Merry Christmas Eve Eve

I haven't had to work on Christmas Eve for the last two years, so it's weird for me to have to work it this year. I do get the 26th off, though! Nice long weekend with the family. My brother has come to visit and, as well as deciding upon seeing the new Hobbit movie this weekend, we came to agree that it would be best if he joined our household Neptune until he can pay me back some personal loans. I think it's a wise decision! The environment he was in before wasn't entirely healthy for his needs, and I think he's come to realize that for himself now. It'll also help my mom and I out with paying bills while we have two homes to worry about. He'll be taking up the room that was formerly known as the cat room, that was formerly known as the junk room, that was formerly known as the office/guest room-to-be.

No Christmas presents this year, but my mom purchased tickets to see It's a Wonderful Life on the big screen. The film always makes me bawl, so I expect to be slightly embarrassed in a room full of other people who I hope will also be bawling.

Words

I have a strange, friendly relationship with an anatomy and physiology professor I had taken a couple of classes with while I was in college. At some point he noticed my artistic abilities and suggested that I look into anatomical illustration as a career option. I never did head in that direction, obviously, but I appreciated the attention and encouragement. He ended up being my go-to professor for letters of recommendation, even after he moved out of state to a different university, and somehow we've managed to keep in touch at least once a year emailing random hello's and exchanging art clips or playing Draw Something. This year he was reminded of comics I used to draw by one of his student's doodles:

I used to have a crush on him (I might have been 18 or 19 at the time), even though he's not particularly amazing looking and is also perhaps 10-15 years older than me if I could guess. That happened to me a lot in college, though, with a bunch of my professors. I think it's the intelligence I'm attracted to, it kind of outweighed everything else. Nowadays, I still hold some adoration towards him just for remembering about me, one of thousands of students he's probably had over the years. That's pretty unusual...

But there was a potentially embarrassing moment one lab class when everyone was taking each others blood pressure. Mine was elevated, which raised some concern, so my professor performed the test on me himself. I got nervous from his proximity, so it went up even more. Haha. Oh god.

Changing the subject!

As I attempted to drift off to sleep last night, I had a recollection about an idea from the beginning of a book I once started reading and never finished. The plot is hazy in my mind, but the main character got himself into a situation where he was required to define words utterly and without holes. It started off with small words like "gate" or "tree", but then he was challenged by abstract nouns like "courage" and "liberty" which as you could probably imagine would be a lot more difficult than describing concrete nouns.

Anyway, all of this made me think about words having to be defined by other words, which are defined by other words, and I wondered if there is like a first word that is so self-defined that it was able to describe another word, which could describe another, and so the tree of words developed.

That's silly, though. I'm sure people just started defining words by pointing at things and giving it a name.

Cough Fee

I'm starting to read The Lord of the Rings series. They've been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years now among other series I need to start or finish. Unfortunately, after reading The Hobbit just before the movies came out in theaters, I realized that I truly cannot stand Tolkien's writing style and why in blazes am I subjecting myself to a trilogy by the same author?

My eyes started drooping at around 7:00 pm last night reading through Frodo's naps and lunches on his way out of the Shire, and I couldn't help but curl up under the blankets by 7:30 pm. I can't say whether this was from the writing style or because I've exhausted myself over the last two weekends helping my mom paint our old house. But boy, oh boy, do my screaming muscles think the new wall, trim, and ceiling colors have been worth the pain. Unfortunately, we have one more weekend of painting before I think we will be finished, but we'll have to pick my brother up too to join us for Christmas week, and all that I believe calls for lots of coffee. Coffee. Cough fee. 

Photos to come of before and afters! 

Help me, I'm poor.

Wait. Did November happen? It's suddenly December!

Since my family is broke this year we aren't doing presents for Christmas. Instead, my mom and I are going to use my consumer credit cards to finance home improvement purchases for, unfortunately, the old house instead of the new house. The old house is having a hard time selling, and when we did repaint it a couple months ago, if you remember, we rushed through it and didn't verify colors and it ended up turning into a putrid mess of gross bleghs for your eyes. We're taking the thing off the market for a while to try and fix it. Do it right this time. Pick nice, modern and neutral colors. Unfortunately my mom isn't keen on changing the trim colors, which can actually be really constraining on palette choices. We'll see how it works out. Wish us luck. On the lawn we're going to try to grow in the backyard, too! Time to work off our Thanksgiving calories in painting and yard work. Gross and yay at the same time.

Thanksgiving was a grand ol' time. I invited a friend of mine from work who currently doesn't have any family in town (they are in Korea, booo) and she is super preggers and nice/friendly, so that was fun. She learned how to play Yahtzee and really enjoyed it and my brother being his goofball self. My mom and I decided we weren't going with a traditional Thanksgiving meal this year (turkey is not my first choice any day). The menu ended up involving olive oil and chili powder marinated rib eye roast, boiled then baked red potatoes with caramelized onions, and sauteed zucchini, carrots, and roasted garlic. Literally the most perfect meal of all time, and I am surprising myself by saying I am confident I can replicate it. WOW.

In case I follow my current trend of hardly updating ever, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.