This is where I should mention that I took all three of my nephews – ages 12, 11 and 3 – up north to my mom’s. In a car. For 5 hours round trip. The fact that no one died in or at my hands is another story completely.
Anyway, Matthew tells my grandma that my mom & stepdad fight a lot. I wouldn’t call it fighting – just mom-picking-apart-every-thing-that-stepdad-does-and-stepdad-putting-up-with-it. I mistakenly relay this information to my mom. My mom asks me for examples for the weekend. I tell her.
In turn what happens? She gets mad at me.
What a vicious cycle, I tell you.
On Monday night, after my babysitting adventure, I got home to a package from my dad. Whoo hooo! Being 27 and Erin, you know I'm not going to wait around until Christmas to open it. I waited - until I got to the top of my stairs, in my apartment and took my coat off - before I tore it open. This is what was inside.
I guess the little Mexican man in the sombrero (how stereotypical!) is a flask/bottle of sorts (his sombrero is hiding the cork) and the glasses are shot glasses. I think he may have come from someone's stoner days in the 70's, but I'm not sure. But, alas it is from my dad and I will forever cherish it. I may someday pass it on to my children who will appreciate it - but hopefully won't be stoners. And when I actually have an apartment which will allow me room to entertain, I might bring this sucker out for kicks & giggles.Rest assured that he gave me money too. And with that money, I will be buying myself a Wii next week (: Sooooooo geeked about that purchase!
This is one of my favorite ornaments on my Christmas tree. It's kinda funny when you look closely at this picture because you can totally tell the fakeness of my tree. But I bet if you looked really close at say Tori Spelling's face, you would see the fakeness that is her nose. Anyway, a dear friend back in the day gave me this ornament. She isn't a dear friend anymore, but I'm not the kind of person who would chuck it just because she's a jerk now. Yep, I call you a jerk.*Please note at this point that these pictures are not in any type of order!*
Last night I decided to start honing my culinary/domestic skills for the GP annual holiday potluck which will be happening tomorrow. I hopped onto one of my favorite websites for some ideas on what to make. I generally make desserts at work for birthday celebrations, so I've pretty much got that one down. I decided to go outside of the box: Mexican Wedding cookies & Spinach Artichoke dip. I also decided to take time to actually copy recipes down for my recipe box (which I asked for Christmas last year, and never wrote a single completed recipe in it) rather than just stuffing the printed versions in there. Progress...you feel good. (By the way, that's me & my friend Kristin in a picture from 1999. She unfortunately, passed away seven years ago. Around that same time, my waist disappeared. I miss both of them to this day.)
This is my couch. This is my huge dog on my couch. Damn me for ever letting him get up there!
Where all my Christmas cards go, for lack of a better place. Usually the frame gets covered & I start work on the inside. I like to cover the bull's body getting pierced by the picadillo, but that's just me. I'm not a bullfighting fan - I like this picture because it says "Salamanca" on it which is where I studied in Spain. Shout out to Salamanca, yo!
My pretty Christmas tree at night. Can you see the jumble of lights at the bottom where I effortlessly put them back up after a cat took them down?
Christmas tree with lights on. Ooooh! In other news, I made the terrible mistake of leaving my cats in my apartment over the weekend, by themselves. Now in the summer, I would allow the door to be propped open so that they could roam in & out of the addition and backyard (those of you who do not know the layout of my home/apartment are probably gasping right now…just go with it) and come in at night to sleep in the house or whatever. Well in the winter, I can’t do that. Well, I guess I could. The girls who rent the business space downstairs have stopped giving me my portion of the electric bill, so I just pay them like $50 a month. I know this isn’t enough, but until you get off your rears and give me the bill, I’m not paying you a lick more. Wooooord. Anyway, if I left my door wide open for the heat to escape and the cold to come in, it wouldn’t bother me that much. Might even prompt them to actually give me a bill. So I decided to leave the cats in for the weekend thinking what harm could they do?I have never done such terrible understimating in my whole life. The whole bottom row of branches were on the floor. Although there were no demolited presents, there were some that were slightly compromised. There were lights hanging on the floor, and ribbon on the floor, resting helplessly. Luckily, it was fixed relatively easily, but still. If I have trouble controling cats with a Christmas tree, what will I do when I have toddlers?!
This is Libby. She is like the ring leader & the major trouble maker. The other day she was in the Christmas tree - actually in it - so I got the water bottle out to squirt her. I did like 6 squirts and it did nothing. I finally had to approach her face before she was even threatened. Lucky for her, she is a cuddler and pretty cute so it keeps me from killing her or feeding her to the wolves.
This is Libby. She is like the ring leader & the major trouble maker. The other day she was in the Christmas tree - actually in it - so I got the water bottle out to squirt her. I did like 6 squirts and it did nothing. I finally had to approach her face before she was even threatened. Lucky for her, she is a cuddler and pretty cute so it keeps me from killing her or feeding her to the wolves. Speaking of wolves, here is a Chase story. When I was driving them to my mom's house, Roman (11) was sitting in the backseat with Chase (almost 4). They usually do pretty good together, and don't fight. The best part of the whole trip was listening to the 2 of them laughing their heads off at "America's Funniest Videos" on my iPOD. Chase has the deepest little man belly laugh and it makes me smile. Anyway, at one point Roman was pretending to play dead. So Chase tells me "we have a dead man in our car." I proceeded to tell him how if he killed Roman we would have to go to the hospital, but we would have to take him to jail first because he would be in trouble for killing Roman. He then says to me, "can't we just pull over & dump his body out for the coyotes to eat?" I could not stop laughing! That is likely a sign that he watches too much (bad) TV but it was hilarious at the same time.
And oh yeah, this is culprit number two, Maggie. She has become a bit more tame in the last few years, but she is still wreckless.
And oh yeah, this is culprit number two, Maggie. She has become a bit more tame in the last few years, but she is still wreckless. On Monday I spent the evening at the F household playing soccer mom. Well, I really only had to pick Luke up from daycare and warm up leftovers for dinner, but it still felt soccer momish. J gave me my Christmas gift that evening which I absolutely adore - a beautiful, soft hot pink plaid scarf (Burberryish print) and a pair of cashmere lined leather gloves. They even made sure the scarf had green in it to match the coat. How I love that family. I'm looking forward to giving the kids their gifts when I am over there on Friday for the eggnog party...and Monday to play soccer mom all day. (:
Okay, this post is long enough.
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