Kendra Leigh Castle

Archive for December, 2009

Hope you all have a great one, whether you’re hanging at home or heading out to party.  Marco’s got some champagne for all of us, as you can see   Anyone bother to make any resolutions?  I almost hate making them, because I inevitably break most of them, so this year I’m keeping it simple: write more, work harder, and lost that 15 pounds I’ve been promising myself I’m going to lose since I had Jack (occasionally I take off a little, but I always wind up back where I started).  That involves (*shudder*) exercise.  So we’ll see how I do.

Anyway, to all my beautiful, bloggy buddies, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Morning, everyone.  I finally managed to drag my butt to the computer this morning, LOL…I love vacation week.  I would love it better if my sinuses didn’t feel like they might explode, but beggars can’t be choosers.  I was fairly busy yesterday afternoon, so I plan on making up for it by spending this morning reading in my PJs.  I got started on Dandelion Fire last night, the second book in the 100 Cupboards series, and I’ll be finishing that up today.  It’s so good!  I’m excited for the third and final installment at the end of January, except that I hate for it to be over.  After that, I may curl up with the Playstation and explore with my sword-toting warrior chick.  Never thought I would get into this sort of game (and honestly, I’m still operating on only the most basic level of understanding of what I’m doing), but it is fun.  I’m trying to enjoy my final days of slacking, because next week, it’s back to real life and real work.

My in-laws are coming tomorrow and we’re doing dinner for New Year’s…nothing fancy, and my bedtime often occurs before the ball comes down in Times Square anyway!  How do you all plan on ringing in 2010?  Mine will probably arrive with a snore!  Have a great Hump Day!

Check out what showed up on my doorstep yesterday!

Sorry, I know it’sa huge picture, but I can’t seem to size it right.  Anyway, it’s Call of the Highland Moon in Spanish!  I knew this existed, but I didn’t know I actually got a couple of copies out of the deal.  Isn’t it pretty?  My only qualm is that I don’t recall Carly ever dressing like a Scottish peasant in the book, but what the hell, it’s an attractive cover.  And it’s so big and shiny!  Wish I could read it to see how it came across in translation, but one year of high school Spanish isn’t gonna do it fo rme (I took French all four years, and two languages my senior year for the hell of it…I like languages WAY better than math, which I didn’t take that year because I didn’t have to).

Not much else to say today, but I had to show you all…COOL, huh??  Have a good one!

Well, that went by fast!  I always wish that Christmas stuck around a little longer, but at least I managed to relax for a few days and enjoy it.  Having my family here was great, and my kids were just as excited as I’d hoped they would be when they headed downstairs Christmas morning and saw all that was waiting for them.  Also, I ate.  A LOT.  My husband, who is of extremely Polish extraction, made what has become our tradition Christmas Eve dinner…he spends a least half a day in the kitchen prepping all the pierogies and galumpkis.  We had all that plus some yummy sauerkraut for what he deemed Polish Fest ’09, and I think we’ll be eating off the leftovers for another few days!  My dad made his famous spaghetti (nope, he’s not Italian, just really good at meatballs) for Christmas Day, plus there was cranberrry bread and fudge courtesy of my gramma.  I am avoiding the scale at all costs right now.

I got my Nook, which I was happy to find a lot easier to use than I’d feared, me being such a newbie to this whole e-reader business.  The only issue was that so many people turned them on for the first time on December 25th that it overloaded the website servers, and no one could download any books!  That bit sucked (and the B&N support forums were full of fury), but it was corrected very early the following morning, and in the meantime I read the copy of Pride & Prejudice that the machine came with (it comes pre-loaded with Dracula, P&P, and Little Women).  I now have Dandelion Fire by N.D. Wilson and the next two House of Night books all ready to read, which I intend to start on today.  I gotta tell you, I have been on the fence about this e-reader thing for a WHILE, because I love my paper books, and I doubted I would enjoy curling up with a tablet.  The kindle has never particularly appealed to me, not in looks or in the fact that Amazon locks you into their store if you have one.  The Nook, however, has been a wonderful surprise.  I read in bed for a long time a couple of nights ago, one-handed, able to sip my tea (and munch on pretzels *cringe*), and I was as involved in the story as I would have been if it had been on paper.  Actually, it’s a little easier to hold.  Not to be a walking ad for it, but I can see why a number of my friends have converted, and why even the unwilling ones say they won’t go back!  Mind you, it’s a brand new machine and not utterly bug free, but B&N will be pushing out firmware updates for it to fix things.  My only thing right now is that the bookmark sometimes vanishes, but so many people are having the issue that I’m guessing it’s high on the fix list.  I’m not all up in arms about it…I am equipped with some small amount of patience depending on the issue   But I think I can finally stop stuffing my already overstuffed bookcase, to say nothing of adding another box of books to the ones already in my basement.  Plus, with me living in a place with no real bookstores, I’m really happy to have easy access to a B&N again! 

That was pretty much my present from everybody, which is what I’d requested.  Other than that, I got chocolate, much of which I have eaten, and a couple of yummy perfumes from Bath & Body Works (Vanilla Noir and Black Raspberry Vanilla…I like to smell like food…are you sensing a theme here?) as a small addition from my hubby.  I’ve spent a lot of time playing video games this weekend, which are NOT mine, but since I gave birth to the children they’re not allowed to tell me to scram.  Anyway, they think it’s funny when I yell at the new Super Mario Bros for Wii (sadly, I yelled a lot yesterday…World 3 is trying to defeat me).  I’m trying to play Dragon Age: Origins, but my husband is usually on it.  He’s some kind of psycho tattooed dwarf with a giant sword (ha ha).  I went to sleep last night to the lovely sounds of him slaying an army of reanimated corpses.  Whatever makes him happy.

So other than that, and the toys scattered all over my family room and the already-missing Lego pieces that I may or may not accidentally end up vacuuming up in the future, all is quiet here.  I seem to have gotten a nasty sinus infection as a final holiday gift, so I won’t be moving much today.  I’m just waiting for my voice to go…that’s what usually happens, and if you knew how much I like to talk in person, you would understand the pain this causes me!  Anyway, I’m opening up the floor to all of you, because I want to hear all about your Christmases!!  How was it, get any awesome presents, etc.?  I will be sitting here wrapped up in my pink afghan waiting to hear.  Yes, I have a pink afghan, because my gramma crocheted it for me back in high school and it’s big and awesome and perfect for when I don’t feel good   I may have to talk to her about making me a new one, though…this one is getting sadly worn.  Not that I’ll give it up until it falls apart, but it would be good to have backup.  Have a great day!

Wow, I woke up late this morning!  Sorry, guys   I’ve got a fun link for you today…okay, well I thought it was funny!  It’s about cute cat behaviors with Shockingly Evil Explanations.   Amusing stuff for the cat-owned.

I’ll be taking the rest of the week off for Christmas, because I have family coming in and I’m SO excited!  Excited enough to clean my bathrooms, even (this is very excited).  But I want to just take today to thank you all for your wonderful support and friendship.  When the writing, or even just life, gets tough, I know I have you all to lean on and to cheer me up, just like I love sharing all the good stuff with you…and having you all doing the same has made this a pretty awesome year on the internets for me   Thanks for reading, for always stopping by, and for always putting a big smile on my face (*cough* Donna’s yummydoodles *cough*).

A very merry Christmas to you and yours.  I hope you all have a beautiful, wonderful holiday full of love and laughter.

See you on Monday!

Happy Monday, everyone!  Seeing as how I finally discovered the joys of the new Star Trek movie this weekend, I thought it only appropriate to choose hottie Chris Pine, aka James T. Kirk, as this week’s specimen of Mantastic-ness.  Shatner, he ain’t (and thank God for that)!  Very pretty eyes, lots of acting ability, and his expressions were a lot of fun to watch.  He has, I guess you’d say, a very expressive face.  Plus, you know, he’s just hot.  Nothing wrong with that

It was an interesting weekend here…we got over a foot of snow, and Sunday afternoon the schools decided to cancel Monday and Tuesday, which kicks off the kids’ Christmas Break early.  Now, this is okay in the sense that I don’t have to get up and run around in the morning.  It’s not okay in the sense that the children are somehow already bored and have decided that the best way to remedy this is to torment one another into screeching fits of temper, then tattle.  At least Brian took the week off as well, so I’m not the only one yelling.  The kids have had a blast in the snow, since it’s a novelty for them.  They keep trying to get me out in it, but I’m not big on freezing my butt off!  I did go out in it yesterday to watch them for a while, and I had to bust out the only boots I currently own: my circa 1994 Doc Martens, leprechaun green with tartan laces, bought on a high school trip to London.  I had a lot of fun in those boots!  My daughter deemed them cool.  They certainly looked interesting when worn with my Catholic school uniform, I remember.  I’ll pass them along when she gets older, probably along with my Steve Madden platforms.  I had just as much fun in those, though the memories are a little hazier  

Anyway, hope you all had a good weekend…Christmas approaches!  Brian and I watched the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol last night, because, well…you’ve gotta!  Stay warm, and enjoy the day.

Uh-oh.  It looks like Mother Nature is headed to kick Southern Maryland’s butt into the season as we speak, so this should be interesting.  Possibly I shouldn’t have stated the fact that I miss the snow this time of year OUT LOUD?  Being a Northern girl, not much fazes me in the winter weather department, but they really don’t have the equipment to deal with it down here.  My parents live in Charlotte, where they may possibly get a teeny bit of snow, and the place is in an ecstasy of panic.  Which is funny, as long as you don’t have to get out on the roads with those panicking!  I did some driving in a surprise dump of snow we got here last year, and the other drivers freaked me out enough that I think I’m going to stay put in my house once the snow flies.  Normally I would say “if,” since even here the mere possibility of snow gets things in a semi-uproar, but the storm is looking pretty definite at this point.  They changed it to a warning from a watch last night, and it’s supposed to start falling tonight.  We got a hard freeze as a prelude, and ohhhh, I do not want to go out in it this morning.  COLD!

Sorry I’ve been a little slow in the comments section this week.  I’ve been doing a lot of running around with last minute stuff.  I’m really hoping I get at least a few days to kick back and remember that Christmas is here!  At this rate it will have blown by by the time I get to be still!  I know some of you have wintry weather, and some of you get to be fairly warm, but in either case, hope you have a comfy weekend with at least a little relaxing.  And hey, since we were talking about Glambert and his decorative entrails, I am putting up one of the songs I would rather they’d released off his new album.  I’m really not nuts about “Whaddaya Want From Me”.  Here ya go, a pretty song to go with the softly darkening skies full of impending snow.  Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

This is apparently the week for weird dreams.  Last night I was helping a small band of kilted Highlanders (led by Adrian Paul…WOO!) escape from evil aliens.  Don’t ask me, because none of these things were in my head when I went to sleep.  However, there are WAY worse things than running around with Adrian Paul in a kilt, so I won’t object.  I think it’s stress.  My dreams get a lot wilder when I’m stressed!  However, they don’t usually have quite so many hot men in them.  I think you all are a good influence   Adrian’s name in my dream was Daegus MacKeltar…wasn’t that a name in a Karen Marie Moning book?  I think MacKeltar was, anyway…I’ll have to check.  My brain coughs up some strange tidbits sometimes.

Anyway, it’s Thursday.  The week is heading for over, and I’m happy about that!  Pretty much ready for Christmas to get here, and my parents and grandparents are arriving on Wednesday to stay until Saturday.  Do you all have family coming in, or are you going anywhere?  Have any funky dreams of your own lately?  Do tell!

Wow, did I have some weird dreams last night.  Had something to do with those hidden picture things (remember those?  The ones you had to look at cross-eyed to see correctly?), lots of weaponry bought at a bazaar that looked a little like a mall, and a quest with Seth Rogen and some other dude who I’m pretty sure is another actor, only I don’t remember him all that well at this point.  Oh, and I had some sort of uber-desirable magical ability.  Which of course means I woke up before we even got to any real questing.  The cool dreams always end too fast.  Okay, I know it sounds weird, but it was pretty cool, honestly!  Anyway, I’m headed for Target today to finish up whatever I need to for Christmas (Target gets so much of my money…it’s so sad) once I drop the kiddos at school.  Wednesdays are nice, since I get a couple of hours on my own!

Hope you all have a great Hump Day   I’ll leave you with yet another Muse song, and a couple of pictures of their lead singer, Matthew Bellamy, who I think is very sexy in a short, skinny, British sort of way.  I like interesting looking men.  He insists he can’t be sexy because he’s only 5’7 ( he was voted some magazine’s sexiest rock star or something in Britain a couple of years ago), but I beg to differ!

I think he’s cute, anyway.  Someday I want to see them in concert.  SOMEDAY!  Enjoy your day, and here’s Starlight.

I found this when I was poking around Youtube…it’s from one of my favorite Christmas specials growing up.  You guys remember how cool the California Raisins were?  Check ‘em out doing a very funky rendition of Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer!  Do you all have any favorite Christmas specials you just have to watch this time of year?  Have a great Tuesday, everyone!!