cww.blog!

Katy and I had an absolutely fantastic time in Massachusetts and Maine last week. It was wonderful to visit with my aunt and uncle there, and skiing, relaxing, eating, drinking, listening to books on tape, watching movies, playing in the snow, and solving big jigsaw puzzles were a perfect way to end a stressful few months of school. Every member of my family that has met Katy is completely in love with her, and while I can't blame them and it is certainly deserved, I wasn't really expecting such total adoration. It's a beautiful thing. :)

We're in the suburbs of Houston now, where there is no snow and the temperatures have been in the 70s. Gross. But, our parents and siblings are here, so here we also are, doing the Christmas thing with family.

Christmas went well all around, and I received probably more gifts than ever before (with more on the way), which was quite ridiculous but also pretty neat. Some highlights so far are an automatic meat grinder with which I will make a wide variety of pleasing ground meats and sausages, four Wüsthof Classic steak knives to complement my Wüsthof Classic cutlery, a powerful and portable vacuum cleaner with the assumed specific intent of easily extracting Dorian hair from my rugs, an item of undisclosed description from Tiffany & Co., and a number of sweaters from J. Crew. Also, my uncle John and I received, from my parents, several books and software packages for learning the Japanese language, which will be useful for preparing for our trip to Japan. Like I said, quite ridiculous.

I'll be spending tomorrow (today, rather, after I wake up again) afternoon in Kingwood with Katy and her family. I hope they're as receptive to my existence as my family is to hers. Katy says I was pretty mean to everyone nine or ten years ago, and I hope they don't hold some sort of collective grudge against me. So, I'm nervous, and I'm probably not going to want to spend lots of time there because I'm going to be stressed out. Sigh. I'll get over it eventually.

I can't wait to be back in a place where snow covers the ground, but I'm glad I'm spending time with some of my most important people this week.