Category: Holidays

Wet Rats

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This morning we headed to Target on the frozen roads to buy a ham. Joe got one for free from work but it was so big we didn’t have enough room in the fridge so after taking it out of the freezer we let it defrost in the garage. Then I read doing it that way could have allowed bacterial growth, and while I may not be getting any presents, I certainly don’t want food poisoning for Christmas. So we went from planning on having a 25 lb ham to a 7.5 lb one which is why I’m not cooking it until tomorrow. Originally we were going to have it today, tomorrow, and Saturday, but the new ham is much too small to last three days and I’m sure the kids would like some too.

After Target we made a big breakfast, then laid around the house until mid afternoon when we finally took our showers. Then we gave the rats a bath and cleaned the bathrooms. Now I’m doing laundry. I feel better when I’m productive.

I love giving the rats a bath because afterward Templeton will sit in my lap and let me dry, pet, and massage him. He really enjoys it – it’s the only time I’ve seen him eye bloggling.

Jetta Maintenance & Christmas lights

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Saturday we took my Jetta in for maintenance and got stuck in the waiting area with two of the most obnoxious people on Earth. The guy didn’t know how to walk, constantly shuffling his feet while impatiently walking around, and then he screamed into his cell phone. I seriously thought he was yelling across the room to someone, not saying hello to the person he was calling. His partner wasn’t quite as bad but she was rather loud too and also felt the need to make a public phone call. What is with people? Ever hear of an indoor voice? Ever hear of actually being embarrassed to be on the phone in public? Guess not. I really don’t like talking on my phone in a public setting. I always keep the conversation quiet and short.

After my car was done we ran some errands which included a trip to the crowded post office to send a package to Joe’s parents. Luckily the line moved pretty quick and we were back home in the early afternoon.

In the evening we went back out to check out the St. Charles Christmas Lights Tour. It was … ok. We didn’t hit all the houses, but enough to get my fix. The iPhone wasn’t turning the entire addresses into a click-able link since it would cut off at the period after “St.” in the city name which made mapping to each house extremely aggravating. I should have planned ahead and bookmarked them first before going out; it would have saved a lot of frustration. I will keep that in mind for next time.

One of the houses had music synced to their lights, but it wasn’t done as well as some of the ones I’ve seen online which was too bad. My little Powershot took some pretty great photos, though. There’s a night snapshot option that works well but what’s really annoying is if you switch between the regular and scene modes, the camera resets the flash settings that were last selected in the scene mode. It defaults to the flash being on which is really annoying, particularly when you don’t notice and end up taking a picture. Doh! I don’t understand why it can’t leave all settings as they were last were, but it does the same thing for the timer settings too. So I had tons of fun trying to set up each shot with no flash and a 2-second timer every time I switched between modes (which I did to ensure I got clear shots as I hadn’t used the night snapshot before and didn’t want to use it exclusively) and also look up the next address on my phone (since the park district only provides directions to each address from the same starting point; would be nice if they could also do point to point directions too).

@ Flickr: Holiday Lights Decorating Tour

Plans

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I’m off work until December 28th! This is the single greatest moment, right now, with 9 days of workless bliss laid out in front of me.

There are a lot of things I’d like to get accomplished during my time off in addition to the basics such as watching lots of TV, reading, and playing games. So far my list looks like this:

Tomorrow:

  • Get new strut mounts and oil change for the Jetta.
  • Check out St. Charles’ holiday lights tour. This is their first year but some of the same families from the Halloween tour are participating so it should be good.
  • Buy lotto tickets for our families and mail out care packages since we’re not getting together this year with my family. My mom has been sick and isn’t up to seeing anyone. :p

During the week:

  • Finish Christmas shopping for the kids. K is done, other than a few stocking stuffers, but E is a bit tougher this year.
  • Try and think of something, anything, to buy Joe. So far he’s getting absolutely nothing, not even a lump of coal, because he’s too hard to buy for. Damn him for not being materialistic like the rest of us.
  • Put up Christmas tree and decorations because that’s right, we haven’t done that yet inside, only outside.
  • Organize software CDs. They seem to be all over the house and we probably don’t even need half of them. I want to put them all in one place so on the rare occasion we need one, it’s not an exercise in futility.
  • Submit medical receipts for reimbursement through our flex spending account. We have a good chunk of change in there that needs to be used so we don’t lose it.
  • Visit Cosley Zoo to see their holiday lights, provided it’s not freezing outside.
  • Renew my driver’s license.
  • Check out a few local restaurants we’ve been wanting to try, namely a Vietnamese bistro, a sushi place, and a steak place called Texas Roadhouse.
  • Pull out my high school yearbooks and stalk old classmates on Facebook. And I do mean stalk because it’s less annoying than actually friending these people. I’m finding reconnecting with most of them is an exercise in disappointment. I love when I send someone a private message that they never reply to but they post idiotic status updates with grammar and spelling errors all over it, making me wonder if I dreamed the fact that we actually graduated together.
  • Schedule my annual “female” exam for some day in 2010 because I don’t want to go, but it’s one of those things that must be done.
  • Put together an Evite for my birthday. I’m thinking of having a rollerskating party. Something different. Something half the invitees probably won’t show up to, but oh well, fuck it. I’m doing it anyway.
  • Check out the second run movie theater that just opened a few months ago. It doesn’t have stadium seating which has made me hesitant to go, but I’ll give it a chance for only $2 per person!
  • Read all the People magazines my friend gave me the other day. I haven’t seen her in months so the pile is quite impressive.
  • Fix my blog so I can use a different template than this one.
  • Post a best of 2009 entry for music and iPhone apps.
  • Post a 2009 year in review for this blog.

I think that’s it… for now. Let’s see how many actually get done! It will be a battle between my desire to feel productive and have fun and Joe wanting to sit inside and play Warcraft all day since that’s his idea of fun. ;)

BINGO was his NAME-O

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My employer had a fund-raising event today – we got to play BINGO! The prizes, which were various gift cards ranging from $25 up to $200, were generously donated by a few of the higher-ups in the company. Unfortunately, I did not win. Oh, I got close. Often. I swear to god, if I needed G-55, the very next number called would be G-56. If I needed I-25, they’d call I-24, and so on. Plus they’d call several numbers under the same letter but never call mine. I’m not exaggerating, this really happened. It was like some sick conspiracy! I did have fun, however, even if I think they should have made a rule that once someone won they were not eligible for any more prizes, but whatever.

I had mentioned yesterday during a conversation with a co-worker how I’ve been trying to get my hands on this super soft reversible puffer vest from Target but when they were first available they didn’t have any Mediums, only Smalls and Larges. So then a few days ago they had them in Medium and it turns out the Medium is too small and I needed a Large after all, but they’re all out of that size. So this morning she gives me a Christmas gift – the vest in size Large. I was very surprised! Now I just need to find am appropriate shirt to wear underneath.

Happy

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Had a great day. Put up Christmas lights in my cube, got a $25 Kohl’s gift card from our Director, learned there’s an interesting destination in Milwaukee I’d like to check out next year called Discovery World, and had our new knives set delivered today (already got the comforter yesterday).

It’s the little things.