Domestic Geek

Not much to report this week. I started working on some knit Christmas stockings for Marcus and me. I decided last year that I can no longer use my old ones. I made matching quilted/cross-stitch stockings for Marcus, myself, Ursa and Skippy many years ago. It hurts now to pull them out and not be able to hang the dog ones (I'm teary as I type this), so I retired them. I purchased the Knit Christmas Stockings book and asked Marcus to pick out which one he wanted. Of course he picks the most basic one and then picked red/green as the color he wanted. Not original, but that is OK. I asked for his input and I'm going to make what he wants. When they are done, I'll post a link to the completed project post on the craft blog.

Marcus and I are celebrating our 17 year anniversary this week (10/28). We continued our tradition of getting Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster to celebrate last evening. We had a really awesome server, it was cold and snowy outside (just the way Marcus likes it). We had a really nice time.

I realized last night that Mayor Tortimer never gave me my golden fishing rod for catching all the species of fish in the Animal Crossing: City Folk game on our Wii. Grrrrr. To say I was upset was an understatement. I searched forum and cheat sites trying to figure out why I hadn't received it. I kept trying to tell myself that it is only a game and not that big of a deal, but I was genuinely disappointed. I open the game this morning and ta-dah!...he's outside my house with my fishing rod. D'oh!

I started my Netflix membership back up, so I've been on a movie watching kick. I'm also really pissed off at network television at the moment. At the start of the season, I picked which shows I would DVR and which shows I could watch online and which shows I would just have to give in and watch live if I wanted to see them. I had a schedule with all of my bases covered...or so I thought. The stupid networks keep changing when their programs air and a couple of shows I thought had online episodes do not. Then you throw in a hour episode here that screws up the schedule or a season premiere weeks after the other shows start that I hadn't calculated into the fray. It's maddening. I understand why they do it, but it still infuriates me to no end. You can't even do like you used to — watch one show the first half of the season and then watch another show during repeats — because there is no repeat season anymore. Show a few episodes, a couple of weeks of repeats, a few new episodes. Never coinciding with any other show's schedule. Annoying.

Marcus rented Scribblenauts for my Nintendo DS from Gamefly, so I played that this past week. Interesting little game. I'll have to get that one day. I went ahead and sent it back for now, though. I've got other stuff I need to be doing instead of being addicted to yet another video game!

Well, it's that time of year to get the wishlists in order. I guess I'll start tackling that later today. The weather is supposed to be halfway decent today, so I guess I had better get the oil changed in my car before it snows again. Lots to do today, so I'd better get to it.

10/27/09 - ETA: CBS had repeats on last night — showing shows from last season. WTF is up with that? Why do I want them to show stuff that I may now already own on DVD? Lame! Network television sucks!

Overheard the man say to his friends on team speak as they play their weekly Call of Duty game:

"Classic rifles puts me in the mood for teabagging."

Today is my father's 73rd birthday. I know he doesn't mind me spilling the beans about his age because he tells everybody he meets how old he is. Looking pretty good for an old coot, eh? Just kidding, Dad, you know I love ya!

Hey, guess what?

After a really long hiatus, Marcus is actually writing on his blog again!

I've been thinking about my mother a lot lately. It started (not surprisingly) while I was in the hospital. I admit that I've had a nagging fear in the back of my mind that I'll die early like mom did (she was in her early 50s). Even my grandmother was not that old when she passed. True, I don't smoke and am not diabetic, but still that fear. Being in the hospital was the wakeup call that I need to take better care of myself. It was embarrassing that two nurses had to help move me after surgery because I was too heavy. I'm turning 42 next month and I would like to have way more than a decade left to enjoy my life.

While Dad and I were walking back to the car after the Stitch N' Pitch ballgame Saturday, I got to thinking about my mother again and got a little sad.

My mother hated knitting, but she could crochet up a storm. She also was really starting to get into computers. She would have so dug going to yarn shops, attending knitting groups and surfing around on Ravelry. I wish she was still here so I could share all this stuff with her. Heck, with circular needles, maybe she would have even given knitting another go.