This is the worst blog ever.

Holy cow! It has been a month since my last update. Boy, am I lazy!

Not surprisingly, I do have quite a bit to talk about so, in the interest of brevity, I will split them up over the next couple of days.

WORK

When I last left you, I found out that I got the job teaching conversational English to business people. On the 6th of January I went in to sign the work contract... and that is it. It turns out I don't start my training until February 11th. I was supposed to go in on the 12th of January for a meet-and-greet with the employees of the company, but that was postponed because the other new employee doesn't have her Carte de Sejour (residence card) yet, so she couldn't sign her contract. So, now I am waiting on that as well.

HOME

We are still working on getting settled in. There is still some furniture and light fixtures we need to pick up, as well as a washing machine, and some more kitchen cookware. Other than that, its pretty nice. We are getting a new (used) entertainment center from a friend and, once that arrives, the current wire-shelving entertainment center will move into the sejour (living room) to be used as a pantry and other storage. Wall decorations will go up once that is settled.

HOLIDAYS

The holidays were blessedly relaxed for us. We talked the talk about going somewhere for or after Christmas but, once it came down to it, we stayed home and relaxed. On Christmas day we went and saw Avatar in 3D. It is a fun movie, and visually stunning, but the plot is so cliche and generic, I can't understand how James Cameron actually thinks he has created a story for the ages. Oh well... Erika had problems with the 3D glasses fitting over her regular glasses, so it wasn't as cool for her. =(

For New Year's Eve we were invited by our friend Patricia to a small house party. We ate raclette and drank lots of wine. People danced. One guy drank so much that he passed out at around 1am, only to wake up refreshed and ready to go again at 3am, when everyone else was winding down. We got home around 4-4:30am, and the kids upstairs still had the music blaring for their party. We kindly asked them to turn it down, but when it was still going at 6:30am, I went up there, knocked on the door and, when one of the guys answered it, I walked right in and turned the sound off of his stereo. Ha!

On New Year's Day, we watched a downloaded copy of the Champs Sports Bowl (go BUCKY!) and Erika and I made a meal of fried scallops, sausages, and escargot. Oh, and we drank lots of mimosas.

Tomorrow's subject: FOOD!!!