Second Christmas, reading, swimming and life in general

So I was trying to come up with a fun exciting blog topic that would paint a beautiful picture of my life, using over-extended metaphors, if possible.

I failed. So instead I'm going to take a leaf from the fabulously well-written Girl in the Afternoon, and use bullet points. Hopefully this will work like an impressionist painting and the different tidbits will come together to form a cohesive and moving whole.

... but if they don't, I have at least succeeded in overextending a metaphor! Success!

• Saturday we celebrated Second Christmas, with the mom's side of the family. Lots of fun, and lots and lots of food. We had foie gras, which apparently is the traditional starter for French Christmas dinner, and I ended up really liking it.
• - The second course was a roti of beef (no idea what the English translation of roti is, sorry) and it was pretty rare, although I did enjoy it. I confess, though, that my main thought when I saw it was an unfortunately appropriate Harry Potter quote, "Ze English overcook zer meat - I 'ave always said zis."
• - As wonderful as the food was, I was briefly (but legitimately) afraid that I was going to explode before dessert.
• - With the fois gras, we had a wine provided with the grandfather, who said it was from '83. At that point several people turned to me and the father said something like, "Isn't that before you were born?" Why yes, yes it is. But it was fabulous wine!

• Sunday 3 other au pairs and I went swimming at a pool in a nearby town. It ended up being a lot of fun. We swum around the adult pool some, went down the slide, and then hung out in the kiddy pool, which was shallower, but warmer. And hopefully I will not now get some horrible disease from being forced to go shoeless in the changing rooms.

• The Birmingham public library system now has books online, available for download. Not a huge selection, as yet, but I am already finding it makes me both very happy and even less productive than I was before. Alas for using my time wisely!

• I had a phone interview yesterday with what is currently my top choice for graduate school. Exciting but somewhat nerve-wracking, until they told me that they would have an acceptance decision for me by Friday - at which point it became just nerve-wracking.

• All of my children are healthly!! Excitement!!