Journal Ethelred Unraed's Journal: A disastrous Christmas in the House of Unraed in the making? 15
Some of you may recall last year's nearly-disastrous Christmas in the House of Unraed.
This year's starting to shape up to be the same way.
First problem: Money. As in, out of it. As in, maxed out credit to nearly the limit, in spite of saving money where possible and not having bought more than a couple token presents for the kids, and having to pay a tax bill that's already overdue.
The reason: A few months ago (as you may recall) I had pretty much no work at all; for a month I had virtually no income to speak of. That hurt badly enough, being the lone breadwinner at the moment. So I hit the pavement and, thanks in part to networking (muchly the kindness of friends and strangers), plus dumb luck, I managed to scare up a number of new clients. All is peachy...except that I got too many new clients, and now have so many projects I don't know how I'm going to get them all done. Because each client is screaming "where's my project" and the phone's constantly ringing with irate or impatient clients, I've got lots of work and in theory lots of money coming in, except I can only get paid when the work is done...which of course none of it is, because I have too much to do.
So for a couple months we've only had a trickle of money coming in, and no big paychecks in sight until (as it looks now) January. BoE and I have joked we're going to have an Orthodox Christmas (as in, celebrate on January 6th).
My parents are in town, as they were last year, and they did offer to buy some stuff for the kids, but believe me, it's a shit feeling not being able to buy a Christmas present for your kid.
And because my brother and niece were pissed off because my parents were here two Christmases in a row, they're leaving early on the 21st. I could point out the 11 years in a row that my parents were there before that, but that would no doubt be unfair and partisan.
While they've been here over a week, and even though they're sleeping here, I've hardly seen them because I'm constantly working 12- to 18-hour days. While they have helped out BoE with the kids a lot and have bought groceries, they've not done any sightseeing or much else except chat with BoE and the kids. Some trip they're having. At least the grandkids are happy to see them.
Meanwhile, tomorrow is our parish's second annual Nine Lessons and Carols service. That is something of a special project of mine -- I suggested it last year and the parish agreed to do it, and I did most of the planning along with getting the food (English Christmas puddings and tea). As it happens, the Nine Lessons and Carols service last year was also where I got infected with that virus that damned near killed me and also really did a number on Gloriana.
This year I again planned the service, did all the promotion, managed to get a blurb in the paper about it, designed the program and had it printed, will sing bass in the choir. Our parish normally never has enough people for a choir -- but this year at the priest's insistence we managed a quartet. Then the bass singer got a slipped disc, so I jumped in to pinch hit (pinch sing?) -- but the existence of the choir shows how the parish is pulling out all the stops on top of what I'm doing.
So today I finally -- FINALLY -- got to go to the Christmas market in Hannover with my family. (The others all went once without me so I could work in quiet.) We ate some bratwurst and fries and I rode the carrousel with the kids, who were delighted to have Daddy with them, and we ate some Schmalzkuchen and enjoyed the evening.
On the way home, BoE mentions feeling funny. Must be the Schmalzkuchen. No worries.
Then I remember the headline in the paper about "Virulent stomach flu making the rounds".
Then once home, BoE starts puking her guts out.
Meanwhile Gloriana and the Confessor both have bronchitis and we had to take Gloriana to the ER with a 40-degree fever (that's 104 in real units); they gave us antibiotics and ibuprofen syrup, so she'll be OK, but still...the whole family's getting sick, just like last year.
And I feel rather queasy right now myself. So much for going to the service tomorrow, I guess.
Déjà vu all over again. *sigh*
I think the appropriate phrase is, "well, shit".
Of course, there are some hidden blessings in all of this. Seeing the Confessor get excited about Christmas is a great thrill -- he loves it when I sing Christmas carols to him, and he keeps surprising me with how much he remembers of Christmas from last year (in past weeks he's mentioned Santa, Christmas trees, wreaths and so on without prompting from me or BoE -- and no one else talks to them in English, so it's stunning to me that he remembers the words). Gloriana for the first time brought a book to me to read her, and it was 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, which my parents had dug out.
Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, and in spite of all the troubles, I'm extremely glad to have them. If there's one thing on this Earth that I love, aside from BoE of course, it's my kids.
So enjoy your Christmases, everyone. (Really.) And remember what really counts.
Schmalzkuchen? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not exactly. They are small yeasty cakes that are deep-fried, then covered in powdered sugar. (Deep fried in what is an open question, but AFAIK "Schmalz" is really any animal fat, not chicken fat -- in fact IIRC it's usually lard, i.e. pork fat.) Schmalzkuchen are standard fare in northern German Christmas markets and fairs. They're sort of like fresh donuts, only smaller (bite-sized) and crispier.
I managed to find a recipe and picture [www.vox.de] in German, if you're interested. This [wiedensahl.de] is what a typical Schmalzkuchen
Sorry to hear that... (Score:2)
Me, I'm so busy I don't know whether to you-know-what or go blind. I have three projects on the go, all of which have tight deadlines. I have something due tomorrow, something I have to start by at least tomorrow which is due 12 January, and a bunch of stuff that is going to carry on in fits and starts until probably February or March, and I also need to finish the streetcar project before Rust
Re: (Score:2)
I thought doing "you know what" too much made you go blind? Yeah that isn't what you meant, but it popped right to mind when I read that....
What is it about robohelp these days? I keep seeing ads for it, and I know nothing at all about it. I am getting so far behind these days
advice for next year (Score:2)
2) Stop agreeing to so much work, at least without having a calendar in front of you and blocking out hours right then to do it, just like a dentist blocks out fillings, etc. I know, you can't do that with the art part of things. But you can with the craft part, certainly. Ar
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
....and me! (Score:2)
I'm sure Bruce Willis in his Vest and other rubbish will be on TeeVee soon, I finish work tomorrow for a week and a bit and people will be visiting, so I can creep away into my special room and sit at my secret network of Leynix machines to take over the world...
So, I can do C, shell scripting, a PERL and assorted other stuff. I have been known to write Pascal, FORTH and 3 lines each of scheme and ruby.
If there's anything I can do... (I even know a little German).
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry and Merry (Score:2)
I thought (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
True. Very very true.
Hope you get Joe for some of Christmas, at least. Any hope of that?
Cheers,
Ethelred
Re: (Score:1)
hey (Score:1)
It wont be a disaster (Score:1)