Many of you know already, but for those who don't....

Rob and I are expecting a youngling of the female variety in August. There! Now you all know.

Back to your regularly scheduled lj.

When I want to have a *short* conversation with my mother, I should remember to call her while standing on a ladder and painting a wall. Kept the conversation down to 10 minutes or so, as she was afraid I was going to fall off the ladder. :)

Paint paint paint... I'm finally making progess on the living room. Taking a break for food right now, since I reached a stopping point. Then I shall paint some more! No bab5 for me tonight, as such productive moods need to be taken advantage of...

I keep getting little chat windows popping up, not noticing them for a while (because I'm away from the computer or looking at a different window), replying eventually, and then getting the "so&so did not get your chat" message. I've never used chat, so how does the etiquitte of this work? Is it understood that you might not see their chat in time, or do people assume that you're blowing them off? I think I've managed to actually talk to someone once, out of perhaps 6 or 7... Meh.

Looks like he might have the flu, poor dear. I'm about to go off and get ginger ale and stuff along those lines. He's feeling pretty miserable about now. :(

We're in the process of switching ISPs, which means that everything is FUBARed and we've only got dialup at the moment. If you want to get in touch with me, or there's something I ought to be aware of, give me a call...

Seems that many people on my friends list are either pretty ill (some alarmingly so) or dealing with serious illness in their families. Please take care of yourselves!

In other news, our trip is going fine. We're back at my parents' place at the moment, leaving for Rob's dad's place in an hour or two. Took mom out for an early birthday last night, which was good. Saw my aunt's new apt a little bit ago.

A few more days down in Moorestown, then to the New Years party at the shore, then flying back to SFO on Jan 1...

A pleasant, if hectic and crowded, xmas eve with my family. First the mad preparation, then the influx of waves of relatives and family friends (16 of us total, so not *that* huge), then several phases of far too much good food, presents, then dessert. Of course the fact that the sit-down dinner for 16 people took place in my parents' not-that-big 2 bedroom apartment contributed to the sense of chaos. Once the guests left, we cleaned up and then Mom, Dad, Ted, Ali, Rob and I sat down to open our presents to each other. We made my dad wait two minutes to open the first present so that'd be xmas.

On to xmas #2 in 9 hours or so. Rob's dad is going to pick us up and bring us the 1.5 - 2 hours to their place. It'll be much more laid back, and there's a whole present ritual. Large house and only Rob's dad, stepmom, stepbrother + wife, stepsister + fiancee, me and Rob.

Tired Krys. We're getting picked up in 8.5 hours or so (he gave us a 1/2 hour time-window). Sleep sounds like a good idea, but I don't know if I'd be able to get to sleep this early. Meh.

The primary reason to go to Boston this year was to see my HS friend Laura and her new youngster, Isabella. Otherwise we might've skipped Boston this year. Unfortunately, Isabella, Laura and her husband Erik have all been felled by a "disgusting stomach virus" in the last few days, so I shan't be seeing them. Rob had made seperate plans for lunch today with a friend of his, who called this morning to say that *she's* home sick today. Hopefully the dinner plans with Rob's college friends won't be thwarted by an outbreak of plague.

Tomorrow we'll be taking some sort of transit down to get to my parents' place. The usual plan is to take a bus down to the Port Autority in NYC and have a parent pick us up. Usually the drive from their place is something like 20 minutes, but the transit strike in NYC is causing us to reconsider our plans. Looking into taking a train directly from Boston to somewhere in NJ, or perhaps ferry across the river.... Meh. We'll get there somehow.

We flew back from Vancouver yesterday, and a week from today we leave again for the mad east coast holidays trip. Vancouver was nice as usual, and it was good to see some of the people I know up there. Sorry to've missed seeing phyxius, but I completely understand the woke-up-at-7am-for-a-final thing. The club wasn't all that exciting, anyway. Worse music than previous years, more amusing stuff on the tv screens, lower creep-factor, more people I knew (or had met a few times at least). Went skiing one day up at Whistler. Better conditions than last year, though last year was so bad that that's not difficult to accomplish. Pretty icy, with a bunch of rocks and exposed patches.

So very much to get done here before we run off again. We're so not unpacked or organized here. We've done enough to make the place marginally functional, but there are huge numbers of obstacles sitting everywhere. Meh. We really need to figure out how we're going to organize the closets/storage spaces upstairs, so that we can put stuff away. And then there's all of the xmas gift stuff for the family members. Both getting stuff for them, and figuring out what they should get us, which is the harder part. Must be very specific with directions to them, or we'll end up with much wrongness.

Okay, enough procrastinating. Going to get things done, really I am...