making it up as i go along
As usual, our Sunday was not so lazy. We had plenty of errands and housework to do. We even did some annoying things, like re-organizing the pantry. It looks super now.
Tonight's episode of Alias was super. Finally, we've got a decent idea of what Sydney did for 2 years. Of course I forgot to record it, so I can't go back and parse it for deeper meaning like I like to do. And now I want the next episode and the next … such a good show!
Now I'm going back to doing work … laundry is grand, eh?
Christmas is by far my favorite time of year. Now that its over, I’m kinda sad. I don’t think I could have handled much more however, it is expensive and really time consuming, and after my two week trip to Denver, its really exhausting too. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Jess and I went to Nashville for a few days and then we headed west to Denver. My Mom, brother, and sister went to for part of the trip. After Christmas we went to Vail with a few friends for some relaxation and skiing. That’s was fun. Anyways, now that I’m back at work, I feel like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. I guess I kinda had that today. Jess and I went to Milwaukee for the day. Jess wanted to go to a Science Surplus store and I need a new cell phone. I can’t believe that there’s not a sprint store within 25 miles of Madison. No big deal though. We had a good time. We had lunch at a neat little restaurant called the twisted fork. 
It was neat little place. Kinda trendy but not over the top, and most importantly, the food and service were quite good.
I'm trying to calculate out all of the Christmas finances … who owes what to whom. It's terribly complicated. It gets to be amazingly circular and then it doesn't quite add up. Yeesh. I've already pulled out my TI-89 from my college days but it might not be enough. Maybe I'll have to load up Excel.
I also just recently found out that Simon and Garfunkle toured together from late October 'til January and I missed it! I'm quite POed. That's a tour I would have paid beau coup bucks to get in on. I LOVE Simon and Garfunkle. Grrrr.
I worked out on weights for the first time yesterday since before Christmas. It felt good then, but now I'm not so sure. I'm sort of really sore all around my shoulders and back. I guess it means it worked some muscles or something, eh? That's gotta be good.
Ok, enough whining. Back to calculations.
Right now I'm wasting time on Amazon. It's truly one of my favorite pasttimes. Updating my wishlist … checking to see if that book is out yet, or if the sequel is coming out … it's very very good. Karaoke Revolution, for example, claims they'll be making more discs so you can get more songs. So I'm checking around for them and haven't found any yet. Bah.
I've got to finish up laundry today. Until I do that, I've got this annoying huge suitcase sitting in the middle of our bedroom taking up way more than its fair share of space. Our teeny washer/dryer just can't get that much done in one day, especially if I don't feed it like I'm supposed to.
We got the puppy back last night. She's so damned cute. Her temporary parents said she behaved very well and had only one accident. Way to go May!! I think she's glad to be back home though. She's sitting on the floor right near my desk, looking up at me. I missed her too.
Yes, yes, I know you have all been wondering when we'd start filling your lives with joy … well the answer is: NOW! We had a lovely trip. We saw friends and family in Nashville, spent Christmas and New Year's in Denver and skiied 3x! It was way fun. I've got tons of pictures (some of which came from my new digi-camera … thanks mom & dad!). So I'll be posting them soon.
All of our gerbils were glad to greet us and our apartment smells good. And tomorrow, we get to pickup the puppy! She's been staying with some friends of ours and hopefully having a lovely time romping around in a backyard for a change.
What else? Oh yes. We got a new game. It's called Karaoke Revolution and it's BRILLIANT! You can sing songs and the playstation judges your singing based on pitch … how cool is that? It works really well too. Kelly and I are great at it … but the boys kinda suck. It's funny anyhow though. Especially if you're DRUNK.
Dan doesn't visit our site very often. I went to the site and his comment was, “wow, you've changed the site.” Yes we changed the site, like 6 months ago. Shows us how much we're loved. 
It's 6:30 and I'm already up. Yet I'm not pissed off. Why? Because it's travelling day. Yep. We dropped the puppy off last night and this afternoon we'll leave for Nashville.
Packing last night was an adventure. We've got so darn much to pack for … and presents and stuff to bring. We ended up down in the apartment's weight room at 11:30 weighing our suitcases on the scale to make sure they met the weight requirements. Two didn't. So then we had to disperse contents into a fourth bag. It's very sad … the amount of stuff we're bringing. I feel bad for our poor taxi driver. Oy!
I can't wait to see everyone. It's going to be so very much fun! We're going to really relax. More to the point, Matt's going to really relax. I think he needs this vacation a whole lot.
Yeesh! There are so many things to do before we hit the road. The biggest one is … duh duh duh Clean the Apartment! Yes, grime and grossness linger in every corner. It's really quite overwhelming. And worst of all, it can't be stopped until Matt decides to STOP BAKING. He's been baking like crazy. I had to go to Walmart last night to find another tin to put all of his (our, really as I help too) culinary creations in. Luckily, Walmart's got tins aplenty … and acheaply too. Tonight ends the baking insanity … because we must clean!
I don't mind having lots to do though. I like to be busy. Not overly busy. Just busy. *bounce* I'm so excited about seeing everyone. We get to see people we haven't seen since May! It's going to be so much fun. 
The only bad part is that the puppy can't come along. But she's going to stay with people who will love her and pet her and feed her an occasional table scrap. I think she'll be OK.
Matt got an early Christmas present. He has wanted one of those big ol' KitchenAid mixers forever and he finally got one. His mommy gave it to us for Christmas. I got to pick the color though. It's called “grape” which, yes, means its purple. It arrived on Thursday and we've been using it ever since. We've been making scads of cookies. Lots of people are getting them for Christmas and we should have a healthy variety to take home for our families to eat too.
We had to go back to the post office today. I've been spending entirely too much time at that place. Today we couldn't find a parking spot, so Matt got to drive around the block while I went in to mail our package … along with everyone else who lives in Middleton. I'm starting to feel that the post office is another Christmas thing… like crowds at the mall. On a normal base I'd hate it, but I love it because it's dressed up in tinsel and ribbon.
After we got home, Matt and I tried to make some lemon-flavoured meringues. They were a spectacular failure, but hey. We tried. Then we made irish cream cookies, which were quite nice. Matt's a hppy boy. We also cooked dinner … it was Salmon with Warm Pineapple sauce. But we were starving and didn't want to wait for the salmon to marinade, so I just rubbed a lil' lemon juice on the fish and sprinkled it with coarse garlic salt. And man was that yummy. You could have just eaten the salmon by itself. Of course, it was good with the rice and salsa too ….
The Cat in the Hat!! Bar None, they have made the most and bizarrest (is that a word? well it is now. i just used it) promo deals. They've got the kids meal toy market cornered at Burger King. They're pimping electronic toys from Radio Shack. They're merchandised like crazy. And they've got two of my favorite gigs… Swiffer and The USPS. That's right. The Swiffer commercials feature the Cat and the Hat characters and the USPS has posters featuring them as well. Not that I'm complaining. They just get the award, that's all.
I also noticed a list of the FBI's most wanted on the wall at the Post Office. I thought that was something that was in “The Old West.” I never expected to find a huge binder-like thing of them hanging on the wall at the post office, complete with fingerprints!
It's snowing like the dickens, but I had to go out and run errands. I needed some stuff for dinner and I had to mail a couple of things. Of course, it rained last night, so we've got slush underneath the snow. I've never really had much occasion to drive my CR-V in the snow … the first few years I had it, I was in Nashville where it only seemed to snow on our Christmas breaks. It melts the next day anyhow. Last year it didn't snow much and somehow I never really drove a bunch in snow. But today I did. And I must say my car handles very well. The ABS engaged a few times and that helped get around corners and stop and stuff. It's nice to live in a place where people actually know how to drive in the snow. They do what they're supposed to do … slow down and not do anything too dumb. In Nashville, everyone just freaks out. You'll see 4x4s in ditches because no one knows how to drive.