Soon after I got home tonight, my mother called. I immediately suspected that something was wrong. Mom uses email to keep me updated on just about everything—she only uses phone calls when she's not comfortable conveying something through text.

Sure enough, something's up. My dad's last yearly physical turned up something abnormal, which further tests have indicated is an aortic aneurysm, size currently unknown. Judging from the fact that Russell (my family's doctor, and Mom's second cousin) has requested that Dad's tests be run as soon as possible, things point toward this aneurysm being something of a large one.

I was greatly amused by the proposed campaign stickers created [Modern Humorist. Good for those of you who have the "takes offense" toggle set to Off.

I'm probably going Christmas shopping tomorrow. Usual haunts in Birmingham: The Summit and the Galleria. Between those two I should find what I'm looking for. I'd love to hit up the smaller and more eclectic shops in B'ham, but to be honest I don't know where they are. A pity.

Other thoughts—I think that part of Mom's Christmas present may be a gift certificate to a store called "That Special Season"—it's a holiday store in her town that gets a lot of her holiday spending money every year. They have gorgeous ornaments, and the Snow Village stuff that she collects.

So much to remember…

I've been holding off on posting something until I had something interesting to post. I had something in mind, actually—at last, the drawing of what I'm wanting to do with the flowerbeds in my front yard. This is going to require a lot of work to make this happen, but I think this is an arrangement that I'm going to be happy with.

I've greatly enjoyed having fresh herbs growing out on the porch. As I've gone through the year I've found that some things grow well in the heat of Alabama and some just can't take the high temperatures. So I'm incorporating what I've learned into version 2.0 of the front yard.A lot of prep work has to take place before this can happen. First, we've got to rip out everything that's there now. Granted, this isn't a whole lot (thanks to the Laniers, who didn't feel like spending money on the flowerbeds). But there are a few large holly bushes that have got to be taken out, and this isn't going to be pleasant.

Looks like Christmas will be coming a little early for me this year.

Jeff told me a little while age that he finally found an ebay action for a laptop that would suit my needs. It's going to be my Christmas present. All he's asking that I do is start writing again.

Domesticat was my first attempt to get myself back in the habit of recording my thoughts. I wasn't looking to garner a "readership," nor was I looking to change the world. I was just trying to retrain my mind, to get it back into the habit of filing interesting thoughts under "something to write about"—and then actually doing so.I've always joked that the one thing I've always wanted to do in my life was to come up with the Great American Novel. I really don't have a job or a career that I've always wanted to work in; I've never had any lofty ambitions. I've just wanted to create something worth reading.

I've always wanted to walk into a bookstore and find something that I created.

Today's thoughts: I may be boring, but at least I can write semi-coherently. Can I claim to be the most interesting writer out on the planet? No, not hardly—but at least I've mastered the art of grammar, punctuation, and (when I double-check it) spelling.

There are some journals and diaries out there that make me cringe; sometimes it is very hard to look past the difficulty of reading the style to get to the meat of the content. I recognize that in good writing there is a certain amount of concentration involved, but I do not believe the difficulty level should be as high as it is on some sites.I bemoan the lost art of proofreading.

…southern home of urban sprawl, long commutes, and much Christmas shopping. The drive out here was a bit shorter than I thought it would be, which was a pleasant surprise. I'd have come out here more often in the past if I'd have known that it wasn't so terrible of a drive.

"Cats and Christmas trees don't mix well.. baubles are a constant fascination, designed, of course, for cats. The pine needles are perfect for scratching cat's backs as well (again by design, naturally) and the lower branches will thus be bare within a few hours ;-)"

I walk outside in sock feet and my toes get cold. Nice. It's gone from unseasonably warm to quite chilly. Today's high was around 46, and I have to wonder if that was one of those "daily high reached at midnight" temperatures. It certainly felt like it.

Had a frustrating realization today at about 4:30. I got an email from a client saying, "We're a bit disappointed—we asked you to design us a site with a look and feel similar to the Williams-Sonoma site, and this looks nothing like it."For the first time, though, she included the URL of the site. It took about ten seconds for me to figure out that there are two Williams-Sonoma sites—the kitchen store site and the corporate headquarters site. My design was based off of the store's site and theirs off of the corporate HQ site. Once that discrepancy was resolved, thigns were a lot more chipper over in the design department.

The Christmas tree stands in the far corner of my living room, rising silently above the round tree skirt my mother quilted for me. We placed the crystal ornaments one by one on the tree, moving them close to the white and blue lights, to allow the lights to shine through them as much as possible.

A compilation of a day's worth of entries:

1:48 p.m.:

While under the best of circumstances I could be considered a worrywart, I think I'm at least a bit entitled today. My father underwent surgery this morning to repair his aortic aneurysm. So far, I haven't heard anything from my mother. I'm going to assume that's good news, though in truth I really don't even know how long the surgery is supposed to take.The surgery is fairly serious stuff. From what I can gather, Dad's aneurysm is serious enough that a section of the artery has to be entirely replaced. (It can't be clamped off.) Mom reminded me that the surgeons will have to stop Dad's heart for the duration of time it takes to graft the replacement vessel into his aorta.

No matter how you look at it, that's just a little bit terrifying.

*yawn*

I had to take Jeff to the emergency room at 1:30 this morning. Kidney stones, yum.

We just got home. Nothing like spending 3.5 hours in the emergency room early on a Wednesday morning to make me all nice and cheery. I'm currently functioning on an hour of sleep. Jeff just took some painkillers and went to bed.

I'm thinking that I'll be working from home today. Ugh.

Well, it was bound to happen eventually, but I'm surprised that it took this long. I've been found.

Someone who knows me from back home sent me a "Who are you?" email to one of my domesticat addresses. It's a disturbing feeling to see a name in your inbox that you haven't thought about in years, and to realize that because of the privacy precautions you've taken, that they don't know who you are. Gotta love having a very common first name while not making your surname public. This person correctly recognized that if I grew up in the [very small] town that I claim I did, and attended the [very small] high school that I attended, that she must undoubtedly know me.

She is correct.

I answered the email; I wonder if I'll regret doing so. I think Jeff wishes that I hadn't replied; I've said some pretty personal stuff on domesticat about a lot of things going on in my life, and I think he's concerned that some people (read: my family) might be offended or hurt.

I've complained often in the past few months that my computer desk was not meeting my needs. Since I have bifocals, it helps my none-too-strong eyes to have my computer monitor correctly positioned. Having broken my right wrist twice, it's also in my best interest to keep the joint as relaxed as possible.

My old desk was like many things in this house—freely given to 'the newlyweds' to help them furnish their first apartment. Since I hate buying things on credit, I decided to wait until I could afford to buy the kind of desk I wanted, without having to put it on credit. A few weeks ago, I found the desk I had in mind. Small and compact, it is a corner desk with a raised platform for my 19" monitor and a keyboard platform that is at the right height for my wrists. Since it was one of those assemble-it-yourself numbers, I got it for right at $100.

Tonight's Bubonic Mouse™ award goes to Colortyme—and, by proxy, every other rent-to-own shop in northeast Alabama with nasty guilt-tripping ads.

The first thing I heard in my car this morning was a spiel about how you should placate your family this holiday season. For your wife, buy her a bedroom suite to keep her quiet. For your children, a Playstation 2 to stop their whining.

Then it finished with the following jingle:"It's not what you thought.