Random Chatter

I can't believe that it is December 20th already. Where has the year gone?? I am enjoying a few minutes to myself before I go and join Troy in an Xbox game of Gears of War 2 and kick some alien butt, and I am trying to think what all happened in the last 12 months. It is all just a blur! Graham was born, and then Gabriel turned 2 and then it seems like here we are in December! Ha ha, 'mom mind' - I can't think of anything but the kids! Okay, here is a genuine effort to talk about something else:

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Just kidding! I can think of something, I swear... give me a minute...

OKAY! here it is: So, my TV broke down in August (so sad! as it was a 57" and you just don't run out and replace those!) so we have been without TV since then. It was in a repair shop, and after they told me that I was stupid, and then cussed Troy out on the phone AFTER having out TV in their shop for 3 months and not doing anything to it or ordering parts, we had it returned. Then it was picked up by someone else, who was able to fix it 2 weeks later. Just as they turned it on to check it before returning it to us, a picture tube blew. FYI there are 4 of these in the TV, and it was going to cost $400 to repair this one that broke. Then he told me, "um... Mrs. Coleman? I'm sorry to tell you but the other three are about to go, too..." Cha-ching! $1600 just for those tubes, on top of the $600 for the labor they already put into the thing... so $2200 to get our old TV back? No way. Troy and I said, almost unanimously, "keep it". We moved the old TV into the family room, hooked it up to the satellite and hello! We have channels! We had only been able to watch movies on this one before, but now that it is on the satellite, we can change channels! It is wonderful. We are supposed to be getting the house ready for my parents to arrive tomorrow afternoon for a visit, and here we are staring at this thing like we had never seen a 'moving picture' before. Troy and I just started laughing. I was thinking "ug! Look. Picture. Move. Big magic. Good." Gabriel wanted to go outside to play, which we did, but not before I said "No. Inside. Good. Outside. Bad!" Ha ha! So, the house is a mess, the kids are asleep (perfect time to pick up the house) and what are we doing? vegging out infront of the magic box in the family room. Too funny.

I did break that up with reading some today though - it has started to get a little more calm around the house now that Graham is able to play with Gabriel more and more. I had started reading The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan a few years ago, and am happy to say that in the past few months, I have finished the 3rd and started the 4th book! Yes! Only 9 more to go! (Can you believe there are 13 books in this series? And sadly, the author died shortly before completing the last book!) So, I have been caught up in the adventures of Rand, Perrin, Mat, Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve, Lan, Moiraine, Aviendha, Gaul, Faile and the others. If you are into the fantasy novels, you should definitely check these out. But be careful. They're addictive! Troy wanted to name Graham (before we had picked out his real name) 'Rand', I agreed and for awhile, he was going to be Rand Allan Coleman. He was also pushing for the name Joiya for a girl, but now that I know that she is one of the 'bad guys' I don't think that will ever happen.

I am trying to get together our Christmas newsletter - can you believe that Christmas is only 4 days away and I still have some newsletters to send out? Talk about being behind the ball! I had to go out today to ship off a Christmas gift, too! It was funny, I also bought a book of stamps, and the girl asked me "do you want nutcrackers or Madonna and Child?" My first thought was "why on earth would I want Madonna on my Christmas stamps? That's just weird!"

Well, I think I have relaxed sufficiently for now, and so off I go to defend earth as Dom, a Gear who is looking for his wife Maria, which the Locust (aliens) have abducted along with hundreds of others. But there is something more sinister behind these simple abductions... and I am about to uncover their evil plot...