Nativity Scene

nativity
Originally uploaded by Lucky Haskins.

What, doesn't your Nativity scene have a cactus in a plastic tube, an LED tree, and a big glass angel? No? Weird.

Have a merry Christmas, if that's your thing. If not, have a merry Monday!

Cover Song

This is the most magnificent cover of Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice" that I've ever heard.



Thank you, the Gourds!

Survey!

A YEAR-END SURVEY LIKE NO OTHER

1.) Where did you bring in 2006?
We spent a good chunk of the evening at Meghan's house building and burning effigies, but the actual midnight moment was spent at Mike’s apartment, which was not what we planned.

2.) What was your status by Valentine's Day?
Mike was my boyfriend then.

3.) Were you in school (anytime this year)?
I work at a high school, so I was in a school about 40 hours per week.

4.) How did you earn your keep?
Speech-language pathologist

5.) Did you have to go to the hospital?
I had to take Mike to Urgent Care for his asthma.

6.) Did you have any encounters with the police?
Yeah, when I got in my accident.

7.) Where did you go on vacation?
I didn’t take any real vacations, but Mike and I did take a few weekend trips.

8.) What did you purchase that was over $500?
Nothing, but the fee to use the church and its staff for our wedding was about $400.

9.) Did you know anybody who got married?
Myself, my college friend Suzy, Mike’s cousin, and my friend Erica. It was a big year for weddings.

10.) Did you know anybody who passed away?
Mike’s grandmother

11.) Have you run into anybody you graduated high school with?
Actually, two weekends ago I was bowling and I figured out the guy in the lane next to me was in my graduating class. But since I hated high school I ignored him and took a quiet pleasure in the fact that his girlfriend looked like an over-processed-blonde tramp.

12.) Did you move anywhere?
I moved to Milwaukee.

13.) What sporting events did you go to?
Um…I think none!

14.) What concerts/shows did you go to?
Several of Mike’s, but other than those, none. Although I did have intense feelings of hatred for Ticketmaster for making concert tickets so damn expensive.

15.) Are you registered to vote?
Oh yeah.

16.) If so, did you do your patriotic duty on Nov. 7?
Of course! I even got a sticker.

17.) Where do you live now?
Milwaukee, WI.

18.) Describe your birthday.
Mike took me out for pizza and presented me with the pummer you see below. Also, a shower head.

19.) What's the one thing you thought you would never do but did in 2006?
Got married (sorry, it was a big chunk of my year).

20.) What is one thing you regretted this year?
I can’t really think of anything…

21.) What's something you learned about yourself?
I learned how diplomatic I can be.

22.) Any new additions to your family?
One of my cousins had a baby, but that’s it.

23.) What was your best month?
October :-)

24.) What from pop culture will you remember 2006 by?
Snakes on a Plane!

25.) How do you plan to bring in 2007?
At a concert at the Riverside that Mike is playing.

The Birthday Gift

pummer
Originally uploaded by Lucky Haskins.

Here's what Mike was making for my birthday...it's a pummer. In case you forgot, the solar cell gathers sunlight all day, and then at night the stored-up energy makes the LEDs glow. As you can see, the wooden circle was the base for the plant stalks. Mike and I are going to get some fake moss or something to cover the wood so the whole thing looks more like a plant.

I considered bringing it to school to keep in my office, but we recently had a bomb threat so I figured any suspiciously-blinking items might freak out the janitors.

Mike is now working hard on a Christmas present for me. I haven't seen any parts yet, but I'll be curious to find out what it is.

Wedding Photos

Jen asked yesterday about wedding photos. I had forgotten completely...oops. It seems weird after all the time I spent renaming the files, sorting them, etc.

Anyway, here's a small online album of photos. I might add more photos later, but I'm not sure. It was hard to get photos that didn't include other people!

Enjoy!

Spanish take Two

I'm continuing to spend my lunch periods on Tuesdays writing things in Spanish for my translator to look over and correct. Perhaps you remember my first installment, the harrowing tale of the jumping dog with brown hair. Here's my latest effort, in error-ridden Spanish:

Tengo cinco gatos. Un gato se llama Lucky. Lucky se gusta brincar a lugares altos. El se gusta brincar a el refrigerador, en el amario, y otras lugares.

Yo me caso con Mike, mi esposo, hace dos mesas. Tengo muchas cosas de la boda. Tengo candelas de unidad, mis zapatos, mi velo de novia, fotografias, un rosario, y la cosa del parte superior de mi patel de novia, flores, y mas. Me gustan las cosas porque tienen recuerdos de mi boda. Yo quiere tener las cosas donde los puedo ver. Mike colge dos estantes sobre nuestro cama por mis cosas.

Me gustan los estantes. Pero Lucky se gustan los estantes tambien! Cada noche Lucky brince a mis estantes. El derribe mis cosas de los estantes. Mis zapatos, flores, y candelas caerse a yo cuando yo dorme!

Yo mudarse mis cosas a otra estante. Ahora los estantes sobre mi cama estan desocupados y solamente estan para Lucky!

Here's the English translation:

I have five cats. One cat is named Lucky. Lucky likes to jump to high places. He likes to jump on the refrigerator, the cabinets, and other places.

I married Mike, my husband, two months ago.* I have many things from the wedding. I have unity candles, my shoes, my wedding veil, photos, a rosary, my cake topper**, flowers, and more. I like the things becaues they have memories from my wedding. I wanted to have the things where I could see them. Mike hung two shelves over our bed for my things.

I like the shelves. But Lucky likes the shelves too! Every night Lucky jumped on my shelves. He knocked the things off my shelves. My shoes, flowers, and candles fell on me while I slept!

I moved my things to another shelf. Now the shelves over my bed are empty and are only for Lucky!

It's actually a true story...I was kind of bitter to see my nice shelves that Mike installed now being used solely for the storage of stuffed animals and Lucky.

My Spanish is getting better, slowly but surely.

* I made a funny error in the Spanish here...I meant to write meses (months) but instead wrote mesas (tables)

** This is funny too...I don't think there's a Spanish word for "cake topper," so instead I wrote, "the thing from the top of the cake of my wedding"

The Birthday Present

My birthday is on Wednesday and Mike is driving me nuts. He's making me a birthday present and I have no idea what it is. He wouldn't own up to it at first. He really took it to extremes. I'd catch him sanding this little piece of wood in his office and I'd ask him what it was for, and he'd reply, "What wood? I don't know what you're talking about," even as he was holding it. On Sunday I asked him what he had been doing on Saturday night after I'd gone to sleep.

"It sounded really loud, like a grinder," I said.

"I don't have a grinder," he replied.

"But you do have a Dremel and other things," I said. He was silent. Later that day I heard the noise again and came into his office to see what he was up to and saw him using his jig saw to cut the wood.

"There, that's the noise! You were cutting something out!" I said.

"I'm not cutting anything out," he said.

I pointed to the wood.

Mike gasped. "Edison!" he said, staring at the little cat that had just entered the room. "Are you using my tools again, Ed? Are you building something?"

Now, however, he's owned up to the fact that the little piece of wood has to do with my present. In a way I wish he hadn't because trying to figure out what he's doing is making me crazy. Last night he let me study the wood for awhile so I could think of what the gift might be, and I couldn't come up with anything. The wood is very thin and lightweight, almost like balsa wood, and he cut it into a perfect circle about four inches across. He said it was something I wanted but I really can't think of anything that I requested that was wooden and round. My guess is that he's going to attach blinking LEDs to it somehow since he's been attaching blinking LEDs to a lot of things lately, but I'm not sure.

I can't wait until the 20th. I'll post a photo of whatever it is once it's done.

My weekend so far

It's been a busy weekend already. Yesterday we drove out to Janesville for Ross' graduation party. It was pretty fun. At parties like this where we don't know any people Mike and I are usually pretty content to speak only to the hosts, people who speak to us first, and each other. We are bad minglers. The most extreme example of this was a wedding we attended in July where we only knew the bride and groom and spent most of our time by ourselves. It was actually really fun, but I occasionally wonder if it makes us bad guests or something. Anyway, it was good to see Ross and Meghan again.

After the party we went Christmas shopping. Mike still isn't done, although it's not his fault. He ordered his stuff online weeks ago, and recently got an email saying that not only was his item not in stock, it would never be in stock. So we raced around trying to find alternate gifts. We couldn't find anything in Janesville so we headed home.

On the way home we stopped at Target to grab some household stuff, and I realized that my birthday is coming up. I keep forgetting about it. I'm not too enthusiastic about it this year. It falls at a bad time of year with the holidays and school wrapping up before the break. The fact that my birthday usually gets lumped in with Christmas makes me stubborn when it comes to Mike and I celebrating it...I always want to celebrate it on the day, rather than the weekend before or after. Unfortuately this limits what we can do since my birthday falls on a Wednesday this year and I'm usually in bed by 9. I'm sure it'll be fun though...I'm very curious about what Mike got me. He assured me that it was nothing that I could get for myself, which makes me wonder what on earth it could be. Maybe he wrote a song for me.

Yesterday Mike commented a few times that I was stressed out, but I couldn't really figure out why since not much was happening that day. I think it's cumulative stress though. In the past two months I've gotten married, my sister has filed for divorce, my brother moved to Japan, two of my friends announced they were pregnant, and another friend announced that he's engaged. It's mostly positive changes, sure, but it still makes everything different. Changes usually stress me out...I've even started to get patches of eczema from all the stress (attractive, I know!). This winter I'm ready for everything to be stable for awhile.

Until I start hunting for a new job.

My skin's never going to go back to normal, is it?