Xiaoniu 小妞

I’m feeling lazy today, or maybe I’m just conserving my energy. Who knows. This is just a catchup post. Plenty going on, yet not much going on. It feels weird. Yesterday (Monday) was a normal start to the week. Today (Tuesday) is the end of the work week for me.

Thanksgiving

Tonight and tomorrow we start to get the house and ourselves ready for Thanksgiving. We’re having my parents and Sue’s family over the for the holiday. This will be our first Thanksgiving in the house. Seeing as all our guests fit comfortably (I think) during the house warming party this group should fit fine.

We have the menu all ready. The usual fair, with a few additions/changes courtesy of Sue. One change that should confuse people is that we aren’t using bread stuffing to fill the bird. We are going to use a sticky rice mixture. Serves the same purpose, but should taste different. We’ll have stuffing on the side as well. I think it is cranberry, pecan stuffing.

Chairs

Last night we picked up our dining room chairs. They are all freshly decked out with new fabric (they all match now!) and they all have tightly stretched straps and new padding. So you don’t sink down when you plop you ass into one. They look really good. The woman did a nice job on them all. I’m especially happy that the big ones don’t sink down anymore. Hopefully they’ll hold up for many years.

The tough thing to get over is spending money to reupholster something you just bought. The woman among many others have said the set is very nice and in great shape. She said last night that we would have paid three times what we did if we bought it new. That helps. I have pics showing before and after that I’ll post once I find my CF reader.

We also ended up with some fabric. It came in wider than she expected and they sent her more than we ordered. It was clearly the end of the roll and I guess they decided to send it all to her. We’ll keep it in case we need to fix one of the chairs.

Gifts

Last night I put the finishing touches onto some gifts I am making for Christmas. Umm construction paper and crayons. Nothing beats a handmade gift. Actually, they are made of better materials, but if I say what I used it would ruin the surprise.

Now all that is left to do is finish wrapping. We started a couple weeks ago, but there are still a few more to do. We still have a couple gifts left to get but we are pretty close to being done.

Babies

My coworker that was supposed to have a baby on Saturday, had the baby on Saturday. He’s quite forgetful so we didn’t find out until Monday afternoon (he even forgot to call his boss to say he wasn’t coming in Monday). He didn’t leave the name or size. Damn him. He should know there are many people here interested and they keep asking me. I sit next to him and we are both part of a group that goes out for lunch time walks. So, I’m the guy that everybody asks. Me and his boss actually.

On Wednesday (tomorrow) we get to find out what we’re having. It seems like forever since she had a sonogram so this should be very interesting. I think she is around 27 weeks so the baby will be big. Hopefully, it’ll let us see what it is. We need to pick a first name and Sue’s dad has the honor (it’s a tradition) of picking the Chinese middle name. Knowing the gender helps.

I think that’s it for now. Time to get back to listening to Chinesepod on Sue’s ipod. I’m still trying to learn the language. Immersion and constant practice. According to Sue I’m improving, but I’m only starting basic sentences on my own. The podcasts help since it gives me a chance to hear other Mandarin speakers, more often. Maybe this time next year I’ll have moved from the newbie lessons to the elementary or intermediate lessons. Keep your fingers crossed.