It used to be Bah-Humbug!

The holidays from high school on were a funk inducing time of year for me.  

BAH-HUMBUG!

Senior year I was living in a quad and one of my new roommates, Liz, was a holiday NUT.  :)

This was our little tree that she insisted we set up in early November and each roommate had to help put on the ornaments.  It was really heart warming.  I will probably never be as enthusiastic about Christmas as Liz, but I think that year my Bah-Humbug! attitude started to fade.

Yesterday was Christmas decorating day.  I haven't been home to help out with decorating since I started college and I forgot what it was like to have a family decorating day.  There was a parade of boxes from upstairs to the living room where decorations spewed onto every corner of the first floor.  Lil Sis plopped one santa hat on dad and donned the other.  With the Wheel of Fortune and then the Big Bang Theory in the background we set up and trimmed the tree.

While Lil Sis was decorating the rest of the downstairs I checked all of the outdoor lights to make sure they worked.  One string was only half lit and if I jiggled it they worked.  I was going through the bulbs, one by one, to see if I could find the loose one and...

ZAP!

Holy crap! An entire casing was missing, which exposed bare wires.  I managed to brush it with my arm, completing the circuit.  There may have been some swearing, but there was more laughing - it scared the crap out of me, but didn't really hurt too badly.  :)

Despite being electrocuted, being surrounded by family while decorating the house has made a Bah-Humbug! this season irrelevant.

Break out the Christmas music, the electricity made my heart grow three sizes!

Parents

The PostSecret that most caught me this week was this:

I have to commend her mother for being there for her daughter.  I know my mother would have done the same for any of her children if they found themselves in this position.  In 'Mamma Mia' Donna told her daughter Sophie that when her grandmother found out she was pregnant, she said not to bother coming back.  We couldn't believe that her mother would be like that.  I know it happens, but I just wish the world could be more loving.

Since it's still near Thanksgiving I will say that I'm thankful for my parents - they've always been there for me.

Food Coma

There were only 10 people at Thanksgiving this year...they went a bit overboard on the pies. :)  

Top Row L-R: Apple, Deep dish Apple, Pumpkin Cheesecake. 
2nd row: Raspberry, Bomb Shelter Peach, Raspberry. 
3rd row: Pumpkin Cheesecake, Cherry, Pumpkin, Oatmeal Pecan. 
Bottom row: Cherry, Oatmeal Pecan, Pumpkin.


We all ate too much Thanksgiving food and then too much pie. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Food

I am thankful for Thanksgiving food!

Thanksgiving spread.

Every year there is a major cooking fest and my aunt and uncle's house.  My uncle's stuffing is to die for. :)

Then there are the pies.  There are usually at least 5 different kinds of pie.  In the past we've had (some pictured): pumpkin pie, apple pie, cherry pie, pumpkin cheesecake pie, berry cheesecake pie, pecan pie, oatmeal pecan pie, chocolate irish cream cheesecake pie, and more.

Butter Pecan Pumpkin Pie and a Cherry Pie

Slice of the Berry Cheesecake Pie topped with whipped cream and raspberries

 I can't wait to see what the guys come up with this year. :)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

The Berry Cheesecake Pie went fast.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie - my cousins' favorite.

Slice of the Butter Pecan Pumpkin Pie.

Grandma's Secret?

My new Sunday thing is to comment on one of the secrets posted online and even though I'm sitting in the hospital I'm going to keep it up.  (Lil Sis is doing well - she's been rehydrated with 6 saline bags and with medication has been worked up to solid food.  We're hoping she will come home today.)

The secret that caught my eye today was this one:

When I was in elementary school my mother's parents got divorced.  Soon after both got remarried.  My grandfather married a woman from Arkansas (Nosy Southerner) and my grandmother married a Methodist pastor (Creepy Pastor).  I was never partial to either of them, as you can probably tell by their nicknames.  The Nosy Southerner is a story for another time, but Creepy Pastor could be the man referred to in the above secret.

When we met Creepy Pastor he and my grandmother were already married.  There was something that my middle school self couldn't put her finger on, something that was off about him, but since I didn't get it, I ignored it.  Only when I heard the whole story, about a year ago, did it click.  Creepy Pastor is skeezy, or as Lil Sis would say, a "Creepy McCreeperton".  He is addicted to pornography and every church he's ever preached at has asked him to leave.  The reason they traveled back and forth across the country was because he had to find churches that would take him.

I remember wanting every pastor that I ever had as a kid to stay at the church.  One time our church split over a pastor and we asked that guy to head the newly established church.  We never asked a pastor to leave.  They only left when they felt their God calling them elsewhere.  The fact that every church asked Creepy Pastor to leave is an added ick-factor for me.

The positive spin here is that my grandmother is now divorced (again) and lives close by.  We are happy that we have her back and she is happier that she has been in awhile.  Creepy McCreeperton is still somewhere in New England - you can keep him! :)

Crohn's Conundrum

I just got back from the hospital.  My Lil Sis has Crohn's.  Usually she can keep flare ups under control, but a couple of weeks ago she got a cold.  The medicine she takes to treat the Crohn's suppresses her immune system making her more susceptible.  Once the cold took hold it wouldn't let go.  She couldn't keep anything in and after a few days she developed chest pains.  Today we went to the clinic to see her doctor and after checking her symptoms he sent her to the ER.  She's had an EKG, an Xray, and a CT so far.  They've rehydrated her and given her steroids.

I thought that Crohn's was more manageable than this.  I knew that she went to the ER about a year ago, but according to the nurses Crohn's patients will have multiple ER visits in their lifetime.  I've got to say Lil Sis is pretty strong dealing with the seesaw of symptoms in addition to college life and work.  Hopefully Lil Sis will be able to come home tomorrow.    

Albuquerque the Turkey

Since returning to town I've become my best friend's (aka The New Mom) babysitter.  She has four little girls that love her.  The three oldest, Cindy* ~10, Mulan* ~8, and Charlotte* ~6, are in school for most of the day and I see them for about 20 minutes between their return home and when their dad gets done with work.  (In which time I spoil them with Halloween candy).  I spend most of my babysitting time with the youngest, Jasmine* who is about 4 years old.  She was the little nut trying to build a snowman with a piddly amount of snow.

Charlotte - nicknamed thus here because of her canny resemblance to Charlotte La Bouff from Disney's 'Princess and the Frog' - has become attached to me.  As soon as she has her candy picked out she settles on my lap and I help her do her homework.  If she has a new book she reads to me.  Yesterday she and Mulan were trying to remember the words to the song 'Albuquerque the Turkey'.

"AlbuQUERque he's my TURkey!...." is about as far as they could get in the first verse and they would end with, "we had scrambled eggs instead!!"

I don't know why, but it just made me laugh.  They filled in the middle with "hm hm hm" or "la la la" or even, "I can't remember the rest of the words!" in tune.

I googled it yesterday when I got home and these are the lyrics:

Albuquerque is a turkey,
And he's feathered and he's fine.
And he wobbles, and he gobbles,
And he's absolutely mine.

He's the best pet that you can get,
Better than a dog or cat.
Albuquerque, he's my turkey,
And I'm awfully glad of that.

Albuquerque, he's my turkey,
He's so cozy in his bed,
Because for our Thanksgiving dinner,
We had scrambled eggs instead.

(Lyrics found here)

Small doses of little kids can really brighten my day. :)

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*All names have been changed for the sake of privacy.

Hairy Sunday

This PostSecret just made me laugh.  I wish I'd thought of this when I had mine cut a while back.  :)

Talking Animals and Objects

I think some geek characteristics are genetically passed down, or are maybe just meme, but it has been pointed out to me that my family and I are weird.

This comment came from Cleo after seeing the Christmas letter Mum sent out my sophomore year of college...the letter was from the dog. To me this was nothing new.  On the rare occasion that a Christmas letter gets sent out it is often written by a family pet - the dog (Chubbie, now deceased, RIP), any number of the cats, the hamster, and even maybe the fish.  In any of these letters there is bound to be a comment on how hard it is to type with paws/fins.

I don't know when this all began.  It's been the way we are since I can remember.  An example I gave Cleo, which gave further support to her statement, was of the spider.  When I was in high school my brother gave Mum a computer, a desktop with the huge tower and monitor.  The tower became the home of a relatively large, quarter sized (with legs), spider. (Okay, thats not that big, but we're not a huge fan of spiders).  The spider stayed around long enough that he was dubbed Mr. Long Leggedy Beasty.  Now, by this time Mum had started a journal on Open Diary.  It was her new past time, writing amusing anecdotes about her family.  After dubbing the spider Long Leggedy Beasty he got an Open Diary (OD) as well.  He wrote about jumping out at Mum, scaring the teenager (me), and life in general on the computer desk.  Mum then started a Teen Leggedy Beasty OD and I helped keep that one updated for a year or so.

I know this behavior isn't special to my family, several animals have twitter accounts: most notably the Egyptian Cobra that escaped from the Bronx zoo.

Our newest family endeavor is the Travelocity Gnome.  He goes with us and other people on vacations, helps around the house and outside - wherever he goes, we take his picture.  He has his own Facebook page.

We are weird in many ways, but this one jumped to mind today.

First Snow, Phantom Snowman

I came down the stairs and what did I see? A layer of snow like frosting covering everything.

Luckily for me it had mostly melted by 11 am - about the time little Jasmine gets home from preschool.  Still, she's out there in boots, snow pants, winter coat, and gloves attempting to make a snowman with the snow she scrapes off her grandpa's boat.  She dug in the fridge but there are no carrots, so she's decided to use a bottle for his nose.  It should be an interesting snowman... oh wait, she got bored.  No snow man.  Kids these days. :-D  When the rest of the girls get home she will probably be out there again.

So goes my day job until I finish my degree.

Squash Experiments

It is fall and the squash are abundant.  So, as I did for the over abundance of apples, I started looking for squash recipes.  The difference here was that I'd be cooking.  I'm much more of a baker.  I was often malnourished when I was cooking for just me.  My lack of cooking experience was slightly daunting.  Before these two recipe attempts I had never worked with squash - or eaten much for that matter.

After digging through all the magazines we decided on this:

Corn and Squash Soup

This soup requires 6 cups of squash, which I obtained from a small pumpkin-sized butternut squash.  It also requires 12 strips of bacon, 4 strips short of a pound...so I did them all and ate a few before I put them in the soup. :)  The only other deviation was nearly puréeing the celery and onions because the texture of both make one particular family member unhappy.

A small portion of this soup was taken to my grandmother and she approved, so I must have done something right.

This will most definitely be made again because it was so good and because there is a pile of squash in the garage.

The second recipe was:

Sausage and Mushroom Stuffed Squash

(The recipe for this one is Member-Exclusive according to the website, but can still be read.)

This was so good that we made more the next day and managed to use up 6 acorn squash.

It called for baby Portobello mushrooms, which we didn't have, but regular ones worked just fine.

I recommend either recipe for a cozy fall meal.



The next squash adventure: The giant Hubbard.

Veterans

www.postsecret.com

Veterans' Day is next week, but there were a few related secrets posted this week.

This picture makes my heart ache-the little boy's face is painful.

What then got me was this statement posted under the Veteran Day secrets: "During the past two years, the US military has lost more men and women to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. [ABC News]"

My heart goes out to all soldiers, their families and friends.  So often we take for granted what they've given, sacrificed for the sake of our freedom.

Bones & Blood Success

For Halloween this year I didn't do an over the top costume or get drunk with a ton of grad students.  This year I was in a much different situation: family with small children.  An outrageous costume seemed immaterial (I still dressed up, but I used clothes and props I already had) and getting drunk was out of the question.

Ready to go in the oven.

So I embraced the family style Halloween celebration and turned to baking.

My friend The New/Step Mom and I created Bone cookies with a Blood sauce.  Of the two treats that we made I think these were the hit.

Bone cookie dipped in Blood sauce.

The Buried Surprise Cupcakes were a hit with The New Mom's nieces, nephews, and daughters.  I was less impressed with them - buried gummy body parts is amusing in theory, but make eating the stupid cupcake harder and messier.  I'd make them for kids again anytime, but the Bones & Blood I will be making again next year if possible.

Conclusion:
Bones & Blood = delish.
Buried Surprise Cupcakes: meh.

Allergy Zombie

I took a Claratin-D this morning because I overloaded on the kitty love yesterday.

How can anyone say no to faces like these?

The price for loving them is a runny nose and sneezes.  I had the option of staying like that all day or being light headed, but sneeze free.  I chose the latter. :)

Braiiiiiins...