Whooof!!

(That's the sound of someone collapsing on a moderately stuffed sofa, BTW.) So! Since my last update so much has happened that I honestly want a 3-day nap session. Visiting family is wonderful but exhausting. I can see why if you don't live with them every day you tend to just stay for a week or so and then want another vacation when you get home. There's a major tendency to pack too much into that short period of time because you know you won't have them around for very long, and at the end of it you're like "Ugh, I love you but go home already". ^_^ Sound familiar to anyone else out there?

Mum arrived safely and was a great sport about me working while she was here. We balanced things rather well by having one day of activity followed by a day of mostly loafing. She got thru it all with a smile, for which I'm really glad. I ate better than I usually do and we discovered that (of course) a major part of why my digestive system kicks me in the spleen is because my diet is singularly lacking in veggies and fresh fruits. I knew I was a horrid cook, but I didn't think it was that bad. At this rate I'm going to have to end up planning my meals for a change. *shivers* Tim came up for a weekend to visit my shiny new Assembly of God church and wasn't freaked, which I took to be a compliment on my choice of worship homes. We all had lots of great conversation too, and I got really tired of talking. (Just imagine! *laugh*)

Once Gen made it in to town we headed down to spend a few days with Tim and his roomies, which was a lot of fun. At first it was "Oh, only 4-5 of my friends will show up." Ha! We ended up with at least 15 fun-loving people who kept me up past midnight and introduced Mum and Gen to the Wii. That was a total hoot! Wii Sports might actually be something they could play together without Mum feeling too awful and Gen hurting her shoulder too much. Seriously, I want one now. *drools* But a new TV comes first. On Sunday we visited Tim's church and headed up to Jos. A Banks to get Tim a grand new business suit. Its kinda cool that I've got a bro who actually has an excuse to shop there. Tim the businessman! ^_^

Then on Monday (Nov. 17) we ladies cooked up a traditional Meleagris gallopa meal for the masses while Tim was at work, complete with Gen's special stuffing and plenty of pie. I remembered all over again why I stay out of the kitchen when those two are cooking and totally stuffed myself. Then on Tuesday before they left, they insisted that I set up my apartment for Christmas since I'd already had Thanksgiving. *laugh* Hard to argue that one, so I'm already in the Christmas mode, which is probably a good thing considering how long it takes me to get Christmas cards out the door. ;-p I'm just not saying it too loudly around Jessie since she insists that the Christmas season can't start until after her birthday on December 2.

Once my family got safely home, my work life decided to riot. This time around it isn't anything I feel I can't handle, just things that are a pain to deal with. One of our -80F freezers went down and we scrambled to find other places to store all our crude. The upside of this is that Bill decided to help me clean out all that crude and so our inventory is considerably lightened as of this afternoon. (His printer is still on the fritz and won't behave anywhere near predictably, of course.) As a result of all the cleaning I now have 5 bags worth of stuff to autoclave and dispose of, and 3-4 days of boxes/glassware/random implements of scientific investigation to wash and dry. Coupled with the usual holiday fishcare, I'm drowning in chores around here. Oh well!

I'm hoping that even though I'll have to work thru the holiday season and care for other people's stuff while they travel that I won't get too grumpy while doing it. I usually end up taking my time off in February once everyone gets back, but that's a long time to work while not everyone else is. Even the most well-meaning of folks can get grumpy doing that, I know, so I won't beat myself up too much about it. And I certainly have plenty of holiday stuff to do between cards and shopping and visits and such. I'm determined not to miss anything just because I'm scrubbing fish tanks, and to enjoy Christmas as much as I can. It is one of my most favorite times of year after all.

Other things that make me happy are planning a day to hang out with Jessie and Karin, doing the traditional shopping trip with Laura Linehan in a couple weekends, hanging with the Linehan/Leydorf crew for Thanksgiving (and eating more Meleagris gallopa), the release of a new Kingdom Hearts game in a week, and the fact that Moyashimon the manga will be released by Del Rey next year! If you ever wondered if its possible to write an interesting story around microbes that doesn't involve murder, oh yes it is. ^_^