Someone thoughtfully gave me an early Christmas gift, a cold (also known as slow lingering death). About a week and a half ago I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever of 102.something. Fortunately I had finished most of my gift shopping but it really limited my annual Christmas cookie baking.
My Christmas present to the cats this year was a Litter-Robot. We got the black one and named it "R2-PU".
It was a big investment but it comes with a money-back guarantee if your cats don't like it. The cats weren't sure what to make of it at first but they all use it with no problem now. Because it waits seven minutes after it's used before it goes through the self-cleaning cycle it's less likely to startle them and create a negative reaction. Even with the delay the cats appeared to be able to figure out there was some sort of cause-effect thing happening. For about a week after we got it, after one of them used the Litter-Robot, they would all gather around and wait to watch it until it finished cleaning itself.
I received the notice from our local sheriff's office that I could pick up my new CCW permit about the same time my temperature was peaking so between that and Christmas I wasn't able to pick it up until a few days ago.
I doubt that I'll make use of the permit on a day-to-day basis but it's nice to know that I can carry (a gun, butcher knives, shurikens...) if I want. I decided to take the class for the permit just to see how well I would do. I scored 100% on both the written and shooting portions of the test at the end of the class. I would like to pretend that this is impressive but it's not. The written portion just makes sure you understand what you can and cannot do under the law and the shooting portion just requires you to be able to hit a large silhoutte with 11 out of 20 rounds at 21 feet. (I hit it all 20 times, but still, it was only 21 feet away and it's a big target.)
A few days before Christmas I got a letter from one of my second cousins. My mother and grandparents left England and moved to the U.S. when she was a young child and I had never met any of their (our) relatives. Now I've found relatives in Canada and England. Or, rather, they found me.
This is one of the best Christmas presents I've ever gotten. I'm an only child and each of my parents had only one sibling, both of whom live in other states so finding out about more relatives is especially exciting for me.
I hope to be able to take a trip to Yorkshire and Derbyshire to meet some of my relatives and see where my mother's family is from.
Posted by marybeth at December 30, 2006 03:05 PM Other Stuff