Preludes And Nocturnes

We’re outta here! Jim got my my own webspace for Christmas! I’ll soon* be located at www.preludesandnocturnes.com! He also bought me my favorite tea, quilling paper (tonnes in all sorts of colours!) and some new slippers (sheesh, just because I had worn through to the soles on my old ones) and lots of chocolate and goodies and make-up I wanted. My new slippers feel like I’m walking on clouds. To make this sound more exciting, I wear slippers all the time while at home. They are my inside shoes, if you will, so this is a wonderful gift!

I also got lots of textiles from the travelling sister - scarf from greece, bed linens from Egypt (?) I think, and table linens from… Egypt, Africa somewhere? Very very nice. (Oh, and that is a “we” got as they were for Jim too.)

Got some beautiful pottery from mom and dad - plates to go with the pitcher and mugs from other years. My aunt got us a wedding gift of a pouring bowl (pottery - fire kilned) and an olive oil bottle (also fire kilned). We got lots of beautiful handmade soaps and specialty bath products. Leone knit me the BEST toque ever and I LOVE the colours. Jim and I also got gift cards to the electronics store that we can combine with some money we got to either use towards the new TV we want or to get a stereo for the house.

So we’re getting ready for the wedding this weekend, and Leone and I are helping Julia get a dress. We have one already, but this afternoon we’ll ensure it is the right one by looking at fifty million more. Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday!

*No, I don’t actually know when. I have no clue how to set up my blog on a new space and what to do for all that and I’m sure I’ll just start harassing various peoples like annika and vicki and the likes and work will be busy for the first month so I’m not sure when I’ll do all this… but I’m very excited nonetheless.

…. yeah yeah, we’re working on it!

The final two arriving are running a little late so mom and Leone are at the airport hoping the 11:10pm estimation is correct. Julia and Jason should be in by then and the whole crew will be back at home before midnight. Very exciting, though; this is the first we’ll all see Julia since she arrived back after a year in the Sudan for Drs Without Borders. She got back in Canada on Dec 21st. She and Jason are getting married on the 31st. This should be a whirlwind! But hopefully we’ll get to sleep sometime tonight.

We’d better hurry or Santa will pass us up as we won’t all be asleep.

And given that Julia and I tend to wake up at 5am Christmas morning, we really do need to get to sleep asap.

Leone, Jim and I played a new game tonight. Very cool. Called Dutch somethingorother. Card game closely related to Spite and Malice. Although this new one can simply be called “kick jenn’s ass”. Really. But is a good game nonetheless.

Wishing you all a very wonderful Christmas. All the best to you all and your families (however you define family this time of the year)!

xoxo
jenn

Well, we’re getting ready to head out pretty quick here. It is quite exciting to think of Jim’s first Christmas with us all… I feel I should be warning him more, though.

He’s spent all his life with a mom, dad, and him for Christmas. How do you prepare someone for mom, dad, sisters, wife, brother-in-law, grandma, grandpa, and uncle. Not to mention my uncle is mentally handicapped so he’s been known to open other people’s presents or immediately grab your present and yell “ohhh, this is NICE! Jenny, can I have it? Pleaaaase?” and then takes off with it - hooting and yelling excitedly.

There will be puzzles and crafts and booze and movies (home for the holidays) and games and more food than legally allowed and probably some gingerbread mishaps.

Although things have gone more smoothly since mom started buying us each our own gingerbread kit. Ever since the issues of Leone’s vision of winter wonderland not meshing with Julia’s side of Santa’s Sweatshop Compound - He Knows When You’ve Been Bad or Good.

The Gummybear “eleves” who tried to escape served as a warning to the rest of them.

So yeah, separate kits.

And Jim has never had a butter tart. Mom makes many many butter tarts.

Mmmmmmmm.

I couldn’t leave my last post for a while with that poo-poo one below. So anyhoo, I’m sitting at work and it is 3:26 and almost everyone has left and I’m giving myself 30 more mintues and then making a dash for the door - but in the meanwhile…

the woman across the hall is listening to Christmas music.

LOUD.

And singing along.

We’re on Elvis right now. And she is just belting it out along with him. It is too funny for words.

I’ll have a bluuuuuuuuuewooowooo Christmas, without youuuuuu.

Hee!

Payroll screwed up and they’ve taken my day of “general leave without pay” from January (to go to sister’s wedding) off of this pay period’s deposit.

So Merry Freaken Ho-Ho.

I’m trying to clarify that it won’t come off again that next pay period (the one where I’m actually missing the day of work).

Reply ‘oh, hmm, yeah you don’t want that.’

YA THINK?

I actually had to suggest they leave a note on my account.

Two and a half hours to go. Silly yumoos!

Bah. Staying home today in the hopes this cough/cold/sneezing/hacking takes a hike before Christmas and airplanes and weddings and the like.

Got an awesome sleep this morning, so I’m hopeful. Gonna hang out on couch and maybe watch some food network.

*waves*

In other unrelated news:

• I’ve been sick all weekend and all week so far. Started on Friday. BOO!
• Couldn’t work out and this is making me grumpy
• Yesterday was a very sucky work day
• I leave for admin lunch in 20 min and this makes me excited - we won’t come back to campus until AFTER 1pm!
• Tomorrow I get lunch from one of my programs - at the golf and country club
• This afternoon is the boss’s birthday so we’re having cake
• I’m getting fat - do you see with the no working out and the cake and so on…
• The Bears make very very good cookies on Sunday
• The Leone made very very good treats on Sunday
• I think the tradition is we get sent home early on Friday afternoon. I might cry if this doesn’t happen.
• I kept poor Jim up with my coughing all night. But he still made me breakfast this morning.
• I’m getting my haircut this afternoon.

Leaving for lunch in 12 minutes…

Bye!

I got this from The Bears, who got it from Allisoo.

1) Harken back to your archives.
2) Collect the first sentence you wrote every month for the whole year.
3) Entertain us.

I’ve opted to include my titles as well because they added a neat touch to some of the sentences. There is a bit of random in here, but it captured some really neat aspects of the last year.

January
A Whole New Year
So I hate New Years.

February
Shag
I have just found out my co-worker is throwing me a Shower.

March
Dear Allison,
We here at “Jenn’s Job” are very sorry to hear about your concern about us limiting Jenn’s blogging time and energy.

April
And Now the Choices..
So I have pretty much uploaded all my pics to flickr.

May
Giddy-Up
Heading out in 20min to teach my FIRST CLASS since many many moons.

June
I’ve been sick.
Poor me.

July
Dream Job… Lite
Well I heard back from one of the departments I applied to for that whole “dream job” thing. Bah.

August
Pretty New Bedroom
I keep thinking “oh, I need to get a better shot of the bedroom to show the new furniture” - but at a certain point I just need to post a picture so there is something to see.

September
About those Granola Bars
Did I mention the crazy week at work?

October
How Did I Not Know That?
Okay, so I’m always like - yeah PDFs are great and all, but you can’t select the text and stuff and that makes them a pain at times.

November
Another New York Day
And I will have to talk at least a little about food…

December
Do I have your address?
I’m making the first pass at my Christmas Card List.

Annika made a post talking about a “friend” when she was little who conned her into giving up stickers in trade for friendship. Got me thinking - firstly, that kids are sneakly little bastards; secondly, stickers really were the blood diamonds of the schoolyard; thirdly, again with kids being rather sneaky.

Some of the key memoires of childhood centre around stickers. Jarrod had a whole selection of beautiful shimmer butterfly stickers; the likes of which had never been seen before on the playground. WHOLE SHEETS of stickers - fuzzies, inks, scratch n’ sniff - were offered in trade.

But they weren’t actually stickers. They were wallpaper he had cut out. But he wasn’t backing down, and we all were livid. He argued they could stick - so they were stickers. We cried foul as they couldn’t be peeled off their backing and put on notebooks. Or something. Who knows. They were pretty - yes - but they violated the rules of trade. And we just knew it was sneaky. We could feel it.

But the sad feeling for the fellow who brough strange “other” stickers. From suitcases or warning stickers from appliances. They were stickers, but they were ripped and had writing on them and weren’t what it was all about. But he kept insisting they were technically stickers and he wanted to trade.

Or the time Lark (where the hell did all these kids get their names?) was late to trading so she wanted to swap for my new kitty fuzzies during class. A quick pass was made - but not quick enough. A four-sheet of fuzzies went into Mrs. Shannon’s desk drawer. After school I walked up with my oh-so-cute strawberry smock and Grade Two confidence in how to be nice to teachers.

No go. This wasn’t a warning, this was a final sentence. Stickers were gone for good. The bus ride home saw some ugly words going back and forth about the transaction. Had it been completed? Who gets what? Did we need to share the loss?

But I also remember the joy of gifts back then. I mean, I can still FEEL the smooth pages of my first official sticker book. Not a photo album converted - no - a REAL LIFE STICKER BOOK with different theme pages and the ability to peel on and off. The THRILL of a fuzzy pack of cute dinosaurs. The amazement over the new, high-tech inks (if you pushed on them they changed colours). Wearing out the ewwww dill pickle stratch’n’sniff.

And unicorns. Shiny baby unicorns. I still have two of those. And I still have my sticker book in my basement.

Wouldn’t this post have been much better if I got a picture to include.

I’m at work.

But I really liked this entry on this site here.

Well, that’s rather moot- I can’t upload pics right now anyways. Stupid blogger.

Is not letting me comment on converted blogs!

And I have one for Callie and I can’t PM it to her like I did to Podgy and Innocent Bystander.

I mean, we all know that it is cool when we’re in the mood to go and leave comments - so to then not have the comments go through is rather frustrating.

If Callie gets this, I have a wonderful comment about your picture blog entry (the 12) where I said how much I enjoy seeing all the pictures and I might do something like that myself and that I’m too lazy to read so pictures are good.

Grumble. Blogger.