The Holidays

The holidays here were a pretty cool affair all around. Christmas Eve night, D and I got together at his parent's house with two of his brothers for massive amounts of food. There was homemade spinach dip, sausage balls (which we made), chicken salad, potato salad, crescent rolls, various crackers and other breads, fruit salad, and a chocolate cheese ball (think chocolate cheesecake shaped into a ball, rolled in tiny pieces of nut, with dark chocolate chips in it).

Obviously, I ate WAY too much.

Then Christmas morning, people got together again for a breakfast of biscuits and gravy, but D and I hadn't slept well so we skipped that part.

Later, everyone showed up for even more food and presents opening. We had chicken casserole, broccoli cheese casserole, ham, rolls, potato salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green beans, and glazed carrots (from my mom's Carrots Supreme recipe). Most people liked the carrots well enough, but I think it was quite different from anything they'd ever had. One of D's brother really liked them, but there were still quite a bit left over so I'm happy. I make those a meal in and of themselves. :-)

Again...I ate WAY too much. :-)

After food was stockings for the adults and presents for the kids. I got three new nail polishes, some Lindor chocolate truffles (yummy!), a new nail file, some baggy clips, a coupon holder, and some new, very pretty disposable razors.

D got one of those long clicky lighters, some beef jerky, some sharpies, and a couple other things I'm not remembering.

He and I were responsible for putting together his mom's stocking, which was oh so much fun. We got her some lotions, hand sanitizer bottles, a bag each of honey roasted almonds, cashews and a cheddar sesame trail mix, and then the day before I had made a batch of peppermint bark so we gave her two ziploc baggies full of that.

Later on in the evening, while everyone was getting ready to disperse, I ended up going back inside. D's mom had made (and don't ask me why they're called this...) diapers. They're basically ground beef and cream cheese wrapped with a kind of crescent roll-type bread and baked in the oven. Not too keen on the name, but they are oh so delish! I also got loaded down with tons of leftovers.

In other, but similar news... D and I kind of had our own Christmas a bit early. I want to say it was maybe Monday or Tuesday that we ended up picking up a check from one of his clients. He took me to Burlington Coat Factory and got me this incredibly plush houserobe (bathrobe for all you Yankees). It's dark blue and very thick and soft. I love it! Plus, we got it on sale at $20 marked down from $60. What was even cooler is that later that day, my present for him came in the mail. Being unemployed has its downsides, like not having any money to spend on anyone, but I found a way around that. I've been doing surveys for a couple different websites and one of the sites offers points for rewards. Those points can be spent at their site for different prizes from cds, books, and dvds to small appliances and kitchen gadgets. So, I used the points I had built up to get him The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy dvds. Unfortunately I didn't have enough to get the third one, but maybe it'll end up being an early birthday present or something.

Ciao y'all. Gotta go finish my coffee.

*sigh*

Well, I didn't hit 50,000 words by the Nov. 30th deadline. I did however get around 40,000. The story isn't finished, but I decided to take a few days off before continuing the writing.

The suck part is that I probably would've been able to get the 50,000 if not for other intrusions. I ended up taking a couple days off early on, but I had been ahead of my word count goal so it wasn't too big of a deal to catch up. But, then D and I got calls for three projects (one of which was a 3 hour round trip drive) that were all done in the space of about a week and a half. On top of that, close to the third week of November, my computer started acting all wonky; running really slow, internet not wanting to work right, email totally shut down, etc. All that pretty much kept me from writing more than a couple hundred words for five days straight. If I hadn't gotten up at 3am a couple mornings towards the end, I wouldn't have even gotten that 40,000 mark.

Oh well, there's always next year. And yes, I still am planning on finishing the story.

Epic updateness and such

So Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I kind of got bit by the procrastination bug. Seeing as I was a little over a day ahead on Friday, it wasn't incredibly terrible. But, by Saturday, I was behind nearly 600 words and I didn't write at all that day. I got about 1000 words written on Sunday, but it still turned out that by today, I was behind nearly a day and a half.

Thankfully, because D is such an understanding sweety (plus he had some work of his own to get done this morning), he mostly left me to my own devices. I am, as of now, 101 words ahead of my minimum word count for today. That rounds out to 15,104 words I've cranked out since November 1st. Yay me! :-)

In other news, last month I had applied for a job at the Knoxville Zoo. It was for a bird keeper position and I thought I had a really good shot at getting it. Unfortunately, I received an email notification thanking me for applying, but they decided to go with a more qualified candidate. Grrr! I also re-applied (for the third time) to Walmart and am coming up on my third time to apply at Food City. In looking at the calendar I realize that I could have actually applied two days ago. Where in the world did the days go? Anyway, I'm a little too burned out mentally right now so I'll probably end up doing that tomorrow.

As far as woodcutting goes...I'm not sure if I've mentioned that here or just on facebook. D and I finally got our first two loads of wood split down to fit the wood burning stove. We thought we were jinxed for a while. The first time we tried, the demonstrator his dad hooked up first broke down (blew a hole in the oil tank) and then the second lawn tractor with the same hook up for the wood splitter wouldn't start. His dad got them both fixed so we hooked up the lawn tractor today and it blew its oil tank. But, we were still able to hook up the demonstrator and get all the wood split. We now have a nearly 4ft. high 15ft. long stack of wood. D figures that if we can get through the rest of November without having to use heat that the amount of wood we have will most likely get us through December. That means we'll probably be out cutting more wood tomorrow.

Hmm...if I could write in my story as much as I've written here, I'd probably be a day ahead again. Oh well...my brain is now mush. :-p

Ciao y'all

Word count so far

So I'm officially at a 3,850 words of a 50,000 word count. I'm too lazy to figure out how to put a word count bar on here or facebook so as I feel like it I'll update the word count manually.





Technically, if I were to just do the minimum word count each day, I'd be at 3,334 so that means I'm ahead of my daily goal by about 500 words.





D is being tremendously understanding...although (while he's listening to music on the surround sound that is echoing tremendously around the room even through my ear plugs) I'm waiting for him to go to sleep so I can write some more.





I think I'm gonna go fix some food and then drink some coffee. We might go cut wood tomorrow (though I doubt it), but other than that, the only work scheduled that I'm taking part in doesn't happen until Wednesday.





All hail NaNoWriMo!!!!!!! hehe

2 Days

So there are two days before NaNo officially starts. I'm quite anxious and excited.

I've been reading posts on the website and there's one where people talk about the "reward" they'll give themselves if they complete the 50,000 word mark. I know we won't really have the money, but if we did...

My reward would be tickets to the Twilight: New Moon movie. It comes out on November 20th. Ideally I'd like to see it opening night, but it'd be so crazy crowded.

Technically, people can only enter a word count for NaNo between Nov. 25-30. If I could make that 50,000 word count goal and I had the money, I would soooo reward myself with Twilight movie tickets.

Anyway...only two more days...I feel unprepared, but I think I'll do well. I'M EXCITED!!!!!

Update on NaNo

Less than a month to go until the writing frenzy starts. I'm definitely feeling the time crunch, but not terribly worried. I'm officially done with outlines for my main characters, plus a few minor ones. I should still do a few more race outlines, but I've gotten a fairly good idea in my head of how things are set up with the different cultures so I'm crossing my fingers that I won't get stuck when I actually introduce them into the storyline.

Even more so than race outlines, I really should get together some kind of map (however vague it may be) so I can at least keep the places and directions straight.

If you can't tell, this post is somewhat of a procrastination tactic so I'd better get back to it.

Ciao

Trick or Treat 2009

Here's a cool link for a Halloween contest-type thing.

No comments:

Going crazy? Maybe just a little bit.

So we're at 67 days and counting until November 1st. For those that haven't read my previous post, you'll have no clue what I'm talking about here.

Anyway, even though I still have two months, I had a momentary freak-out yesterday at how much I still have to do to round out preparations for my story.

Yesterday afternoon when D and I got home, I started looking around online for a few more character/race names. It wasn't long before we were discussing one race in particular. Now mind you, I didn't have more than a vague idea of them in my head to start with, but D informed me that, with what I did have in mind, it'd probably be a good idea to have something more concrete (strenghts, weaknesses, etc). It turned out to be a good thing because not only did it make me think more about them, it gave me some more story-line. He even made a list of a few different things the race could be called and I've finally given the little critters a name.

That's not what put me in panic mode, though.

We continued talking and he asked the question, "So, have you decided where the story is going? Why the characters are undertaking this journey in the first place?" Um...well...kind of. So I had to think about that, too. I finally came up with the thought of creating a place that people think is a myth; just a bedtime story, and that my characters are trying to find it. There's a lot more to it than that, but I don't wanna get too much into detail yet.

I wrote down a few ideas and D continued tossing questions out there.

The basic beginning premise of my story is there's a 16 year old girl (my top main character), who gets pregnant, shipped off to live with her grandmother, and somehow gets transported to this magical realm. D and I began talking about the ages and experience of the girl's guardians once she's transported and I realized that they need to be older than what I originally thought them as. That meant that the girl needed to be older, which meant that I couldn't use the whole 'shipped of to grandma' idea. And that, ladies and gentlemen is when I realized that I needed to totally and completely rework my beginning. Which, in turn, led to a momentary, panicky breakdown. On one hand I was kind of purposely being overdramatic and it was kind of funny, but on the other I was thinking, "oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!" But, no harm done. I already had an idea for a different story using a chick in her early 20s so I'll just rework the idea a little and use that.

I realize, though, that I really really REALLY need to do a character outline on her.

Well, D is doing calculations on his computer for a job we're going out on later today and I think we're gonna mow today, too so I should probably use this time that he's busy to do some outlining.

Let the insanity begin anew!

NaNoWriMo is feasting on my soul

Okay, well that might be a little too dramatic, but it's taking up a lot of my focus at present.

So, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It doesn't start until midnight of November 1st and it ends at 11:59 pm on November 30th, but I'm quite occupied with character outlines, story outlines, plot ideas, etc. I've even gotten this nifty Web Badge to post here.

The point of NaNo is to write at least 50,000 words in thirty days. It's not really a contest per se, no prizes or anything, though I think if you complete the 50,000 word requirement you get a nifty pdf certificate. People mainly do it for fun, for the challenge, and some already published writers do it to spark creativity for a new book.

I think I have a pretty good idea of the main plot of the story, but the little things are driving me to the beginnings of insanity. Thankfully I still have a little over two months to finalize outlines and think up more mini plots, characters, events, blah blah blah. I'm already ping ponging back and forth between extreme excitement and "what the crap did I get myself into?"

D is being quite the good sport about it all; even going so far as to give me a few fresh ideas that I can use. We've also been doing a sort of exercise for each other (D is a really good writer, too). We take four basic perameters (Object, Environment, Character, and Mood) and then spend half an hour to an hour writing a story. Mainly it's just something to get the creative juices flowing.


The first time I wrote a story from a kitty's perspective on moving to a new house. I haven't done any real editing on it, but it's about 1,500 words from beginning to end.

So, yeah. Pretty much my whole thought process for the next couple of months is going to be centered around writing and what I might be able to cram into this story idea of mine.


As far as the job thing goes...still haven't heard anything from either Walmart or Food City. I think D and I are headed out on a job in about a week or so and we've gotten a lead on another potential job. We've worked for the guy before and he's a total jerk, but we need the work.
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Is it November yet?

Morning wake-up post

So far I've been awake for about an hour and a half and had three cups of coffee, but I still feel like if I crawled back into bed I'd be asleep within minutes. I did wake up a few times during the night, but was able to get back to sleep fairly quick...still woke up not feeling very rested.

Thankfully my back was less sore this morning than I anticipated. Yesterday D and I went out on a rather intense job, in the woods, where I had to tote around nearly 40 lbs. of weight for an hour in 90 degree heat. I was carrying a machete (strapped on my belt), and a bag that had 6 wooden stakes, 6 2 ft. pieces of rebar, and a 4 lb. hammer (to drive the rebar into the ground). So, while my lower back wasn't nearly as hurty this morning, my shoulders and upper back are a little tight.

On a up-side, I got to actually use the machete yesterday. The way D does his work, he needs clear line of sight between where he stands and where his instrument is set up so that means if there are branches and things in the way, they need to be cut down. D is definitely much more experienced at machete work so he did most of it, but I got to do a little. Let me just say that birch trees are one of the hardest to cut. By the time I got four branches cut that were about as thick around and two thumbs, he'd already finished the rest of the line. It was still fun, though. The only other times I've gotten to use the machete were to clear a short line where there were a few thin branches and really tall weeds and then to clear some branches and bushes out around a property corner.

In other news, the job situation is still unchanged. I had applied at a zoo near here, Food City, and Walmart. The zoo didn't have any openings that I was qualified for unfortunately. I would've really liked to work there. Walmart said they might have some openings later this month and when I called Food City to check on my application, the store manager was on vacation, but the lady I talked to was assistant store manager I guess and said when he got back she'd talk to him about any openings and they'd call me if there was something. So I'll hopefully hear from them sometime this week. *fingers crossed*

I'm really hoping things are gonna start cooling off here weather-wise. Granted it's only been hitting in the high 80s to low 90s so far, but it's been crazy humid. I'll be surprised if we don't break 100 degrees by the end of the month.

Once D and I get done with another job coming up in a few days, we'll probably end up taking the truck up the ridge at the back of his dad's property to get started on cutting wood for this winter to use in the wood-burning stove downstairs. It'll save a lot more money on the energy bill if we use it. I'd like it to be a little cooler when we do it, but the sooner it gets done the better.

Well, time to check on laundry.

Ciao

Harper's Island

The title of the post is a show D and I have been watching off and on for the past couple weeks or so. I think, considering what happens, it was more of a short story than an actual tv series.

Lemme just say...it was quite icky!

It's about a guy and girl going back to an island to get married where the guy spent summers as a kid. Murders start happening again (7 years after a previous rampage of murders).

I don't wanna give away the ending, but it's definitely trippy.

I think we spent the whole series, up until the last few episodes, saying who the killer was. You don't end up knowing until the last few episodes. And, like I said...it's icky. Not for the squeamish and not for those prone to violence. Lots of blood and gore...made me jump a few times.

There's one time (I think the second to last episode) that I yelped/sqealed and made D jump. I would've been more scared if I hadn't been so amused that he jumped. *grins*

But, also, just like a typical horror movie...the people in it are quite stupid.

"Let's go into the dark scary tunnels where the killer is...our friends are there and we can help" ... (like it worked so well last time)

"Let's split up...we can cover more ground." (Like the last time you did that and someone got killed.)

At the end, I think D and I were both glad it was over, but it was fairly entertaining.


On another note...we got two new movies on Netflix. One was League of Extraordiary Gentlemen (I think my folks had that on dvd and I've watched it a few times) and the other was The Departed with Matt Damon, Leonardo Decaprio (sp?), and Mark Whalberg (sp?). The latter was a fairly good movie. Quite long at about 2 1/2 hours, but really good. Gory and lot's of people getting shot in the head, though (mafia movie).

Anyway...as far as other things...I've put in job applications at Food City, Kroger, Walmart, Smoky Mountain Wine and Liquor, and the Knox County Zoo. Hopefully something will pan out.

*fingers crossed*

Yesterday

Well, Father's Day here went fairly well. D and I went in the house a couple hours early to help put food stuffs together. He helped cut up vegetables for salad, mash taters, and made gravy while I made hot fudge (for dessert).

We had pork chops that started seared on the grill and then finished in the oven. While they weren't as spiced up as how D and I make ours, they were very tender. We also had mashed taters, corn, green beans, potato salad, rolls, and regular salad.

By the time I got around to the regular salad I didn't have anymore space on my plate (I'm sure you peeps know what that's like) so I had intentions of getting some on the second go 'round, but was way too full.

For dessert there was hot fudge cake (two 1in. slices of chocolate cake with about an inch or so of vanilla ice cream in the middle, with hot fudge poured on top). It was made for D's birthday in April and it is oh so good, but this time was made for one of D's brother's birthdays that we were also celebrating yesterday. I decided though that no matter how good it tasted, that this time I just didn't need those extra calories. Besides, I'm sure it's not the last time it'll get made.

In other news, it has been so freakin' unbearably humid here. The overall temperature hasn't been too bad (high 80s to mid 90s), but with between 75%-85% humidity. But, it's raining pretty hard now so hopefully that's gonna cool things down soon.

p.s. message to my momma...I got the last package you sent. Thanks for the cd and the rings...and those other things. :-)

Dinner last night

This was another of those $2.50 whole chickens D and I got at the grocery store. Unfortunately, we didn't have anymore stuffing so D made a rub of various spices and smeared all over underneath the skin and then on top of the skin as well. We also cut up onions to stuff under the skin. After that, we cut up about four potatoes to put around the chicken and half a bag or so of baby carrots. The green stuff on the veggies is fresh parsley.

It was absolutely perfect. We both could've eaten it until we hurt, but we were good kids. What we didn't eat mostly got put in a container and frozen for another day, puppy got most of the skin and some other bits and pieces, and then the bones and such got put into a gallon ziploc baggie for making chicken stock (our third bag by the way). :-)

I think it's been 4 months since we started collecting bits of things for making the stock. We've been watching the Food Network and it seems a lot of the chefs make their own stock. The contents of our bags vary from chicken leavings/bones, the necks of the chickens we've used, onion leavings (skin and roots included), green onion leftovers, cabbage parts, pieces of parsley stems, and some of the chicken broth that's settled into the bottom of the dish after baking it. It'll definitely be an experiment, but I'm optimistic about it.

1st camping trip

Now that something interesting has actually happened, I feel like I've got something to blog about.

I'll get to the main topic in a second, but first let me say that I had one of the worst scares in a long while last Thursday through Sunday. My cat, Calli has been getting a little more adventurous as she's gotten older (she's about a year and a half old now.) It used to be that she'd never go outside and then it was only if D or I were outside. Finally, she started going out on her own, but would always be close to the deck.

So, Wednesday night we left the door open a crack so she could come and go. We woke up Thurs. morning...no Calli. She usually wakes us up at some point during the night and then yowls her head off for food in the morning, but she was nowhere to be found.

D and I decided that, even if she didn't show up by Friday (when we were leaving to go camping) that we'd still go and ask his sister-in-law to keep an eye out for her. Well, she didn't show up. There's been coyote sightings around here for the past month or so and I figured that if she wasn't home when we got back that most likely she'd had a run-in with them. Honestly, I was worried sick, but tried to stay positive so as to still have fun camping.

Good news was, on the way home Sunday, I got a text message saying that the sis-in-law has spotted her on Saturday, but she'd run back into the woods. By the time we got back around 3pm Sun. our little critter was waiting for us on the deck. She was a little dirtier and quite a bit terrified, but all in one piece. I think she hid under the bed for about 5 hours that day, but it wasn't too long until she was back outside. :-)

Now, on to the main event. D and I took our first camping trip of the year last weekend. It was a blast to say the least.

We got to Citico Creek (think I've posted a couple pictures from there on my Flickr site) around 2:15pm Fri. It only took us about a half hour to unload the truck and set up the tent. We kinda lounged around for a little while and went off to collect more wood. We'd brought some with, but not near enough for the whole weekend since we've got to fit wood, supplies, and the puppy in the truck.

Our first meal that night was typical camping fare (hamburgers), but we'd also brought along a little something for the next day that was going to be a total experiment. What we brought for Saturday night was a whole 5lb. chicken. Yep...that's right. And I'm still kicking myself for forgetting my camera.

Picture two long sticks tied in crosses on either side of the fire with a long stick wedged on top. Basically a homemade camping rotisserie. We brought a box of stuffing mix and made it with a little less water than called for so it would be stickier and then we stuffed (no pun intended) the stuffing under the skin of the chicken and then sliced up onions to put in there also.

We realized after that we needed to have the fire hotter because we started it at about 3:20pm and it wasn't done until a little after 11pm. But my...oh...my was it tasty!!!

The grocery store here had the chickens on sale for around $2.50 a bird so we got 6-7 of them and have cooked 2 so far.

In thinking back on it, we really didn't do a whole lot except forage for wood, eat, and do a whole LOT of relaxing. It was very nice to get away from all the everyday stress.

Oh, I did however get to learn how to use a chainsaw. I can almost see my mom cringing at that thought. Saturday afternoon D and I went on another wood gathering trip and found a felled tree that he cut in 3-4ft long sections just to be able to haul it back to the camp site. When we got back, he pulled them out so they were hanging over the tailgate and then had me hold the end inside the truck while watching him cut it. He did two of the four logs and then...*gulp*...it was my turn. It was actually easier than I thought. And yes, mom, I still have all my limbs where they're supposed to be. hehe

As fun as it was, we were naturally exhausted when we got back. It's close to a 2 hour drive each way with most of it being busy highway (what we affectionately call the Alcoa Motor Speedway).

I think I slept for 10 hours Sunday night. Thankfully, the two jobs we've got going on right now weren't going to be ready until Tuesday so we got a day of recuperation.

We've got another trip tentatively planned for sometime next month with at least one, but possibly two other couples and D and those two guys might end up taking a boys only trip at some point this year.

I guess there's not a lot else to report besides our latest camping trip.

I'm missing my folks like crazy and wanting to make a short visit, but it's just not financially feasible right now...especially with the sucky economy.

I've gotten a couple applications out...one for the Knoxville Zoo so here's hopin'. *crosses fingers*


Until something else of note happens,
Ciao

Becuase I forgot

I meant to post this awhile ago, but I forgot.

Our second and biggest snow of the year:

It dropped about 5 inches or so and actually stuck around for almost a week. I was jazzed. Unfortunately, the only other time it snowed it was only about 2 inches and was gone by the next day.

So...there ya go.

Ciao

As promised...

D and I just got back from our third and final visit to that humongous house that's being constructed and, as promised, I've got pictures.

This is the whole rear of the house minus a couple feet behind me. I was standing pretty much center in the garage area.

Here's one of the front of the house from the corner of the garage at the bottom of the picture. The house is a total of 156 feet long.

And here are three of the view from the mountaintop.

I'm not nearly as sore this time and it wasn't hardly cold at all. I brought a jacket just in case, but it got up to about 75 degrees so it was actually rather hot with no shade. I even got a bit sunburned on my arms and the back of my neck.

But, it's done and I'm glad.

Hard work

Let me preface this post by saying....I am so exhausted! But it's in a good way.

D and I made our second trip out to a construction site today. It was the phase of putting big nails into the ground so the masons will know where to pour concrete for the walls of a massive house. The cool part was that we were up on the top of a mountain with a very impressive view (I'll try and remember to take pictures next time we're out there). The not so cool part was that it was about 30 degrees with crazy cold wind, and there were 118 nails that we had to put in the ground. D was nice enough to give me a break towards the end because I was really starting to drag.

So, while I feel very accomplished, I'm also very worn out...and sore...and muddy. It was a sloppy, muddy mess up there.

So...yeah. That was my day.

Fantastical dinner

Since I was way too tired last night and this morning to even contemplate making a post, I'll do so now.

I just have to brag about the absolutely delicious dinner that D and I made last night.

1. Smoked salmon. My mom got D and I a smoker two christmases ago. We'd used it probably four or five times before one day, after washing the glass lid to it, the lid literally blew up in our dish drainer. I don't know if I posted about it, but it was aweful. Not only did we have glass all over the bathroom (our makeshift downstairs dish-washing area), in the sink, and the toilet...we also had it all over the rest of the room. Thankfully, I'd almost shut the door to go upstairs when we heard the crash so no one got hurt. But anyway, my mom sent us her smoker a couple months ago since she doesn't use it...so we have a new lid again.

I'm not sure what D used to season it, but it was oh so delish.

2. Microwave taters and onions. Again, not sure what he used to season with besides pepper and rosemary, but mmmm mmmm yummy!

3. Cabbage. We used a glass casserole dish with a half head of cabbage (1/4 for each) and seasoned it with a healthy dose of butter, Tiger salt, garlic powder, and paprika. It was so juicy and tender and by far the best cabbage we've put together.

4. Brown rice. Nothing special done here, but it was the bed for the salmon.

The taters were kind of the odd thing out. I was half-way done with my cabbage, salmon, and rice before I'd even touched my taters. Still...all in all, a VERY tasty meal.

Just stuff

Well, while the construction business slowed down to a virtual crawl during the winter, D and I are working a bit more now that things are kind of picking back up. I only say kind of because people still aren't building as much as they used to with the current craptacular economy.

Now that the godforsaken writer's strike is over and our shows have come back, D and I at least have things to occupy us during the evenings. Burn Notice, 24, and Heroes are just a few. Lost just came back on last week, but we need to re-watch a few of the episodes from last season. We watched the first episode from this season and were completely...well...lost. LOL Thankfully we've found quite a few different websites that will show full episodes of certain tv shows with only 5 or so commercials during the hour show.

Besides that, though, our other time occupation has been reading. D and I have been taking turns reading a book series to each other that D first read when he was about 12. It's called The Dragon Lance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Very, very good books.

Um...what else...oh it's been hovering around 70 degrees the last couple of days. While there's still a chilly wind blowing, if you're in the sunshine, it's not bad at all. How cool is it to be able to wear capris and short sleeve shirts in February?!

In other news, I've been getting more and more addicted to facebook. I've been able to connect with my cousins whom I haven't seen in...gosh...3 years...4 years? Something like that. Pretty cool if I do say so myself.

My nieces...well...almost nieces, have been trying to get me to make a myspace account, but between this, sodahead, facebook, and the various web surveys I do everyday, I might as well superglue my butt to my computer chair, because I'd never get out of it.

I'm definitely glad it's warming up. Maybe D and I can take a camping trip soon. We tried to take one in early November before it got really cold but we just never got around to it. I'm itching to go, though.

Not too much else to report, but I'll keep everyone updated on everything nonetheless.

Ciao

kitty fun

Let me preface the post by saying that Calli (our kitty) is completely crazy.

One of her favorite games is attacking D whenever she feels he's either ignoring her or giving attention to me that she feels should be given to her. Pretty much anytime she's awake while D and I are sitting at the computers, she'll come over, jump up, wrap her paws around D's arm and start biting at him. Most of the time she's gentle enough to not hurt, but if we haven't clipped her claws in a while she definitely marks us up.

Anyway, today, I'd layed my head on D's leg and he was scratching at my head and rubbing my hair. I had my eyes closed so I didn't realize that kitty was right there until she jumped at me and smacked my head with her paw underneath the armrest of D's chair. I started messing with her and lunging my hand at her, making her jump around. She'd been sitting there for a moment and I figured she was done and I stuck my tongue out at her...she smacked it. I kid you not, she jumped up and smacked her paw right on my tongue. She was at least sweet enough to not use claws (plus I'd clipped them yesterday), but it made us both laugh for a good 5 minutes.

She's crazy, I swear.

the holidays

Well Christmas here was pretty low key. Christmas Eve we all got together (minus one brother and sister-in-law) and had simple finger foods. There was crab dip, spinach dip, rolls, cheeses, crackers, sausage balls, and D and I brought chicken salad.

Then, Christmas day everyone showed up and we had the real food...ham, turkey, broccoli cheese casserole (yummy!!), mashed taters and gravy, stuffing with cranberries, sausage/grits/cheese/egg casserole, green beans, plus all the finger foods from the night before.

I did pretty well with the eats. The only desserts I had was a small piece of plain fudge, a small piece with walnuts in it, and a reeces pieces cookie. I didn't even have any rolls so I could have a tiny bit of the stuffing, and those rolls are darn near the best ever.

Anyway, after food the kids opened presents and then we all got our stockings. I got 4 new nail polishes, some chapstick (because I go through them like crazy and Calli likes to hide them), a bottle of almond milk hand soap, and a bag of milk chocolate Lindor Truffles. I've been really good with those, too and have only had one so far. There was a time when that whole bag would've probably been gone by the day after christmas.

D got some beef jerky, a new clicky lighter thingy for the grill (the igniter is broken on it), a couple other things I can't remember, and some chapsticks which he ended up giving to me.

Then, last night was the lowest of the low key holidays. We were invited to the 'rents if we wanted, but we ended up going out to get some beer and watching movies. When we noticed the time, it was 12:03 am.

Nothing else really of note going on. What with the holidays I haven't been able to find anyone who's hiring, especially full time, but I'll be starting to re-apply at a lot of places soon.

The last thing is that my 30 day mark for the working out and such is coming up on the 17th. While it's occasionally been difficult to stay motivated (as far as the actual work-outs especially when my back is hurty), I've noticed that my back has been feeling gradually better.

Guess that's about it.

Ciao