Ho Ho Ho

Ok, short but sweet - I didn't die, and I didn't forget about this place. However, life just got in the way. I had some big family drama that occurred in October (and is still ongoing) and it's so long and complicated, I never DID finish explaining it to my friends, so it's just this half-story to them without the juicy stuff. LOL I notice I do that a lot - I start a story with backfill, so that everyone can know the ins and outs, and then I crap out with the explanation and don't finish - it happened with that interesting stalker story, which I never finished. Anyway, someday I'll go into detail with this one when I have a free week or two.

Anyway, besides that, I've been busy and yada yada. Also, it didn't help that for the past year or so, my laptop would only run in Safe Mode, and my computer, which is like 7 years old, was so full of viruses that I only could half remove, that it was slower than Nell Carter on a fucking treadmill - yes, I know she's dead, but it's late and i can't think of anyone more appropriate - all the fat people are dead: John Candy, Dom Delouise... Salome Bey might still be alive, but I don't know if she is still fat or not. ANYWAY. In a fit of haste before Xmas, we decided at the very last minute, well AFTER we bought our older two kids all of their presents, to get them IPOD Touches for Xmas. They've been saving for them all year, and both needed about 60 to 80 bucks to have enough. So, we thought we'd throw some money under the tree, but then I found out that at the computer store for the outfit I work for, you can put them on an employee payroll deduction plan. So, I thought why the fuck not, since it's almost interest free. But then, I got to thinking that if we were going to do that, why not get a computer, since we could spend up to 4000 bucks if we wanted to. So, long story short, I went into the City about 10 days ago and bought the Ipod Touches for them, and then got one in for us for good measure, and then bit the bullet and got a new computer. Not just any computer - an imac - a 27 inch imac. It's obscene looking. And I love it. I always hated the idea of a Mac, but I've now drank the Kool-Aid and am in fucking LOVE with this thing. It was literally just take it out of the box and plug it in - that's it. Of course, i still don't know how to do many things, such as shut it down properly, if there IS a proper way, but otherwise i love it. And THEN, during this day, my boss tells me I have some PD money I HAVE to spend, or I'll lose it. We've got some weird rules where you can't have more than 6000 in your PD funds, and since we get 1000 a year, I was going to lose that soon, since i never spend any of it. So, on impulse, i grabbed a laptop (which is still in a box) and... AN IPAD. OMG, where has that thing been all my life? I'm reading books on it and I fucking love it. So there, i'm back into the 21st century in terms of technology.

So there you go - i now have reliable technology to write to you with. So, rest assured, you won't be able to shut me up soon.

The holiday season has been busy - on Xmas Eve, we had all of my family over for dinner - I made lasagna, and then realized right before everyone came that 4 more people decided to come, so I freaked that I didn't have enough food and had to make this make-shift pasta and cheese bake out of the few groceries I had in the house. I ended up making my famous "I can't believe it's processed cheese" sauce out of Velveeta and Cheez Whiz and thought my sister was going to crap her pants she loved it so much, and saved the day. Then on Christmas Day, we went to Rachel's parents house for the day and for dinner and then on Boxing day we went shopping for new phones, since ours all need new batteries, and then we played hockey at my brother in law's house (he has a huge rink in his backyard) for hours and hours and then yesterday my daughter and wife were sick and fevered, and moreso today, so we all went to the doctor (daughter #2 had a throat infection last week, caught from friends of ours), and lo and behold, me, Rachel, and daughter #1 also have the throat infection, and tonight i took little boy in and he has one too - so 5 of us are on antibiotics, and 1 (daughter #3) is a sitting duck.

But we are all off until Tuesday, so we have a week to recoup and rest and have fun.

Thus far, we've spent our evenings watching Season One of Project Runway and Love Boat - my kids are old souls.

So yeah, the past two months have been spent reading instead of blogging. I've been getting piles of shit from the library, which I'll share in my next post. But right now, I need to go to bed and finish reading the new Rosanne Cash Memoir I downloaded from Amazon Kindle...

xo

JT