frogs_of_war

Google gave me a birthday doodle yesterday and I gave myself a day off, but that means that I didn't get any of the prerequisites to today's cooking done yesterday. My kitchen is too much of a mess to make anything, let along Angel Food Cake, cheesecake pudding (I'm modifying a vanilla pudding recipe), and triangle chimichangas.  But I picked my birthday food...

(And my husband is doing the dishes.)

I worked many 40+ hour weeks in a row and I'm exhausted. So I decided to take this week off. I want to get stuff done and not sleep the whole week, but I'm not sure that's going to happen.

My husband got me one of those fitness counters because I was curious about how much I actually walked at work. (I don't carry my phone on the sales floor or around the house, so the one on my phone said 5 minutes when I'd been on my feet all day.) The bracelet vibrates after I reach my "goal" which is still at the factory setting of 10k steps. I've been hitting the goal at an average of 5.5 hours of work. I knew I walked a lot.

I gave two presents that I'm really proud of. First a fox scarf because it too me HOURS. I tried to follow the directions, but got 2/3 the way through, I realized it was too wide and stiff to wear. It wouldn't scrunch up, so I had to take the whole thing apart, knitting one strand into my second attempt, and making a ball with the other. But the second attempt curled up, so I tried again. This time it worked.

Fox scarf


And the second was fun (and technically from my husband). My daughter has a lot of wigs, so we bought her wig stands and covered them with origami paper. The pile in front of the middle wig head is the paper we covered it with. They will attach to the wall once she tells us where they go.

Wig stands

(I tried to post the pictures, but I couldn't get them to show up.)

I get more joy from picking/making presents for people than from receiving them. An unopened present could something you didn't even know you wanted. My daughter got me both Champion of the Scarlet Wolf books by Ginn Hale. I hadn't even known the existed. (Now I need to reread the Lord of White Hall books then these again, but not this week because I want to get stuff done. So good.) 

Well I better get to work.

Today, when I talked to my mom about what to get my dad for Christmas, she said she and my brother had talked about how prefect my gifts always were (that I really thought about what people would want). This had stressed me out and made me second guess my gifts to them. I spent almost no money on either one (but lots of thought and time). I wrapped their gifts with special care. I hope they like them.


Title: Trifecta
Chapter: Ty's Birthday, part two
Status: WIP
Genre: Romance, Triple Slash, businessmen, jobs, friends, working
Length: 1.4 k
Summary: Ty talks about private things in public

Ty stretched out in the aisle seat. He couldn’t get comfortable. He hated the getting there of any vacation, but planes, for all their cramped seats really were the fastest way. Maybe next year they could go to Victoria BC. That was faster by car if one counted all the time spent in an airport.

( Know what else we’re getting you? )

 Today while waiting to start work, I mentioned a radio show I'd listen to last night about what parents tell their kids about Santa. My mother thought that if we discovered she lied about the little things, how would we trust her about the big ones. On the show other people were moralistic like this. But some adults really liked the childhood magic and the 'growing up' part of learning the truth. In my house extra presents (we give one from each person to each person) are marked Santa, but that is the only Santa tradition we had. And talking to my daughter, I was pleased that her first memory and lasting impression of Christmas is the giving side (working to pick out the prefect present for her baby brother, so she was five or six).

But as I was bringing it up, another coworker came in the room and ranted about how she never had her kids believe in Santa and she was so adamant, I thought she was moralistic about it, but no. When she was seven, she hid under the tree waiting for Santa. Instead her parents came out and put the presents under the tree. I have a fairly good idea how they kept themselves busy while waiting for the kids to fall asleep as they came out nude.

She said she was scarred for life. And by how upset she got talking about it, that seems to be true. But I can't just let that go. Will someone please write a story where that happens? Please.

I'm thinking kittens, peering out from under the tree.

This reminds me that my own parents used to get romantic beside the lighted tree after us kids were in bed on Christmas Eve. That could be part of the story.

The plunny that got me hooked at the  moment is The Santa Code. When in costume, Santa is Santa, even if he's the regular guy's college aged son, and Santa doesn't break character even if his gig is at the family gathering of a really hot guy. (I know a family that does Santa and Mrs. Claus.)