Preludes And Nocturnes

Yes, bad blogger. My sisters (and brother in law) all left today so I’m grumpy and feeling growly. We have had a great few weeks of late-night RISK games of world domination, some skiing, some eating of food, some watching of movies and that Grinch fellow changing his mind regarding the stealing of Christmas.

Many many wonderful presents were exchanged and I got all teary eyed when Jim opened various gifts my sisters bought for the beeb. Oh look! I’m getting teary even now just typing about it! Leone got the beeb a shirt that says “eat the rich” with a little skull and crossbones (knife and fork) and Julia and Jason got the beeb some beautiful silk blend pink and chocolate bedding, and I believe it was Bangledesh Santa who got the beeb some beautiful stitched baby blankets. I will have to post pictures of it all. Jim was cute on Christmas Even upon seeing gifts for the beeb, “oh! Um, was I supposed to buy for the beeb yet or am I opening gifts on behalf of the beeb?!” But he was reassured.

I was a very happy girl that morning, with many beautiful gifts - a new fluffy robe, silk and cotton scarves, a maternity converting sweater (with buttons up the sides), gift cards, stamping supplies, special hot chocolate mix from nyc that I LOVE and will eat (sometimes) directly from the tin, more Lenore comics, and many more things that are slipping my mind right now but I vowed to make this post rather than worry about getting everything right…

And we are surrounded by many cards from friends and movie passes (thank you Laura) and new mitts/hat/scarf (thank you Melly) and family photos and all sorts of goodies and cookies and treats!

So December is coming to an end and I’m aware of school work that is waiting for me, coffee vouchers I’ll need to be sure to use with my husband over the next few weeks, my renewed pass for the gym (Julia and I managed to get there together as I get a pass for friends/family), and some friends in town we hope to see before the crazy year starts up again.

Hope you all are well!

We’re quickly approaching the time where I would usually get up and get ready for the day(6:45am) but I decided beeb decided that we’d get up at 4am instead.  So we thought we’d post a little Merry Christmas blog and send out hugs and snuggles to everyone.

I’m especially snuggly in my new flannel pjs from mom!  She got a pair for me, Leone, and Julia last night.  We are very cute and cozy.

Happy day to all,

xoxo

Jenn and fam.

Sisters and husbands tallied multiple choice, added marks, and input number to databases.  Yesterday afternoon saw me finish this term’s marking!  Woo!

So in celebration I went for a massage last night that brought tears to my eyes.  Er, tears of pain as she pried my hip-flexor from my thigh bone or some such nonsense.  Of course, I can actually walk today which is a fair improvement, but sweet baby jesus that was hardcore massaging going on.  But yesterday I also got to play mariocart and watch the end of Julia, Leone and Jim’s battle for world domination in RISK.  Leone was declared the winner.

Today I read my book. My book that is not for school.  And played more games, and will play more games tonight.  And vacuumed, dusted, and did laundry.  Ahhhhhh, much better! I feel like the Christmas season is really beginning now.

And to top it all off, I got notice of a request for a custom order on etsy from a woman who bought some cards in the summer. Sweeet.

*hugs to all*

I am almost done my school stuff for the term. All that is left is the short answer section of the exams, and 20% of those are either done or only have one question remaining (yes, that does leave 80% with two or more still remaining, but let’s go with half full, shall we?) Given that it is 5:30 am and

… there was more typed there but Rupert just managed to shift, up arrow, select so I just typed over it all with the letter A. So helpful. So very very helpful… Now he is on the other chair across from me under the table biting my big toe. Anyhoo, marking. Because when I get this done, I can go cross-country skiing and play some mario cart (Julia got Jim a fourth controller last night for his birthday so all four of us can play at once), and I got Jim Risk so there should be some world domination going on soon as well.

Prenatal dr. appointment yesterday and I got to hear the beeb’s heartbeat. Very cool. The Dr had a hard time getting it as he would have it and then beeb moved. Twice. Jim and I believe the beeb has inherited our athletic genes… HA!

And look at how much Rupert has grown:

This is from September

And this is from November:

I call this last shot “merged kitty bums”.  There is a whole series of these and they were like a strange two headed kitty beast.

The airport delivered two sisters today- how exciting! They did manage to greet and hug me first before both leaning down and calling out “helloooo baby!” while hugging my belly. It was very cute and made people laugh at the airport. We drove home just in time as we just got a fairly huge dump of snow, so I’m glad to say that I am done having to go into the uni until January. I have the exams here at home, and then I’ll upload the grades from here. Very nice. My TA and I managed to get a fair chunk marked today after the exam (before I picked up the sisters) so I’m hopeful to get them completed tomorrow.

Also have a prenatal appointment tomorrow, so we’ll see how much blood they can take for the second time. Meh.
But as of today I am 15 weeks. This is exciting and I should take/post more pictures. You know, when I have five minutes and I’ve actually combed my hair.

It is 5:30 am and I am up - again. I have pretty much been up since 3am, but I fought it for the first two hours.  Willing myself back to sleep… not so effective.  It has been a productive couple of days, though. Second year class got their papers all back at the final exam on Friday and, in turn, gave me a stack of finals.  But with a really good Saturday (with support/food/kitchen duty being provided by Jim), I am within a few hours of them being done.  The exams have four sections to them with the last being the essay section.  I have about half the exams totally done, and the remaining half is only the essay part. I will also finish up the first year papers today and have a day off (wooohooo Monday) before their exam on Tuesday.  My TA and I will divy those up and hope to make quick work of them - because once those are done and the marks posted…. I am DONE! (Until January) (Well, except I also need to finish up changes to the two syllabi for January and then get them posted to webct.)  (But then I’m done!)

I am also one trip downtown away from completing my local gift preparation.  But, gah, I have two gifts that need mailing (er, and one to my sweet laura who is alllllll the way over there in Toronto) and they are not quite done yet.  I have decided, yet again, that sometime it is fun to get gifts after Christmas - so the season lasts longer!

But, anyhoo, given that I’m up at 5:43am I figure I may as well see if I can finish up these exams.

One of the better lines from Mrs. Doubtfire. Not only am I job, I am also boring. Boooooorrrrrring. But I’m ready for that to change. I got a husband from the airport tonight (he has been gone for the past 2 weeks with a single night home between his one teaching gig and then heading out to nyc to see family and friends). I don’t tend to broadcast that on my blog, but now that he is back I am happy. Being alone over this time has certainly fueled my own private pity party.

Anyhoo, Jim is home and I am starting (?) to see the light at the end of the marking tunnel. I have a full day of marking tomorrow to finish up and then my first class writes their exam on Friday. That will then be followed by a fairly solid three days of marking their exams and getting their grades uploaded. Then my final group (the big one - 105 students) writes on Tuesday morning. I have three days to get their exams marked and uploaded, but I have my TA to help on that one. I will also pick up sisters that afternoon from the airport, so I’m highly motivated to get the marking DONE! I want the time to see them and bake things (things I can’t eat these days, but I’ll bake them nonetheless) and wrap presents (note to self: go buy presents) and all that good stuff. I’ll have both sisters, husband, parents, grandparents, uncle, brother-in-law, kitties, and mini-beeb this year. Pretty cool. I just need to get this MARKING done so I can, I dunno, actually enjoy some of this season.

And I got all my international cards out. Just the Canadian ones still to do. I hate to say it, but I’m really not sure I want to keep doing Christmas cards. I think I have a longer post on this when I’m not sleep deprived due to rampant itching at 3am (again) and a full day at the uni. I like sending cards, I love getting cards, I don’t send to people I don’t want to send to or anything like that (mom has talked about sending to people where it makes no sense to keep doing it as they have lost all touch etc) - but I feel like something is missing from the whole Christmas card exchange. I dunno. I need to figure this out more. It suddenly strikes me that this is a very un-Christmasy section of a post to make this time of the year. But, you know, I think you guys can handle it.

Edited writed to writes

I’m watching Season 6 of Buffy. We don’t even own Season 7. I have mixed feelings about that, but not mixed enough to buy it. So I’m watching Season 6 and I’ve been enjoying it. I’ve been seeing things I didn’t see the first time. (Obviously I’ve watched Once More With Feeling and Tabula Rasa multiple times, but the rest of the season I’ve not necessarily seen since the first time.) And yes, I had watched up to As You Were last night. And you know, I thought As You Were did much better the second time around. Season 6 has done better this “second full time around”. I saw Riley as I thought they intended him to be seen. He looked good. He didn’t bug me. He highlighted the problems with Spike. All good.

So I’m thinking, hey maybe I am ready to have this feeling about the rest of Season 6! Maybe even Season 7 too!

I just watched Hell’s Bells.

Nope. Things go bad from here on in. I did not feel differently about Hell’s Bells this time. This is inconsistent. This is not how the characters would act (Xander), and this is not where the arc would have led. All I can think is that Joss got a thought that went something like “wouldn’t it be cool if Anya became a vengeance demon again!” and I can now feel how the events to come were the result of “how do we make it clear that Spike is evil?” and “what would it take to make Willow totally off the deep end into dark magic?” The rest of the season is driven by random “cool” thoughts Joss had and wanted to see play out. You know how Hush was in response to the charge that Buffy was just about snappy dialogue? And how OMWF was just about Joss wanting to finally write a musical? Those are examples of how this reactionary writing can be used for GOOD. The rest of season 6 and all of season 7 are the same pattern used for EVIL. Season 7 is to counter the charge that Buffy is all about the power of the scoobies and the teamwork. It is to counter the idea that Buffy, herself, is unique. Or something. I don’t know. And I don’t know if I’ll get/watch season 7 as I’m not even sure I”ll keep going with season 6 here.

When I watched all of Firefly and then immediately watched Serenity as the “next episode” - Serenity sucked hard. It sucked harder than it had in the theatre and in my first DVD watch because this time I watched right after the amazingness that was Firefly. It hadn’t sucked (as much) before because I watched it in isolation. But, when put back to back with Firefly - it could not compare. All the sparkle was gone. All the character development was erased. And I pointed out to Jim that it seemed Joss had reverted to where he initially wanted to go with the pilot. I will argue that Serenity follows the pilot directly, as if the entire series of Firefly never existed. Jane is without any soul, Simon is automated, and Mal is dead inside. Wash is non-existent and has three lines in the whole thing. He can’t have more because what makes Wash “Wash” is what made Firefly so much better than where Joss wanted to take it; Wash would have never survived in the Pilot-verse and therefore couldn’t survive in Serenity.

And I can see this same pattern emerging with Buffy right now as I watch. Yes, I have some moments I will appreciate that are still to come (and I will probably watch them), but this episode really marks the departure point for my real love of the show. Joss has proven with Serenity and with Hell’s Bells 0nward that he cannot be trusted with my emotions. Not in some “I don’t like angst” way, but in a way that demands congruent plot/character development. He goes for the hurt just because he can. I think he learned this with the Angel/Buffy plotline.  He was so worried about falling into the Moonlighting trap (nobody likes them if it is too easy and they are just TOGETHER) so he gave Buffy/Angel the heartache and it was awesome.  But it seems then he goes on to confuse “causing the audience pain” with “giving the audience an amazing journey”. Buffy/Angel was sweet tortured heartbreak.  It worked. We loved it. But then he assumes great pain means greatness. But it doesn’t. And it is, rather, betrayal of the trust the audience has placed in the hands of the writers and the stories.  At a certain point it is just somebody poking out Xander’s eye.  Anya didn’t deserve to be left at the alter, Buffy didn’t deserve her friends turning away from her, and Xander should keep his eyeballs. Sheesh.

This is officially too long. I have even more to say, but let’s leave it at that for now.

I made my own pickled eggs yesterday.  They are very good.  I’m making more tonight.  I think of them at strange times (like when I’m driving down the road) and I need to have one.  I’m blaming the beeb.

I am crazy itchy.  I think it might be the dry weather, but I’m blaming pregnancy on this one too.  I have almost gone through a tub of body butter.  On my one mommy website it warns that none of these lotions are ever tested on pregnant women - you know, store bought body lotion.  I believe that is the path to madness. Itchy madness. And no, I’m not making my own home-brew organic body lotion.  I can’t even get my marking done. Let’s get serious, shall we?

The one meal that I can continually eat is peanut butter and jam on toast.  Everything else in the universe is hit or miss.  Even plain rice can make me gag.  As I know because the container of it in the fridge was ooking me out so I turfed it and then did the dry heave over the sink.  I”M SO COOL!  Obviously for the purpose of this point, pickled eggs are not considered a meal. They are currently called “pregnancy suppliment”

I got a massage today and she confirmed that my back was seriously wonked up.  She has made it much better.  She gets an extra special Christmas card this year.  And as someone on the mommy board was concerned - all massage therapists in BC are certified and trained up the wazoo.  But then, my dear blog readers, you are not the mommy board.  I’m obviously confusing you two as you all don’t say things like “ohmygod, be sure she knows how to massage pregnant women!” Because, you all know I don’t tend to get rub-downs by random streets peoples. Well, not these days at least.

I found it an interesting discussion over at dogeared re: comments on blogs (and other things).  Got me to thinking.  I sure do appreciate how much you all comment.  And I know I’ve had times where I tried to always think up amazingly profound comments when I was at someone’s blog, but then I realised how much I appreciated just knowing that people were stopping by and reading and I didn’t really care if they had anything to “add” per se.  So with that in mind, I have tried to always leave at least a little something when I go by someone’s blog.  The only exception has been that lately some of you are posting on BSG (are those the right letters?) and Heroes and whatnot and I have no TV so on those ones, I really don’t have anything to say.  Plus I figure I make up for it because sometimes I leave huge rambling comments, so the shorter ones are probably welcomed.

I scanned them tonight at dad’s, but when I got home I realised they were in .vap format and I have NO CLUE on how to use these files. So I’ll try to convert them at dad’s and then bring them home again.

Meanwhile Rupert is seriously trying to eat the curser as I’m typing. If it weren’t so cute, I might be pissed. So I shall leave you with kitty pictures. Rupert loves some key spots. Top of the fridge, the vent in the kitchen that blows on his kitty bum, and the oven range hood.

Oh so warm on kitty bum!