Christmas Time Is Here

I've finally started my Christmas baking!  Okay, so I baked one thing only, but still, better than nothing, right?  Of course, I made the easiest thing on my list, the ultra fattening, clog- your- arteries- with- one- bite cheesecake.  Just think about it.  Among other things, 7 eggs, 24 oz. of sour cream and 32 oz. of cream cheese.  Sounds kinda rich, no?

This year I think I'm going to put blackberry pie filling on top but I'm still not sure.  I did the cool swirly thing with red and green food coloring.  It looks ridiculous from the top, but when I slice it open it'll be gorgeous!

 I wasn't very happy when the first brand new cream cheese I opened looked like this.

Didn't expire until March, so WTF?  That's what you get when you buy your baking supplies at Wal-Mart, I guess.  Lesson learned!  I sent an email to Kraft and am waiting to hear back from them.  Gross.

We finally got our tree Saturday night!  Of course, we had to pick the one day of the week where we'd had nothing but rain.  A usually empty dirt lot, plus lots and lots of mulch, plus lots of rain = yuck.

Here's the tree lot.

Everyone walking ahead of me as usual.  Look at how wet and boggy it is!

So, we did a bit of looking around and just as Jimmy yelled that he found the one, I stepped in a deep, squishy, muddy hole of water.  Ah, that sure did feel good!  NOT!

But look at the attitude I walk into, both Mikayla and Jimmy.  Lovely.

Well, that's the tree we got, and with soggy, cold feet (although it was in the 60s that night) I took some pictures of Charlie (hey, I like to know the name of the person I'm handing over $100 to!) as he worked his magic with a large power tool.

Too bad he has no ass to speak of.

 

Yippee!  Now we could leave and pick up our pizza next door.  But first, we must look at my feet ensconced in my ugly (wet) shoes.

I have no idea what Jimmy was pointing at here, but I figured if I could get a picture of him in a Santa hat I'd better take the opportunity and just snap.  See how big the tree is?  We (he) actually had to snip some off the top to be able to put the star on.

I'm a white lights kinda girl, but the kids love colored lights, so that's what we go with.  Mikayla was testing all of them for us.

Am I the only one that thinks the star should go on last?

 

And here she is, all decked out.  I would so love to use tinsel... we haven't done that in years, but with Strudel I don't think it'd be such a great idea.  Heeheehee!

Nope, this is definitely not a designer tree.  Sure, there are some beautiful ornaments on there like Lenox and Murano, but mostly it's stuff the kids have made, stuff I've made, and stuff that my '97 email loop have made over the years.  Lots of memories on that tree.

This is my very favorite ornament.  A Lenox moose.  See Cindy, told ya I love the little boogers!

My one Murano ornament that Jimmy picked up in Italy while on business.

Gotta love a red coffee mug, right BJ?

I love this next one, made by my good friend Janet who is part of my 1997 email loop.  Look at all the work she put into it.  Awwwwww.

This is our newest edition.

Here's a pic of my lower banister.  I never did get around to doing the other, but it is decorated with a stuffed elf and Santa that Jimmy stuck between the rails.

That's my little kitchen tree, decorated in black and gold.

Close-up of the berries I got at Hobby Lobby for only .50 a bunch.  Love these things!

That's about all I have to report, Christmas-wise but I do have one more picture to share.  Our good friend from Tampa, Adam, was in the area on business last week and stopped by the house one night.  I haven't seen him in three years and it was great to clap eyes on him and catch up on life.  I actually got Jimmy to take a picture with him, knowing full well I'd post it here.  Adam was very excited to become famous.  On my blog.  Yaright!

Nice.  Strudel is licking the kitchen table.  What is with this damn dog?

Anyone want a golden retriever?

My Balls Are Shiny

A few nights ago, while enjoying temperatures in the 40s, Mikayla and I decided to put some lights up outside.  I think it's a given that there will be no lights up on the house this year.  Jimmy is not a lover of heights so if I wanted it done I'd have to drag my neighbor, Tom, down here to do it.  Being that he's already put lights on at least 3 houses on our block I think I should cut the guy a break, don't you think?

I usually go hog-wild with the lights but as I've previously stated, I've kind of lost my Christmas jingle so we're keeping it more low-key this year.  Mikayla did all the shrubs and two Chinese fan palm tree trunks and I concentrated on the Canary date palm in the middle of the lawn.

Have you ever gotten a splinter from a Canary date palm?  No?  Well neither had I, until the other night.  Holy crap, is there some kind of poison in these things?  That sucker hurt!  And I don't even know exactly what got me because it wasn't one of the 3" long thorns that cover the stalks of the fronds.

Anyway, here are some lousy pictures of our work in progress.  If anyone has any tips for me on getting decent night shots with a digital camera, please share, 'cause I'm desperate!

 

I hung some shiny and glittery balls from the fronds.

 

 

There were many many inappropriate ball references going on this night, and I had Mikayla cracking up.  Below is an example of things I was saying and in my very odd, Cartman-ish voice. I decided I'd make you a sample video of what I sounded like while hanging my balls.  I was looking disgusting at the time so I just pointed the camera at my computer.  Turn up the volume if you dare.







While Mikayla and I were working our little elf fingers to the bone with lights, Madison and Jimmy were at her Snow Ball at school.  For those of you that remember last year's pictures, yes, she's wearing the same dress!

That's just my little kitchen tree that I got on clearance last year at Target.  Cute though, right?  Oh, and that fugly garland on the railing?  It's coming down, baby!  Blech!

Hey Elizabeth, did you notice what's on Madison's wrist???

I think Strudel was feeling a little left out.

Doesn't she look sad?

Anyway, yesterday I took a couple of pictures while it was still light out.  Ya know, of my shiny balls.

And just once in a while when it's cold (or I'm sick) I crave a cup of strong tea.  Ahhhhh... it hit the spot!

Last night I bought some red lights to add to the white on the shrubs, so if either Mikayla or I get around to putting them out, I'll show you guys updated pictures.  I also bought nearly all my required baking supplies to prepare for Christmas Eve.  Yikes!  I have to somehow get motivated to start whipping up my desserts!

So far on my list is my famous, extra rich cheesecake, this year with blackberry topping; the ever present rainbow petit fours; butter nut cookies; an Italian cream cake; sand cookies from a recipe in the Dorothea Benton Frank book, A Christmas Pearl, and sugar cookies.  Jill will be very pissed to know that I'm not making my also famous chocolate cake with white chocolate-peppermint mousse and chocolate ganache.  I'm tired of making it!  But, Mikayla found a fudge cake recipe she wants to try and she will be making the white chocolate peppermint mousse to layer it with.  Go Mikayla!

I'll try to take pictures as we go along!

Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!

Warming it Up a Bit

A couple of weeks ago I had this bright idea on how to make my lanai (which is basically my bitch cave) more cozy and cute for me. I decided I was going to string Christmas lights around the perimeter of the overhang and then buy a cool paper lantern to hang over the table.

All great in theory, but how does one hang a lantern without putting a hole in the rented ceiling? Command hooks! Yeah, those work great, except I didn't buy Command hooks. I bought some generic kind, but look... pretty!




But then it fell. Twice. I was not too happy about having to move the table and chairs again and drag the 253 pound ladder around either. After it fell the second time, I knew I had to get the real Command hooks, generic crap be damned.

I was not looking forward to stringing the lights around the overhang either, because, let's face it, I'm fat. It's not fun hefting this globular body up and down a ladder multiple times. Once I'm up there, if I get down that's it. I don't wanna get up again.

But silly me, I forgot. I've got Mikayla and she loves doing stuff like this. I'm a total advocate of domestic child labor.

Then she asked me how we were going to hang them up there.

*crickets*

Then it came to me. Paper clips! Yes, paper clips could work. If I had any, which I didn't. So of course I hunt Michelle down in her driveway and demand paper clips and lots of em. She put out, just as I knew she would and off Mikayla went, up up up the ladder. I was the paper clip bender and ladder dragger. Whew, it was hard work too.




Up and down, up and down, up and down she went. Do you see the size of that ladder? And believe me, it's even heavier than it looks!



Look at the pretty reflection in my just-cleaned windows. I love clean windows! I just hate doing the actual cleaning of them.




Next, I took the bulbs out of the light fixtures because damn, it got mighty bright out here!

It looks cute, no? And isn't it great that we have all woods behind us, no houses? Nice for privacy. That is, if Michelle's back porch, kitchen and dining room windows didn't look directly out on my bitch cave. I have to be real wily about picking my nose and such.




Anyhoo, I decided it was still a bit too bright, so I went to Wal*Mart (gasp... don't judge!) and bought a 25 watt green bulb. Now I truly love it and I'm even ready for Christmas! Shhh... don't tell ThatGirl. According to her, we're not allowed to even think about Christmas until December 1st. I've renamed her ThatScrooge.




Then one 70 degree night, Jimmy felt the need to light a fire. Ya know, 'cause we were freezing our Floridian asses off. Strudel was fascinated by it and kept jumping up to attack the floating ashes. I was just glad she didn't become a pupkabob.






And speaking of Strudel, I think we have the golden retriever from hell. Goldens are known to have a "soft mouth" and a gentle nature. I have scrapes and tooth marks all over my body that say otherwise. I can't even describe the pain when she latches on to my tummy's fat roll. And ooh, a couple of times she's come up behind me and actually grabbed hold of my sensitive inner thigh meat! A few months ago, my friend, Kristen, said, "You're the only family in the world that could ruin a golden retriever." Yep, uh huh.

Yeah, a pupkabob is sounding better and better. Anyone have a really large skewer they could lend me?



Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!

Christmas Ate My Yard, Too!

It took me over a week to do, and with no help from Jimmy, but I finally got the yard done! Yeah baby, yeah! But this isn't just a post with a bunch of pictures. No, there's a story to tell, as often happens with me. Things rarely happen normally here, and putting up Christmas lights has turned out to be no different.

First, let me say that a fat woman such as myself is not built to climb up and down ladders. When your belly sticks out as if you're 9 months pregnant, it's kinda hard to reach forward to put a clip on the gutter. I had to be very careful because as I lean forward, The Belly hits the top of the ladder and nearly throws Tiney off the ladder and onto her fat ass. Imagine the splat that would make!

Now, I really really really wanted lights on the roof-line, but Jimmy abhors heights and has just refused to do it. Well shit, I'm not getting up there! I mean, I could but I'm just not gonna do it. I jokingly completely seriously asked my neighbor, Manuel, if he'd do it for me, but I think I asked at the wrong time because at that very moment he was on the peak of his roof and not enjoying the view.

So, in lieu of lights on the roof, I figured I could manage to at least string some lights and garland above the garage on the gutters. Easy, right? Well, not so easy because a) I bought the wrong kind of clips, and b) the only ladder we have weighs about 50 bazillion trillion pounds and takes a VW Bug's worth of clowns men to unfold. But I'm now determined to get some Christmas spirit in my yard, so off I trek next door to Grisel and Manuel's to borrow their ladder and some gutter clips. Set up the ladder just fine but oops, I don't understand how these clips work. "Oh Griselllllllllllllllllll... I need helppppppppppp!" She drops her strand of lights and comes over to show me how to hang my garland. She even did a couple of swags for me. What a doll-baby. After many belly bumps and livid cursing, I got it done. Whew!

Now it's candy cane time, but I can't just put them anywhere because the neighbors decided they wanted us all to line the street with them. So off to Wal-Fart I went and bought 8 of the big ones, only to get home and realize I need at least another 8 of em. Back to Wal-Fart, buy more candy canes, come home to put them in and notice that everyone else has the little ones. Well screw it! I'm a non-conformist, right? But then Jimmy sees them and decides he likes the smaller ones better. So off to Walgreens he goes to get the little ones. We are now $70 in the frickin' hole on frickin' candy frickin' canes. And I can't even eat them!

At this point, I decided I'd let Mikayla have the task of unraveling them and inserting the stakes. Big mistake. Witch Sweet child can only get half a set undone before the rest is a mangled, tangled mess and she starts stomping around telling me I can just do it myself. Have I ever mentioned how much I love puberty?

So what do I do? I leave them in the garage and I move onto something else. Shrubs! Jimmy has finally trimmed them down, so I can put the lights on them! I won't even go into the trauma of trying to find enough extension cords, then trying to figure out how to get one connected to the other and so on. I mean, the cursing could be heard near and far. It was just pitiful. At one point I even threw a set of red C7s at the driveway and watched a bunch of them shatter with a POP. Fun times trying to sweep that shit up. Not to mention that at least 6 neighbors were outside and all looked up at the POP and gave me the "she's crazy" look. But my shrubs have lights, so neener neener!

Now I want garland swagged over Mikayla's bedroom window, but how do you stick anything to stucco? I had noticed that my friend Kristen had done it, so I stalked her until she answered her phone tracked her down to find out how. Command sticky hooks! YES! So, off I went to Walgreens to get my hooks. And another 8 sets of white lights. Ka Ching!

Well shit, I can't reach way up there with my little step stool, so I borrow Grisel's ladder once again. I did it, and it looks okay, but I should have used the thicker, stiff garland instead of the soft, thin stuff. Even put a big gold sparkly bow in the middle, just like I did on the garage.



Things are coming along nicely now. I've got some lights on the bushes, my wreaths hung on the coach lamps, garland here and there, but those damn little candy canes in the garage were haunting me, and no amount of pleading on my part would get Mikayla to try and unravel them again.

But you see, I'm sneaky and conniving and when I saw my other next door neighbor, Latika, outside talking to her next door neighbor, Tracy, I started cursing extra loud while slinging the candy cane strands to and fro... ya know, to get their attention. Wouldn't you know Latika offered to untangle them for me? Both sets! Yeah baby, yeah! So now Tracy holds Latika's baby, Latika untangles the canes, and I get up on my step ladder and start stringing lights in one of the trees. And lucky me, Latika's hubby comes outside with his ladder, and because he's so manly and tall, finishes the tree for me! Do you see a pattern going on here? Oh, and Tracy, if you're reading this? Thank you for lending me your duct tape!

You'd think this is the end of the post and I could just put up some pictures now, right? But oh no, now comes the GREAT CANDY CANE DEBATE. Ron has his facing one way, Grisel has hers facing another, but they look backwards to me. Her hooks are facing left, and for some reason it just seems wrong. So I put mine facing right, along with Latika and Brian, who also think Grisel's are backwards. I was so proud of myself when that was accomplished. I guess I should mention that I ran out of extension cords and had to ask Latika if I could plug one of my sets into theirs. Yes, now my crimes include stealing electricity. But yeah, I was happy it was all done and I could just sit back and enjoy my canes. Until I emailed the pictures to a group of my friends. I'm not naming names, Jill!, Buffie!, Bridget!, Becky! and they all in unison said, "They're backwards! You have to turn them around! The hooks should be facing left, like a number 7." I argued till I was blue in the face that there is no wrong way to face a candy cane, and much debating ensued, including various Google Images pics of candy canes facing like a number 7. Shit on a stick! I've been bamboozled! I can't take the peer pressure! So, I decided I'll turn them around, and then tell Brian and Latika that theirs are backwards and need to be turned.

Next day I was outside literally having a physical dispute with another thing of garland when Latika comes over and says, "Tracy and I drove over to TheNorthPoleExplodedOnOurBlock Rd., and like the way their candy canes are. The hooks are facing the street! So we're going to change all of them!" Oh glory be, someone just shoot me in the head! I'm over the damn candy canes now! But wouldn't you know, I didn't have to bend my fat self over to do it? Nope, Latika and one of her daughters, plus our friend Michelle turned all of them around. Mine, Ron's, Grisel's, Tracy's, Latika's. Whew! The next person that comments on the direction of my canes gets one right up the ass!

Here they are, facing the wrong way. Geez, from all the arguing, you'd think I'd put little red and white pentagrams out on the street!

Angled shot. Do you see why I'm so upset about Jimmy not getting up on the roof? The top half of my house looks nekkid! Like she ain't wearing a bra. And I want her to have on a really sexy one, with spangly, shiny stuff!
And btw... yes, I know this is probably the ugliest house you've ever clapped eyes on. That's why we ain't buyin' it!


Funky crooked "Rhea" kinda shot.



Oh, and that garland I was fighting with to put around my front door? Couldn't reach that with my step ladder either, so had to borrow Ron's ladder. Also couldn't get the push pins to stay with my finger, so had to hammer them. After cracking about 10 of them I finally realized I had to tap very very lightly. Ugh.

But look, now we're all facing the correct way!



Let's look at them from the side...



Some to the left...



And some to the right...



And let's have one picture of Grisel's house since she worked so hard on it and it came out so pretty! Still want Manuel to get up on my roof dammit.



So a quick recap. I borrowed Grisel's ladder. Three times. I borrowed Ron's ladder. I borrowed tape from Tracy. I borrowed electricity from Latika, and got her to unravel my candy canes. I borrowed her husband to string lights on my tree. I got Grisel to climb the ladder and show me how to hang my garland. I got all of them to turn my candy canes around. I found out that Command hooks really do stick to stucco. I also found out that even though I used at least 15 different extension cords, I still need to buy more for next year. I found that I can curse in two different languages simultaneously and loud enough for the neighbors to comment. And then this afternoon I found out that wind and garland don't mix, and all of mine was on the ground! I'm not even going there. I'm going to wait till Jill gets here tomorrow, and let her do it! She's the one with Christmas spirit coming out of her ass anyway.

Don't ya just love the holiday season? Ho frickin' ho!