Thursday, December 17, 2009

These are a Few of My Favorite Things!

Actually, this is what I was doing all Summer/Fall while I wasn't blogging.

Below is the most vile and manipulative creature in the entire house. It doesn't LOOK vile and manipulative, and it doesn't FEEL vile or manipulative, but let me reassure you that it has powers - beastly powers of mind control. We call her the Snugubus. If she catches you relaxing on the couch knitting, she will sneak up and stretch out next to you and within minutes she's taken control of your mind. Your hands are no longer under your own control, they are winding through her neck fur and stroking her and then if she so desires it she will make you fall asleep and before you know it you have wasted an ENTIRE day snuggled up on the couch napping and loving on her. Sometimes you don't even get to the petting part, you just wake up on the couch when she gets done with you and moves away and you wonder what happened - the last thing you remember is knitting or reading and then poof, gone. Like a Nixon file.



Below, is one of the two quilts I've made for my soon to be neices or nephews. My brother-in-law Bobby is newly married last December and they are now expecting their first children. TWINS! We won't know until January sometime if they're girls or boys but I'm too excited to wait to make something.



I've done a lot of reading too. See the crystal bowl of yarn in the background? That's not just decorative, that's my yarn ends, waiting to become a pretty project but patiently waiting until then as a decoration. Next to it is my London Fog, a huge mug of Earl Grey tea with cream! Mmmm, so good with a fresh book and a warm dog on the...couch... *snore*



I managed to get a Christmas tree up. This is the very first REAL tree I've had as an adult. We've always had fake trees. Well, we as in me since I became an adult. When I was a kid we always cut our own tree down. I'm excited about this one, my girlfriend bought it for me as a surprise and I'm so happy I can't stand it.




And below is the best dessert wine in the whole world. Love it! Go grab you some & enjoy the holidays.






BSG "Toaster" Toaster (be prepared to envy me)

This is for all those BSG nerds out there! My darling hubby, upon hearing that our beloved home toaster bit the big one, decided we needed a snazzy new one to replace it. His internet search turned this gem up. I couldn't be happier, although I do feel like I'm using a precious item like casual everyday household goods.

This is SO COOL!!!!!!!

It's Beginning to Feel a lot like Winter!

This was the scene from my new vehicle's windshield the other morning. I knew it was going to freeze, but we rarely get these beautiful frozen crystals on the windows! When I was a little little girl, my Grandmother would tell me that Jack Frost had visited in the night & we would put our hands on the window & melt our palm prints out. I loved winter for that, it was the very first season I fell in love with. I haven't had a visit from Jack Frost in decades. This delighted me in ways I am unable to express. I hope their beauty in the pictures can delight y'all too.




We forgot to take our hose inside. Silly us. Apparently there was a small leak. I have no idea if the hose is ruined or not, but I thought it was very pretty the way the icicles formed and the icicle stalagmite next to the hose too. The weeds lived though!




WTF for the Day, Hopefully

So on the way to work this morning, I saw a big WTF. Thankfully, I had my camera with me at the ready AND I was stopped right by this thing at a red light that went on and on and on.

Look, guys! I know y'all have been wanting a new van. This one's only had 1 oner! At first, I thought that might be a Southernism for owner, but I started second-guessing myself.



I mean, I don't know a LOT about cars and their mystical components. I'm relatively mechanical and I can follow instructions to do simple things like fill my gas, replace spark plugs & brake pads, but that's about it. What if an "oner" is one of those mystical engine pieces you have to have special training to identify? I mean, this big ole' van only has 70k miles on it!

Right?



I bet the following picture is what your engine compartment looks like when there's only one "oner". Which would also explain the low low mileage!




Then again, that 70k might not be mileage. That might be the asking price. I mean, how else are they going to be able to afford a window-writer that can spell gud?

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Gournay Potatoes & The Boy in the Box

I took some potatoes from my Mom's garden, a delicious red onion, and some herbs from my garden. Sliced thin & baked with cream and butter and Gournay, cheddar, and mozzarella cheeses until everything was tender & bubbly.

That is my recipe, above. I have no idea what quantities were used, just "enough". It was so good I could have married it. Unfortunately, everyone else felt the same way about it so there wasn't much left. I'll make it again someday.









Keegan is my little kitchen helper. He scrapes dinner dishes & pans for me, pre-dishwasher, and he unloads the dishwasher after it's run. I know, it's a hard life for a little boy. Well I asked him to scrape out a pan and he came from his room to do it... wearing a box over his head. No eye-holes cut out or anything. He says (muffled from inside the box, facing in the wrong direction from me because he can't quite tell where he is) "Mom, why don't you make me wear more boxes on my head?"

I think about this for a minute, trying to figure out if there is a correct answer or even possibly something he might want to hear, but I get nothing. The sound of the tumbleweeds in my sound-processor. So I did what I'd like to believe any good mother would do and I said rather gruffly, "I don't know, Mister, but you'll wear that box the rest of the night or you're grounded!".



His Dad helped him cut eye holes & a nose/mouth vent because the box was also a bit too narrow for his face & was pooched out strangely toward the bottom.




Apparently the boy has scraped dishes wearing a box before, it's messier than the normal procedure and the dogs are congregated. Look how attentively they are watching the pan. It's like a magic show just for them! "C'mon, box-boy, scrape faster" they're saying.

The Wily Kiefalope

Once known as my mild-mannered baby son, it has now grown to gargantuan proportions and nearly unbelievably is taller than me by more than an inch! I sent him off to his Grandparents' and a mere two months later he comes back to me OVER TWO INCHES TALLER!


I tried to explain to my Mother that it was completely unacceptable that she transformed my baby into a burly-voiced giant in under a sixth of a year but she completely ignored my complaint. I'm afraid to send the little one up there next summer. No good can come of it.


Here's a picture of Kieffer and me standing side by side. He now uses me as a comfortable armrest, towers over me, checks my hair to make sure the part is straight. All the horrible things we kids used to do to our tiny little Granny and we thought it was so funny (I'm sorry, Granny. If I'd known how terrible and traitorous we were back then I never would have adjusted your hair from above... I now know I deserved that elbow to the bladder). I KNEW I should have gotten Kieffer started on coffee earlier.