Well that was just about the best Christmas ever. The out-of-state siblings flew in, JackO adorned his best fleece, we ate obscene amounts of great food, friends were in abundance, spirits and irish cream were flowing, we got a couple of decent family photographs, and to top it all off I received some really awesome thoughtful presents! Guess I finally got to the point where I was looking forward to everything else so much I forgot about the gifts. Gravy.
Archive for December, 2002
Happy Holidays!
Friday, December 27th, 2002
Death by association
Sunday, December 22nd, 2002JeffO and JackO are in town. Unfortunately to spend much time with them, you have to adapt to their college-esque lifestyle, which means going out all night, sleeping during the day and eating as much cholesterol as humanly possible. For example, Saturday afternoon involved the rapid consumption of multiple Plaza burgers with extra plaza sauce and fries, followed by much-needed napping after the previous nights goings-on and Sunday was similar, substitute a scrambler from Mickie’s for lunch – a full plate of hash browns, eggs, meat of your choice all covered in gravy. Jack’s scrambler-performance was impressive, a tribute to life in Wisconsin. I’ll revive with a little sleep, exercise and celery, but with the upcoming holidays, that seems unlikely. SO glad my 20s are over…
Lonely
Thursday, December 19th, 2002I miss my computer.
The Christmas card, or lack thereof
Friday, December 13th, 2002I had great intentions with the Christmas cards this year… the idea was complete and ready to go but apparently I went too late for supplies because everybody was sold out of red and green glittery glue, imperative to the design. Plan B was formulated… a partially hand-made, partially computer-designed pièce de résistance, but my computer blew up on the second printing and ceased to breath again, in need of a new fan transplant. RIP Gourdo. After coming across the very last snowflake punch tool thingy at a craft store, I went back to a simpler version of Plan A, but upon getting the tool home, it was found to be defective. Therefore, I am officially giving up. I already wrote the accompanying online Christmas letter though, so if you want to read it, it’s here.
You are my friend
Wednesday, December 11th, 2002I’m slacking shamefully on the Babble, assuming that if I’m too busy during the holidays to write it, most people are probably too busy to read it. My friend Tony sent me this site today though, which deserves some recognition. Go to http://julie.olsen.youaremyfriend.com/, but substitute your name (or noun) of choice in the URL (i.e. http://beer.youaremyfriend.com/). Makes a lovely Christmas gift for that non-web-savvy friend or relative.
December 2002 update
Sunday, December 1st, 2002Yippee, the holidays are here. If Thanksgiving and the week surrounding it were any indication of what’s to follow, I think I might pass on this year’s festivities. Not that I didn’t enjoy the Thanksgiving feast of Boston Market and Bud Light that I shared with my brothers – that was actually one of the highlights of the week – but there seem to be a surplus of grumpy/overly-busy people around lately.
To avoid them, I had planned to put hardwood down in my new office — a self-inflicted project designed to keep me out of the mall, divert my focus from the fact that it will be constantly grey and cold outside for the next 4 months, and prevent me from harming all those drivers who venture out for Christmas shopping, oblivious of other traffic, pedestrians and signage.
After hauling 20 boxes of hardwood into my home, it’s now been discovered that the hardwood is NOT of the same quality I’ve put in two other rooms, and not only is it basically unuseable but the original product is no longer available. And of course, it’s a fairly unique style of varigated maple, so I have yet to find a similar product. Which means, ironically enough, I will now be paying carpet people to reinstall the tack board and carpet pad which I just tore out, and shopping for carpet along with Christmas presents which I can’t order online because I have no office/internet access, thus turning me into one of the aforementioned overly-busy grumpy people.