Christmas Is Coming!!!

So Sweetie and I had a date at University Mall tonight. Just the two of us! We Christmas shopped for several tough cookies, and I made out like a bandit. Sweetie spoiled me rotten with new clothes (which I have completely forgotten about until Thursday) and he handpicked the chocolate truffles I am giving him. The best kind of shopping--no guesswork.

We had to cancel our trip to St. Louis because of the weather. I really miss my family, but there was just no way we could safely do the drive. So I'm going to fly out in January (just me!) to see everyone, including my sister from NC. We're going to do some sort of home repair project for Em and can probably even get my uber-cool brother involved. Only the crazy musician won't be there--she'll be tending bar in the Big Easy. Hopefully this summer we can all see each other.

Lots of presents to wrap tomorrow, a few errands to run, probably plenty of snow to shovel, cookies to bake, and a Honey-Baked ham to pick up. I wish I were in St. Louis, of course, but we're going to have a great Christmas anyway.

Merry Christmas!

I Impressed the Heck Out of My Kids

Last night I had one of those cooking experiences that thankfully comes along pretty rarely.

I decided to make goulash and spaetzle, a Hungarian/German meal that we had a lot growing up. I got the meat cut up with onions and paprika, browning in a pan and smelling so good. But when I squeezed the garlic through the press, it came out all dark brown and disgusting smelling. The cloves weren't soft, the head of garlic looked fine--but it wasn't fine! So I fished out the pieces of meat that were "contaminated", and added garlic powder instead.

I usually make homemade rolls for Sunday dinner, but I decided to do crescent rolls from a can because we don't get out of church until 5:00 and if I make them ahead of time they mysteriously disappear long before dinner is done. As the goulash was cooking, I popped the rolls in the oven to cook. But somehow my hand must have bumped the temperature dial and it was on 200 instead of 375. So the rolls didn't cook. I put them in longer at the right temperature, but they looked a little funny. No matter. They're still edible. But I stopped paying attention long enough that the goulash burned on the bottom. Not great, but we could just not eat those pieces of meat.

Then I made the spaetzle, and as I was draining the noodles in the colander, it tipped into the sink and half the batch went right down the drain. Poor Kitty Boy felt so bad for me. He fixed his plate of dinner, and as he reached for a roll all his goulash slipped off the plate right onto the floor. At this point I was laughing (seriously). I cleaned it up, started on a second batch of spaetzle, when we heard a crash in the pantry and a huge bag of chocolate chips from Costco fell off a shelf and spilled all over the floor.

Now we were all laughing. Well, Sweetie wasn't because he wasn't in the kitchen when everything else had happened before. Tinkerbell and I had hot dogs, and there was enough decent goulash and spaetzle for the others. Nothing like a warm fuzzy Sunday dinner!

And throughout the entire ordeal, not one swear word left my lips. I pointed this fact out to the kids, and they were most impressed. Kitty Boy even thanked me.

Problem Fixed!

Our van CD player broke and "they" sent it off three weeks ago to be fixed. I've had no music in the car all that time, and I think that's been my problem! I rarely get the computer at home because five other people are vying for it, so the only chance I have to let loose is in the car--which has been curtailed as of late.

So I created a new playlist for my blog with some of my happy Christmas songs on it. They're not particularly religious in any way (okay, not religious at all), but they make me happy and sing and dance in a way that will generally embarrass any and all of my offspring. Mission Accomplished!

And the Amazon order is in! The lights are on the house! The wreath is on the door! The house is a mess! The tree still isn't up! It's starting to look a lot more like Christmas around here!

Ho Ho Ho!

Don't Mess With Me--I'll Take You All On

I feel incredibly feisty today, and not in a good way. I'm not a big holiday lover. It throws me off. Too much time for things to go horribly wrong. Not that anything went horribly wrong, but every day brought it's own special surprise, if you know what I mean. From home foreclosures (not ours) to flaky sisters (mine) to broken dates (ours) to daughters who need to be beaten (not the little one), it was quite a week. I was furious about Black Friday fatalities, shocked at Mumbai violence, and generally ticked off at everyone and everything that crossed my path. Even my cats were annoying.

I downloaded the soundtrack and score to Twilight, and that hasn't been helping me one little bit. Try listening to the same music that vampires were ripped apart to and it doesn't do much to put you in a Zen state. Sort of just adds fuel to the fire. Now I'm listening to Jack Johnson, which is helping a little bit.

I'm going to go put the Christmas wreath up. I need a little attitude adjustment.

You're Still the Only One For Me, Babe

I saw Twilight again today. Still so in love! *sigh*

Oh, Edward!

I had a great day today. Elvira and I went to see "Twilight" at the mall. I LOVED that book, really liked "New Moon" a lot, enjoyed "Eclipse" the second time around, and struggled with "Breaking Dawn." I decided I was really more of a wolf girl and admitted I had a thing for Jacob. Edward was just too whiny, after all.

Oh, Edward! Robert Pattinson was perfect as Edward. I'm such a vampire girl now. The movie was great. It was perfectly cast, and the screenplay was really great. There were some little things added that fit right in. Things like dialogue between the high school kids, and Charlie and his gun. Really funny. The audience was completely packed with people seeing it for the very first time. There were probably four men in the whole audience. I bet 99.9% of the people had read the book, and everyone got excited at the same parts. Elvira just had the biggest grin on her face the whole time, and I'm sure I did, too.

Then tonight I took Things 1, 2, and 4 to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at PHS. It was so good! It was staged very much like the movie, but was still good. The kids had such great voices, and had no inhibitions at all about really embracing their goofy selves. I've been singing the songs since I got home. PHS puts on a good play, that's for sure!

I really needed this weekend!

I Need A New House

I really don't want to offend anyone in my ward or neighborhood. Really, really don't want to. But I have to get out of here. We've lived in our cute little dollhouse for 14 years next month. Our cute little 3 bedroom, 1 bath (soon to be two) home with 1666 sq. ft. and four children. I grew up never living anywhere more than a year or so, and I've been here nearly 1/3 of my life. I might just possibly explode.

So, I need to move. Soon.

This is what I need. Five bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, preferably with a basement. We Midwestern girls need our basements to escape the tornadoes. Don't even start with the whole "we don't get tornadoes here" thing. There's always a first time, Missy. Walking distance to BYU for Sweetie since he doesn't drive much anymore and we're down to one car anyway.

Here are my neighborhoods of choice: Tree Streets (not because of cjane (though that's a plus--but I've always loved it there!), Stadium Heights, Indian Hills, Edgemont, Grandview Hill, and those super cute streets just east of Kiwanis Park with University names. It would be hard to walk from Grandview, it's true, but I like it up there. You'll notice my neighborhood isn't on the list. It's not that I don't love my neighbors, because I truly do. I just want a different view. Provo looks very different when you're looking towards the west, rather than from it.

I feel a little like a hamster in a cage here, because we have so many big hobbies that take up a ton of space. Sweetie has his easel and a big watercolor table in the garage that has never even been used. Drummer Boy has, you guessed it, a big drum set. We have a Lego table with, help me out here Em, probably close to 15,000 Legos on it (no, I really don't think I'm exaggerating). Elvira has tons of art supplies, books, etc. Tinkerbell has enough Barbies to stock a Toys-R-Us, and Kitty Boy has lots of everything. We have over 1,000 DVDs and a couple of thousand books (that's what happens when you're married to a film professor). And I have loads of sewing and craft supplies. It's a darling house, and it was even featured in the Hidden Garden tour in 2006. Gorgeous landscaping, lots of built-in shelving and storage things.

But Drummer Boy is starting college next year, and dorms are expensive. I would love for him to have his own room so he's not sharing a bunk bed with his middle school brother. Am I greedy? Unreasonable? I don't think so. Just getting a little claustrophobic.

And one of the biggest perks? You get to have sue-donym as your backyard neighbor!

So, know anyone who wants to buy a cute little dollhouse with a beautiful garden that looks a lot bigger from the outside?