Did I Just Hear That!?

The time is now 3:38am. I am watching Stealing Harvard on TV, even though I own it, because I am finally finishing up a very agonizing work project when a commercial comes on. This is what I hear...

"We're the Death Professors. And the first thing we'll do is give you a free total death evaluation. We'll tell you the truth and explain what we can do for you, absolutely free."

Because it's nearing 4am and I have TiVo I went back to make sure I heard what I thought I heard. Turns out they are the DEBT Professors. Quite a let down.

Now back to the movie...
Duff: I wanna change. I wanna be Steve.
John: I'm Steve; You're Karl.
Duff: Kyle!

All I Want For Christmas Is A Blowtorch

And I got one! Thank you Maggie. I of course recieved a fire extinguisher as well; safety first you know. No, I am not a welder but I have always wanted to try and make crème brûlée and you can't do that without a torch. How else would you burn the sugar on top creating that wonderful caramel crust on top? How? I also recieved a Belgian waffle maker that makes wonderfully delicious waffles, cake pans, toys, canned goods. It was a glorious day.

Eggnog, who knew? I had my first taste of real eggnog on Christmas day. It was made fresh, included three different kinds of alcohol, and was oh so yummy. Though I still refuse to put that store-bought swill in my mouth.

We spent Boxing Day Eve laughing hysterically at random Chuck Norris facts. If you have never heard one here are some gems:
- When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
- Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
- There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris.
- Chuck Norris helped Jesus through the hard times, giving him strength by quoting the Scripture. (Norris had somehow gotten his hands on an advance copy of the New Testament, but couldn't bring himself to tell Jesus how it all ended.)


I hope everyone out there had a Merry Christmas!

A Delayed Reaction

I don’t even know what to say anymore. I made the mistake of reading Kara’s blog post about her revelation that she is angry with me. Well, while I understand her anger with me I am angry with her too. Not because of anything that happened during the trip but that she is airing all her anger at me on the Internet for everyone to bash me after only hearing her side of the story. I do not want to make a bigger deal of this so I am going to make my side short.

I have a relatively small family that I am very close with. The morning we left for our trip my dad came over and told me that my uncle, his only sibling and last remaining member of his immediate family had died. We were devastated. We are still devastated. But he told me to go on the trip, so I went.

In trying to keep myself pulled together and not let my grief take over I held it all in. This made me feel sick pretty much the entire time we were there. That coupled with Ramadan and the lack of available food, made me very weak. Yes, being in a third world country by yourself is terrifying; and I 100% understand Kara’s anger. But I felt uneasy and unsafe at times when there were two of us; namely in Fez. And that is what was the final straw that made me leave. I was shaking and my heart was racing. I was having, what I now know as an anxiety attack. And it wasn’t the first one I had on that trip. I was scared.

There were a number of factors that I am not going to get into because I don’t need to explain them to anyone. What it comes down to is that I left because I was devastated by the loss of my uncle and I needed to be with people that understood that and would allow me to grieve, not because I thought they needed me.

I have apologized for leaving. There isn’t any more that I can do. Kara is pissed, and she has every right. But is the anger because I left? Or, is the anger because the trip didn’t turn out like she though it would?

Life happens, no one knows how they are going to react to loss until it slaps them in the face. The loss has changed me. I am not the same person I was when we planned our trip. I am not asking for an apology, just some understanding.

The Shins

Getting in for free rocks! I have never felt like such a rock star in my life.

James you are my hero!

I know the picture looks blurry but I took it with my camera phone 10 feet away from the stage so in my mind it is the best picture in the world. THE WORLD!

Shopping Cart Confessional

Okay! I admit it! It’s not snowing anymore… at least not outside. It’s still snowing in Amyville, which is the world that I live in that does not involve reality. It’s a lot like Whoville without the crazy hairdos.

In Amyville no one works, it snows at Christmas, and Bing Crosby comes to my house to sing ‘Count Your Blessings’ when I can’t fall asleep. And if you don’t know that song than you are not welcome in Amyville… we reserve the right to kick anyone out that we see fit.

Since I have not written a true post in a while I will be providing you with some highlights…

Maggie’s Birthday – Mom and I went with Maggie, Rich, and the kids up to Seattle for a long weekend. We went to Pike Street Market where Maggie and Rich had found the world’s best donuts. I’m not kidding. It’s a tiny little stall with a donut machine that fries them right in front of you… I recommend the chocolate frosted ones with sprinkles. Damn they are good. We also we to the original Starbucks, one of the restaurant’s from Sleepless in Seattle, visited the Fremont Troll, took a ride on the carousel on the pier, and of course went to IKEA to do some shopping. It was quite the trip.

Thanksgiving – Delicious turkey but bad pumpkin pie. I make the pies and cinnamon rolls every year; this year I decided to try organic pumpkin mix for the pies. Don’t ever do that! It was bland and tasted burnt. Now it’s Libby’s or nothing at all.

My Christmas Tree – I love finding a Christmas tree. We get all bundled up in scarves and coats, throw on our mud boots and off we go. We’ve been going to the Loch Lolly tree farm for over five years now but they let us down this year. I have so freaking many ornaments that a Grand Fir no longer makes the grade. So we went to the tree farm in search of Noble Firs. All they had were these short bushy things that barely qualified for trees so we left. Next up was the Pumpkin Ridge tree farm… don’t go there. The sign doesn’t tell you but it’s eight miles from the turn off and half way there the road turns to gravel. It would be worth it if they had anything taller than four feet or anything shorter than 400 feet. If you don’t believe me take a drive and see for yourself.

So I made a call to Sarah who pointed me toward the most excellent tree farm called Hagg’s (pronounced Hay-g). They had so many perfect Nobles. I kept getting denied the ones I wanted because they were nearly 12 feet tall… stupid ceiling. The damn thing gets in the way every time I pick out my tree. So I settled for my dancing tree. That won’t make sense until I post a picture of my tree later and you can see that it indeed looks like it is dancing. And why wouldn’t it want to dance? It’s covered in 1,150 lights, two boxes of tinsel, over 75 ornaments, and a flashing star tree topper from the 60’s. It’s beautiful.

I love decorating my tree but 1,150 lights are more than I was prepared for. It took three trips to target before I got enough. That’s a lot of Target.

Dresses – Oh how I love being a lady. Sarah and I went shopping for party dresses for her parent’s Christmas party coming up. We brought 15 dresses into the dressing room and I came out with two of the most wonderful dresses in the world. You would think that this would be the point where I would show you pictures of them but you would be wrong. They will be debuted at the party and no sooner. So you’ll have to wait until photos from the party are posted. I know, the suspense is just killing the guys out there.

Gingerbread Houses – What do you get when you combine two gingerbread houses, three children, and six adults? You get one traditional gingerbread house and one not so traditional gingerbread house. If your curious Sarah has provided an excellent retelling with a photo. Sarah's Blog

Cookies – Martha is insane. Don’t get me wrong, I love Martha Stewart but she’s nuts. There is no way she actually spends hours decorating cookies for her tree or to give as gifts. It takes way too long. Last night Maggie, Sarah, Emily, and Haley came over to participate in some quality cookie decorating. I was fully prepared with over half a dozen different kinds of sprinkles and toppings and eight different colors of home-made icing. We were doing great until the icing bags started to explode and we realized we made way too many cookies.

What Martha doesn’t tell you is that you completely run out of ideas on how to decorate the cookies. There are only so many ways to decorate a tree or a bell. And once you stop to think about how to decorate it for a minute the frosting tip crusts over and you have to pick it off and wipe it down. If there weren’t four of us using the frostings simultaneously those frostings would have been hard as a rock. I don’t buy her claim of decorating cookies for her tree for one minute. That would be a HUGE time waste.

The Shins – I really have nothing to say here except that Sarah, Ashley, and I are going to their concert tonight and I’m totally excited. More on that later.

I hope this satisfies those that have been guilting me because of my lack of posting. It’s the holidays… give a girl a break.