Sunday, December 26, 2010

Weird Christmas, and other random stuff

This has been kind of a weird Christmas. For me, anyway.

Those of you who know me probably also know that I'm a bit of a Disney fan. Or maybe you don't. But you will for sure know I'm a Harry Potter fan. And as it happens, we're leaving in about two weeks for a trip to Florida, in which we will spend 8 days and nights at Disney World, and one day visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure. And so naturally I am extraordinarily excited about this trip. Rob and I also agreed back in August that the trip would be our Christmas gift -- no stocking stuffers, no video games, no books, no stuff. And I thought that would be so difficult to endure, because me?? I love getting presents.

But it turns out that I was fine! I survived! I wasn't even a little bit sad not to have anything to open yesterday morning -- we just watched The Pook open his stuff, and then we headed out to the Waffle House for our traditional post-gift opening breakfast. Of course, it helped that my mom bought us all a bunch of presents, but still -- I'd have been fine either way. So I will take this as a sign of maturity on my part.

And also as a sign that I am now a grown up and can just go buy whatever I want, whenever I want it, and don't really need very many presents.

But yeah, so it was weird, because I am so excited to go on this vacation -- our first real vacation in years (the depressing trip of 2008 doesn't count, because we were broke and I was stressed about my job the entire time, rightfully so since I was let go just a few weeks later), by the way -- that I wasn't even all that excited about Christmas! And now I have already made myself a little countdown chart to hang on my desk at work... 9 more work days! 12 days total!

In other news, The Pook has turned into a teenager overnight. Yeah, he's still 9, but he acts like my best friend's 15-year-old daughter. Haaaaaaate. I'm not really sure how to cope with it. I've threatened to ground him 19 times in the last 48 hours. He's only escaped actual grounding because I keep leaving loopholes in my threats, like "One more outburst out of you today and you're grounded for a week." So then the next day, he has another outburst, because I only covered the day before with my threat. It's all very tricky, and I can only hope that we'll cover it all now, and when he is an actual teenager, he'll be really nice, like all the teenage boys he does karate with.

And at least he has role models.

A month ago, I never would have said this, but honestly, I am just over football for this year. Watching NFL Red Zone today was excruciatingly boring. I guess it's because I don't really have a team to care about any longer. I didn't realize how much I've come to hate the Broncos until I sat here actively rooting against them this afternoon, and then took offense when they won. It's the obsession with Tim Tebow. It disgusts me. Even people who should know better are obsessed with this guy. It creeps me out. I think he might be the antichrist.

I had this whole lengthy rant planned on this very subject, but I've decided that enough gets written and said about that "sanctimonious little prick" (my husband's quote) that I'm not going to devote any more space to it. Even if it's just here on my blog that only 10 people read.

I suspect that my excitement over my trip might be affecting my ability to enjoy the remainder of the regular season. Because I am excited for the BCS Championship game, which will be played the night we get to Disney World. I am looking forward to seeing Cam Newton work his magic against the ever so annoying Oregon Ducks.

Working on a handful of different books right now: Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, about a World War II pilot who crash landed in the Pacific and was eventually captured by the Japanese and spent three years in a prison camp; Neil Gabler's Walt Disney biography that I've been working my way through for several weeks now -- it's good, but just really, really long; a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which my sister the artist recommended to me as a useful read about how we artists self-sabotage, and what we can do to avoid that trap; The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan, a continuation of his Heroes of Olympus series (Percy Jackson and all that) -- I pilfered this from The Pook's gift pile yesterday and truth be told, it's a bit plodding; and finally, A Novel Bookstore by French author Laurence Cosse -- a literary thriller in the most literal sense.

I'm having some issues with characterization of my protagonist in the novel I began writing for National Novel Writing Month, but otherwise, that's going well. I'm loving the process. Loving it a lot. It makes me feel whole again to be writing.

So yeah. A little random, and maybe a little boring. But whaddya do.

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