catching up

Still working on the last week's worth of activities. I had to work on Wednesday, and Alfred stayed home to unpack and take care of some laundry and other chores. When I got home, I was greeted by a new little friend: Mr. Squeakerson. He's a squirrel. Alfred caught him when he ran into the garage earlier in the afternoon. He lived in a laundry basket over night. He was really cute. After some internet research though, we decided he was better off out in the wilderness, so we let him go Thursday morning.

We both worked on Thursday, then went out for a lovely sushi dinner for New Year's Eve. Just the two of us. Aw, romantic. Actually we stuffed ourselves so much I kind of wanted to puke. Then we went over to Ilya to Mercedes' house for New Year's Eve. We ate some more, drank, exchanged gifts, and generally had a rip-roaring good time. We even made it past 1:00! Well, I fell asleep on the couch for a few minutes, but other than that we did well. We made a huge delicious breakfast this morning, too. God, this blog is all about food. Well, you've all met me. Shouldn't be too surprising.

On New Year's Day we hung out with Alfred's family and celebrated Christmas with them. Again, lots of awesome food, nice gifts, the works. We also helped Emily with a project for her dorm (she's an R.A.) It was fun spreading out Christmas this year, it made the holidays last much longer. Then we made some soup to continue our long-standing New Year's Day tradition. This year we tried some dessert fruit soups: strawberry kiwi and blueberry peach. Interesting idea, but they left something to be desired. Too bad.

back in the dirty south

Ah, the warm, non-snowy, dirty south. Actually right now it's much cleaner than the north with all its salt and crap all over the roads. Alfred's car needed a bath when we got back, it was pretty disgusting. We got back Tuesday night just before midnight, it took us exactly 18 hours. That included stops for gas/food/restrooms, traffic in Charlotte and Jacksonville, an attempted beer run at 5:45am, and horrible weather in Pennsylvania. That's what this picture is from. This was a major highway, it hadn't been plowed at all so we couldn't see the road, and snow was blowing everywhere. Traffic was going about 30 mph. It was ridiculous.

Our trip was nice, except for the 3 cats that now live in my parents' house. Our allergies just love going there more and more every year. The new cat is cute, my nose and lungs just hate it. We saw lots of family, got some great gifts (including a bound book of our road trip blog, which includes all of our posts, pictures, and comments, it's really nice.) Most importantly, we played the new Mario Brothers game for the Wii. Alfred, Katie and I were the main players, though Dad and Uncle Ken helped out at times as well. We basically played for 4 days straight. And we beat the game! It was awesome. It's fun to play because when you play with multiple players you're all on the screen at once, so you can be nice and use teamwork or shove each other into pits and stuff. We also ate a lot of food. Like, a lot of food. But what else is new.

colin farrell just made fun of Florida

I am proud to announce that our Christmas tree is still up. Yes, we've scraped by for another week. We did take down a few lights (only so we could return them, though), and I took down all of the other decorations around the house. I haven't put any of them away, of course. They're all sitting on the table in the kitchen. It's just too sad to take it all down at once. Plus I think we're going to need another Christmas box to store it all and I just don't feel inspired to find one and pack everything up. I was riding a wave of productivity when I took everything down, and once that left me, that was it.

Our Sunday was rather productive overall. I packaged up a couple of boxes to mail to Katie, we made a bunch of food to get me through the week, (Alfred's taking a real estate class and is spending several nights this week at his parents' house) oh and we had a freaking awesome dinner. We grilled a couple of steaks, cooked some swiss chard with parmesan cheese, and made some cranberry chutney to go along with it. Oh lordy, was it good. I could eat that chutney plain. Actually I could, we have a little left over. But anyway, it was good.

Right now I'm watching the Golden Globes from last night. This Steven Spielberg thing is awfully long. I just went upstairs to turn on Alfred's computer and came back down and he's still droning on. I mean, he's made some good movies and all, but come on. Hell, most of this post was written during this section. I really need to watch Slumdog Millionaire. Ok, it's over. And so's this!

last Christmas post

After all, it's New Years Eve! Today's also Jeff's (Lindsay's husband) birthday. He's pretty old, I think 32 maybe. Happy birthday! Anyway, it's about time I stopped writing about Christmas. I left work early today, partially to finish cleaning and getting ready for tonight, but mostly just because I wanted to. I'm also taking tomorrow off, but have to go back Friday. I was expecting the other girl to be back at work today, but she called this morning and asked if it was ok if she took a couple extra days off because she and her fiance just broke up. I said sure. Anyway, Mercedes and Ilya are coming over tonight, we're going to have some good food, a bunch of alcohol, and a bonfire. Then we're making french onion soup for tomorrow, using our beef bones to make the stock. I'm excited.

Back to Christmas. I never got my mom's pictures before they left, which sucks, because I didn't take any pictures on Christmas Eve and I know there were a few good ones. Mom, please email me those. Or send a cd or something. Anyway, here's a good one of the cookies that Katie decorated:

I like this one, it's how we spent several evenings: in front of a bonfire.

Christmas night, Maureene made lumpia, which were like eggrolls, using the leftover pork from dinner. She had a bit of help rolling them, while everyone else was in the picture above.

Then she fried them the next morning, and we had a delicious breakfast. We took the rest with us shooting and had a delicious lunch as well.

I wanted to post a video of us shooting, but I can't seem to get them to work on my computer, so I can't find a good one. So instead here's a picture of my dad, covered in cabbages:

And that's all I have the patience for. Have a happy new year!

guns and fire

Now for the less civilized side of Christmas: shooting things and burning things! We all went out shooting the day after Christmas, there was a total of 9 people, 7 guns, 2 boxes of skeet, and 20 cabbages. We also brought some wood and targets, set it all up and went to town.

After awhile, we started getting lazy.

And totally gangster.

Then we had our last hurrah, all 7 guns going at once. It was bad ass.

We had fires on a couple of nights. Mike showed off his fire building skills.

And of course we were drinking, so of course we started fire surfing.



Then Alfred decided he would try and lie down on the fire. It didn't go so well.

Luckily he didn't get hurt, although he was disappointed.

good clean Christmas fun

First things first: a Christmas day post! We started out nice and early (well, most of us did, anyway) to get cracking on some food. I also made some cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which we had with mimosas. Then we hit the presents! I played Santa, but look too hideous in all the pictures to post them. We made a mess. We were careful to cover as much of the floor as possible.

Some Wii was played, since Katie had just received Mario Kart. Then we had to get started on the hard core cooking. Here's Alfred working on the chicken. The smoker with the pork shoulders is in the background.

We also had macaroni and cheese, baked beans, buttermilk biscuits, turnip and mustard greens, and cole slaw. All from scratch, of course. With apple pie, cookies, and chocolate birthday cake for dessert. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

While we were working on food, everyone else took part in a gingerbread house competition. I made it extra challenging by making the gingerbread pieces while drunk, so they didn't quite fit together. Surprise! But that made it fun. I think.

Ilya and Mercedes won for most decorated house (unfortunately all the M&M's caved one side of the roof in at first, but they rebuilt):


My parents and Katie won for most creative use of materials (theirs collapsed, so they remade it as a FEMA shelter after a hurricane):


Max, Robyn, and Ellery won for best plan (they cut their pieces to fit together better before construction):


And Mike and Maureene won for best overall. Theirs didn't collapse at all, even though they did use a few toothpicks to help it stay together until all the frosting dried. They also did a lot of decoration. Check out their gingerbread people in the second picture:



Then we ate, opened more presents, and sang to Emily. Then we drank again. All in all, a pretty great Christmas.

so quiet

There's no bonfire going. No one's playing the Wii. I'm sober. All of these facts add up to one thing: everyone's gone. Maureene left on Friday, Mike left Saturday, and Katie and my parents left this morning. It's all quiet and kind of lonely now. Plus we went to the gym today and I've only had a couple of cookies tonight, we've got lots of laundry to fold, and I have to go back to work tomorrow. What a depressing Sunday. But hey, at least I have some nice pictures to look at.

I took this Christmas morning with our better camera, once Alfred got up and I could go in our room without feeling guilty. I have lots to go through, so come back tomorrow and look at some!

Merry Christmas! and happy birthday Emily

Emily and Jesus share a birthday. Also, I don't seem to have any recent pictures of her (or of Jesus, actually) probably because she's away at school most of the time and not around when we are. Well, happy birthday to her anyway!

We (Alfred, Katie and I) were up until about 2:30 last night getting things ready. We got home from Christmas Eve dinner (hosted by Alfred's parents) at about midnight and then had to get the pork into the smoker, the beans into the oven, and the cinnamon rolls for this morning made and into a pan to rise in the fridge overnight. And yet here I am, blogging at 8:19am. I'm a champ.

I wanted to take a picture of our tree with all the gifts underneath, but our camera is upstairs in my purse and I don't want to go back in our room and wake Alfred up, so I used our old camera. Now I remember why we got a new one, this one kind of takes crappy pictures.

The funniest part was when I went to upload the pictures onto the computer. There's a whole bunch of other pictures I never took off of the camera! Such as this gem, which I assume was from my birthday last year.

I'm guessing my birthday because the other pictures on it were from when I went to visit Mike after he got shot.

I've got some nice close ups of his wound too, but that's not very Christmassy.

So I hope everyone has a great day, I know we will! Merry Christmas!

by the numbers

6 days until I have to go back to work
3 gingerbread houses baked
2 batches of gingerbread dough prepared
1 wrestling match / near heart attack

1 power hour completed

and a partridge in a pear tree

a little Christmas quiz thingie

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? wrapping paper. It's so much more satisfying to rip open wrapping paper than to open a gift bag

2. Real tree or Artificial? definitely real. I don't think I could ever handle a fake tree. It's just so wrong

3. When do you put up the tree? generally about 2 weeks before Christmas, usually just after my birthday

4. When do you take the tree down? sometime after New Years

5. Do you like eggnog? yup

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I'm sure I got a lot of great gifts that I was super pumped about, but I can't think of a favorite right now

7. Hardest person to buy for? Max or Robyn

8. Easiest person(s) to buy for? my dad or Katie

9. Do you have a nativity scene? nope

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? mail. I didn't know you were allowed to email Christmas cards. Don't they have to be mailed to be counted as cards?

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? huh. I obviously don't have a very good memory tonight

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? either A Christmas Story or Christmas Vacation. I'd say it's pretty even, actually

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? well I try to keep track of ideas I have during the year and buy things when I see them, but we generally end up buying gifts between Thanksgiving and Christmas

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? hee hee... yes

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? cookies!

16. Lights on the tree? They're multi colored, they actually used to my grandma's

17. Favorite Christmas song? the Chipmunks' Christmas song. I set it as my ring tone just yesterday! Alfred's favorite is Santa Baby, guess what his ring tone is?

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? we alternate. Last year it was Thanksgiving here, Christmas in NY. This year we were in NY for Thanksgiving and will be home for Christmas. When we're down here we do Christmas Eve at Max and Robyn's house, and they come to our house for Christmas day.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? of course!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? an angel

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? all the extra traffic

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I decided this year I like glass ornaments best

24. Plans for Christmas dinner? Our tradition now for Christmas at our house is a big BBQ dinner.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? I don't really have anything specific that I want this year

I need a Christmas ring tone

Sorry I slacked yesterday. I was busy. Every day I've had a list of things to accomplish before going to bed, and every night so far I've been pretty successful. We're almost ready for Christmas. The house is ready for all of our guests, we have almost all of our gifts bought and wrapped (they're all sitting under the tree right now, it's so damn precious), I mailed a package off to MN with their gifts, our cards went out this week, and we have our Christmas menu all set. I just have a few little things left to buy, and we have to buy most of the food for Christmas day. So not much left, really. We've gotten a lot done. I was going to make some cookie dough tonight to have it ready to bake this weekend, but then we decided it would be more fun to do it with my family here. You know, bonding and stuff. Really, my mom and I will make cookies while my dad fishes and Alfred is busy on his computer or something. But it will be bonding in our own way.

I feel like Christmas always sort of sneaks up on me. I look forward to my birthday, and then when that's over I have a few more days of birthday celebration time, of course, and then suddenly Christmas is a week away. Cards and packages are what always get me, because they stop guaranteeing the delivery date and make you all nervous that your stuff won't get where it's going on time.

I'm excited to have a few days off of work, but at home. We might go to Universal for a day while everyone's here, which will be fun. We haven't been to a theme park at all since I've gone back to the museum, if you can believe it. I barely can. Especially considering how much Ilya loves going. Ok time's up, got to clean up the wrapping paper in the living room and then go to bed!

catching up

First, thank you all for calling/emailing/texting on my birthday. I had a great day, Alfred made me a delicious breakfast (burritos with egg and sweet potato), I had nothing but junk food all day at work (2 kinds of brownies and a cake), and then we had a fantastic dinner. If anyone still needs a gift idea for me for Christmas (or my birthday, as some of my siblings have yet to get me anything) a gift certificate to Barbara Jean's would be awesome. Then on our way out, we passed a real estate place - check out the lamp in their window!

Friday was super busy at work, and we pretty much just crashed that evening. I think that was the night we had liver for dinner, which was not quite as good as we had hoped it would be. Saturday we spent with Alfred's family and Ilya and Mercedes for my birthday. We had fried green tomatoes, mac and cheese, tomato pudding, crab cakes, and 2 types of cake (both baked by Mercedes, with help, apparently, from Ilya). It was all fantastic and I almost exploded afterwards. Seriously, my stomach almost burst. It was painful. But oh so tasty.

Yesterday we went into preparation mode for next week, cleaning and getting things ready. Katie's former abode took quite some work, but Mom, your holiday suite is now ready for occupation. We also put up and decorated our Christmas tree! We bought it Saturday morning (for only $30!) and spent all last night decorating. It's such a cute little tree. I'm all sorts of fired up for Christmas this year!

Tonight after work I did a little shopping, then came home and whipped up some meatloaf and mashed turnips (like mashed potatoes but healthier) for dinner. We're eating it right now, and it is rather delicious. After this we have some laundry to fold, and we got our Christmas cards today so we probably need to start addressing envelopes. Fun times!

winter wonderland

I've had a lot of picture-heavy posts lately. I think I'm going to have to have some picture-free posts to even it out soon. I don't want anyone getting too used to all these pictures, cause when my supply dries up I don't want any complaints. Anyway, on to the post.

We put up our Christmas lights this weekend! Yes, I did a lot of work too, but the only picture of me working is from a very unflattering angle and since I'm in charge here, I decide when to post unflattering pictures of myself, and today is not one of those days. There's a total of almost 900 feet of lights up outside right now, and we have another 50 foot strand we could put up. We ran out of daylight and just haven't decided where it will go.

We also did a bit of cleanup yard work. Alfred cut down a bunch of dead palm fronds, I blew off the roof, and Alfred cleaned up branches from the yard. It looks a lot nicer now, plus it's less flammable. We plan on having a few bonfires while my family is down here for Christmas, and thought it might be helpful if the yard wasn't full of dry branches. Palm fronds burn really fast, too. I discovered that while we were working on our house a few years ago. We started a fire in a metal trash can to keep warm (it was some night in November) and when everyone else was in the house I threw some palm fronds on top. The fire was taller than the roof of the house within seconds. I was so afraid someone would look out the window and see this towering inferno and I'd be so busted. I almost shat my pants. Luckily palm fronds burn out pretty fast, too.

We ran into a bit of wildlife around the yard as well. Alfred unearthed what he first thought was a snake, but turned out to be a skink. He was hiding in a palm tree that Alfred was destroying, I mean trimming. Poor little guy lost his home. He eventually fell from the second story roof, but I couldn't find his body so he either vaporized on impact or ran away to safety.

Then when I was blowing off the porch (cause I made a mess from blowing off the roof) this gigantic thing was on the picnic table. I don't know if it was dead or what, but it didn't respond when I gently blew on it with the leaf blower. So I turned the blower on it full blast. That sucker's long gone.

And last, but not least, a dead opossum. At least, that's what I'm guessing it is, judging by its pointy little teeth (at the left of the picture) and its tail (at the right of the picture). I know it's not a bird!

But enough dead animals. Back to the decorations. I put up some garland inside the house, but haven't really gotten much else done inside.

The lights outside took up most of our time. We worked so diligently, then happened to notice that the ones we had lined the walkway with looked a little... suggestive.


It was totally by accident, I swear. Anyway, we adjusted them a bit, and got a couple more strands up, and voila! A winter wonderland!


And next weekend, we get our tree!