...to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and my niece's 13th birthday. It was very, very nice. It's only when I go home that I realize how much I miss my family. I need to find more time to go back to Knoxville this summer. My folks are getting old, and my niece and nephew are growing up, and I'm 150 miles away and missing out on so ( Read more... )

I have gone through every paper and file on my desk and filed some, closed some, prioritized the rest. I have checked every open file to make sure no one has a due date coming up, and I have cleaned off my desk, my side table, and my office floor ( Read more... )

So, my Saturday of being a doting auntie worked out pretty well. I took the kids to see "The Lightning Thief", which Andrew watched spellbound and for which Mariann did running commentary and then an ad nauseum post-movie critique about how they changed the story from the book and how they left out the best stuff, like Ares and the prophesy and ( Read more... )

...and it turns out my niece was staying the night, so we talked about "Eldest" and "Brisingr" (she loves that series with the passion that a girl always brings to her first dragon books) and about "The Lightning Thief" movie, to which I am going to take her and her brother on Saturday ( Read more... )

For Christmas, I was given a big, fleecy, very red housecoat by my brother and his children. My niece Mariann helped pick it out, along with the red/white polka dot rainboots that I got from my mother for Christmas. When I initially opened the box, I looked at that housecoat, sighed inwardly, and thought it was awfully bulky and would make me ( Read more... )

...as I have knocked out about half of my remaining Christmas shopping tonight. I went to Target, Dick's Sporting Goods, T.J. Maxx, Home Goods, and BAM! I have finished all of Joe's shopping, most of Mother's shopping, half of Mariann's shopping, and just barely made a dent in Andrew's shopping. (Target failed me and did not have the Lego set ( Read more... )

Mariann mentioned the Potter Puppet Pals on YouTube when we were at the football game. Of course, she, being a huge fan of Harry Potter, absolutely loved them. So I, being a devoted auntie, went looking for these mysterious Potter Puppet Pals. And lo, I found this:

Click to view

All these peoole, bombarding me with friends requests. With a few exceptions, I hardly remember them from high school. That was over 30 years ago, you know. I have slept since then ( Read more... )

Mariann has now become fully aware of the complete and utter Star Trek geek that her Aunt Min is. When she showed me her new cellphone today while I was in Knoxville, I showed her my cellphone with the Enterprise wallpaper and the TOS theme song ring tone ( Read more... )

May God have mercy on my soul.

What can I say? At Christmas, I promised my eleven-year-old niece Mariann that I would preview the book to make sure that it's age appropriate, because she is just dying to read it. That's what good aunties do. Right? Right????Sigh ( Read more... )