Current mood:

content

Christmas!

Maureen and I had a fantastic Christmas. We went to my parents’ house where we ate yummy foods (I had my mom make Thanksgiving food because Maureen’s family’s Thanksgiving food will never live up to my mom’s), baked gingerbread cookies, lounged about and watched TV, played with the dogs, etc. My mom made us a calendar with photos, which I’m excited about using. I’m also looking forward to trying some recipes out of the cookbook we got, Top Secret Restaurant Recipes; we’re going to start with P.F. Chang’s Orange Chicken.

We got lots of other fun stuff too, including multiple products to keep me warm (e.g. a nice KU pullover, an electric blanket) and some $ to get new clothes. We used the electric blanket last night. Each side has independent controls, which is much appreciated because I generate more body heat than Maureen. I set mine to 13, and she set hers to 16. During the night, I kicked my half off onto her. She woke up to the super-heat of 29 and found me shivering to the not-so-hot 0 (I say not-so-hot because as you may remember from science class, there is no cold, just lack of heat). I think I will try 8 tonight.

The guinea pigs got spoiled this year. My mom bought them a treat log that is supposed to taste like vanilla. I don’t think they’ve had vanilla before. One of our friends bought them some fake candy, which is blocks of wood wrapped in paper. The guinea pigs LOVE paper. They also got some loofahs shaped like baseballs, which is really quite cute because they can carry them around despite their mammoth size*.


I took the rest of the week off, which I hope to spend cleaning house and visiting friends I never see even though they only live like 30 minutes away. I also need to spend more time socializing the guinea pigs, as Samson III is on the verge of becoming feral. Maureen suggested I wear rubber gloves while handling them to prevent a rash (damn you allergies)...we’ll see how that goes.

Peace, love, and happiness as you enter the new year!
~A

*relative to their tiny body size--the balls are roughly the size of their heads