Happy Hogmanay
Or whatever you call the last day of the year before the New Year (if you use the Gregorian calendar). Geez, that's complicated.
Anyway, here's a small recap of this last week, starting with Christmas:
Christmas Day was lovely. We woke up late. My gifts were all little so they were all in my stocking this year, including a $50 visa gift card and the obligatory serious amount of chocolate! It was adorable to see a little mouse in every one of the ten little stockings we hung on the mantle for the kitties.
All day, starting at 10pm Saturday (since one of my friends lives in South Korea and so he always wishes people a happy birthday when he wakes up that morning 12 hours earlier than those of us here in the States), Facebook kept dinging on my phone letting me know that people had posted on my wall. I love Facebook for that. The lovely birthday/Christmas wishes from around the world (literally - a bunch from the US, and then one from England, and one from my friend in Korea) were awesome.
I opened my mailbox when I woke up and discovered that Doug had sent me a $100 gift certificate to Amazon. I was stunned at his generosity. I emailed him a giant thank you and tried to call. However, his phone sent me to his voicemail and asked for the passcode. Weird. I tried again with no success. Later in the day, I got an email from him saying that he'd seen I called, but he couldn't answer since he was in France with his step-son's wife's French family. So I replied with an even bigger THANK YOU, and wished him and his family a Joyeux Noel.
We had left over Beef Stroganoff, and later in the day Mom made Gaston Beef Stew (our family's recipe), which was so good and lasted until Wednesday. We just lazed around and watched The Sound of Music on ABC that evening. My birthday celebration was super-low-key. Sis had been upstairs sick all day, so I told Mom to just put the candles on the cake - mmm fudge cake - and don't even sing, because one person singing is kinda sad. She surprised me with my birthday gift, however. Every year, my aunt gives Mom, Sis, and me similar pajamas. However, for some reason, my aunt can't seem to make herself by the 2X size I need, so I always have to give my XL PJs to Mom. So, for my birthday, Mom had secretly gone out to Walmart and gotten me a pair of pajamas that fit! They're so cute, too... pink top and multi-colored polka dot pants. And it's just the right weight cloth, too, which is fabulous since I am almost constantly at least 15 degrees warmer than Mom or Sis (the Thermostat War is a constant battle in our house).
Monday: I spent the first bit of my Amazon gift certificate to buy myself an honest-to-goodness iPod. I have never owned one and was determined to finally get one. So I bought a refurbished 3rd generation 4GB Nano - the one that's basically square with the color screen but no touch capabilities. I was a little dubious since it was coming from Hong Kong, but the rating for the seller was 98%, so I took a shot. I was excited, even though it was supposedly going to take until mid-January to get to me.
Wednesday: I took Sis to the clinic so she could see the doctor again, since the cold she picked up from me two weeks ago was still raging. That was so not fun. I ordered my second thing from Amazon: a new set of sheets that I've been needing for about a year, since mine were literally falling apart.
Yesterday: After seeing Monica, I decided that I needed to stay out a little longer and spend the $50 gift card from Mom to buy a new bra. Yes, you heard me right, $50 only buys one for me. I went to Lane Bryant because I know they have ones big enough for my giant boobs. (Thanks to my grandmother and mother.) After being measured, I spent almost an hour trying the ones that the woman recommended. I had to try on thirteen before I found one that was decently comfortable and fit. I had two different women come in and, while standing in just my pants and whatever bra, figure out how best to find something that would fit and also be sorta comfortable. I worked up a sweat trying these things on. At one point, one of the women came to check on me. I was attempting to fasten one of the contraptions and groaned in frustration. She said, "are you okay in there?" Embarrassing. At least the woman that helped me the most complimented me by saying she figured I was maybe 25. It turns out that right now I'm a 42F. Yep. GIANT BOOBS. At least now I have a cute pink bra with straps that don't fall down and boobs that actually sit up where they're supposed to on my chest.
When I got home, I had two packages sitting on the doorstep! Amazon had sent both my sheets AND my iPod! OMG it's so awesome. My sheets, are FANTASTIC. They're microfiber, so they're super-soft and always cool to the touch. (Like satin, only about 1/4 of the price - literally, these were $15 for a full-size set.) And I'm so super-thrilled to be one of the people with an iPod now! It took a little while to figure it all out, but Apple does make it super-easy. Since it was a refurb, it didn't come with the user guide (but I have the exclusive white headphones and the usb adapter, thank God). I've used iTunes as my computer's music player forever, so I hoped syncing my Pod would be as easy as they say. When it didn't do what I thought it was supposed to do on first sync, I figured I'd have to hunt around the interwebs for the user guide. However, Apple, in their wisdom, put the user guides in the iTunes help menu! I was able to pull up the guide for my specific iPod, and learned how to import just the playlists I wanted. It's so awesome, I can't even tell you. Dude, the scroll wheel alone I love. It turns out I actually have more than 4GB of music in iTunes (and a little more after I spent a chunk of my gift certificate on more music).
This morning: I woke up at my brain's set wake-up time of 9:45. I don't know why that is, but whatever. My arms and shoulders hurt for some reason. I got my breakfast and when I came back upstairs it hit me: my arms and shoulders hurt because of the repetitive motion of trying on 13 different bras over and over again. How utterly lame is that? So I've decided that today is just going to be a restful reading day. Mom is actually off work today (though she has to work tomorrow since she traded New Years Day for Christmas), so she's making all of our traditional NYE foods: pecan-crusted brie, caviar, shrimp pinwheels (homemade shrimp dip cooked in a dough pocket), boursin cheese, and champagne. I'm so excited! Yum. She will be cooking our traditional good luck NYD foods later this evening: ham for progress in the new year, black-eyed peas for luck (in a Southern dish called Hoppin' John, which is black-eyed peas, rice, and bacon, if you're super-traditional about it), and collard greens for money. Yay! Tonight, we're going to watch a movie on-demand, Mom will go outside and watch the fireworks our neighbors shoot off (I don't go because fireworks too close to me scare me), and watch Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin horse around. I also hope that CNN shows a bit of the celebration down in Key West, since my friend Brant is part of the drag show there (his drag name is Porsche, and she's actually quite famous, including a co-host spot on Wanda Sykes's short-lived late night talk show).
So, to sum up this tl;dr post, I hope y'all have a safe and wonderful New Year's Eve, and best wishes for next year!
Anyway, here's a small recap of this last week, starting with Christmas:
Christmas Day was lovely. We woke up late. My gifts were all little so they were all in my stocking this year, including a $50 visa gift card and the obligatory serious amount of chocolate! It was adorable to see a little mouse in every one of the ten little stockings we hung on the mantle for the kitties.
All day, starting at 10pm Saturday (since one of my friends lives in South Korea and so he always wishes people a happy birthday when he wakes up that morning 12 hours earlier than those of us here in the States), Facebook kept dinging on my phone letting me know that people had posted on my wall. I love Facebook for that. The lovely birthday/Christmas wishes from around the world (literally - a bunch from the US, and then one from England, and one from my friend in Korea) were awesome.
I opened my mailbox when I woke up and discovered that Doug had sent me a $100 gift certificate to Amazon. I was stunned at his generosity. I emailed him a giant thank you and tried to call. However, his phone sent me to his voicemail and asked for the passcode. Weird. I tried again with no success. Later in the day, I got an email from him saying that he'd seen I called, but he couldn't answer since he was in France with his step-son's wife's French family. So I replied with an even bigger THANK YOU, and wished him and his family a Joyeux Noel.
We had left over Beef Stroganoff, and later in the day Mom made Gaston Beef Stew (our family's recipe), which was so good and lasted until Wednesday. We just lazed around and watched The Sound of Music on ABC that evening. My birthday celebration was super-low-key. Sis had been upstairs sick all day, so I told Mom to just put the candles on the cake - mmm fudge cake - and don't even sing, because one person singing is kinda sad. She surprised me with my birthday gift, however. Every year, my aunt gives Mom, Sis, and me similar pajamas. However, for some reason, my aunt can't seem to make herself by the 2X size I need, so I always have to give my XL PJs to Mom. So, for my birthday, Mom had secretly gone out to Walmart and gotten me a pair of pajamas that fit! They're so cute, too... pink top and multi-colored polka dot pants. And it's just the right weight cloth, too, which is fabulous since I am almost constantly at least 15 degrees warmer than Mom or Sis (the Thermostat War is a constant battle in our house).
Monday: I spent the first bit of my Amazon gift certificate to buy myself an honest-to-goodness iPod. I have never owned one and was determined to finally get one. So I bought a refurbished 3rd generation 4GB Nano - the one that's basically square with the color screen but no touch capabilities. I was a little dubious since it was coming from Hong Kong, but the rating for the seller was 98%, so I took a shot. I was excited, even though it was supposedly going to take until mid-January to get to me.
Wednesday: I took Sis to the clinic so she could see the doctor again, since the cold she picked up from me two weeks ago was still raging. That was so not fun. I ordered my second thing from Amazon: a new set of sheets that I've been needing for about a year, since mine were literally falling apart.
Yesterday: After seeing Monica, I decided that I needed to stay out a little longer and spend the $50 gift card from Mom to buy a new bra. Yes, you heard me right, $50 only buys one for me. I went to Lane Bryant because I know they have ones big enough for my giant boobs. (Thanks to my grandmother and mother.) After being measured, I spent almost an hour trying the ones that the woman recommended. I had to try on thirteen before I found one that was decently comfortable and fit. I had two different women come in and, while standing in just my pants and whatever bra, figure out how best to find something that would fit and also be sorta comfortable. I worked up a sweat trying these things on. At one point, one of the women came to check on me. I was attempting to fasten one of the contraptions and groaned in frustration. She said, "are you okay in there?" Embarrassing. At least the woman that helped me the most complimented me by saying she figured I was maybe 25. It turns out that right now I'm a 42F. Yep. GIANT BOOBS. At least now I have a cute pink bra with straps that don't fall down and boobs that actually sit up where they're supposed to on my chest.
When I got home, I had two packages sitting on the doorstep! Amazon had sent both my sheets AND my iPod! OMG it's so awesome. My sheets, are FANTASTIC. They're microfiber, so they're super-soft and always cool to the touch. (Like satin, only about 1/4 of the price - literally, these were $15 for a full-size set.) And I'm so super-thrilled to be one of the people with an iPod now! It took a little while to figure it all out, but Apple does make it super-easy. Since it was a refurb, it didn't come with the user guide (but I have the exclusive white headphones and the usb adapter, thank God). I've used iTunes as my computer's music player forever, so I hoped syncing my Pod would be as easy as they say. When it didn't do what I thought it was supposed to do on first sync, I figured I'd have to hunt around the interwebs for the user guide. However, Apple, in their wisdom, put the user guides in the iTunes help menu! I was able to pull up the guide for my specific iPod, and learned how to import just the playlists I wanted. It's so awesome, I can't even tell you. Dude, the scroll wheel alone I love. It turns out I actually have more than 4GB of music in iTunes (and a little more after I spent a chunk of my gift certificate on more music).
This morning: I woke up at my brain's set wake-up time of 9:45. I don't know why that is, but whatever. My arms and shoulders hurt for some reason. I got my breakfast and when I came back upstairs it hit me: my arms and shoulders hurt because of the repetitive motion of trying on 13 different bras over and over again. How utterly lame is that? So I've decided that today is just going to be a restful reading day. Mom is actually off work today (though she has to work tomorrow since she traded New Years Day for Christmas), so she's making all of our traditional NYE foods: pecan-crusted brie, caviar, shrimp pinwheels (homemade shrimp dip cooked in a dough pocket), boursin cheese, and champagne. I'm so excited! Yum. She will be cooking our traditional good luck NYD foods later this evening: ham for progress in the new year, black-eyed peas for luck (in a Southern dish called Hoppin' John, which is black-eyed peas, rice, and bacon, if you're super-traditional about it), and collard greens for money. Yay! Tonight, we're going to watch a movie on-demand, Mom will go outside and watch the fireworks our neighbors shoot off (I don't go because fireworks too close to me scare me), and watch Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin horse around. I also hope that CNN shows a bit of the celebration down in Key West, since my friend Brant is part of the drag show there (his drag name is Porsche, and she's actually quite famous, including a co-host spot on Wanda Sykes's short-lived late night talk show).
So, to sum up this tl;dr post, I hope y'all have a safe and wonderful New Year's Eve, and best wishes for next year!