Christmas was saved by the timely arrival of the crowning Present of Awesome for havelock, so everybody limbo! I got so motivated we went out and bought the tree.


Yah it's like five feet tall but the MINI had been pine needle free for like six whole months.

( some of my favorite ornaments )

I'm inordinately proud of my tree, incidentally. I've been building my scrupulously pagan ornament collection since college, and all we really need are a couple of ornaments from havelock's family's tree to make it complete. havelock wrapped all my presents and put them under the tree this evening while watching the Cowboys cream the Vikings in the first half of the game. I'm pleased to say I bugged him constantly when he was done, asking if the presents were useful and if so couldn't I be using them now, because I like useful things, and using them would make my life better, and so on. Am still a kid at heart, I guess. DADDY LET ME OPEN ONE LET ME OPEN ONE PLEASE

Made sugar cookies today.

havelock's great-great-grandmother's Sugar Cookies:

Ingredients:

3 cups sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 cup crisco (regular -original kind)
1 tsp vanilla

1. Sift flour, then add dry ingredients, baking powder, salt and sugar. Put all dry ingredients in large bowl. Add crisco and with a fork (or can use pastry blender) work into dry ingredients until it sticks together like little peas. Add vanilla.
2. Add one egg at a time, mixing well after each addition with a fork or hands. Add a little flour if it keeps sticking to hands.
3. Separate into large balls, enough to fit into two hands; roll out to any thickness (we like thicker) between two sheets of wax paper.
4. Cut out cookies with cookie cutters and place on baking sheets with parchement paper.
5. Bake 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or so. Can add sugar on top before baking.

And there you have it. Fat and flour cookies.



...probably going to have to give up on having those presents by Christmas. The absolute latest they should be dropped in the mail is Monday, and my magic 8 ball says outlook is cloudy. I ordered them on December third. So sad now.

eta: also finally ripped out all the dead plants today and tossed them on the compost heap. Allah-u akbar!

Does anyone have that Jared pic in better quality? And yeah, them boys should hang out at bars. And lean. Together.


Sometimes I don't really pay attention - did this happen on the show? Or not this exactly exactly but something like it?


I think her and her boobs look friggin fantastic in this picture. However, I think I'd like the picture that much more if she were dirty.

Was struck again today by how very extraordinary Ammy's eyes are. She has the most arresting eyes I've ever seen on a dog. She was kind enough to model for posterity.





Have been using Erin as my emotional proxy for dealing with the month's stress. Seems to be working.

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FUCK YEAH IRON MAN 2 TRAILER.

FLAILING WITH EXCITEMENT OVER HERE.

Didn't feel good all today, and it looks like half the presents I ordered at the beginning of the month aren't going to be here in time for Christmas. Something in the order is holding it up and I opened a ticket asking if I could split the order and just have whatever was ready shipped. The first response was a computer generated response to let me know the ticket was open. The second was "OK WE'LL TAKE CARE OF THIS BAI" which... seems rather unhelpful. Am not filled with confidence. Luckily, the three people those presents were for will understand if they are late. But. Wah.

And aside from being sick and my grandfather dying and that good stuff, Korky has a tumor. On his butthole. You can laugh, but he needs surgery to have it removed and sent off for analysis and I'm not worried too much but I kinda am because he's thirteen and a half. IDEK. On the upside he won't need one of those Elizabethan collars to keep him from licking at stitches because his legs are too short to allow him to reach his butt. Perhaps it is cruel of me but the thought of him trying fills me with hilarity.

So my Christmas spirit kind of died. havelock has agreed (happily) to make cookies with me. So we will still make cookies. And I will still make a nice dinner. But I'll be glad when this dumb decade is over.

Bright spot: my quest for dumb feelgood bullshit anime was unsuccessful, as it turns out I still can't enjoy patently stupid eyecandy. The stupid annoys and infuriates me. But I did find this: Kemono no Souja Erin. (watch at crunchyroll) I've been mainlining it every spare second I have. If you liked Seirei no Moribito or Juuni Kokki I'd recommend Erin, though it's more like Moribito than JK.

Fuck.

...the Victoria Bitter saga is SUCH CRACK.

His son? A sparrow.

And now there is an EVIL TWIN.

Fandom Wank is the gift that keeps on giving. (Not to be confused with herpes.)

My last grandfather died this morning. I'm kind of sad that I'm not sadder about it.

eta: gonna go watch the most ludicrous bullshit feelgood anime i can find, take that december

Fog! Yayyyy!

Last week's highs were in the lower 40s, followed by rain-rain-rain. The 40s are too cold for biking (my face can't take it-- I've got gear for everything else), and it warmed up only when the rain started. I spent last week at the gym and biking in the garage, with my last outdoor ride on 12/4. So today's fog with no rain means that it's warmer-- a whole 53-56 degrees! I went riding, I was ungodly slow over all 28.5 miles, but at least I was outside! When the garage thing goes on too long, I lose all my biking speed and stamina.

HalfshellHusband went to Christopher's parent/teacher conference last week. The teacher marked Christopher "Satisfactory" on listening in class/etc., because he feels that Christopher isn't always paying attention when he's describing the lessons... but the instruction grades were all 4 or 4+. So where is the actual problem? (I ask this rhetorically). Christopher isn't being challenged by the Gifted program he's enrolled in, so he's bored a lot of the time. From my perspective, if you're not challenging a kid and his grades on content are all outstanding, consider yourself lucky.

HalfshellHusband is peeved about the whole thing, because he thinks the school should be doing more for Christopher. Realistically, though, he's a genius child in a group of really smart kids, so he's way outside the bell curve even of his gifted class. It's rare for teachers to create MORE work for themselves by offering special challenge for smarter students-- they spend enough energy as it is on the slow students. And at this age, the classrooms are 33-34 kids. If the teacher mostly leaves Christopher "alone" to do his own thing when his work is done, that's probably the best we can hope for.

Something interesting did come out of that conference, though. Christopher, who is a chatterbox, was apparently distracting some of his tablemates. So the teacher moved him to a desk that faces the wall... and was surprised when Christopher kept talking. To himself. He just babbles away over there, narrating what he's doing. What amuses me is that both the teacher and HSH thought this was surprising. ;)

Last year's first conference was worse. Christopher had a teacher who was incredibly process-oriented, which is a terrible match for his personality (and mine). She eventually loosened up and the problem went away, but HSH was very grumpy after that first conference:

HSH: Mrs. S. said that Christopher was oppositional.
Me: And?
HSH: I can't believe she said that!
Me: Are you kidding? It's his defining characteristic!

You can tell that HSH has far more patience than I do. :0

Thoughts:

* I am better, though not mended. Went to bed last night with a fever of 100 degrees, then had a dream where boonies and I were sitting around playing legos and talking about how much we liked legos and then someone dropped by and said, hey, did we know about those legos you can build and then bake into cakes? No, we did not, we replied, but they sounded awesome, then I woke up drenched in sweat and my fever was gone. So. I don't know what to make of that.

* Stomach still unsettled. Have eaten saltines and bacon today.

* Finally got past the first chapter of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and am now on page 535 and loving it, so am glad I got over that little hump. Only took me like five years or something.

* Discovered Ammy is a very smart dog, which I already knew, but she was chasing a squirrel on the garage roof, and it was hiding out just over the eaves where she couldn't see it. I pointed it out to her, but she thought I was pointing behind the garage and started going around it, patrolling, looking for what I saw. I mean... there's a person in there. She didn't find the squirrel, so now I am just hoping she doesn't ignore all my future advice.

* Underground is now known as Underground: An Apocalyptic Fairy Tale because, well. Yeah. (brittledivinity)

* Stomach really still unsettled. Both my mother and roukzeptea23 suggested jell-o. I thought this a fine idea. havelock has been dispatched to the grocery store, and I am wrapping this up so I can get on the comments to the last entry where everyone was so kind as to wish me well. <3

Did more Xmas shopping yesterday, including a visit to the dreaded mall. I saw a frog-themed bathroom mat (Hi, pamalax!), a Mouse King Nutcracker (Hi, memphis86!), and a tree ornament of a shark wearing a hulu skirt (Hi, Aussies and Pacific Islanders!).

Our tree is up and decorated, though I've still got the mantel and a few other things to finish. Meanwhile, have some random slash recs:

( SPN, Glee and White Collar recs )

...courtesy of my second viewing.

Time in Wonderland is obviously measured differently. One hour in our world is at least several days and nights there.

( So, when the mini-series ends with... )

Oh man, you guys, I am sick as a dog. I slept on the bathroom floor. My mother in law politely calls it the Ups and Outs, which is a cute and surprisingly descriptive name for the liquid shits and throwing up anything in the stomach that you put in it, including ice, water, and anti-nausea medication (literally lasted five seconds in my stomach before I puked it back up again). I thought I was going to have to go to the ER and get an IV drip to stave off dehydration for sure; my face was white as a sheet, even my lips. Around about 5 in the morning I relocated from the floor to the living room couch, which reclines and kept me partially upright, and I started keeping ice down. Poor, long-suffering havelock (saint, pending) slept on the loveseat. Ammy curled up next to me on the couch and kept me company.

Morning was spent rehydrating; the MiL stopped by and brought soup, flowers, and saltines. <3 Then I took a nap. Woke up burning up with a fever. Started at 100.3 and climbed to 102.5 (last night it was 97.6). Took ibuprofen and it's back down to 101.1, but oh man, it does not feel good. I have whined to havelock, then my mom, and now you guys. Think good thoughts for me maybe?

So, uh, gonna go back to bed and watch the PotC movies. I always loved Barbossa/Elizabeth. Tell me I'm not alone NO IT IS NOT THE FEVER TALKING

SyFy is showing Tin Man and Alice back to back today.

Maybe this will kickstart my stalled muse!

...for a while there F_W was slipping, but they've delivered some seriously awesome wank right in time for the holidays!

The Return of Victoria Bitter.

I can't stop reading.

I'm only on page three and we already have the "His wife? A horse!" joke, heds being pastede on yay, and Twilight involvement!