Christmas, Calories, Cameras, and Cinema

It's a Saturday night and I'm sitting in my husband's creaky, slowly disintegrating la-z-boy rocker watching the Empire Strikes Back on commercial TV though I have it on VHS tape (the original version, not the enhanced one). I've consumed a multitude of m&ms and a few pretzels and 2 or 3 glasses of milk. I did stop eating before 9 pm, it's my first attempt at getting back to more "normal" eating after the insanity of the holiday season.

Luna lays at my feet (under one in fact) while Rocket has retired to his twin mattress on the floor in the loft. I am using Hal's laptop which he inadvertently left at home when he left for his camp today. It's possible he left it on purpose as he has 4 new books to read, one of them by Neal Stephenson (Anathem) and rather large. I'm currently reading another of his books, The Diamond Age, a bit of cyber punk SF I'd say, very interesting.

I took the Christmas tree down a few days ago, I still have some odds and ends that need putting away as well. I do a little bit every day but I also have some housework to catch up on. Nothing like holiday chaos to slow one down.

I weighed myself on Wednesday, something I've been avoiding. I was pleased to find I'd only gained back 3 of the 6 pounds I had lost last fall. Perhaps trudging through the deep snow helped fight against the extra calories I've been consuming. I'm not going to lose them too quickly as long as I keep eating m&ms though.

I did have a wonderful time this Christmas. With my mom and younger sister here and 3 dogs, one of them being a puppy, there was plenty to do. The weather was messy so we didn't get out much, one day of shopping before Christmas and one day a few says later we went to Harmony Acres in Mikado. (The guys spent they're time hunting, we hardly saw them at all.)

Christmas dinner we had roast duck and chicken, baked potatoes, green beans, creamed corn (homemade by me and my MIL last summer), home baked bread, the ubiquitous Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce, gravy, an orange/raspberry sauce for the duck, and of course, a white wine. Or was it a pinot noir? I can't remember. My sister made chocolate cream pie for dessert. Oh, and there were cookies, too.

The photos I'll be posting from now on will be from my new camera DH gave me (with a little help from me, I did all the research and bought it so I got exactly what I wanted). It's a Panasonic Lumix LZ-8 and it's been fun learning how to use it. It has no viewfinder which is a minor disappointment, but the viewfinders on other cameras, the Canons for instance, are nearly impossible to see through anyway. Since I bought rechargeable NiMH batteries I also don't have to worry about ripping through AA batteries dozens at a time per month. My old Fuji used 4 AAs at a time instead of merely 2 and they weren't rechargeable but as I almost never used the the LCD screen (it has a decent viewfinder) they lasted a pretty long time. But after 5 or more years that camera became inadequate and a little less reliable (kayaking is not a good thing necessarily for electronics). There simply were too many negatives. I wanted an optical zoom, more manual control of things like shutter speed and aperture, things I used when I still used a film camera. It only had 1.3 mega pixels, 8 is much more impressive though I'm only using 5 of them regularly as 8 is overkill for what I do.

Star Wars #5 is almost over now, Han is a carbon cube and Luke is about to have a family reunion. I should wind this up so I can go to bed at midnight. I've got lots of things to do tomorrow.