Saturday, December 29, 2012

Between holidays...

The Christmas holiday time was incredibly hectic.  I found myself rushing around to get various things done, but none of the important stuff done.  Oh, well.  That is what happens during the holidays - you just put off until another opportunity.

When it comes to managing my diabetes and the holidays, just forget it.  I can try and try, but it never quite works.  You know the old saying about the road to hell being built on good intentions.  It is true.  I do admit, I made lots of goodies for various people because I knew that they liked that sort of thing.  Also, they knew I put effort and care into what I created.  Some people do not see that, but that is okay.  I realize that others do the same, so I try to be as accommodating as I can.  Just really difficult when you want to eat the "bad for you" stuff and know what the results will be.

On Thursday, I took an old friend I have known since 7th grade out to dinner at a hibachi restaurant.  I had wanted to visit Japanese Palace, but knowing she had to be up before the birds, I thought we could try this place in Burleson, actually named "Hibachi." 

It is a really nice restaurant.  We both ordered the "Chef Special" and added on for the fried rice.  The food was very delicious.  We got the onion soup as part of our meal.  The soup was very tasty and hit the right spot for a cold evening.  Next, we got a small salad, then got the cooking performance. 

Basically, the cooking performance has the same tricks and jokes, but it is so fun to watch the whole cooking process.  It always amazes me.  Actually, when the chef cleans the cooking surface - that amazes me more.  (Okay - simple things impress me.  That is not a bad thing.)

The next day, my father set up the "smart" 3D TV and 3D blu-ray player in the living room.  I helped him with cleaning up the dust (OMG - it was really dirty!) and moving stuff around, so that we could get the old TV out of the bookcase.  My biggest fear was that the new TV would not fit.  I fretted over that for several days.  Not only did the TV fit, there was room to spare.  I probably could have gotten him a 37", but that is the breaks.  It is still a really nice TV.

Since my father's girlfriend wanted to go out to eat that night, my father made sure that the DirecTV box and DVD player were working.  We watched a little bit of "John Carter" in 3D.  My only negative to take away from that experience:  I have to wear my glasses to really see what is happening on the TV.  Well, I have to put the 3D glasses on over my glasses to watch the show.  It was uncomfortable.  Have to see if there is anything such as 3D clip-on.

The smart TV portion was quite an experience.  I think if my father had faster internet speeds, it would really be something else.  I played around with a few applications.  I found it interesting that there is a "fit" and "yoda" channel.

On Saturday, I met my father's girlfriends' step daughter and her family.  The family seemed really genuinely nice and all were very funny.  I liked how they all joked around and were very comfortable.  I just felt bad that I had not brought them a present.  I was given a present of body scents and lotion.  My father's girlfriend gave me one of those slap choppers that have been advertised on TV.  The step daughter's family gave the girlfriend a KitchenAid stand mixer.  She was very pleased with that gift.  In fact, that Monday, she had used the mixer to make her chocolate cheesecake.

Sunday was a day for rest.  I went out to Target and the grocery store, but not much else.  I watched videos or TV.  The next day was a work day, so I tried not to stay up too late.

Oddly enough, work was full throttle.  I was just glad that I chose to work from home.  Apparently, no one was in the office.  At some point, I think most people will just work from home a majority of the time.  I know I would rather do that.  Granted, that might decrease my relationships with other people, but I see some advantages for it.

Rather than getting to take some time off early, I ended up working most of the day.  I went over to my father's girlfriend's house after I decided where to end the day and I took the dogs with me.  I really hate leaving them by themselves and they are pretty well behaved while they are there.  It just took getting used to the new surroundings and everything fell into place.

We had dinner and my father picked out a pretty bad B movie to watch.  I had to laugh.  The first half of the evening was spent watching "It's a Wonderful Life", then some B shoot'em up movie.  The second movie was nowhere related to anything for Christmas.  LOL

We opened the presents we had for one another, then I headed home.  I wanted to get home before the rain storms hit.  Out in the country area, it is pretty dark and I really do not like being out there so late.  However, with the rain, I would have been more than miserable.  Chloe whined a lot in the back seat.  I guess she felt the same way. 

After we went to bed, the storms hit.  Chloe was almost on top of my head and Bo jumped off the bed to crawl under it for safety.  Lots of thunder and hail.  To make matters worse, the electricity went out for a few hours.  I really did not get to sleep that night, so when it came time to do the morning breakfast, I texted my father that I wanted to sleep in for the morning.  I am glad I did because I felt a lot better after some sleep. 

Christmas afternoon, it started to snow outside and I was off for the girlfriend's family gathering.  Originally, the house was to be packed with 35 people.  With the bad weather and such, many people bowed out of attending.  The two sons and their wives had put together a pretty nice spread.  Her youngest son had smoked a pork roast and it was really good.  The ham was good, but it was a bit overpowered by the glaze.

From the gift exchange, I got $20 in cash.  I worked that out right - made sure my gift was frozen so no one could take it.  After that,  the "adults" got together and played card games.  That was something I had missed about the holidays.  It was a tradition to buy a new jigsaw puzzle and put one together starting on Christmas Eve and work on it through New Years' Day.  One year, we did a 3-D puzzle and that was loads of fun.  Before that, we would play Monopoly.  I suck at playing games, but I love to watch and learn.

Anyway, the first couple of games we played was "Screw Your Neighbor".  It was $3 to play and there was 10 of us.  I had beginner's luck.  I won the first round, so I got $30.  Next round, I ended up losing, but I had fun learning the game.

When I tried playing Texas Hold'em, I just stunk.  Now, I am playing around with some electronic hold'em games to learn strategy and get down the various cards one can have.  I find that interesting.

Thursday, my father and I took the old TV to Best Buy to be recycled.  My father located a cable to connect his old home theater system to the the TV.  Once he got that set up, the system nearly blew me out of the house.  That evening, we went to Hibachi for dinner. 

On Friday morning, I made the unfortunate discovery.  The refrigerator my parents had for 42 years had finally quit cooling.  It still made a sound like it was trying to run and the light came on, but it was no good.  Confirmation of this was when I checked the freezer.  I had a small container of sugar free vanilla ice cream.  It had melted completely.  Ugh!

I had to take everything out of the refrigerator and pack it and everything else in my car.  My apartment complex has a garbage compactor, so once I got to the apartment, that was the first thing leaving my car.  Luckily, the garbage did not start smelling up the car, but I was pretty pissed about the situation.  I should realize by now the following is true - things break and it is never planned.

Now, I am back home and trying to pull everything back together.  I bought all of the stuff for making snacks for New Year's Eve and got a ham and such for New Year's Day.  I should have plenty of food for the upcoming week.  Most of which should be healthy.

Today's Message from God:

Today, we believe God wants you to know that ...

your soul wants the freedom to sing, dance, love.

As your body needs nourishment - food, drink, sleep, so does your soul need nourishment - sing, dance, love. Life is not all work, work is not all hard toil. Nourish your soul with the food that is right for it, for it is the altar of your own inner temple.

Sort of had this discussion with RandomCathy during lunch.  I truly feel that I have to find that place in life where work has its place.  We have to work to live, but not live to work.  I want to do some fun things and just live life.  I know that is what my mom wanted for me.

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