Felicitous compliments of the gorging season to you all. It’s a little bit tricky doing this year’s Christmas spiel, cause I kinda feel I’ve managed enough updates over the year to keep everyone up to speed. Having said that however, I will sneak a couple of good’uns in here somewhere. Be vigilant or they will pass by unnoticed!

Boring job stuff

Sam finally got sick of Ticketek being r-tarded, requiring him to work long hours with no support, and left. He’s now working at Borders and enjoying it a whole lot more – and discounted books and DVDs don’t suck either.

I finally got sick of Spotless being r-tarded, for any number of reasons, and left. I’m now working at Sonar6 and enjoying it a whole lot more. I get to write stuff and design stuff and pootle around, which suits me nicely. Although I don’t get discounted anything, and I do have to spend a lot more time in transit. Which, poetically, gives me more time to read the discounted books.

I’m also doing odd freelance bits and pieces, which has become a lil more tricky as time has worn on. I must be getting old since I can no longer be on the computron all day and all night without suffering for it. But I did manage to get my new camera, and it’s always a pleasure to get paid for stuff. If you happen to run across some garish rainbow creations up at Auckland Uni, reach for your sunnies and think of me.

Maow maows

Foo was diagnosed with a GI lymphoma in November last year, and despite having surgery and chemo, left for safari on Easter Saturday. He was one of the most loving and least troublesome cats I’ve ever known, and we still miss him a lot. At least he’s back with Cupid and Squidpig; they’ll all be having happy cuddles now.

Knowing Foo wouldn’t be with us for much longer, we decided to get Bee a new little friend so he wouldn’t get despondent at all his big friends leaving him. Enter Fizzgig, evil on legs. She’s a feisty wee thing, all teeth and claws, but also manages to be extremely loving and has a tendency to shadow you everywhere. She adores Bee, but Bee… well, it’s a Garfield – Nermal relationship. At least she keeps him on his toes; we just have to keep an eye out for suspicious spiky packages addressed to Abu Dhabi.

Another abscess for Bee this year, this time on his shoulder. I will spare the worst details of how I discovered it, but suffice to say it had Sam running for the tissues. :P Another lost collar too, but at least it was a cheapy reflective one and not one of the sexy $15 things he tended to lose monthly.

It’s not easy being green

The garden is… mmm… growing energetically currently. I did do some pruning a while back, but once the roses start going that’s it til they stop. Once they’ve all gone hippy I’m going to chop them back – they’re getting a little triffid-esque and grabby. The passionfruit is finally fruiting though, so all going well (ie, if I remember) we’ll be having delicious passionfruity deliciousness over summer.

Festivus for the rest of us

I’m behind on the cookies again, although I think possibly I have good excuses this time. In any case, I have the basic cookie collection, if not the exact recipes:

1. Triple chocolate chunk
2. Oat & jam
3. Snickerdoodles
4. Almond & anise biscotti
5. Gingerbread men
6. Something sable-y or shortbread, depending

You will be noticing a trend from year to year. That is because everyone is boring and has their favourites, and I am disinclined to argue this late in the piece. Update: With a week to go I have finally made all of the doughs, so hoorah. Christmas itself is still a bit up in the air, but at least we’ll have sugary goodness to sustain ourselves, wherever we end up. I also made a batch of each to test on the guys at work… they’ve promised to give me printed reports detailing their feedback so I can prove the cookies were good in the event the actual batches go wrong. Don’t ever say you’re doing something reviewable to a bunch of geeks who build reviewing software for a living.

Excitement?

No fun trips away this year as I was working out my notice over my birthday. We have spent some time at Thames, which is relaxing though not big exciting news. I was considering booking us on a NZ-y bus tour thingy this summer – which would have been cool cause there’s still a lot of this place -I- haven’t seen, and Sam needs to do more touristy stuff. But, well, read on.

Excitement!

So it seems our human / feline family unit is going to increase by one. Hopefully one. In mmmmm 6 months-ish. Didn’t see that coming, did you? Neither did we!

Here’s a few pics of it. It’s been variously called ‘the alien’ ‘the frog’ and ‘gremlin’, which is infinitely more us than ‘precious’ or ‘peanut’ or ‘bean’ or anything cutesy. Besides, it looks like an alien and moves like a frog. Witness:

Them’s mah insides! Well, some of them. Some are like… my artistic interpretation of the scans. See if you can figure out which! Everything’s fine apparently – it propelled itself away from the ultrasound (frog-style) and covered its face, so has obviously inherited some of my more endearing quirks.

Due date is July 3, expect updates. Not too many though, I am aware the give-a-crap-o-meter of everyone not me, Sam or our parents registers kinda low on this subject. We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl yet as it’s too early, but we will be asking – this is a (possibly, mostly) human person & we’d like to start thinking of it that way. Plus Sam wants a boy and I want a girl, and there’s only one in there so we need ample gloating / sulking time before it arrives. Of course it could be both, but I think we’d want to know about that too…

Anyhoo, call this our gift to the world this Christmas – more of me! What could be more perfect?

More?

I’d invite you to look back through the archives, since I’ve been ALMOST OK at updating the blog over much of the year. Admittedly, there are gaps, but feel free to make up interesting stuff and slot it in wherever you think appropriate. A couple of provisos: I haven’t yet pole danced and I infrequently get naked in public, so don’t go thinking anything too interesting.

Looking forward

I’m sure there will be many many updates during 2008. Maybe too many, maybe not enough. Certainly there will be some bits about cats. Roll on.

Mele Kalikimaka
Karen, Sam, Norgabee, Fizzgig & The alien frog gremlin thing