Aftermath

Daily Stats:
Words: hot diggity
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: leftover desserts from Xmas...mother-in-law's cherry pie that gave me heartburn but it was worth it
Reality TV: Top Chef reruns on Bravo

Well, we survived our first "ain't buying shit" Christmas, and I have to say it went over pretty well. Even with charred index finger and a seven hour power outage on Christmas Eve, we still managed to show up for the festivities with massive amounts of homemade yummies. Everyone went a bit mute when we handed them over. I'm not sure if this is because a) they're petrified of my cooking or b) they weren't expecting so much stuff. I'm hoping it was the latter, however, there was lemon pudding cake incident about four years ago that would certainly validate a fear of getting within three feet of anything I had hand in making.

And though we got some lovely gifts in return, this, by far, is the winner:














Oh, yes. A de-fat-ass-inator. From us, to us. Could we afford it? No! Were we being irresponsible? Yes. Will we be poor but svelte with rock hard butt cheeks? Yes! (Okay, actually, no, I won't, only because I'm of good German stock and I don't believe rock hard butt cheeks are in our DNA.) I tumbled right into my sordid affair with the Crosswalk 480, and already my calves feel like fiery wads of goo. She's a cruel mistress.

Was Santa good to you this year?

...and I heard him exclaim

...as he drove out of site. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good Clive.

(Adult content. No Veenie Babies allowed. Not suitable for children under 30! )

Christmas casualty

Daily Stats:
Words: ouch
Caffeine: ouch ouch
Evil Calories: ouch
Reality TV: son-of-an-ouch

Crafty? Yes. Graceful and coordinated? Hell no. Speaking in fragments because I burned the crap out of my index finger. Was making oatmeal and cardamom pancakes. Last minute addition to the list. Confused flesh with lumpy batter and sizzled tip of finger. Swore. A lot. Now we have a problem. French baguettes are sitting on their second rise, will soon need to be manhandled. Will have to use elbows or toes, I guess (now aren't you glad you're not on my xmas list?) May start drinking heavily to dull pain. Have doused finger in above pictured ointment (god i hate that word), but 'tis not helping. 'Tis pissing me off. 'Twas almost $10. 'Twill write letter to company once flesh on finger is no longer crispy.

She's crafty

Daily Stats:
Words: snow
Caffeine: morning cup+ midmorning cappuccino from girl at Macy's cafe who made really good foam
Evil Calories: currently obsessed with making the perfect carrot cake...still not there but am eating my way through
Reality TV: Top Chef reruns

Did I mention we're not doing any Christmas shopping this year? We're not skipping Christmas altogether, mind you. We still put up our sad little $20 fakey-fake tree from Target, still went to the mall this morning to walk around and see all the decoration, still plan on ordering our traditional Chinese take-out dinner on Christmas eve and watching TNT's marathon of A Christmas Story. But, no shopping. Everything we're giving this year is homemade. That is, if you live within a 30 mile radius. If you don't live within a 30 mile radius, you're getting a long distance high-five from us and that's about it. I don't mean to sound like a Scrooge, it's just that the industry that basically keeps my cute little homestead afloat is in Washington right now begging and pleading for money. I told them not to throw all their eggs in the SUV basket, but did they listen????? Noooooooo!!!!!

I could go on and on for days about this because I spent many years of my life producing commercials for one of "The Big Three". Asshats. That's all I'll say. Asshats who wouldn't know a good idea if it came up and started madly humping their leg. That's why they're broke, peeps. But I digress...

So, you may not know this, but I'm crafty and have mad skillz. When I say we're giving homemade presents, I don't mean cookies and "free hug" coupons. If you live within a 30 mile radius, and I give a crap about you, you will be getting the following:

homemade French baguette
roasted garlic butter
sweet potato biscuits
honey butter
homemade beef jerky
eggplant bolognese
pasta e fagioli
ratatouille
herb stuffing (made with homemade bread, cuz that's how I roll)
carrot cake cookies
English cream scones
three legged wheezing cat

Okay, I'm not really giving away that last one, but am tempted to since evil feline monster has chewed off bottom branches of aforementioned $20 fakey-fake Target Christmas tree. This is why we can't have nice things.

Anyone else boycotting the blue light specials at Kmart and giving homespun yummies instead?

Movement

Daily Stats:
Words: feelin' it
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: "trapped inside due to mother of all snow storms" breakfast - homemade hash browns, bacon, eggs...hospital please...
Reality TV: DVR'd Celeb Rehab

First, thanks to all my peeps who talked me through my brain clog. Words are moving again, not quite tumbling, but coming in at moderate speed and I no longer feel like I want to close my head in the dryer door. And thanks to awesomely funny dude Bryan B. for spurring the "pom pom" controversy. I gotta go with Big Plain V on this one. As a former Pop Warner cheerleading captain, I can say for sure that it's pom poms. (Here's where you're supposed to be impressed. I won't mention the fact that anyone who tried out for Pop Warner cheerleading made the squad. They just grouped all the rejects together and assigned them to the reject football team. Guess which squad I was captain of? Yep. We were sad. We had three girls with asthma, a girl who was pushing 200 lbs and a girl who broke her foot at tryouts. Did you ever see Wedding Singer? Remember the rejects at table nine? That was us.)

Anyway, since it's Friday, here another video to make you snort!

The Landlord by Will Ferrell

Brain clog

Daily Stats:
Words: trying
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: more carrot cake
Reality TV: Top Chef NY

I really need my brain to cooperate with me right now. I'm trying to finish my WIP by the middle of January, but at this rate, it will simply sit in my "poo lives" folder getting crusty edges and collecting dust. I don't quite understand what my problem is. I have my entire book mapped out, I know exactly what is supposed to happen, yet, when I sit down to write it out, it feels like I'm trying to tap dance in in quick sand. Why is it that sometimes the words just tumble out and fall exactly into place, but other times I have to practically reach up my nose to dig them out?

I think I need to get that book that my sister is always talking about. The one where you write like mad in a journal every morning to unlock your inner genius. Of course, with my luck, I'd unlock her just as the boy started a defcon-5 toddler "sick of being cooped up inside" shit-fit, and I'd end up sitting at the play area at the mall writing on my arm. That's just what I need. Anther reason for the other moms to give me funny looks.

Nailed

Daily Stats:
Words: many
Caffeine: morning cup
Evil Calories: carrot cake
Reality TV: trashy things on Vh1

About a week ago, I found a nail in some coffee beans I bought from one of our foofy local grocery stores (you know, the ones that try and push $5/lb bananas and gourmet, organic, free-range toilet paper). Of course, I didn't actually find it until it was jammed in between the burrs of my grinder. This is bad. You do NOT want to mess with my grinder. That is the wrong thing to try and break. I will kill you and eat your soul if you keep me from my coffee.

So, in order to keep me from going totally postal, hubby took the whole thing apart so we could get it out. Luckily, we managed to stop the grinder before the nail did any major damage (had it stripped the gears or chipped my burrs, you would have surly seen me on the news). Once I was able to speak in normal, non-howler monkey tones, I returned the coffee and the nail to said grocery store. The manager just stared and me, looking like he was going to throw up and/or piddle himself. I was little irritated because he wouldn't say anything except, "oh, geez." Ummm...hello, you almost killed my grinder, I think you need to be the one carrying the conversation. So after a looooooooooooooooong uncomfortable pause, and several more "oh, geez"s, I suggested he give me a refund. He did...a whole seven dollars. I gotta say, if I were the manager of a store that just sold someone nail ridden coffee beans, I'd be falling all over myself to make it better. How 'bout a free pound of coffee? Nail free, I promise! Or how 'bout a nice bunch of flowers. Maybe some mangos?

Whatever. I'd love to stand here all day and watch you on the verge of tinkling, Mr. foofy grocery store manager, but I gotta go.

So, when I got home I decided to an email to the roaster. They're a small, local company, so I hoped it would find its way to a non-piddling manager who would freak out, send me a truckload of free coffee and even possibly do something bold like name me woman of the year for not suing them. But it's been a week and nothing. No response, no free coffee, no plaques with my lovely face etched in bronze. What has this world come to? What's happened to customer service? I realize a nail is better than a human finger or a dried wad of poo, but it's still bad!