Domestic Geek

Well, Marcus and I managed to get the lights up on the roof last night. We're both feeling sickly, so we were lucky to get that much done. Yay! Just as soon as I get home I'm going to decorate the tree, put up some other outside stuff and decorate the mantle. That's the plan, at least. I'm just killing time right now waiting for Marcus to get done with whatever it is he's working on so that we can go get some lunch. I'm really hungry. Oh, and I need to find my glasses. I couldn't find them anywhere.

I've been watching that Christmas show marathon on ABC Family most of today to get myself into some Christmas spirit. It's funny because Marcus has never seen most of those shows. He keeps making fun of them and of me (I cry when Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey's mother dies — "Ears, Nestor" *sob*). He was asking about whatever happened to Rankin/Bass since they were the kings of Christmas specials back in the 60s and 70s. Quite a bit of information there on the old wikipedia page. I also found the Rankin/Bass website which led me to these adorable Heat Miser/Snow Miser ornaments that I must have for my collection. The Year Without a Santa Claus comes on here shortly and I can't wait —I LOVE the Miser brothers! I dug out my Miser dolls for the occasion!





I was trying to get the lights ready so that Marcus could get them put up before he left for work. No such luck. Oh, well. It's still supposed to be nice tomorrow, too. I plugged one set in and it shorted bad. I really need to replace a lot of those light strings. I'm pretty sure the one that blew was one that had belonged to my mother. I was bummed that there wouldn't be enough sets to go around the roof, but I found a couple of sets that I had purchased on clearance at Lowes a couple of years ago. Yay! I had bought them to be replacement bulbs (since buying whole light strings, especially after Christmas, is way cheaper than buying bulbs alone.

I painted the bulbs yellow in my new tree top star last night. It looks a lot better than being plain white. I'll see if I can get a decent picture to post later. Marcus set me up a directory on the server for my craft blog. I really want to start documenting my craftiness. I installed wordpress in it and now I need to find or design a cool theme. Not a high priority right at the moment, though.

OK, I'm gonna go work on Christmas cards and popcorn garland while I watch some more Christmas shows. Then I need to make Marcus a Santa graphic for his website, decorate my tree, make my new blog design...wow, I have a lot to do today. What am I doing sitting here?

OK, I've been crocheting away while I've been watching The Polar Express on ABC Family channel. I love that "Hot Chocolate" song from that movie. The animation is a little weird, but still a good story. I've got almost 23 feet of garland done up to this point. Yay, me!



There's a classic Christmas show marathon on ABC Family most of the day tomorrow. I'll have to check it out while I'm decorating. It's supposed to be in the 60s tomorrow, so hopefully I can get most of the outside stuff up before Marcus goes to work. Since the company Christmas party is tomorrow night (and we're not going because Marcus is Mr. Antisocial and I can't go by myself since I'm only part time), they're closing the whole place down so people can attend. They're a 24/7 operation, so the place to be totally shut down is rare. Marcus is using that time to take the networks down and do some work he's been itching to do since he started there.

I had intended on watching my Netflix DVDs early in the week so that I could have Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest here for this weekend's viewing pleasure. Oh, well.

I found a treetop star that $7 at Ace Hardware of all places. Every other one I saw around town that lit up was expensive and ugly.

Marcus is finally starting to get better and I've not succumbed to the nasty bug. I was feeling a lot better today myself. We got the tree up into its stand and it is all ready for lights and decorations. I came to the horrible realization that I don't have a tree topper. Mine shorted out last year and I had intended to get a new one this year. I also threw out my old two sets of multi-function lights that had been my mother's that were acting wonky and was going to get replacements this year. *sigh* At least feeling a little under the weather the last couple of days accomplished one thing—I got quite a bit of my crocheted popcorn garland completed.

I went to the graveyard today to visit my mom's grave. It is still hard to believe that she passed almost 10 years ago (1/4/97). Whenever I start decorating for Christmas, I start missing her terribly.

There's been a sudden unexpected slowdown of incoming jobs at my workplace. I only got to work two hours yesterday. I had a major meltdown on the way home. It's looking like full time there is not going to happen in the near future. I've got to find some other income sources. I'm so tired of scraping by and being a burden on Marcus.

Our little group to go tree hunting gets bigger every year. Our group totaled 10.5 people this year. Not too shabby. Of course, Marcus being as sick as he is probably shouldn't have been out traipsing around in the woods, but he was and we have our tree. I'll post pictures in the gallery tomorrow. I have to do some serious color-correcting on the polaroid we got with Smokey the Bear this year. We had dinner at a neat little restaurant in Woodland Park called Fiesta Mexicana or something like that. I had a carnita burrito. Very tasty. I had to drive home and I've decided that I hate driving from Colorado Springs to Denver on I-25. There is nothing but a sea of white lights in your face the whole way. Gives me a huge headache. Anyway, I guess I'd better go help Marcus wrestle the tree into the house.