Monday, January 2, 2012

Happy New Year!

What Has Been Up
The party turned out really well, this is the first year we have run out of cider (but thankfully half of the guests brought wine so we made do). Some people were sick so we missed them but this is officially the first year when everyone who RSVPed actually showed up. Go figure.

I still haven't mailed holiday cards or peppermint bark. I figure at this point anything this late counts as a pleasant surprise. If it gets mailed out at all. Bleh. And I took the tree down tonight but I don't want to take down the rest of the decorations yet. I like them!

We spent Christmas without anybody's family and I know Matt missed the kiddoes in Reno but we didn't have enough vacation time to go see them. My sisters came down after Christmas so we mostly got our fill of their rugrats. It is interesting to see how they grow and change but a couple of them are still little nightmares to be around so it is a mixed bag.

I got a Kindle Touch for Christmas. It was a big surprise and quite a treat. And when I have a job that doesn't suck I will be buying books for it left and right. So right now it is classics like all the other cheap people who got Kindles for Christmas. My current favorite source is Project Gutenberg but I hope to selectively add some new stuff soon. Until then, it's Wilkie Collins and Jane Eyre (I have been told SO MANY TIMES to read that book). So far I am amazed that Masterpiece Theater has not gotten hold of Armadale yet.

Yesterday we went to meet Matt's parents on the boat and had a New Year's sail. It was a lovely day and there was plenty of wind so we had a grand outing. But it was sure cold! And then we slept on the boat and it was definitely not meant for tall people. I ended up crawling out of our little cubbyhole in the middle of the night and trying to sleep on the cushioned benches at the little kitchen table. So basically that whole night was awful and I need to go to bed around NOW.

And the job is still coasting along at Better Than Unemployment levels, but good lord do I hate being at work at 6 am (almost as much as I hate having a job that doesn't challenge me or require me to use my brain in any way). I am still waiting to hear from one real job and have found a couple more to apply to but the current job sucks up a lot of my energy that I would rather spend on job-hunting. Grr.

Projects For The New Year
Replace blinds in kitchen, drapes in living room. These are all antique and icky.
Find a rug for the bedroom? We have two small ones that make it much nicer but they slide!
Get rug pads for all area rugs small enough to slide. This is a must!
Clean out closets, possibly paint them? This has been something I have been avoiding since we moved in and I painted most of the house. They are pretty sad but also quite full and I need a better system for dealing with all of them!
Take more pictures for le blog.
Post more regularly now that work is less crappy and there might be more to talk about as the weather warms up and I do more stuff, theoretically.

I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday season and 2012 is a much better year for everybody than 2011 was! I am so over 2011!

4 comments:

Alana in Canada said...

So happy to "see" you again, Anne! I've missed you. Sounds like the holiday went by too fast--but that your friends have all now grown up.

Alana in Canada said...

Oh, silly me, Happy New Year to you and Matt!

thefarmersdaughter said...

happy to read you again! Do you still like the Kindle? I'm debating on getting one myself......

I too hope 2012 is much better than 2011.....

Anne At Large said...

Thanks Alana, happy new year to you too!

TFD, I am enjoying the Kindle but so far (on my budget and in my current state of technology) it is not completely replacing books for me. It is holding a batch of free classics that I am enjoying, but I am not taking it to work - I usually read on my lunch break and library books are good for that. The books are not cheaper unless they are out of print, and my library has a very limited amount of digital books available for lending.

But I do love that I can "sample" books from Amazon. It links directly to the store and if you don't want to jump on a purchase it will let you have the first two chapters or so to try out. It hasn't made me make any more purchases but I have enjoyed a couple of samples.

Hope that helped, do you have any specific questions? And here's rooting for 2012 to be an improvement on 2011!