Merry Between Days!

It's those dreaded days between holidays where I made the choice to work! Blech! Tomorrow I have an exciting day of office organization. Tis my annual punishment for being a filing slacker the rest of the year.

I had a good Christmas. On Christmas Eve my family gathers at my sister's house. It's usually about 4-5 hours of food, drink, gifts and merriment. A nice time had by all. My 3 rampaging nephews even loved their gifts from us this year. That was a nice feeling.

Christmas Eve we then headed to BIL's for Christmas with MIL. MIL is truly nuts. She tries to pretend she can be laid back and do "whatever" (this is a favorite word of hers), but it's really "whatever as long as it conforms to what I want." Pictures of her annual weirdo gifts are forthcoming. Also pics of my new tats. (by "my" I mean my stand mixer's) :-)

We had a few days at home and various outings with friends we don't see often. That's always a nice part of the holidays.

Chris got me fun gifts. Well, one was a nice new coffee pot (which was really a "household" thing, but I was making due with a crappy old $20 model after our Starbuck's brand one died). It has frontal access for water, so no need to move it out from under the cabinet to fill.

Next I got my favorite thing, an espresso/cappucino maker:

And a JCP gift card. I was whining about needing new shoes, but bought them out of necessity last week, so now I can find something else to buy!

EDITED TO ADD: Well, really I edited to fix the spacing, but I want to add that I think I'm going to chop my hair off. It needs a fresh start. This decision helped by Boo's snappy new do.

All done!

My MUST DO list at work is done. Yay! Now I can take off a little early and run errands in the snow. *grumble*

Now, for those of you that haven't been to OT lately, I give you "BlogSecret." It's like postsecret.com, but for my bloggy friends. :-) So, got any good secrets to tell us?

Silent Night, despite my agnostic ways, still makes me misty eyed.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and all to my bloggy friends. You were there for me through a rough start to 2008, and I'm glad you are part of my life. *smooch*

Igloo living

*shovels path into blog*

I really hate winter. Really, really hate it. I think we are at around 40" total this year. That's over a foot above last year at this time...and last year was a record setting year. Windchills are miserable. We've had to reinforce one of our garage doors. Never again will we build in WI with the garage doors facing the west. We are buying a big snow thrower for the lawn mower. We just can't keep trying to move this much snow with our blade.

Our flights were all cancelled on Friday, so we spent the day with airline personnel, then hopping around flights, with almost no chance of getting to Madison. Even though the waiting list from MSP to MSN on the last flight of the day was 34 people long, we still managed to get on. There were THAT many missed connections. I wandered into the house around 2 a.m. Yuck!

I'm done with my first set of master's classes. 4.00 semester-yay! I cleaned house in celebration. :-)

Oh, and on a fun note-I love all the Christmas cards I've been getting from peeps! Thank you!

WTF?

WTF...am I supposed to do tonight? I'm done working, I'm done with my schoolwork for the semester (head.hurts), and I'm in BFE, Texas. Well, it's got a mall and a movie theatre. Perhaps I should shop or see a movie tonight?

WTF...are a bunch of police officers doing sitting in Starbucks this morning, asking eachother things like, "What is offal?" I knew, but didn't tell them. I was more curious about what they are reading that would cause them to ask this.

WTF...How do you loose a bag in Atlanta when you don't change planes. I mean, I get how it could happen, but what are the chances?! It wasn't mine, but my bosses.

WTF...there's a Waffle House a block away yet there is free breakfast here at the hotel. When I'm at a hotel that DOESN'T have free breakfast, there's never a Waffle House. *pout* I can't justify waking up earlier to go to the Waffle House & paying, so I'll suffer. *dramatic pose*

WTF...Suzuki still makes cars?

THE week

This is my last horrendous week until mid-January-YAY!

My new list:

1) Write paper. I have ideas jotted down and notes organized from one book. Now for the other two I have to compare/contrast.

2) Texas should be warmer than here this week, at any rate. Our garage door was frozen shut this morning. MINUS 20 below with the windchill. Yuck! I hate wind!

3) Ali gets her staples out tomorrow. yay!

Look-it's shrinking!
Oh, and I have chili for lunch, so come to this blog in the afternoon at your own risk.

Owww-quit it!

I have a tiny zit on the inside of my ear. It's on that little middle part that goes from your face to your ear. Make it go away!

Makin a list

Everything is going well and I'm not super stressed, but I'm starting to get nervous about some major deadlines approaching. In order of deadlines:

December 12th: Last day to get sh!t done before boss returns. One thing will take most of a day. Guess I should get cracking.

December 13th: Need to finish book for school

December 14th: Need to draft paper in addition to bake Christmas cookies with Sis that day.

December 17th: Need to turn in final paper that's due on the 18th, but I'll be traveling.

December 24th: Need to have Christmas presents wrapped.

December 31st: Need to have that one last Christmas present bought.

Next week I also have to get Ali's staples out (and I'm only here three days). I had also invited friends for drinks/apps while they were around during the holidays, but nobody's getting back to me with details of dates they're available (even though they "loved" the idea when I brought it up). I'm not offering anymore at this point.

Oh, I forgot a date! Jan. 2nd-Date I start bugging Boo about the 2009 3 Day.

Watch me pull this out of my pants...

First an foremost, an Ali update. Her entire right hindquarter and leg are shaved. She has a 3" long incision, which is then pulled together and stapled with about 10 thick staples. She's leaving it alone thus far. She also has a spot shaved on her back and the pain patch there. And of course her front legs have some shaving for IV fluids and pain drip insertions. Her mouth looks normal from the outside at least from the teeth being pulled. And wow, her teeth look so much better.

I'm so proud of my strong little 11 year old kitty. She's bouncing back well, although she's a bit pissed about being kept isolated in the front bedroom. We brought her into the living room last night where we all hung out and watched TAR (yay Nick & Starr! *sticks tongue out at Boo*). 28 more days and she should be completely normal again and won't require our constant vigilance.

I'm taking off tomorrow to hang with Ali and brace for the snowstorm. I will probabably have to hop on the John Deere and plow the driveway. Yuck. Wednesday I have off to help Chris's work partner paint her living room (yuck-I don't have time for this).

Oh, right, the magician. He was really a magician, though a magician who was hoping to get laid. He was very good at what he does (magic, not getting laid). He did have tricks where he pulled "your card!, etc." out of his pants. However, he ended up drinking so much tequilla that nobody thought it was a good idea for him to drive. He continued to hit on half the women (only one probably would've had sex with him, but he didn't want her), but ended up being put to bed downstairs away from the ladies.

The slumber party itself was ok. Good food, good wine, too much disco dancing. I was the youngest there by 10 years (my sister and one other lady both being the next youngest). These ladies looked damn good though. Some said it was the Botox. Most of them were workout freaks and only worked part-time because their husbands had big fancy jobs.

Cats in Boots

If you listen to Sirius, you may know this the name of a band. They have nothing to do with my post, although when the name scrolls across my Sirius screen, I laugh.

1) Ali went to the vet this morning for her orthopedic surgery. They will shave her leg, so she'll look like she forgot to put a sock on. They have pain patches for pets now. How cool is that? We've (mostly "I've") been giving her 4 oral liquid meds each day, so she'll be glad to cut back on those. It makes me sad that she runs whenever she sees me now for fear of meds. She's 11, but there's very little risk to the surgery. Just will take awhile to recover.

ETA: She had two teeth pulled, too. I asked if they could do it now, as I've known for about two years one needed to be done and put it off. It was cheaper to do it now and less traumatic than two surgeries. Poor thing will be extra miserable, though, for about two days.

2) I was able to talk myself out of having to (from a legal standpoint) support plural marriage. Whew! It took a few cocktails and rambling to my husband for about an hour, but I was able to provide myself rationale for NOT supporting legalization of it. It's not that I think it's gross or a sin, I just think it's ripe for abuse and misogyny, not to mention all the complicated tax/benefit implications.

3) I'm going to a pajama party tonight. Since Ali is staying overnight at the vet, I didn't have to cancel. My sister's friend is hosting and I think it will be a blast. She's hired an "adult" magician. Interesting....

Can't Let Bob Beat Me.

No, I'm not preggers. I just noticed Bob had like four posts in the last few weeks, which might be more than I had. Our blogosphere is becoming unbalanced.

So, what's new with me?

1) I apparently DO like pecan pie. I just never liked the recipes with corn syrup bases. I tried making a different kind for Thanksgiving and it was great, although it took a lot of patience to melt the sugar.

2) My MIL. Sigh. One more holiday to get through this year.

3) Ali, my oldest cat, is going in for surgery on Friday. She tore a knee ligament. Very common in dogs, not so common in cats. It's basically because she's fat and fearless. Well, except she fears me giving her more meds. I have four times to give her liquid meds each day. At least the pain meds slow her down a little.

4) I like my new glasses, but miss my contacts.

5) I need a haircut soooo badly. It will be my first-semester-over present to myself in a few weeks.