Month: December 2008 (Page 1 of 2)

You can see my Christmas tree and all my other decorations (messy house judiciously edited out) in this Flickr set. I posted them on Flickr instead of my LJ scrapbook so I could add notes to the photos.

I got my cards done today. Wish I could say they were in the mail, but the mail came early today, so they’ll go out tomorrow. Spent the rest of the afternoon blogging and taking/uploading/organizing pics. Now I’m going to go spike some eggnog and cajole my husband into putting in Elf and snuggling with me while I knit.

I did my good deed for the season by finally forcing myself to suck it up and get over my fears of needles and fainting long enough to give blood for the first time. The needles hurt, but I did not faint (yet), so it was only half as bad as I expected. I am a little light headed, though. The bad/annoying: I’m not allowed to have caffeine all day now. Remind me next time the blood mobile comes around to pick an afternoon time slot. The good: I’m also not allowed to do anything strenuous for the rest of the day, so that prevents me from hauling more giant binders full of heavy paper down to the copy dungeon and gives me a break from that mess for a while. There’s also the fact that I faced a couple of fears head on, all at once, and I survived and it was no where near as big a deal as I had built it up to be in my crazy head. And, of course, there’s the good feeling of knowing I did my part to help out strangers in need.

Plus, I got a coupon for a free McCafé coffe. Yay?

Today was spent taking care of the little things that need to be done this week, getting them out of the way so that I can spend the next three days feeding a color copier and waiting for it to poop out immense stacks of paper for me to sort and punch and tab and bind. Yayz!

(I should have gotten started on the above today, but I forgot to bring my mp3 player, and the thought of making copies all day without podcasts to keep me company made my soul wither in despair. So I got a week’s worth of other stuff done instead.)

Here is a downside of living in the big city: I live close to work, and have a downward (from my house) sloping driveway, and therefore have no excuse to call in and stay home with blankets and cocoa when Old Man Winter dumps ice all over our roads. Actually, in this case that’s an upside, because when I lived in BFE-country I had to use my vacation to cover snow days, and that would have royally messed up my official Christmas Vacation next week. Still, I miss snow days. On snow days, you can feel free to be lazy, because if the roads weren’t icy you wouldn’t be home anyway, and so you’re under no obligation to get things done around the house that don’t involve making cocoa or are no more strenuous than shoving a cat off your lap so you can change to a more comfortable position on the sofa. I don’t get those anymore, apparently. Sadness.

I got most of the stuff on my list taken care of this weekend, except for trimming the tree. We finally procured a tree, but since we’re broke, we could only afford a cheap one from the pile of cheap trees in front of the grocery store, and they were all very, very dry. So in the hopes of not burning our house down, we let it sit in water for 24 hours before doing anything to it. In hindsight, I wish I had also cut the string that was binding it at the beginning of those 24 hours, because when I did it last night, after dragging out all of my decorations in pure childlike anticipation, it…stayed that way. So we decided to give it another 24 hours to unfold itself, because we were afraid that if we force it, we’ll end up with a Charlie Brown tree. And that 24 hours will have to turn into 48 whether the tree’s ready to go or not, because my shows are on tonight, and it’s the mid-season finales, people, and not even the Joy of Christmas will come between me and my Cameron and my Sylar. And there’s nothing new on tomorrow night, so we’ll need something to do then, anyway.

This is probably all you’ll hear from me for a while, until I’m done feeding the copier my will to live.

Apparently I’ll be spending at least part of my long weekend trying to figure out why my professionally handled blog transition to it’s new URL is resulting in a 404 page. Or maybe if I just close my eyes and pray really hard it will resolve itself overnight. Here’s hopin’.

It’s especially aggravating because I spent my entire lunch hour putting together a Thursday 13 roundup of DIY Christmas decorations and then spent the rest of my afternoon commenting on other TTs in the hopes of generating some visitors. One person made it over before it all went kaplooey. So much for that effort.

I’m glad it’s a long weekend. It will be a busy one. Knitting, tree shopping, card writing, knitting, tree trimming, picture taking, errand running, knitting, crafting, planning my Christmas baking, knitting, knitting, and did I mention there will be knitting? I should also get by the library to see if they’ve got any Christmas DVDs that can keep me company while all of this knitting is going on.

Um… I forgot to do my Christmas Card poll, so I’ll do a cheater’s poll here. If you want one, leave your address in the comments. I’ll turn on screening so nobody will see them but me.

Oh, holy crapola. My bank account is overdrawn. I made the idiotic mistake of not making sure my Paypal debit card’s backup funding was set to Buyer Credit instead of my checking account before I used it to buy groceries and Christmas stuff this week. I realized this yesterday and initiated a transfer from my online emergency fund, but that won’t clear till tomorrow. I should have just sucked up the fees and took it out at the ATM and deposited it manually instead. Actually, it wasn’t the fees that kept me from doing that so much as the fact that it didn’t even occur to me that I could. Please pray that my car payment won’t bounce. Oh, wait–it already cleared. Thank God. And Merry Christmas!

Sigh. On a happy note, after work I’m swinging by Big Sis’s to see Baby Summer. She won’t have any idea who I am, since I’ve seen her exactly three times since her birth; but still, baby therapy will do me good. Let’s just hope she won’t be too scared to let me hold her.

I’m ready to call it a week. I hope you guys all have a great weekend.

Li’l Sis posted some portraits she took of our grandnieces here. After Christmas, I’m going to have to make her take another portrait of them both in the matching bonnets I’m making for them.

Hey guys,

Have any of you (or your wives/girlfriends/sisters/daughters/cool chicks you hang out with) ever tried Bare Minerals? Lately my face has been rejecting all of my tried and true liquid foundations, breaking out at the mere sight of a makeup sponge. It’s gotten to the point that I’ve given up wearing makeup, except for special occasions. Which is fine, except that I don’t want those special occasions to be catalysts for the next several days spent fighting a pubescent complexion.

A few years ago I tried the Neutrogena knock-off, but it made me look a little orange. Li’L Sis took the plunge and tried the real thing, and swore by it, except I think it made her look a little orange, too. But I think she might have been using a darker shade than she should have been. I can’t remember whether the Neutrogena stuff made me break out, but I wasn’t having the skin issues I was having back then, so now it’s a whole new ball game.

Anyway, I’m asking now because Ulta’s having a 3 day online special where you can get a starter kit for $50 (if you’re interested, the code is BAREGIFT10). That’s way on the pricey side for me, but for all you get it seems like a good value, and if it does everything it claims and doesn’t cause my acne to flare up, it would be totally worth it.

Two notes about my blog, Sparkle Motion: One, I’ve started blogging regularly there again, and I think the long break has improved my blog article writing skills. Take a look, and please tell me (honestly) whether you agree. And two, it’s in the process of moving to www.sleepyjean.net, but if you have the old URL bookmarked, my understanding is that it should still get you there. If it doesn’t, let me know. Oh, and two-and-a-half: when it finishes transitioning I’ll have to figure out how to either update the old syndicated feed or create a new one for my LJ peeps who don’t like to stray from their friends pages, so if anybody could give me a heads up on how that works (I used to know, but the last time I tried it was an exercise in FAIL), I’d appreciate it.

In Christmasy news, we still don’t have a tree. If I can’t drag Matt out with me to get one by Saturday, I’m going to take matters into my own hands. I’m planning to post pictures of my house, in all it’s Christmasy dollar store splendor, but I’m waiting until the tree is up to take them.

It looks like Fringe is a rerun tonight, so we’ll most likely put in a movie while I work on my knitting. Oh! Last night I finished up the cowl for my mom. I plan to take and post pics of that, too, after I weave in all the loose ends, and also of the bonnet I made my grandniece once all of its pieces are put together. But tonight I need to start this quickie scarf pattern for a guy at my office. He’s our clerk, handy-man and general go-to maintenance guy, and as he has no family to spend the holidays with, so the admin staff is getting together to shower him with gifts, food and company. I’m feeling good about this decision, because he basically does all of the crap work around here, and he does it all with a smile and a cheerful attitude, and he needs to know that he is appreciated, especially at this time. I mean that both as Christmastime and as this sucky soul-withering economic downturn time. But let’s focus on the Christmastime. For one thing, it’s easier to type.

Last night, I finished my novel.

And then to celebrate, I folded laundry.

Glamorous!