good tidings to you

For Christmas, the hubby gave me a 12 bottle wine cooler. He was quite pleased with himself. I was pleased also, though it is not quite the version I had envisioned when originally planning to get one. Naturally, on the 26th I had a fun time stocking up on wine now that I had somewhere to put multiple bottles.

Let's see... I have 6 in the cooler and 1 open up in the kitchen (or 'chitchen' as Boo says). What do I have? I will happily show you.

Top row:
Lindemans Bin 50 Shiraz, 2008. Dad enjoyed something else, possibly the Merlot, so I decided to try this. Also Lucky Duck Malbec, 2008. This is from Argentina, however Cahors wines are pretty much Malbec so I'm taking a chance on this. (Keep reading for Cahors.)

Middle rows:
Chateau Greysac Medoc, 2005. I saw this on special in the grocery store and texted my dad "Where's Medoc?" He replied it was "north of Bordeaux, try it you'll like it". So I got it. On the right is my ever faithful ever present Little Penguin Shiraz. I love this stuff. Their Merlot is very good too.

Bottom row: the good stuff
Cahors wines!! YUM! On the left is Chateau Grezels Prestige, 2004. I have a special place in my heart for Cahors wines and Grezels in particular. My aunt lives in Cahors. I've been there. Even better, my aunt is friends with the couple who own Chateau Grezels. I've been there. Dad and I were sent home with a case of their wine when we visited in 2003. The bottle on the right is something dad picked up in a Paris store during one of his visits a couple years ago. I consider Cahors wines my 'special occasion' stuff. (French geography lesson: Cahors is in south-western France on the Lot river, about an hour (40miles) north of Toulouse. From there you can easily drive to visit Toulouse, Rocamadour, Pech Merle, and other lovely places.)

In the kitchen:
Coppola's Syrah-Shiraz. I admit, I bought this for the novelty of who makes it. But this is GOOD. Really really GOOD. Typically a bottle of this lasts me 2 days. I've stretched this one, I've drunk from it 2 days and I have a small glass worth left.

And, for the evenings when wine just doesn't go well with dinner (like taco night), there is always always this in the fridge:

photo borrowed from here

Because you can take the man out of Texas but by golly, you better be able to get him his beer.

power issues

The streetlights in front of our house (and in the whole back section of our neighborhood) came on for the first time Friday night. They came on Saturday night at dusk, but around midnight they were off. In fact, all the streetlights in the whole place went off. They've stayed off since.
Hubby reported our power blinked 3 times Sunday while I was at work. I staggered downstairs a few minutes late this morning, calculating quite how long I could nurse my cup of coffee before leaving the house, and stared blankly at the coffeemaker blinking "12:00" at me. No coffee. That's not good.
I quickly set the clock(s) in the kitchen and hit Brew Now, but it's not the same. I feel rushed. I like to savor the morning coffee.
And to just top off this morning, my boss is gone. Starting his new position in Dallas.
Blah.

I think that went well...

It's nice to be home.
I spent the day in Chicago O'Hare- fly in, wander for a half hour, have an interview for the Supervisor position at home, wander for another couple hours, fly home.
I don't like doing interviews. I don't like selling myself, I prefer to let my actions speak for me. This wasn't so bad, the hiring manager has known me since I started with the company almost 9 years ago, and she knows I know my stuff. The issue is can I control my mouth (I didn't, until a few years ago). The other manager she had sitting in was a maintenance supervisor, who had no idea who I was at all. That was almost a good thing. I think I gave good answers to the questions, as odd as they were. (Personal favorite: What level supervision are you comfortable working with? which at first I thought meant how close did I want someone looking over my shoulder, but turned out they meant am I comfortable working with base managers, regional managers, VPs, etc. Since the 'Managing Director of NorthEast Maintenance' is based in Columbus, and he & I get along fine, I said I'm good with most anybody, though the CEO is still a little intimidating.)(actually, his position and title are intimidating. The actual man doesn't impress me at all.)
There was one other interview today, and there are 5 tomorrow, and that's all. Our current supervisor's last day is Friday, then Monday he starts his new position in Dallas. The hiring manager hopes to select somebody and get them in right away, which in our company's timeline is about a month.
The flight home was fun, I was sitting next to a pilot who was picking up a plane in Columbus and taking it to Nashville. He and I spent a while discussing why on earth a plane would go from CMH to BNA, finally settled on something must be broken in Nashville and they need to cover a flight. Then he and I traded company gossip, because different departments hear different things. Then we just bullshitted for a while. On approach, we peered out the window looking for Les Wexner's house. Wexner owns the Limited Corp (Limited, Express, Bath & Body Works, etc). Seems every plane coming into Columbus has to do this huuuuge circle to avoid New Albany for noise issues, and flight crews have heard it's so Wexner doesn't have to hear airplanes. I can find the house (the driveway is all you can see) from the road, but we were too far south to see it from the air. I did see my house!

back to the routine

Gymnastics started back up today. We switched to the class just before the one we had been in (11:15 vs noon) so that Munchkin could be in the experienced 3-4 instead of new 3-4.
There's alot more kids now.
Last session, it was Munchkin & 1 other girl, and just Boo in the parent-tot class. Now, there are 4 parent-tot sets, while Munchkin still only has 1 kid with her (a boy, this time). I heard the coaches saying there were supposed to be 3 kids in the 3-4, no idea where the third one was.
Boo doesn't like crowds much. Or loud children running around (though she & Munchkin do it often enough). So she was a bit shy, but still did some great forward rolls. She did good on the balance beam too. I got to sneak some glances at Munchkin, and she was doing great on her stuff.
After gymnastics we went to Target for some supplies. I only spent $37!!! Woohoo!! $20 of that was a box of pull-ups, so I think I did good. When we came out of Target, the snow had started. Holy crap did it snow. We got 3-4 inches today, from 12:30ish through 5pm. It's still snowing now, though not as aggressively. Hubby had local news on when he got up, the weatherman announced this was our 12th consecutive day of snow.
I like snow, but enough already.

20010

Sorry, that was the subject on a mass email at work and it made me laugh.
It continues to snow, and be kinda cold. That's not much fun. I suspect there is ice under the snow on the streets, which means when I give in and take the dog out it will require much effort to not fall down. This will be a slightly different type of not fall down effort than last night, which was caused by one big glass of wine. Wine made from Concord grapes. I'll not be buying it again. My brain had a hard time with tasting grape juice & getting sloshed at the same time. Kinda like I used to be with all yogurt (now I can eat the whipped ones or the mix-stuff-in ones). There's sweet taste but a something underneath that just isn't right.

My father (who eventually made it home to his place in Texas late Monday night)(yea, only 4 days after he left France) texted at 12:42 talking about how he'd been playing Wii at his friend's place. Glad someone was having fun. I drank, and I read more of Under the Dome (that there new Stephen King book). Yee haw. Such an exciting life I lead. And I am so just rambling right now, aren't I? I should stop. Munchkin (with her hair cut!!! It's a little past her shoulders now) has claimed my recliner again, but has not turned on the massaging stuff yet. Oh, she's drawing patterns in the plush with her toes.
sigh. Happy New Year to all.

Merry Christmas!

Whee.... hubby & I were up until about 1am, him building gifts from Santa and me filling stocking and wrapping smaller Santa gifts.
My father spent the past 9 days in Paris (just as a way to burn up his vacation time from work), as he flies standby on my benefits he somehow got bumped off the direct to Dallas flight and wound up in Chicago last night. Then he got stuck. After an hour or so, as the snow came down like mad in Texas, we figured out there was no way he was getting home. So he talked to a nice gate agent and got put on the standby list to come here. He spent the night at some nice hotel in Chicago (on a distressed passenger rate), and is back at the airport this morning. The last agent he dealt with last night said it didn't look good for getting to Columbus, but Ohio looked better than getting to Dallas. So he's already on his second gate to try and get here. Supposedly his luggage went to Texas last night and will get sent up here this morning. I have my doubts on that, but we'll hope for the best.
Hubby & I got up around 7am, he got the girls up at 8. They had a blast. Everything from us & Santa was opened within an hour. There's a few gifts under the tree still, those will be going to my mom's house in a couple hours for the larger family event. (Not much larger, just adds mom, stepdad, aunt, and will possibly be crashed by an old family friend.)
Hope everyone has a wonder-filled day. Look through the eyes of a child if you need to. It's there.

we're back

It's nice to be home... where the weather station thingy on the desktop says 36, "Not As Cold".
Actually, that was yesterday. Today it's 35, cloudy with a bit of rain. I heard rain at some point early this morning, it's still raining now so I'm trying to convince the dog he doesn't really need to go out right now.
We made it to the grocery store, restocked all our staples that had expired while we were gone, and I made it through 5 or 6 loads of laundry. Everything but the towels. Yay me. Still need to figure out dinners for the week... ick.
My mom stopped by yesterday, gave back our garage door opener and chatted with the girls because they just had to show her their new toys and dvds. She said our dog was very well behaved and walking him all week wasn't bad, there was only 1 day that was icy but that darn portapotty across the street from our house blew over twice. I can't wait for that darn thing to go away, but if they intend to leave it until all construction is done it'll be here a while.