Home Again

We made it safely back home, eventually, to a house that was still standing.

The holidays are over, thankfully and regretfully.

Much nicer holidays than I expected to have, but a relief to put them behind us and enter the New Year, even if it does mean returning to work with nary a vacation in sight.

I'm too tired to repeat everything, but here are the highlights:

- DH finally, on our fifth married Christmas, and our eighth Christmas together, has managed to pull together a selection of gifts entirely on his own that were awesome and perfect. Well done, sweetie. Primary features included Sex and the City and Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince. Hours of fun for . . . me! Despite loathing SATC, and coming close with HP, he got them for me anyhow. Also, mint chocolates, which he thinks are nasty.

- M&Ms makes a mint chocolate specialty version called Mint Thrillers. They're tasty, with a soft shell and white melting mint interior. However, the mottled green and black on the soft shell? That could go. I prefer, myself, with my strange little idiosyncracies, not to eat food that visually reminds me of severe mold and mildew problems or of lichen. I know it's weird. But there it is. Those things look gross, so I eat them with my eyes closed. When I offered one to my mother (another mint chocolate lover), she actually recoiled in disgust. Well done, M&Ms, well done.

- At one point I threw my back out. Not having sex, fortunately, as that would have been hard to explain, but that didn't much matter, since I could not explain how it did happen. The worst part wasn't the back injury though that was terribly painful and had me walking around like an arthritic monkey for a couple of days. The worst part was when I applied a heating pad to my lower back and the inner part poked through the covering, and unbeknownst to me at the time, scratched the hell out of my ass. Later that night, while I was in bed, there was a persistent blistered/hot sort of feeling that made me continue to roll to my side (which pulled my back and hurt). I figured I must have burned myself with the heating pad, stupidly, and wondered why I hadn't noticed before. When I mentioned it to DH, he asked to see, and found the scratches. It apparently looked like my ass had been on the losing end of bet to make me Barney's scratching post. All I know is it hurt and made me feel stupid.

- We managed to have a lot of sex, mostly while my mom was working. If it sounds like a pair of teenagers creeping around, well, it felt like that too. Imagine the fun we had we disrobed only to hear the door open again and my mother's voice calling. I had to hide DH in the bathroom because he was buck naked. I am nearly 30 years old and have been married for approaching five years now, and have had three recent pregnancies. I think it's safe to assume my mom knows I have sex, but damned if I'm going to publicize that to her (um, you know directly. She doesn't read this completely open blog, thank God).

- The back injury was not my only injury, or my worst injury. Because I'm awesome, I also severely injured my elbow/arm. How, you may ask? Bowling. Oh, yes, I suck that much at bowling. We went bowling with all the brothers-and-sisters-in-law-plus-overtired-niece-and-nephew on New Year's Day. It was surprisingly fun - mostly because I suck and had no chance at being competitive and the kids were in the other lane and my BIL and SIL that I formerly haven't gotten on well with have discovered I'm not quite the stuck up priss they thought (we bonded over Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, though I think Mike expected that I was unlikely to have a sense of humor over the retelling of one of my favorite stories. On the contrary, I found it very entertaining), and so we had a good time. However, I was frequently in competition with my 3 year old nephew for worst score (yeah, THAT bad, y'all). Anyway, at some point I overextended my elbow or something, because it was twingey when we quit bowling, got more sore as the afternoon progressed and come bedtime, I was in tears and unable to bend the arm or fully straighten it, let alone find any comfortable position for sleeping. Copious amounts of frigid cold ice, a heating pack, half a bottle of Advil gel caps, it bends and straightens just fine and is merely sore now.

- We learned a dominoes game. And bought dominoes. Good times.

- We also learned a new dice game. But we didn't buy the dice. It's an old game called Farkle. Apparently people used it play it back in the day. I have taken to randomly yelling Farkle when the mood strikes. It's a great word to substitute for Fuck, even when my mom is fully aware of what I'm doing. Also fun just to shout at people. Go on, give it a go. FARKLE! See? Fun!

- The banana bread was outstanding, and the fudge was terrific. The cookies were . . . well, let's just say I gave DH aaaallllllll the credit for them. The nuts were awesome.

- My brother is one funny motherfucker. And also amazingly gentle and thoughtful. It was a pleasure to spend time with him.

- We went out for a nice dinner at the place we've been to celebrate our previous anniversaries, but were unable to get to this year. And holy fuck, was the food as amazing as ever. One of the most expensive meals of the year, but worth every penny (the fact we always have a full meal for the next day from our take home doesn't hurt that). After much agonizing, I chose a large filet over the ribeye, and I do not regret it. I know a lot of beef lovers scorn a filet as being tender but flavorless, but this one . . . my God, the filet cut like a hot knife through butter and the quality of the beef is such that the flavor was beyond amazing. And the homemade ranch dressing on the wedge of cold, crispy iceberg lettuce? I would have licked my plate if I could have. And the shrimp in garlick cream sauce appetizer? I felt no shame in asking for extra bread to sop up the sauce. It was THAT good. I'm plotting about how to save up money to eat there again for our birthdays. . .

- We saw Sherlock Holmes on NYE. And holy shit, it was even better than I expected. I heard updated and re-envisioned and sort of shrugged. I think it's been billed a bit like an action movie, and it's sooo much more. Gone is the pedantic, assholish, stuffy Holmes of fiction and BBC movies - Robert Downey Jr and Guy Ritchie did a fucking amazing job of making Holmes interesting and likable and flawed while still maintaining a terrific balance for Holmes enthusiasts (Irene Adler! Moriarty! Lestrade! swoon!) and the reinvention of Watson as someone other than a bumbling idiot was terrific. I absolutely loved it and not only would consider paying full price to see it again in the theatre, but I would love love love a sequel. Brilliantly done.

And, I think that's it. Yeah, I know. Freaking long. Still, you'd be amazed how much I left out. It was exhausting, but fun. Now I need only win the lottery and I can go home again permanently.