451 posts from 2007

QotD: NYE 2008

Dec 31, 2007
4 comments

Who is ringing in the New Year with you? Who do you wish could be with you, but isn't there?

It's just the three of us this year. I like a quiet New Year. We're already in our PJ's and we're gonna play some games if Nathan ever gets his crap cleaned up off the living room floor. It's gonna take a while, though, he's doing it with a remote control fork lift. Hopefully he'll be done by midnight but I'm not holding my breath.

Then later, I've got a bottle of Chenin Blanc, DeWitte's got a bottle of Pinot Gris and Nathan's got a bottle of sparkling grape juice. We'd watch Dick Clark but I think he's dead this year. I don't know what we'll watch instead but at midnight we'll light some fireworks but this year we won't be burning any Christmas trees, we'll save that for when our friends are here.

It's weird, about the Christmas Trees, they must be treating them with some kind of chemical or something because they just don't burn like they used to. Stupid safety measures. Who wants a Christmas Tree that doesn't go up in a flaming inferno in less than three seconds?

I hope you have a really Happy New Year...Bring it on, I say, this last year was a total bust, the new one can't be any worse.

Donny Osmond!

Dec 31, 2007
8 comments

I found out I can get a Donny Osmond ring tone. I'm thrilled! I was gonna get the Donny Osmond does Bread's If but DeWitte said it made his ears bleed so I kept looking and found something better than Donny Osmond doing Bread....Donny Osmond doing Barry Manilow! Mandy, to be specific. Be still my beating heart. It's so worth the $2.50 it cost me even if it's hard to tell it's not Barry Manilow when you hear it...I'll know and that's all that matters.

The Re-Gift Fairy Strikes Again....

Dec 29, 2007
2 comments

Well, Christmas is officially over. Danny took Nathan for the night last night and DeWitte and I went to dinner and a movie and stayed out till *gasp* 10 o'clock...that's PM, thank you very much. When we got home we saw that the magical re-gift fairy had dropped a gift bag on the back porch.

Every year a couple days after Christmas, the bumpasses re-gift all the crap they got and either don't want or can't use. It always makes me feel so special! Nathan gets the toys their kid doesn't want, DeWitte gets the crap tools and stuff that bumpass doesn't want and I get gallons of lotions and soaps. This year must have been a good Christmas for them, I'm the only one that got a present.

It's funny, I thought it was from my girlfriend next door and thought it was nice of her to get me all that Avon lotion and stuff. I'm not picky when it comes to soap and lotion, as long as it doesn't eat away my skin like a flesh eating bacteria, I'm happy. Well, this morning we went out to breakfast and when we got back, bumpass yelled over that he dropped a gift on the porch last night and wanted to make sure we got it.

Now I feel bad. The only thing I got them this year was the fact that I acknowledge their existence again. Too bad I didn't get any crap for Christmas, then I could return the favor.

Happy Halloween!

Dec 26, 2007
2 comments

Well, DeWitte's finally gotten his Halloween Spirit. He and Nathan are out in the middle of nowhere getting an old satellite dish off some pole so that he can use it next year as the vortex room ceiling in the maze. He found it on freecycle and had to go get it today for some reason. I say that because it's the nastiest day we've seen so far this year, cold, rainy and windy. He called a little bit ago and said he was having a hard time, apparently the thing is huge, so now I feel a little bit guilty about not going to help him. In my defense, though...it's the nastiest day of the year! Besides, I made them chili for when they get home.

If he's getting his Halloween Spirit now that means he'll have his Christmas Spirit right in time for my birthday. I'm sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's good if I get a lot of presents...it's bad if he decides we need a birthday tree in the house. This year I'll be forty and am thinking about throwing my own party, even if that isn't the etiquette...at least planning it anyway. DeWitte's got a birthday past and I'm not sure how it'll go over.

One year he asked what I wanted and I said, "Nothing, whatever." That meant nothing big...just a card and a cake or whatever. I got the nothing I asked for and even the 11th hour cake wasn't gonna save that birthday. We both learned a big lesson out of that one.

Then there was the surprise party, and boy was I surprised. I had no idea and DeWitte, not wanting to give anything away, didn't clean up the house or talk me into getting dressed or anything! So, at 2 o'clock on a cold Saturday afternoon, I was still in my flannel PJ's when the guests started to arrive. Did I mention nobody cleaned the house? That wouldn't be so bad if it was just the usual bunch, they know we're slobs but no...the guests brought dates. Nice. I managed to excuse myself long enough to get dressed but I never did get a chance to vacuum. That party ended pretty good. We all went down to our favorite diner at the time and had bad food and played our favorite Adams Family Pinball game, which was why it was our favorite diner to begin with.

Oh well, you live, you learn and I think we've both learned that I'm the family party planner

QotD: It's Christmas Day!

Dec 25, 2007
1 comment

How are you spending Christmas Day?

We played and then we played and then we played some more and then I cooked dinner. That's why we ate so late, you can't cook a turkey in two hours.

I got a wacom tablet which is gonna make my work a lot easier. You can't make money off of your photographs unless you actually work on your photographs and working on my photographs makes my hands and wrists hurt so I don't work nearly as much as I should. It's the bomb but it's gonna take some getting used to.

I also, finally, got a camera phone. I took this picture earlier...

pic122507_12.jpg

1 comment

Pay no attention to all the crap on my coffee table, Christmas threw up in the living room. It took me 15 tries to get this posted. I don't know where the other 14 went but someone somewhere is asking if they know who these people are. "Marge, are these some of your relatives? I've never seen them before."

DeWitte loved his mini DeWitte...

Mini-DeWitte-at-the-ribbon-

And between that, the Napoleon Dynamite bobble head Nathan got him and the Captain Kirk action figure, there's talk of stop action movies. That should be really funny.

If anyone actually reads this, this late on Christmas night, I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and if not, be thankful that it's finally over.

Uh Oh!

Dec 23, 2007
9 comments

Pink-Eye-Santa

Not only has all that eggnog finally taken a tole on Santa's liver, giving him that jaundice effect, he's got pink eye, too! I hope they won't have to cancel Christmas, because we've already started. We're all done and ready and aren't waiting on all you last minute people who haven't even gotten their presents wrapped yet.

Actually we got to open a present each because DeWitte was so excited about one of my gifts that he couldn't wait. You see, I've got an addiction..it's crack. No wait, it's not crack, if it were crack I'd get more done in a day. It's aprons. It's one of the few things I buy for myself for the only reason being that I absolutely love them. It started a few years ago when I was at my parents house. My mom got a bunch of cute 50's aprons from a garage sale that she was gonna give to my little sisters to play dress-up. I went so nutso over them that she gave them to me instead and I've never looked back. Well, last week I was browsing Etsy, because that's what I do, and found the cutest apron I've ever seen in my life. Talk about gaga. It was a company weekend, so I was showing it to everyone and planed to buy it after Christmas (It just seems wrong to buy yourself stuff before Christmas.), if nobody beat me to it. Well, someone did beat me to it, DeWitte!

Here's a picture...

Il_fullxfull.7747491

It's as cute as it is in the picture and one of a kind...gotta love that. It goes perfect with the awesome Red Hat Cookbook that Donna gave me on Friday.

I let DeWitte open his Spam, Spam, Spam Monty Python sweat shirt and Nathan opened his Sponge Bob popcorn tin. Not as good presents as an awesome necktie apron but I'm saving my good gifts for Christmas.

Roasted Red Pepper With Gouda Bisque...

Dec 21, 2007
11 comments

Remember that bistro I told you about? The one I was afraid of because bistro's always have gross food like kidney and caviar and sea urchin? Yeah, that one. Well, it turns out it's our new favorite restaurant and we usually hit it at least once a week for lunch and Saturday or Sunday for breakfast. We just went today, as a matter of fact. The service still sucks but the food is really, really good.

Last week the soup of the day was roasted red pepper with gouda bisque. I know what your thinking...they must be getting a mad amount of business if they can afford to serve a soup like that, red peppers are crazy expensive. $3.99 a pound around here. It must cost a fortune to make enough for a whole restaurant. That's what I thought, too.

It was really good, like everything they have, so I thought I'd try to find their recipe. I searched online and lo and behold, it turns out to be Campbell's. Campbell's! It's their signature, fancy restaurant kind, but it's still Campbell's. Well, screw that, if I wanted Campbell's I'd buy it at my grocery store. Right then, I had a quest. Make roasted red pepper with gouda bisque, better than stupid Campbell's. How hard could that be?

So, I took back one of DeWitte's Christmas presents so I could afford the red peppers, searched hundreds of recipes for ideas and inspiration and I was off. I used roast peppers, roast onions, roast tomatoes, roast butternut squash and roast garlic. I sweated carrots and celery, put it all in a pot, covered it with chicken stock...I was gonna use vegetable stock but I knew DeWitte or Nathan would say something about having no meat two days in a row and this way I had a comeback. It does have meat...chicken stock. It was Nathan that brought it up....anyway, covered it all with chicken stock and took the immersion blender, that's a fancy way of saying that stick thing DeWitte bought when he was going through that spiru-tein shake phase, to it because my real blender is packed away in the garage. I added some salt, pepper and fresh basil, some cream and some grated gouda cheese.

It was horrible. Well, it was edible but not the taste sensation I was hoping for. I knew it wasn't just me when DeWitte went on for 25 min. about how good lunch was and lunch was just a salad bar. I said something a little later in the night about it not being very good and Nathan said, yeah, but he wasn't gonna be the first one to say it...he's learning quick, isn't he? I think it was the butternut squash that done her in.

Well, I don't give up that easily! I'm gonna try it again. Not tonight of course, I better give these guys real meat or they might go caveman on me, but soon. I guess after I save up enough money for more red peppers but a quest is a quest is a quest....stupid Campbell's.

Isn't it weird....

Dec 20, 2007
3 comments

when you go to some random blog on Vox and click on that persons neighborhood and don't recognize one single person in pages and pages? Vox feels small but, dang, it's HUGE!!

Shoot!

Dec 20, 2007
4 comments

I forgot today was the last day of school before Christmas Vacation...Darn it! I didn't have the teacher gift ready and completely forgot to buy something for the bus driver. You'd think Nathan would be on something like that, there are his gifts, right? Stupid kids, always just thinking of themselves.

Anyhow, I've got a plan! At first I thought I'd have to break my vow not to enter a retail shop for Christmas gifts this year. I got everything online. My mailman and the UPS guy probably hate my guts but my stress level stayed in check. I thought I'd have to go to Kmart today but instead I'm just gonna go to the grocery store and pick up a couple of gift cards and some greeting cards and be done with it. Then I'm gonna go meet Nathan for lunch so he can sign the cards...crisis averted.

Now I'd better run, they make the kids eat early. So, off to the grocery store and then I've gotta pick up something to take to eat. Have you had school food lately? Blah!

Merry Christmas!

Dec 19, 2007
8 comments

I just love this gift...it's a Mini DeWitte! A bobble head doll that looks just like him.

See...Here's DeWitte...

DeWitte and Nathan

And here's Mini DeWitte, being attacked by a killer rabbit!

Mini-DeWitte-being-attacked

1 comment

Watch out Mini DeWitte....watch out!

Here is Mini DeWitte posing with the Snow Miser in front of the worlds largest spools of ribbon..(DeWitte thinks I've got too much ribbon, I think he's insane. You can never have too much ribbon!)