"Winter" Weather, San Diego Style

Last night Jay turned on the heat for the first time. I guess it's silly to complain about it being "cold" here, but it's been in the 40's at night and to me that is cold. I even had some magic shell in the kitchen (you know, the chocolate ice cream topping that hardens when it hits the cold ice cream, or is mistakenly stored in the refrigerator). Last night it was clear that the bottle's idea of "room temperature" and the actual temperature in my kitchen, are quite different as it was almost hardened in the bottle. Well I suppose that's just as well; the stuff isn't that healthy anyway.

So anyway, the heat is set to approximately 62-65 and I shudder to think of the electric bill. I know, I'm very spoiled to live here. I am so disgusted with certain things in San Diego lately, like the various pension/bribery/etc scandals within the city council and now "Duke" Cunningham's admission of taking bribes while in office. I am glad to say I didn't vote for him, but I am always disappointed to see this sort of thing. The bad politics coupled with the insane cost of living are--at least for now--outweighed by the fact that 50 degrees Farenheit is considered "cold".

On a different note, I cooked the entire Thanksgiving meal by myself again this year. My dad and my youngest brother came down to our house for the holiday. I burned the first two pies (by baking them at 475 instead of 375) but I rushed to the store, bought new pies, and everything turned out well. My dad, brother, and I took Luke to Legoland on Friday. Depsite the fact that it was more crowded that normal, it was a lot of fun. Luke went on the dragon coaster twice and we bought one of the pictures because he had his arms up all on his own. It's his new favorite ride, apparently.

My family and I have also decided to do something a little different for Christmas this year. Rather than buying gifts for everyone we're going to buy gifts for a family that my church is sponsoring who lost everything in New Orleans. Their whole extended family of 16 people moved here to San Diego and the church has been helping them start their lives over. We should have been doing this sort of thing for years instead of buying each other stuff we don't really need. I'm still planning to buy small gifts (See's candy) for my family, but no big "stuff". Luke will still be getting presents though, since he is 4, and he is so excited. He wakes up each morning saying "Merry Christmas". He is also calling everybody "donut" right now. Kids! He insisted we get a Christmas tree last weekend, so we did that Sunday. Jay came for the first time and he picked it out and even did most of the work to get it in place. It was really nice for a change. The cats seem to knock off a few ornaments each day, and we saw Abby *in* the tree once, but it hasn't been too bad, yet.

I also made homemade sugar cookies with Luke on Saturday. Completely from scratch; even the frosting (in 5 different colors). It felt like I spent all day in the kitchen baking or cleaning, but he was so proud of "helping" that it was worth it.

I have completed 67 miles on my trek to Rivendell so far. I still have 391 to go, but it's progress anyway. I was up a couple pounds after Thanksgiving but I managed to get 8 miles in during the holiday so it wasn't too bad. I hate that it gets dark so early now; there's a nice 2.5 mile loop that I like to walk and I can't do it alone at night. I have a friend who will walk with me, but not when it's so cold.

Well, I'm headed off to run some errands at lunch and maybe wrap a couple more presents.

South Park

I don't think I can embed a picture directly from webshots, so I will have to use a link to show off my Personalized South Park Character. I don't remember where I saw these first, but several people have them on their blogs now and I just love it.

Despite being crude and over the top the vast majority of the time (if not all of the time), I do watch South Park. When I can manage to get past the bawdiness, I can recognize that it is some of the most witty satire I've seen in a long time. This week's new episode was no exception. This week they took on Scientology. Oh my. Now, I firmly believe that a person has the right to believe whatever they choose, but, as one of the characters in the episode said, "some people are so desperate to believe in something that they'll believe anything." There was this part where they were explaining what Scientologists believe, with the caption "This is what Scientologists actually believe" flashed up on the screen. I don't recall exactly; it was something about frozen alien souls dropped in a volcano that died and are the root of all the issues/fears/etc that people have. WTF?? Can that really be true? Well, I found a link at Wikipedia. It even mentions the South Park episode down towards the end of the page. Wikipedia rocks.

Catching Up, Again

I was home sick yesterday; I can tell that I am truly sick when I fall asleep on the couch trying to watch a Lord of the Rings movie. I can’t even stitch while I’m watching those (well, not very efficiently anyway) because I can barely tear my eyes away from the screen. I slept most of the day and feel much better today, though still tired. I did receive some good news yesterday, however; our couch is ready and will be delivered next Wednesday. I had really hoped it would be delivered by Thanksgiving so that I can rearrange the living room and have room for a Christmas tree.

My dad is coming down for Thanksgiving; my youngest brother may or may not be here also. I don’t really enjoy cooking, but I like to have a traditional Thanksgiving meal and I don’t want to go anywhere. Last year I made a turkey with all the trimmings and I’ll be doing the same this year. I’ll be going to the grocery store at lunch tomorrow; I hope it isn’t too crowded. Since I live in an area which has a lot of retirement communities it can be torture to go to the store during the day. I’m taking Luke to see The Jungle Book at his friend’s church tomorrow evening though, so I have no choice but to go tomorrow at lunch. I’m sure the weekend will be far worse than a Friday at lunch time.

Jay still won’t come around on having another child and I am completely heartbroken over it. I’m trying to accept it and appreciate the things that we can do with only one that we couldn’t do with two, but I still cry regularly when I see babies or pictures (like my best friend’s ultrasound picture last week). We’re planning to go to Brian Head, Utah this winter to go skiing/snowboarding so that’s something we couldn’t afford to do with two children, at least not right now. I found a nice resort with a good package that includes 3 nights and four full-day lift tickets. I’ve never been to Utah before and I love to go to places where I’ve never been. It turns out it’s only two hours further away than driving to Mammoth would be, and it’s cheaper (even factoring the extra gas).

I’m also starting to think about Luke’s birthday party. His birthday is January 5th so I’m planning to have his party a week or two after his actual birthday so it won’t be as close to the holidays. He has decided he wants to have it at a place called Pump It Up. They have two large rooms for private parties with a variety of bouncies (there’s a slide, a dual obstacle course, a sumo ring, and a regular bounce house or two). I looked into having a party in the gym at the community center across the street and renting one bouncie, but it was about half the price to just have the party at the bounce place. He wants a Harry Potter ice cream cake and is really excited about it. It’s the first year we’ll be doing a “real” party for him with all of his friends. I’m actually looking forward to it; we’ve been to so many other kids’ parties this year and I know he can’t wait to have his own.

Last weekend I took Luke to Legoland again and he went on the Project X Technic rollercoaster. It is the biggest, scariest ride they have there (not that it’s *that* scary, but he is four). He had a great time and has been talking ever since about wanting to go on the Dragon (which was closed) and the Knight’s Tournament rides. I love rollercoasters so it’s great to see him so excited about them.

It’s hard to believe that this is the same child from the beginning of the year, or even June. Since June he’s done the following: gotten over his fear of dogs, the water (and learned how to swim AND gone off the diving board multiple times on his own), roller coasters, bouncies, and big play structures (like the kinds with crawling tubes, etc). He is also learning how to read and write, which I am really enjoying. I love it when he points out letters on street signs, etc.

Well, that pretty much summarizes the past week. Oh, my stitching site will not be re-built following its crash, so I’m trying to start a new site. I haven’t had a lot of time to devote to it though, so I’ve set up a webshots album for the interim. I’m ¾’s of the way done with parts 10 and 11 of Mystery 8 so I really think I’ll catch up and start beading this month. It looks like I should be able to finish it by the end of the year, just like Mystery 6 last year. I also got the *perfect* fabric for Firefly Fairies; I had Mindy from Sugar Maple Fabrics dye something for it and it arrived last night. I’m planning to start it once I finish Mystery 8, assuming I can find the pattern. It’s time to reorganize the closet; it’s really gotten out of hand.

Photo Site is Down

Apparently the website where I store my photos is experiencing some technical difficulties. I've been considering the idea of getting my own site for awhile, and this just might be the catalyst that I need. I have a friend who has his own hosting site with a huge amount of space that is willing to let me set up my own site there. I haven't done it yet because I'm lazy; I'd have to get all of my photos together and learn how to do a webpage (I know I know, it can't be *that* hard. Didn't you just read where I said I was lazy? :) ).

So for now, the pictures from Halloween in the previous entry have been replaced with the dreaded little red x. Hopefully it will only be temporary.

I have spent the week trying to be more active and healthy; my food choices have been better and I've been exercising regularly. I feel a lot better when I manage to exercise; I know I should be better about making the time. I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I've decided to take part in The Eowyn Challenge. So far I have completed 41 miles and have 417 more to go to "reach" Rivendell. I know I know, it's kind of nerdy, but I never claimed to be otherwise. I re-read the Lord of the Rings books every year right around Christmas (yay, it's almost that time again!) and I've even read the Silmarillion twice. I know there are several other stitchers who are planning to participate in the challenge also so it makes it more interesting. Of course, having my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I want to do *all* of the distances on the site, not just the one to Rivendell. That should keep me exercising for several years, which is not a bad thing.

So anyway, things have been alright I suppose. We had an election here this week and I am so thrilled for it to be over, even if I'm not happy about all of the results (some of them are okay with me, though). I really hate elections. I almost always vote; I've missed a couple of the smaller elections but don't plan to again. I've registered permanent absentee which really makes things easier. It's all the advertising that really drives me insane though. I hate the television ads. What kind of idiot decides how to vote on an issue based on an extremely skewed tv ad? Talk about distorting the truth. I've actually taken the time to read some of the proposition text this year (it was painful, truly painful) and I am impressed with the creative interpretations that ended up in the commercials. Good grief! And if that wasn't bad enough, we were inundated with junk mail and someone actually came to our door on a Saturday. We'd gone out to lunch and when we returned home there was a flier attached to our door knob with a handwritten "sorry we missed you" note. My goodness I was so pissed. I almost wish I had been home since it was for the mayoral candidate for whom I did not vote. I'm so glad that we just have two cell phones and no landline; at least we were spared from the barrage of phone calls which I'd heard about from my co-workers.

So yeah, we had an election and it's over and I'm glad. Election time always just frustrates me because I am never happy with the choices that we have. I always feel that I'm voting for the person that I feel will be the lesser of evils. I can't remember ever actually voting "for" someone. I always try to vote because I feel that I don't have a right to complain if I don't at least have my say, and I fully intend to complain.

Well enough about that. Just thinking about politics and elections, etc, makes me feel aggravated. I should really wrap this up anyway; have a pleasant weekend, everyone.

Halloween Pictures

I have had an insanely busy week at work and finally had a few minutes today at home at lunch to upload some Halloween pictures. The first is the jack-o-lantern that I carved for Luke. It took a torturous 2+ hours but his smile made it work it in the end:

















In costume on Halloween:
























And finally, one from Legoland before Halloween. I took him to their "brick or treat" event and got some cute pictures. Here's one of my favorites:

















Well, I need to get back to work. I worked late yesterday so I get to come home early today, yay!