General update stuff
I have SO many things to write about and haven't gotten around to typing any of it up; I've been SO much enjoying just being home and being on break and RESTING.
Yuletide has been great. Great stories (recs already posted, and I've read most of what I plan to read), I've gotten lovely feedback, the stories I like have been getting lovely feedback...just...FUN. (Have I mentioned the wonderful Natalie story?)
My mom was here (came in last Thursday night, visited both kids' schools Friday, went home Tuesday afternoon) and helped whip the house into something FAR closer to "order" than it's had in a LONG time. The visit was lovely too, as was the comfortable assistance whenever it was needed, the glee from the children, the time with my husband, time with my mom.
She and the kids decorated the tree with the HUGE number of ornaments that I took with me when I left home, so she got to reminisce about when what set of ornaments got made and the kids enjoyed that. I love our cluttered, eclectic tree (I'll try to get a good photo and post it later) with its tree-topping fairy. Yay, fairy!
I made wonderful food that was enjoyed by all for xmas dinner (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, green bean casserole, esorlehcar's sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie). NOTE TO SELF: Never, ever, ever use store-bought pie crusts for pumpkin pie EVER AGAIN. They do not cook on the bottom and there is gooey, icky glop under the very good pumpkin pie filling. The difference? Lack of a glass baking dish to make sure the bottom of the pie gets toasty brown; the tin-foil pans just don't have the heat retention to cook the bottom through.
Bonus xmas joy: My husband's family actually ENJOYED visiting and were lingering and talking for the first time out of the, like, FOUR times they've visited us in this house in 5 1/2 years. It was lovely. The great irony? Husband and I were both getting sick and couldn't sit up any longer and had to go rest rather than enjoying the visit for another half hour or so. I slept for 2 hours, Husband slept for 4 1/2. We're still goopy and have swollen glands, but the sore throats are mostly gone.
My typical treatment for a really sore throat is to have a tablespoon of the 5-year-old bottle of vodka that's in the freezer, gargle it, then gulp it, then go to bed. The good--topical anesthetic, excellent antiseptic, little taste--the bad is merely the breathing out and wondering just HOW bright blue it would burn and realizing that it's like the same smell as rubbing alcohol. Ugh. Throat feels better, but this is, apparently, unwise: the two mornings after I did this I was unrouseable-zoned the next day until 11 or noon. No. Vodka. For. Me.
My sister-in-law went through her house and found stuff that they didn't need and gave it to my kids, which was WONDERFUL. Her gift to them of a little hand-held game console with a joystick and six games (Pacman, space invaders, mouse and cat, race cars) and Ben IMMEDIATELY looked at the patch cords, plugged them in with matching colors, and made it work. They're getting better at the coordination and have been FANTASTIC about the turn-taking. It's amazing and wonderful. Ben is great at the race car...but thinks that his mouse is eating the cat in that game and deliberately runs the mouse into the cat three times in a row then declares himself to have won by eating the cat. *grin* Elf likes the space-invaders-like game.
My husband got me a low-end mp3 player (I was so uninformed that I thought mp3s were a tiny, approximately 1"-diameter CD-like thingie) just because he thinks I shouldn't carry around my original CDs in the car and continue using the broken (but still music-playing) portable CD player that has broken buttons and only stays together and plays if treated Just So (but it WORKS and plugs into the cassette thingie). I was dubious. Then Husband started ripping music and I started doing so as well and I now have practically ALL the music in the house that I like on my little toy that's smaller than three of my fingers AND the sound is nice and it's just...extraordinary. We. Live. In. The. Future. TOTALLY the future. It's WAY cool. I'm making a list in my head of other songs I want to add to it as I've still got space.
It's been lovely.
Yuletide has been great. Great stories (recs already posted, and I've read most of what I plan to read), I've gotten lovely feedback, the stories I like have been getting lovely feedback...just...FUN. (Have I mentioned the wonderful Natalie story?)
My mom was here (came in last Thursday night, visited both kids' schools Friday, went home Tuesday afternoon) and helped whip the house into something FAR closer to "order" than it's had in a LONG time. The visit was lovely too, as was the comfortable assistance whenever it was needed, the glee from the children, the time with my husband, time with my mom.
She and the kids decorated the tree with the HUGE number of ornaments that I took with me when I left home, so she got to reminisce about when what set of ornaments got made and the kids enjoyed that. I love our cluttered, eclectic tree (I'll try to get a good photo and post it later) with its tree-topping fairy. Yay, fairy!
I made wonderful food that was enjoyed by all for xmas dinner (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, green bean casserole, esorlehcar's sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie). NOTE TO SELF: Never, ever, ever use store-bought pie crusts for pumpkin pie EVER AGAIN. They do not cook on the bottom and there is gooey, icky glop under the very good pumpkin pie filling. The difference? Lack of a glass baking dish to make sure the bottom of the pie gets toasty brown; the tin-foil pans just don't have the heat retention to cook the bottom through.
Bonus xmas joy: My husband's family actually ENJOYED visiting and were lingering and talking for the first time out of the, like, FOUR times they've visited us in this house in 5 1/2 years. It was lovely. The great irony? Husband and I were both getting sick and couldn't sit up any longer and had to go rest rather than enjoying the visit for another half hour or so. I slept for 2 hours, Husband slept for 4 1/2. We're still goopy and have swollen glands, but the sore throats are mostly gone.
My typical treatment for a really sore throat is to have a tablespoon of the 5-year-old bottle of vodka that's in the freezer, gargle it, then gulp it, then go to bed. The good--topical anesthetic, excellent antiseptic, little taste--the bad is merely the breathing out and wondering just HOW bright blue it would burn and realizing that it's like the same smell as rubbing alcohol. Ugh. Throat feels better, but this is, apparently, unwise: the two mornings after I did this I was unrouseable-zoned the next day until 11 or noon. No. Vodka. For. Me.
My sister-in-law went through her house and found stuff that they didn't need and gave it to my kids, which was WONDERFUL. Her gift to them of a little hand-held game console with a joystick and six games (Pacman, space invaders, mouse and cat, race cars) and Ben IMMEDIATELY looked at the patch cords, plugged them in with matching colors, and made it work. They're getting better at the coordination and have been FANTASTIC about the turn-taking. It's amazing and wonderful. Ben is great at the race car...but thinks that his mouse is eating the cat in that game and deliberately runs the mouse into the cat three times in a row then declares himself to have won by eating the cat. *grin* Elf likes the space-invaders-like game.
My husband got me a low-end mp3 player (I was so uninformed that I thought mp3s were a tiny, approximately 1"-diameter CD-like thingie) just because he thinks I shouldn't carry around my original CDs in the car and continue using the broken (but still music-playing) portable CD player that has broken buttons and only stays together and plays if treated Just So (but it WORKS and plugs into the cassette thingie). I was dubious. Then Husband started ripping music and I started doing so as well and I now have practically ALL the music in the house that I like on my little toy that's smaller than three of my fingers AND the sound is nice and it's just...extraordinary. We. Live. In. The. Future. TOTALLY the future. It's WAY cool. I'm making a list in my head of other songs I want to add to it as I've still got space.
It's been lovely.