Oh hai, Jebus iz bornd

1 'Roun dis tiyem, Caesar Augustus wuz like, "I can has cenzus?"2 ('Coz while Quirinius was Teh Boz of Syria, is invisible census!)3 And all teh doodz went home for teh saying, "I is heer!"4 So Joseph went from Naz'reth to Judeeah to Bethlehemm whar David wuz borned, 'coz David wuz hiz graete-graete gran-daddie,5 An Mary went wif him, 'coz she was gonna be married wif him an she was preggerz.6 When wuz time for teh baybee,7 it wuz a boy, so he wuz wrapd in blanket like burrito an placd him in fud dish, cuz innkeeper wuz liek, no room here kthxbye!

8 Then there wuz sheep-doods in teh field, an they wuz watchin teh sheep in teh dark. Iz vry vry boring. srsly.9 An suddenly, visible angel! An glory! O noez!!10 But teh angel sed, "DONT AFRAID OF ENYTHING! it r ok, you can has gud news for all teh doodz!11 Todai in da city ov David, you can has sayvur! is Christ da Lord! w00t!12 Iz sign fer u, find da baybee wrapd like brrito in a big fud dish."13 An suddenly, moar angelz! They sez, 14 "w00t to teh Ceiling Cat! An peace fer doodz he luffs! Kthxbai."

15 An when da angelz go invisible again, sheep-doodz sed, "sweet, nao we find teh brrito-baybee sayvur!"16 So dey left da sheeps (sheeps r vry borng) and found Joe an Mary and da baybee in da fud dish.17 An when dey saw it wuz baybee an not brrito, they told evrywun he wuz kewl,18 An all teh doodz who herd were lyke, "neat-o brrito!"19 An Mary wuz lyke, "o rly?"20 Teh sheep-doodz sed, "Yay fer Ceiling Cat! Was not invisible brrito!"21 On dai noomber ate, it wuz tiem 2 circumcize him (iz laik getting fixd) an they called him Jebus, 'coz teh angel sed tht wuz hiz name.

Luke 2:1-21, LOLcat Bible translation

(I know, I know...going straight to hell, but I just can't stop laughing. I luv the damn LOLcats!!!!)

Merry Xmas Everyone!!!!

moar tyme off!

I'm enjoying my time off and yesterday I spent most of the morning and early afternoon shopping and not really buying. lol. I went to all the local thrift stores to scope out stuff like furniture and housewares for the new apartment, hit the "bargain" stores where they have overstocks and random selections of things not wanted by the major department stores. You just never know WHAT you'll find and lord knows, I am not too proud to buy no-name stuff. Anyways, it was kinda fun regardless of the traffic (on a Monday?!) and crowds. I picked up a pair of indoor slippers for DF, his Christmas present. We are going very economical this year. Probably just one or two small useful gifts each. Our money needs to be saved for the new apartment and oh yeah, that wedding thing. heh.

One of the stops in my turn about town was at the aforementioned library. I wanted to pick up some books to tide me over during the holiday season. Rather than doing a lot of research, I just grabbed some random titles, some by authors I haven't read and some that aren't in genres that I normally read. It can't hurt...they're library books and free. (yay!) Here is my wee haul...


I've been doing more cooking lately which is both a money saver and also a hobby of mine that actually relaxes me. Last night I whipped up a pizza using all of the leftover toppings and sauce that we had from last week. It kind of amazes me to think that for about $4 in ingredients I can make a pizza as large as a $15 one in a delivery place. I make my crust from scratch (yep, water, yeast, flour, etc. knead and rise) and one never knows exactly how it will turn out. Always an adventure. Anyways, it was good and DF and I devoured the whole thing over a marathon of Little People, Big World. If you haven't seen it, this is a great little show on TLC about a family made up of dwarf parents and their kids, whom are both regular-sized and dwarf. The show basically just follows their lives and how they make their way in a big-sized world. It's very interesting in a 'real life' sort of way without a lot of gimmicky stuff. Last night's episodes included the very sad death of a family friend and it got both DF and I all teary-eyed. If anything, it reminded us that life is short and that it's very important to let the ones you love know how much you care.

Speaking of the people you care about, I'm happy to say that the anticipated conflict with my parents over my engagement has actually not materialized in the way I had expected. They have been pretty circumspect and although I know they wish I would marry a nice Christian boy, they do like DF and know he is a good person. Overall, I think it will be ok. Still a bit uncomfortable and tricky in terms of people not stepping on each others toes and all, but it seems that we're all trying to be adults about it. They want to be at the wedding and my mom offered to send me a bit of money to help defray the costs of the dress. So that is unexpected. And hopefully a good omen for the future. :)

Finally, I share with you all a neat little link to an online radio service I use a lot through the holidays. It doesn't cost anything and requires no special software downloads. You can pick your favorite kind of holiday music (classic, religious, jazz, contemporary, etc.) or make a mix. I like to have it playing on my computer while I blog and surf the web. So for anyone who's interested, I hope you enjoy.

And now I am off to read a bit, sort through my stuff a bit (gotta begin the packing thing) and probably make my Christmas dinner cooking list. Even though it's just DF and me, I am going to make the whole dinner including a turkey. *g*

100 dresses later...

ok, so maybe it was more like 30 dresses, but anyways. Time for more random updates...

The wedding dress trying-on spree went very well. My cousin and I were able to narrow down which styles and cuts look good on me. Some of my favorites can be seen by clicking here and here and here and here and here. Your input, feedback, etc. is of course appreciated. Funny enough, I sent my mom pictures of about 30 or 40 dresses and the ones she picked as her favs were exactly the same as my favs. And my cousin's. And lisabea's! (woot!) So I guess that means my instincts are pretty good. hopefully. Now the great ebay search begins.

I'm officially on Christmas holiday aka time off work. I had hoped to take some half days off last week (particularly Friday afternoon) in order to use up some vacation days that I'd accumulated before they go away at the end of the year. Unfortunately, there were some crises that came up which only I could negotiate and I ended up spending my entire day scrambling around the office fighting fires. So much for that. pfft. Which left me feeling very grumpy and rather non-holiday-spirit-ish.

Bookwise, I'm halfway through Broken Wing. It's easy to read and while not ground breaking, a nice solid romance. It's nice to curl up with a book during the holidays and I'm glad I saved this one for that purpose. Very cozy. heh.

In major news, DF and I have put down a deposit on an apartment. Hope to move in around the first of the new year. If you've been around my blog for long you've probably read my ranting and whining at my roommate situation. I'm just getting too old to have to live with college kids and clean up after them. Anyways, we're really excited about the new place. It's in an apartment community that is not of the cookie-cutter modern variety. Mainly older and retired folks. Our apartment will be in a historic building, wood floors, big windows, closed-up fireplaces. Oh and radiator heaters!!! Best of all, it's within about a minute walk from the library and historic walking mall. The library is literally around the corner. And what a gorgeous building it is (as seen in photo here). I'm very excited to be able to just drop in any time and pick up books, CDs, videos and whatnot.

So that's what's going on in sulaland. Hope everyone is having a relatively low-stress holiday season. Now I'm off to go cook up an African meal for DF and one of our friends from Ghana. Tis the season and all that.

obligatory update

ack, poor wee blog. how i neglect thee.

Is everyone else full into the holiday swing of things? I've been at a few rounds of parties (coworkers, etc.) which is nice but has had the unfortunate side effect of bumping the scale up more than I would like. Back to the WW tracking thing. Gotta do it. But I had almost forgotten how many g-d points cheesecake is. le sigh.

I've been taking random days and half-days off work in order to use up my accrued vacation days before they vaporize upon the dawn of a new year. Tomorrow, I'm skipping to go try on wedding dresses. Yup. And so it begins. lol. My cousin is going to go with me which is good because I have no clue about this stuff. She's getting married in May and has already navigated the waters of "wedding dress shopping". Quite frankly, I wish we could do what men do and rent the damned things. Why shell out $$$ for a dress I will wear once? pfft. Anyways, tomorrow's expedition is intended to be an exploratory "what kind of style looks good on me and what kind should I avoid" trip. If I find the perfect style, I may just order it online from a Chinese vendor. (no really...I just might. lol)

In book news, I finished Adrien! I had had to put it down for a bit because Jake was making me twitchy. But I'm happy to say that although things were heavy, it turned out satisfactorily in the end. Um, the VERY end. Last page. Actually, last few sentences. Josh makes you work for it, dammit! Perhaps when I get over my lazy ennui, I will attempt something more structured in the way of a review.

But for now, I'm going back to curling up on the couch with DF (oh lookee, new acronym for new status of fiance) and watching movies.

And the winner is...

...(drumroll)...

Renee! Her winning entry of how to have fun for under $4:

Double cappuccino ($3.85) at my favorite coffee place, a book, my ipod. Bliss.

I must be getting old. In college, it would have been the free condoms at the Student Health Center and my boyfriend (now husband). ;-)

I like both suggestions. *g* And I could really go for that cappuccino right about now. Thanks to everyone for playing and hey, go buy Carrie's book What a Scoundrel Wants. It's under $4. And will entertain you for hours!

MLM - wedding edition

Since weddings are very much on my mind now, this short clip seemed apropos. Specially for a Monday. Yay love!

In which I buy out the store

I got a call from my local Borders today telling me that my order of Broken Wing had arrived. That was quick! I only placed the request on Monday. woot! (hey, Kristie I finally got it!) I had some Borders Bucks to blow, and I figured that I could pick up this book as well as copies of Carrie Lofty's new release at the same time.

Lo and behold, this time when I went to the Romance section, right smack in the L's (somewhere after Stephanie Laurens and before Julia London), snuggled two copies of What a Scoundrel Wants. So I bought them both. The entire stock. heh. So as far as Borders is concerned, this new book is so hot that it is flying off the shelves one day after release. Must stock up! (At least I hope that's how the statistics will look). Anyways, I now have one print copy for me (I have the e-book but there's nothing like paper) and a copy for one lucky reader in this week's giveaway. If you haven't already entered your suggestion for fun things to do under $4 and a chance to win, you still have a little time. Go for it!

After snagging my loot, I hunted down a section of the store I had hitherto never set foot in. The wedding planners/organizers. Oh dear. I grabbed a stack of them and went to the coffee shop area to peruse and compare. First of all, it's amazing to me how much money the "typical" wedding costs. S'rsly? Half of the stuff that is on the list seems extravagant and wasteful to me. We're going to be doing this very much on the cheap. I didn't buy any of the books; I really just wanted to get an idea of what kind of a book I might want to find online (for cheap...see, I'm already working on a budget!).

Anyways, overall a very productive trip. Now I want to curl up with my copy of WASW and pick up where I left on in the e-book.

Fun for under $4 - contest!

It's not often that my wee blog holds a contest. Primarily because I am too poor to buy loot to give out and also because I'm generally too lazy to organize one. But one of my fav blogger/authors, Carrie Lofty, is coming out with a debut book and although I'm only halfway through my review copy, I can tell you now...it's a good 'un! Fans of historical romance, clever dialogue, and derring-do take note. You want to read this book. (More on this later...I plan to review it this week).

As for the contest. Well, you may have noticed from the cover, that this book is going for the really unbeatable price of $3.99. Seriously? What kind of fun can one find for the bargain price of under four bucks (or the equivalent in your home currency)? This is your contest...write in the comments and give me your best suggestions for fun things that cost less than $4. Winner will receive (obviously) a copy of What a Scoundrel Wants without having to pay a dime. How cool is that? And because I've lived outside the U.S. for most of my life and since Carrie's husband is a Brit, I'll open this up to readers anywhere. You're all eligible...postage frustrations notwithstanding. Go forth and win!

I have the honor of hosting Carrie on the DIK blog for the next three days, so please stop by and see what kind of fun we can cook up.