I found my vino, etc.

I'm excited because I've found my Wine Blogging Wednesday wine for January. Whoo-hoooo! I'm not going to give it away yet, but it is a $6.00 Merlot from a wacky-named winery.

I also took books back to the library and got more, DVDs back to Blockbuster and got more, bought some actual glass champange flutes for tonight, and aired up my new tires. Yea!

Hmmm, I'm back to my reading list finally! Frankenstein was quite good, I started out liking The Idiot a whole lot, but got consufed and bored about 3/4 of the way through and quit - I completely stopped caring about the characters, so I just stopped picking it up. That's when I really quit reading for a long time.

I had to reschedule some of my reading because of Oprah. So I've picked it back up with The Giver, which was a nice piece of jeuvenile sci-fi that I hope Chris reads when he's in 6th or 7th grade. The Good Earth was more rich than I had remembered it from my previous reading in High School. Of course I learned a little of the history of China since then, which made all of the back story much more interesting. I cried real tears at the last three pages of the book. Oprah made a nice choice to follow Anna Karenina for her book club.

So today I picked up Inherit the Wind and Jane Eyre. It seems like I should have read both of these before now. But that's the point of the reading list, so off I go :)

Dennis and I watched "Garden State" last night, and I thought it was excellent! I hope both of today's choices are acceptable to him: Hero and I, Robot. Nothing like action and adventure on New Year's Eve!

Drinking

I opened my wine last night. It is drinkable! Nothing too complex about it. Berries. Not bitter or scary or too big of a flavor. Just ordinary wine that anyone should be able to drink, a good red for women, I think. I got in a bad mood in the middle of it, so I quit drinking. I've got 1/2 a bottle left to get to quickly. Definately worth the price I paid for it, which is saying something.

Now I've got cheap ($8.99) "champagne" to drink tonight - of course it is from California, so it isn't really champagne at all. No sense spending a ton on it, because I think I'll be on my own with it, and I don't think I can dust the bottle off by myself. Scratch that. I don't think I should dust the bottle off by myself. Dennis will taste it though, if he stays awake that long. He's out tromping around in the woods with Koby this morning.

Wine Blogging Wednesday

I want to do this. I am going to. Hooray!

The Cutest Wine

I just found the cutest wine. I'm not sure if it is the best wine, but I couldn't resist it sitting there on the shelf last night.



Awwww, isn't it sweet? The Little Penguin. *melt*

It's another Australian Shiraz. I really enjoyed the last one I had, which was Black Swan Shiraz, which gets "GOLD MEDAL, 2004 PACIFIC RIM WINE COMP. A very appealing wine, the brightly-fruited '02 Black Swan Shiraz exhibits tasteful black fruit and violet flavors; smooth and easy on the palate; delectable!" from BevMo. We had it with DJ's deer roast, and we both found it very appealing.

BevMo says, "86 PTS WILFRED WONG. Subtle, smooth, and succulent, the soundly made '03 Little Penguin Shiraz stays delicious and delectable on the palate; superb with baked game hen in a wine reduction sauce," about the Little Penguin. (BevMo is the only place I can find both wines listed with blurbs.) I've heard blueberries with this one, so I may wind up just drinking it by itself.

I didn't buy it because I thought it would be excellent. I bought it because it has a penguin on the label. Hehe :)

Git-R-Done

Cool. KSHE hooked me up as a result of the concert guest list fiasco on Christmas Day. Now Dennis and I are going to be sitting in the front row, center, for Larry the Cable Guy. I guess we ought to rent his DVD so we know if he's funny or not. I know his parents really liked it when they had it a while back. Thank you Tony B. at KSHE! (I am a litte afraid of the front row at a comedy show though. Eek!)

Back to work

Meh, had to go back to the office today. There wasn't any work. I had Christmas presents waiting for me from Dave Armstrong and Al. Great. Another time nobody bothered to tell me that we'd exchange gifts. Meh, it was a $15 GC to the mall and some Bissenger chocolates. Oops. I never told anyone what holiday I might celebrate, so maybe next year (if I still work there *cough*) I'll give them all latkes and chocolate coins, or maybe "Merry Yule" cards with a little pictures of Mother Nature, Father Time, and the Baby Sun-God on the front.

Dennis and I went out to the Pasta House on my gift certificates. It was great! Then we watched Dodgeball. It wasn't great. LOL.

Barb called and said that the spice bread I made reminded her of her childhood in New England. I'm glad to know I could do that for her. It's almost easier now that we're not related. And, whew, Christmas is over! Hooray!

My son is sweet

After we drove to Troy to drop Beth off, we came home and had a great evening. Chris was so nice and fun to be around. He was an angel when Koby came to visit. We had a blast reading Mad Libs at bedtime. I'm sad he's leaving for Indiana tomorrow. Sometimes being a mom is the BEST thing in the whole world.

How I Wish You Were Here

Boo! Hiss!

The contest I won didn't pan out last night. We rushed home from the Dozas yesterday to meet my sister so I could take her to the El Monstero concert. We drove up to the Pageant, only to find that we were NOT on the guest list as promised. I tried her cell phone, but I couldn't get anyone to answer at the radio station. So we wound up coming home. I sent KSHE an email - well, I sent it to as many email addresses as I could get on their website. We'll see what happens. Grr.

The four of us drove around trying to look for Christmas lights, but I think we wound up taking mostly Jewish roads or something. Still, we wound up having an ok evening at home.

Then overnight I was very sick. My stomach wouldn't stop hurting, and I could not sleep. Finally, around 5:30 in the morning, I finally got the feeling that I was going to throw up. After that, I felt ok and went right to sleep. I pretty much just got up. *yawn* I was up till 2:30 on Thursday, 3:30 on Friday, and 5:30 last night. I've gotta get some sleep!

I Love Christmas

Not dead. Yet.

We were up till 2:30 last night baking cookies. Thursday was a terrible day. Grr.

Chris was very cruel too, in response to my freaking out, I'm sure. I was just about ready to run away for the Holidays. :( This time of year is too hard on me.

Now it is Christmas Eve. Technically, it's Christmas Day, isn't it. *Yawn*

We finished icing the last set of cookies this morning. Then we took off for Litchfield. Listening to Christmas songs on the way up made me cry in the middle of the day. Mom made a very nice German-themed dinner for us. It was good, but because it is soooo freezing outside, the meat cooled off too quickly. LOL. It hasn't been this cold since Beth was born. Brrrr!

The Marfells' Tree:


A good time was had by all. Dennis and Dad disappeared to regions unknown to look at guns, guns, guns. I fell asleep watching TV.

It is super cold tonight, in the low single digits. We're still up working on the finishing touches for Christmas, including building a slot car track. I wonder if we'll just stay up all night...

I Fucking Hate Christmas!

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!

I want to kill my family. I want to burn my Christmas tree. I do not want to sing songs or bake cookies or give gifts to anyone!

I am not doing this next year. Stupid fucking commercial holiday. Fuck you, Christmas.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!

Happy Birthday

To my sister. 15. Hahahah! I'm so glad I'm not her.

I had to work this morning, and we're on our way out the door to drive up to Litchfield (again) to eat dinner and give her stuff.


Dennis is having trouble quitting JetCorp. They're being dickheads about everything they possibly can. I'd support him quitting today if that's what he decides to do. I'm also nervous about the new job. I hope everything goes well for him. FWIW, I would never take a job at JetCorp after witnessing how they treat their employees. Screw it.

Not that I'm not catching enough flack at my own job. Peggy has turned back into dragonlady. Everything I do is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. So I don't care anymore. No pleasing the unpleasable, right? Oh, I got a Christmas gift from work too - a $30 gift certificate to Pasta House and an (empty) ceramic snowman cookie jar. I didn't get them anything. I could have, but I didn't. Oops.

Maybe my family doesn't suck?

We had a family get-together today that I thought was going to be absolutely horrible. It wound up being not horrible. I didn't know we were exchanging gifts, so we didn't bring anything. We'd just talked on the 5th about it and we weren't supposed to that day. I wish people would tell us when they change the rules.

Here's the only picture I managed to get of the family (almost all of them, I'm missing a sister, an Aunt, a cousin and her fiance - oops)



Here's Dennis and I in all of our glory :)

Good News Today

Some days are just good.

I won some stuff on the radio today:

"During the 12 Days of Christmas, KSHE 95 will be playing your favorite rock-n-roll Christmas songs and giving you the chance to win a 12 Days of Christmas Schtocking Schtuffer with something for him, something for her and something for both. Be caller 11 between 9am & 5pm when you hear the cue to call and you will get a pair of tickets to the El Monstero show on Christmas, an Aveda gift bag from Studio Branca SalonSpa and a prize from Surdyke Harley Davidson. Each day one grand prize winner gets a $25 gift certificate from Studio Branca SalonSpa and Surdyke Harley Davidson. One grand prize winner from all 12 days gets 4 passes for the KSHE VIP Box and a $200 Studio Branca SalonSpa gift certificate and a Harley Davidson mini fridge from Surdyke Harley Davidson. The El Monstero Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd Tribute is December 23rd, 25th and 26th and tickets are still available for the 25th and 26th at the Pageant box office."

Here's my Harley stuff *giggle*


While I was on the phone with the DJ, Dennis called me at work to let me know that he's definately gotten a new job! (I had to pretty much hang up on him though, hehe.)

Yea, sometimes things work out in your favor no matter what.

It's all different now

Wow, quitting smoking has been quite an experience. I feel like an entirely different person. I am not convinced that I like the new me. I am much more anxious and nervous, and I feel like my fuse is much shorter than it ever was. For a long time, I've been barely able to deal with daily life. I freaked out last week and broke a bunch of dishes in the kitchen. I was so depressed last weekend that Dennis thought Chris should stay with my parents instead of here. I am not having the least little bit of fun with any of it, but hey, at least I can run up a flight of stairs without getting winded.

I also quit working on my reading list, quit sewing my Christmas present projects (so I have none of them done 9 days before Christmas), blah. Basically I've only wanted to lay around and be miserable, and I am lost as to how Dennis has been able to put up with me at all.

So now I'm a whiny depressed blogger. Yea :) But I am working on it. I feel much better this week than I did last week.

In other news, we have our Christmas tree up: