency, thanks to Molly being almost 16.  🙂  She wasn’t even the first person up!  We all rolled downstairs in our pajamas a little after nine.  Everyone got tea, coffee, or hot chocolate, and we opened our stockings around the kitchen table. Among the other little odds and ends that show up in those, John got some tools (midget screwdrivers and stuff), I got a Starbucks gift card (Woo!), and Pat got a new hair dryer.  🙂  Yes, Emily stuck a hair dryer in her mother’s stocking.

We moved into the family room to open presents.  Having only spent Christmas with this family, I don’t know how it’s done anywhere else, but here, one present gets opened at a time.  There’s no particular order (we don’t go from youngest to oldest or anything like that), but each person opens a present while everyone else watches, and then it’s someone else’s turn.  It takes a really long time, but what else are we going to do on Christmas Day?  Besides, this way everyone can see what everyone else got, too.  I like it.  Rose (otherwise known as Grandma) was staying with the family for the week, and every time we handed her a present she’d say, “Oh, is this for me, too?  Really, you shouldn’t have.”  It was funny, genuine, and very grandmotherly.

Remember how John and I decided we weren’t going to buy anything big for each other?  Well, he didn’t listen.  In his defense, although he gave the present to me, it’s really for us, so it’s kind of like we bought ourselves a big present.  Kind of.  🙂  I forgive him, though, ’cause he bought me a electronic drumset!  SO cool.  We should have time (and room) to set it up this weekend.  I’m so excited!  🙂

We finished opening presents sometime after noon, and we finally had breakfast around 12:30 (I think).  I don’t really remember how we spent the rest of that day.  I went for a short run around 3pm and we watched Stepbrothers that night, but the rest of the day?  Well, there was Christmas dinner, of course, that evening.  Pat made roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and it was delicious, as usual.  🙂

Stepbrothers, however, was not delicious.  It’s a Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly movie, so we went into it with certain expectations.  I really really really wish that Pat, Rose, and John VII hadn’t seen it.  I’m sure they feel the same way.  🙂  There are parts that became even more disturbing because they were watching, too.  I laughed a couple of times, but it was mostly stupid without being funny.  And I’m not sure we watched it on Christmas Day.  Could have been Friday night.  We watched Love Actually either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  Not sure which.  That, of course, was wonderful.

Friday

On Friday, Toni and Susan (John VII’s sisters) came to visit.  They brought John VI (Granddaddy, or as he signed his card to me, “The Old Man B”).  We exchanged a few gifts (Susan has been learning how to knit, and she made everyone winter hats!  They’re really cute and totally wearable.) and had lunch together.  Jim (Toni’s husband) couldn’t come because he had to stay home to take care of the new lab puppy (adorable!).  After they left and we all cleaned up, we took the opportunity to get out of the house (and help Pat) and headed to Wegman’s.  She needed some things for Saturday’s lunch/dinner with the Baches.

John (VIII), Emily, Molly, and I piled into our car and headed for the store.  We found everything on Pat’s list and bought that on her card (Emily had it), but then we decided to buy dinner on us.  Pat had been cooking nonstop since before we got there and she still had more to do, so we figured the least we could do is buy dinner for her.  Then no one has to cook and the clean-up is easy.  So we went to the pizza shop at Wegman’s and ordered three pizzas.  Their pizza is really pretty good.

Saturday

On Saturday, Bob and Barbara, Kristin and Tony (her husband), and Holly and Tim (her boyfriend) all came over.  More food, more visiting.  Holly had everyone in her family decked out in LaCoste gear (she works for the company).  Everyone seemed pretty happy and is doing fairly well.  I’m supposed to send Barbara the recipe for peppermint bark.  They were in the car for a few extra hours on the way home because of fog, and that’s all they had to eat.  Apparently they liked it, since she asked how to make more.  🙂  After we cleaned up from that visit, someone found video from John’s graduation, our wedding, our rehearsal dinner, and Vincent’s 80th birthday party.  So we watched those for a while and then we finally gave in to Molly’s pleas that we play Cranium with her.  🙂  We had three teams.  Officially, Molly and John (VIII) were on a team, Emily and John VII were another team, and Tom and I were the third team.  Unofficially, John VI was on Emily and John VII’s team until he got tired of it, Pat joined my team with Tom for a while, and Tania floated in the background and joined in occasionally.  It was a lot of fun (as usual), but we were doing really badly for a while!  (We being everyone except Emily and John VII, who kicked our butts and won the game.)

Sunday

Sunday was a little rushed, mostly because no one wanted to get out of bed.  We were all going out to breakfast, so John and I packed the car so we’d be able to hit the road from the diner.  This diner was about 15 miles east of the house, and it was really cool.  The waitress was hilariously grumpy.  We had a good breakfast, said our goodbyes, and started our drive home.  We were trying to get home with enough time to unload the car and then pick up the dogs (it was packed solid with stuff, and there was no way the dogs would fit).  We were cutting it kind of close, so John dropped me off at the kennel to get the dogs checked out.  He went home, threw everything into the house, and came back to get us.  Oh, besides the drumset, the other thing that took up all the room in the car was the box full of 8 folding chairs (and fancy covers) John (VII) and Pat bought us for Christmas!  It’s a great present.  Pat knew that everytime we host a holiday, we rent chairs so we have enough seats for everyone.  I hadn’t thought ahead to New Year’s yet, so this was a perfectly timed, perfectly practical gift.  I don’t have to ask our friends to bring chairs like I had to do for Thanksgiving.  🙂

Anyway, we got home safe and sound.  And, since it was our anniversary (8 lovely years, thank you very much), we got sushi and DQ blizzards to go and ate in our living room while watching Mad About You episodes.  Thanks for the sushi, Mom and Dad!

We’re totally exhausted and looking forward to our next weekend.  At least work this week isn’t too taxing.  And thankfully, Roxy timed her seizure last night for 9:45, not 2am.  She always has a seizure within three days of coming home from the kennel.  I don’t know if it’s the stress (or lack of stress since she’s home now) or if maybe they’re not giving her the medicine correctly, but she’s had seizures after coming home from the kennel (any kennel) since she started having them in the first place.

Well.  I’m at almost 2000 words here, which is a bit ridiculous for one post.  But it’s all out of my system now.  It was a very good, very pleasant, very busy visit.  And now I need to rest.

Christmas Eve

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John and I arrived at his parents’ house last night around 10, pretty tired, but happy to be there.  We decided not to stop for dinner on the way up, but fortunately, Pat had leftovers.  🙂  So we had a couple of slices of pizza.  Everyone gave up and headed for bed around 1am, but we stayed up with Emily for about another hour.  Then we collapsed.  I got up at nine this morning with every intention of running (I even got Emily out of bed to go with me), but then we realized it was pouring outside.  I don’t run in the pouring rain.  🙂  I told Emily (and Molly) that we can just postpone our run until tomorrow morning.  We can go before we open presents.  Molly thinks I’m kidding.

Anyway, we had a late breakfast and then ran some errands.  Got back from errands and had a late lunch (like 4 o’clock late).  Dinner tonight is lobster, but we’re trying to wait for Tom and Tania to get here.  They’re on the road from Connecticut, but with the rain and the traffic, it’s hard to say when they’ll actually arrive.  As long as they get here safe, it doesn’t really matter when.

Speaking of safe, Mom and Dad decided to stop for the night on their way back to AL since Dad is worn out from dodging skidding cars all over the highway.  Good call, Dad.  They’re in no hurry.

Anyway, I need to get back downstairs and  be social.  🙂

Merry Christmas Eve!

Oh, that reminds me.  I lit Hanukkah candles tonight.  🙂  Pat bought me a menorah and Hanukkah candles when she went to the store today.  I had to look up the blessings online ’cause I couldn’t remember the first one.  The other two were still in my head.  It’s been a REALLY long time, though.  And I had an audience, which made me a bit self-conscious.

Okay, I have go help out so I can keep my status as model daughter-in-law.  🙂

One thing leads to the wrong thing

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I am SO not in the mood for work today.  We packed up the car, dropped off the dogs….and went to work.  That’s not what’s supposed to happen next!  Packing the car is supposed to be followed by hitting the road!  Driving to your destination!  And your destination should never be work.  Work is NOT a destination.  A destination is someplace you want to be, someplace you’re looking forward to going.  Vacation.  Work is an end, a place, an objective (an objective I am not meeting at the moment), but never a destination.

So yes, I’m at work.  I still have an hour to go.  And contrary to my own expectations, I actually have done some work today.  I have also fielded calls from Mom and Erik and been to the bank and the deli.  All not work-related.  It evens out.

We stayed up a little later than planned last night.  Got a lot of presents wrapped, more peppermint bark made.  And this morning we just couldn’t get out the door.  We got up early to pack and load the car, but it was still almost 10 o’clock before we left the house!  So for the second day in a row, we were late.  Our boss was good-natured about it.  I’m a little tired, but I see a stop at Starbucks in my future, so I’m not worried about making it to PA.

Too tired to type

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We watched Dan in Real Life last night.  It was okay, but we didn’t like it as much as we expected.  You know, I’d like to get into why (and talk about Brokeback Mountain), but it’s late and I’m tired.  So you’ll just have to wait.

We went shopping, too, and got everything else we need for Christmas.  We should be all set.  Yeah, I can’t type anymore.  Going to bed.  Sorry.

It’s flour.

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Tasted the cookies again today.  The weird taste of something that didn’t get mixed in all the way is flour.  I just have no idea how that happened.

The office holiday party was today.  I wore my new black boots.  That’s really the only noteworthy thing about it.  And of course, that’s only noteworthy to me.

I wrote most of my holiday cards tonight, so they can go in the mail tomorrow.  John wrote a few, too, and he wants to take responsibility for two of the ones on my list.

We have to be at work early tomorrow (and then I’ll have to stay a little late since we have a submission deadline), so I’m heading for bed.

This post does not flow at ALL.  Kinda sucks, actually.  Sorry about that.  🙂  If I have time at work tomorrow, I’ll do better.  Well, I won’t fix this post.  I’ll just aim higher for the next one.

Good night.

Last dentist appointment of the year

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[Around noon.]

I feel like I got punched in the mouth.  Right side only.  The numbness has worn off and the ibuprofen has not yet kicked in.  Aside from that, it was another very pleasant trip to the dentist.  (Oxymoron, right?)  I think I will bake them cookies.  When I got there this morning, the front desk staff told me I was the Patient of the Month and gave me a bag full of goodies.  They gave me a travel mug, some Ghirardelli hot chocolate, some other chocolates, and some toothpaste.  🙂  If they hadn’t included the toothpaste, I would have thought they were just trying to give me cavities and make me come back.

I learned something today (while at the dentist).  They put adrenaline in the novocaine (or whatever they use now as the anesthetic).  Apparently, the numbing slows down your heartbeat, so they put a little adrenaline in there to keep that from happening.  Instead, your heart starts to race a little.  So I kept thinking I was reacting (belatedly) to my nervousness about getting that shot, but really it was just the adrenaline THEY added.  Totally weird.  Today I was so jittery I could feel my hands and arms shaking.  But only for a minute or two after the shot.  I do still dread the shot, but I don’t worry about the actual procedures anymore.  They’ve convinced me they’re not going to hurt me.

[At home this evening.]

My cookies failed.  I make darn good cookies, but something went awry tonight.  And I didn’t realize it until John came home and tried one.  I actually stayed out of the batter and away from the cooling cookies.  They’re not bad, but I can’t give them to people.  I have a cookie reputation to uphold.  They taste like something didn’t mix in very well.  Possibly the baking soda.  John says he’ll eat them.  🙂  So I’ll just have to try again sometime.  But this means I can’t bring cookies to the dentist office.  Is it bad form to bring them peppermint bark?  Hard, crunchy candy is supposed to be the worst thing for teeth, right?  I might do that anyway.  Because white chocolate and peppermint is hard to resist, even for dental hygienists.  🙂

Mom is on her way to Louisville to help Mark take care of Mindy.  Actually, she may have landed by now.  Mindy is still in the hospital, but hopefully not for too much longer.  Dad said he talked to her this afternoon and she sounded much better.

Worrying won’t do me any good.

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Nothing happened today.  I have to post something without the crutch of actually having an event to write about.

How about this?  I am super excited about our day in Annapolis this weekend.  Hmm.  That doesn’t sound like me.  I mean, yes, I’m excited, but I don’t usually say I’m “super excited” about anything.  🙂  “I’m very much looking forward to it” sounds stilted.  But the sentiment is the same.  I get to hang out with Jess and Chuck for a few hours, go on a tour of the Naval Academy, see Annapolis all decked out for Christmas, and have yummy fish and chips.  Oh, and I get to see this mysterious bookstore with a dragon in it.  What could be better?

I’m hoping to have all holiday shopping (what little we’re doing) done by then.  John and I will probably try to go to the mall Thursday after work.  We only have a couple of things left to get.  I ordered as many things as possible online so I could avoid going to the mall.  I don’t mind the crowds, but parking is a pain.  And it drives John crazy.  🙂  He hates circling for a parking spot.

Well.  Mom just called.  Mindy is in the ER for an emergency appendectomy.  I started to get upset, but this is not a life-threatening surgical procedure.  She’s been there for a few hours already this evening (for tests), so at least she was in the right place when the doctors determined this was necessary.  Mom says the doctors promised Mark they’d be able to tell him something in less than an hour.  I’m not sure what that means, exactly.  Does it mean they’ll be done that quickly?  Or that they’ll know about how long it will take by then?  Or that they’ll know how long she’ll have to be in the hospital recovering?  I have no idea.  But when Mark calls Mom, Mom will call me.  So I will try not to worry.

In other news, if you haven’t seen Keeping the Faith (and you like romantic comedies), you should see it.  It’s actually funny, which is something you can’t say about many romantic comedies.  Ed Norton, Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman.  Good movie.  That’s one I always watch if it’s on TV (I just caught the end), and I never feel sullied (to steal Chuck’s term) afterward.  It’s just a good movie.

Yeah, I can’t keep babbling about random things right now.  Mindy in the hospital, Mindy in surgery trumps everything else I can think of.  So I’m going to post this and fret offline.

[On a side note, the spell-checker suggest Elvina as a replacement for Elfman.  How is that more of a word than Elfman?]