Friday

I thought of telling you the wonders of parchment paper for all of your holiday baking needs – but I have other, more pressing, thoughts today.

The holidays can be a stressful time.
Ah, the dichotomy of December. A time… as advertised, so full of joy and gaiety.
A time when so many people fall prey to the pressure of the season.

Shopping for that perfect gift, feeling tense about cash flow, running your credit cards up and credit score down, organizing family gatherings, even holiday baking can all be sticks on your camel’s back.
While each situation has a solution or at least some relief…the time is late for that now. The holiday is upon us, emotions are mounting.

So let me say this to you instead, my dear bloggy friends.
Please take a moment over this week or weekend… take a moment away from your holiday – be it Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza or even a New Years celebration – a moment away from loved ones, from the kitchen, from the mall.

Don’t tell me you don’t have a moment. You do. It’s just a moment.

The season is about giving – so give yourself a moment
Do what you want with that moment. I know my spiritual wife would choose Reiki…
You could light a candle, sit quietly in the dark, take a bath, take a walk, pleasure yourself… whatever works for you.
Find a smattering of joy.
Joy is like a rolling snowball – it grows once it gets going.
Joy is also contagious.

The holiday is and has always been –in our hearts. And believe me; I know everything around you is fighting against that. But there is joy. Sometimes you need to look for it.

When Aunt Mabel is yet again bitching about your housekeeping or your Uncle Simon is criticizing your child rearing… avert your gaze, you may instead see your nephew hugging your dog, or perhaps your teenager sneaking some nog – see… there is joy everywhere.
Look for it.
Be blessed by it.
And remember – while a dry roast for Christmas dinner can be problematic, its nothing that an extra bottle of champagne won’t fix.

So your Holiday Friday tip-o-day is to get to the liquor store early and stock up.

From my festive wife and I
We wish you a most Happy Holiday.

bzzzzz

Remarkably, I still have this pesky cold.

I decided this morning to get right back on my cold medication.
The gel caps I took this morning were a gorgeous azure blue.

Now my runny nose has stopped, my nasal passages are clear and I am breathing smoothly. Not to mention the FABulous buzz I have.
I just love Guiafenisen. It not only makes me peppy - but I won't need food for several hours.

I also thought you might like to know - I am wearing a Santa hat.

I do so love to sing

Our church organizes groups to go out Caroling the week before Christmas – it’s really a wonderful small town tradition.

They always make a point to visit our neighbor, Marie. We have been living next door to Marie for all of the 19 years we’ve been here. In fact, Marie’s parents built our house which was one of the original farm houses on our street. She tells stories of walking the cows up our road to the high pasture. Our road… now with its double yellow line was a dirt road back then.
She and her husband eventually built the house next door for themselves, and she has lived on this street her entire life.

This year the happy Carolers knocked on our door to see if we might want to join them for a carol or two over at Marie’s house.
Since I was drunk… and wearing antlers at the time – I was more than happy to join in.

Tis’ the season folks.

Friday

tip-o-day

If you have a cold - don't waste time on any other tissue - get Puffs with Lotion right from the start.


...and for a good nights sleep, take 3-4 Michelobs followed by 2 Nyquil.
zzz

Taking one for the team

I am sick today.
I have a headcold, runny nose, stuffy achy thing... you know.

But I am here at work.
I came in today because there is a late luncheon followed by a happy hour for the Director of our department who is leaving the company. Far be it for me to miss free food and drink over a silly little cold.
When I emailed my concerned wife earlier this morning, I told her I was trying to decide whether or not to take cold medication to help me get through the day.
Her response:

"Four out of five doctors recommend Robitussin to enhance the therapeutic effect of Michelob lite."

Can you see why I love this woman. :)

Too many problems

There are too many blogger or blogger beta problems today to even bother to post.

Maybe later.

Are you tired?

Because I am.
The odd thing is ...everyone I talk to today is tired.
What is up with that?

cut your own

As is common in New England, we cut our own Christmas tree.

(the finger is Ferris' way of showing endearment.)

I guard a candidate from other eager families as a reconnaissance team is sent out to scope other possiblities

The final selection.

The cut is complete.

Our men carry the tree.

Friday

tipsy-o-day

Today are our company holiday parties.

What I mean by that is my technical wife and I work for different companies and both parties are today.

Hers will be a luncheon, for employees only. Most likely with an amazing array of tasty delicasies. She works at a company where cooking and food preparation are a big part of some of the products they produce (there... that should be vague enough). Even their daily lunches in the company cafeteria are prepared by only the best of chefs. Their lunch menu reads like a 5 star restaurant. I would wager there will be a lovely selection of well aged wine as well. It's sure to be a exquisite event.
My company party is an evening dinner event held at a Country Club. The food will be of the so-so wedding catered variety. There will be a DJ and an open bar, and many will be dressed to the nines.

Today's tip (which is really for me) is to find that fine line between getting the most of the open bar, and remembering that it's a company sponsored event.
And since my wine-swilling wife will have a head start - should make for interesting dinner conversation with my boss.

Cheers!

Scary scary night

Whew.
What a night.

Even tho we would be installing our new counters ourselves we decided a few days ago to have the plumbing done professionally. Sometimes that's just smarter.

That left us with simply installing the new counters on the base cabinets and tiling the backsplash... piece of cake for us - oh well... then there was the sink hole.
We would need to cut this ourselves into the beautiful new pristine counter.
Since the plumber was schedule to arrive first thing this morning to set the sink, we needed to finish our part last night.

Cutting the sink hole into our new formica counter seemed to be the scariest job we have taken on yet. And there is not much we don't take on. I suppose it was so scary because there is no room for error. A mistake means replacing the entire run.

No pressure.

Ah but, my patient wife and I are a crack remodling team. At each tenuous step we stopped - knocked back a shot...o -- no wait - that was at the end...

We literally put down the pencils and saws at every juncture to discuss various methods of execution. Gently tossing an idea around long enough to uncover possible failure points and adjust as necessary. If it weren't for these break points, the project could have easily ended in disaster.
After hours of such discussions, several erased pencil lines, some head scratching and a couple of snacks - we cut a successful sink hole!

Pics coming soon.

Blame it on the 80's

We have green kitchen counters.

And no one to blame but ourselves. We picked these out.
But hey… it was the 80’s.
When we did this back in the 80’s we actually liked them.

See this faucet?

I bought this about two years ago because our old one was leaking and after replacing washers and cartridges I could not get it to stop.
I told my skeptical wife that I would buy the cheapest faucet I could find at Home Depot, because it was temporary. Well …that was two years ago. I suppose it depends on your definition of temporary.

The sink is chipped and irreversibly stained. I think it was the original with the house. When we had the hideous green counters installed we saved money by putting the old sink right back in.
Hey…have I mentioned it was the 80’s. Plus it was our first remodel and we were stupid - or quite possibly high.

Well it ain’t the 80’s anymore – time for a change. Its actually been time for a change for quite some time. We started picking out counter surfaces and colors about two years ago (around the time of my temporary faucet installation).

It's taken us this long to make our final selections.

We selected a material and the color, made careful measurements (including scale drawings of course), and finally ordered the counters.

They were delivered this past weekend.

New counters are currently being installed… by us.
Pictures to follow.

Risen

Ferris has been ill.
He came home from school over Thanksgiving break in rough shape.
After some misdiagnosis - we finally found he had Mono and Strep.
Needless to say he has not been moving around much.

He came home again this past weekend with severly swollen tonsils and in a good bit of pain.
So they started him on Prednisone.
When he is not completly zonked in his room, you can find him on the sofa watching HiDef, his laptop resting on his chest, various drinks and snacks within arms reach on the coffee table.

Saturday morning he was in just this position, dozing occasionally, when we pulled in the driveway in my rugged wife's new-to-her Wrangler.

He rose like Lazarus, dressed himself, got behind the wheel ...we didn't see him for the rest of the afternoon.

A true Christmas miracle.

Deet?

Apparently perfume has a shelf life.
Who knew?

I had a change of routine today and went to the gym during my lunch break.
I do so love a shower in the middle of the day.

I had with me an old but not quite used up bottle of my perfume*.
Evidently it was too old.
Kinda reminds me of bug repellent.
I am trying to pretend I am camping here in my dark, warm cubicle.


*I have been wearing Opium every day since sometime in the early eighties.

And the beat goes on...

For anyone who may be interested - I am still going to the gym.
I also continue to watch what I eat.
My weight... remains the same (actually its a little higher today).
My personal trainers* tell me I must be amassing muscle.
I looked for this muscle this morning.
Standing buck naked in front of a full length mirror.
I didn't see any muscle.
Tho I feel my head is getting smaller.




*thin people that i work with

While we're out...

We were going to Target to buy more lights... my luminescent wife requires ALOT of lights -

on our way we picked up this for my rugged wife:

stock photo - I will take actual photos when we go pick it up later in the week.

Oh, and we got the lights too - only 1.99 each!

Saturday

tip-o-day

I was still all juiced up on tryptophan yesterday... couldn't post.

You're Black Friday shopping tip of the day is...
If the '40%-off toy' you were looking for seems to be sold out - circle.
Keep returning to the place where the toy used to be.
Sometimes, more will appear.

yay.

Let the holidays begin

sprakling wine... not just for breakfast.

Eat, Drink and...

Enjoy!
Happy Thanksgiving.

My frugal wife and I love to participate in the Black Friday festivities.
It's not that we have a long list of purchases, on the contrary we buy very few items for Christmas. But we just love the excitement that Black Friday whips up.

We will be up and out by 6:00 - starting out with a Grande Caffè Latte of course.
We usually stick to a couple stores in the mall, snagging a few items from the list. Often times - we wait to purchase items we need around the house - to take advantage of the super deals and early bird specials. I mean, if you already need a new coffee maker - why not get it at 60% off.
When things really start picking up around 9:30 or 10:00, we head home.

One of the things we enjoy the most - is going out of our way to be courteous, friendly and helpful in contrast to all the mayhem.
So if you're shopping on Friday take the opportunity to give up a prime parking spot, hold open a door, wait patiently in line and never loose your cool over something as shallow as shopping.
You will not only come home feeling great about yourself and your experience - but you just may make someone else feel that way too.

Clothed Captains?

At the gym, while doing my time on the 'thing that I hate*', I usually have the TV on and tuned to Ellen.
The TVs at the gym always seem to have that closed captioning feature turned on. I have a hard enough time changing the channel with the remote while bobbling around on my 'fitness machine from hell*', so I just leave it.

Have you ever tried to follow a show using the closed captions? Not only is there a long and wildly variable lag time but the spelling is at time almost incomprehensible. Who the hell types this stuff in? Clearly English is a second... possibly their third language.




* otherwise known as the Elliptical

And the dieting goes on...

In addition to going to the gym 4 times a week, I have been recording my intake online using FitDay.com.
This journaling type method works for me. It's not for everyone for sure. But for me, I feel it makes me more of an active participant in my own progress.
I can also look back at the day, or the week and know that I am on track. Instead of just 'thinking' that I am.

The other great thing about FitDay is that it allows you to enter your activities and shows the calories burned.
I like to put in my gym activities and I also include any heavy yard work that I may do. I figure that counts.
FitDay has all sorts of stored activities to choose from. For example under the Lawn and Garden selection I can choose from raking, chopping wood or digging in the garden. If I put in how much time I spent at a certain activity it will calculate total calories burned.

While browsing through these lists I noticed that I can also include Sexual Activity.
There are three levels of activity to choose from:
- Active, vigorous effort
- General, moderate effort
- Passive, light effort, kissing, hugging

Moderate effort? I am still trying to get my head around that one.