22 December 2004

Do you know what's nice about being me and not some girlier girl? I mean, don't get me wrong, I have some pretty femmey traits and habits. But here's the thing: I hate shoes. I try to own as few shoes as I can get away with and still wear the clothes I want to wear. So when it comes to moments like this, when I'm packing and don't know if I might get clothes I might want to wear while I'm in Omaha, I don't have to think much. I wear the boots. I pack the black flats. There's nothing I could wear blue-grey boiled-wool clogs with and couldn't wear boots with, so they stay home. There's not much I could wear dressy black clogs with and couldn't wear black flats with, so those can stay home, too. And brown flats are statistically pretty unlikely. My regular boots will do if we get snow, so my knee-high snow boots can stay home. So there you have it: two pairs of shoes. It's almost enough to make me look low-maintenance.

You can stop laughing now. I don't aspire to low-maintenance anyway.

So, yes, packing is on the list for today. I'm going to get my back fixed (I hope) and pack and finish up some errands. Lots of errands yesterday. Some errands left for today. Errands errands errands. But at least I'm not mailing any more packages out until after Christmas. Possibly after New Year's.

I'm currently reading Charlie Stross's Iron Sunrise, and I'm enjoying it so far. I've packed The Confusion in my bag to go to Omaha, so we'll see if I even get that started. I'm excited enough about it to fully intend to read it, but then when it comes to reading it before I read something else...that's a harder choice to make. It'd be perfect airplane reading (other than the weight in the backpack), hours upon hours of uninterrupted reading time, but I'm not going anywhere in an airplane this year for Christmas, so that isn't an option. So we'll see how the car ride goes.

For those of you who aren't clear on the plan, Mark and I are leaving for Omaha tomorrow morning and returning Sunday to prepare for his parents and his brothers to come stay with us starting Monday.

Here are some preliminary Christmas pictures for you to enjoy while I run around getting stuff done.

Roo is very curious to see what other people have in their presents.

Mark had a gigantic penguin-printed lovey. Very cozy.

I had orbicular jasper. Oooooooh. Also a piece of felt shaped like Minnesota for wrapping purposes. Roo recognizes Minnesota. (He also believes Minnesota is the little green guy who helped train Luke Skywalker, though. Win some, lose some.)

Stella is reading Roo his new book, How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?

"What's in dere? What's in dere?" the little voice asks Uncle Timprov. (A very funny book was "in dere.")

Mark got an alternate-Rubik's puzzle.

Timprov got a puppy.

Okay, so maybe it's a DVD. It is a Christmas habit of mine to declare small, flat boxes puppies.

Next year there will be a puppy. We hope. In the meantime, have a merry Christmas if you're having one at all, or a good weekend if you're not.