winterbadger | in other news...

soccer_fox and I are not refereeing this weekend, as there were not enough slots for all the officials wanting games! Good for CCSL, and it gives us some free time.

Instead we are combining with

redactrice and

shy_kat for one last flea market sales appearance, then plan on spending the rest of the day playing games, watching our friend Ethan play soccer, and generally relaxing. Sunday she has a ton of homework to do and I need to do more of my "never actually get around to doing" chores, like sending of a list of games for sale to a wholesaler, getting ready to host a wargame next weekend, seeing if there is maybe one more shelf's worth of books I can purge so as to make everything fit (briefly) and cleaning up my desk. She continues to rack up "A"s for her first term grades. :-)

We have a few more wedding-related things to plan/organise/acquire. Most of all, we need to settle details of the ceremony, get visas, and get RINGS! And finish our plans for the honeymoon...

I took my car back to the nice guy near us who replaced the oxygen sensor for me so as to get him to see if he could fix the awful noise it's been making. When I went back to pick it up today, he explained that as far as they could tell, the noise comes from the plastic shell over the front bumper being loose. There's really no way to fix it without replacing the whole thing, so he charged me nothing for the diagnosis.

I managed to forget my sister's birthday AGAIN (how can you forget Hallowe'en?) so I better see to a card and a nice pressie. Work is slowing down a bit (and we may all get moved to a new team sometime after the new year), but I'm about to start another class, so that should keep me busy! Plus I have signed on with a new history and gaming website to write some articles for them. No fee promised, but the pleasure of getting published will be something.

I had a very nice time last weekend; I got together with

john_arundel, his son Ethan, and

gr_c17 to play 40K. I managed to beat Ethan and his Dad and their Space Marines--very narrowly!--with my Eldar, but when I took on them *and* Bryan and his Sisters of Battle with my Tyranids, they ravaged me.

soccer_fox and

ethanninis_mom arrived later and hung out talking about kids and scrapbooking and other stuff and took E. and his sister to a local haunted house. Sunday

soccer_fox and I did the soccer thing in the morning (she played one game, while I ARed two games), then we came home, canoodled, and hung out doing various stuff until it was time to make dinner.

We've started going for a walk together for half an hour or so in the morning, and I'm really enjoying it. It gives us time to talk and connect away from all the distractions of home, cats, school, job... I love talking to her, and listening to her talk (she's recently discovered the theory that some people learn by talking--that is, absorb ideas and explore and truly grasp them by talking about them and reiterating them--and I agree that the description fits her to a T). She can be serious, or silly, or a mixture of the two, but she's almost always fascinating in what she finds to discuss and the perspectives she brings to the discussions. My world is a lot richer for her presence.

In fact, I enjoy her company so much that I can barely remember what life was like before she was a part of my world. We have our ups and downs, but I love her so completely and find her such a wonderful person to live with that it seems odd to think we only started dating a little over eight months ago. I am so glad to be marrying her!