December 20th through 26th: Firmly in the holiday season
Well. like I already said, the snow melted fairly quickly so I was taking advantage of the cold to stay indoors, read the manga I got in the suvudu.com contest, and generally try to stay warm. On Sunday or Monday we went to the used bookstore where I sold the manga and got a gift card to it for Sam. I'd already gotten chocolate for Ted, my brother and I need to pay back my dad for the Rosemary bush he got for my mom (do you guys have idea how hard that is to hide in a room? SERIOUSLY difficult, and I swear rosemary must be related to catnip since Midnight came in as soon as I smuggled it in and stayed there all afternoon), still need to get her a Christmas present, and my brother and I got my dad a water bottle and a cheese and sausage set. Oh and I got a hat! I didn't have any hats in Boone (which ended in me wearing the knitted head warmer that the president of the knitting club made for about a month straight) but I now have this very cool, Incan-ish looking hat that I love. It actually makes a good still life when I put it on top of my dad's camera bag, since I'm taking a black and white film photography class next semester my dad is lending me his old (super heavy) 35mm. Not looking forward to trying to develop this stuff, I don't know if I was bad at developing in high school or just bad at taking pinhole camera photos but this could bode ill. It's a required class though.... Also got my Romeo x Juliet sets and the first Spice and Wolf novel. It was funny, they shipped separately but due to the bad weather they both came in at the same time. And I thought the smaller box was the novel but nope, that was really economical packaging of the DVD cases and the novel had a ton of paper cushioning it (which Midnight liked). And thankfully the slipcover was already on that one, I just don't know what Yen Press was going for with that new cover....
So, hmm, I'll just skip ahead to Wednesday then since that's when the excitement really started. My dad was taking us up to Maryland that day so I got up earlier than usual and had resisted the urge to turn on my computer during breakfast so I would be on time. I had some time before we left however so I decided to turn on my computer so I could try to watch the latest episode of Kobato before I headed off. My computer. Would not. Turn on.
AT ALL.
Well, it would get to the gray background and grey Apple screen that showed it was loading but then it would freeze. I couldn't even figure out how to turn it off so I had to grab a penny and manually remove the battery. Ted loaned me his "manual that should've been in the box," I had some frustrated tears since this would make recovering the part of my NaNo I had been editing, and then just had to pack up my bag and go. I had been planning on brining the first Romeo x Juliet pack with me but, since there was no guarantee I would get my computer working over the break at all, I left it at home and decided it was safer there.
We got stuck in a bad traffic jam right before the 301 bridge over the Potomac, for some reason there was road work going on and, even though it ended before we got there, the backup was already started, and we were in the same place for 20 minutes at one point. It was just bad, my mom, who had been traveling on her own behind us, went over later and then heard from her folks that right after she went over there was an accident with a truck and a car on the bridge and it was closed down. Not good at all, there are very few bridges over the Potomac, this one is over a mile long and only one lane in each direction but it's the best one for us to take.
But there was one benefit and it did give me time to read through the manual and come up with a few things to fix my laptop. I did fix it after dinner (we went out to Mike's with my grandmother as per normal, but they were out of clam cowder so I had to have crab soup instead, bleh) though. I just had to hit a few keys while it was booting up, enter single user mode (ie the old black screen, white text, no mouse mode), type in a code to repair the disk drive that also overrode the journaling feature (which says that you shouldn't need to do this), and then everything seemed to work fine. Weird but I'm happy about it. Less amused that my grandmother has wifi but didn't know the password and we couldn't find it at all (although next time I'll try out the name of the server/hotspot/THING as the password as well).
So that was the 23rd and my dad's family always gets together on the 24th for Christmas Eve dinner. But, before this and not a tradition, we went to visit my Grand Aunt Elieen whose a sister at the Carmalite Monastery in MD. I was pretty uncomfortable the whole time, 'course when the first thing she said to me was "I thought you would be skinner/really skinny" (?!?!?!? WTF?!?!?!? NO ONE can figure out what she meant there) that's not a great sign. But after that we went to one of my cousin's houses for the party and that was a bit more enjoyable. I've never liked my dad's family as much as my mom's (which probably comes from my inability to tell my uncles and my male cousins apart, seriously, I just can't remember who is who) and none of them are really close to me in age or interests. Hell, one of my cousins, whose SEVEN years younger than me, is probably the one who I'm growing closest to.
But anyway, I was a good guest and did a lot of help out in the kitchen (and that was a fine kitchen, just sayin') and the Chinese Auction was fun too (and didn't take 3 hours!).
I got a lowish number which worried me, although then people started talking about limits on steals and such which would make it better for the lower numbers, but yeah, that never turned out. XD My cousin Patrick drew one and for his gift, whaydya know, he got the pink snuggie+popcorn+chocolates my dad had brought. XD There were two other snuggies that night too (both leopard print) and my dad was annoyed that they didn't come with more stuff too. Then again, considering he ended up with one that might be why. Sam ended up with some ipod speakers (which are now a part of his "man cave" under his loft), but for my first gift I choose one with three boxes. First one, beer glass, second package is the same size as the first. You can see where this was going. XD I had trouble actually getting people to get the alcohol, I didn't even want the dang stuff! But I finally got it stolen and opened up a second gift, a set of 26 Craftsman screwdrivers. HECK YE-AH! And let it be known, my uncle, who will not hesitate to steal from anyone else, actually backed down when I hugged them and went "MMMEEEHHHHH?" over it. Sam is jealous over them~ And everyone was asking me "So what are you going to do with them?" "BUILD STUFF." What else of course? So I was actually pretty pleased with that when we finally got going back for the night. We then had our own little gift giving back at my grandmother's place. Got a number of things, but I loved the shirt my dad got me "If you don't talk to your cat about catnip who will?" I NEED to get a photo with Midnight and that shirt. XD
The next morning my dad took Sam and I down to where my grandparent's farm is for my mom's family's party and to stay with them for the rest of the trip. Some of them were still asleep when we came over, some being my female cousins who I saw pretty rarely. I'd seen the youngest last summer, the middle one two years back, but I hadn't seen my older cousin in almost three years so that was odd. They're all changed too, become much more inclusive and, I like them but, it's really hard to hang out with them.
So, since my former military uncle (dad to the three girls) is really big on the church thing, he and my mom along with Sam, Sarah (the oldest who had only come in last night), and I all headed off for the noon mass. Wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected but hell, that was way too much incense! There was so much Frankencense in the air that I was trying my hardest not to have a coughing fit, my cousin was close to being sick, and my uncle, a former serving boy, said he had never seen so much used. Why is God a smoker... should also note that this was the first time since my graduation that I had been to mass I believe. It just felt weird, I don't think I'm that religious at all. Sure I think there may be a higher power (or multiple ones) but spending a solid hour praising it? Passss.
Went back, opened up the few presents on that side (between y'all and me, I think my other side of the family cheated by using my cousin's Hallmark discount to buy ornaments for everyone. Really, my mom and I spent a while looking for nice clothes for the three girls, which they all liked too, go me, and all I get is a teeny ornament?), I really liked that my brother got me the second Morbito book (even though I had said it was a book I wanted XD ) and my mom got me a rolling duffle bag! Gotta try it out soon and see if it's big enough or if we need to send it back and get a larger one. Just not sure about that, the gray bag that I'm used to holds a lot of stuff so it's got stiff competition. And since it just easier to show what I got, here's a picture:
My dad also wanted to get me a thicker winter jacket but honestly I have my long green one and my old purple one, I don't mind that it's a little short in the sleeves. Course now he wants to get me something else to make up for it but there just isn't anything else I want/need. Well, a grommetor, but I'm not even sure of the American word for it, eyeleter? so I was going to track that down on my own since my mom forgot about that. Was actually sad about that one since I was hoping to finish up two cosplays over the break with it...
Other peeps came later and it was fairly crowded even though it was only immediate family. Some of us wanted to go sledding (including moi) but, ehhhhh, my family is hard to get moving sometimes. I really should've have just gone "Okay, I'm changing and leaving you guys, see you in a few hours" since the snow really melted so fast that I couldn't go sledding the next day which sucked. So great, now I have issues with both sides of my family, this can only end well....
Boxing day was laid back, was staying at my cousins Stephen and David's house so I played on the Wii, watched a bit of the xbox playing, read a ton of Sherlock Holmes and some of Spice and Wolf, and talked some. Nothing Earth shattering here, move along....
Gah, not going to get the last entry in by midnight, I'm just too wiped from all the typing. So signing off, gonna light off the fireworks in half an hour, and a happy new year to y'all.