Today is Monday! Yay for Monday! Yay for losing SEVEN pounds! I love weigh-in Mondays! And my LLBean gift card! I get a gift-card on those weeks that I lose weight! I am in SUCH a good mood! Lets test it!
Hmmmmm. Ok, thinking and concentrating on ... Steve Spurrier! I hope he has a lovely day! Wow, this losing weight is powerful stuff! Yay for me!
It probably stems from an unfortunate viewing of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow when I was a small child. Late at night. At my Aunt's house, which terrified me anyway. About this time of year.
"This time of year" still bothers me. Except now its the aggravation of avoiding the gore and dismemberment in the candy aisle at Walmart and the shock-n-awe style movies that pop up on every channel. Channel-surf at your own risk! And thus, last night I was shocked to find myself enthralled in a horror movie.
I just had a thought. I've significantly packed for the move into the new house which will be some time in December. Or not. But lets just ASSUME that nothing else goes horrifically wrong, and the move is in December.
I've avoided several issues by having an OpenHouse the week before we move in. Four hours on a Sunday afternoon for warm Christmas punch and cookies. And egg-nog. And maybe coffee.
Hence, Emergency #1. I know nothing about coffee. Sure, Coffeefool.com has cute blends, but I'm thinking I need "real" coffee. What I want is a coffee so good their eyes will roll up in their heads as they mutter to themselves. But, what is it and where do I find it? And just so we're all clear, I refuse to pay $50 a pound for Jamacian Blue Mountain. Its not THAT good, just pretentious.
Which leads us to Emergency #2. I need to serve extra-fabulous cookies. BUT I've already packed all my cookbooks. Don't mention the library. It burned about ten years ago and no one has seen fit since then to replace the cookbook section. Freaks. But thats another story. Back to MY trauma: I need some good cookie recipes. I need "yummy". I need some recipes that make people pull you aside and beg (for the recipe). I want this experience burned in their minds!
This is a recipe for the best most fabulously unusual Peppermint Swirl White Fudge ever! Which I lost, and then found and then lost and then found again a few minutes ago while cleaning! I've decided to share it with the world before I lose it again in the move. Because I'll need to make it for the open house next month. Assuming that we actually move. Cause we may just give up, steal an RV, and flee to Mexico.
Yes, I really thought [fill in the extreme expletive of your choice] but fortunately I was speechless. Because its just unacceptable to blurt that out in the church kitchen.
My husband said last week, with a completely straight face, "There's plenty of time before Christmas!" He said this in protest to my somewhat shrill demands for his office list. And he was wrong. Very very wrong.
Wake up, people! There's only about eight weeks! Ideally, I'm significantly done by August. Sometimes completely wrapped in October. This year? I'm behind. Four children and an absentee husband will do that for you. HOWEVER, football teams come from behind to win the game all the time.
This? This is my half-time speech! We can still do it! Its not too late! Work smarter not harder! Organization is your friend! Delegate delegate delegate! Remember the Alamo! (Except for the part where everyone at the Alamo died a horrid death)
Leni's on a roll. Having come to the startleing realization that Progresso is Evil. The silver lining is that she's inspired ... Soup blogging!
I've got time to excessively blog since we're just sitting around waiting on a school-date that hasn't shown and I'm not exactly sure how long to wait because its been a really long time since I've been stood up. I'm sure there's a good reason. Probably.
Really. And before you get all twitchy thinking I'm talking to you, let me assure you that in the past week no fewer than SIX individual fat people have etched that thought into my brain.
If you are drinking, stop right now. I will NOT be responsible for you spitting on your monitor. You have been warned.
"What food item is your blog?" Doesn't that sound like the most fun quiz ever? Maybe it just sounds that way because I'm off the sugar. Still. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily wrong. Just biased. Heavily in favor of sugar. Although right now I'm craving green-beans. Which is neither here nor there ...
"Stay focused" you might say. Or "Well, where is the super-duper-fun-quiz?" Or "Quizes are awfully restrictive, don't you think?" But, there's the beauty of it: I'VE made up the quiz and I've made it an ESSAY quiz! There it is: What food item is your blog?
Here's my results: My blog is ... SPRINKLES!
I've been getting in the mind-set to finish off the Christmas planning, usually done by cruising various web-sites and perusing assorted catalogs. Fortunately, I'm on practically every mailing list EVER! Some people abhor junk-catalogs. Me? I embrace them as portals to other worlds. Places I would certainly never seek out on my own, but if they turn up in my mail-box ...
Some of the things I'm seeing in these catalogs just strike me as plain wrong. Not wrong in a weird way that could get you arrested, because I'm not on THOSE kind of mailling lists. Wrong in the sense of "that makes NO sense what-so-ever" ... which has lead me to wonder if I'm somehow on a list for clueless people and just didn't know it. Here we go, the ones that come to mind ...
Damn! If you haven't read about Mike Oher, and I may very well be the last clueless person on Earth to not know about him, go read this excerpt from the new book about him.
Note to husband: Don't YOU bother, I've already ordered the book from Zooba.com. You can read it before we give to your Dad for Christmas. (Oh, right, like none of you people have ever done something like that)
My husband I were arguing over how many lurkers I have. I thought I had three. He thought I probably had more than three. Guess how many?
All Liberals Are Stupid Idiots. There. I said it. Now, you think about it. More to the point, think about your reaction to that statement.
(I've been thinking about what Dean said a few weeks ago) (the ones where he smacked some extreme-rightists for being as biased/wrong as some extreme-leftists) (the one where he was all foamy and some of his commenters apologized to new readers in his comments section, assuring the "visitors" that Dean is usually more calm and it kinda frosted him but I thought it was very sweet that they were concerned he appear in the best possible light) (And yes, I still lurk at Dean'sWorld after I quit commenting to avoid my stalkerish-type-person who seems to operate on the premise of out-of-sight-out-of-mind) (Thats not really all that dangerous a stalker, right? and I'm going to keep it that way)
Back to my point! All Liberals Are Stupid Idiots.
Ok, that wasn't my point. MY point is that you need to consider what you thought when you read that statement. I'm betting you had thoughts that fall into one of three catagories. (1) "Yeah! About time!" (2) "Typical conservative freak!" (3) "Ummm, Lucy, are you feeling ok?"
I was going to write a gossip column today, late from Tuesday when I was inundated with houseguests, BUT I have come across a different idea. Paul at LetTheFinderBeware wrote about color today, his favorite color being red. (And if you aren't reading him ... well then, there's no help for it since you can lead a pig to water but that won't make him a horse)
Blue. Blue is my favorite color. Definitely.
As of today, I am not 36. And this new year is going to be the Year of Dotbic. The Year of DOing The Best I Can. I don't mean in that crazy frenzied "I must do my very best every day or I am a complete failure".
I'm talking about accepting that doing the best I can is the best that I can do. I'm talking about abandoning the cyles of trying harder because nothing is ever good enough. I'm talking about embracing "best" instead of obsessing over "perfect".
Its sounds almost scandalous to be willing to relax into serenity, to just let things go, the first step on a slippery slope to ... I'm not sure exactly what. But my mother warned me about it often.
I've decided to live on the edge anyway. No more personal stress. No more being hard on myself. No more flinching over un-done to-do lists. No more frantic late-night cram-sessions. No more agonizing over charts and schedules and adgendas. No more.
The Year of Dotbic is going to be a very good year. I bought a really super-great journal, all water-colory and lovely. Each day we'll see. I suspect that a year from today I'll have an affirmative answer to my experiment: Is life like a chinese-finger-puzzle? You know, the more you struggle the tighter it gets but if you just relax and let go ...
(Hmmmm. I've only been doing this a few hours and already I sound like a hippie ...)
Its October. What have you done for them lately?
(And if you're "between churches" due to moving, or other stuff, its not that hard to find a random pastor who could use a little treat :)
I am NOT a fashionista.
In fact, I think most fashionistas are deranged. This impression is not altered by images of FashionWeek. (The fact that I know what FashionWeek is not withstanding) Its a trainwreck of good design, with each participant trying harder and harder to be "cutting edge" and "unique" and "fashionable while trendy". WHAT!?! Do any of them honestly think Audrey Hepburn was ... trendy? Or Carey Grant? Or James Bond? Or Sophia Lauren? or Robert Redford? That ANY of those people, who are thought of as outstanding examples of dressing well by regular people, would be caught dead wearing stuff off the runway at FashionWeek?
Because, frankly, many of the models look dead on the runway. Freshly dead. Not actually decomposed. Just pale and psycho-thin and totally expressionless. I've seen terminally ill people in the final stages that looked better!
Fashion used to be about coverings that would make the human form look more attractive to the human eye. Now it seems that "fashion" is about what will make the human form look more attractive to the human ego, consumed with a pride of being "first" and "new" and "avant garde" and "different".
Be careful, people, lest the lunatics of FashionWeek lead you down the merry path to Hell. Leaving you with a photo-album full of pictures that will embarrass you no end as your children and grandchildren collapse in fits of giggles on the floor. Our new motto: Remember the Beehive!
The party last night was just FULL of normal people. Nothing weird enough to make a really spectacular post. Yet, at the same time, it was an EXCEPTIONAL party. The house is laid out well for entertaining, the weather was good, the deck is laid out for entertaining, the yards are laid out for entertaining. The logistics of the whole thing were brilliant! (Sorry, the party-planner in me was distracted for a moment)
The people were also lovely. Except maybe for one crazed liberal, who still managed to be pleasent even in his wild-eyed state. I only felt a tiny bit bad for one guest who seemed to be coming down with a cold, probably more susceptible than most because he's overworked to the point of exhaustion. But even he was charming. In spite of the fact that he did not instinctively know that Cassie's costume was a rose-bush (Green pants, green shirt, rose-covered tu-tu around her neck, big rose clipped in her hair) Hmmm. Charming might be a strong word, since he blurted out "Well! I would never have guessed THAT one". Regardless. You can hardly hold that against him, as he does NOT spend excessive amounts of time with small children. Although, some of the people that work for him might make him FEEL likes he's babysitting small children.
And then there was the grand battle between me and Mr. Curmudgeon, who was determined to be grim in spite of any pleasentries. Nothing like a challenge to just make my day special! It was mostly tit-for-tat until he commented that one guest was "studying to be a witch" to which I responded "Isn't it nice she's working on her study-skills!?!" I'm pretty sure thats when he gave up, yielding to my superior sunniness in the face of his low-quality grimmness. He wasn't very grim, after all. I suspect that he's probably a rather genial fellow who was not enjoying being surrounded by sugar-crazed chidlren.
And, yes, there were definitely sugar-crazed children. Sugar everywhere. I wondered where the children were, only to be assured by my husband that all was well. Or, at least, well-behaved. The few kids at the party (it was a kid-friendly adult party) had banded together and taken over a table at the distant end of the deck where they were out of everyone's way. (I'm sure THEIR thought was that they were out of everyone's interference) They either raced around the yards, or retreated to their table after forays to the food locations. They ate well repeatedly, which might have led to the only glitch in that the caterer ran out of plates toward the end of the evening. We can all only hope that any party we might throw would go so well.
Today I'm just going to bask in the afterglow of an evening where everything went well, with no effort on my part at all. It was like a mini-vacation! A mini-vacation at a really good spa ...
********long-contented-sighing-almost-practically-purrrrrring***********
If you work in Customer Service it is my personal opinion that you should treat everyone equally. Black/white, male/female, big-shot/ stay-at-home-mom. (Ahhh, you say. I bet I know where THIS is going) Yes, you probably DO know where this is going, but lets go there anyway, together :)
I stopped by a local bookstore, which shall remain nameless. Although it must be one of four, and if you're neurotic enough that not knowing which one it was keeps you awake night, then you can call me and I'll tell you. Or not. If I don't like you I might be amused that you can't sleep nights.
Imagine. You see a book series you want. Six books. Not cheap books either. But, hey, its educational so its all good. You toddle off to the bookstore, although this being "here" you call first to make sure they can do special orders. Of course they can! You arrive at the bookstore with your list of six titles. But the clerk is starting to look skittish. She's seen you have children. Four children. And they're all with you. Then she realizes that while the books are indeed text books, they are CHILDREN'S text books. Oh, the horror!
Mind you, they're text books from a very common publisher. No matter! Then she realizes that they must be for, is it possible they are for, can they be for ... home-schooling? And in that moment, her training fails her. Her training is gone, and in its place she's left with a stereotypical image of a calico-wearing fundamentalist blue-collar extremist whose Bible-thumping husband is probably out evangelizing to co-workers while he fills in pot-holes.
Hmmm, and what did she do in her lapsed state of Customer Service? She looked at me, and then dropped her eyes to look at other papers on her desk as she told me "We can't do that" and proceeded to ignore me, apparent under the impression that my submissive-wife personality was going to back out the door with my head down, muttering apologies for taking up her time. Are you willing to take bets on whether or not thats what happened next? ...
Woohoooooo! He's back! Check it out! Two posts in two days! I've got to admit to a guilty little secret: I know I'm on the auto-notify-mass-email-list so I get an email when there's activity over there, but I click over there each day before I check my email. Its kinda like playing the lottery, except that its free and sometimes I win! Sometimes I click over there and he's writing!
My only fear is that while he was on vacation he might have lost his mind. He actually wrote this: "It seems terribly unkind to inflict a diatribe of this length on you after such a long absence, however, so I'll opt for an abrupt ending."
Unkind? UNKIND?
Attention Tony: I don't know how you could miss it, but we would read it if you wrote the phone book, and be glad of the chance. I am SO glad you're back. It adds a little sparkle to my day. Kinda like good jewelry!
I've decided to do a gossip posting each week. I've decided to call it Talking Tuesday until I decide to call it something else. Let get this party started!
This week we'll be dishing about Shannon. Yes, thats a "real" name. Where's the fun in dishing if no one knows who I'm talking about? Yep, Shannon ...
There's something a little unsettleling about waking up to find a small child urgently asking "Is he dead yet?" Its even more creepy if its several days in a row. Even CREEPIER if your child isn't cuban, and doesn't even know any cubans.
I wish one of the days of the weeks started with a "G". I like alliteration. But, no. No such luck. And I can't think of any other good themes. Whats another name for gossip that starts with one of the following letters: S M T W F ? I really need to know. I'm developing a plan! I'm going to focus on local gossip one day a week ...
Sometimes its brought home to me crystal clear that I might not be getting the point across to the kids. We pray for policemen (anyone with a siren, actually) both for their safety and for the people that they're helping. We talk about how their job is dangerous but necessary. We talk about different aspects of their jobs. Several years ago, when we saw a policeman pulling someone over, Lee earnestly prayed that "God, please help him give them a ticket!" I thought that was probably the highlight of our rolling praying adventures. I was wrong.
This week we passed two patrol cars blocking a truck in a parking lot, cuffing the guy at the truck. Lots of sirens and flashing lights and lots of drama. I said: "Its Cassie's turn to pray outloud". Because if they all pray outloud, each louder than the others, it descends into chaos and accerlates into bickering, which is not really the goal of praying. And thus Cassie prayed very emphatically ...
"Dear! God! Thank you for letting me go to the dollar store with Mommy and picking pretty flowers ... and, ummmmm, thank you for our food! Amen"
Next time I guess I'll be saying "Its Cassies turn to pray outloud FOR THE POLICEMEN OVER THERE IN THE PARKING LOT."
Good for you!