Christmas is almost here & I am incredibly grateful. I will be glad to be able to actually enjoy this Christmas. For what feels like the 1st time ever, I am going no further than my mother's house & have no plans to stay longer then a long weekend. We are not driving to PA, SC, NC, VA, WA, or any where else. We are not going any place beyond the Saturday Children's Mass. We are not baking cookies, nut rolls, rum balls, or planning elaborate meals. We are going simple and I am beyond grateful and well into the "fall to the ground & kiss it from joy" category.
My shopping is done. Here at work, all that is left is the end of the month wrap up that I do every month so that is no biggie. My boss is retiring so I have some new responsibilities and freedoms that I need to become adjusted to but that is actually rather cool. I have a checklist of things that need to be accomplished, which is a dramatic improvement over the past few years. My cards have all been mailed & the ecards are scheduled for tomorrow. My personal baking is almost finished, and I have only 1 more gift to wrap.
Now all I have to do is avoid the pitfalls of having an overly developed sweet tooth and try and keep my weight under control. It is soooo very hard though because we have cookies, candy, cakes, and dips here at work and they are all soooo good! We decided that, instead of exchanging gifts, we would bring in food for everyone all week & it has been a huge relief for all of us. Just bake a cake, make a dip & grab a box of crackers, and we are set. Biggest problem has been remembering to put the dips in the fridge when we leave at night. Since none of us have had to actually buy anything for this food fest, our checkbooks and patience with one another has also been stretched out.
Now all I have left to do is get through the actual holiday & then life can resume a normal keel and I really can not wait. It will be strange writing 2006 instead of 2005, but what the hell. And if I can avoid gaining 50 lbs., I will be truly thrilled. Family arguments are the norm, so I could care less if they happen. Might not enjoy them, but they happen frequently & live still goes on.
The extra poundage is something I am trying to avoid. I have all sorts of exercise DVD's & am trying to walk/sprint 2-4 miles a day, but it is hard with this cold weather. When the temp. goes below 35, I cramp and develop the shakes. I do not tend to shiver. I shake. Ask either of my last 2 lovers & they can tell you the joys of trying to warm me up. I turn blue, shake like a palsy patient, whimper, crack teeth, cramp, and lose what little coordination I have. Since I am already easy to brake, it makes life oh so fun when I get cold and it takes forever to warm up. My last roommate would set up 3 space heaters in the bathroom and turn the hot water on in the shower and then toss me in there, sometimes literally. The water heater would run dry before I would warm up.
It has taken me a while, but I have finally figured out that if I leave my space heater on for at least 2 hours before I shower, exercise and have hot chocolate/tea/coffee, and then take a shower, I stay warm all the way through. Otherwise, I have to shave my legs multiple times because I get chill bumps & I hate that. I also have the thermostat set to 75-85 degrees and then turn it back down as I leave for work. Even doing all that, I still get cold & chilled during my shower.
Different subject, but I read a book that has me boggled this week. Forbidden Magic by Cheyenne McCray is a very well written and generally fun story. What has me boggled is that it is considered a soft romance. Personally, when a book is told from 3.5 character's perspectives, & 1 of the 2 female leads is into bondage, pain, and humiliation, while the other is into light bondage, then I would call it soft porn with a supernatural twist.
I liked the book. I enjoyed the characters and how they progressed both as individuals, but as couples and how the story developed in general. I could have lived without the scenes when the "good" girl used her magic to tie her fae lover to the bed. I definitely could have lived without the description of the "bad" girl being fucked by 2 demons & the descendant/reincarnation of the Celtic God, Balog. But the rest was pretty cool and I hope that McCray develops the story instead of her personality switching sex games.
Two other books I read recently were about those cute, furry critters known as dogs. The 1st is called What the Dog Did, by Emily Yoffe. The other is called Marley & Me, by John Grogan. These are both absolutely hilarious books that I can not recommend highly enough. Grogan had me in tears at the end, but the dog died of old age & that always makes me cry, so no big deal. It was remarkably sweet and I enjoyed the ending. Marley, however, makes me glad that the 3 dogs I currently live with are only mildly psychotic. They have never eaten all the insulation on the fridge. Torn the sheet rock off the walls. Kicked out of basic training classes. Stuff like that.
Yoffe's book dealt with a wider selection of dogs, but sheez! Some of the stories she dug up while researching this book! I have done a lot of disgusting clean ups thanks to the dogs & cats, but I am thrilled to report that I have never had to pull a bra out of my dogs butt. Off their heads, out of the litter box, made them drop whatever article they were currently chewing - yes. But no animal of mine has ever eaten my clothes, or a knife, or grill utensils, or tubing, or keys, or . . .
Get the drift of the type of stories in this book?
I also have finished Mercedes Lackey's Music to My Sorrows. That was standard Lackey and there were all sorts of digs at the government, but I like her stuff so I enjoyed reading it. This was her latest in the modern day bard series and this time they took on a mix of televangelists and ex-government professional paranoids, all of whom were being manipulated by the dark elves.
I read some more anime. Dears was a bit odd, but since I read that right after McCrays, the fact that the female characters, aka Dears, are genetically-altered intergalactic mass produced cloned slaves seemed almost normal.
Access Denied by Donna Andrews was also on this weeks reading list. 3rd in the series about sentinent AI's, it is a fun combination of "what if?" mixed with technology and psychology. Set in today's technological sphere, there is nothing futuristic or paranormal about the characters. It is just that the main character is an AI that started life as a library catalogue. If you like light mysteries with the sort of techno babble that anyone who can program their VCR can understand, then try the series. If you can't program your VCR at the very least, then do not pick it up because there are all sorts of small details that will drive you nuts.
I can't remember what else I have read this week, but I am going to say adios till tomorrow. I have physical therapy in 30 minutes & need to wrap today up here at work.
No comments:
Post a Comment