Mortaine’s Blog

This is an archive of my shorter book reviews and notes, which historically have been posted over at the 50 Book Challenge on LiveJournal, but which I’m starting to move over here. I’m posting them with altered date-stamps, but they might show up in my LiveJournal cross-post anyway. Bear with me, please.

Note: Many of these books also have full reviews available in the book review podcast (RSS).
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Hello everyone! Johnnyb, here. It’s been a while. I blame accidentally deleting my weekly reminder to make a blog entry. As you probably know by now, I rarely think to make a blog entry on my own.
Anyway, where were we when I posted last? I mean, literally, *where* were we? Maybe Tennessee. In Tennessee we visited with my family and toured Bryant’s Cove, the lands my ancestors settled. It’s usually only accessible by 4-Wheel Drive vehicle, but due to logging (sad), it’s easy to get into certain parts. My dad took me in his massive 4×4 all around Bryant’s Cove and the connected coves that were settled by other families.
As you probably already read from Stephanie’s post, we flew back to the Bay Area to take care of business and visit some friends and family. By that time, Tennessee was already too cold for our new lifestyle, so when we returned we packed up and followed the sun to Florida. We stayed a few days in St. Augustine, right on the beach, which was fun. We ate fried ‘gator tail — it’s tastes like chicken BTW. Then we went to the Orlando area, home of “the mouse”. We visited Disney World MGM during one of the most crowded times and without children, so it wasn’t all it could have been.
So it’s 80 degrees (F) outside right now. Yesterday we went swimming and today we probably will go again. Right now, I’m fretting over my ever growing To-Do list.
Next week we go over to the “Space Coast” where we will stay for one month. Hopefully the Space Shuttle will launch close to it’s re-scheduled date mid-Janaury. I want to be as close as possible to see and hopefully feel that launch.
-JohnnyB

I finally found a winter holiday that makes sense to me. Krismas (and here) is a celebration of a fat jolly man giving out presents, with the acknowledgment that this particular “reason for the season” is, you know, fictional. What’s not to love? I will recommend that they adopt my family’s take on Santa Claus, though (which makes it less fictional, I suppose): “Santa is everyone who loves you.” For this reason, at age 33, I still believe in Santa Claus.

Krismas gifts from my family are slow arriving, due to not receiving mail last week, so Krismas will last probably until the traditional twelve days are up.

Santa was good to me and John this year. John gave me a haul of yarn that makes my head swoon. Really! And under his stocking, he found a Chumby!

He’s named it “Santa’s Little Helper”! (It’s the thing that looks like a glorified alarm clock!)

And now for a holiday carol:

Deck the Halls
(As sung by Holly and Stephanie, when we were 9 and 8 years old, respectively)

Deck the halls with gasoline.
Fa la la la la la la la la!
Strike a match and watch it gleam.
Fa la la la la la la la la!
Watch the schoolhouse burn to ashes.
Fa la la la la la la la la!
Aren’t you glad you played with matches?
Fa la la la la la la la la!

Last night, John and I bought the 30th Anniversary Edition DVD of School House Rock, including all the songs.

John is now wandering around the RV singing about his adjectives.

Isn’t that just adorable?

Has it really been 2 weeks since I updated?

Indeed, it has.

John and I went to California last week to get a bunch of things done, see a bunch of people, and then hurry back before the cat froze. We accomplished all three (John’s sister looked after the cat), and are now back at “home.”

Our holiday cards are going out in tomorrow’s mail. We had the car in the shop today, and there are 157 cards to mail, so we decided to wait until we could drive to the post office for the stamps and so forth. The number of cards to be mailed is why, when you receive your card (if I have your current address) it will look a little…. mass-made. I assure you, I lovingly designed the cards and wrote the newsletter myself, even if I did avail myself of a professional printer.

John’s Krismas present arrived today at his sister’s. She called to tell him it arrived. It has my name on the Addressee line, but she told him where it was from anyway. So, Krismas is ruined– he knows what he’s getting.

Not that it was that big of a surprise anyway, but still.

I, on the other hand, know am getting yarn for Krismas, and this does not ruin the holiday at all. John has been instructed to go and pick out some yarn he thinks I would enjoy. No real restrictions, though I did tell him to go to a local yarn shop, because I think the quality tends to be better.

So maybe it’s not ruined for him after all.

My sister was supposed to bring the 4 kids down to Orlando for the week spanning from Christmas to New Years Eve, and we were going to meet up with them to enjoy the Disney experience with children who are young enough to enjoy it. Yes, the busiest time of year for Orlando, Florida. But we were willing to be good sports and we were looking forward to holidays with the kids. We made our campground reservations a couple of weeks ago, snaring an unexpected bargain rate which we secured by pre-paying with our credit card.

And then, last week, she emailed to tell me that she won’t make it after all.

Disappointment, of course, but also frantic. This means I have to buy the remaining Krismas (and birthday– the niece’s is the 28th!) presents and mail them to arrive in less than a week! I mentioned the lack of car, right? Right. i usually try to get my gifts into the mail by the 10th, because I know what the holiday mail season is like, and even mailing early I’ve had packages show up a week late.

I am taking a deep breath and releasing. If the gifts arrive on time, great. If they do not make it by Krismas, they will arrive sometime in the nebulous days following Krismas. Considering this Krismas they have to live with the crushing disappointment of not seeing their favorite aunt…. [what? You think they're disappointed by not seeing some overblown mouse? Oh, very well.] Suffice to say, the kids should have “12 days of Krismas” this year instead of the one (or four, since they have multiple family Krismas celebrations to attend to.]

I should make this a little bit about the RV, because that’s one reason people read this blog, right? OK, here it is: I don’t want anything for Krismas. I’m getting yarn, but I don’t think we can fit more stuff in the RV. One of my friends gave me a few very small things for the holiday last week, and I love her for thinking of me, and am glad they were small. But small things add up. Gift certificates or charity– that’s all I really want this year. As a result, that’s all I gave– we’re giving a few gifts to kids in our families and close friends, but the grown ups are getting a charitable donation. I think there’s only one or two people on my list who would have wanted something tangible, plus my friend Pat who will tell me it’s a crummy gift, but he’ll be smiling the whole time he says it.

Oh, this Krismas, I did get something really nice from Santa. A few months ago, I mentioned here in my blog about my sponsored child from Childreach, and talked a bit about the relationship and my experiences with sponsoring. Well, as of July this year, my sponsored child Zuonoga had reached age 18. She has grown into a lovely young woman, and has now graduated from the program. As her graduation day approached, Childreach contacted me to see if I would continue to sponsor when she was out of the program (the answer was obvious). When we returned from California on Sunday, John’s dad had our mail– including my new sponsor kit for a child in Nicaragua. Wendy is 2 1/2 years old and lives with both of her parents. I wrote my first letter to her family today, and look forward to getting to know all of them.

On a final holiday note, this is an amusing Old English quiz found in the Old English community on LiveJournal. As a bonus, there’s a translation/retranslation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer towards the bottom of the comments, which is really entertaining!

Sometime next week, I will post my holiday music parodies.