Merry Christmas!

Not that many people read this, but I apologize for my lack of blogging lately. Things get hectic around the holidays. All the baking, shopping, decorating leaves time for much else. I've backed 2 batches of choc cookies (recipe off of the Nestle choc package), 1 batch of press cookies (soon to be 2 because I can't stop eating them), 1 batch of snicker doodles for Hubby, and I've still got 2 batches of butterballs left to make (my family's favorite - it will NOT be Christmas without these), and 1 batch of peanut butter for Hubby (only if he finally goes Christmas shopping tonight). I picked up the cutest cookie tins this year but I will definitely plan ahead next year because they unfortunately cost more than I really wanted to spend. The cookie list is ever expanding which this year will include an extra large tin to my brother, his gf, and her kids, plus a little one for my neighbors next door. I still have to buy one last present, wrap everything, and pick up some treats for the dog.

This has unfortunately been a very expensive month for us. My car needed some work done, and the parts for my car are more expensive than the average car. Seriously, my tires cost $200 a piece, and I've replaced them all at this point!! Last week, one of the holy sh!t lights on my dash illuminated on the drive home from work. Rather than go home, I took it straight to the dealership. My alternator apparently died and from what the tech said I was lucky I made it that far. So $730 later, I have my car back...and that's just for the alternator and labor, I didn't need a new battery or alternator pulley (whatever the he!! that is). We dropped off Hubby's car this morning. He needs new brakes...hopefully that doesn't break the bank!

I hope to have another post before Christmas but if not,

PO Box or No PO Box??

I have a PO Box. Why? It's complicated. I signed up for one yesterday...but I've come to realize how silly it is that I have one. It's only for six months and so it's not a huge investment. It started with PBS and even more recently some recipe swaps (I hope I get some good ones!!) and I just wasn't comfortable with strangers having my address even if they did live across the country...it feels like an invasion of privacy which is weird because I never had an issue giving out the same info purchasing items on ebay. Now that I have a PO Box (for a whole day) I'm realizing it's pretty pointless: if someone really wants to find out where you live, its really not very difficult in this technology driven society. I've gotten people's addresses on the internet before, for Christmas cards mind you! The internet is a scary place, with alot of personal information out there. Did I do the right thing in getting a PO Box? Well it can't do any harm. In my opinion it's better to be safe and waste a few bucks a month. So now I just have to get to the post office before 5pm to check it...good thing it's not so far away!

Where does the time go...

Either the days are getting shorter, I'm going to bed earlier, or I'm stuck in the episode of Futurama where the Planet Express crew tip off the Time/Space Continuum causing time to skip ahead. (Watch it, it's a great show!) I get home around 4:30 and it's 9pm before I know it with nothing to show for those 4 1/2 hours. The bottom line is I need more hours in a day. Maybe like 4 hours a day? Or I'd even settle for a 4 day work week. No, I'm not interested in working for 10 hour day. I want the same schedule, just one day less. Oh and I'm keeping my same pay too!

I want time for hobbies...I want enough time for hobbies and :::gasp::: cleaning. I want to bake, have time for food shopping, but still have time for video games and reading. I want to get my sewing room in tip top shape so I can finish some projects. There's just never enough time so something has to go. I'll let you know when I figure it out!

My neighbors probably think I'm strange

Yesterday was by far the nicest day to decorate outside. Yesterday's forecast was a high of 60 degrees F and rain. 60 in December!?! I'd prefer warm and wet to cold any day! I really anticipated decorating after work but Hubby forgot to stop at Target on the way home from the daily grind to get fancy lights for the walkway and I thought it was better not to say anything about it.

Instead of decorating, I surfed the net for seriously 2 hours. Looking at what? Who knows! I'm always finding some new interesting site to stalk constantly. My growing list includes facebook, Cake Wrecks (I have seriously laughed so hard, I cried looking at some of these disasters!), other fun and interesting blogs, PaperBackSwap, Amazon, and my local news station. After my laptop started flashing the red battery dying light I knew it was now or never. Hubby was wrapped up in an online game of COD: World at War so I figured what the heck.

I put up colored icicle lights across the front of our porch, white icicle lights in our front window, and colored lights in our bush. It so looked like crap and under done so I grabbed Hubby and off to Walmart we went. Not my first choice, but it's the closest. We got little light up snowflakes for the walkway up to the house and light up candy canes for across the front of the house. The colored icicle lights looked terrible with all of the other white lights, so down they came. I replaced them with white icicle lights and it looks sooo much better. This was after our neighbor saw me putting up the colored lights and said how festive it looked. Who puts up lights and then takes them down? My neighbors must think I'm some high maintenance biotch but in actuality Hubby is the one that prefers white lights...thinks they are more elegant....I grew up in the ghetto, I want my colored lights please!

I really tried

I was supposed to get organized for Christmas this weekend. I was supposed to get the decorations out of the attic, put up the lighted garland, even attempt to put lights up outside. I went shopping for lights, but found none. I know exactly what I'm looking for (me, picky?, no!) but haven't found the right lights yet. The rest of our decorations are (still) in the attic and I am a failure.

Saturday was (supposed to be) my decorating day, only it wasn't. I spent the day with Hubby's mom and our crazy dogs and went to visit Hubby and his dad working on the Christmas tree farm in the crazy, freezing cold. I forgot my camera to capture all of the picture perfect moments of the day. I met two beautiful dogs (and one really mean, yippy dog), picked out our Christmas tree, sat around the fire trying to keep warm, and stayed out of the way of the men at work.

In preparation for my Project 365 challenge, I've been carrying my camera everywhere. For some reason, I took the camera out of my purse and left it home on Saturday. Why? The world may never know. Part of it may be that I got up at 6:30am on my day off. So instead of pictures, you'll have to settle for the promise of pictures in the future. Promise!!

I am obsessed!!

No, not with True Blood!!! Although, Hubby and I started watching the first season on HBO on Demand this week. We've watched about 4 episodes and are mildly hooked. The show always ends in a crazy way, which drives me crazy but that is not my new obsession.

I'm obsessed with Paperback Swap. I had no idea what I was missing! I read fairly quickly and rarely re-read anything. I had heard of places for swapping paperbacks in my area but had no idea there was an online community. I've listed about 15 books so far that I would have no regrets never seeing again and 2 of them I've just packaged up to ship out. I'm getting rid of the book I "borrowed" from Mexico, The California Club, and Great Expectations. Yeah, it's a classic but once a book is made into a movie it really ruins the book for me.

I don't have anything on my wish list yet, but I do have a book on it's way. I was in Walmart checking out books the other night, figuring Walmart would be cheaper than Amazon (which is where I normally get books) but boy was I wrong!! That's when I decided to check out Paperback Swap (PBS). It's pretty cool! Each book costs a credit. You get 2 credits when you first start and post 10 books, and 1 credit for each book that you mail out. You have to pay shipping when a book is requested from you but it's relatively cheap via Media Mail. So I ordered the book I saw in Walmart from PBS and it's already on it's way.

I still have all these library books I need to read in the meantime!

Thanksgiving + Scrabble = Blah

I celebrated my first Thanksgiving as a married woman with my Hubby, his parents, my parents, my brother, his gf Rachel, and her kiddies Micky and Lawrence. Everyone came over to our house which meant I had tons of cleaning to do since Mom is allergic to my 2 kitty cats. There was overabundance of food: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, yams, green bean casserole, cranberry, peas/carrots, and deviled eggs. For dessert we had apple pie (secret recipe by Hubby's mom), pumpkin pie (secret recipe by my mom), and gingerbread (by Rachel).

Tables set for 10

It was all delish! I have a habit of overestimating the amount of food to make for a large crowd. Ten is considered a large crowd for me when I'm used to only cooking for two. I cooked a 21 pound turkey so we would have plenty of leftovers. Dinner was yummy but with so much food, I only had a small taste of everything before I ran out of room on my plate. After the dinner clean up, a game of Scrabble ensued much to my dismay. I loathe Scrabble, always have, always will. Hubby's family (i.e. mom and grandmom) like to play after dinner at family gatherings so I'm trying to get used to it. Big Step: I took over mom's spot in Scrabble when she had to leave because of her allergies.

Now we're looking forward to a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner at Hubby's grandmom's on Sunday. Yay more turkey, boo more Scrabble!

Why I Don't Read Non-Fiction:

My latest read is called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. The back story of this slightly odd choice of book:

My pottery teacher did a demonstration of a (HUGE) pickle jar a few Thursdays ago for another student (one of my coworkers). The pickle jar looked more like a very large urn. I'd say it was probably a foot tall by 5 inches wide. Our pottery teacher informed us it was too small to be an urn. Obviously we were curious as to how she knew this as she was very matter of fact about the whole thing. Apparently, she had submitted a piece to show that was for urns/containers for remains/whatever you want to call them. Her piece, although rather large, was too small to fit the remains of an entire body so her piece was entered into the keepsake category. Creepy! This sparked a conversation about Stiff and surprisingly someone else had read the book too!

I rarely read nonfiction...I've actually been trying to read less fiction so I thought this book would be a good start. The only problem is, I can't get through it. It's causing alot of problems which leads to me not being able to sleep at night. I'm an overly morbid person....there, I've said it. I think about death alot. Actually, I always have.

I think my obsession is partly due to the fact that I'm a catholic scientist. Kinda like an oxymoron right? I've been raised to believe the teachings of the bible which unfortunately do not jive well with the theory of evolution. It's hard to ignore scientific fact but that is a whole other topic for some other time.

Either way, I don't believe in life after death, reincarnation, etc. As a scientist I need proof to believe what really happens but for obvious reasons that's not possible. Sure, there have been people who have had near death experiences but how do you really know unless you completely cross over. I know what I'd like to believe happens but what I really think happens is frightening. I'd like to believe in heaven but the thought seems way too fantastical.

The first chapter of the book starts out with the author attending a training seminar for plastic surgeons. In the room there are about a dozen heads in metals trays on the tables. Just heads! Apparently these plastic surgeons paid a pretty penny just to be able to practice new face lift techniques on human cadavers. The book details what you can do with your body once you're done with it and what could happen to your body if you choose to donate it to science. You could end up as a crash test dummy. You could be split up and have your body parts sent to multiple destinations for multiple uses. Your foot/leg could be used to test footware for protection against landmines. You can't specify what you want to happen to your body if you're donating it. You could end up just being left outside fully intact but probably naked to help forensic scientists further study the rate/processes of human decay. How about just becoming an organ donor? The possibilities are endless. You can even be composted into your own little tree! I will say, I would prefer a medical student to practice procedures on a human cadaver rather than on me for the 1st time but I won't be donating my body to science. I'd like my body to stay whole, and in the ground!

Oh and if you donate your body to Body Worlds, you could be displayed indefinitely in museums across the world. Plastination is awesome or in my opinion Creepy!

I've only got a few chapters left, so we'll see!