Way way back in January, when the cold and snow still seemed like a quaint opportunity to indulge in coziness, I coerced my mom and Aunt Rho into accompanying me to the local bridal fair.
I prepared. I read blog posts with tips about how to negotiate the shit storm of information and solicitation one would encounter. I put together a BINDER with TABS and POUCHES.
I brought a pen, you guys.
I had a super brief shopping list of vendors to check out because, lo and behold, I had actually broken my lifelong tradition of procrastinating everything to the last effing day/week/month, and found myself ahead of my planning schedule.
What I needed:
- A DJ
- A Florist
- To sample all of the caterers even though I already had a caterer
What I left with:
- A string quartet for the ceremony that I never even knew I needed/wanted/could afford
- A lot of business cards
- A desperate and irrational need for one of these dumb but awesome shirts.
I KNOW. So basic, but GIMMEGIMMEGIMME.
I made it about 1/3 of the way through the vendors before I had my meltdown. It was one I had needed to have for weeks… one that for many people would have been preempted by simply asking their loved ones for help.
Being an unintentionally dramatic sort… I decided to go with my tried and true technique of bottling things up until I explode.
As I always say "If it ain’t broke… don’t try to resolve it without causing a scene!"
My aunt and my mom were great. They pulled me aside, listened to my barrage of “But WHOs? But HOWs? But WHENNNs?” and calmly reassured me that all of these things would be figured out and taken care of and that I had plenty of help. I would not spend my wedding away running around the reception space setting up elaborate centerpieces and trying to paint my dog’s toenails. (Note to self: Add ‘Ask father to paint dog’s toenails’ to to-do list).
Because, you know, it is all going to get done. And it’s going to be awesome and now that things are coming together and I can anticipate what it’s going to look/be/feel like to have my friends and family surrounding me when I marry my favorite being in the entire universe… well… I seriously can’t wait, you guys!
Ever just go through a patch when it seems like you just absolutely cannot stop spending money?
When your list of things you want to buy just seems endless?
I'm sure it has less to do with wanting things and more to do with trying to fill the gaping hole in soul. My soul hole (*juvenile snickering).
Or it's just that I like shiny new things and lots of them.
Even my notoriously thrifty father does this, so I know I'm fairly normal.
One time we went to Sears to have his tires rotated, and by the time we left 2 hours later he had purchased binoculars, a painting, and a sack of jelly beans.
He looked at me and said, "We need to get out of here... I'm obviously in the mood to buy shit."
This week on the internet I have purchased the following:
- Prescription glasses
I'm so excited about these, you guys!
- Various books and dvds
If you've never seen this, what the eff is wrong with you?
- Shampoo
Wen is going to change my life, you guys.
I watched an infomercial for like 30 minutes and I'm 100% positive of this.
And that seems pretty tame when you take into consideration all of the things I've almost bought on the internet this week:
- Makeup... a lot of it.
- Nail polish... a lot of it.
- Jewelry... a lot of it.
- Clothing... a lot of it.
- Watch... an expensive one.
- More books and dvds
So I think it's safe to say that we need to get me off of the internet machine until I figure out what my soul hole really needs. Probably butter and sugar... a lot of it.
My pal Kari at The Sunset Lane put up this fun Christmas survey yesterday, and since I love talking about myself ad nauseum (hence the existence of this blog), I thought I would give it a shot!
1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
Yes, please! You guys, you could pour both of these together into a punch bowl and I would happily drink it. I love sugar... ALL THE SUGAR.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? We always had wrapped gifts under the tree, and then Christmas Eve Santa would leave a big present (unwrapped) and our fill our stockings. My parents still do it this way... yes, that means I am (almost) 30 and I still get presents from "Santa". Child for life, y'all!
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Okay... let's talk about my dad. My dad has a weird hang up about red Christmas lights because, get this, he says "Red lights will make our house look like a whore house." Yeah, Dad... I'm sure people driving through our neighborhood in the suburbs are going to mistake our 1970s ranch style house for a whore house. But, then, last year he decided to make himself a Festivus pole for the front yard and proceeded to cover it with red lights!! WHAT? If anything looks whore house-y it's that stripper pole you put in the front yard covered in red Christmas lights. What a weirdo.
So we have pretty much always had white lights on house and tree, which I kind of like now. Ideally it would look like this:
4. Do you hang mistletoe? We had some once when I was a kid, but I don't even know where one would buy mistletoe.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually the first weekend of December or the weekend after Thanksgiving. I drove up to the house on Monday and felt like I was pulling up to Ebenezer Scrooge's house... it was the only one on the street without so much as wreath. So I forced myself to haul everything out and I didn't stop until it looked like Santa had puked all over the inside of our house. I feel so much better now. Next up will be some good ol' fashioned exterior illumination... including the stripper Festivus pole.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? I lalalalove those meatballs covered in jelly and chili sauce. I make them every year on Christmas Eve. Holy JEEZ.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? One year when I was around 5 my brother and I both got bikes from Santa. I got a super adorable banana seat bike with a basket and my brother got a sweet 10 speed bike. My brother insisted on riding his THAT DAY even though it was snowy and icy outside... and then proceeded in the first 8 feet of riding his new bicycle to flip himself over the handle bars. Good Christmas time fun!
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't sleep Christmas Eve. I can't. Even now I just can't no matter how hard I try. Christmas Eve, for me, is a midnight vigil wherein I argue with myself over when it is appropriate to go and see what Santa has brought me. Well one year when I was probably 7 or 8 I decided it was okay to check things out WAAAAY to early, and I caught my parents assembly a hamster cage for my brother. Oops.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? NEVER.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? My tree is decorated with miscellaneous glass ornaments... just kind of whimsical, vintage-y things I like, and lots of bead garland and lights. My parents tree is a big, wonderful hodge podge of all of the ornaments we have accumulated over the years: the ones my mom made from Christmas cards when they were first married and broke, the ones my brother and I made in school, and nicer ones from the last 15 years or so that we have bought from Hallmark. We usually get a new Hallmark ornament every year.
11. Snow! love it or dread it? You guys, I could honest to God live somewhere it snowed 90% of the year. It does not bother me in the least.
12. Can you ice skate? I tried one time and I hated it. Most of the time, if I try something and I am not immediately good at it, I hate it and quit. So there.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Maybe the bikes, or the giant chalkboard easel, or my Barbie Ferrari, or the Cabbage Patch Kids. You guys, we were so poor when i was a kid, but my parents killed it at making Christmas magical! For reals.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Something intangible... just being able to feel the absolute magic of the holiday. Something about people decorating their houses with lights and sparkle and glitter just because it's pretty and kids being excited and people making an effort to be with their families and the crisp air and (hopefully) the snow. It just all adds up to magic.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Candy, candy canes, candy corn and syrup. It would be easier to list the desserts I don't like because it would be a list of nothing.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Christmas morning. I am always the first up (reference question 8 above), and around 3 or 4 a.m. (I KNOW) I wake the rest of my family up, then around 6:30 we call my aunt, uncle and grandparents and they come over for Christmas breakfast. Like clockwork every year. I reject all other traditions. My theoretical future husband will just have to deal with it.
17. What tops your tree? An angel.
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? I love giving gifts. I can't wait to have children to give gifts to... I can't even imagine how wonderful it will be to see their faces Christmas morning.
19. Candy canes: yuck or yum? Whatevs.
20. Favorite christmas movie?
It's like you are asking me to pick my favorite child. Holy shit. Ummmm... It wouldn't be Christmas without National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I watch it about 5 times and spend the rest of the year quoting it.
21. Saddest christmas song?
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas... because it's about having a happy Christmas even when you are going through a difficult time.
22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Fairytale of New York by The Pogues... this is one of my favorite songs full stop.
Some of my very most favoritest things to watch at Christmas time are Christmas episodes of my favorite TV shows.
Here are some I highly recommend.
1 The Office (the UK version starring Ricky Gervais)
This is a two-part special that was filmed as a sort of epilogue to the original series. It is balls out AMAZING. Beware fans of the US version of The Office, watching this will ruin Jim and Pam's love story. They are bullshit compared to the seething Victorian melodrama of Tim Canterbury and Dawn Tinsley.
After you watch this the song 'Only You' by Yaz will become a Christmas song even though it isn't.
2. Wings - A Terminal Christmas (Season 1)
To be honest, I just picked the Christmas episode from the first season to make it easy. I love the show Wings. I own it on DVD... all of them, every season. I might be the only person in the world to own every episode ever made of Wings. I hope not, but there is a strong possibility that I am. And I'm becoming okay with that.
3. A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!
Stephen Colbert filmed a Christmas special for The Colbert Report and released it on DVD... and it is just so stupid... so stupid and so funny.
4. Seinfeld - The Strike
In my family this is the king of "Christmas" episodes... and it's not even a Christmas episode. This is the episode of Seinfeld where we all learned about the holiday of Festivus. And the world was never the same again.
I scanned a bunch of photos of myself so I could make strangers on the internet look at them. YOU'RE WELCOME.
For most of my childhood my dad had me convinced that I was born with a tail, and that the Doctor delivering me thought I was a monkey. Also my hair stood straight up for a week after I was born. I imagine it looked something like this:
Image from Google.
I'm not sure what I looked like because my dad wouldn't let my mom buy any of the newborn photos the hospital takes because he thinks newborn babies look "weird". So I'm guessing this might be the source of at least SOME of my insecurities.
Despite what these two stories might indicate, my dad is awesome. For realsies.
Here's a souvenir photo of the fam at Silver Dollar City.
I question the historical accuracy of the costumes in this photo...I mean, my dad is a Civil War soldier, my brother looks like a pilgrim, I look like Laura Ingalls Wilder's more darling baby sister, and, apparently, they didn't even bother to find my mother a dress that fit properly. But we still killed this photo. Look at those faces! We look miserable... just like every person in every antique photograph you have ever seen! We are character actors through and through.
I developed a love of animals early.
My grandma's poodle, Killer, was stage left humming the chorus to 'Food, Glorious Food'.
I soon entered my awkward years... which continue to this day. Here's a teaser:
This image is the property of my former neighbor Lorissa... I stole it from her Facebook. I couldn't resist.
Yep, that's me pretty much owning a sweet New Kids On the Block t-shirt at my neighbor Lorissa's birthday party.
I am humbled right now by my childhood awesomeness.
Scanner Apocalypse Part II: The Teenage Years... Coming Soon!
Ah Thanksgiving!... A magical holiday whose only purpose is to bring loving families together to share a meal and give thanks for all the blessings in their lives!
But let's be honest with ourselves. Because every year in our heads we picture Thanksgiving looking like this:
Just look at all those shiny happy faces!
But the reality turns out to be little more like this:
Yep, that's about right. Except in our family there are more dogs... and half of the people at the table are three sheets to the wind by noon.
I can usually be found in the backyard pacing, or in a closet curled up in the fetal position muttering to myself.
It's a splendid, splendid time. And, yet, I wouldn't trade my family's Thanksgiving hootenanny for anything in the world. It may be chaotic, stressful, and borderline maddening but it's ours.
And, now, a recipe from my dysfunctional Thanksgiving table to yours!
Every year I make my dad a pecan pie for Thanksgiving. This has become my favorite recipe. It's a little unusual in that, unlike most pecan pie recipes, it contains no corn syrup. The filling is amazing... every bite is like a mouthful of caramel. Yum!
Image blatantly stolen from user SaveRoom4Pie on Allrecipes.com.
My Pecan Pie - slightly (very slightly... okay mostly I just added some salt) adapted from this recipe.
Ingredients:
1 unbaked 8 or 9 inch pie crust
1 c. light brown sugar
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 eggs
1 T. all purpose flour
1 T. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 healthy pinch of kosher salt
1 c. chopped pecans (or 2 cups if you don't want to garnish with pecan halves)
3/4 c. pecan halves for top of pie
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Beat two eggs until light and foamy. Stir in melted butter. Stir in both sugars and flour; mix well. Add the milk, vanilla, salt and nuts.
Pour into unbaked pie shell. At this point I suggest arranging some pecan halves on top of the pie. This pecan pie bakes a little differently than most pecan pies, the result of which is that it tastes amazing, but it is lacking in the pecan-studded, traditional pecan pie appearance department. Without extra pecan halves for decoration, or at least adding extra chopped pecans to the filling mixture, you end up with an underwhelming looking pecan pie. It will taste amazing, but look kind of 'meh'.
Bake in 400 degree oven for 10 minutes, reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking an additional 30 to 40 minutes.
Allow to cool and then apply directly to face.
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