A happy holiday, after all

I can't honestly say what was so wrong that first couple of days that my family was here, but suffice it to say I'm over it, I appreciate that I have so many people in my life who love me, and I am okay. Not great, not employed, not pregnant, but okay. It ended up being a really lovely Thanksgiving, with my mom, stepdad, dad, sis, brother-in-law, two nieces, mother and father in-law, and other brother-in-law present. The food was good, the company was good, and I finally was able to just relax a little bit. I was so worried about hosting my whole family that really lost perspective about the fact that my whole family was here!!! It was so wonderful to spend time with them, even though I never felt like there was enough time since I was busy finding extra towels, providing bandaids, showing my mom where to find various cooking utensils, giving directions to the local parks, etc. etc. Not that it was warm enough for local parks - we went from 25 degrees to a high in the upper 30s. Now it's back down to the 20s again.

My sis and her clan left on Saturday morning, and since then my stepdad and I have been installing our new wood dining room flooring! I am so excited about this giant project because I hated the fact that our dining room had carpet. It drove me crazy. So I am thrilled it's now gone, and the floor is 3/4 of the way finished! It's coming out fantastic, and it's pretty exciting that I'm, um, installing my own freakin' floor! Who'd have thunk it?

In my very little free time lately, I've also made some good headway on my novel. Which is fullfilling and exciting and wonderful, although still feels like a pipe dream 50% of the time. Could I be a novelist? It's kind of hard to believe that I actually could, and I figure maybe that's because I actually can't. Then again, someone very famous said 'If you bother to dream, dream big.' I try to remember that every time I start to rain on my own parade.

Hubs is swamped at work as usual, and I'm swamped at home. Hero is being really good! Today I couldn't believe how well behaved he was since I ignored him for about 12 hours straight while Jack and I were using power tools in the dining room. He wasn't perfect while we had a full house, but he didn't bite anyone under 3 feet tall. Which I count as complete success. He bit Hubs and I a couple of times, but we're still working on that...

I'm not sure if I have any other updates... The past week we've put up a new towel rack, fixed all our outside lights (which were on some annoying screwed up timer business and never came on when you wanted them to), and hung a new chandelier in our upstairs stairwell. I've been to Lowes, Home Depot, Menards. I'm seriously starting to get addicted to DIY stuff. A whole other side of me I never thought existed.

As sad as I'll be to see my parents leave this Thursday, I'm looking forward to spending this weekend watching Battlestar Galactica dvds with Hubs on the couch all weekend. And snuggling with Hero, who has become quite an affectionate pooch. But is not allowed on the couch, so maybe I'll watch the dvds on the floor. Regardless, lots of blankets and mugs of hot chocolate are necessary.