Entries tagged with thanksgiving

Current Music: singing "Dancing Through Life" to myself

Entry tags:

Annual holiday-themed reading

(Possible mild spoilers, of course!)

I always feel like I should read something appropriate for the season, every year. Last year, all I think I ended up doing was re-reading The Christmas Bookshop. This year, I actually read the one Thanksgiving book I happened to have, which was Penelope In Retrograde, and which it turned out I really liked. I thought it was going to be a romance novel - I bought it a couple of years ago, I think - and I figured out at some point that it was set at Thanksgiving, which is not something you see all that much, so I decided to save it for seasonal reading. It actually was not really a romance novel - there was a romance there, but it was more like a comedic reconnecting-with-family kind of thing in the end. Much more fun than I was expecting. (I don't know if it's a nearly-senior-citizen thing or what, but I don't have much use for romance novels any more. Suddenly they bore me.)

And then it turned out that Amazon had what they called a short story (and I would call a novella, it was around 100 pages, I think) by the author of said Christmas Bookshop, Jenny Colgan. It's called The Christmas Book Hunt, and it is right up my alley: a little romance, a little family drama, a lot of poking around in bookshops looking for what turns out to be an extremely rare book. I enjoyed it, you might can tell. It's the librarian in me.

I don't know if I'm done with holiday-related reading; it's still two weeks til Christmas, after all. I have a couple more unread books that I think are actually that kind of thing - meaning holiday-themed - but I also think I've already tried reading them before and didn't get into either one. I'm probably more likely to end up re-reading some old favorites, really!

Entry tags:

"These days"

I signed up early for Holidailies because I happened to think of it, and then I almost forgot - well, actually, I did forget, since it's already after midnight - that December 1st is when I'm supposed to actually post something! Not that it's the end of the world to wait until 1am on the 2nd to post, but I'm just so flaky that I get aggravated with myself.

I started to say that I'm flaky "these days" but actually I've always been flaky - in particular, I don't have much of a sense of time, so unless I'm going to start setting alarms for myself constantly like one of my co-workers does, the flakiness is just going to happen. Plus well, y'know, we're all getting older, aren't we? All of us people who have been on the internet more or less since it existed, in particular. I am in denial about it, but I'm about to start looking at Medicare options - I turn 65 in the spring so I can sign up in a month or two, I think. Ugh. (Although I've also been griping about what I'm paying for my numerous prescriptions lately, so hopefully Medicare will be a bit cheaper in the end, assuming Trump doesn't go and cancel it.) (But I'm trying not to talk too much about the Orange One, it just raises my blood pressure. Speaking of medicine.)

We went to Moody Gardens in Galveston for Thanksgiving - they had a lovely buffet. It was expensive but I enjoyed it. I would never have thought of doing that, it was my brother-in-law's idea. Since we work in Galveston it seemed sort of silly to drive back down there on a day we're not working, but they picked us up and so it wasn't like it was actually any trouble.

I said I was trying not to shop this weekend and I did stay out of the mall (and Target, etc.) but I still ended up buying assorted stuff on the internet, of course. That's really my weakness, these days. I guess just the fact that I didn't go completely hog-wild makes it a win, though!

Oh, I am a Texas Ex so I feel like I'm contractually obligated (or something) to talk about the A&M game. Hey, Hook 'em Horns, and all that. I saw some Aggies say that we only won because all of the calls went our way, and that's actually true, but I don't think they unfairly went our way, just because both of our touchdowns weren't called that way in the first place. Now we have to play Georgia next week, that's our reward, and that didn't go so well the first time this year. We'll see.

Entry tags:

Holiday romance

I have several holiday romance novels/novellas, so I'm prioritizing reading those, before Christmas passes and I decide I'm out of the mood to read them. I'm very much a mood-based reader, which is one reason I usually have several things going at once. (Me, talking to myself: "No, I'm not in the mood to read that right now, what else have we got?") I have some Regency ones, and something that was recommended called In a Holidaze - I assume it's a romance although I actually know nothing about it at all. If I looked at the info when I bought it I've already forgotten what it said.

I also bought the set of novellas that goes with that Thanksgiving one that I liked - I think the overall title is Holidays with the Wongs. There's the Thanksgiving one and and one for Christmas, Chinese New Year, and something else... Valentine's Day? New Year's Eve? Again, I read the titles but that last one didn't stick.

I also bought one more $1.99 romance from Amazon - I was about to say I don't remember the title but I just found where I wrote it down - it's Sleigh Bells Ring. It was in either an Amazon Books e-mail or a Book Riot because those are the only book e-mails I get right now. (And I buy too much stuff already so I sure don't need any more!) I remember thinking that this one sounded like a Hallmark movie - the convoluted plot, the good-looking but annoying boss/new neighbor/whatever, etc.

I enjoy Hallmark movies occasionally. Lest you think I'm a sad, unromantic, Christmas-hating old lady, I will tell you that I was pretty much in tears due to a story I read yesterday involving a lonely teacher, an orphan, and a viscount, all discovering the magic of Christmas together. (Do Americans other than Regency/Bridgerton fans even know what a viscount is? much less how to pronounce it - I only know that last part from some BBC Jane Austen adaptations, I think!) Anyway, my problem with Hallmark (and y'know, all those other channels that do the same thing) is that the plots rarely make any sense whatsoever. I'm not incredibly picky about this, even, but just a little logic goes a long way with me. I suspect the main problem is that they churn these things out so fast that they don't have time to worry over little stuff like the script. So I have to space my Hallmark (/Lifetime/etc.) movie-watching out so I don't start tearing my hair out.

I'll just go back to my reading instead.

Current Mood: sleepy

Entry tags:

A Gathering of Two

I mentioned in the last entry that it was very very slow at work Wednesday night. People who don't normally stop to talk were asking me what we were doing for Thanksgiving. I kept saying, "Oh, we're just having lunch & then going to a movie." A couple of people - ones who don't really know us - seemed to think that sounded like we don't have any family or something and thus it was something sad. (They didn't say that, of course, I just got that feeling from the way they replied.) In fact we don't have any family who is local, any more, and we're prevented from going very far by the fact that we usually end up working on Wednesday night just like we did this year - but the truth is that we like it that way. We still do the family thing at Christmas - and we did the family thing for years at Thanksgiving, too, but we're stopped - and we both agree that we really don't miss it. Christmas and Thanksgiving are too close together and it's too much stress. We do a meal that's a little more fancy than what we normally do, and we go to a movie. There's always some good movie or other to see, and we think it's pretty perfect, really.

So this year it was Knives Out. If you don't know about it already and you like mystery-type stuff, you need to go see it. It's very good. Plus, it has Chris Evans and Toni Colette and various other actors we like, and Daniel Craig doing a variation on that crazy accent he did in Logan Lucky and showing off his hammy side again. Lots of fun.

(I'm going to have to do a movie catch-up post - but not today.)

Entry tags:

Ikea love

I got Twitter-mocked a bit yesterday for saying that going to Ikea puts me in the holiday spirit, but it sorta does, ok? Don't judge. Possibly it's true that practically any shopping at all does the same thing - but anyway, I did go to Ikea. I didn't buy much that had anything to do with Christmas, but still, Ikea has cute holiday stuff and it did sort of help put me in the mood.

It occurs to me that some people may think of Ikea differently than I do - i.e., you may think of it as a furniture store. And while I do buy furniture there from time to time, it's the non-furniture part of Ikea that I'm fond of. I think of it more as a really big housewares store, I guess you'd say. I came out of there today with batteries and spoons (for some reason we're always short on spoons) and toys - and frozen meatballs, because I love those darn things, and a couple of other things that I don't recall right now. (Also, Tuesday is apparently a good day to go to Ikea, because they were as close to not being busy as the Houston Ikea ever gets - meaning, near as I could tell, that there were several hundred people there instead of the usual several thousand.)

Let's see, we had a nice Thanksgiving but I don't have all that much to say about it. Nobody got on anybody's nerves to speak of, or got into a fight or anything, and that's what usually makes for a more memorable day, let's face it, so it's a good thing when it's not memorable. I love my relatives, but it's a pretty rare holiday when nobody's fighting.

I'm signed up for the new-version Holidailies, so I should be posting regularly in December. That doesn't start officially until next week, though. (And like last year, I'm going to be in Dallas the day it starts, so whether I'll actually be able to post that day is iffy.)

Entry tags:

Sunday night

I'm still laughing at fake book titles, because I am easy:
Harry Potter and the Deep and Very Special And Unique Pain That No One Could Ever Possibly Understand
(from the same place that the last one was from)

OK, so we went to see Harry Potter twice, and furthermore, Rob let me talk him into going, too, which rather surprised me. I'm much more likely to want to see movies multiple times than he is, and for both of us to see a movie two times in three days is unheard of, that I can recall. So I don't guess it's necessary for me to say that I liked it. It was dark, but not any moreso than the book, you know? And the main reason I wanted to go again was because there was so much detail packed into it. I am not ruling out seeing it again later, either.

I spent several hours chatting with my best friend from 10th grade on Friday night. Very weird. (We had a falling out over a boy - I didn't care so much about the boy, at the time, as I did about the fact that she was supremely catty about the whole thing - and we weren't really friends after that. But that was, god, 35 years ago, so who cares now?)

How can it be almost Thanksgiving? Seriously. It's just not possible. As usual, I have to bring rolls for Thanksgiving, which ought to be easy, except that I'm stressing out because there's no room in my freezer, so I couldn't just buy them yesterday when we went to the store and stash them away til then. At some point I'm going to have to brave a grocery store again. It was already far busier than normal yesterday and it's only going to get worse.

Entry tags:

Twice in a row! Let's party!

Apparently this time of year I get in the mood to post, or something. Hey, two days in a row!! We'll see if this continues, I'm not going to promise anything.

This totally needs to be a t-shirt. Or maybe a band name:
harry potter and the neverending teenage angst
(from Mark Reads Harry Potter)
Actually, I find it hard to believe that there is not already a band called Neverending Teenage Angst, come to think of it.

My class is ending Monday and I am sort of sad. Interaction with real live people twice a week! People that I mostly actually like, at that. (Learning things is just a bonus.)

I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving already. The weekend after Thanksgiving

antheap is coming to visit (ok, in reality she's coming for work, but I tend to ignore that part) and the weekend after that I have volunteered to drive her to Austin - but not back again, because I have to be in Dallas right after that for a seminar. Hopefully the logistics on this will all work out.

Also, I got a Thanksgiving card from my insurance agent today. I suspect that this is in lieu of a Christmas card, but we will have to wait and see about that. Honestly, I don't remember having ever gotten a Thanksgiving card from anybody before. I knew they existed, in theory, but I don't remember getting any.

Also:
DORA AND MARTEN, OMG!!!! -- Hmm, I suspect I'm way too invested in this cartoon.

Entry tags:

WoW, and other slices of life

Have I mentioned that Col and I are playing WoW again? Well, we are. We were trying to finish Northrend before our memberships expired, but I don't think we're quite going to make it. I'm enjoying it enough that I volunteered to pay for another month, though. That should be plenty of time, near as I can tell. We're most of the way finished with Scolazar Basin (I don't think that's spelled right, but you get the idea) and we've already finished Zul'Drak, so all that's left is Storm Peaks and Icecrown. We are level 80 (woot!) and we both have Explorer titles and I even sprung for a fast mount (4000g for the training. Whew.). Then we're going back to LOTRO when that's finished.

I am about to take my midterm in the coding class. I should be studying right now, actually.

There are a whoppin' 5 items in the Etsy store now. (A couple more may be coming sometime tomorrow.)

Rob's movie report: He went to see The Fourth Kind this afternoon, the alien-abduction movie. He seemed to like it, although he didn't really have a whole lot to say about it. (He did make some comment about whether the "documentary" part of it was fake, at which I tried not to roll my eyes too obviously. Which could be why he didn't say much more about it.)

Oh, we are overloaded with invitations for Thanksgiving - my aunt, my sister, and my dad have all invited us. Daddy was third so he's getting left out, but we are going to try to make two stops on Thanksgiving Day and go to both Bryan and Austin. That should be doable. My sister has another significant other that she thinks is serious - more so than the last one, I hope! - and she's all anxious for us to meet him. Should be interesting.

Entry tags:

Thanksgiving weekend report

We spent Thanksgiving with my dad and his wife. It was pretty quiet, especially since Daddy slept for about an hour after dinner in his chair while the rest of us half-watched the football game and talked. Barbara had bought the dinner someplace, I don't know where - but it wasn't really too great, and I think she knew it. The turkey was pretty good, and the rolls were ok, but most of the rest of it sucked - green beans that didn't really taste cooked, a fruit salad covered with what was supposed to be coconut, I guess, but which tasted like hay... and so on. The sad thing (as far as I'm concerned, anyway) was that the turkey dinner is wasted on me and Rob, in the first place - neither one of us cares a bit about it. Last year I made pot roast and it was a big improvement as far as I was concerned.

We started putting up the Christmas decorations - I figure it's fair game as soon as Thanksgiving is over. I'm not really sure about the solar lights - they look alright but they seem kind of temperamental. I had found a wreath at Target that had lights on it that was battery-operated and we put it on the balcony door and it looks really good. And we had bought two little pre-lit trees - they seem to call them "porch trees" - and we put them inside where you could see them through the french doors, and the whole effect is pretty good. It may not win the decorating contest or anything but I don't care about that, I just wanted it to look nice. Everybody knows everybody here - well, I don't know everybody yet, but Rob mostly seems to! - and so it seemed like the thing to do to decorate since everybody else was. (I guess this is how people that live in subdivisions feel.)

Other than that we haven't done much this weekend - I have to admit that we watched a fair amount of the "Mork & Mindy" marathon on Sci-Fi yesterday - oh hush, it was funny - and there has been some WoW, as well as some game-playing on Rob's computer, too, I think*, and some reading of books, and on the whole it's been a nice relaxing weekend. I would suggest going to a movie tomorrow except the reviews for "Australia" don't really seem to be that great and I can't think what else we would see.

* Rob was a bit astonished to find that his games - he mostly likes combat flight-sim things - run better on the laptop than they did on the old computer. Considering that the old one was my mom's which might have had 512mb of memory but more likely had 256, while the new one has 3 gigs - and presumably a somewhat better video card, too - I don't find that quite so surprising. But I guess he thought that a laptop would automatically be slower, somehow!

Entry tags:

Gray Friday

I don't have much to say because I didn't really do much today. I played GuildWars with

columbina and folded fabric. (You can see pictures of some of the fabric on flickr.) It really is an obscene amount of fabric. I am going to have to try to figure out how many yards it is, when I get done. Although I probably don't want to know.

( I'll spare the uninterested the GuildWars part! )

I called this entry "Gray Friday" because there was no shopping going on here and it was a gray, gloomy, chilly day. It's been chilly since Wednesday but today I finally turned the heater on for the first time and the smoke alarm promptly went off. (It stopped after a few beeps, though, which is good because it's on the ceiling and I certainly can't turn it off easily.) Did you see the pictures of all the fools fighting to get in the shopping malls? Honestly, it's just nuts. Rob did actually go in Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things late tonight, and he said it was pretty empty. I said, well, that sorta made sense because the crazy people came early and the sane people wouldn't go near the place today.

Entry tags:

The giving of thanks, and all that

I have what appears to be Spanish comment spam on the quilt weblog. I can't recall having ever had that before. Actually I haven't had any comment spam at all in a good while, which is nice. Maybe Blogger's been doing something that catches more of it. (Well, come to think of it, they're owned by Google now, and Gmail already had the best spam filter I've seen yet, so maybe that is not a coincidence.)

We had a very nice and stress-free Thanksgiving dinner. The one entree I can cook well without looking at a recipe is my mother's pot roast, and that's what I made. (It's very simple. You take a roast - we found a nice little Angus one - and you set it on a big sheet of foil inside a pan. Then you dump a whole package of onion soup mix on top of it, and add some salt and pepper, and then put a can of cream of mushroom soup on top of that. Then you fold the foil up around it to close it up. Bake for a couple of hours, open up the package a few minutes early so the top will brown, and voila! Roast in its own mushroom-and-onion-flavored gravy!) We had roast and salad and rolls, and Rob decided he wanted stuffing and mashed potatoes - talk about starch overload - so he fixed those himself. The stuffing came in a plastic container; I think it was Country Crock brand, and he said it was good. And we put it all on Grandma's china and sat down at the table with a tablecloth and everything and had a lovely meal. We were very happy with it, and when Rob loaded his plate up with all those multiple starchy things it looked like Thanksgiving dinner, too!

And we went to see Beowulf. Now, I'm ashamed to admit this, but I've never actually read the thing - and don't ask me how I managed to major in English without reading it, because I don't know. So I have no real idea how close they stayed with the story. (Hmm, going by the story summary in Wikipedia, parts are close and parts, not so much.) But it was certainly watchable and interesting, and oh my god, the animation was gorgeous. Honestly, from time to time I forgot it wasn't live-action. (Which is sorta odd, when you think about it. If live-action and animation become indistinguishable, what's the point, exactly? Well, except for cool underwater fights with dragons and things, which would be a bit difficult to do live-action.) And I have to admit that a tear might have been shed at the end. Just a tiny one.

Current Location: home

Entry tags:

(no subject)

I was intending to write a long entry today but I am tired and sick and grouchy and it's probably best that I just keep this short.

My mom is in the hospital at M.D. Anderson (that's the big cancer hospital in Houston). She is not really any worse than she was, except that they doubled the dose of steroids she's on and now she can't talk coherently at ALL. She seems to understand what you're telling her perfectly well, but when she goes to answer you the wrong words come out. You know how sometimes you mean to say one person's name and you say somebody else's instead? Well, she does that every single time. Like, when she means to say "Art" she says "C.L." instead (that's my dad), and when she means to say my sister's name she says mine, and I decided the other day that she may be messing up "yes" and "no" also. I think tomorrow when I go I'm going to make her nod or shake her head instead, and see where that gets us. I know I'm frustrated and I can just imagine how she must be feeling.

There is a ray of hope - or I'm choosing to take it that way, anyway. They are talking about doing surgery again. I figure if there was no hope at all, they wouldn't be considering it. I will probably have the final say on it, since she can't really tell them and I'm the one with power of attorney, god help me. I am going to ask a LOT of questions before I say yes, I know that. I'm hoping I will be able to tell how mom feels about it, too, even if she can't actually say so. Up to now she has been consistently in favor of the agressive approach. (But look where that's gotten us.)

We ended up having a decent Thanksgiving. We got invited to horn in on somebody else's dinner - one of Art's kids - and we accepted gladly. We were still invited to my aunt's in Bryan, of course, but I just didn't have the energy to go up there. The worst part was that we went to see Mom first, and she wanted to come with us to dinner. I felt so bad leaving her!

I have been sick all week - either a cold or allergies, it's hard to tell. I probably shouldn't even have been going to the hospital at all in that state, but I wasn't sneezing or anything, and I washed my hands a lot. (And how am I going to tell my mom, sorry, I can't come see you, I have a cold?) I think I was choosing to tell myself it was allergies, although the way it's been steadily progressing from runny nose to sneezing to cough all week, I suspect that I was probably wrong about that. Anyway, now I am to the coughing stage and I'm really tired of it. I did stay home and try to rest today but I don't know if it helped that much. I still feel exhausted.

(This was longer than I intended but it all poured out pretty fast. I've written much shorter entries that took much, much longer to write.)

Current Mood: relieved

Entry tags:

Thanksgiving

OK, this may get a little complicated.( Read more... )

Entry tags:

More on Ohio

I'm getting further & further behind.

( Read more... )