I hope you all did enjoy the card. If you missed it then scroll down to the previous entry and collect!

I overslept today. At least it wasn’t a case of “oh I can’t get out of bed because the world is horrible”. It was more a case of “I’ll just turn over and sleep for 3 minutes longer” and then waking up 3 hours later instead. Whoops. Not too smart, but it didn’t get me depressed either so that’s good. Hopefully it won’t ruin my sleep tonight.

I had been planning to go to the playground today and drop off the pictures for them. You’ll remember that they asked me for a new set of pictures for their walls, and that I wasn’t too happy with the quality of the prints I made. So I ordered prints from a photo-shop. Got them a couple of days ago and much to my pleasure I found them to be of higher quality generally, and also bigger size. So that’s good. It wasn’t a waste of money after all. Although the time, ink and photopaper I spent on my own prints was a waste. But ah, it’s not like they are competely horrible, my own prints. I’m thinking next year, when I send out proper christmas cards again, maybe I’ll bung some of those photos in with the cards. Then you guys can get your very own printed Plume pictures. Falalalala-lala.

Anyway, back to the story of today. Since I got up fairly late I decided not to go to the playground after all. Postponed it. I sat tiredly in my comfy chair to watch a movie. I always get MORE tired when I sleep TOO LONG. Go figure. When the movie was almost over, my phone rang. It was Alice from the playground. She had a work schedule timecard thingiemagic that I had to sign, but she wasn’t sure how to get it done because now they were closing for christmas and so on. I said “why don’t I just come around now and sign it”. And so I ended up going to the playground after all. True story.

At the playground I was greeted by a couple of the kids inside. They called out my name too. I felt like Norm in Cheers. Pluuuume. No beers for me, though. I signed the slip and brought out the pictures. It was really nice, being there while Alice and a couple of the kids looked through the pics. Shermin was one of the kids. She’s great, it’s been a while since I’ve seen her. She’s featured on a couple of the pictures too, which naturally provoked some funny reactions. The biggest squeees where given to this picture though. Not surprisingly. What a beautiful lamb he was. And if you want to see the entire collection again then here it is.

But that was really nice. Oh and Per wasn’t there. He had gotten the day off. Because he just learned that he’s going to be a father! How sweet. I know I have gone on about how nice Kurt is, but it should be known that Per is a swell guy too. Always friendly and helpful and so on. I’m sure he’ll be a good daddy.

After the picture sharing fun, I went outside and headed towards the calling baahs from the goat pen. Where four goats anxiously awaited me. I’m sure they were puzzled about why I went in and spent time with the HUMANS instead of with them. I made up for it with lots of cuddles and scratches.

I’m glad I ended up going, it was a good time. I believe Alice even used the word “genious” about my photography. Now my ego is not so inflated that I actually consider that appropriate and true. But it’s still great to feel that they appreciate it so much. That I can do something nice for the place that has done so much nice for me and my life.

Yesterday I went out with my visitations guy. After missing Monday. We went to Bazar Vest, the big multi-ethnic shopping place. It’s got a big vegetable market and lots of small stores and eateries and things. We sat down in an Arabic place and had some grilled stuff. It was a little on the spicy side for me, but it was okay. And interesting to do. I rarely eat out. Very rarely.

It looks like I’ll be getting a new visitation person though. They’re “re-shuffling” the organization. Or something. He said that he was going to be moved to another place. So we’ll have to find out if someone else is going to take my case or if I need a new one at all. He said that if I got a new one it would probably be a woman. That’ll inspire some anxiety oh yes. But we’ll see. He said he’d keep my case until I’ve met with the volunteer program in January, because he’s a personal friend of the volunteer boss.

We’ll see what happens. Right now I don’t want to think too much about things. It’s the holidays. Monday is christmas, as per our traditions. I’ll be feasting with my parents and my brother and my dad’s brother who is spending christmas here. That should all be very nice. I have all my christmas shopping done, some of it by proxy. Although I do need to find something for the goats too. I’m thinking maybe something in the nuts & raisins category… That would probably go over well.

Happy weekend ya’lls. Get gearing up for christmas.

So, I have been talking about a christmas surprise for you guys. And it is done now. Don’t get all excited, it’s nothing amazing. Just a little multimedia christmas card.

The last couple of years I have sent out homemade papercards. But this year I don’t happen to be working in an office with DTP equipment and semi-professional printers anymore. Plus, my economy is a little unsure until I know if I get my retirement or not, so paying for cardboard and postage and everything didn’t seem like quite as good an idea, what with me being Scrooge and all. And finally I wasn’t sure how popular those cards happened to be in the first place. Personally I love the idea of making them from scratch and putting the animals in them and everything. I was kind of imagining people collecting them and getting together in 20 years and going “oh you have the 2009 one, that’s rare! And look at the 2013, how funny it is!”. But I have a feeling that they probably end up in the bin when all is said and done. But anyway. Next year I’m pretty sure I’ll go back to sending out old-fashioned cards. This year? Multimedia.

Here you go, from Plume with love:

Go on, open it! I hope youle like it!

It didn’t turn out completely perfect. I ran low on time. And it’s hard to get goats to do what you want! I’m not sure I got the card/background itself to work perfectly either. It works on my machine, but with different browsers and window sizes it might get messed up. If it looks odd, try maximising the window. But anyway, the video is the important thing. I recommend downloading the hiquality version to properly enjoy it.

Merry christmas everybuddies!