December stuff

I guess I'm a hippy.  *giggle*  Not that many of you haven't guessed.

I prefer to gad about the world barefoot, or at least my own little chunk of the world, more generally referred to as "the house."  Yet, this predilection goes beyond my front door in my choice of shoe wear.  Since I don' t have a formal job, I have no need of formal shoes and generally, those black dress shoes I brought from Calgary stay well back in the dusty corners of my closet.  I have crocs and casual runners for outdoors, neither of which actually need a pair of socks.  Maybe it's the socks I protest against.

Which is a preamble to where I find myself today.  Six years of not having to ever put on a decent pair of shoes  has resulted in  plantar fasciitus. Really?  Cold reality has crept into my world of awesome, bringing some pretty debilitating days.  Without whining and snivelling, which I'm sure my husband has heard a great deal, I'm in rehabilitative therapy at the moment.

Part of which includes foot massage.  I've always enjoyed reflexology .. in Calgary, I'd indulge myself on the way home with stop-ins to a spa that always seemed to have a massage therapist ready to give me half an hour of heaven.  So there is an upside to this as well!

Anyway, I've had some pretty bleak days as I try to imagine a world without pain, where the simple act of dropping your feet on the floor in the morning doesn't come with a reminder that your feet are attached to your body.  Most of us don't think about it.  I'm working on getting back there.  Okay, so maybe a teensy bit of  whining.

So that's why I've not been blogging.  Need to get a happy on before I sit at the keys.

Even the Burberry puts on a Christmas show in December

December this year has actually been good to us.  Carefully saved coins (loonies and toonies, right down to the pennies)! over the last three years went into a Christmas gift that Bruce and I chose on the 27th during the Boxing Day craziness at Future Shop.   So our new flat screen will be delivered on the 7th of January, hooked up and ready to roll by the time the delivery folks leave.

I spoke with my Dad this month .. I've been a particularly bad daughter about not calling him often enough, which happens come summer when he's busy working.  He's up with the sun in the morning and I ... am a nocturnal person generally.  And then I get out of the habit and .. excuses, excuses.  So yea, we talked.  It appears that he has a new lady in his life and he's happy and accepted into her family as well.  That makes me very happy too.

I've spoken with all my brothers this month, over Christmas day calls and emails or birthday greets back and forth with Larry.  We called and sang a Christmas carol for Kelly who was on the road between the north pole and Leslieville.

Gotta love a display like this in December!

We laughed a lot on our annual birthday call with Melvin.  Man, we miss him and Sandy.  They are such great friends.  I'm looking forward to the New Year's call.

We helped Cécile and Richard move into their new place.  Gone is the house beside the ocean where we lounged about on sunny afternoons.  The new one still has an ocean view, but is within walking distance of our house and is not full of the drafts and catch-basins of the old place.  It has a natural lawn that won't need much attention and a bit of a nautical theme with the roped deck and mooring pole flower bed.  We're already calling their tiny garden shed "the boat house."   Cécile's driftwood collection will be right at home there.

Why yes, that house across the street IS pink and grey.

And finally, I've reacquainted myself with an old friend from Dofus ... my character Oralind.  We've been keeping company in the late evenings.

So I bring this blog to its 2011 close and wish you a great New Year's festivity however you like to do it ... polar bear swims here are somewhat of a 'thing,' but I think I'll pass on leaving various bits of skin stuck to the ice.  *grin*

Of Dogs and Designs

My dog ate my December website design.

Okay, I don't have a dog.  Nor, at this point, a December website design.  But it's coming, honest!

Warning:  Gamer geekery coming.  Your eyes can light up or glaze over now, depending on your proclivity or aversion for all things Warcrafty.

I've had some wonderful company the past few days.  And a new update to World of Warcraft. These things relate to each other like a finely honed knife and a rogue hidden in the shadows.  <-- see what I did there?  Ha ha!

I've had the pleasure of knowing Eric since I was a green-behind-the-ears hunter and Gruul's Lair was uncharted territory for my guild.  His unfailing good humour was one of the highlight of joint raids with The Oasis Contingent.  (The Oasis Contingent has a history closely tied to the long-running webcomic Sluggy Freelance and I'll introduce you to the Sluggy gang at some point, probably soonish.) Of course, I didn't know him as Eric.  In game, we usually call each other by character name .. which makes for interesting times when people have multiple characters.  It's funny, but you learn to fluidly shift from one name to the next without event thinking about it.  Or, sometimes, like my pal Nick, you just call him Nick, no matter the 'toon he is currently playing.

So I've known Eric over five years now and we've become fast friends, occasionally levelling characters together and just generally making each other's day a bit more fun.  We know how to laugh and mock each other out of bad moods; always a pretty good characteristic of friendship.

I've known Frazer for the last couple of years since he and Eric are good friends.  Frazer has a tendency of disappearing from the scene occasionally, but one day he'll wander back in and pick up like he never left.  He's a delight on my guild forums, where he is known as The Grand  Vizier and Eric as the Comically Inept Henchman.  They run rampantly through my posts like a child with brightly colored crayons and bewitchingly white walls.  Except, like Calvin and Hobbes, they tend to find a way to create a crayon bazooka which they use both rampantly and randomly.

The video below is a find of Frazer's, but it could have easily been Eric who is fascinated by all Lego Mechanical creations - among other things.

So anyway, they were both out in Vancouver for the Grey Cup game and to ogle cheerleaders by the squadful, if the stories I heard are true.  Eric travelled from Quebec to the West Coast and Frazer from Edmonton for the game, so it was inconceivable that they not take a short ferry ride over to Nanaimo to come see me.

I've been preparing for the visit and ignoring the siren lure of my computer.  It wasn't easy, especially since a long anticipated game patch arrived while they were here.  We were all good kids though, and stayed away from Warcraft until after the visit.

I had a great time and feasted them suitably, even going to far as to make that most manly of all breakfasts ... a bacon log.  Frazer got a picture of it I'll have to share with you as soon as he sends it.

Eric helped me out with some computer stuff and I'll have some new goodies to show you soon.  Which brings full circle to the monthly website redesign.  And how I need to do that, like now ...