Nov. 30: November in review

Barely finished before the month was over! Here’s my review of November 2012.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• Jack’s birthday was the big November holiday in our house. He turned 11 and proved it by giving us a wish list with one thing on it; that kid has gotten so choosy about stuff lately! If his friends don’t have it, he doesn’t want it either. Grrr. His gifts were video games, several gift cards, overpriced Nike socks, and a Kindle Fire HD. He was one happy boy.
• Vic had to work on Thanksgiving (boo) so our dinner wasn’t until evening. Darlene and Wellington hosted this year, and Mother Mary joined us. It was great fun, even though I had laryngitis and no one could hear me speak. Pretty sure they were all thankful for that. Meanies.
• I guess the outcome of Election Day made me feel pretty celebratory.

Gifts I gave and/or received this month:

• Gave: Jack’s birthday stuff.
• Received: goodies from my mom. She’s the best.
• I started Christmas shopping. I LOVE Christmas shopping! Actually, I love Amazon. Amazon is what makes me love Christmas shopping.

Books I read this month:

• I finally finished The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. It was really hard for me to get into, but once I did, the story was lovely. Sad, but lovely.
• I decided to re-read the Tales of the City series, by Armistead Maupin. I’ve read too many dark and depressing books lately; I need something lighter and these books are perfect.
• We had a moms’ book exchange the other night. I love those! I think we should have them more often, and not just because it’s an excuse for me and Tina to eat that banana cake at New Seasons.

Movies and TV shows worth mentioning:

• The new James Bond movie came out. I haven’t seen it yet.
• A lot of other movies came out and I also have not seen them. It seems to be really hard for me to make the effort to see a movie these days. I don’t know why.
• Downton Abbey returns to American television on January 6!
• Smash returns February 5!

New recipes or restaurants I tried:

Tonight I combined a few recipes to make a guacamole that turned out quite tasty. The key is avocadoes, people. You must have avocadoes.

Special or unusual purchases I made:

• Beekeeping supplies for some cool Christmas gifts and that’s all I’m sayin’.
• Way too many Miche shells—couldn’t resist their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales.
• Furnace parts (see below).

This month’s disappointments:

• Being sick has certainly been no fun. Although I have my voice back, the ickiness in my sinuses lingers.
• Jack’s football team made the playoffs, but lost their game.
• Our furnace tried to die, but our neighbor saved its life. For the past few weeks, we’ve noticed that the furnace hasn’t been responding to thermostat changes like it should. I made fun of Mother Mary for walking around my house in a coat, but now I feel bad because I think maybe it really WAS cold (I was sick and couldn’t be relied upon for such accurate information). Rob looked at it, immediately saw what was wrong, and put a temporary fix on it until the parts we need arrive. Thanks, Rob!
• Now our refrigerator is being kind of an asshole.

My accomplishments:

• At school, we rewarded the kids for their fundraising efforts at Jogathon. I love seeing them get so excited about making their school better! It feels good to have that project out of the way.
• Mom and I completed our project with the beekeeping supplies—huge task, but lots of fun. That’s all I’m sayin’ about it.
• I finally got the kids’ Christmas gifts decided (and mostly purchased). I did my best to stick to the “something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read” rule, but there are several gifts that don’t fit into any of those categories. Where’s the part that says “something Mom geeked out over and just had to buy them”???
• Victor and I survived chaperoning the fifth grade field trip to the state capitol. Never. Again. Them kids are turds. It was fun to be in the Capitol building again, though; I think it had been about 30 years since I was last there.

Anything else noteworthy:

• I learned two disturbing things at Jack’s parent-teacher conference: he’s totally two-faced and he hears voices in his head.
• A few of us got together to play poker last week. Mother Mary was kicking our arses for a little while there—beginner’s luck—and now my friends kinda hate her. I won the “first out” AND “bad beat” prizes, and Vic got third place—probably our best $$ wins ever. Ready for Vegas!
• There’s a new baby elephant at the Oregon Zoo! She’s so cute.
• Here are silly pics I’ve been collecting:

That’s it, doods. Happy December!