More Groundhoggy goodness

Did the local vermin in your area see their shadows?

I sure as heck wish ours did, because despite all the whining I've done about winter before, there's something unsettling about a winter as warm and dry as ours has been. It just t'ain't natchurll.

It's partly the cognitive dissonance of the warm temperature combined with short daylength, and partly the feeling of being ripped off from the coziness of being bundled up inside your own house, safe from the snow outside.

We were very cheered and excited by Rosa's Groundhog day card! Thank you Rosa, and also for the great picture! Your printing is great.

And because Tita Gina was asking about Tassie, I took a picture of her and the kids this evening. They look the same as in the last picture, except Theo has taken to wearing as lilttle as possible around the house. Just one more reason it would be better if we had colder weather. His lips look funny because of the moisture stripping winds, which, while not bitterly cold, still take their toll

In other news, I had my first exam this morning! Do you remember how, in the 20 years I have *not* been at school, I still have nightmares every December and April about sleeping through exams? Or the nightmare where you suddenly realize you have to write an exam for a course you never went to? And you don't even know anybody in the class to get notes from?

I am glad to report that at least this morning, I did not live that dream. I was jolted awake by Leonard Cohen on my iPod alarm as well as the inane babble of the CBC sportjocks deconstructing the Superbowl, which, while neither pleasant nor cheering, rocketed me out of bed with great efficacy.

I still have to write the webct portion of the exam, which is all-new technology to me. Maybe for old times sake, I'll wait till the last minute.

Last but not least, let me shill some stuff! My friends from the joint yoga blog yogalila  put together some stuff from Cafe Press. Check out the cool cap sleeve T, which, I guarantee, will add another apparant cup size to your boobs whether you want them to or not.:

also, the tote bag, which you can put any matter of shi....., I mean, stuff, in:

Please ignore Pose Cheese. Honestly, some days the camera is just not your friend.

Oh, and even if you don't buy any yogalila cow face stuff? At least check out this SNL skit, just to see why we all need more cow pose. I mean, more cow bell.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning started early, with Theo and Stasha waking up at 6:08 to run downstairs and see the empty plate of cookies, and his letter from Father Christmas, which the kids have been getting for the last few years.

(previous Father Christmas letters here,here, and here)

however, the rest of us were still grumbling and sleeping, so I packed them back off to bed with admonishments not to go back downstairs till after 7. After 7, however, it was time for the ringing of the large brass bell, which is in fact from an old CPR locomotive, and capable of plenty of noise.

Tim, Emily and I finally schlepped ourselves into the living room, braced with Bullrider coffee, and madness ensued:

However, all that madness (plus massive amounts of Toblerone chocolate) has taken its toll, and Stasha, who has been using Emily as a pillow since she's been here anyway, is just about ready to crash.

We're all now looking forward to a long nap followed by turkey with Tim's famous sausage stuffing, followed by another long nap.
Merry Christmas to all!

More Christmas madness:

Kids playing with Paper Mario, the Game Cube game Emily got them:

Care and feeding of Tamagachis:

Tim in his natural habitat, watching one of his Christmas DVDs on the wide screen:

Thanks to Emily for the last three photos!

we've gone over to the dark side

Behold the new altar at which the family gathers to worship - the 42 inch wide screen flat panel TV.
I know - I swore I would never have one of these in my house - why have more reason to sit in front of the idiot box, as dad used to call it? Cause now it's an idiot WAFER, that's why! It's squashed as flat as a pancake!

After almost two years of Tim and the kids asking "can we get a widescreen TV?" and me saying "No", repeated ad nauseum in a Simpsons-like fashion, I showed a momentary flash of weakness Sunday morning. "well, it might not be so bad. It would be nice to watch movies on it". And before I knew it we were whipped out of the house and hustled down to Costco, where Tim has been eyeing them covetously for months.

Once there, we were treated to the wide screen, high definition glory of some nature program which prompted Stasha to exclaim, in her usual not-subtle fashion "Those alligators look like they're MATING!" While fellow shoppers unsuccessfully stifled their chortles of glee, an argument ensued between her and Theo. "Well, you don't have to say they're MATING. Everyone know's they're MATING". "I'm just saying, it looks like they're MATING". And so on.

The only solution was to quickly grab a TV and shove it on the dolly and get the hell out of there.

It did not, of course, fit in the minivan. You can put big stuff in the van, and you can put passengers in the van, but  you can't put big stuff AND passengers in the van. After several absurd arguments, the only solution seemed to be for Tim to take it home, while Theo, Stasha, and I trudged through the biting cold to East Side Marios to squat eat lunch while waiting for Tim to drop it off at our house and then pick us up.

And here it is in all its flat panel glory. What was the first thing we tried out on it? Fellowship of the Ring, of course. The Black Riders were extra scary.