updatey goodness

All right. Jai objects to me being together enough to produce a redesign, but not an update, and so I update.

Christmas was good. We all gathered at Mom and Dad’s and opened L00t; Ted got a Kitchen Aid and I got HATS and Deirdre got a goat and Gavin got bagpipes and Mom got an Orlando Bloom calendar (I always give her a calendar; this year it suddenly struck me it’d be REALLY FUNNY to give her a teeny-bopper one) and good knives, and Dad got a derby and Breic got all sorts of things, many of them reading-related, and it was lots of fun.

That afternoon we went over to Gavin’s family’s house for a while, then came home to cook dinner for Ted’s parents, who arrived around 6:30pm. And then we flew to Michigan for a week to visit Ted’s Mom’s family, who are all extremely nice people. By New Year’s Eve, though, even Ted’s Mom was ready to be done with the visiting. :) Six days was a loooong time. Three or four would’ve been more manageable, espeically since there are six sisters and two brothers and we saw them all at least twice, and I think we saw most of the sisters four or five times. :)

They were *incredibly* kind about not making me go shopping with them, and about not minding me writing. I got 8 chapters done; I am 170 pages into the manuscript, exactly halfway through. I believe I have 13 chapters left, and I ought to write the next one of those today. God, is it Wednesday? Argh. Yeah. Must write today.

We got home late late Sunday night/Monday morning, shortly before which I learned I had a new nephew. Yay! *beam* Um. What else? Oh, it’s official weigh-in day, and I weigh 173. I have lost 15 pounds in the last 3 months.

The last time I remember weighing this much (I have weighed less since then, but the last time I was aware of my weight at this number) was in 1993/94, after coming back from Ireland. I am very, very happy about this. And I got two size 12 pairs of jeans for Christmas that I’m pretty sure I’d fit into right now–the 14s are loose–but which I’m not planning to put on until I hit 168.

I wonder how slippery it is out there. I’d like to go for a walk. Poor Chanti still doesn’t believe we’re really home, I don’t think: she hasn’t been eating. Poor puppy. I bribed her with some peanutbutter last night, and I’m hoping if we go for a walk today it’ll get her appetite up, or rather, make her so hungry she *has* to eat.

Okay. I think that’s about all I’ve got to say right now. :)