Keeping up

Hey. This is an experiment for how to keep in touch with friends and family. It's an open letter, really, but not open to the Internet, just people I already know.

This weekend I went to Adleen's housewarming party on Friday night. Adleen is a friend from grad school, in the comp lit program, and she came to our wedding. She's got lots of friends in medieval studies and in English so although when I arrived I didn't know a lot of the people there (!) but by the time I left, many more people I knew had arrived. It was a big raucous party and got quite loud by the end of it. Ed (because he is sweet and lovely) picked me up and took me home. I ended up staying up till about 3am, so I was tired Saturday.

On Saturday we went to dim sum with Ed's parents who are leaving for Hong Kong on Tuesday. Afterward we went to Michael's craft store so I could get something from my Christmas present (yes, it's now January 9). Originally the gift was going to be a Epic 6 machine which retails at about $80 (see below). The idea behind it is to cut and emboss paper shapes, which is cool for cardmaking, which I've decided I want to do. The thing is we can't find this product online or anywhere in stock really. Michael's had something similar called a Big Shot but it doesn't come with any dies (templates) so I was torn... but in the end didn't get it. I got some rubber stamps with spring-y images, though, which are pretty cool !

We had dinner at Insomnia with Belinda and Nate and [flowergirl] Ariel and Benjamin. They'd had a long day but Ariel managed to keep it together most of the time. The one exception was when they tried to take a lollipop away from her and she screamed "I just wanted to hold it! I just wanted to hold it!..." The parents did a kind of tag team approach where her dad suggested she ask mom nicely whether she could *hold* the lollipop... and mom graciously said yes. After Ariel had calmed down a bit she came and sat on my lap and looked at wedding pictures, some of which were of her. I bet she slept well that night!

Afterward I went swimming and to the sauna/whirlpool downstairs on Saturday. I thought it might be busy but actually I had the pools to myself as usual. All friends are welcome! I can have two guests at a time. I keep thinking how nice it would be for someone else as well !