Wet and Happy

[liralen]

There's nothing quite like being able to sleep to the sound of rain. I got that privilege last night after a rather busy couple of days.



Christmas Eve was busy with a few last minute things, and then we had a service at 5, and then a huge gingerbread party at someone else's house, with potluck. I made a pecan topped "candied" sweet potato casserole that was mostly just salt, pepper, and brown sugar. Lots of folks, even folks that don't usually eat yams or sweet potatoes, really liked it.

Christmas Day was really good, we opened a ton of presents, and mostly just played with them all day. I really loved my journal from morgainelefai, with Ukitake and gold lanterns on it, and Mom and Dad sent me a pile of DVDs and books. And my sister Kathy sent me a pile of origami books and other stuff that I could share with Jet. incandescens gave me two tubes of Hob Nobs that Jet covets, along with a lovely jar of the walnut, brandy, and plum preserves, and Jet and I had to split the British Chocolate bar *because*. *laughs*

Dinner that night was the dregs of the refrigerator, as we were down to the last things. I ended up with jambalaya and my sweet potato casserole. Good thing I love that casserole. John had artichoke heart casserole and other things. We all ate Cuties as we needed to finish off the box before leaving.

We packed up, got everything together and then, because he hadn't done anything but build Legos all day, Jet couldn't get to sleep. He apologized for it the next morning, but for a while it was kind of frustrating for both of us. Finally John got in on it and settled things out by staying with Jet.

I probably have another cold, and I was wiped out by it for the airport and everything, luckily the boys took good care of me and my right ear and sinuses opened before we got on the plane. Otherwise it would have been very painful indeed. I slept a lot. Took a couple of Airborne, and otherwise was out of it. When we got to Seattle, George and Isabel were able to pick us up, which was a big deal as in Seattle they don't get snow very often and there were still inches and inches of it on the ground. With the combination of hills, wet weather, and ice, snow really messes Seattle up badly. The flat and dry in Colorado make all the snow fairly easy for us to deal with.

But it's nasty in Seattle. Slush and slip and slide and lots of people who don't know how to drive in it all combined for a rather bemusing trip to the Ranch 99 market. We bought our dinner there, and then reheated it when we got home, and got stuff we couldn't get at home: whole deep-fried smelt, head-on shrimp, garlic broccoli with pork, and a bittermelon dish with meat and a lighter sauce. It was 5 when we got back home, and we had to walk down to the house because the very steep driveway was completely iced over.

While Isabel and I reheated out dinner, the boys were out chopping the ice off the driveway and halfway up the hill, John started sliding down and he ended up sliding all the way to the bottom of the driveway. So he just walked back up and kept digging at the ice. Jet did origami with me.

After dinner, Jet got to open his presents from George and Isabel, which included some warm pajamas and a huge globe puzzle by Megabrands's Esphera 360°. Bemusingly enough most of it is done today. It's a 400+ piece globe puzzle of the whole Earth, and each piece bends just a little so that the whole thing makes a globe about the size of Jet's head.

I got to go to sleep after dinner, and slept over twelve hours straight. I am still sick, but I don't feel exhausted anymore. Sadly, I think it is going into my lungs this time, though having the oxygen count down here is really, really helpful. We'll see how it goes.

Jet, John, and George spent a lot of the morning outside in the snow. They built six different snowmen, since the Cascade Concrete builds a lot more solidly than the powder in Colorado. Jet could just pack it and he really loved being able to do that. So it was good that we arrived when we did, and great that he could get some time out in it before it all melted. With the rain and wind it should melt just fine and make it a little eaiser to get around on these hills.

We'll see.

So a quiet day, and I'm getting some writing done, two random stories and a good start on the kiriban I'd promised (amazing how much writing I can get done without a connection and all my research on disk); and the boys are doing the puzzle and origami. There's only a few pieces of ocean left.