Entry tags:
miscellaneous holiday recap, gaming comentary, book review and thoughts on the new year.
i have needed a break since the holidays and end of the semester.
i am just now beginning to feel sane again (although my read on that is debatable).
this is likely to be a long post.
xmas was hectic.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sunmother has compacted vertebrae in her neck and this is causing her significant pain. to add to the fun, oxycodone doesn't work and she just developed a lovely new allergy to ibuprofen. she has been going to physical therapy and a chiropractor, and a massage therapist and that is helping, but sitting for long periods of time and sleeping are still problems. she and my dad have to have separate beds. this makes writing the papers necessary for the end of the semester and for her ordination a problem. surgery is not out of the question, but right now she is hoping the therapy combo will do it. prayers for her recovery are accepted with gratitude.
this made xmas more complicated.
my folks stayed in a motel because they could have separate beds that way. and i drove them back and forth to the house. obviously this was necessary, and it was wonderful to have them here at all, but it made me realize that it means something to me to have everyone together for xmas and that even separate sleeping arrangements make me feel something is missing. i like fixing meals for them and being able to count on them just being there. i wish we had better guest accommodations at our house.
xmas at the andersons went better than i had hoped. in a family where people don't talk to one another for years at a time, the food was good, ross's grandparents were awesome in every way, and my parents got along with everyone and weren't bored (or at least fooled me). i kept hearing laughter from different parts of the house. the church service was acceptable (although i don't like it when the words to my favorite hymns change and the organist needed help), and everyone liked their gifts for the most part (especially me i got an umbrella swift and a canning set and some awesome lined crocs! woot!). best of all, myra replaced the guest bed with something that doesn't hurt my back.
that being said, the holiday couldn't pass without some drama. starting with the fire in the fireplace. we don't have a fireplace at our house and it is one of the biggest reasons we plan on moving to a different house. there aren't a lot of things that are important to ross about xmas, but having a fire in the fireplace is one of them. i think most of the rest of us would have liked a fire, but weren't willing to pitch a stink about it. myra, on the other hand, adamently didn't want a fire, but wasn't willing to say so or say why. instead she pretended she was going to make arrangements for it, didn't, and then freaked out crying when ross climbed on the roof, opened the chimney, lit a fire and then had to go back up to clear a blockage that sent smoke into the house because the chimney hadn't been cleaned in forever.
the smoke cleared up and we had a nice fire and myra calmed down.
after my parents went to their motel for the night, the second boot dropped. myra had hot-glued a wreath to the chimney (does this seem like a bad idea to anyone else). one of the cats got up on the mantle and knocked it down and one of the grandma-painted nativity figures broke. myra freaked out again and blamed everyone but herself (and me) for it. i managed to calm her down a bit and glue the figurine back, but she freaked out again after i went to bed.
it was really hard for me to be around that. not just because she was freaking out, but because she couldn't get anyone to give her any sympathy or correct her craziness (blaming other people). i love my father in law and i don't see him that often. i can to some extent ignore his constant complaining about the government, his buying in to conspiracy theories, his racism and his general lack of grace and forgiveness....but he just ignored myra while she was breaking down...it's hard to feel trapped in the middle of that. it scares me a bit to think that future xmases might go that way.
we had my folks with us for a few days after xmas, but we were all so wiped out we didn't do a whole lot. we were mostly content to talk theology and enjoy each other's company. and that was nice all by itself.
we had the mortal coil group over sunday after xmas and i spent a lot of saturday preparing so that i wouldn't have to do any thinking or serious food creation on sunday. there are vegetarians involved so a certain amount of thought is required. we had chips and salsa and veggies and dip and some other stuff out to snack on. for dinner i made fresh baked bread, beer cheese soup and herb-roasted butternut squash, green pepper and onion tossed with bowtie pasta, pine nuts and crumbled feta. it was yummy.
gaming was a bit frustrating though, because we basically decided to scrap the mortal coil system and switch to something called the shadows of yesterday. we spent about half our time together analyzing the gaming system instead of playing and some of that was interesting to me, but most of it was boring. i just don't have the level of experience with game systems that most of the other players have and i can't really participate much in a conversation like that, nor do i have the frame of reference to make listening to it very interesting. on the other hand, i am GETTING more experience. so that's good. long and short, mortal coil has a system for conflict that is too clunky for the type of game we are playing and we need to move to something more flexible.
for new year, ross and i had planned to go up and play board games with the st. cloud crew, but ross was feeling overwhelmed so we wound up going to heather keiweg's for a while and then coming back home to watch movies, eat snacky stuff and get really sentimental around midnight. i popped some champagne left over from the xmas mimosas and it was really quite nice.
since then, i have been in recovery mode. i have felt anti-social and exhausted and have pretty much been ignoring anyone i could get away with ignoring(YES i am ignoring you. NO it's not personal). i have been in the negatives on my alone-time quota for approximately 4 months now and i think i'm about half-way caught up. i am debating about game tonight as i am obliged to be social tomorrow.
i am just now beginning to feel sane again (although my read on that is debatable).
this is likely to be a long post.
xmas was hectic.
sunmother has compacted vertebrae in her neck and this is causing her significant pain. to add to the fun, oxycodone doesn't work and she just developed a lovely new allergy to ibuprofen. she has been going to physical therapy and a chiropractor, and a massage therapist and that is helping, but sitting for long periods of time and sleeping are still problems. she and my dad have to have separate beds. this makes writing the papers necessary for the end of the semester and for her ordination a problem. surgery is not out of the question, but right now she is hoping the therapy combo will do it. prayers for her recovery are accepted with gratitude. this made xmas more complicated.
my folks stayed in a motel because they could have separate beds that way. and i drove them back and forth to the house. obviously this was necessary, and it was wonderful to have them here at all, but it made me realize that it means something to me to have everyone together for xmas and that even separate sleeping arrangements make me feel something is missing. i like fixing meals for them and being able to count on them just being there. i wish we had better guest accommodations at our house.
xmas at the andersons went better than i had hoped. in a family where people don't talk to one another for years at a time, the food was good, ross's grandparents were awesome in every way, and my parents got along with everyone and weren't bored (or at least fooled me). i kept hearing laughter from different parts of the house. the church service was acceptable (although i don't like it when the words to my favorite hymns change and the organist needed help), and everyone liked their gifts for the most part (especially me i got an umbrella swift and a canning set and some awesome lined crocs! woot!). best of all, myra replaced the guest bed with something that doesn't hurt my back.
that being said, the holiday couldn't pass without some drama. starting with the fire in the fireplace. we don't have a fireplace at our house and it is one of the biggest reasons we plan on moving to a different house. there aren't a lot of things that are important to ross about xmas, but having a fire in the fireplace is one of them. i think most of the rest of us would have liked a fire, but weren't willing to pitch a stink about it. myra, on the other hand, adamently didn't want a fire, but wasn't willing to say so or say why. instead she pretended she was going to make arrangements for it, didn't, and then freaked out crying when ross climbed on the roof, opened the chimney, lit a fire and then had to go back up to clear a blockage that sent smoke into the house because the chimney hadn't been cleaned in forever.
the smoke cleared up and we had a nice fire and myra calmed down.
after my parents went to their motel for the night, the second boot dropped. myra had hot-glued a wreath to the chimney (does this seem like a bad idea to anyone else). one of the cats got up on the mantle and knocked it down and one of the grandma-painted nativity figures broke. myra freaked out again and blamed everyone but herself (and me) for it. i managed to calm her down a bit and glue the figurine back, but she freaked out again after i went to bed.
it was really hard for me to be around that. not just because she was freaking out, but because she couldn't get anyone to give her any sympathy or correct her craziness (blaming other people). i love my father in law and i don't see him that often. i can to some extent ignore his constant complaining about the government, his buying in to conspiracy theories, his racism and his general lack of grace and forgiveness....but he just ignored myra while she was breaking down...it's hard to feel trapped in the middle of that. it scares me a bit to think that future xmases might go that way.
we had my folks with us for a few days after xmas, but we were all so wiped out we didn't do a whole lot. we were mostly content to talk theology and enjoy each other's company. and that was nice all by itself.
we had the mortal coil group over sunday after xmas and i spent a lot of saturday preparing so that i wouldn't have to do any thinking or serious food creation on sunday. there are vegetarians involved so a certain amount of thought is required. we had chips and salsa and veggies and dip and some other stuff out to snack on. for dinner i made fresh baked bread, beer cheese soup and herb-roasted butternut squash, green pepper and onion tossed with bowtie pasta, pine nuts and crumbled feta. it was yummy.
gaming was a bit frustrating though, because we basically decided to scrap the mortal coil system and switch to something called the shadows of yesterday. we spent about half our time together analyzing the gaming system instead of playing and some of that was interesting to me, but most of it was boring. i just don't have the level of experience with game systems that most of the other players have and i can't really participate much in a conversation like that, nor do i have the frame of reference to make listening to it very interesting. on the other hand, i am GETTING more experience. so that's good. long and short, mortal coil has a system for conflict that is too clunky for the type of game we are playing and we need to move to something more flexible.
for new year, ross and i had planned to go up and play board games with the st. cloud crew, but ross was feeling overwhelmed so we wound up going to heather keiweg's for a while and then coming back home to watch movies, eat snacky stuff and get really sentimental around midnight. i popped some champagne left over from the xmas mimosas and it was really quite nice.
since then, i have been in recovery mode. i have felt anti-social and exhausted and have pretty much been ignoring anyone i could get away with ignoring(YES i am ignoring you. NO it's not personal). i have been in the negatives on my alone-time quota for approximately 4 months now and i think i'm about half-way caught up. i am debating about game tonight as i am obliged to be social tomorrow.
i am MOST excited to be reading what i want to again. i re-read the name of the wind by patrick rothfuss and am enjoying a historical fiction called stealing heaven about heloise and peter abelard currently.
but the book i am most excited about is a book called animal vegetable miracle by barbara kingsolver. it is a true story about eating locally and organically for a year. kinsolver is most known for her fiction, but this book is truly excellent. it has completely changed the way i shop. i have switched to organic dairy and have started thinking about how far my food travels and whether or not i really think it's worth it to ship water (most vegetables and fruit are mostly water) for miles and miles using lots of fossil fuels so that i can have a banana. some things i'm willing to give up or reduce how much i eat. some things i can find closer to me. some things....i just can't give up. coffee is one of them. and anyway i buy coffee that pays better than free trade and benefits local at-risk youth. there are other pay-offs at stake.
the biggest change i have made is that i am going completely feed-lot free. the butcher 3 blocks from our house is entirely free range and there is no reason for me not to. i'm alright with animals dying so that i can eat, but i'm really not alright with animals being tortured so that i can eat. also free range food has less bad cholesterol, more nutrition, less hormones and change of mad cow and is pretty much all around better for you. this means i am giving up eating whatever i want at restaurants and effectively giving up fast food altogether. chipotle has bean burritos, but really there are few exceptions. how often am i really going to be motivated to go to mcdonalds just for some french fries? this is a permanent change, not something i am doing for lent or as a new year's resolution, but something i'm doing because it makes me feel better about what i put in my body, my stewardship of the earth and what kind of imprint my life is leaving behind. i HIGHLY recommend this book. even if you aren't willing to change how you live, it is full of wonderful recipes, stories and thought-provoking information.
but the book i am most excited about is a book called animal vegetable miracle by barbara kingsolver. it is a true story about eating locally and organically for a year. kinsolver is most known for her fiction, but this book is truly excellent. it has completely changed the way i shop. i have switched to organic dairy and have started thinking about how far my food travels and whether or not i really think it's worth it to ship water (most vegetables and fruit are mostly water) for miles and miles using lots of fossil fuels so that i can have a banana. some things i'm willing to give up or reduce how much i eat. some things i can find closer to me. some things....i just can't give up. coffee is one of them. and anyway i buy coffee that pays better than free trade and benefits local at-risk youth. there are other pay-offs at stake.
the biggest change i have made is that i am going completely feed-lot free. the butcher 3 blocks from our house is entirely free range and there is no reason for me not to. i'm alright with animals dying so that i can eat, but i'm really not alright with animals being tortured so that i can eat. also free range food has less bad cholesterol, more nutrition, less hormones and change of mad cow and is pretty much all around better for you. this means i am giving up eating whatever i want at restaurants and effectively giving up fast food altogether. chipotle has bean burritos, but really there are few exceptions. how often am i really going to be motivated to go to mcdonalds just for some french fries? this is a permanent change, not something i am doing for lent or as a new year's resolution, but something i'm doing because it makes me feel better about what i put in my body, my stewardship of the earth and what kind of imprint my life is leaving behind. i HIGHLY recommend this book. even if you aren't willing to change how you live, it is full of wonderful recipes, stories and thought-provoking information.
like most people here, i don't think much of new years resolutions. they seem like things you do for a while and then not stay motivated enough to continue. i am interested in change. but that means i have to think about changes i can live with. i enjoy my ritual of going vegetarian during lent every year, but it is not the same thing as something i can live with permanently.
so here are my goals for life permanent life change in the coming year or things i want to accomplish during that year in no particular order:
1. i want to find a way to make excercise something permanent. my parents have promised me a gym membership and i have never had one of those before. i really got into biking regularly this summer, but i can't bring myself to do that when it's cold out. i'm hoping to find something i can do at the gym to get regular excercise. i also plan to buy a cheap jump rope at target so that i have something i can do around the house that isn't push ups or sit ups. i don't like being on the floor much.
2. i want to find a farmers market and get to know it and love it. i want to support the farmers near me and get fresher food in my diet.
3. i want to find what restaurants in my area and dc (for when i visit) cater to local and free range food. i know there are some. i just have to figure out where they are.
4. i want to learn to cook one good chinese meal that satisfies my craving for greasy chinese food. because i'm pretty sure there aren't any chinese places that do free range meat.
5. i want to finish my current knitting projects and complete a lace shawl and at least start my first sweater this year.
6. i want to get a job in my field.
7. i want to figure out what kind of spinning wheel i want.
8. i want to work on my role-play. i want to get better at exaggerating characteristics until they are more fun.
9. i want to bring more music back into my life, via singing, guitar, pipes or a combination of the three.
10. i want to continue to pursue self-reflection in a way that pushes me to be a better wife to ross and continue to challenge him in ways that help him become the person he wants to be and a better husband to me. we have done a lot of positive work on our marriage this year and i want to make sure that it actively continues instead of passively
11. make myself go see the dentist.
12. learn more about my local politicians
. so here are my goals for life permanent life change in the coming year or things i want to accomplish during that year in no particular order:
1. i want to find a way to make excercise something permanent. my parents have promised me a gym membership and i have never had one of those before. i really got into biking regularly this summer, but i can't bring myself to do that when it's cold out. i'm hoping to find something i can do at the gym to get regular excercise. i also plan to buy a cheap jump rope at target so that i have something i can do around the house that isn't push ups or sit ups. i don't like being on the floor much.
2. i want to find a farmers market and get to know it and love it. i want to support the farmers near me and get fresher food in my diet.
3. i want to find what restaurants in my area and dc (for when i visit) cater to local and free range food. i know there are some. i just have to figure out where they are.
4. i want to learn to cook one good chinese meal that satisfies my craving for greasy chinese food. because i'm pretty sure there aren't any chinese places that do free range meat.
5. i want to finish my current knitting projects and complete a lace shawl and at least start my first sweater this year.
6. i want to get a job in my field.
7. i want to figure out what kind of spinning wheel i want.
8. i want to work on my role-play. i want to get better at exaggerating characteristics until they are more fun.
9. i want to bring more music back into my life, via singing, guitar, pipes or a combination of the three.
10. i want to continue to pursue self-reflection in a way that pushes me to be a better wife to ross and continue to challenge him in ways that help him become the person he wants to be and a better husband to me. we have done a lot of positive work on our marriage this year and i want to make sure that it actively continues instead of passively
11. make myself go see the dentist.
12. learn more about my local politicians
no subject
no subject
what are the systems you have experience with so far?
no subject
no subject
Good luck on #11. I know that will be espescially hard.
no subject
i dreamed about losing a tooth last night and having to have it surgically implanted back in my jaw.
ew.