Christmas

Christmas, overall, was good.

Kayla's uncle Steven (or is it Stephen?) is visiting Maryland, so he's spent Christmas Eve and Day with us so far. After we opened gifts yesterday morning, we went to Grandma's house for the usual gift opening there, and--something new--Christmas Brunch. I guess they decided not to deal with the hassel of a full-on sit-down Christmas dinner.

Mom, Dad and I left earlier than everyone else, and I spent the extra time between our getting home and dinner time finishing Dragons of Winter Night and reading the book Grandma wrote about herself. There was much distraction--I kept getting fascinated by Jason's Erector set. I've also decided that I'm not going to read Dragons of Spring Dawning, etc, unless I have nothing else more interesting or new to read.

Dinner was breakfast, since the brunch wasn't all that. Then, we all played Halo--well, Dad, Anna, Tim, Kayla, Stephen and I did anyway--Kimba and Mom don't do video games, and Jason's grounded until tomorrow. Around eleven, I decided to stop and take a shower before heading upstairs to relax a bit before bedtime.

Gifts I Gave (and the people I gave them to):

• Jason: Gryffindor silk tie and lambswool scarf set
• Kayla: Guitar Hero Aerosmith for PS2
• Anna: An authentic replica of Lucius Malfoy's walking stick/wand
• Kimba: A "teaching bag" (as she calls it) with her name on it, and Travel Scrabble
• Dad: A digital photo frame, with 13 pictures of the family and special occasions (such as senior class pics, Mom & Dad's wedding, and graduations)
• Mom: Two pair of jeans in size 10Long, since she fits my size jeans now

Gifts I Received (I can never remember who gave me what, but anything with a * is something that was on my list):

• Electronic Phase 10
• Sudoku the board game
• The Story of My Life by Grandma S. (the book about her that I talked about earlier)
• A book of wide-staff musical manuscript paper*
• What Would MacGyver Do?
• The Year of Living Biblically
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to Musical Composition*

Twenty-Five

Okay, so this post is two days late . . . so what?

I am now officially a quarter-century old. *cue the confetti* Had a pretty quiet birthday, all told, which is good. I meant to go to the Haven that day, but before I could leave the house (read: camper) I had to 1) pay my bills and figure my finances, 2) do my laundry, and 3) take a shower. I also wanted to go put gas in the bug and buy a new umbrella (my old black one is finally broken beyond the ability to work around), but I didn't get that far either.

It was nearly five in the evening before I got out of the shower, and it rained off and on, so I didn't feel like going anywhere after that. Not to mention, most of the Haven people I'd hang out with would have been too busy preparing for Pennsic War (they left today, and the shop won't be open for a couple weeks while they're there) for me to be much interested in going after all.

So I stayed home and had a lazy day. It helped, because last Saturday I stayed up until 7 a.m. Sunday, and had yet to catch up on the missed sleep at the time, despite getting regular amounts of sleep on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. But when I went back to work yesterday, I felt refreshed.

Last Saturday, I saw Hancock with Kayla--it was funny, and I liked the story a lot. Great special effects and fight scenes as well. We were originally going to see the new Batman movie, but the show we wanted to see was sold out and we didn't want to have to leave and come back for another show, so we saw Hancock instead.

Tomorrow, we're seeing Batman, so it's all good.

For my birthday, I got a new purse, a wallet, a new watch, and an electronic Sudoku game. I'd never cared much about having a wallet or not, 'cause I just kept my cash in my pocket (or on the cup on my nightstand) and my most-used cards in my checkbook, but it's nice to have it all in one place and not need the pocket or the cup.

I was kind of leery about using a new watch while the old one still works just fine, but the new one is just so pretty (the old one was gold finish, and I prefer silver, which the new one is) that I couldn't resist. So I stopped the old watch (pulled out the knob) so the battery wouldn't die, and buckled it to my old purse.

Brother B. also sent me a telegram for my birthday--he's a ham radio operator, so he sent the message through that to another operator, who called my cell phone and left it on my voice mail. That was pretty cool. He also called to follow up a little while later.

I was going to say something about the last day or two or something, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was now. Oh well, if I remember, I can always make another entry.