Christmas Recap

** I know it’s late.. but lets pretend I posted this on 12/27/08… OK ?? **

Another Christmas.. come and gone. Is it just me or does time seem to slow down from about October 31st until December 15th and then all of a sudden.. WARP SPEED!!

So this was the first ‘married’ Christmas for me and the Engineer. My parents got first dibs at Christmas this year and they opted to come see us in Kville. It was the first time we’ve ever celebrated CHRISTMAS DAY in our house. Mom and I headed out to 6 pm Mass (instead of midnight Mass.. which is our usual mass of choice on Christmas Eve) and MAN OH MAN was it packed. We were late getting there (as usual.. this is my mother we’re talking about) and were hoping for a smaller crowd. We should have known better. Every Catholic church in Knoxville had a 6 pm mass scheduled. We ended up sitting in the unused choir loft (the choir for the 6 pm service was the “Smooth Jazz with Jesus” choir and they stood at the front of the church). Someday, I’ll write a post about the “Smooth Jazz with Jesus” Mass.. someday. Anyway… it was a good thing just Mom and I went to church and left the boys at home because we got the last two seats.

Christmas morning saw us opening gifts and relaxing around the house. Then Mom and I set to making Christmas dinner. We got to eat, for the first time, on our wedding china. FUN!

We all had a wonderful time and I was so sad to see them leave. With them living on the other side of the state.. we don’t get to spend as much time together as I’d like. (Read: I miss my mommy…waaaaaaaaa). Ok.. enough of that.

On the 26th, we packed it up and headed to see the Engineer’s family at the now infamous cabin. I’ve mentioned the cabin/compound before as we seem to spend an increasingly large amount of time there. The cabin is in the middle of nowhere, which thrills me to no end as it reminds me of the super small town I grew up in. The most noise you hear is usually from a tractor or a rowdy cow. HA! It was so quiet and peaceful and I got alot of reading done. Spending time with the In-Laws, Lux, and Tink was nice also.

We headed home on the 28th, arriving in the early evening. The cats were happy that we hadn’t left them for dead and I was happy that we only had one puking incident while we were away (both of our cats are over-groomers and tend to get pukie from hair balls often).

Now that the holidays are over…life is slowing returning to normal at Casa de Dos Gatos.

Now… for some of the loot I got. I know, I know.. I’m a twenty-mumble mumble-years old. Christmas should be about spending time with family and friends and not about gifts.. and well.. IT IS! But man.. this year I got some good stuff and I wanna brag share.

New Perfume

The William Sonoma Multi Chopper –which I used to make my apple pie.. it’s AWESOME!!

The first and second books by Jen Lancaster — I love her writing so much, I think might have a secret crush on her. Don’t tell my husband.

(picture from here)

A Coach scarf and matching gloves set (no hat though). It’s pink on pink and OMFG.. I LOVE IT!!! (still kicking myself that I didn’t get that pink trench coat last year… how PINKITY PERFECT I would be)– maybe I’ll check our Coach out here and see if I can get the matching hat.. I do have birthday coming up.

The Hungry Girl Cookbook- This will come in very handing later this week when I force the husband to begin dieting with me. …. muuwwwhahahahahahaa…

(photo from here)

A six-foot inflatable Penguin from the Dirt Diva — The husband is SOOO putting this in the yard next year!

A My Weigh Kitchen Scale – I’ve been lusting after this scale since I started doing the majority of my baking by weights. I can’t wait to make cookies… I may make some this weekend.

Dollywood Season Tickets (for the husband and I) — These were from Santa and all I can say is “WEEEEEEEEEE!!!” A whole summer of SPLASH COUNTRY!!!! (Hey.. you can take the girl out of redneck, but ….)

And finally………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Personalized Signed Copies of The Cake Bible and The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum – From the greatest, most awesomest, coolest Mom on the planet (Thanks MOM!!)!!

Really, I almost cried when I opened these.

What was your favorite gift?

Tired Office Ramblings..

This is the first week in two months that I’ll have had to work 5 WHOLE DAYS. And OMG… I’m exhausted!!! And it’s only Wednesday (it is Wednesday right???). How did I do this before? (Oh.. stop with the “poor you” boo hooing.. really…. I get it)

Anyway.. because I’ve been to lazy busy to get some Christmas pictures loaded onto Flickr, you’ll have to settle for a Wednesday ramblings, a la bullets! Woot!!

• My skin has been unbelievably dry for the past month. Like “chemistry distilling apparatus that you accidental let boil so bone dry it exploded and the university forced you to pay $40 to replace it” dry (Not that I ever did that….once). My neck and face are taking the biggest beating. I promise you.. I’ve gone thru a gallon of this and this since October.
• The Hubs and I got gym memberships for the New Year. I went yesterday and I swear I feel better. My arms will hate me tomorrow.. but I do feel better.
• I was finally able to go to Trader Joes in Nashville last week. Quite frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.
• Week 5 and our sofa is still not here. Boo….
• I’ve decided, once again, to grow my hair out. I don’t know why because in about 12 weeks I’ll hate it and chop it all off.. then I’ll be sad I have super short hair again. It’s really a vicious cycle I put myself through every.single.year
• I have a birthday coming up soon. I’m going to be O.L.D. Le sigh….
• Yesterday, Knoxville got the same amount of rain (in one day) that we typically get in the whole month of January. Yeah… like.. that much. It’s rained at least 2 or 3 days a week for the past month. I’m over it. STOP.FUCKING.RAINING.ALREADY.
• I may possibly need to increase my dose of Vitamin D (re: previous bullet). I wonder how long the tanning bed place is open……?
• My sister broke her self last weekend in the dessert (Hellooooo Shagomatic! I hope you are reading this from the comforts of a drug induced state!). She had to have serious back surgery on Sunday. She’s doing well (as far as I know.. we’re still playing phone tag…) but could use the extra thoughts and prayers if you’ve got any to spare.
• The Husband, myself, and our two (married to each other) friends D&E went to Dollywood on the First. We froze our kajuggas off riding roller coasters but had a good time.
• Our trip to Dollywood was a much better time than the night before where we (again: Hubs, me, D&E) stood in the cold, at an alcohol-free event (yes people.. .ALCOHOL FREE.. on NEW YEARS EVE) counting down 2008 with a gajillion people (who should have also been sober but were NOT) while freezing our kajuggas off. The husband was in a cranky mood and we were SOBER. NOT FUN. In hindsight.. we didn’t plan very well. You see.. we usually host a party but this year I just wasn’t feeling being a hostess. So we decided to go OUT for New Year’s. We were suppose to see a movie at 7 pm, then hit up the local brewery/grill from then on and ring in the new year toasty and toasted. However.. when we got done with the movie, the brewery had a 3 hour wait. THREE.DAMN.HOURS… which meant we wouldn’t be seated until mid-night. Well.. that plan was shot. We were at a loss and with no other plans, and found ourselves at Knoxville’s “First Night” celebration. Which.. was LAME-O. Couple that with the cold weather, cranky husband, and booze-less-ness and well.. you have yourself a Craptastick time. Yip-effing-iee
• The Engineer and I will be resuming our annual themed New Year’s party in 2009. So now I need a theme. Pajama party and 80’s prom are out, as we’ve done those before, but if you have a theme idea.. please send it my direction.
• I had that dream again. You know the one: Where I’m taking a class but I can’t remember the last time I went to it (or if I’ve ever gone to it) and I’m trying to decide if I can still try to pass the class or if I should drop it. This time it was a Dictionary Lexicon class. WTF right?? And I was skipping class the whole week because of my birthday, which also happened to fall during football homecoming (which.. in real life, is not even possible) and I couldn’t even remember the last time I had gone to the class… because it was at 7:30 on Friday mornings. I woke up just as I was trying to figure out how to drop the class and still maintain full-time student status. It took a good minute to remember that I’m no longer a student. Ugh… I hate that dream!
• I had my 6th dental crown put in last week. I’m very happy with the work my dentist does and while the process is old hat to me by now (1 root canal and 5 crowns later), this was the worst one by far. We kept having problems getting the bite on the temporary right (we never did get the bite right) so I went around for a month with the worst headache in the world. I’m very happy to have a permanent crown with a proper bite in place now.
• The weather people are calling for snow tomorrow. I’m guessing it will likely be rain and they are just telling us ’snow’ to keep us all from killing each other.
• I’ve taken down 90% of the Christmas decorations in our house, but have failed to put back the normal decorations, so our house looks a little empty. However, the Christmas boxes are still laying about everywhere 1/2 full of Christmas stuff…so it really just looks like we’re moving into/out of our house. I sense the husband is getting a little irriated with the current limbo of our decore so my goal for this week is to get things back to normal.

And finally

• I went to a 2nd round interview yesterday and got my first ever “We really love you but you’re over-qualified”

You know it’s bad when you contemplate if you’d rather be over-qualified and underpaid than overpaid and under-utilized.