It's official.
My pumpkins from Halloween (the ones I didn't carve and have been meaning to bake up into something yummy) are officially dead. *sigh* I even found some good recipes last November for pumpkin puree, too... oh well. There's always next year, right? And now I can finally have that corner of my kitchen table back. Once I disinfect it. I haven't fully assessed the damage yet, but I probably ought to before it gets any worse.
I still haven't gotten our Rome pics converted into some format that makes them PICTURES, but there are a few I got off my own camera that will have to tide you over.
The Colosseum! And rhb and my father in law!
An arch thingy right next to the Colosseum! (taken from one of the balconies inside the C.)
Admiring the view of the floor of the Colosseum...
The chains of... one of the apostles... at one of the churches we visited. Sorry, that's about as specific as I remember. It's the church with Michaelangelo's Moses statue though.
In other news, since we got back I have been sick not once, but TWICE! Oh, how blessed am I! First a nasty stomach bug that had me wishing I was dead so that it would stop feeling like I was being stabbed in the gut periodically, interspersed with running to the bathroom 20 times a day, on my birthday no less. But I think that was just something I picked up to make me feel grateful that this week it's only a head cold. I can't wait to see what next week is like!
And trust me, next week should be good. I am working graveyard training a new person at work for two weeks starting next Monday. I hear that working nights wreaks all kinds of havoc on your immune system, so I should be in for a wild ride.
On a more uplifting note, I got an ice cream maker for my birthday! It's pretty sweet (pun intended) and I'm excited to try something besides vanilla, which was last week's "adventure". (Hey, I'm not gonna try a complicated mess my very first time. Keep it simple, that way if it turned out horrible I wouldn't have wasted tons of ingredients. It was, incidentally, quite delicious.) I also got an immersion blender (which I have yet to try out), Snapware storage containers (which I have been eying at Costco for months now), a new Fossil watch, and many new pairs of socks. And roses. Aside from being sick, it was a pretty good gift assortment.
I'm playing Dragon Quest IX on the DS right now. It's pretty addicting. It's also your standard JRPG. Complete with questionable translations: "You transgressed the quest with finesse!" and "benevolessence" (the stuff people drop when they are thankful). It also has some pretty awesome monster names: cruelcumber (looks like a cucumber with a pitchfork), crabid (rabid crab), and expload (really super fat toad that may or may not explode) are a few of my favorites so far. Not to mention at one point you fight a GIANT LIZARD that thinks he is HUMAN. I kid you not. He decides to believe you when you tell him he's still a lizard after he tries to kill you by breathing fire at you in battle. Pretty excellent stuff right here.
Anyway. That's about all you get tonight. I have some pumpkins to dispose of.
I still haven't gotten our Rome pics converted into some format that makes them PICTURES, but there are a few I got off my own camera that will have to tide you over.
The Colosseum! And rhb and my father in law!
An arch thingy right next to the Colosseum! (taken from one of the balconies inside the C.)
Admiring the view of the floor of the Colosseum...
The chains of... one of the apostles... at one of the churches we visited. Sorry, that's about as specific as I remember. It's the church with Michaelangelo's Moses statue though.
In other news, since we got back I have been sick not once, but TWICE! Oh, how blessed am I! First a nasty stomach bug that had me wishing I was dead so that it would stop feeling like I was being stabbed in the gut periodically, interspersed with running to the bathroom 20 times a day, on my birthday no less. But I think that was just something I picked up to make me feel grateful that this week it's only a head cold. I can't wait to see what next week is like!
And trust me, next week should be good. I am working graveyard training a new person at work for two weeks starting next Monday. I hear that working nights wreaks all kinds of havoc on your immune system, so I should be in for a wild ride.
On a more uplifting note, I got an ice cream maker for my birthday! It's pretty sweet (pun intended) and I'm excited to try something besides vanilla, which was last week's "adventure". (Hey, I'm not gonna try a complicated mess my very first time. Keep it simple, that way if it turned out horrible I wouldn't have wasted tons of ingredients. It was, incidentally, quite delicious.) I also got an immersion blender (which I have yet to try out), Snapware storage containers (which I have been eying at Costco for months now), a new Fossil watch, and many new pairs of socks. And roses. Aside from being sick, it was a pretty good gift assortment.
I'm playing Dragon Quest IX on the DS right now. It's pretty addicting. It's also your standard JRPG. Complete with questionable translations: "You transgressed the quest with finesse!" and "benevolessence" (the stuff people drop when they are thankful). It also has some pretty awesome monster names: cruelcumber (looks like a cucumber with a pitchfork), crabid (rabid crab), and expload (really super fat toad that may or may not explode) are a few of my favorites so far. Not to mention at one point you fight a GIANT LIZARD that thinks he is HUMAN. I kid you not. He decides to believe you when you tell him he's still a lizard after he tries to kill you by breathing fire at you in battle. Pretty excellent stuff right here.
Anyway. That's about all you get tonight. I have some pumpkins to dispose of.