Tag: personal

Festivus Miracle 2012! Internet Gift Exchange Loot

 

To see last year’s Festivus loot, click here!

Talking Time (TT), the only on-line community worth being part of, has a winter gift exchange every year. Members of the forum sign-up and then we do a secret santa style exchange, though Festivus, as we call it, is full of in-jokes and TT only memes. I’ve been doing Festivus for three years now and it continues to be one of the highlights of the Winter season! This year my Festivus gifts came all the way from England!

A Festivus Story

It was a sunny Winter morning, much like any other, as always I sent my loyal pup, Jake, out to get the mail. It took him longer than usual and when he got back I understood why it was a giant box! Tuckered out Jake collapsed on the parcel before I could even open it!

It was a package! From a stranger in the far off land of the Engles! I quickly tore into the thing! Continue reading “Festivus Miracle 2012! Internet Gift Exchange Loot”

Holiday Haul 2011

It's all so pretty 'til you open it up and make a mess everywhere

Christmas has come and gone and while the tree is still decorated it looks awfully lonely standing there with nothing around its skirt. All the presents have been given, the wrapping unwrapped, and the gifts enjoyed and incorporated. So, sit back, relax and see the Holiday Haul for 2011:

Risk Legacy from my sister and brother-in-law

Risk Legacy – The latest version of Risk. This game requires players to make decisions after each game that effect every future game played on the board. It’s a neat concept that turns over a lot of the conventions of board games as well as the way in which most players treat their board games (MY PRECIOUS). As soon as I rustle up a posse of players we’re going to start, expect a Let’s Play. Continue reading “Holiday Haul 2011”

2011 Goals: A Review

Polar bear is cr? ying because his habitat is being destroyed and I didn’t accomplish many of my goals this year…

Before we get started here why don’t you click these two links first. They’re my original goal post written just about a year ago and my half-year review.  I’ll wait…

Back? Good. So, you already know that I wasn’t doing so well this year meeting my goals. I’m sorry to say that things haven’t really improved much. No use being gentle though, let’s tear this bandaid off.

1. Submit writing every month to a publication – I submitted some poems back in January and February. I never heard back and I never followed through. Worse, I haven’t even been writing. I do write book reviews almost every month and those do get published in either the San Francisco, Sacramento, or Portland Book Review but I don’t think that counts at this point. FAILED

2. Develop, outline, draft and write two short stories – I failed to write a single short story. FAILED

3. Participate in NaNoWriMo – Didn’t even sign up this year. FAILED

4. Review Latin – FAILED

5. Learn algebra – I was doing quite well with Khan Academy but I stalled out linear equations and fractions. FAILED

6. Do the Lake Berryessa two mile swim – Cancelled due to freakish weather. I didn’t sign up though so, this counts against me. FAILED

7. Bike a century – Didn’t do nearly enough training and never picked a day to do this. FAILED

8. Buy as few new things as possible – I was really good this year when it came to purchasing stuff. I got the Ipod and the cell phone and a couple of video games. SUCCESS

9. Do more with my hobbies (besides gaming) – I’ve continued to sell off the models and hobby stuff I no longer use. This goal sort of morphed from do hobbies into get rid of stuff I don’t use anymore. I’ve sold off a number of models that I hadn’t put together or painted, including all my Chaos Space Marine stuff. I’m in the process of selling my Necron and Ultramarine armies and will be putting up my Horde models for sale as well. That leaves just the Battlefleet Gothic, and Mordheim materials to get rid of. My main hobby has become book reading with fifty read this year. SUCCESS

10. Jump out of a plane – This joke goal stayed a joke goal. FAILED

11.  Meditate everyday – I did this for the first four months of the year and the last three months of the year. I’m going to round up and call this a win. SUCCESS

Three out of eleven isn’t that great. I’m thinking about my goals for next year right now and after doing this for two years (writing done my goals and keeping track of things periodically) I have some ideas on how to improve my performance. First, focus on a few important things. Second, break your goals down into action plans with simple do-able steps. Third, don’t put on your list of goals things you’d like to do someday. Only put down things you know you will do. Fourth, work on the actions plans every week if not every day.

I’ll have my goals for next year up next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holiday Tree and Decorations!

Holiday Tree, Xmas Tree, Christmas Tree, Hanukkah Bush, Festivus Pole...

Last weekend D and I went to Ace to pick up a holiday tree. From the looks of the trees there it looks like we should have gone on the day right after Thanksgiving, slim pickings. The remaining trees were all either an expensive type of evergreen I’ve never heard of or 8+ feet tall! We eventually found a 6-7 footer of said mysterious conifer and brought it home… The whole time D had her fingers crossed that it was not too tall.

Just a dead tree

After trimming the bottom and getting it into the stand we realized why there were so many of these trees lying around Ace still… They aren’t that aesthetically pleasing… The branches are sparse, the trunk was bare nearly two feet up, and all the branches seemed to be tilting upwards at much too great an angle.  But it was our holiday tree and we were going to enjoy it, dammit! So out came the ornaments; the nice thing about all our ornaments is that they are all hand crafted either by family or people my mother met at various craft fairs and swap meets. Fifteen odd years ago my mom threw away all the Xmas ornaments they had purchased over the years except for ones that had been handmade, and began shopping for new hand made ornaments. When I got married in 2009 1/3 of the ornaments she had collected over the years were gifted to D & I to decorate our first tree. D’s mom also gave us all the ornaments that D had made over the years as a child when we got married. Many of the ornaments have a personal story attached to them, some of which I actual remember! It is nice though to have ornaments on a tree that each tell a little story about them, us, or the people who made them…

D decorates the tree. Ornament placement is serious business!

Thankfully, since putting the tree up the branches have settle somewhat and the tree has a more “filled-out” appearance. Both of us were a little skeptical at first but the tree is starting to grow on us…

This is the extent of our holiday decorating beyond putting up a tree...

Once the tree was finished we put up the rest of our decorations. Which consisted mostly of a very tiny Christmas Village and a some countdown blocks my sister made everyone last year. The bottom of the tree has begun to slowly fill up with presents (though there is still a Festivus sized hole at there…) I hope all you readers are enjoying the season as much as D and I are. Happy Holidays!

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