Cute little girls

This is my goddaughter on her first birthday this past August (I forgot to post the pics). She couldn't look at the camera because Blues Clues was on TV.




Meanwhile, her sister and I took some pictures together.

This was the next day during her birthday party. I gave her a little dolly which, as you can tell, she wasn't fond of it.

Christmas Eve

Staring down Elmo

Growing up I always had Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family. For many, many years my mom hosted. I loved Christmas Eve! In 2000 my mom moved about 1 1/2 hours away so the family started taking turns hosting since most of us lived within 30 minutes of each other. I had it for three years in a row and this year my stepsister and her husband had it. I really don't mind hosting but I'm so obsessive that I find it really hard to relax when I'm in charge of it all. Needless to say, this was great and I didn't mind the hour drive to get there.

7 1/2 months old and she knows how to open presents!

This was Chloe's first Christmas. I love when there are children at Christmas. There are only two children left in my family. Somebody's got to start popping out some kids!

Giving the seal kisses turned into a kind of soggy stuffed animal.

Coooookies!

Every year I take a day off about a week before Christmas and my mom and I spend the entire day baking cookies. Last year we made eight different kinds. This year we decided not to make any. It was so much work and many of the people in our family only had one or two cookies. We'd make cookies that required a million ingredients and recipes that made too many cookies.

My mom stuck to the plan but I thought we needed something so I made a few.

For the past five years or so I've made baklava. This year I made baklava bars. Much easier and still has the same taste. I made simple sugar cookies with either candy cane kisses or chocolate mint kisses in the middle (they completely melted to they are little blobs). And I tried for the first time to make pistachio cranberry biscotti. Only okay but they are pretty good to dip in your coffee.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Cake in a mug

I got an e-mail with this recipe for a 5-minute chocolate cake in a mug. I tried it.

You mix your ingredients - 5 tablespoons of this, 3 of that, egg, milk, etc.

Pour it in a mug.

Microwave for three minutes.

The scary part is that it comes way up over the top but the recipe tells me not to panic. Pfff.

Then you let it cool for a couple minutes.

Dump it out on a plate and enjoy.

However, the enjoying part was the hard part. Imagine if that latex memory foam was edible. That is the consistency. I expected it to taste like rubber but the taste was really bland.


It ended up in the trash after two bites. I know, I know... WHO THROWS AWAY CHOCOLATE CAKE??? This wasn't cake, remember, it was some sort of dense, spongy, rubbery concoction that, had I made more, I could have layered it on my mattress to sleep on.

Maybe I should have doused it with hot fudge and eaten it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I'm Not That Girl

I'm Not That Girl

Hands touch, eyes meet

Sudden silence, sudden heat

Hearts leap in a giddy whirl

He could be that boy

But I'm not that girl

Don't dream too far

Don't lose sight of who you are

Don't remember that rush of joy

He could be that boy

I'm not that girl

Ev'ry so often we long to steal

To the land of what-might-have-been

But that doesn't soften the ache we feel

When reality sets back in

Blithe smile, lithe limb

She who's winsome, she wins him

Gold hair with a gentle curl

That's the girl he chose

And Heaven knows

I'm not that girl

Don't wish, don't start

Wishing only wounds the heart

I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl

There's a girl I know

He loves her so

I'm not that girl...

Ebony and ivory

Since I was eight or nine years old I wished I could play the piano. Many times in my life I’ve been asked from others if I play the piano “your fingers are so long”. I tried to teach myself with my grandma & grandpa’s old player piano using the piano books my mom learned from as a kid. My uncle taught himself, I thought I could too. My childhood friend could play. I made her play for me all the time. I made my uncle play for me. I loved to sit next to my grandma as she played.
I couldn’t grasp reading music. I couldn’t read music when I played the clarinet in band during seventh and eighth grade. I just knew that if the note was there on that line it meant my fingers went like this on my clarinet. I didn’t know how to count the time. I didn’t know how to determine a sharp from a flat or even what that meant. I still don’t. When trying to play the piano I’d get frustrated because I wanted to play the piano. I wanted to sit down and pound out a piece that would bring tears to my eyes because of the emotion. So, playing piano never happened. I have memorized the very, very beginning of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and that’s as impressive as it gets.
At least once a year I go through a phase where I really wish I could play the piano. I figure with all the years of wishing, I could have been practicing and today I would be able to pound out that piece and triumph from my incredible talent.
Even though I’ve been saying it for almost 30 years, I will say it again: Someday I will learn to play the piano.

You're wrong...

It sounds terrible and snotty and holier-than-thou but I kinda do this. Although, it's not because I like to prove people wrong, I look at it as a public service. I hate people to be misinformed... or something like that.

From Post Secret

No hustle, no bustle

I can't believe it, this is almost unheard of. I have only three more presents to buy for Christmas and I know what I'm going to buy. Usually a couple days before Christmas I'm still scrambling around for that last gift or two. This year has been so easy!
Thanks to a very blended family, every year I have about 14 - 16 people to buy for. Not only is it hard to come up with the money for all those gifts, it's hard to come up with ideas. Somehow I did it and I did it early this year.
I baked some cookies this weekend and wrapped the presents I purchased too!
I don't feel the usual stress the holidays bring. I'm calm, cool and collected. Very nice.

Progress & goals

I haven't updated my WW progress for some time. I am down 5.4 lbs. Slow and steady. I told myself I'd take a walk a few times a week after work to move things along but it's so cold out. All I want to do is come home, change clothes and snuggle up with a blanket and my boys.


I hope to be 10 lbs less by the end of the year.


I hope to be 30 lbs less by this spring.


I hope to be 40 lbs less by the end of summer.

It makes my stomach hurt

There is something profoundly disturbing about this picture. I can't put my finger on it, I can't find the right word but immediately upon seeing it this morning I was deeply offended. I can't be sure if it's the look on Bush's face, the kiss, the way he has his arms around the soldiers or what but it disgusts me.




The gratitude of the commander-in chief

President Bush kissed Marine Lance Cpl. Marc Olson of Coal City, Ill., after talking with Olson and fellow Marine Lance Cpl. Patrick Pittman Jr., of Savannah, Ga., at the White House on Tuesday. Olson and Pittman were injured when a suicide bomber attacked their checkpoint in Ramadi, Iraq. Earlier Tuesday the president spoke to the Corps of Cadets at West Point, defending his doctrine of pre-emptive war and warning that the United States must remain willing to“take the fight to our enemies across the world.”Down to his waning days in office, Bush is trying to define his legacy. The president declared that today’s military is“stronger, more agile and better prepared”than the one he inherited in 2001. He urged President-elect Obama to“stay on the offensive”against Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups and said his administration had“laid a solid foundation”for meeting emerging threats around he world. The speech came six weeks before he is to leave office.

HARAZ N. GHANBARI • Associated Press

People and books

I do most of my reading at work during my breaks and lunch and then right before bed.

I'm very good at tuning people out while I'm reading. So much so that most of the time I don't know when someone is talking to me. I like this about books. I like that a good book can completely take over my being and remove me from reality.

People are funny about books. People that don't read a lot, that is. When I start a new book a guy at work asks if it's a drama or a comedy. Is it a true story? If it's fiction he refers to it as "fantasy". He wants to know what the book is about as if I would be telling him the plot of a movie. We do this week after week, book after book.

Another guy tells me that he doesn't read much... occasionally he does... he's reading a book by so-and-so now and it's really well written. It's about a girl who gets done with high school and is now going to college and then... she's just gone. He's only on page 75 and they're talking to her parents now. But it's really well written, the way the author writes. The library didn't have it... he bought it... his wife had a $25 gift card. So anyway...

Another guy just asks what I'm reading and no matter what I'm reading asks if I've read the latest Dean Koontz book. I love Dean Koontz and so the conversation leads to that. The same topics, every time.

Reading at work is a great way to tune others out but it also invites some odd conversation.

Long holiday weekend

This holiday weekend was a busy one.

Thursday was spent at my brothers waiting for dinner. He was almost two hours late in serving. Then onto my dad's for dessert. My favorite - pumpkin apricot cake with cream cheese frosting!

Friday was spent shopping... six hours of shopping. I usually go with my sister but she was in Europe this past week (lucky!). I went with a friend and her two kids. The 15 month old wasn't having any of the shopping business but she did well overall. I got a couple gifts purchased and a couple things for myself... of course.

Saturday I met an old friend for lunch and we ended up hanging out all day. We went on all the rides at Nickelodeon Universe. I've never been on any of the rides at the Mall of America so this was all new to me. I've always gone for the bars (way back when), the restaurants, the movie theater and some shopping. It was fun!

Unfortunately I got a cold somewhere around Thanksgiving morning and it hit me hard Sunday. I slept most of the day and then went to the airport to greet my sister - finally home from Paris and Barcelona.