Happy New Year

I've been neglecting this blog, so I figure the best way to get started again is to jump in head first. Happy new year! If it is happy. January is such a less than enjoyable month, even in Ridgecrest. It's so cold!

But the days are getting longer, and that means spring is coming (eventually), and that means I have a cross-country move to plan. A thought that sends me diving under the covers with anxiety.

I know I'm anxious because I'm not reading. When I'm depressed, I read. I bury myself in stories. But when I'm anxious I do puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, computer solitaire. I buy puzzle magazines and work my way through all 100 or 200 or 500 puzzles. My favorites are the kind where you don't have to think outside the puzzle at all: all the answers are provided, you just have to fit them together properly.

I've got two puzzle books going right now, one in the bathroom and one by the bed. My stacks of books to read grow ever higher, as I fiddle with Syllacrostics and Frameworks and Logic Problems.

But enough about that, it's making me anxious to talk about it.

How were your holidays? We had the usual lovely visit with the relatives up in the Bay Area. It was very green and very damp, which is how Christmas usually was when I was a child. While we were there, the boos were accidentally introduced to the wonders of iPads (which they, misunderstanding, called "iPatches" and of course we all began to call them that too). I have been coveting an iPatch of my own for quite some time, but when I saw how the boos glommed onto Aunt Baba's and Cousin Risa's, I rethought that idea. If I do get one, I'm going to keep it hidden. Boos get FAR too much screen time already. Here they are looking at something on an iPatch with Cousin Lauren.

We got home the night of December 30th, so were able to "celebrate" New Year's Eve in Ridgecrest (i.e., stay up until midnight and then go to bed immediately without even a glass of champagne).

On New Year's Day we went to California City and did some exploring.

It was cloudy and cold, but we didn't get any rain. I was feeling really low, but cheered up when we found a nice pizza parlor that was showing the Rose Bowl.

We got back to doing "school" that week, with the theme of Airplanes (A is for Airplane -- we're going to run through the alphabet now). But I don't know anything about airplanes and felt very uninspired. Rocket Boy finally took over and insisted we go to Edwards Air Force Base on Saturday to see the museum there.

Edwards is a closed base, but Rocket Boy got us in with a special pass he has. Unfortunately the museum was unexpectedly closed.

But we did get to see some airplanes outside on the grounds.

And that was enough about airplanes for me. Just not my thing.

Sunday was Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, so I made a Three Kings Cake, sort of a cheating version.

This is actually two tubes of orange-flavored Pillsbury cinnamon role mix, unrolled and wrapped together and braided into two rings (a little one inside a big one), with raisins stuck on it here and there. When it came out of the oven after about 20 minutes, I put frosting on it (included in the packages) and then decorating sugar in Mardi Gras colors. I also hid a little ceramic chicken in it (you're supposed to hide a ceramic baby, but I didn't have a ceramic baby, I had a ceramic chicken) and Baby A got the piece with the chicken in it, which pleased him. The best thing about this "cake" is that I DIDN'T LIKE IT but Rocket Boy and the twins loved it. I had one small piece and then they ate all the rest. Fought over the last bits tonight. I really need to find more recipes like this (preferably not made out of disgusting prefab "foods") so that I can make my family happy but me less fat.

And now the second week of January has begun (we are doing B is for Bird this week, much easier for me). We'll get through it. January always ends and then there's February, a much much nicer month.