a hurricane of yuck

Today on the walk to my office to take care of a minor chore, I started thinking about how I would explain snow to our child. I thought about how I would explain what snow is, where it comes from, what happens when it goes away, and how natural cycles work and the interconnectedness of everything in the natural world. Then I started thinking about the big words I was thinking and how I would explain those concepts to our child. I am so excited to be a parent. I've noticed it's helping me recapture that wonder of the world around me and an eagerness to share it.

As usual, I went about the task of preparing the meals for the day this morning. For dinner I cooked a sweet potato, some pork and some corn on the cob. I packaged it all and went about getting ready for the day. On the drive into town, the aroma of the corn filled the truck with great presence and it was all we could notice. It's funny what can spark a spiritual moment, but I was suddenly stricken with the reminder from Selu that we should be grateful for what we have. Yes, I'm still emotional about never having children, but there's so much more that we do have and that we can have, and likewise so much that we have given and can give.

Wado Selu.

In case you didn't catch the reference (and because it's appropriate for the holiday), watch the video and listen to the song!

Yesterday was such an awesome New Years Eve. It was time well spent with friends not seen in a looooooooooooong time. Too long.

I had to work for a few hours yesterday but it passed quickly enough. aunrea, zeppelinmage and Liam met me at the library and, after wrapping up a couple of loose ends before leaving, we went to do a little grocery shopping and headed to our cabin in the woods. Meaning home. But I had to put that in there for ciliandis. ;)

We started the night with some pleasant conversation and snacks. Aunrea gave me a present from all three that she had made. I unwrapped it and found two beautifully hand-decorated journals. She was very humble about them but really they were quite lovely. She really has an amazing talent for scrapbooking and design.

They brought a few games with them and we had our collection handy, so we got right into playing the boardgames. Since neither of them had ever played Ticket To Ride, we played that first. We used the 1910 expansion cards because the bigger cards are just easier to manage. Meanwhile Liam was finding all sorts of interesting ways to amuse himself. He decided at one point to take turns sitting on everyone's lap and eventually found his way to mine. Oh. My. Stars. ADORABLE! He started grabbing my little train pieces from the game and handing them to me one by one. With each one I said "Thank you," which to him became the most humurous thing in the world at that point in time. He kept handing them and I kept saying thank you. His laugh grew more and more bubbly and infectious and absolutely heartwarming. It was such a joy to have Liam around. :) zeppelinmage managed to completely wipe the board with us all and the end score was probably the biggest spread I have ever seen, with the lowest score around 75 and the highest around 155.

After Ticket to Ride we played TransEuropa, which is a much simpler train game. I had played it once before a long while ago and liked it. It's pretty much the same game as TransAmerica only set in Europe. The game went very quick and zeppelinmage made a mad dash at the end to tie for last. Yikes! Before dinner they introduced us to the game Cranium, which was a fun party game. I can see how it would work better with more people, but even with four we had a lot of fun. I like it better than games like Trivia Pursuit because it's quicker and more interactive. There's a little trivia, a little charades, a little pictionary, a little name-that-tune, a little word play and a little toy factor, which makes for an all-around interesting game. Aunrea and zeppelinmage won what ended up a very close game.

We all sat down for some dinner, but Liam was far more interested in my guitars than eating. It was very cute. Earlier in the day he kept going up to the guitars and pressing the strings and occasionally strumming. He was absolutely enthralled and fascinated, which made me happy. He was very respectful of them and was very gentle while still exploring, so I was more than happy to let him have fun.

After dinner we played a game of Puerto Rico, which was nice since I almost never get a chance to play it table-top. I enjoy playing it on the computer but it's just not the same as playing with people. It took a little readjustment. For some reason it seemed a lot tighter resource-wise than the computer game, but I enjoyed it. It made it more of a real challenge! We thought originally that aunrea had won but painted_wolf forgot to count the victory points from her buildings. In the end she trounced us all by a huge margin.

Before our last game of the night I realized we had batteries for our one analog clock, so I replaced the battery and set it to the correct time. Aout halfway through Mamma Mia we did the ten-second countdown to midnight and rang in the new year with pretend pizzas. By the time we finished the game (which was again a close game and came down to who had the most ingredients in hand between aunrea and zeppelinmage) we were all exhausted and retired for the night.

I woke up early this morning to help our friends pack their car and see them off safely. I was sad to see them go since I really had a wonderful time visiting with them, but I am so grateful I had the opportunity to ring in the New Year with them. This has been a wonderful holiday weekend thus far! Today we are just spending a day at home and having a turkey dinner. Mind you there will be no bread stuffing this time. I forgot to buy the chicken broth. :P