Once again, merry Christmas everybody. And, if you don’t celebrate the holiday, Happy Holidays.
2013 is winding down to a close, but we’re not there quite yet! There’s one last adventure, and it begins tomorrow. We head up north with my brother and his girlfriend to do another Christmas Heinichen family style. Usually, that means rain and or cold windy-ness, but man. This is one weird winter, that’s for sure. It’s been mid-60s here in the Bay and sunny, and it’s going to be just slightly cooler than that and sunny up in Humboldt. That makes two winters in a row where it’s been suuuuper mild. I remember last year thinking the same thing.
But first, today’s events. We woke up pretty early and did presents. I got a blender, which I *sorely* needed for my shakey shakes I like to make, and a gift card to H&M, which was likewise very necessary. I don’t think I’ve bought clothes now in over a year. Cooper got four toys, and it was so freaking cute, he KNEW that the presents were for him, and he was so excited. He’d get one open and then run off for like 10 minutes chewing on it. Too cute.
Then, I took him for a walk while the rest of the family made bacon and eggs and bagels and veggies and jeezus…it was delicious. It’s a tradition, and a pretty recent one at that. The last three or four years. Liz’s Dad drives into the city to pick up his mother, who’s 93 now, and she has brunch with the family. Then Julianne and her boyfriend John had to take off to fly up north to Seattle to spend the rest of the holidays with his family.
The Ho and I took a nap, and then woke up in time to feed the Coops and take him and Rosie on an epic walk. We went *down* the hill this time and walked around. The streets have more blind curves that direction, so it’s not really the best direction to take, but it was cool to see something different. There was this one dead end street we walked up that had this random concrete dual staircase with what maybe was a fountain at one point, but it’s totally falling apart and overgrown now. It was just so random; wasn’t in front of a house or even a yard. Just sitting there on the side of the road, falling apart. It was pretty old. Our theory is that what’s now several lots with houses used to be all one giant lot, and the road was a driveway, with this dual staircase thing leading up to what was their giant front lawn. Absolutely no real evidence to back that up, but it works for us 😛
Then it was a turkey dinner with the Ho, me, and her parents. Just the four of us. Initially, one of their family friends was going to come over and join us, but I guess she bailed for some reason. After dinner, Liz and I found “Megamind” was playing on TV, it had just started, and so we sat down and watched that for the rest of the evening. What a charming movie. The animation was a bit up and down, sometimes really really cool, and other times cheap looking. But, the script was funny, the plot simple, and it was just a fun time. Liz has seen it in bits and pieces once, but never the whole way through, so it was really fun to watch together. Definitely recommend!
It’s really been such a nice trip this time around. Not that any of these trips up north have ever really been unpleasant. It’s just that this one in particular has been nice. Despite all the drama, and there always is in any family obviously, some times more than others, everyone seemed to be pretty happy.
So yeah…tomorrow we leave. And then 2013 comes to an end. I was thinking already about a work strategy for the new year. I was looking forward to perhaps logging less time in the editing world, but my recent realization with the taxes I’ll be paying has kinda put a damper on that dream. But, I think I can tweak my schedule one last time, now that I’ve proven I can get a certain amount of work done in a single day, and I’d actually be cutting my editing days down to 3 in a week instead of 4. With that in mind, I really can see setting some writing and workout goals for the other 4 days. Scarier, but ideally, none of that planning will even have to work for very long because I’ll manage to squeak my way into a Writers’ Assistant position on one of these shows and my schedule will be set for me. Anywho, none of that is here yet. I have plenty of time to strategize between now and then, which just feels great.
I’m very grateful for this time off. I worked hard for it, and I’m even more grateful for the fact that I *earned* this time off by hitting my goals. I sit here in bed with my fiancé beside me and my dog curled at my feet, typing on an expensive gadget with other gadgets lying around me, warm, fed, healthy…I’m very very grateful. Some of it is hard work, and more of it is luck. I hope you, too, work hard and find luck. It’s not always this way, so we must enjoy it while we can.
Merry Christmas everyone, I love you all.
Tonight’s cover art is courtesy of the Barnard 3 Nebula
