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It was a rather nice weekend, horridly bitter, snowy weather notwithstanding
December 06, 2010
Spouse spent most of Saturday with his tech writing study group, getting their group project wrapped up and put to bed. So I had a lovely day, puttering around the house. Did all the laundry, got all the cards for the Holiday Card Exchange ready to go (now I just need to get the stamps!), and pottered on the 'puter in my jammies, as I so dearly love to do.
Once Spouse finally got home from his project, we got cleaned up and went out to dinner, to a little Italian place we like. Then we tackled the shopping; I needed to go to Wally's for baking supplies, meds, and paper goods.
Also got new pillows and cases for Spouse; I swear he just destroys them with his man-grease. I don't know what it is about his body chemistry, but the waxen, acidic gunk he leaves on a pillow is totally destructive. And as much as he would benefit from really good pillows, they have to be thrown out so often that we can't justify the expense. It's better in the end to buy cheap ones, if they have to be replaced every four months or so. And as for the pillow cases, it doesn't matter how often he washes his hair or I wsh the pillow cases--even soaking them in a "garage" strength degreaser only works so many times before we have to chuck them as well.
Sunday was a decent day, too...we got up slow, lazed around all morning talking on the phone and making breakfast together, then we got dressed and ran a couple of errands. I wanted to get nice card for the 'rents and for Auntie & Uncle, plus Spouse wanted a couple for Niece & Nephew, so we ran to the drugstore and picked some out.
Total puchase: four greeting cards. Total charges: FOURTEEN DOLLARS AND SIXTY-ONE CENTS.
I 'bout had a stroke. Honestly--Hallmark is such a rip-off. I bought three boxes of twenty--SIXTY cards--and only paid $11.08! Granted, I got them at a 50% off sale, but still. Pasteboard, ink, paper envelopes. Same thing--but even at the full price for the box cards, you have to figure that they were nearly ten times the price, just becasue they said Hallmark on them.
Anyway, after that little reality check, we came home and I got the Christmas baking kicked off with a batch of M&M cookies. Which came out really well for a change; usually my M&M cookies come out really flat and thin, but these were just perfect.
Made Spouse happy, and that was the real point of it. I know that none of these cookies will make it anywhere near Christmas, but I accept that. It's about enjoying the season all through the season, so that's what I concentrate on. If I was really determined to preserve this early baking, I'd just put them downstairs in the freezer, but what the hell. Why not enjoy them now?
So the cookies went well, and we had brought home so many leftovers from the Italian restaurant that dinner was a breeze...I'd call it a good day. And all in all, a nice weekend.
Oh yeah--and I dropped the bomb this weekend.
Let the family know that I had no intention of even attempting to go to Iowa for Christmas. Yeah. THAT went over big.
Without going into a lot of tedious detail, I will just say that I am completely fed up with my brothers and their inbred, redneck ways. If they want to treat me like a pariah for daring to live a life outside of that pathetic little tri-county area? Whatever. But if you want to ignore me, IGNORE ME. Don't expect me to come flying back to Iowa, bearing expensive presents, every time there's an occasion for gift-giving.
And will someone please tell my sister-in-law that she won't get murdered for daring to call out-of-state? (Or maybe she will. My miserly douchebag brother probably would kill her for making a long-distance call.)
Mind you, I exercised more tact than you would gather from the above. I simply told them that both Spouse and I had crazy schedules that prohibited the trip.
I had one of those karmic payback days today, though. When I got up this mornng, I found out that my new shirt doesn't fit, my coffee maker had given up, and everything I was touching was turning to poopycaca.
While I was trying and failing to hold my temper and not lose my shit completely, Spouse (who I swear is bucking for sainthood lately), came into the kitchen and calmly asked what was wrong. I gave him the short & understated version: "Things are not going well for me this morning."br>
Bless him, he came back with "Is there anything I can do to make them go better?" (Who IS this guy? Damn, I love my husband.)
When I couldn't come up with an answer, he took matters into his own hands and provided one for me. He told me to relax, he would drive me to work, we could stop for coffee, and he would stop at the 24-hour Wally's in Zion on the way home and pick up a new coffee maker.
So my morning improved. We did the above, and when he picked me up and brought me home, there was a new coffeepot, a hot dinner, and nothing for me to deal with but putting my feet up and relaxing. And photography.
I had to photograph him performing all the stages of the dishwashing process, for a Technical Writing assignment he's doing. So I did that, then re-sized and auto-fixed the shots in picnik, and threw them onto his flash drive so he was all ready to go. We are such a good team.
Reading: Hobby--"Mary Cary" (1910)and "Miss Gibbie Gault" (1911) by Kate Langley Bosher. The first is written as the diary of a 12-year-old orphan in a small-town asylum in Virginia. The second is a sequel to the first, but in the third person. It kind of reminds me of "Rose in Bloom", actually--at least so far. Girl in the first book is young woman in the second, back from Europe, very high-principled, and bent on social reform.
General--"Compulsion" (2008), by Jonathan Kellerman
Surfing: Manybooks.
Listening:
At Random:
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