Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
holidays

holidaze

As is customary, I hosted Christmas Eve dinner. Only my parents and Jake were in attendance. Amelia had a family thing going on and my brother had to work. So, it was a quiet evening. My mom did Christmas Day, so I got to see my brother and his family (including in-laws) then.

Jake is in for a month (!) and my mom wanted to have him and Amelia over for dinner, so we did that yesterday afternoon. I guess that concludes the holidays as I don’t usually do anything for New Year’s (besides cook pork and sauerkraut on January 1).

For years, I’ve been wanting to do a holiday shutdown at the office. The way the holidays fell this year made that pretty convenient. We were already scheduled to be closed Monday and Tuesday, so we closed the office for the rest of the week (with the stipulation that everyone needed to check in with their email a couple times a day on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in case any emergencies cropped up). So far, so good. This is usually a pretty quiet week. I’m not sure we will do this again next year, but maybe?

tv

the patient

This was a decent limited series, starring Steve Carrell. In it, he played a therapist who was abducted by his patient (who happened to be a serial killer). I felt the first half of the series was a bit more engaging than the second–things started dragging a little by the end.

My rating 3.5/5

movies

barbie

A comedy with some social commentary. Who wouldn’t like that? Plenty of people, I suppose, but I was entertained.

When I first heard of this movie, it did not sound all that appealing, but once I learned more about it, I definitely wanted to see it. So, thanks to Max, I was finally able to watch it last night.

The fact that Netflix discontinued their DVD service has really limited my movie-watching experience. You could rent virtually any movie from the DVD service. There are a bunch of movies I want to see, but none of them are on any of the services I subscribe to (Netflix, Max, Hulu). I guess I will to have to give VUDU a try and start renting individual movies.

My rating: 3.5/5

live entertainment

jasmine cain

I saw Jasmine Cain once or twice at Thunder and thought she was great. She comes to Johnstown every year for Thunder and a couple solo shows, but I did not get to see her again until last night. I saw that she was playing a “Christmas show” at the Columba Theatre, so I bought a ticket. What a great show it was! It was just her playing acoustic guitar, mandolin, and keyboards (not at the same time). I wasn’t sure what kind of music she was going to be playing, but it was mostly pop and rock songs and some originals, though she did play a couple Christmas ones by request. The 2.5+ hours she played gave her plenty of time to explore all genres. By the end of the night, things turned metal (which is the genre she plays with her band), with songs from Skid Row, Rob Zombie, Drowning Pool, and Audioslave. Those were my favorites. It was a great show and definitely worth the $15 admission. They should charge more next time!

do-it-yourself

paint

Painting: it’s the story of my life. I’m painting my bedroom and office (aka, the other bedroom) this winter, so I got started with the ceilings today. There’s no less satisfying project you can do than paint a ceiling. It looks the same now as it did before. But, I guess it had to be done. The walls will be more interesting as I’m going with an actual color this time, charcoal blue. Normally I would wait until after the holidays to paint, but Jake’s going to be in for a couple weeks over Christmas so I figure I can recruit him to help me move the furniture.