Winter Weather and Holiday Spirit

Early in the week I came down with an icky virus.  Was too sick to do anything - including blog.  Following that I was of course busy trying to catch up on work.  Hello Caturday!  It's good to see you again!

I'm currently watching an episode of Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals.  She is making meatballs and I am thankful for this.  It answered my question of what to make for tonight's Bedlam Football party that I will be attending.  Thanks Rachel.

The rain is coming down pretty hard right now, but it is still in liquid form.  We are not expecting it to turn to snow until Monday.  Yesterday, they showed a 60% chance of snow.  That has now been upgraded to 80%.  This will be my first winter in Oklahoma in over a decade.  I get the distinct feeling that I should be stocking up on knit hats, gloves, scarves and heated suits.  I shiver like a Chihuahua when the temperature drops below 78 degrees, so I will need some heavy duty gear to leave the house until spring comes back.

I have broken my own tradition this year.  I have started my holiday shopping already.  I am usually one of those last minute shoppers but the idea of going out there with the crazy holiday frenzy overrides my desire to wait until December 24th to shop.  I'm going online all the way this year. I went to Walmart the other day to purchase a Christmas tree and saw a lady throw a temper tantrum simply because the lady working the check stand in lawn and garden was busy checking people out and unable to give a price on a cheap plastic planter with the three seconds that the crazy mad lady seemed to require.  The poor older lady working was almost in tears after that so we that were waiting in line took it upon ourselves to try to make her feel better. 

I did get my first real tree in many years.  It is full, beautiful and adds the lovely smell of pine to the house.  I guess that's a fair trade-off for having pine needles all over the carpet and having to be vigilant about house fire.  The cats love it too.  They like to nibble on the lower branches and sleep behind it.  They have never been outside a day in their life so I suppose it is satisfying their natural desire to pretend they are in the wilderness.  Luckily they have yet to try to climb it... so far.
*crosses fingers*

Crazy Competative Shopping Friday

Black Friday has turned into a shopping weekend.  There is Black Friday sales, Black Saturday sales, Shop Local Saturday and Cyber Monday.  In addition the ads keep saying "All Black Friday weekend.."

I took the day and rested up after wonderful company and cooking a big meal.  I declared it to be "Do Nothing Friday."

Therefore, I must get back to doing nothing.

I will leave you with a picture of my Thanksgiving turkey and the carrots that my daughter planted.  After a couple of hard freezes, they are amazingly still growing.

Harvest Feast

I just arrived home from the grocery store with the last of the items I need to prepare Thanksgiving dinner.  I expected chaos, but it actually wasn't too bad... even found on open checkout lane and didn't have to wait.

My boyfriend gets to spend the day here since his family is doing their dinner over the weekend and my parents have just began their 5 hour journey to my house.  I am about to start preparing the bird and stuffing.  I love cooking Thanksgiving dinner... but then again, I love cooking.

I also love taking pictures of the food I cook.  My mom teases me a little about this.  I will add some photos after the feast is complete so you can see my handiwork.  (Well, as long as it all turns out alright.)

I'm a bit torn on the whole Thanksgiving holiday.  I love the idea of giving thanks and sharing the day and a huge wonderful meal with family.  The Tryptophan overdose, the parades, the football - it's good stuff.  It's the whole ordeal with what the Pilgrims did to their hosts and hostesses in the new world that disturbs me.  Basically, I take the holiday and mold it to what I want it to be.  I have my own wacky individualized ideas on religion and philosophy, so I suppose I do that with a lot of holidays.  By the way there is 0.24grams of Tryptophan per 100 grams of Turkey, in case you were wondering.


One of my most memorable Thanksgivings occurred five years ago.  I had a glass top dining table and a house full of family.  The turkey turned out spectacular (if I do say so myself.)  Well, everyone had loaded their plate with the exception of my step-mother.  She had just reached down to scoop up a load of sweet potato casserole to complete her meal and out of nowhere the entire glass table top shattered into a million pieces.  I will never forget the shocked look on her face.  I think there was a few moments of stunned silence from everyone in the house actually.  Luckily there were no injuries and we all had at least one plate of food for dinner.  I will admit that I was pretty bummed about not having leftovers, though.  I love my family.  In an effort to console me they bantered about with many little jokes about how it only made that year's holiday unique and memorable.  They were right and we all still have a giggle about that day.

I will end today's post with what I am thankful for...

* My beautiful daughter - with her I have found strength and love within me that I never knew existed before she came into my life.

* Family and Friends - I am blessed to have so many wonderful and weird people in my life.

Really.... what else is there?  With those elements in my life everything else becomes a piece of cake.  Sure there are trying times, hard days, tragedies and injustices in life - but with a loving support system we can navigate our way through this bizarre thing called life and enjoy the beauty and fun along the way.

To those that celebrate, Have a wonderful holiday.  To those that don't, Have a wonderful day!

Caturday and Sleeping In

I slept in until noon today... that is unusual for me.  Usually sleeping in means 10am at the latest.  Between my crazy hormones, work stress and a sick kiddo all week - I guess I just really needed the rest.

Now I sit here in front of an episode of Law & Order, Criminal Intent with my hazelnut coffee in hand while blogging and texting with my boyfriend and my best friend.  A perfectly relaxing start to my Saturday.  I do know in the back of my mind that house cleaning day is coming up later... the question is just when will I begin?  I've recently taken to the method of pulling up the trash carts to my back door and just throwing out everything that I don't need and won't ever use.  Yes, I considered having a garage sale but I absolutely HATE having garage sales.  I do enjoy going to them, but having them?  I would rather stick a searing hot spork into both my eyes. (plus I would have to special order a spork that is made of metal rather than the plastic ones you can get at Wendy's.)

My daughter just informed me that someone was ringing the doorbell and he was wearing a red suit.  By the time I went to see who it was, they were gone.  Is Santa Clause making his rounds early?  I suppose we will never know since he is now nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps I should have started a blog a couple of years ago when I had all kinds of drama and excitement in my life.  It might have been a more interesting read then, but no way would I trade that for the peace and happiness that I have in my life now.  I prefer to get my drama from TV rather than real life.

DVR and the Dark Ages

So any questions?  What do people out there want to know about me?  I ask this because it might actually spark something that I want to know, but just don't know it yet.  Self exploration is always satisfying... uncomfortable sometimes yes, but always satisfying in the end.

Tonight I sit in front of a fire watching Law & Order, SVU... one of my favorite shows.  Kinda funny since I can't really bear to watch the local nor national news. o_O

The little princess has been home from school for three days with a fever and nasty cough.  I work from home so I've been running back and forth taking care of her and trying to close accounting month end to meet my deadline.   It's times like this that things seem a bit overwhelming.  My house is a mess... I hate that.

Awwww hell, my DVR just interrupted my show to switch to recording Big Bang Theory.  Why oh, why can the DVR not just record an infinite number of shows at once.  Don't we live in the world of technology??  Luckily, I've already seen that episode of SVU.  I would really be surprised to find one I have not seen.

I guess that is all I have for tonight.  I shall see you again whenever the mood strikes.

Temperance

The first episode of Bones when Booth calls Temperance by her given name rather than "Bones?"
.... episode 3, season one


I am watching the TV series Bones on Netflix and starting from the beginning.  Interesting, considering I've seen many episodes already - just completely out of order.

I sit here in front of a toasty fire with a chilly Bud Light in the can.  Tired from crunching numbers all day and trying to meet my deadline for monthly closing reports.

This is my first blog, so I'm trying to gauge how much info is appropriate... how much is TMI?  I suppose time will tell. 

Part of this blog is for the purpose of self therapy and part is for the purpose of well, I really don't know yet.  It will be an interesting journey to find that out.  Perhaps even to document the crazy swings of my mood and disposition as I make my way through perimenopause with the challenge of raising an eight year old girly-girl along the path.  Yes, my sentence structure may be a bit weird, but it's me.  I was an honors English student, although I suppose I have a bit of E.E. Cummings rebellion in me.  I will soon hit my 40 year mark in life and it's a bit cool, I think.  Yet I have only recently realized that I am on that path that precedes menopause - basically, I am living in PMS hell for about 25 days out of the month.  I have to say, all things considered I feel that I'm dealing with it pretty well. At least it means that I'm not just losing my mind, I'm just hormonal. *insert smiley face here*

I hope you have enjoyed my first entry.  I ask your patience as I get the hang of this blogging thing and hope that you will leave feedback.


LittleBadKitty... over and out, good buddy.