Christmas Cookies 2010
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Daily Dose
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
I didn’t expect to be back here quite so quickly with another holiday baking video but when I heard Elly say “Look at the smoke! I’m sorry!” I had to go back into the kitchen with the camera.
FalalalalaWhere There’s Smoke, There’s Fire Read More »
Christmas Baking Has Begun
The first mess clean up was an exploded coke – a container of Fiber (scary Fiber!) fell from the top shelf, knocked over an unopened coke, fizzy carbonated elixir of life (according to TW) all over the kitchen floor. No I didn’t yell. I just quietly walked to the laundry room for a beach towel. Handed it to TW. Quietly walked back to the laundry room for the swiffer wet jet and calmly cleaned the floor.
Spreading the joy – one kitchen clean up at a time.Christmas Baking Has Begun Read More »
I Need an Intervention
I am employed by BlogHer, Inc as the Community Manager at BlogHer.com. The opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of BlogHer, Inc or its employees. I was not asked to write this post. I received no compensation for writing this post. Heck, nobody even knows I’m writing this post except RJ who is reading over my shoulder as I type…
I have the best job in the world. I know, I know – you’re tired of hearing me say this because you do not have the best job in the world. Sorry. Can’t help it. Gotta say it. I do have the best job in the whole wide world. But… every now and then the best job in the world causes a few little problems. Or problems large enough that I start telling TW that I need an intervention. One of the things I do every day at BlogHer.com is help solve problems that members of the community have. One of the ways I help members solve problems is by editing comments that don’t display image or video code properly. Or by deleting duplicate (or quadruplicate) copies of posts. No big deal, this happens all of the time and I’m happy to help. Or it wouldn’t be a big deal if we weren’t running an awesome HomeGoods campaign right now. But we are.
Dozens of people stop by every day to talk about what they’d like to buy at HomeGoods, who they’d like to buy gifts for, and to tell us what they’ve recently purchased with their $25 HomeGoods gift card. They even leave photos (and videos) of things that they’ve bought from HomeGoods with this gift card. Reading those comments every day (sometimes in quadruplicate) caused me to get the itch to go to HomeGoods.
This is scary. While I like HomeGoods, I do NOT like to shop. I really do not like to shop when I’ve already spent about 10K on Christmas and there isn’t a single person in my family who needs anything else. And did I mention TW is kind of under-employed? Yet here I sat… dying to go to HomeGoods. I told TW about the problem. She looked at me like she’d never seen me before. Yea. And then she said, “Well if we went to HomeGoods, we could go to…” and I shut her out. I did not want to hear whatever she was going to say. That is NOT an intervention.
The day passed. I worked, I worked some more, I did laundry and cleaned up the cold room. I tried to nap but the dog barked. I got up and said, “We need to go to the libray.” So we got dressed and went… afterwards, I asked TW if we needed to do anything else… and she said, “Well you wanted to go to HomeGoods… and we need vegan chocolate chips, vegan Worcestershire sauce, and a part for the snow thrower.”
I thought about it and sure enough, it seemed like the smartest place to go was to the Willow Rd shopping center where Lowes, Whole Foods and… HomeGoods live. As I drove, I thought I’d just go straight to Lowes and then to Whole Foods and then we’d go home. I DID NOT NEED TO GO TO HOMEGOODS.
But guess where we went first… HomeGoods.
And I spent $19.58 on this:
Everyone else was spending a $25 gift card… I think this means I should go back again next week and spend another $5.42, don’t you?
I Need an Intervention Read More »
Trials and Tribulations
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s snowing here. And it’s grocery shopping day. So, TW wandered out about 45 minutes ago to shovel the sidewalk and throw snow from the driveway so we could go out.
First she cleaned off my car, which is a smart place to start.
Then she shoveled around my car, which is also a good place to start.
Then she did some other stuff which involves the snow shovel and the snow thrower. I don’t quite understand the science of it but I know she does it. While she was using the snow thrower – the handle came off. This is apparently bad? And now we have to go find parts for the snow thrower? Which seems problematic since I don’t know what kind we have (thanks for sending it, Deanna. It really has been the most awesome gift!) or where to get parts. Maybe we can order them online somehow? Whatever, we’ll figure it out.
While she was shoveling and throwing the snow, the nice neighborhood snow plow cleared our street – and left a big ball of snow at the end of our driveway, which TW has to shovel or we can’t get out of our driveway.
And while she was doing all of that, my car became covered with snow again and she had to clear it off again.
Yea. It’s like that. And will be like that for the next five months or so.
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He’s Looking at ME!
You know all of the times one of my kids said that about one of his/her siblings, it annoyed the hell out of me. I was really kind of looking forward to all of the kids getting beyond the age where they said that. The number of times I heard it in a week had greatly diminished, and not just because the three big kids don’t live with us. It diminished because… the kids are growing up. And that was nice.
But then TW’s mother moved in and she brought that dog.
I don’t particularly like the dog. In fact, I pretty much hate him. I’m not the only one. Nobody in the house likes him even a tiny bit – well nobody except TW’s mom, she likes him which is as it should be since he is her damn dog. But whatever. I don’t like him. We don’t like him. The only person in the family who hasn’t said something bad about him (besides TW’s mom, who doesn’t count because she’s biased) is Christopher. Christopher likes animals better than people but even Christopher is troubled by this dog. You can tell by the way Christopher sheepishly looks at one of us when we curse him under our breath (curse the dog, not Christopher. When we curse Christopher, we do it really loudly – or via text message.)
I try really hard to ignore the dog except when I have to take him out. Or feed him. Or clean up the mess he has strewn from one end of the house to another – he eats paper. Even then I try to ignore him because if I don’t, I’ll say something like “I really hate that dog” and after I say it a few times, TW gets annoyed. She thinks you should just say it once and that should be enough – at least until SHE decides she needs to hate on him a bit, then it’s fine to say it more than once. Whatever.
The real issue though, with the dog, is that he looks at us.
And we do not like it one tiny bit.
Sometimes TW leaves the bedroom door open, or maybe one of the kids does, while I’m reading in bed. I look up and there’s that dog looking at me. Sometimes we’re standing on the back porch and he’s not using the bathroom, he’s just standing there – staring at me. I don’t like it. And sometimes I actually say, “He’s looking at me!!!”
On Sunday, Elly woke up in a really bad mood. TW listed all of the annoyances being faced by poor Elly:
1) TW made pancakes and didn’t put chocolate chips in them. (Oh noes!)
2) TW refused to let Elly add chocolate chips to the top of them. (Gasp!)
3) Prince J was chewing! In that loud way he does but even louder. On purpose! (Oh the injustice!… but really I understand this because sometimes people chewing bugs me too, and I told TW this. She said I sound like my mother. Whatever.)
4) KOTO LOOKED AT HER! (Well. There you have it. I can’t argue with that. )
He’s Looking at ME! Read More »
Poorly Chosen Vacation Days
When Diane nicely emailed me last month to remind me that I have a zillion hours of PTO and that I really needed to begin to use some of those hours, I laughed because I’d just been thinking about that very thing. After clarifying with her that I really don’t have a zillion hours and I only have about a trillion, I decided I’d take a few days off early in November in order to catch up on some stuff that I haven’t had time to do.
I looked at the calendar, nothing jumped out at me as the perfect days to take some time off. I asked TW if she had any preferences, she did not provide any input. I looked at the calendar again.
I decided on Thursday and Friday because the little kids would be here and I could help TW with the driving to school and stuff. And I chose Monday because I knew we were going to have an especially busy weekend with our circus adventure on Sunday. There’s nothing worse than waking up Monday morning and feeling like you didn’t have any “weekend” time.
Smart choices, right?
All of this made even more sense once I found out that on top of the normal kid busy-ness and the circus, we would be driving RJ to hell and back all weekend long for her high school play. Thank goodness I took Monday off, right? Right!
Thursday was a most excellent day off and I was feeling pretty darn good about my PTO — until this morning.
5am and RJ is barreling down the stairs (which are right outside of our bedroom.) I did manage to fall back asleep but the alarm went off at 6am. I groaned and thought about going back to sleep – TW could just take the kids to school and I could enjoy my vacation by sleeping in. Hah. That doesn’t work because both RJ and the Prince use the shower in my bathroom. I sighed. Got out of bed. Made my way blearily to the bathroom. Threw on some clothes. Stumbled to the door and there was RJ tapping her foot waiting to get in to my bathroom.
At that point I wondered what in the hell I was thinking when I scheduled vacation during a kid weekend – a kid weekend when the kids have to go to school. There’s nothing worse than being on vacation and having RJ wake you up at 5am, barrel past you into your bathroom for a shower, and obsessing about how late she’s going to be when you pull up in front of her school more than a half hour before the first damn bell.
That is not relaxing. That is not the stuff vacations are supposed to be made of.
Someone remind me of this when I prepare to take my PTO hours in February, ok?
Poorly Chosen Vacation Days Read More »