stuff done: Friday-Monday
Dec. 27th, 2016 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfalling1. Added the necessary scene to my DDSS fic, researched a couple factual issues, and made some preliminary edits. Then I got Vicky to look over the beta draft and made a bunch more edits in response to her advice. (I probably would have made even more than that, but the archive went live three hours early so oh well, maybe after they're no longer anonymous.)
2. Went with Vicky and Mom to see A Child's Christmas in Wales as performed by the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival... oh wait, excuse me, the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey. (I always forget they got fancy. My image of them is frozen around the mid-90s, back when I was part of their Junior Corps: aka, when I did unpaid summer ushering and concessions work for them in return for free drama lessons. I quit when they started requiring payment for the lessons while still not giving any monetary compensation for the ushering and concessions work.) The performance was very good. We had seen it at least once before, many years ago, but none of us remembered more than vague impressions so it was effectively a new experience. We were all pleasantly surprised by how many songs there were -- really, it's as much a musical as a play.
3. Family dinner at the Black Forest Inn. Dad skipped the play but joined the rest of us for this part. Mom and Vicky had Wienerschnitzel, Dad had Jaegerschnitzel, and I had a venison medallions special. The restaurant was very busy and the staff somewhat harried, but all the meals were delicious. :)
4. Laundry, and then laundry again on Sunday.
5. Lunch with Susan on Xmas Eve. After a bit of logistical negotiation, she drove over to my parents' house to drop off her family's Xmas cookie plate and pick up my family's return cookie offering. Then we ate at Bagel Chateau downtown; Susan got a pizza bagel, and I got an all-day breakfast special with two eggs, a small hashbrown, and a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel with butter. (I couldn't finish the bagel.)
6. Dropped off cookies to Mrs. M, while Susan did the same. This has become something of an inadvertent tradition: namely, Susan and I drop off our respective cookie trays, Mrs. M invites us in for tea, and Cat is not in Madison at the time. Schedules, you know?
7. Attended Xmas Eve service at my childhood church. The problem with UU holiday services, as I'm sure I've said before, is that we have an incurable tendency to edit the lyrics, which means we tend to be singing from specially printed lyrics in the order of service rather than from the hymnals themselves... and that means I can't attempt to sight-read the alto parts. *sigh* The only one I somewhat approach knowing by heart is the chorus of 'The First Nowell,' which I duly sang, but the rest of the time I was stuck singing soprano aka melody.
(I am not actually an alto -- my range doesn't go low enough -- but when I was singing regularly in choirs, I was generally slotted into second soprano because I also can't hit the highest high notes, and while I do not have absolute pitch, nor am I a particularly reliable sight-reader, I do have decent relative pitch and once I've memorized a part I am pretty good at sticking to that part regardless of what the people next to me are doing, so I can anchor other singers in a pinch.)
8. Read and commented on my Yuletide gifts.
9. Read and commented on my DDSS gift.
10. Family breakfast on Christmas morning.
11. Walked over to Cat's house around 11am on Christmas, since she had the day off and had driven down to NJ the night before. Susan came over at the same time, and we had a little reunion for a couple hours, accompanied by tea. This ended up segueing into a light lunch because Mrs. M is big on hospitality even though Susan and I both demurred from anything too heavy on the grounds that we had a lot of food waiting for us back with our own families.
12. Walked home and then opened presents with my family. :) I got a number of things I asked for, including a new drying rack, vodka and kahlua, a gift certificate to Target, and fuzzy patterned bedsocks.
13. Family dinner Xmas evening.
14. Walked Dottie because I needed the exercise after dinner!
15. Packed all my stuff and drove back to Ithaca.
16. Unpacked and put ~90% of my stuff away.
17. Wrote a check for my January rent; put it out for the mail carrier to pick up on Tuesday.
18. Photographed my peppers.
19. Bought potting soil at Agway.
20. Potted and photographed my new narcissus bulbs.
21. Boiled four eggs.
22. Made a grocery list.
23. Started working through the DDSS archive. Hopefully I will finish that on Tuesday and can then get properly started on the Yuletide and Yuletide Madness archives.
2. Went with Vicky and Mom to see A Child's Christmas in Wales as performed by the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival... oh wait, excuse me, the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey. (I always forget they got fancy. My image of them is frozen around the mid-90s, back when I was part of their Junior Corps: aka, when I did unpaid summer ushering and concessions work for them in return for free drama lessons. I quit when they started requiring payment for the lessons while still not giving any monetary compensation for the ushering and concessions work.) The performance was very good. We had seen it at least once before, many years ago, but none of us remembered more than vague impressions so it was effectively a new experience. We were all pleasantly surprised by how many songs there were -- really, it's as much a musical as a play.
3. Family dinner at the Black Forest Inn. Dad skipped the play but joined the rest of us for this part. Mom and Vicky had Wienerschnitzel, Dad had Jaegerschnitzel, and I had a venison medallions special. The restaurant was very busy and the staff somewhat harried, but all the meals were delicious. :)
4. Laundry, and then laundry again on Sunday.
5. Lunch with Susan on Xmas Eve. After a bit of logistical negotiation, she drove over to my parents' house to drop off her family's Xmas cookie plate and pick up my family's return cookie offering. Then we ate at Bagel Chateau downtown; Susan got a pizza bagel, and I got an all-day breakfast special with two eggs, a small hashbrown, and a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel with butter. (I couldn't finish the bagel.)
6. Dropped off cookies to Mrs. M, while Susan did the same. This has become something of an inadvertent tradition: namely, Susan and I drop off our respective cookie trays, Mrs. M invites us in for tea, and Cat is not in Madison at the time. Schedules, you know?
7. Attended Xmas Eve service at my childhood church. The problem with UU holiday services, as I'm sure I've said before, is that we have an incurable tendency to edit the lyrics, which means we tend to be singing from specially printed lyrics in the order of service rather than from the hymnals themselves... and that means I can't attempt to sight-read the alto parts. *sigh* The only one I somewhat approach knowing by heart is the chorus of 'The First Nowell,' which I duly sang, but the rest of the time I was stuck singing soprano aka melody.
(I am not actually an alto -- my range doesn't go low enough -- but when I was singing regularly in choirs, I was generally slotted into second soprano because I also can't hit the highest high notes, and while I do not have absolute pitch, nor am I a particularly reliable sight-reader, I do have decent relative pitch and once I've memorized a part I am pretty good at sticking to that part regardless of what the people next to me are doing, so I can anchor other singers in a pinch.)
8. Read and commented on my Yuletide gifts.
9. Read and commented on my DDSS gift.
10. Family breakfast on Christmas morning.
11. Walked over to Cat's house around 11am on Christmas, since she had the day off and had driven down to NJ the night before. Susan came over at the same time, and we had a little reunion for a couple hours, accompanied by tea. This ended up segueing into a light lunch because Mrs. M is big on hospitality even though Susan and I both demurred from anything too heavy on the grounds that we had a lot of food waiting for us back with our own families.
12. Walked home and then opened presents with my family. :) I got a number of things I asked for, including a new drying rack, vodka and kahlua, a gift certificate to Target, and fuzzy patterned bedsocks.
13. Family dinner Xmas evening.
14. Walked Dottie because I needed the exercise after dinner!
15. Packed all my stuff and drove back to Ithaca.
16. Unpacked and put ~90% of my stuff away.
17. Wrote a check for my January rent; put it out for the mail carrier to pick up on Tuesday.
18. Photographed my peppers.
19. Bought potting soil at Agway.
20. Potted and photographed my new narcissus bulbs.
21. Boiled four eggs.
22. Made a grocery list.
23. Started working through the DDSS archive. Hopefully I will finish that on Tuesday and can then get properly started on the Yuletide and Yuletide Madness archives.
