browser life

We've sung the carols, lit the candles, carved the roast beast. I'm winding down Christmas night now with one last piece of traditional instrumental music and some blueberry tea. And I just downloaded an enormous amount of Christmas pics that I hope to find the energy to edit before Christmas 2009.

Dan and I had planned to drive around and look at holiday lights last weekend, but a blizzard squashed that notion, so we did it Tuesday night instead. I do wish the local newspaper would quit listing streets that no longer participate in the "Christmas lanes" because it would have saved us a lot of time, but the few that did pan out were very entertaining. And I did have my annual Starbucks cafe mocha; it seems to taste twice as good when I only let myself have one a year.

After we got home, our friends Greg and Angie came by bearing gifts and some muscle to help move some furniture back into place in the basement. They and Dan pooled their resources together to get me an AWESOME toy! A stereo that converts vinyl and cassette onto CD; my iTunes playlist is gonna get HUGE now!

Yesterday, we went to our church service at 7pm. It had a choir, musicians playing trumpet, violin and cello and readings. I kept messing up on the carols because they were using versions with newer lyrics (why??), and during the candlelight portion, wax dripped onto my pants and stained them, but other than that, a nice service.

Afterward, we drove to Dan's sister's house where there were 11 people waiting for us to exchange gifts. Rather chaotic, and I took plenty of pics to prove it, heh heh. By the time everything was unwrapped and everyone had had a cookie or two, it was 11pm, just barely enough time for the kids to get to sleep before Santa's arrival.

Today, I took it easy for awhile, trying to save up energy for dinner. Read the paper and watched "A Christmas Story". My dad surprised me by calling about 2pm; we talked about half an hour I think.

We headed back to my sister-in-law's house at 4pm. I was able to eat some turkey, mashed potatoes, a few bites of other veggies, a couple of cocktail shrimp, Watergate salad and a sliver of crustless pumpkin pie. Dan learned how to play games on the Wii, which was pretty entertaining to watch.

I crashed about 7pm and had to call it a night. Once home, Dan and I watched the Alistair Sim version of "A Christmas Carol" because I was too brain dead to view anything I hadn't already memorized. I also ate some pecan pie filling Dan's mom sent home with me; hadn't had pecan pie since before my mom died in 1997, and I probably shouldn't do it again since it's pretty much just corn syrup and butter, but it WAS tasty I'll admit.

Now I feel barely conscious, and my pain level is pretty close to a 10, but it was probably worth the effort. I'm hoping the muscle cramps I've had this week will finally let up and that I'll get some real sleep.

I'm gonna go try that right now.