C’est doré

In the interest of furthering my goals without spending any money, I’ve signed up at for a French course at http://www.livemocha.com.  I found it after a favorite of mine mentioned it among her New Year’s resolutions.  It’s a great site, and much better than the language books and CD’s one finds at the bookstore.  Although I have a few of those, this is the only thing that’s lasted more than a day. For now I’m getting my feet wet in the French waters.  I haven’t taken it since 8th grade, and I’m more than a little rusty.  Though thankfully I’ve been blessed with a good ear for accents.  In another life I might have considered acting, as I’m a pretty natural mimic.  Unfortunately, I’m also self-conscious and shy, so my life has not been devoted to the stage, though I have been in a couple plays.  At any rate, I’ve always been told that my accents are good, so I have no reason to think that any of them may have deteriorated beyond repair in the lapse of a few years.

I’ve also been trying to be more grateful.  That’s Goal #67… Write down one thing I’m grateful for each day for a month… or in this case, the equivalent of a month.  See, the thing about these sorts of goals is that when you say I’m going to do such and such for one month, two weeks, etc, you lose sight of the fact that you can begin that period of time whenever you want.  Time is arbitrary, after all.  So my month of gratitude began on January 3rd. Sue me.  It’ll end on February 3rd, so no harm, no foul.

I’ve generally had a very productive sort of day.  I did the laundry and got rid of the Christmas tree.  It’s a day early, but I was in a take charge, clean up the house sort of mood.  And even more importantly, I vacuumed and swept up all the pine needles.  Well… not all, but I got most of them.  The others are worked into the carpet and it’ll probably take another couple rounds with the vacuum to get them all up.  But it is a good start, and as Mary Poppins would say "Well begun is half done."

Alan has tomorrow off and he and Louis are going skiing up at Southington.  Part of me wants to go along, just for the ride.  Maybe I will, since I have nothing pressing that I need to accomplish.  I’ll take a book or two and stay cozy in the lodge, surrounded by the strange aroma of snow, plastic, and wet clothes that is so unique to ski areas.  I always liked Southington anyway.  Fond memories and all that.  Warren Miller (he makes ski movies) says that everyone remembers their first day on skis.  I don’t.  I was too young.  But it happened at Southington.

And speaking of Louis, I must say that if you ever have the chance to try homemade Portuguese wine by your hometown Portuguese friends, enjoy it.  I’m not a big fan of wine, but the stuff he gave us was seriously excellent.  So red it’s almost black with a tangy bite that’s more the fizz of fruit than the standard vinegar/alcohol sharpness.  Very good… and quite strong.  Apparently every year Louis’s family makes two barrels of the stuff: one strong, one not so much.  He gave us a jug of the strong stuff, and we tried it last night with dinner.  Okay, so red wine isn’t normally served with Chicken Francaise, but I don’t like white wine anyway, so who cares.

Hope my favorites are enjoying my story… haven’t seen any notes on it yet… ::cough cough:: ::nudge nudge:: But I hope some will be forthcoming.  I’ll post more photos from the wedding soon, perhaps later tonight.  For now I must succumb to feline will and make with the supper.

~Liz

P.S. Is anyone else really looking forward to what the new OD is going to look like? Or am I just a dork who’s been on this site for too long?