The children on Christmas Morn, 2006
Christmas Present Time
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Monthly Archives: December 2006
Our Christmas Tree ’06
Thaddeus: Crowntail Betta
–> Photo taken on December 23, 2006. < -- My early Christmas Present (from Hubby, given to me on December 22, 2006.)
New Year’s Stuff
One more day before New Years Eve (evening time) …
I have to get two audiobooks on Audible before the end of the month, which just so happens to be “year” as well at this point in linear time. I’ve tried to find something quite a few times this month, and just haven’t been satisfied with anything enough to add them to my shopping cart. (I have 2 credits a month on Audible.com)
Most “New Years Eve’s” my hubby and I are asleep by midnight. Which is comical to me, that I am usually asleep, seeing as I’m a late-nighter, night owl type (INTP/INTp) and just don’t see that turn of the year literally 80% of the time in any sort of lucid manner.
Of late, being pregnant this last quarter of 2006, as well as a bit older than the last time I was this pregnant (more than 6 years ago!) I am sleeping even more than my “usual” self, either pregnant or not, how I was in my younger days (starting at about age 8 when I began voraciously reading for myself, getting very little sleep from then on out …) and now that I’m 40, I wonder if I’m “more easily tired out” in the evening than before, or not. I’ll not know until some time from now, to be able to test that thesis out post-toddler, so a few years away, maybe I’ll be in a “worse” way though, and have another or two in the next half-decade … :shocked: 
So what will Sunday night bring for us? I can guess that we’ll try some board games, maybe a family DVD, maybe a Mama/Daddy movie later, but hubby will be asleep well before midnight (if usuality isn’t knocked out by something odd that evening,) and IF I’m awake I’ll be so, alone with my kitties (who will mostly be asleep at that time) and outside things will go “bang!” and “pop” and odd assortment of other sounds as midnight comes closer.
Well I have it in mind to do my own “BANG!” stuff this year, but don’t know if I will, if I’m the only person up. I think I can persuade my 10-year-old to be up and go out late with my small stash of firecrackers left over from July (yes, mine.) We also have a few Cuckoo’s (fireworks, fountains, small, not tiny, but really cool) left over, that I’d like to fire off, but don’t want everyone to be asleep when we do them, if my son and I are up and only us, the Cuckoo’s would be cool for us, sure, but everyone else would be upset that we did the Cuckoo’s without them … 
New Year’s Day is always a strange day to me. It’s a blank slate, and the only thing I like to do is move furniture around (which generally entails “cleaning” –but that’s only a side benefit, I hate “cleaning” as a sole reason to clean.) Hubby watches football. The children are all older now, and so they’ll be chomping at the bit to play video games, or board games, or something, anything to get away from the football.
Pooh Bear, I hate my computer sometimes. Darn touchpad on my HP dv5000 series laptop gets weird stuff going on when I brush it accidently as I type, and the browser goes “back” one or two pages, and when that happens often it’s alright, I can find my post by clicking the “forward” button of the browser, but this time, and some other times, it’s troublesome. This time I pressed forward and had to go once forward to go through one other page, and then once again forward and that brought me to a “new post” page, and then once forward again to find my actual “in progress being written post” but my last two previously written paragraphs were missing.
So this paragraph and my previous paragraph are replacements for the missing paragraphs. I have no desire to re-write them as they were, sort of or at all. 
FLY Pentop Computer 2
I just ordered a Fly pentop pack from the Leap Frog site. We were at Costco yesterday and inquired about the sets that we had bought one of earlier, and they were out, and also learned that another store in a deeper populated area near Atlanta does still have them, but they were the original price still, that the 2 Costco’s that we go to are some of the stores that don’t move as much merchandise, and so they get deeper discounting to move something out totally, afterawhile. Ah, yes, we note this to be true and now have the words of the staff to support it. We do like our Costco, the newest one, it’s further up and out, and more our style, and we don’t like the heavy traffic and feel of the stores that are closer in.
I also looked on eBay a bit, but knowing that I had seen nice prices on LeapFrogs site when looking at accessories last week, I went there today as well. They have the “Extreme” bundle for $74.99, and on eBay I saw that being sold for $95+ … so with shipping and tax on LeapFrog’s site, it came to $90.98 and will be shipped ground. I couldn’t find a deal like that on eBay for the same product. I could have found a different package, or pieced something together, but the point was, to get more than the Fly Pen basic-ness for less … I could find the pen somewhere in some store for $49.99 + tax, without a charger. We could have trotted over to another Costco and found the Hello Kitty package for $69.99 + tax, and for both have to travel around looking and using gas and energy of our own. So instead, I got the Extreme package on Leapfrog, it has Fear Factor games instead of Hello Kitty or Harry Potter (like the Costco bundles/packages) plus it has the Fly speaker. This way I didn’t get Flyware that I didn’t want (HK or HP) and did get a game Flyware, and speaker and all the stuff that comes in the main bundles, the Flypaper Notebook, the pen and charger, and Launch Pad and all that rest that comes in the bundle (the little pieces.)
It’d be nice to have it earlier, but since it’s holiday time and not wanting to go out looking for it, and not wanting to pay for expedited shipping and not to have it get here before the weekend most likely anyhow, it’ll get here when it gets here, and it’s worth it to have patience.
It’s going to mine and I’ll share it with my eldest, in having him use it for some things and just not have it be “his” alone.
Disney Mix Stick Help
Here’s a link to a past post about the Disney Mix Stick that I wrote in the last year, with the advent of having one in our home Christmas 2005 that gave us problems, problems, problems. I’m making this new post about it due to the new influx of “Disney Mix Stick” problem searches coming to this blog since right just before Christmas Day 2006.
The post has comments from visitors to this site, as well as my own comments.
Birding Up
I’ve seen birds on our property of late, just the last week or so, which I’ve never seen IRL before, but know about, being a “birding” person.
In the front we have ‘wild’ things growing where we used to have planted things before. I then put “wild flower” seed there some years ago and we had a couple of years of nice flowers and since then we have had some, but less and less of those “wild flowers” and more and more of just “wild” stuff. The past few years we had blackberries growing wild and have left them there, and had little berries this past Summer, little, but packed with wonderful flavor … yum, yum,yum! There was something else growing that I let go and I do not know what it is, but had while little flowers, which turned to nice fluffy seed things for the birds this winter.
We’ve had birds in the past which have not been seen much the last few years. We’ve seen the House Finches more of late, but not in the numbers we used to see them year-round. A few Chipping Sparrows too, but in the past we used to see droves of them, but same as others, not much in the last few years.
A new bird showed up last week, Dark-eyed Junco. I saw at least 2 males, and have seen them in the front, looking out the window, and they have come back time and again, not every day do I see them, I might miss them (easily can miss their visit) and on rainy days they haven’t been noticed, which we had some of these past days. Today there were definitely 3 males, and 1 female. Joy! I had never seen a Junco IRL anywhere.
Today I also saw an Eastern Towhee, male, in the same place, at the same time. I had never seen one of these either. I knew it looked similar to what an Oriole looks like and know about Towhees, but not much, and it was a pleasure to see one up close. These birds are all right under our front window, the sidewalk is right there, with all those wild plants growing over it, making it a nice bird eating place. So that’s another “new” bird for me to see IRL anywhere, and of course, on this property.
Out back today we had a tree full of another new bird for us. I know about them, but hadn’t seen any ever IRL either, Cedar Waxwing. They were in the “something cherry” tree that is right behind our house. Not a people fruit tree, just an ornamental tree , good for birds.
This past Spring was the first time that tree bloomed all over. So it’s totally full of little berries. Birds of all sorts have been eating there the last couple of weeks.
We’ve also had a large share of Blue Jays in that tree, and all over our front yard, at times, this year. They are always visible across the street, where there is a long stretch of trees down the back of the yards there, mostly oak and pine. We see them flying in and out, and into the yards there, and making all there lovely wild noise. For some reason they are gracing us with there closer precence this Winter. Sometimes we’ve had a few in our yard, but not in the numbers they have been this Winter, nor the frequency.
There are my sweet Eastern Blue Birds flying around as well, visible often, also enjoying the “cherry” tree out back.
So … this Winter is turning out to be for the birds. A welcomed change here!
Christmas Day 2006
Ah, Christmas is over … well, not over, but it’s the inevitable “let-down” already, not that it’s just now started … it’s been so for awhile. What is the “Christmas Let-down”? It is: After opening presents, spirits eventually fall to a lower level. It’s different depending on the year, who’s there, what was gotten under the tree, etc.
Basically for us, we spend Christmas together, immediate family only, that’s Hubby, Me and our three children. So there are no visitors and it’s “just the regular us” together.
The anticipation for the gift opening part of the day is usually high, and was quite so this year for the children. We take things in order, having a time announce to sit on the floor around the tree and then gifts are passed out by Daddy or Mama, or both, in stages, and then only opened when we say, “go ahead” or something similar of an idea. This keeps everyone watching and seeing what is what and just keeps the peace overall, and doesn’t detract from excitement one itty bit.
I myself recieved something I’ve wanted for over a year, an i-Dog … a white one. I wanted a black one, ever since they came out with it more recently. A black one is spiffier looking, to me, and goes with my HP laptop nicely, as well as my Sansa e260 (mp3 player) both being black devices.
Hubby often lets our daughter in on what he get for me, and lets her help wrap sometimes. He said that when he showed it to her this morning (when he finally wrapped my presents) she said, ‘Mama wants a black one.’
So I do have a return to do, to replace white for black. Unfortunately hubby then told me that there was something called an i-Cat too now, but that the store where he got the i-Dog and had had the i-Cat was out of them and so were their closest other stores. He thought I might like it better, so holding out for it would be good … I looked it up online and found an article from Feb. ’06 about it coming out in the Fall, and new colors for the i-Dog as well. I have seen the new i-Dog colors in several stores, but no where did I notice an i-Cat.
The article seemed to show it as “white” like the original i-Dog, with no other colors. It sounds like something cool, the i-Cat, but in white, that’s not for sure what I want, though it could be cooler than the i-Dog in some ways, or many ways, me being a total cat person. I’ll have to reserve judgement until I see the i-Cat physically and can see it in action.
We got a Sansa m230 for each of the two oldest children. I had trouble with my Audible Manager when I tried to use the new ones. I ended up finding a reference to a similar problem with a different device on their website help, and found that it solved my problem to follow the directions. Basically deleting a ‘content’ file in the Bin folder for Audible in Program Files. [the file being corrupt, deleting it, then starting Audible Manager, the program asks you about the file, and choosing the option there to "create new" is the right thing to do. Then one needs to make all their audible audio files imported anew into the Audible Manager library.]
Once I did that it was like magic, I was able to move things onto my own Sansa m230 again (why the file corrupted right then, when I had something new to do, don’t ask me. It worked ), and also easily got the two new ones friendly with Audible and filling up with Eragon (though there is plenty of room for other books, or music even.) The m230′s are a 512mb device, nothing huge, just have it for ‘Audible’ audio books mainly.
DH got me a football too. It’s not just for me, really, but I am the one that wanted it. It’s a Junior sized ball, easier for the whole family, only DH has big hands.
Other things were opened, but I won’t go over everything. A tradition we started a few years ago when Peter Pan came out on Christmas Day was to go to a movie on Christmas Day afternoon, something new, family fair. This year we are going to see ‘A Night in the Museum’ in Imax format. We’re leaving soon. We would have gone earlier, but Imax showings of this film aren’t starting until 5pm-ish.
So I’ve got to go get my boots on and get ready otherwise. I took a short nap in the middle of writing this post, so hopefully it all makes sense.
Merry Christmas
May you all have a very Merry Christmas!
I still have to put decorations on the tree, my husband got the lights on it yesterday late afternoon. A lot of the presents are wrapped, but not all as of yet.
I’d like to make some more cookies this afternoon, and hope I can. I had made a batch of Spritz the other week, and carefully dolled them out, making sure no one hogged them away in their innerds. Unfortunately that ended up happening a couple of days ago, when hubby pulled the bag out of the cookie jar and brought it to the couch where he and I were watching a movie. :rolleyes: So accordingly, we are out of Christmas cookies and that’s not a swell thing around here. [we aren't looking for fancy, just a good cookie, spritz, ginger snap, tollhouse, snowball, etc.]
I’ll try to elicit the help of others to make tollhouse and one other type, at the least, today.
Early Christmas Present
[NEW: Picture added to post December 23, 2006]
Hubby brought me a Christmas present yesterday. He couldn’t hold it over … why?
It’s a Betta (fish) and a really cool glass “bowl” that is blue and shaped like a big fish with a wide open mouth at the end, which is the “top” of the bowl, though not the “top” but is the opening.
I’m having to create something to cover that mouth, to keep fishy in, and kitties out. It’s an artistic piece, the bowl and really nice. I saw it in the store (PetsMart, earlier this month, Dec ’06) and oohed and ahhed over it. I didn’t want to put a fish in it, really, but now I have it as a present and it’s alright. I’m trying to make it work.
I love aquariums and haven’t had one in so long. This is a different sort of thing, a betta is something I’ve not had, but have wanted. It’s a nice present.
If the betta doesn’t work out in the bowl, then I’ll have a nice glass fish to put glass marbles in and have as a pretty accent piece.
[Edit: Dec. 23, 2006: Here is a picture of Thaddeus in his bowl. I had to put him in last night, Dec. 22, when one of the cats knocked over the store container he was still in, and most of the water drained out immediately. I don't have a good cover for the "fish mouth" yet, and it troubles me. I have plastic wrap stretched tightly over the mouth, but left open at the top for "air". The cats didn't bother it last night, we have stuff on each side of the bowl so they can't get to it. Also, the fish bowl is sensitive to tipping to the right, unfortunately. So the food processor is hugging it on the right, and boxes of crystal glasses on the left to fill up space. One cat is interested thus far, in the fish in his new bowl. Blueberry Bear sits on the table across from the fish bowl and stares and stares. That's it.]
My betta is a crowntail sort, very fancy tail and fins. He’s sort of blue and orange-ish, I think. I can’t tell exactly, he’s in his little container from the store, and the water is blue tinted. I’d prefer a more blue fish, but it’s OK to have this guy, he’s pretty. I haven’t named him yet. That is to come. Well, as I wrote that a name popped into my head. It’s Thaddeus –why? I don’t know. It just popped into my head. I haven’t read anything recently or less recently with that name per se. FWIW So my betta is “Thaddeus”