(morning writing, observe)
Yule week is pretty fuzzy in my mind. Exec functioning evacuated for a few days and i rested. Or "rested" as i am sure i was thinking about gottados. I did eventually write a Yule letter to send and on Tuesday, Christmas Eve, took packages to the post office. No line! (Eye roll).
Brother N's clan arrived on Monday evening from Singapore (and for Z, from Tampa) by way of visiting grandparents in California.
Christmas Eve we gathered at my sister's with Dad, N's clan, and her husband's sister A-- and her kids and husband. Christine ghosted through and left. I stayed for dinner and an ornament exchange. After A's family left we started a gift exchange -- i'd hoped Christine would make it in time to join, but she ran late and the exchange raced ahead. Christine was back in time to give hugs to N's clan and Dad, then hung out with NYU student W-- and his classmate T-- and talked music. She was in heaven.
The next morning i abstained from going over to sister L's: we'd been there late. Christine had been sad that my family has calm quiet times early in the morning when she's no where near caffeinated enough.
Eventually Christine was up and we did a gift exchange. Instead of ordering the single color Prismacolor premier pencils i asked for, i now have the 132 colors. SO many colors! We now also have a software defined radio ... receiver? "dongle." Essentially, you plug this into your computer, plug an antenna into it, and you can hear and see radio waves. Thanks to miracles for inattentive beings, it covers the frequency band i am most concerned about: the signals for my weather sensors.
I can go on and on about this: i have now bought a gadget that shifts frequency so we can get AM and Ham frequencies (for amusement, like finding numbers stations), a linux mini computer for the weather station monitoring, and a "nano" dongle for the weather station monitor server.
Christine appreciated her gifts: some necklaces and the Apple Pencil Pro. She suggested i had more colors in my box of prismacolors than she had, but i think not. She then made party mix as part of her gift to her sister and her husband, and then we went to visit them for a few hours. On return, i immediately started roasting sweetpotatoes with red onion and seasoned with amchoor (spice gift to myself) and cumin. They turned out wonderfully. Meanwhile, i got a call from my sister about the filthy conditions of the bathrooms my dad had "cleaned." Concerns were raised.
I then headed over to my Dad's place where my brother's family was hosting a gathering of all the same folks as on Christmas Eve. I was early, dinner was late, and i left before desert and the Santa Lucia parade.
Thursday morning my brother's wife M and their son D who is heading to college next year headed to Canada to see Canadian colleges in the cold. Both Thursday and Friday I and my sister went over to my Dad's where with much pushing from me and my sister we got some stuff packed up -- took things for ourselves and made a concrete plan to have an estate sale before Dad moves. And my brother made it clear (enough) to Dad that Dad should not keep the house in hopes my brother will move into it. This with the bathroom filth debacle, has us hoping Dad will move sooner.
Also, on Thursday, after soaking my wild beans for over 24 hours and pouring out the water twice, i slow cooked them for over six hours with the peel heavy bits of the sweet potatoes. This turned out wonderfully. The beans that never plumped up in the soaking, eventually did with the slow cooking. The beans could have gone longer. Very excited to find them edible. I did forget to add kombu.
Yesterday Christine went to see her sister in Mount Airy, and i stayed home to care for Carrie. After Christine asked for a birthday card for her sister, i was pulled into a surprise project of going through a bunch of stationary and stationary-adjecent drawers. I think it qualified as "decluttering." I haven't quite finished, but made major progress.
Not sure what today brings. It's ridiculously warm and a downpour is called for this afternoon.
post-tags: morning writing, observe
Brother N's clan arrived on Monday evening from Singapore (and for Z, from Tampa) by way of visiting grandparents in California.
Christmas Eve we gathered at my sister's with Dad, N's clan, and her husband's sister A-- and her kids and husband. Christine ghosted through and left. I stayed for dinner and an ornament exchange. After A's family left we started a gift exchange -- i'd hoped Christine would make it in time to join, but she ran late and the exchange raced ahead. Christine was back in time to give hugs to N's clan and Dad, then hung out with NYU student W-- and his classmate T-- and talked music. She was in heaven.
The next morning i abstained from going over to sister L's: we'd been there late. Christine had been sad that my family has calm quiet times early in the morning when she's no where near caffeinated enough.
Eventually Christine was up and we did a gift exchange. Instead of ordering the single color Prismacolor premier pencils i asked for, i now have the 132 colors. SO many colors! We now also have a software defined radio ... receiver? "dongle." Essentially, you plug this into your computer, plug an antenna into it, and you can hear and see radio waves. Thanks to miracles for inattentive beings, it covers the frequency band i am most concerned about: the signals for my weather sensors.
I can go on and on about this: i have now bought a gadget that shifts frequency so we can get AM and Ham frequencies (for amusement, like finding numbers stations), a linux mini computer for the weather station monitoring, and a "nano" dongle for the weather station monitor server.
Christine appreciated her gifts: some necklaces and the Apple Pencil Pro. She suggested i had more colors in my box of prismacolors than she had, but i think not. She then made party mix as part of her gift to her sister and her husband, and then we went to visit them for a few hours. On return, i immediately started roasting sweetpotatoes with red onion and seasoned with amchoor (spice gift to myself) and cumin. They turned out wonderfully. Meanwhile, i got a call from my sister about the filthy conditions of the bathrooms my dad had "cleaned." Concerns were raised.
I then headed over to my Dad's place where my brother's family was hosting a gathering of all the same folks as on Christmas Eve. I was early, dinner was late, and i left before desert and the Santa Lucia parade.
Thursday morning my brother's wife M and their son D who is heading to college next year headed to Canada to see Canadian colleges in the cold. Both Thursday and Friday I and my sister went over to my Dad's where with much pushing from me and my sister we got some stuff packed up -- took things for ourselves and made a concrete plan to have an estate sale before Dad moves. And my brother made it clear (enough) to Dad that Dad should not keep the house in hopes my brother will move into it. This with the bathroom filth debacle, has us hoping Dad will move sooner.
Also, on Thursday, after soaking my wild beans for over 24 hours and pouring out the water twice, i slow cooked them for over six hours with the peel heavy bits of the sweet potatoes. This turned out wonderfully. The beans that never plumped up in the soaking, eventually did with the slow cooking. The beans could have gone longer. Very excited to find them edible. I did forget to add kombu.
Yesterday Christine went to see her sister in Mount Airy, and i stayed home to care for Carrie. After Christine asked for a birthday card for her sister, i was pulled into a surprise project of going through a bunch of stationary and stationary-adjecent drawers. I think it qualified as "decluttering." I haven't quite finished, but made major progress.
Not sure what today brings. It's ridiculously warm and a downpour is called for this afternoon.
post-tags: morning writing, observe