How I Spent My Holidays
Jan. 4th, 2004 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pandonkeyAhhhhhhhhh.
(That's a relaxed sigh, not a scream, just to be clear.)
A two-week trip to Florida is a lot of fun, but it's nice to be home again. Especially when going there and back again involves a 12-hour drive each way.
To begin our tale... actually, I'd better begin by relating the fact that Doug and I got engaged in October (on the Haunted Mansion ride at the Magic Kingdom, awww, etc. etc.). We're getting married next October, and because we're in NC and the wedding will be in Florida, planning has been a bit hectic. Thus our tale begins...
For the first time ever, Doug went home with me for Christmas with my family. Fun times were had by all, especially by Doug and my dad, who spent every day that week (except Christmas) out golfing. Good lord. I, meanwhile, signed a deal with a Goddess From Heaven in which I gave her money so that she would plan my wedding. It is a good deal, and now all I have to do is tell the florist, caterer, and DJ provided what I'd like for the flowers, food/cake, and music (hmm...still sounds like planning, actually...). At least the hard part's taken care of. The provider of the Goddess From Heaven, by the way (who is in fact a humble wedding planner for Orlando Weddings), was my sister Haley, who is now also engaged and already 90% finished planning her April 2005 wedding. We both really liked the same location for the wedding and reception (a garden and a hall right next to one another), so we'll both be using it -- her wedding will be in the morning, though, and mine in the late afternoon/evening. She's being incredibly generous in sharing her finds with me -- she's a natural planner, I think, while I am...definitely not.
In any case, Christmas was fun, the food was good, and many presents were given and received. My particular favorite is a down comforter from my parents, because the bedroom is ICE COLD for some reason -- there seems to be a problem with the heating vent or the insulation in there. The comforter fixes that problem right good.
After all the fun with the folks, Doug and I headed up to Niceville to visit his parents for the week of New Year's. I had to work four out of five days that week, but that worked out well, because Doug once again spent a great deal of time on the golf course, this time with his dad. Doug's sister Michelle and her three-year-old son Jake arrived for a visit on New Year's Eve, so I learned how to make heavy machinery out of Legos. ("Aunt Cindy, you can make this front-loader for me." I swear the kid can reel off the names of those vehicles like they're the Teletubbies.) We all (save Jake) rung in the New Year with a peppermint schnapps toast -- a rousing start to the year, I think.
I'd like to take a moment here to declare for the record that XM Radio is the greatest thing currently in existence on the planet. Doug's brother TJ gave us the basic receiver as a Christmas gift, and Doug's parents gave us the home system that goes with it -- basically a little boom box. I listened to it non-stop while working last week, and we stuck it in the back seat of the car on the drive home yesterday -- crystal-clear reception the whole way, and fantastic music selections on every channel we tried. I've heard songs I love that I've never heard on the radio before (Elton John's "Birds," for example) and new songs I'm unlikely to ever hear on the regular radio (Amy Rigby's "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again"). All this with few commercials and DJs who seldom speak (and when they do, they say intelligent things about the music, rather than idiotic things about current events). I've already got a lengthy list of new artists I'm planning to look up, and it's only been a week. After we end the post-holiday freeze on frivolous spending, we're planning on getting the car adapter installed, so we can just pop the receiver out of the home system and stick it in the car when we want, and vice versa. Mmm.
Well, I think that's enough to make up for months of not updating.
(That's a relaxed sigh, not a scream, just to be clear.)
A two-week trip to Florida is a lot of fun, but it's nice to be home again. Especially when going there and back again involves a 12-hour drive each way.
To begin our tale... actually, I'd better begin by relating the fact that Doug and I got engaged in October (on the Haunted Mansion ride at the Magic Kingdom, awww, etc. etc.). We're getting married next October, and because we're in NC and the wedding will be in Florida, planning has been a bit hectic. Thus our tale begins...
For the first time ever, Doug went home with me for Christmas with my family. Fun times were had by all, especially by Doug and my dad, who spent every day that week (except Christmas) out golfing. Good lord. I, meanwhile, signed a deal with a Goddess From Heaven in which I gave her money so that she would plan my wedding. It is a good deal, and now all I have to do is tell the florist, caterer, and DJ provided what I'd like for the flowers, food/cake, and music (hmm...still sounds like planning, actually...). At least the hard part's taken care of. The provider of the Goddess From Heaven, by the way (who is in fact a humble wedding planner for Orlando Weddings), was my sister Haley, who is now also engaged and already 90% finished planning her April 2005 wedding. We both really liked the same location for the wedding and reception (a garden and a hall right next to one another), so we'll both be using it -- her wedding will be in the morning, though, and mine in the late afternoon/evening. She's being incredibly generous in sharing her finds with me -- she's a natural planner, I think, while I am...definitely not.
In any case, Christmas was fun, the food was good, and many presents were given and received. My particular favorite is a down comforter from my parents, because the bedroom is ICE COLD for some reason -- there seems to be a problem with the heating vent or the insulation in there. The comforter fixes that problem right good.
After all the fun with the folks, Doug and I headed up to Niceville to visit his parents for the week of New Year's. I had to work four out of five days that week, but that worked out well, because Doug once again spent a great deal of time on the golf course, this time with his dad. Doug's sister Michelle and her three-year-old son Jake arrived for a visit on New Year's Eve, so I learned how to make heavy machinery out of Legos. ("Aunt Cindy, you can make this front-loader for me." I swear the kid can reel off the names of those vehicles like they're the Teletubbies.) We all (save Jake) rung in the New Year with a peppermint schnapps toast -- a rousing start to the year, I think.
I'd like to take a moment here to declare for the record that XM Radio is the greatest thing currently in existence on the planet. Doug's brother TJ gave us the basic receiver as a Christmas gift, and Doug's parents gave us the home system that goes with it -- basically a little boom box. I listened to it non-stop while working last week, and we stuck it in the back seat of the car on the drive home yesterday -- crystal-clear reception the whole way, and fantastic music selections on every channel we tried. I've heard songs I love that I've never heard on the radio before (Elton John's "Birds," for example) and new songs I'm unlikely to ever hear on the regular radio (Amy Rigby's "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again"). All this with few commercials and DJs who seldom speak (and when they do, they say intelligent things about the music, rather than idiotic things about current events). I've already got a lengthy list of new artists I'm planning to look up, and it's only been a week. After we end the post-holiday freeze on frivolous spending, we're planning on getting the car adapter installed, so we can just pop the receiver out of the home system and stick it in the car when we want, and vice versa. Mmm.
Well, I think that's enough to make up for months of not updating.