Roses and Thorns Nov. 28 - Dec. 11

Okay, here are my latest roses n' thorns from off the top of my head (as they usually are)...

Rose
Got all my Ontario Christmas shopping done! If I can ship everything off this weekend, then it'll arrive with time to spare. This could possibly be a record, people!!

Thorn
Christmas cards are another story. I wanted to include an annual Christmas letter, but I'm running low on toner and time. I may just have to shorten my holiday greeting to a URL that points to my blog.

Rose
The Christmas tree is up and lookin' pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself. I might post a picture eventually... even though I find that pictures never really do a decorated tree justice. I think because when all the lights are shining, it distorts the ornaments. But, if you take the photo without the lights, then you really don't get the full effect.

Oh well... you'll just have to take my word for it, and the word of all the folks who stop by our place over the holidays and gush, "Wow! What a beautiful tree!" Like I said, it really is pretty spiffy.

Thorn
More drama has come creepin' in lately from a couple directions. While both situations are completely different, when you get right down to the root of the issue, there's not much we can do in either case. Basically, people have to figure things out for themselves.

Rose
For Jay's birthday we went to Mamma Rosa. I've never been there before, but the pasta was fantastico. (I was going to say "amazing" but the translation is "stupore" which, to me, sounds too close to "stupid". I didn't want any of you thinking the pasta was stupid. Then again, if the pasta was stupid, it wouldn't be a rose now, would it?)

Thorn
More car issues. Ugh. The check engine light came on, and as it turns out, we had to get our battery replaced, which was no surprise. We kinda suspected as much, but just hadn't made an appointment yet. We also got the transmission fluid flushed, which hadn't been done before. (You'd think they'd mention these things during our biannual tune-ups... but anyway...)  With the additional tranny fluid flush, the total came to over $200 more than we expected. So yeah, ka-ching! Oh well, at least the car will finally be in good shape for a while. *knock on wood* Our warrantee expires next December...

Rose
Our meeting on Monday... of course! Twas a great meeting and it has really put us in high spirits, despite the dramarama, the car nonsense, and the overwhelming sensation that we have way too much stuff on our plates to get done before the 23rd (our next deadline).

Thorn
Eight Crazy Nights and Jingle All The Way. Pee-eew! Steer clear of these two craptastical films this holiday season. That's three hours of my life totally wasted! We like the occasional dumb comedy as much as the next guy... but these were brutal.

Jingle All The Way, which I saw for the first time the other night, definitely makes it's way onto my must miss flicks list. Although we did have a little childish fun imitating Anauld for a couple minutes after the movie was over, "Chaaaaayme! Don't walk away from yo fadda!" Tee hee hee.

Rose
The writing is going swell, swell, swell. I'm loving how easily we're breezing through the scenes -- relatively speaking, of course. Normal rewrites average about 10 pages a day between the two of us. So really, only 5 pages a day each. Yeah, only 5 pages.... I know, right? But currently, we're averaging about 25 pages collectively on a good day. A lot of scenes only require very minor tweaking -- we want to include some subtext about this, or remove a reference to that, etc.

Anyhow, it's fun. I love writing... it's just all those endless outlines that totally kill me. Although I will admit that our painstakingly thorough outlines are always worth it in the end, because they make the writing process so much easier.

Thorn
We had a Christmas gathering with friends last weekend, and it's just another one of those situations where I find myself in No-Man's Land in more ways than one. But then my decision to leave No-Man's Land left me feeling kinda bad all week... even though I don't think I should feel bad.

To (not-so) quickly explain... I'm the only girl in our gang who is sans enfants. So while the boys get to go play in the games room down the street with the air hockey, pool table, ping pong and big bowl o' punch, I'm left with the gals tending the children. This is fine n' dandy for a while. The girls are all great and I love the kids. But obviously, the majority of the conversations revolve around children, (and rightfully so!), and I really have nothing to contribute. So, this year, after I spent a couple hours with the girls, I decided to leave and have some fun with the boys for a while. Anyhow, it sounds like a couple of the girls felt dissed, like I ditched them.

I don't know... it's just one of those awkward group dynamic things... Tell me, what's the etiquette here? Stay with the ladies and listen to discussions on breast feeding and potty training all evening, or politely excuse myself after a couple hours, and go hang with the boys, who always seem to be having way more fun. I mean, I really have nothing against the girls or the kids or even the child-centric topics of conversation... but I like to move around. I like to play games. I like to have a few laughs once n' a while.

Jim completely agreed that when we have kids, it would only be fair for the men to give the ladies a night off now n' then, so they can enjoy an evening of fun in the games room. I find our group (or maybe it's like this in all social circles, I dunno?) is always incredibly one-sided with who tends the tots... and that b.s. isn't going to float with Mother Mel.

Ah yes.... and so there we have my top 5 roses n' thorns for the last two weeks. I'm sure I missed a few things, but I usually do.

Happy Hanukah!