Things have been busy around here with traveling, seeing family and friends and celebrating the holidays. Regular blogging will resume in the new year with pictures of all the holiday madness and festivities.
In the meantime, have a very safe and happy new year to all! May 2009 bring you many wonderful things. Cheers!
We wish everyone a very happy Christmas! May you all have good tidings, heaps of love and peace this season and the year to come.
I walked out the front door to find this stunning sunset over the mountains. Don’t you think the bursts of sunlight look like lava erupting from a volcano or else it’s a raging forest fire? Fear not, it’s just the sunset!
Does it make me an oldie if for Christmas I’m asking for knitting, quilting, sewing and calligraphy classes? I’d like to think not but Sister seems to think differently.
Sister: Sister, what do you want for Christmas?
Me: I want gift certificates for this place where I can learn sewing, quilting, knitting and calligraphy.
Sister: You want what?!? How old are you? You’re so old. You should be asking for more exciting, youthful things other than craft classes. You know what I want for Christmas?
Me: What?
Sister: Skiing accessories, a rock climbing excursion, airline gift cards to take a trip, a gym membership, boots, an iTunes giftcard, hang gliding ride…
Me: (Said sarcasticly) Well aren’t you freakin’ wonderful. You’re so awesome, Sister. Maybe one day I’ll grow up to be just like my carefree, feisty little sister. Just remember, when the economy goes completely down the crapper and the only clothes you have on your back are the ones handmade by yours truly, then you’ll be kissing my arse and placing your order for more. Besides, aren’t you the one who recently asked me to crochet you three winter hats?
Sister: God, you’re so boring, responsible and… OLD!
Me: Thanks, Sister. Love you too.
The first snow of the season has fallen on the mountains due to a winter storm that has blown through So Cal this week. It couldn’t have happened at a better time- snow capped mountains just in time for the holidays! I must say, it’s finally beginning to look and feel a lot like Christmas in the desert.
Emily tagged me and so here are my answers:
These are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you. (see above)
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random, arbitrary things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
6 Random Things (that I don’t mind being posted on the internet):
1. While in high school, I was accepted in to an advanced program at Wellesley College to study Japanese for two years. Years later, my two years worth of Japanese language and culture came in handy when Paul and I traveled to Japan for a holiday. All that hard work finally paid off!
2. When I was nine years old, I was stung by a jellyfish while in Florida on a family holiday. Luckily, I was rescued by a lifeguard a la Baywatch style. The life saver cured me with some meat tenderizer to my wound.
3. In high school, my very first car was a total piece of shite but really, what can you expect for $25! In the winter, the defroster wouldn’t work so the entire windshield was iced over. Sister and I would have to roll down the windows in the freezing cold and stick our heads out the windows in order to drive the car. Sister was a great navigator yelling various directions along the lines of, “you’re about to curb us!” or, “You’re on the wrong side of the road” and such. We didn’t want to tell the rents the car was broken for fear we would lose our wheels and freedom!
4. When I was a real young’in, my sister and I were “wrestling” (aka jumping on the bed and clothes lining each other). Since I’m far superior in strength, I broke Sister’s arm. We didn’t know for weeks until she finally said her arm hurt.
5. I’ve never had a professional/spa massage in my life. Yes, I’m pretty sure I’m the only woman in the world who hasn’t had one.
6. I’m allergic to cats. When I was young, I broke out in a tiny rash on my leg that just grew bigger and bigger as I grew up. I now have a large birth mark like feature that I affectionately refer to as my coffee stain.
I tag Casey, Alanah, Brianna, Janine, Rachel, Teresa and anyone else who wants to join in.
Do you think Scrooge will like the house now?
Nah, just kidding! The above picture is not my house and it’s courtesy of Ugly Christmas Lights. Check it out to see how far people will go in the name of the Christmas spirit.
On a related note, I’m happy to report there have been no more candy cane incidents with Scrooge. Maybe the Christmas ghosts paid him/her a visit. Merry Christmas!
Here’s the latest update:
The candy canes are intact, however, Mr. Bah Humbug is back. This time, all of the candy canes were turned in the opposite direction from the original way we had them positioned. Scrooge definitely had to walk up the driveway and turn each and everyone around. Seriously… who has time for this?
I’m contemplating installing close circuit security cameras but I don’t know… that might be a bit much, no? Electric buzzers on the candy canes are also a brilliant idea as suggested by one lovely reader. However, I think that would be too complicated for me… although, pretty funny to see someone actually get zapped. (Yes, I’m evil like that!) Instead, I’ve opted to purchase more lights. Now, although I think going all Clark Griswold on the neighborhood, as proposed and agreed upon by some readers, would be a brilliant idea, I just don’t have the time or energy for it. I figure I’ll start out slowly and work my way up the light count, if needed.
I purchased my white lights and went straight home to start the lighting extravaganza. I opened the boxes, plugged in the lights and wouldn’t you know it, they wouldn’t light up! I tried the next box and the next box… all busted! Unfortunately, the curse of Scrooge must be upon me because seriously, how could it be that several boxes of lights don’t work? What are the chances? And yes, I checked several different outlets just to make sure it wasn’t the power source. Tomorrow I’ll try again with a new set of lights. I promise, I will be triumphant in my battle against Scrooge!
So there you have it. Round one and two have gone to Scrooge… bring on round three. *ding, ding*
Apparently Scrooge lives in our neighborhood and doesn’t like our Christmas lights. Let’s see… where do I begin?
On Sunday, we lined the front side of the short, curved driveway with a single row of candy cane lights. We went with the candy canes because they’re easy to display and they were the most accessible in our pile of Christmas decorations. We have no other lights out front- just the candy canes. There’s maybe a total of 10 candy canes, no more than 12 inches tall and look sort of like the following picture:
Well, late Monday afternoon we headed outside and to our unfortunate surprise we saw that Mr. (or Ms.) Bah Humbug had ripped out all of our candy cane lights in broad daylight. They were knocked down, unplugged and scattered over the lawn. *Merry Christmas A-hole.*
I have my suspicions but I’m willing to give the neighborhood the benefit of the doubt. For instance, maybe there was a freak wind storm that I missed in which the candy canes were magically whipped up from their grounded spikes or some punk kids decided to have “fun” or even a dog came along and knocked them down. I guess these options are plausible but highly unlikely. First, the desert was as still and sunny as could be- there were no clouds or bad weather in sight. Next, we live on a very quite little street with a total of only four houses. We hardly ever have anyone other than those who live on the street come by. I’ve lived in this house now for six months and haven’t seen any kids. (At Halloween, we had a whopping four kids come to the house and they were all toddlers with one parent.) Even if someone was walking their dog off leash and their dog thrashed someone’s decorations, I would hope they would have the decency to fix it or knock on the door and explain the situation. Therefore, I’m led to believe it’s some mean spirited Scrooge who gets his/her jollies from wrecking havoc on our Christmas decorations. You would think people would have better things to do with their time, but I guess not.
We’ve put the candy cane lights back up as we will not negotiate with Scrooge. (Said in the vein of our trusty politicians, “We will not negotiate with terrorists”) We’ll see what happens today. I’m contemplating putting up more lights now just to piss off the neighborhood Scrooge. I think the front palm tree could use some lights around its trunk, don’t you?
I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving weekend.
We had the most delicious Thanksgiving dinner and the preparations and cooking for the feast went very well. There were no broken dishes, burnt food or cursing to be heard- a success! My most favorite things from the meal were the turkey, sausage & chestnut stuffing, the gravy and Mom’s cranberry jelly sauce- yum, yum, yum.
Now we are on to the Christmas preparations. The tree is up and decorated. The outdoor lights are strung. We drank heaps of warm apple cider and even braved black Friday to do a little shopping- there were NO lines. Sister left Sunday night and miraculously made her flight. It was a successful, long weekend and now the countdown to Christmas is on.
