I don't suffer from insanity,

My movie tastes are not sophisticated. :P Regardless, this meme was fun! (copied from avice)

( and the meme.... )

So, I skipped the Thursday game as Matt really, really wanted to see Transformers. And wow. That movie rocked. I never really watched much of the cartoon, but the movie was really fun and engaging.

Friday's game went really well, even though I was mostly an observer. We convinced Matt to run a Werewolf the Apocalypse game. Fun, fun! kalar and devineoraclefy are both entirely new to Werewolf, so Matt ran them through their first change and the experience of discovering a whole new world. He did the set up really well and it was really fun watching them role-play their characters discoveries as they themselves discovered the game. I think this time we really picked character concepts that will blend well together. Of course, it doesn't hurt that out of six of us, four are Fianna. Heh. Anyway, we've got:

Homid Child of Gaia Ahron = Bob
Lupus Fianna Ahroun = Paul
Homid Fianna Galliard = Dave
Homid Fianna Philodox = me
Homid Uktena Theurge = Austin
Homid Fianna Ragabash = Shana

My concept for this game is an old one for me, one I've been wanting to play for quite some time. I remember the "breakthrough" feeling I had when I conceived it. I'm really excited about this game!

Saturday I went to the Star Wars Exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. It was awesome, and I totally enjoyed myself. My family is so cool! Ok, we're actually quite nerdy, but I think they're a lot of fun, so it's all good anyway. First we watched the special effects movie at the Omni (I so want to see Harry Potter there too!), then went through the exhibit.

The exhibit itself was really neat. They had a lot of what-ifs and look-where-where-science-is-now kind of stuff that was really interesting, plus a lot of little activities, like building your own miniature robot, steering a robot, sitting in an air-propulsion type car thing... All kinds of neat stuff! I could have spent more time there, but teh Lex was so tired poor thing. Then when we broke for lunch, I sat too long and was ready to head home myself. Of course, I think had I gotten a full night's rest (instead of going to bed at 3am and getting up at 7:30am...), I would have had a lot more energy for the exhibit. Maybe I should go back, and be rested this time...

After the exhibit, we went home and took a "nap" and threw off our sleep schedule. Luckily Sundays are very low energy so we were able to balance ourselves out by Monday morning.

Only to throw it all off again last night! Because, of course, Matt and I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter with Bob, Chip, and Paul. So here I am again, having gone to sleep around 3:30am and getting up at 7:30am. Whee! I'll just say that if you've read the book you will notice things that were left out (of necessity due to time). If you haven't read the book but seen all the other movies, you'll probably enjoy it quite a bit. Maybe. I enjoyed it anyway!

Lunch today with Annie, the Lex and Eric was good. I'm still tired, though.

ZZzzzZZzz.

And yet I still adore going to opening midnight showings. It was worth it! ^_^

Work is continuing as normal. Well, normal for December, anyway. I'm a week behind on web invoicing, but caught up in everything else. I'll catch up, though. I always do.

Thursday evening last week I went to the midnight showing of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with Matt, finari, and narkeys. We weren't going to show up until 15 minutes to movie start because we didn't want to wait out in the cold; however, when narkeys called at 10pm and said that they let him in the theater and he was already sitting, Matt and I decided to head over and keep him company. I had lots of fun sitting and chatting, as always before a midnight show. As for the movie itself, I loved it.

Friday Matt and I went to our church Christmas party. He volunteered to bring some Thai desert, so he brought sweet sticky rice and coconut custard. Mmm. Heh. People either loved it or hated it. Funnily enough, the people who have milk or wheat allergies were so excited to see a desert with neither that they fell on it like piranhas. I still adore the stuff. And now that I know how easy it is to make, I may be wheedling Matt to make some on a regular basis.

Saturday morning, Matt went in to the shop to work on some things for friends. I stayed home and straightened up the living room. Didn't quite make it to any other rooms, but at least the first room in the house is presentable again. Saturday evening, I dressed up in my 1860 dress and went to Dallas with Mom, Dad, and Matt for Candlelight at Old City Park. I had lots of fun, and since I wore enough layers under the dress, I miraculously did not get cold. ^_^ Matt snapped a few pictures... If I look good in them, I'll upload them to our website. :P

Sunday was normal, plus we relaxed all day and got extra sleep since both of us were feeling a bit under the weather. Monday was normal with work in the day and WoW in the evening.

Tuesday evening I chilled with finari, chatting and watching movies. I really enjoy our walks, too. After that, I stayed up way too late reading Washington's General and am paying for it today. If I hadn't brought the hound to work with me, I think I'd be way too tempted to curl up on his comfy cushion for a nap. I don't regret it, even though I still haven't finished the book. I'm closer, though, and have to finish it by Saturday when Mom comes over to pick up the Lex, who will be spending most of the day with me. Whee!! :D Um. Hrm. I think I need to child-proof some stuff. He's walking now, I think. Heh.

Difficulties with our trip to Ireland are finally wrapping up. It involved Matt contacting eBay, some other mediator, and the LAPD, but it's finally getting settled. Apparently once you pass the $2000 mark for a purchase on eBay, it becomes a serious, prosecuting-level fraud, which is nice to know. The travel agency is now being very communicative and conciliatory. Hah. So now it's looking like our trip will be in May. I have my renewed passport, now I just need to get that paperwork for the international driver's license.

I need to clean out the garage, and I'm finally feeling that urge again. I've been toying with the idea of converting it to a hobby area with one wall for Matt's things, and the other wall for my stuff. It wouldn't be a true garage conversion, as I don't want to actually not have a garage, but just move all the stuff there, make it habitable, and perhaps add a window and a window AC unit for summer... I think it's do-able. Now it just needs the doing.

My hound is sleeping on his cushion beside me, on his back, with his deep, narrow ribcage up and legs sprawled. He is in a right lead, too, which is particularly adorable. Ever since the Mama-san incident at the top of the stairs, he always stops at the shop door for a sniff. Just in case, I guess. I am always right behind him, though. Just in case.

We've also found a new game, one that I'd heard about others playing with their greyhounds and have long wanted to try. It involves a plastic grocery bag tied on the end of a long stick and then pulled around like a rabbit-sized lure. I now know why my hound flunked racing school. His prey drive is strong, but he knows that bag isn't prey, so he only chases it when he feels like chasing it. He's also smart. He won't just chase it in circles. He sometimes waits for it to come around to him and then makes his lunge, or other times he'll cut across the arc and go straight for it.

I have found one way to entice him into the chase, though. I "sneak" the bag up behind him while he's distracted or pretending to be aloof, and flick him on the hind quarters with the rustling plastic, and then pull it quickly away. Oh, he is so offended by that! Heh. He does a 180 bounce and off he goes. Once he actually growled when he lunged for it, and proceeded to chase the bag with great enthusiasm. When he finally caught it, he tore it off the stick and carried it triumphantly to his corner of the yard. He then proceeded to shred the bag into little, tiny pieces, viciously shaking each piece before dropping it and tearing into the bag again.

I was laughing so hard I could barely stand.

I've finally gotten everything settled and caught up from being gone for a week. I don't like traveling for work because my work load is tripled due to all the catching up and repairing I have to do when I return. It's pretty much all caught up now, though, and I can settle back into my normal busy schedule.

Friday night I watched Saints and Soldiers with Matt, finari, narkeys and my parents. It was awesome, one of those 'based on real events' movies about some soldiers that escaped the Malmedy Massacre during WWII and made their way back to the Allied forces. The main character is LDS, and the film handles it in a very understated yet effective way.

Saturday I went to the Dallas Museum of Art and examined the Splendors of the Forbidden City exhibit again, this time with my mom and aunt (her sister) Gretchen. I thoroughly enjoyed it even though it was my second time through, or perhaps because it was my second time through. I'll probably go at least one more time... Anyway, we had fun chatting both before and after the exhibit. Sometimes I forget how cool my relatives are.

Sunday was relatively relaxed, especially once I got home, although at church I was the only one watching six three-year-olds. Not fun. I know for a fact that I will not have more than four children. I'm thinking three. I don't know how my mother managed. Anyway, after church I went home and played on the computer a little, then took a nice two hour nap, and woke up very refreshed. I needed that nap! After I woke up, I played on the computer a little more, then watched The Duellists, which I believe was the first film that Ridley Scott directed. Harvey Keitel's character Feraud really was crazy. The two men fought five duels over the space of fifteen years. I felt so bad for D'Hubert, who never really wanted to duel Feraud but whose honor would allow no less.

Monday, now back to work...