Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve

Believe it or not, we actually do leave home on occasion. Tonight we went down to the legislature building grounds to check out the lights and music. It was freakin' cold but we bundled up and had coffee and cocoa to keep us warm.

Julie with lights in the background:


Me with lights in the background:


Julie with the ice scuptures in the background (no chance of those melting and losing their shape anytime soon!):


A picture of the two of us that would have been great if it hadn't turned out blurry (we really need a new camera!):


Julie suggested that I pose for a picture with a stand-in for our future child, y'know, since everyone else was taking pictures with their kids:

Holiday ADD (me rambling in other words..)

You know what is pretty fun? Going to stores this week and watching people absolutely freaking out trying to find suitable gifts for family and friends.

Even more fun? Watching Julie sample sweets from a gift basket we received from her ex-wife, ex-girlfriend and her ex-girlfriend's ex-girlfriend (did you follow that?) and seeing her face contort when she tries something she thought she'd like but actually doesn't at all. Heh.

Here's a pic of us with the basket:


Speaking of pictures, here's a pic of Julie's beloved couch now in our little office:


A rare sight - me sitting on said couch:



So now that all of the stuff in the office is crammed to one wall (Julie actually took two book cases out and has them sitting in our bedroom while the fate of the couch is in limbo) and she's made it all cosy, her co-worker has now shown serious interest in taking the couch. I have no idea how that couch is going to be physically removed from that room now...

Watching Better Off Ted right now... I think it gets better every week. I definitely have a crush on Portia now...

I'm really looking forward to my 3.5 day weekend starting tomorrow at noon but I'm not really looking forward to Friday. I enjoy the Christmas season but I'm not a huge fan of Christmas Day. I have this ridiculous anxiety about holidays spent with family... I think this year the key to it passing painlessly will be arriving to the family gathering later in the morning, going to a movie in the middle of the day and then leaving earlier in the evening. My sister has made Julie and I promise to go with her to see the Sherlock Holmes movie that opens on Friday. I'd rather go see It's Complicated but there was really no getting my way on this one. My sister has a huge crush on both Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law so that definitely trumps my need for a Meryl Streep fix! Anyway, I think I'll enjoy these kind of holidays once we have a child to subject them to.

I think there was a bunch of other things I was going to write about but this week has been pretty brutal work-wise and my brain is fried. I'll end with a pic of our kitchen which I don't think I've shown on here yet. It was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to move into this place - soooooooo much bigger than our last kitchen!!

Ginger Abuse

This is pretty amusing but only because my ginger girlfriend brought it to my attention and she herself found it highly amusing...

Tesco apologises for 'ginger joke' card

I honestly did not know red/ginger-haired human beings are ridiculed so badly in England until I met Julie and she told me about her childhood and even adulthood before she moved to Canada. It is absolutely horrible, the nasty things people yell at people in the street just because of the colour of their hair. And if you're a child in school? Yeah, good luck holding your own on the playground. The things Julie told me that she was called on a regular basis I cannot even put on here without squirming with embarrassment. No wonder she doesn't like visiting back home...

Her and I do joke about her 'ginger-ness' though and she has reassured me many times that she does not take any offense to it although that's probably because she was the one who taught me how to tease a ginger, she makes fun of it herself and because, quite frankly, her and I are damn funny...

Lesbians, lollypops and LED lights

Couch is now in the office... barely. Pictures to come once Julie finishes cramming everything in there.

The flu I had morphed into a cold so for the past three days I've had a wicked sore throat and chest congestion. Because of the annoying congestion, I also have a cough from attempting to clear my throat a thousand times a day. There's nothing like feeling like you're choking to death constantly...

I am so sick of sucking on Halls and the other usual suspects. I decided to pick up a pack of strawberry flavoured Rockhoppers Goodypops to try in an attempt to soothe my throat without gagging on the taste. It turns out they are awesome - they work really well (for this sore throat I have anyway) and they have a much milder flavour. The only issue is that I'm a grown-up looking like I'm eating a lollypop. They are also a bit expensive (8 for $2.99) but they don't dissolve very fast so I'm not going through a lot of them in a short period of time like Halls or the other kind I was using.

I'm watching the Nikon commercial with Avril Lavigne in it. I think she's rather pretty (I have to look at her a lot at work... my closest co-worker has his wallpaper, calendar and a couple of pictures of Avril) but only if she doesn't smile. Once she smiles, I have to turn away and shudder. I don't understand how some one's smile can be so scary (to me anyway)...

I am in love with our PVR and becoming so spoiled by being able to record things I want to watch and then watching them at my leisure. It's good for catching shows that I cannot remember when they actually air. A good example is Better Off Ted. I have no idea what day of the week it's actually on or even what station... it just shows up once a week in the queue and we watch it. Portia de Rossi is quite clever in it, I have to say... the rest of the cast is not bad either. The show never fails to make us laugh... so either we're lame or the show is half decent.

CSI just started... just validated my lesbian membership a moment ago when the opening credits came on and a new shot of Marg Helgenberger looking mighty fine flashed by. Actually both Julie and I exclaimed involuntarily at the same time so I don't feel guilty or anything. Marg is a good example of a woman who just seems to get better looking with age.

I finally managed to bring home a string of LED lights. This after two previously failed attempts. I thought our new Christmas tree had LED lights on it but I misread the box. Then I purchased a string of indoor/outdoor lights having thought they were LED... I even remember standing there staring at the boxes making absolute sure I was buying LEDs... but nope, I must have hallucinated the description on the box. THIS time, I very nearly had a fellow shopper look over the box for me (because clearly I cannot read) but then decided to trust my choice one more time. Julie has strung them up on our bookcases and they look really cool. Add to that the fibre optic angel I received at our work holiday party today and our place is looking pretty festive.

Julie also received a little gift at work today - a $50 gift certificate for East Side Marios. That would be fantastic because the nearest location is less than five minutes away... however, just yesterday we drove by and were shocked to see that all the signage was taken down and it was closed down. WTF?! It's been open for at least five or six years... why the hell would it be closing in such a prime location? What a bummer...

Anyway, I'm off to take some medicine and hopefully sleep longer than three hours tonight.

Couch Closure? Not yet...

On Sunday, Julie put an ad on Kijiji offering the couch to a loving home for free as long as they came to pick it up. Within an hour she had about six people e-mailing about it. The person she chose was going to come pick it up the next evening (Monday).

Cue the mourning...

Julie insisted that she spend the night on the couch one last time. She fell asleep pretty early and I was still watching TV and surfing the 'net. Suddenly I see movement on the couch and hear a weird noise so I look over and she's laying there clapping her hands. I burst out laughing and she turned towards me and smiled. I asked what she was doing and she said "I'm clapping for Lady Gaga... she's performing right over there." she said, rolling over to point near the television. I'm like, "Um.. okay. Well, enjoy the concert." She thanked me and closed her eyes. Yeeeeeeeeah.... she was asleep the entire time. When I mentioned it 15 minutes later when she woke up for real, she had no idea that we had had that brief exchange. Heh. She ended up climbing into bed with me and abandoned the couch... too many crazy dreams, I guess.

Anyway, she was all sad yesterday while we waited for the woman to come pick up the couch. 6 pm went by, 7 pm... by 8 pm Julie was really cranky. "I'm emotionally ready to part with the couch and here we're not even sure she's going to show up!" Yeah, by 9:30 pm, I called an end to the wait and Julie flopped down on the couch in frustration and defeat. People suck sometimes... she didn't even call or e-mail to say she couldn't come by or didn't want it on second thought.

Either another person will be picked from Kijiji or one of Julie's co-workers might take it. I told Julie that if it meant that much to her, she could put it in the little office room but I think she decided against doing that. It might have something to do with the fact that we were watching Hoarders last night...

I finally, *finally* mailed out Christmas cards this evening. Not bad... it's only December 15th, haha...

Pictures

I got Julie to take some pictures this weekend...

Julie's beloved couch (not sure how long it took her to fluff it up like this - note how the arms aren't really shown so you can't see the cat claw shredding either):


Julie napping on her beloved couch last weekend (obviously taken on the sly by me):


Our new Christmas tree (looks better in person) that we've had up for three weeks now. You can see the arm of the chair I use in this one:


The gingerbread house we put together and decorated last weekend (ignore the pharmacy in the corner...):


This is what we have to look forward to when we go outside: