brief Christmas 2008 update
holiday was good. we didn't get much "stuff," for which I am grateful.
Christmas Eve piano playing went well. I made a decent showing for myself, though certainly nowhere near perfect. still, it was good to just do it. after playing a couple songs, my nervousness decreased dramatically, as I suspected it would, and I was able to function like a fairly normal person. I did, however, completely massacre Oh Come, All Ye Faithful.
drove to Coralville after church to hang out with corvis7 and squigsoup at their house, at their very kind invitation. twas fun! petted their dog, got loaded up on all kinds of goodies, and chatted about such adult topics as Star Wars, Heroes, childhood cartoons, and other stuff. squigsoup wants everyone to watch Reaper(?), because it was renewed and is good and she wants it to get good ratings so it'll continue. we also got an inside look at the dilemmas of parents of multiple children RE presents and other Christmas type stuff. played Santa, then went home and made cheese soup before going to bed much too late.
volunteered at the greyhound kennel on Thursday morning. since we don't have kids and weren't visiting family, we offered to take over the shift for someone else if they wished. we got there a little later than we would generally like [too much boozing around with friends the night before], but the shift was generally quiet. there was a lot of soiled bedding, because the greys simply have a really long wait between the last evening turnout and the first morning one. Randy had diarrhea in his crate, possibly because he had had surgery and was on meds. poor guy.
Joe came over for dinner Thursday night, which we whipped together really quick after getting back from the kennel and crashing for a couple hours. while we were tidying for a dinner guest, David found the single present in our house, from Bryan, which we brought back from Ohio and put under the sewing table and forgot. opened it, and it was a new George Foreman grill! [David recalls me talking to Bryan about ours dying, but I don't remember that.] went to bed early-ish after Joe went home.
Friday, Jared stopped by to visit, which was really swell. Josh and Elizabeth also came up to visit, along with their dog Bella, and we played games and ate pizza. after J & E left, we put in one of the 80's B movies Jared brought, called The Time Guardian, with Dean Stockwell and Carrie Fisher in the supporting cast. it was... well, it was pretty bad. it was set in Australia, near an itty bitty dink town that seemed barely large enough to support even one police officer, but indeed somehow this tiny town of approximately 50 residents somehow could support three thuggish and abusive cops. the rest of the movie wasn't any better, but it did get more than a few laughs out of us.
Friday after Jared departed, we did holiday cards and letters. after we were done with the signing and the stuffing, I decided to also finish up [finally!] our anniversary party thank-you cards. many of our anniversary thank-you's were written back in August, but then set aside and never gotten back to. well, nothing like the end of the year looming to remind a person to get some things done, so that's what I done did.
Saturday... don't remember. oh. errands. and I made stöllen for the Chrisses and us. oh, and I made s'mores cookie bars. we watched TV for many hours while David worked on the computer and I sorted through our box of stuff to be filed. made a huge mess in the living room.
Sunday, I shoveled a lot. the snow was really dry and light and easy to shovel, so I ended up doing our front walk and sidewalk, then Joe's sidewalk, and on to Brent's sidewalk and around the corner. then I did part of our driveway and much of our neighbor's driveway across the alley. after all that, we went cross-country skiing. even if we never go again this year, at least we made it out one day. we were planning to ski on Saturday, but then all of our snow was gone Friday night after it rained much of the evening. geez. but then it snowed again, and though there wasn't much on the ground, there was just barely enough.
we also took the stöllen over to the Chrisses, but didn't stay long as they are both sick. invited them to dinner sometime in January. shopped for a show shovel, Christmas plates, and artificial trees. didn't get any of the above. came home, and David reorganized quite a lot. I helped a little. mostly I made beef pot pie for dinner with the leftover roast from Thursday.
stayed up much too late playing a video game while David continued to work on the computer, because I traditionally waste much to much time over the Christmas holiday playing video games and I hadn't done that yet.
Christmas Eve piano playing went well. I made a decent showing for myself, though certainly nowhere near perfect. still, it was good to just do it. after playing a couple songs, my nervousness decreased dramatically, as I suspected it would, and I was able to function like a fairly normal person. I did, however, completely massacre Oh Come, All Ye Faithful.
drove to Coralville after church to hang out with corvis7 and squigsoup at their house, at their very kind invitation. twas fun! petted their dog, got loaded up on all kinds of goodies, and chatted about such adult topics as Star Wars, Heroes, childhood cartoons, and other stuff. squigsoup wants everyone to watch Reaper(?), because it was renewed and is good and she wants it to get good ratings so it'll continue. we also got an inside look at the dilemmas of parents of multiple children RE presents and other Christmas type stuff. played Santa, then went home and made cheese soup before going to bed much too late.
volunteered at the greyhound kennel on Thursday morning. since we don't have kids and weren't visiting family, we offered to take over the shift for someone else if they wished. we got there a little later than we would generally like [too much boozing around with friends the night before], but the shift was generally quiet. there was a lot of soiled bedding, because the greys simply have a really long wait between the last evening turnout and the first morning one. Randy had diarrhea in his crate, possibly because he had had surgery and was on meds. poor guy.
Joe came over for dinner Thursday night, which we whipped together really quick after getting back from the kennel and crashing for a couple hours. while we were tidying for a dinner guest, David found the single present in our house, from Bryan, which we brought back from Ohio and put under the sewing table and forgot. opened it, and it was a new George Foreman grill! [David recalls me talking to Bryan about ours dying, but I don't remember that.] went to bed early-ish after Joe went home.
Friday, Jared stopped by to visit, which was really swell. Josh and Elizabeth also came up to visit, along with their dog Bella, and we played games and ate pizza. after J & E left, we put in one of the 80's B movies Jared brought, called The Time Guardian, with Dean Stockwell and Carrie Fisher in the supporting cast. it was... well, it was pretty bad. it was set in Australia, near an itty bitty dink town that seemed barely large enough to support even one police officer, but indeed somehow this tiny town of approximately 50 residents somehow could support three thuggish and abusive cops. the rest of the movie wasn't any better, but it did get more than a few laughs out of us.
Friday after Jared departed, we did holiday cards and letters. after we were done with the signing and the stuffing, I decided to also finish up [finally!] our anniversary party thank-you cards. many of our anniversary thank-you's were written back in August, but then set aside and never gotten back to. well, nothing like the end of the year looming to remind a person to get some things done, so that's what I done did.
Saturday... don't remember. oh. errands. and I made stöllen for the Chrisses and us. oh, and I made s'mores cookie bars. we watched TV for many hours while David worked on the computer and I sorted through our box of stuff to be filed. made a huge mess in the living room.
Sunday, I shoveled a lot. the snow was really dry and light and easy to shovel, so I ended up doing our front walk and sidewalk, then Joe's sidewalk, and on to Brent's sidewalk and around the corner. then I did part of our driveway and much of our neighbor's driveway across the alley. after all that, we went cross-country skiing. even if we never go again this year, at least we made it out one day. we were planning to ski on Saturday, but then all of our snow was gone Friday night after it rained much of the evening. geez. but then it snowed again, and though there wasn't much on the ground, there was just barely enough.
we also took the stöllen over to the Chrisses, but didn't stay long as they are both sick. invited them to dinner sometime in January. shopped for a show shovel, Christmas plates, and artificial trees. didn't get any of the above. came home, and David reorganized quite a lot. I helped a little. mostly I made beef pot pie for dinner with the leftover roast from Thursday.
stayed up much too late playing a video game while David continued to work on the computer, because I traditionally waste much to much time over the Christmas holiday playing video games and I hadn't done that yet.