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Dec. 29th, 2010 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillWe had a good Christmas, and I hope everyone reading this who celebrates Christmas had a good one too.
Because of the weather we didn't get out as much as we would have liked, but Kip loved the blueberry delight (and I have now made a second batch by myself). And I got many of the presents I wanted and Kip's sister seemed inordinately pleased with the socks.
Oh, the socks. Let me explain. It used to be when people didn't get me wishlists in a reasonable amount of time for Christmas I would threaten to get them socks for Christmas. Once I actually followed through and got my Mom the most obnoxious pair of novelty socks you can imagine; they were red and green and lit up and played "Jingle Bells" when you pressed a button. They were amazing.
(Nowadays I have discovered the Potato of the Month Club and I usually threaten people with that. But this was before that happy discovery.)
Anyway one year I went shopping for socks for Keely because she still hadn't gotten me a list, and found these great puppy socks, black and white stripes with a white puppy head and paws on the front of the ankle and a little puppy tail on the back of the ankle and made of this lovely soft warm chenille. They weren't as good as the Jingle Bell socks but they were quite good. But then Keely got us a wishlist and we got her something from that and I forgot about the socks and they languished in a drawer.
And I thought there might not be very many presents for Keely under the tree because of her coming at the last minute, and she'd come all that way, and I remembered the socks and hunted them up and put them in the pile though of course we'd already gotten her another present. And nothing would suit when Keely found them but she must put them on right that moment, because she had been barefoot up to that point which even with the heater turned up to 70 degrees wouldn't have been my choice. She wore the socks all day. We also got her a tv series on DVD she had requested, but I think the socks were just as big a hit, which I wasn't really expecting.
Keely had to fly home eeearrly in the morning Monday, and after that we took Arlene and Kerry to visit Cousin Mary, whom I may have mentioned we had thanksgiving dinner with. It was a beautiful day for a drive, and we had a lovely visit; I think Arlene and Mary really enjoyed talking family history, and Mary showed many of the family artifacts--a high chair that their grandpa had used as a baby, a quilt that a great aunt had made, pictures of grandparents and great aunts and a farm that had been in the family for many years, and a grandfather's or great-grandfather's courting buggy and his team of horses. And Mary and Jim told funny stories of things that had happened on their little ranch; they run about a dozen cattle and six or seven horses and have two dogs who keep things pretty lively.
We also went outside and met Mary's horses and I was detailed to take pictures with Arlene and Kerry's new camera which they had received as an early Christmas present, and which was enough like my camera that I could suss it out without access to the manual. I took many pictures of horses and Arlene and Mary talking up a storm and petting horses and got a very nice picture of Cousin Mary's husband Jim, by turning and snapping his picture when he wasn't expecting it really. Unfortunately the pictures all went home with Arlene and Kerry the next day; I kind of wish I had copies of some of them. Some didn't come out of course, but with a digital camera you just snap like crazy and delete the bad ones later.
After Arlene and Kerry went home I did some laundry and put the beds away and have been mostly just lazing around a bit, decompressing. I like having guests but there's always a certain amount of tension involved in being ever ready to spring to make someone else comfortable in a strange place, and six days is rather a long time to have guests whose tastes are so different from mine. But at the same time I'm glad they came; I'm glad we did this--I want to solidify my ties with the rest of Kip's family and spending time together is the only way to do that..
Because of the weather we didn't get out as much as we would have liked, but Kip loved the blueberry delight (and I have now made a second batch by myself). And I got many of the presents I wanted and Kip's sister seemed inordinately pleased with the socks.
Oh, the socks. Let me explain. It used to be when people didn't get me wishlists in a reasonable amount of time for Christmas I would threaten to get them socks for Christmas. Once I actually followed through and got my Mom the most obnoxious pair of novelty socks you can imagine; they were red and green and lit up and played "Jingle Bells" when you pressed a button. They were amazing.
(Nowadays I have discovered the Potato of the Month Club and I usually threaten people with that. But this was before that happy discovery.)
Anyway one year I went shopping for socks for Keely because she still hadn't gotten me a list, and found these great puppy socks, black and white stripes with a white puppy head and paws on the front of the ankle and a little puppy tail on the back of the ankle and made of this lovely soft warm chenille. They weren't as good as the Jingle Bell socks but they were quite good. But then Keely got us a wishlist and we got her something from that and I forgot about the socks and they languished in a drawer.
And I thought there might not be very many presents for Keely under the tree because of her coming at the last minute, and she'd come all that way, and I remembered the socks and hunted them up and put them in the pile though of course we'd already gotten her another present. And nothing would suit when Keely found them but she must put them on right that moment, because she had been barefoot up to that point which even with the heater turned up to 70 degrees wouldn't have been my choice. She wore the socks all day. We also got her a tv series on DVD she had requested, but I think the socks were just as big a hit, which I wasn't really expecting.
Keely had to fly home eeearrly in the morning Monday, and after that we took Arlene and Kerry to visit Cousin Mary, whom I may have mentioned we had thanksgiving dinner with. It was a beautiful day for a drive, and we had a lovely visit; I think Arlene and Mary really enjoyed talking family history, and Mary showed many of the family artifacts--a high chair that their grandpa had used as a baby, a quilt that a great aunt had made, pictures of grandparents and great aunts and a farm that had been in the family for many years, and a grandfather's or great-grandfather's courting buggy and his team of horses. And Mary and Jim told funny stories of things that had happened on their little ranch; they run about a dozen cattle and six or seven horses and have two dogs who keep things pretty lively.
We also went outside and met Mary's horses and I was detailed to take pictures with Arlene and Kerry's new camera which they had received as an early Christmas present, and which was enough like my camera that I could suss it out without access to the manual. I took many pictures of horses and Arlene and Mary talking up a storm and petting horses and got a very nice picture of Cousin Mary's husband Jim, by turning and snapping his picture when he wasn't expecting it really. Unfortunately the pictures all went home with Arlene and Kerry the next day; I kind of wish I had copies of some of them. Some didn't come out of course, but with a digital camera you just snap like crazy and delete the bad ones later.
After Arlene and Kerry went home I did some laundry and put the beds away and have been mostly just lazing around a bit, decompressing. I like having guests but there's always a certain amount of tension involved in being ever ready to spring to make someone else comfortable in a strange place, and six days is rather a long time to have guests whose tastes are so different from mine. But at the same time I'm glad they came; I'm glad we did this--I want to solidify my ties with the rest of Kip's family and spending time together is the only way to do that..
