eee!

So a while back, sunbrae was poking at people to come back to LJ, and this morning I have a little bit of free time, so here I am. Hi, sunny! Hi, missrachael! Hi, anyone else who may still be here!

There's been a lot going on in my life since I last posted. Both of the kids had birthdays, which went well. MDR came first -- he's now two -- and we had a Kung Fu Panda themed party for him. He didn't really seem to grasp what was happening, but he knew to try to blow out the candles on his cake. Then VEE turned five and we had a DC Superhero Girls party for her. She got so many gifts. Holy Pete. Being the only granddaughter/niece on both sides of the family makes for a very spoiled little girl.

She's doing great in preschool. She's READING. Like, legitimately reading. Now every night at bedtime she insists on reading a book herself (which makes the bedtime routine last much longer than it should, but she's reading, so I shouldn't complain). I'm really so proud of her. And MDR is starting to talk a little more than he was a few weeks ago. He's very tight-lipped, but he likes to try to recite the alphabet along with us. He's also lately obsessed with Super Why on PBS, which is fine by me. I'm convinced to this day that VEE's obsession with that show is why she knew her alphabet at such a young age.

So the big event that happened in my life recently is that I had THE BEST WEEKEND EVER last weekend when my sister came to town. Many, many months ago, I got an e-mail from deeablo saying that a friend of our mutual friend was trying to get a group together to go in on early group sales for Hamilton in Chicago. So I called my sister, who said if it was a Friday or Saturday she'd fly in from RI to see the show with me (considering she can't get tickets in NYC). It turns out our group got tickets for last Friday, so on Thursday night she flew in after work. We spent Thursday night at home playing with VEE's Fashion Plates together. Friday morning we took her to preschool and then afterwards the four of us, MDR included, went to Portillo's for lunch so yakgirl could get a Chicago-style hot dog. Then we came home and played Wii bowling with VEE and got ready for the show. We dropped the kids off, then headed downtown.

It was pretty awesome to see how genuinely excited yakgirl was to be back home in Chicago. She's lived in RI for so long, but Chicago's still home. She kept snapping photos of the skyline (which is the most impressive skyline in all of the US -- sorry not sorry, NYC) and she got pictures of all the congratulatory Cubs World Series signs. We found parking right near the theater and then walked over to the Palmer House Hotel so she could use the bathroom in the lobby. Dear God, that hotel is swanky! I've always heard of the Palmer House but never went in. It's all mosaic ceilings and gilded statues holding lanterns and wow. The hotel was a block across and over from the hotel where we were seeing Hamilton, so she got a bunch of photos of that to show people at home. Then we walked over to Daley Plaza to go to the Christkindlmarket, which she'd never done before. We looked at all the little shops, bought mugs of mulled wine, and then she got some candied nuts (amaretto and rum flavored). THEN we found a vendor selling baked apples filled with marizpan, nuts, and raisins and glazed in cinnamon sugar. OMGGGGGGGG yum.

After that, we headed over to Italian Village, a mainstay restaurant downtown, for dinner. She hadn't been there since her senior year in high school, 1992. It's where she and her BFF went for dinner before prom. We kept laughing that he tried to ask for the wine list and the waiter just snapped back "NO!" and walked off. She was all "Do you think we could get wine tonight?" and that made us giggle. Maybe you had to be there... So we had dinner there and then headed over to the theater to meet our group at 7 for the 7:30 show. It was me and yakgirl, deeablo, xica_s, mei_x, and a last-minute fishdoctorpost. And of course deeablo's and my friend who set it up, along with her son and then two more acquaintances. We were all geeking out the whole way inside, and then there was the requisite buying of merchandise. (I got a t-shirt with the Chicago flag on it, except all the stars are replace with Hamilton stars.) Our seats were way high up, but it was actually not bad at all, as the higher seats gave us a chance to really watch all the choreography (which was non-stop -- get it?) as well as watch how the turntables worked. The show was A.MAY.ZING. I can't even tell you how great it was. And the cast in Chicago is TIGHT. Migeul Cervantes, the Chicago Hamilton, is really good. The man can rap AND sing, which is great. Both of the Schyler Sisters were phenomenal (and Peggy). Laurens, Mulligan, and Lafayette were good, though the guy who played Lafayette was better as Jefferson. Washington had a great voice (though he's no Chris Jackson, but NO ONE can sing like that guy), and Burr... Wow. The guy playing Burr had a different take on it that I expected. He played the role more angry. You could physically see him start to rage out and then he'd just pull it back in, and dear God his voice. Wow. When he finished "The Room Where It Happens," I honestly thought he was going to get a standing ovation right then and there. It's just SO GOOD. If any of you get a chance to come to Chicago to see the show, DO IT. Afterwards yakgirl and I hung out by the stage door for autographs. We met Hamilton, Washington, and Jefferson. It was a really great day all around.

So that's what's been keeping me up and running this week. Which, considering my children's sleeping habits, is good. As for today, I have to finish cleaning the house, straightening the kids' room and the playroom, and then start getting ready for our Christmas party tonight. It's supposed to start snowing this afternoon, so I wouldn't be surprised if people start dropping out because they don't want to drive in the snow. We'll see. We have the house all decorated and it looks very nice. Hopefully we'll be able to get everything ready for tonight in time. Which means I really should get off the computer and start cleaning up.

I hope you're all well. If I don't post again before the holidays, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas or Hannukah this year. And best wishes for a wonderful New Year. 2016 has been a shitshow, and 2017 doesn't hold much promise, but fingers crossed! Take care, y'all.

I have to post quickly before the baby wakes up. VEE is down for her afternoon nap with little fuss (hallelujah!) and so knowing how these kids work, one goes down and the other wakes up...

Things went well with our party this past weekend. Everything got done, though some of it was half-assed. There were things hidden in our laundry room and our bedroom wasn't as clean as it should have been, but oh well. Everyone seemed to enjoy the party so that's what counts. Thanks to the city folks for driving out to the burbs (aj, xica_s, and fishdoctorpost), as well as mei_x for driving down from her burb. It was great to see people. We have a crap-ton of leftover cheese. And despite starting the party out with 91 bottles of wine, we now are down to only 87 bottles thanks to people contributing their own libations. 87 bottles of wine in our house, 87 bottles of wine...

Christmas is coming along. I have almost all my shopping done. I just need to go pick up stuff for a few people, which requires driving all over God's green Earth to different stores for gift cards. I'm going to need at least one day where I leave VEE with her grandma so that I can zoom around everywhere without her. She's a pain to shop with. And then I'm going to need yet another day with her at her grandma's so that I can wrap presents. Thankfully she likes to "help" in the kitchen and we can do our baking together. I'm going to (try to) make chocolate peppermint chip cookies, lemon bars, fruitcake cookies, sugar cookies (from a mix, don't judge me!), and spritz cookies with the cookie press if I have time. That's a lot to do in the next ten days.

Not much else is up, really. We went to the Brookfield Zoo yesterday for their "Holiday Magic" light display. So many Christmas lights! VEE loved it. Of course, due to the unseasonably warm weather around Chicagoland and the Groupon deals they've been running, I think probably every parent in the tri-state area was there with their kids. It was a madhouse. Alas, this year we didn't get to see any dolphins having sex or posh old men pushing Real Dolls in wheelchairs. Man, that was a Christmas outing to be remembered...

Okay, that's all I've got for now. I'm sure I've forgotten a ton of things I was going to write about. That's life. I hope your lives are going well.

Today marks the first official day of my Christmas vacation. I was really looking forward to sleeping in. Instead, some jerkface called my husband's cell phone at 6:50 a.m., let it ring just once, and it woke me up. This is my normal wake-up time! If the call had come in at, say, 4 a.m. I would have just gone back to sleep. But a phone call at the same time your alarm clock normally wakes you up just ruins everything because it's your normal schedule. So instead I got up and putzed around online a bit. Then the Scientist woke up and we spent the rest of the morning assembling the Fisher Price/Disney singing princess palace that Santa Claus will be delivering on Christmas morning. (Better us to get it ready in advance than to spend time trying to do it in the morning amongst all the Christmas fallout while she's begging to get her hands on it.)

The Scientist went out with his dad to H-Mart to get food for tomorrow night. His family's Christmas Eve tradition is to watch Christmas movies (usually White Christmas), play games, and eat Asian appetizers like pot stickers and crab rangoon. Then they're also getting Honeybaked ham for Christmas Day, and then the Scientist has to go to the Comcast HQ to return our cable box. Ever since Dec. 13 our cable has been randomly going out. The screen goes blank, the sound cuts out, and every now and again we can see either a blue or black negative image of what's on the screen. Yesterday we had a service call, and not 30 minutes after the guy left the problem started up again. VEE was watching Jake and the Never Land Pirates, and it looked like scrambled porn. No good. So the Scientist got fed up and is taking the box to them for an exchange. Hopefully this will solve the problem. I don't know what to do otherwise. Cut cable and go with Hulu? Beats me...

So today I had to run to Target to get cat food, and the place was packed with last-minute shoppers. (And yes, I'm still going to Target despite the security breach. I only use their credit card at the store, and so it's easy to tell what's my purchase and what's not. If it wasn't sold at Tinley Park or Woodridge, then I didn't make the charge. The end!) I was going to get supplies for baking, but I forgot to check what I had on hand and what I need. I was going to make my fruitcake cookies today -- even people who hate fruitcake like these cookies -- but I got home to find that I was out of candied cherries. I have no idea where I'll find those. So perhaps fruitcake cookies aren't on the menu after all...

Man it's nice not to be at work today. Even if I'm not really getting anything done except laundry. But hey! I got my daughter to eat lunch AND take a nap, and all before 1:45. Woooooo! It's a red-letter day, my friends.

Anyway, who knows if I'll be able to check online again before the holiday. So for all of you who are celebrating, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas! And happy belated Solstice for those of you that celebrate that holiday as well! May your holiday season be filled with happiness and laughter and safe travels if you're going anywhere.

For some reason I'm utterly and completely exhausted tonight. It's not even 9:30 and I just want to curl up and crawl into bed. Yes, I stayed up way too late last night watching another Twilight movie with my sisters-in-law, but I didn't expect it to wipe me out this much. I'm so tired.

This morning I woke up and snow was falling, and it's been falling for most of the day. There was a respite while we were at my in-laws' for dinner, but of course it picked up as we were leaving and the Scientist had just cleaned off his car. The point is that I'm absolutely loving this snow. It's the soft, powdery kind that's crap for making snowmen but is absolutely beautiful. All of the trees have a light dusting of white and anywhere there are Christmas lights up there's just that extra lovely glow to it all. I'm glad the forecast is cold all week, because hopefully that will mean this snow will stick around. Nothing is more disappointing than having snow fall and then melt the next day. I just want there to be snow for the holiday...

Today we went out shopping and ran some errands. Dropped some stuff off at Goodwill, picked up road salt at Sam's, got fancy cheese at Trader Joe's and sugar free candies for my boss from See's. VEE passed out on the drive from Sam's to See's, so she ended up being carried around that store and slept in the grocery cart at Trader Joe's. Of course right now she's wide awake but fighting sleep. I left her curled up in her dad's lap, so hopefully by now she's konked out for the night.

What else is going on? I got my latest project at work off to the printer on Friday afternoon. Hooray! That's one more project done. Of course, this means I have no idea what I'll be doing at work tomorrow, as my backup project's author hasn't delivered new manuscript in over a month. Honest to God, we need something in our contracts saying these people will be deducted royalties for each month they fall behind. WHATEVER. I really don't care about work for these next two weeks. I'm just putting in my time until the holidays hit. I'm quite excited for Christmas this year. Can you tell? ;)

Anyway, that's really all I've got. I want to let those of you here on LJ know that I really do read your posts even if I don't comment much these days. Trying to use the computer at home is hard because the kid always wants to hijack it to watch Sesame Street, so I try not to use the computer or tablet while she's around. So at best, I get to read your posts on my phone's little screen (and Swyping out a reply is much harder than you'd think). The point is, I am keeping up with you whether I've replied to your posts or not, and I'm glad you're all still around. Someone recently referred to LJ as a "wasteland," and that's not far from the truth. But I barely use Twitter at all and Facebook is the devil incarnate IMO, so here I am and here I'll stay. Please keep posting. I like reading about your lives on my work breaks. :)



PS - Eclipse sucked.

This evening I picked up VEE after work and on the way home I slowed down so that she could look at all of the Christmas lights on the houses in our neighborhood. She especially liked looking for Santa in front of different houses. (I hope that means she won't freak out when she goes to see him this weekend...) We arrived home and I saw that the Scientist had hung up the lights on our house. Our townhomes are arranged with the garages in front as a separate building, then a small yard, and then the houses. Therefore, VEE couldn't see the lights as we pulled in. I told her there was a surprise in the front yard, and she asked "Cake?!" Heh. When we came out from the garage and she saw all the lights in our yard, she got all excited.

Then this evening we put up our Christmas tree, which she seems pretty impressed with thus far. I got a bunch of shatterproof ornaments for this year, as she likes to touch them all. I still have about 30 of those to hang and then we break into the non-breakable ornaments from years past. Stuff I made as a little kid, wacky ornaments I've collected over the years, etc. But either way, Christmas decorating has started and as the song says, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Yay!

Just a quick note to wish everyone a very merry Christmas Eve, and a very merry Christmas as well. Even if you don't celebrate, may you have a joyful day full of friends and family. All of my best to everyone for a wonderful holiday season. I'm sure I'll update before then, but just in case may the New Year bring lots of happiness to you all!

First off, a very happy Hanukkah to any and all who celebrate it! May your festivities be full of fun and love and laughter.

All is still well in my world. Last night was my office holiday party. I wasn't really looking forward to it, but it ended up being a lot more fun than I expected. My coworkers and I have figured out that if we sit in the side room, we can be a lot more rambunctious and fun than if we were in the main room with all the "old people." So there were a lot of cocktails, good steak, and probably the richest, most heavy chocolate cake I've ever eaten. No one at my table was even able to eat half of our slices. For those of you who've read Matilda, one of my coworkers aptly named it "Trunchbull cake" and we all agreed it was a perfect descriptor. Luckily, the servers arrived with takeout boxes so we could all take our cake home. Yay!

Today we took VEE to see Santa at our townhome association clubhouse. She didn't cry, but she wasn't too keen on Santa. We got pictures of the Scientist holding her between Santa and Mrs. Claus, and then some photos of her sitting on the floor near them. But she DID NOT want to sit on either of their laps. We took some cute photos of her when we got home, so I think those will have to go in this year's cards.

What else? Still trying to get the house ready for the holidays. Either tonight or tomorrow we'll take some of my Christmas houses out from the crawlspace and set them up on the buffet. And then we have to clean. But other than that, we're done with decorating the house. AND I have all of my Christmas shopping done and all of the gifts wrapped. So that's a good feeling.

At some point prior to Christmas I need to make cookies. I don't think I'll go overboard like I did last year and make a ton, but I definitely need to make spritz cookies. My mom's cookie press is one of those old brass ones with a turn handle, whereas ours has pump-action so it's much easier. Therefore, Mom has requested specifically that I make those. I just need to figure out when.

So that's things with me and the holiday plans. Otherwise, not much is up. As always, I hope you're all well!

First off, Happy Hanukkah to all those who celebrate! May your holiday be filled with family, friends, love, and laughter. :)

And now, because I'm feeling festive and sappy, enjoy for your (early) Christmas celebrations.



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Happy holidays, everyone!

Christmas has come to our house! The tree is up and decorated, lighted garland is hung, stockings are up, and the nativity is on display. The baby has visited with Santa (I promise to share pictures eventually), and almost all the presents have been purchased. I feel very festive. Plus, I saw FIVE snowflakes just now. Yay!

Hi there. First off, hello to everyone. nutmeg3, I'm glad you're doing okay. sunbrae, I'm glad things are working out well for you and your family. spicedrum, glad you had a good trip, and let me know how Epic Mickey is. uss_hairball, sorry that boys are weird. Everyone else, hi.

I only have 3 days of work left this year. I am pleased with this turn of events. I also managed to get three books off to the printer this week. I feel accomplished.

TV has been awesome lately. The Burn Notice season finale last night was crazy-good. And I read that there's going to be a whole TV movie for Sam Axe? HELLS YEAH! My TV needs more Bruce Campbell acting, not just Bruce Campbell "acting." (I'm looking at you, Alien Apocalypse). Oh, and earlier there were the Warehouse 13 and Eureka Christmas episodes, which left me delighted. AND this Sunday there's a new Robot Chicken Star Wars special on, which also makes me happy. I ::heart:: Robot Chicken's take on Star Wars.

Today when I pulled into our garage after work, I noticed that someone ripped the downspout off the side of the garage. The connector attached to the gutter is still there, but the downspout itself (which was mounted to the garage) is gone. So we'll have to contact our association and see how this is going to be handled. Yay.

I sort of have the Christmas blahs. I think because I was SO SO SO geared up for Christmas earlier, it's left me feeling rather "meh" now. Tomorrow I finish wrapping gifts, as well as do some cookie baking, so hopefully that will cheer me up a bit.

This weekend I'll probably go see Tron: Legacy. I don't know what to think of it, other than "ooooh, pretty." I only saw the original recently and was unimpressed. (I actually fell asleep.) But this one at least has a Daft Punk soundtrack to keep me awake, so that's good. I also want to see the new Narnia movie. Who knows when, though...

Anyway, that's really all I can think of right now.