Merry Christmas to all

I’m here with DH and his family for Christmas. We’re hanging out and playing with their puppies. The full moon last night was spectacular, and I have a couple of pictures on my camera. But the picture in the little lcd screen was much less impressive than the view in front of me, so I have to wait until the pictures are downloaded to see if the come close to the grandeur of the scene we saw last night. DH’s brother and family are off to church for Christmas Eve Mass. And we have stuff to nosh on and lasagna in the oven to eat in a bit. The wines are chilling or cooling, and the other beverages are available. We have mulling spices, and I’ll be mulling some cider,and possibly some wine later. Tomorrow the gift giving frenzy will take place. But it will be a much more subdued frenzy than years past, since the kids are both older and there are no little ones to get adults up at the crack of dawn. We’ll sleep in and play later.

May your holiday season be filled with cheer, and the new year bring health, happiness, joy, and peace to you and your family!

Edit:The pictures turned out better than I first thought.

Happy Labor Day!

I hope your Labor day has been a good one. DH & I have slept late and and then rode the motorcycle out to 29 Dreams. We had a burger and drink out there, then came home. Whee, the motorcycle is working again! Then it was nap time. After working 2 festivals Saturday and Sunday I’m one hurting puppy. But it was a good weekend anyway. I haven’t read a thing today except for my emails. But it is still early.

What to read for RIP Challenge

So I’m taking part in this challenge, yasee? And I really am not sure what I’m going to read. Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous post. Life is galloping along at a breakneck pace, and probably will continue to do so until after Halloween. So I figure that I probably could have the last Harry Potter book as one of my books, since I’m about 220 pages in and don’t anticipate being able to finish it until Labor Day, at least.

I’m considering using Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, simply because of its size. About 2 years ago I’d gotten about halfway through it, then set it down for some reason and never picked it back up. More for the size of the book then any other reason. At 928 pages, its fairly daunting.

But then the recommendations for Neil Gaiman have been nearly unanimous. I’ve liked what I’ve read by him, so I am going to look for one of his books. Its probably going to depend on what I can check out of the library, but American Gods or Fragile Things look like good possibilities.

Jonathan Carroll’s Land of Laughs is available at the library here. Yay! I think that is definitely going to be one of my books for this challenge.

And one that has been recommended elsewhere, but not mentioned in Carl’s blog is Max Brooks World War Z. After participating briefly in the BLITEOTW challenge, I feel like its required to have a zombie entry.

Another good possibility is Dan Simmon’s The Terror. It looks to be just right for this challenge.

All of these books are ones that I’ve not read or finished. I probably will look at re-reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, possibly Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot or the Shining, Children of Night by Dan Simmons. They’ll be fun for the season too.

Hooray for July!

Or June is over.

Thank God! It has not been a good June. Its not the worst June I’ve ever had, but it hasn’t been good at all. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that July is going to be much, much better than June was.

I do hope that any celebrating that you may do this week is very fun and safe. The drought in the area here is going to keep lots of folks from playing with fireworks, but fireworks aren’t what makes the July 4th celebrations. They are a nice icing on the cake, but it isn’t the celebration itself.

Happy VDAY!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

I hope everyone who had snow today was able to enjoy it! We had a dusting of snow and flurries here this morning. It actually felt like winter here today.

DH fixed dinner for us, and opened a bottle of wine. Yum! Playing online, cats around and sipping a glass of wine. Its a nice night!

Valentine’s Day 2007

Is going to be pretty much like most every other Wednesday here at chez geekgirl. That’s ok. DH is thinking about a menu for us, and we’ll avoid the craziness that the local restaurant scene is bound to be. I have no wish to wait 1.5 hours for a table at a local restaurant and get harried service while trying to enjoy a nice dinner.

And forget the weeds for Vday too. Have you looked at the price of flowers in February? Its nuts! So skip ‘em until they are in season and it isn’t so outrageously expensive. God bless the florists and delivery folks who are working major amounts of overtime right now. It is really going to be a bad day for a co-worker of mine. His mother passed away over the weekend and the funeral is tomorrow. The office is sending flowers. I’m scared of what that bill will be.

A fairly quiet night at home is on tap.  And it will be good.  Good company, good food, a cat on the lap, and that’s what I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

What is on tap for you?

Closer to fine

Well, the out of town family has headed home. I’m just not used to little ones for more than a couple of hours at a time. Four year olds and two year olds will wear you out in no time whatsoever.

While the kids were here, we took them to the McWane Center downtown. Although Grandma wanted to see the movie with the kids, Mom vetoed it since the 2 year old was running into naptime and the 4 year old was antsy. We just played in the Just Mice Size area before eating lunch, then went upstairs and saw the model train and science exhibits. Playing with the robots and the colored videos and the distorted room. The computer screens with the butterflies and colored amoeba like things were cool, even for the 2 year old. But the large sized plastic pins were the biggest hit for both. Kids faces and hands were replicated and both of them had the biggest time playing with those 2 foot square plates. The Rube Goldberg machine in the lobby is one of the coolest exhibits at the McWane Center. The kids (and adults, too) could spend hours just watching all the balls rolling through the different tracks, hitting the different objects that are tuned and bouncing through the jumps. If you have the opportunity, do visit.

And to all a good night

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your day has been filled with family and good cheer. We are back from the day with family. My sister and her family are in town and having Christmas with a 4 year old and a 2 year old is quite interesting! We went over to my parents house at 7:15 this morning, surprisingly enough the kids were still asleep. That didn’t last for too long.

My niece got up about 15 minutes later. She was SO excited about what Santa left her underneath the tree. We did have to convince her to wait to get into the wrapped presents until everyone had woken up and gotten up. Fortunately for her, little brother didn’t sleep too much later and she was able to go wake uncle up downstairs. And while we were waiting for everyone to get up, DH and I put a quickie breakfast casserole together for everyone.

Once everyone got up and into the living room around the tree, things got fun. My niece was playing Santa’s helper, sort of. She started out handing out presents to people as her Mom read the labels to her. She delivered 3 presents to others, then the first present with her name came up. She stopped, sat right down there, and ripped into that present with gusto! After she got into the gift and either played a few minutes or put it on if it was clothing. So we managed to start distributing around her when she was occupied and got packages to everyone. Then the package destruction started in earnest! The 2 year old was more interested in the train in front of the tree than any of the packages that were under it. He needed some help realizing that those brightly colored packages in front of him were actually gifts.

I was pleased to recive the Harry Potter Schoolbooks box set: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages. The annotations in the margins of the Fantastic Beasts book are wonderful! And the movies Serenity and Pirates of the Carribean, Dead Man’s Chest were fun to get too! For those times when the mad scientist inspiration strikes, I got a pair of Girl Genius Mad Scientist Goggles. Bwahahaha!

After we all opened the presents, the breakfast casserole was finished and we had breakfast. We took our time and played with the kids throughout the day. And the main meal was a group effort, rather than one person’s hurculean task. We had a turkey breast, ham, sweet potato casserole, broccoli casserole, tomato, mozzarella and basil salad, rolls, and other stuff. Dinner was at 4:00 PM, but we snacked and tasted most all day long.

Now I’m home with a cat on my lap. What better way to end the day. Have a wonder evening, y’all.

I love this quote of the day, Dr Suess. It sums it all up more than anything else.

Giftwrap time

So its time to wrap the gifts that are left.  I’m lucky to have a decent amount of wrapping paper here at the house.  And that’s a good thing, because I have no wish to brave the shopping malls or stores today.  I’m trying to stay dry until the rain passes.  That should be tomorrow, so I’m out of luck tonight when we’ll be heading out to church for Christmas Eve service. Its the kids service, so it is going to be absolutely crazy and loud. Whee.

Then tomorrow morning will be very early.  A 4 year old and a 2 year old are going to be getting up at the crack of dawn, so we’ll need to get over to Grandma’s quickly so they don’t make everyone there very cranky.  And the 2 dogs there will be in everything.  Kids, dogs, adults, and Christmas.  What else do you need? A good nights rest and alcohol, that’s what.  A sense of humor, of course!

Family Stuff today

Today was the day to go up to visit the DH’s family and have Christmas with them. So we had a road trip 1 hour and 45 minutes north of us to visit with them, exchange gifts and eat dinner.  We had a safe trip up and fun up there. Fun stuff from folks and good food, what else would you like? Then a safe trip home. Whee!

More family stuff tomorrow, this time with my family.

Have your self a merry little Christmas.

Its almost here, and I’m almost ready for it! Most of the presents are purchased, and family is starting to arrive in town. Half of those presents are wrapped. There are even presents for the pets gotten. It is coming together now.

I can deal with the Christmas music now. When some of the local radio stations went to the 24/7 Christmas music at the beginning of November, I wasn’t impressed. And the stores putting Christmas decorations out before Halloween? Why? There is a time for everything, and every season. Let us enjoy the holidays in their own time. Now I’m a parrothead, and Radio Margaritaville is playing Christmas music from the various artists that get airtime there. Jimmy Buffett doing Mele Kalikimaka and Jerry Jeff Walker doing Merry Christmas from the Family are fun ones. And more traditional tunes are also part of the lineup. The best part is that you can listen to it online!

And in 2 days Christmas’ll be here. Woohoo!