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