Thanksgiving

The long Thanksgiving weekend was full of lots of great fun. I got to see Charles's mom's side of the family on Thanksgiving Day (they are always so welcoming and warm), then we had my Dad and sister over for dinner that evening (I 'cooked' Stouffer's lasagna, garlic bread, Caesar salad, and my sis brought delicious cookies and ice cream!). Both events were nice, and it was great to think of family. We also put up our Christmas tree for the first time. We bought the tree and lights and some ornaments after Christmas last year. We decorated in the past with garland, but this is our first tree as a couple. Luckily the animals haven't knocked it over or climbed it yet. :) On Friday we saw some good friends, and I braved a little bit of afternoon shopping, but returned empty handed. We pet-sat for our friend, and the cat (Harlock) was the sweetest I had ever seen him! Full of affection and playfulness. Saturday we went to a party at a friend's place (some classmates of Charles's and their significant others). I had some fantastic food, tried tofurkey for the first (and last? meh...) time (OK it wasn't as bad as I feared; the taste was quite good since it was cooked with stuffing and veggies). Had some great peanut butter pie that I got a recipe for, and we played Charades (boys v. girls)! I had actually never played charades before and it was a lot of fun! The boys made things really hard on us girls. I totally flopped when presented with "clandestine agent" but was not too terribly bad with "post modernism." On Sunday we saw Char's Dad, Stepmom, and Step-aunt (is that really a word?); all of whom are fantastic people. We ate a great meal at Sunspot and got to catch up and make Christmas plans. Then we had dinner and watched football with some other good friends. Wow, we really did a lot, but it was a great time! Thank you to everyone that hosted us and celebrated with us. This holiday season is filling up with lots of things to do, but it's all a great reminder of how much I have to be thankful for. ♥

Equilibrium

Just a quick note to say that the hubby and I watched "Equilibrium" recently and it was a very good movie. I am becoming quite the Christian Bale fan. I actually thought this movie was a little over-the-top, beating me over the head with notions of Big Brother. It was somewhat Matrix-like in appearance, but the fight scenes won me over. The Gun kata is rather awesome, and there were a few good twists to keep the movie from being overly predictable. And there is a cute puppy in the movie, as well. All in all I would say I enjoyed it, and that is what mattered to me. Would I say it's a 'great' movie? Probably not, but it was fun and re-watchable. In other news, some very close friends have decided to have a baby. I am not going to name any names because I don't know who reads this, and they haven't made the news totally public. But I wanted to write about it because it makes me really happy. My hubby has slowly been converting me from a person that doesn't like babies into a person that will probably have one in a year or two. The conversion has been helped by watching my adorable nieces and nephews grow into miniature adults. Now as friends are having babies and have been happy with the experience, I am getting my courage up. Getting the news about these close friends having a baby was great; it came at a great time for them and for me as well. I'll get to watch them go through it and can learn from their experience. I am pretty excited. :) OK there is much work to do so I'd better wrap this up. The last thing I want to mention is that I am beta-testing a new website for User-Generated Lists of Things (uglot.com). It is the pet project of some good friends, so I'm eager to get to playing with it. Hopefully it will become hugely successful. That is all.

Toastmasters

I think I might try going to my first Toastmasters meeting tonight. At least I am planning to go check it out. I'm looking forward to meeting new people and improving myself, but the actual public speaking part has me terrified. Hopefully this will be a good experinece. My colleague, Mark, is an excellent public speaker, and he attributes his success to Toastmasters. I think I will enjoy it in the long run. :)

Sometimes

Sometimes I really get on my own nerves, and piss myself off. How do you get away from your self when you can't stand to be around you anymore? Blargh.

Bimbo Moment

Things have been kind of rough for the past week or so as some close family members are really down in the dumps.In light of that I wanted to share something positive. I don't mind poking a little fun at myself so I wanted to share a bimbo moment that I had a couple weeks ago. I was helping someone in the library and she was writing out a note and as I was watcher her write, I was admiring her handwriting. She wrote beautifully, and her style was unique. After she left, I started doodling on a little piece of paper, tryting to emulate her handwriting. She had an especially beautiful letter "G." I thought to myself, I wish I had a "G" in my name! I would write it like THIS! And I wrote G, G, G, G all over the paper. Struggling to think of a name that starts with G, I suddenly realized that *MY OWN LAST NAME* starts with "G." Duh. I was pretty embarrassed. I still can't make mine as pretty as hers, though!

Captain America

The hubby and I "rented" Captain America from iTunes the other night. I was really worn out so I only made it through half the movie before falling asleep, despite the fact that I was really enjoying it. Yesterday I went to work, then went to Mass, then hurried home to watch the second half of the movie before it 'expired' (you only have them for 24 hours when you rent from iTunes). I *really* liked it! I thought that Thor was a fun movie, but after seeing Captain America, I have determined that I like Captain America much better. And now that I am learning the backstories of these characters I am actually getting excited about the Avengers. I have always appreciated comics as a medium, and I love comic art, but I have never actually been a huger consumer of comics. I think the expense and time commitments scare me off of them. I am therefore grateful that others are vetting the comics for me and making the good ones into reasonably good films. :)