Happy New Year's Eve Eve
I hope y'all are having a great post-Christmas (or holiday of your choice) week! Mine's been fairly relaxing. Mom was off work for the 23rd through Christmas, and so we had a nice time. No fighting! Isn't that amazing? We had good food, watched a couple of movies (Knight and Day, and The Town - which, IMO, was really excellent and causing me to believe that Ben Affleck just might be a better writer/director than actor.), and just generally hung out. We had another nice, relaxing day on Tuesday, which Mom had off, and ate good food.
My favorite gifts: Not fighting on Christmas. Giving AJ to Monica's family. (I got an e-mail from her today saying that AJ has settled right in and they really love him. Yay!) And, an actual physical present: my new e-reader! It's SO AWESOME OMG. It's actually a tablet computer than runs on Android that serves as an e-reader. This makes it even better than the Kindle, IMO, since I can use the browser to pull up information to help me understand certain things I'm reading. For example, I was reading H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountain of Madness - because I felt it was necessary to spend the whole $1 on the Lovecraft compendium since EVERYONE seems to have read his stuff - and wanted to see a map of Antarctica since he was explaining in detail where Cthulhu was found. So I googled one up. It was really sweet. The e-reader has a night-reading setting where it switches from a white background and black text to a black background with white text, which is really nice on my eyes and makes me sleepier faster since my eyes aren't straining. It's also cool in that I can read books both in portrait mode, or landscape. Also useful for night reading, since I can turn the thing sideways and not have to torque my neck so much to read at the top of the page. I was annoying Mom in thanking her every chance I got for my new gadget. Oh! I forgot! It came pre-loaded with 100 classic books, including Austen, Dickens, Dante, etc. It runs from Barnes & Noble.com, and it's really easy to download books. And to make it better, most of the books I want to read are about $5. As Geoff Peterson would say, "LOOOVE IITTT !!!"
Mom was really generous this year. I think I mentioned in a previous post about my new TV. Now the surprise e-reader that she gave me on Christmas Eve. I had told her that nothing else was necessary since she had to have spent several hundred dollars on me already - I mean, a brand new computer, TV, and e-reader in one year? But, on Christmas morning when I came downstairs, there were presents under the tree, and our stockings were on the mantle and filled with stuff. She just blew me away. I got a really beautiful teal sweater, some new towels (mine had to be used and thrown away when a pipe leaked in the upstairs bathroom), a chocolate orange yummy, and Lindor truffles.
My godfather, Doug, surprised me and called me on Christmas to wish me a happy birthday. We're going to lunch on Sunday to catch up. Mom, Sis and I are going to see Black Swan tomorrow since Mom has tomorrow off. She works Saturday, for some strange reason, and is off Sunday. (If they had stuck to the actual schedule, she would have had the 1st and 2nd off. Oh, well.) For tomorrow, she's planned to make our traditional New Year's Eve food: caviar, brie with melted brown sugar and pecans on top, and, of course, champagne. She's also making our traditional New Year's food, which is ham and black-eyed peas for luck, and cabbage in the form of cole slaw for money. Needless to say, we're going to be eating a TON of these foods to try and get 2011 to be better than 2010. Mom's from southern Louisiana, thus the superstition. I'm going to try and get her to make hoppin' John this year instead of just basic black-eyed peas. For those who don't know, hoppin' John is rice, sausage, and black-eyed peas - at least the way Mom makes it.
I think that's all of what's been going on here. Off to lie down and read now. >>>>>>headache<<<<<<< Oh, under the fast-moving ceiling fan since it's 75° here. ON DECEMBER 30th. W.T.F. Mother Nature?? At least we got a whole lot of rain and thunderstorms yesterday, which was lovely. And, according to the local news, an 80% chance of a ton more tomorrow, though the National Weather Service says there's only a 30% chance. I guess we'll just see who amends their forecast first.
My favorite gifts: Not fighting on Christmas. Giving AJ to Monica's family. (I got an e-mail from her today saying that AJ has settled right in and they really love him. Yay!) And, an actual physical present: my new e-reader! It's SO AWESOME OMG. It's actually a tablet computer than runs on Android that serves as an e-reader. This makes it even better than the Kindle, IMO, since I can use the browser to pull up information to help me understand certain things I'm reading. For example, I was reading H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountain of Madness - because I felt it was necessary to spend the whole $1 on the Lovecraft compendium since EVERYONE seems to have read his stuff - and wanted to see a map of Antarctica since he was explaining in detail where Cthulhu was found. So I googled one up. It was really sweet. The e-reader has a night-reading setting where it switches from a white background and black text to a black background with white text, which is really nice on my eyes and makes me sleepier faster since my eyes aren't straining. It's also cool in that I can read books both in portrait mode, or landscape. Also useful for night reading, since I can turn the thing sideways and not have to torque my neck so much to read at the top of the page. I was annoying Mom in thanking her every chance I got for my new gadget. Oh! I forgot! It came pre-loaded with 100 classic books, including Austen, Dickens, Dante, etc. It runs from Barnes & Noble.com, and it's really easy to download books. And to make it better, most of the books I want to read are about $5. As Geoff Peterson would say, "LOOOVE IITTT !!!"
Mom was really generous this year. I think I mentioned in a previous post about my new TV. Now the surprise e-reader that she gave me on Christmas Eve. I had told her that nothing else was necessary since she had to have spent several hundred dollars on me already - I mean, a brand new computer, TV, and e-reader in one year? But, on Christmas morning when I came downstairs, there were presents under the tree, and our stockings were on the mantle and filled with stuff. She just blew me away. I got a really beautiful teal sweater, some new towels (mine had to be used and thrown away when a pipe leaked in the upstairs bathroom), a chocolate orange yummy, and Lindor truffles.
My godfather, Doug, surprised me and called me on Christmas to wish me a happy birthday. We're going to lunch on Sunday to catch up. Mom, Sis and I are going to see Black Swan tomorrow since Mom has tomorrow off. She works Saturday, for some strange reason, and is off Sunday. (If they had stuck to the actual schedule, she would have had the 1st and 2nd off. Oh, well.) For tomorrow, she's planned to make our traditional New Year's Eve food: caviar, brie with melted brown sugar and pecans on top, and, of course, champagne. She's also making our traditional New Year's food, which is ham and black-eyed peas for luck, and cabbage in the form of cole slaw for money. Needless to say, we're going to be eating a TON of these foods to try and get 2011 to be better than 2010. Mom's from southern Louisiana, thus the superstition. I'm going to try and get her to make hoppin' John this year instead of just basic black-eyed peas. For those who don't know, hoppin' John is rice, sausage, and black-eyed peas - at least the way Mom makes it.
I think that's all of what's been going on here. Off to lie down and read now. >>>>>>headache<<<<<<< Oh, under the fast-moving ceiling fan since it's 75° here. ON DECEMBER 30th. W.T.F. Mother Nature?? At least we got a whole lot of rain and thunderstorms yesterday, which was lovely. And, according to the local news, an 80% chance of a ton more tomorrow, though the National Weather Service says there's only a 30% chance. I guess we'll just see who amends their forecast first.