A Very Yummy Christmas Eve

A Christmas family tradition (and one of the best gifts you can give), I slaved for hours making chocolate covered pretzels for my family and friends (and myself) on Christmas Eve. With 4 lbs of chocolate and 2 bags of pretzels, they turned out quite good (and my tins were finished by 1/5) and I think everyone was appreciative of them.

After I was done, we dashed over to our first 7 fishes with Lindsay's family - which was both an experience in eating and Italian families. Both the food and company was awesome, and we were so very glad to have been invited. It did make me miss having giant family get togethers though!

Follow that exhausting day by midnight mass and getting tucked into bed around 1:30 - it was quite a yummy Christmas!

Its The Closet That's Coming Out

So what's been keeping us busy for these past few days before Christmas? Not Christmas shopping or present wrapping - but impulse home renovations. You see, I've been on Bo to fix the closet so I had more hanging room... and I all thought we needed was to move the clothes bar up a few inches. Here's the empty closet before:

We realized while at Ikea with our friends how much wasted space we had in our closets - to the left, to the right and above. The interior ceiling cut off where the molding did on the outside. We found out quickly that this was original to the house - when we uncovered lath, brick, and old electric. Here's the closet during demo:

And fast forward past the cleaning and the dust to the beautiful new after!!We love the frosted doors, so even if they are much more modern than the rest of our stuff, we're still happy we chose them.

Here's the "hers" side of the closet - the his isn't quite ready for show yet.

It was a pricey impulse buy (which I'm claiming was a Christmas present to ourselves), but now I can free up the front bedroom closet, and actually get dressed in my own room. Imagine that! We still need to figure out where to put the laundry baskets, but one project at a time, right?

Scenes from the Blizzard of '09

Here's my beautiful dogs having fun in the snow: This photo has to be my favorite:

A nice shot of our proper Bahamaian in the snow... and a decent commercial for ADT!

Dusting off the Black Pearl!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Timely Reminders

Someone in my office thinks this is the best holiday decoration possible... I think its cause for panic. 10 days until Christmas? Where did the year go? Good news - I don't have to step foot inside a mall this year. :)

The Winner of the Christmas Card Race

We got our first Christmas Card in the mail on Tuesday! Its a local artist's image of the New Hope / Ivyland railroad done up as the Polar Express sent by our friends 'KBud'. Isn't it charming? Now we just have to wait for the others - oh, and send ours out to everyone. Bonus points to them for a hand-written note on the inside.

That reminds me that last year I saw a contest in a magazine that had points for each item - if it was a postcard photo you got X points, if there was a typed letter inside, you got another set of points, if the inside of the envelope had that pretty foil you got more points, etc. At the end you tally up your points for all your holiday cards for the season and if you're playing against a neighbor or family member, whoever gets the most points wins. Otherwise its just a fun way to keep track of your cards I guess.

At Least She Shares

I'm proud of Missy for sharing her new present with her brother so soon... :) Why can't they always be this peaceful?

Book Report: Her Fearful Symmetry

Audrey Niffenegger's newest book, Her Fearful Symmetry, was the latest conquest in my literary journeys. I'm having a hard time figuring out this book though; two sets of twins, three married couples, a few ghosts... it was a good read and the main plot was tied up pretty well, but the side stories really left something on the table for me. Given her last book, I expected things to be left hanging out with promise for the main story, which they were. I expected the magic and the discovery of how it works, but I thought that more would be explained about controlling it and the reasons behind it.

I did like the struggle that the people went through dealing with all sorts of love. The love sisters have for each other, new love, parent-child love, mourning for deceased love ones... The challenges and craziness you leave behind when you die. I also liked the unique atmosphere she put them in: London, Highgate Cemetary, an odd apartment building. I liked the use of newcomers to London to help the readers explore if they've never been, and the character Robert's occupation as a historian and tour guide so we could learn about Highgate Cemetery.

I do think, though, that the very end (the last chapter) was bollocks and that not enough was really explained. It felt to me like she gave up on the characters and just needed to put the pen down. Maybe that's because how the end of most real stories occur- people just drift apart. They leave one day, and you don't see them again.

The last book I read of hers, The Timetraveller's Wife, is one of my all-time favorite love stories. Its up there with The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, as well as the Anne of Green Gables series and the Twilight series.

All in all, I thought it was a good read, but I'd really like to have a sit-down with others who've read it and talk it through so I understand or can appreciate why the author wrote it. It was cleaver and a nice story, but I think she could have added some more polish for me. 3.5 Stars for this one.

Happy Birthday Missy!

It's Missy's 9th birthday! We celebrated with gifts of bones and a new huge girly bed for her. She seemed to really love the bed, and Trotter at least loved the bones. Missy just guards them; silly girl. I can't believe she's 9 already! Where did the time go?

Oh Christmas Tree!

Here's our 2009 Christmas tree! Isn't it beautiful? I feel like we didn't put up half the basic colored ornaments this year, we have so many other fancy ones that we didn't need them.

Let the Games Begin!

Addictions and Obsessions are funny things; whether it be diving head first into a new book series (i.e. Twilight), eating my favorite pizza, or playing a new game, I can fall pretty hard for these things. This year, I discovered four new games this year that I'm crazy for.

1) My latest craze is Flood-it (available on facebook and iGoogle for me). The idea is to make the board turn all one color by clicking on a color bubble touching the one you're on. You always start in the upper right, so the green could turn either yellow or blue. If we picked blue, then you could turn your new connected line into green or purple. You have 25 moves to win the small board. Its addictive. My top score is 21 so far.
2) A few months ago I discovered Farmville on facebook after my friends kept inviting me to be their "neighbors". People send you animals and decorations for your farm, you make a profit off of the crops you grow and animals you raise, all to buy more stuff. I'm on level 21, with $83K in the bank. I only got into it b/c my friend Kate and my MIL also play, but now it is kind of a nuisance. I think I'm giving this one up for the holidays.

3) I discovered cryptograms toward the beginning of the year while playing one in the newspaper while on vacation. I LOVE them. They really make me think. I'm only good at the easy ones so far, some I can complete in under 1 minute. They can be frustratingly difficult to get through the pattern if you start off with a wrong letter assumption, but I do enjoy winning them.

4) The best group game I was introduced to (and subsequently had to own) is Apples to Apples. Everyone gets a set of 7 (depending on the number of people) cards to compete with and everyone takes turns being the "judge". The judge turns over the category card (i.e. "Hot"). All other players play a card (i.e. "Brad Pitt" or "Chili Peppers" or "Summer" or "Potato") that they think could match. The judge, not knowing who threw down what, picks their favorite and that player gets a point. Then the next person takes a turn being a judge. Its entertaining for all our friends and family, and can get quite competitive by playing the cards you think THAT person would agree with. If the person really HATED Brad Pitt, then the others would have a better chance at winning. I can't wait to play it again with another large group of people.

And Now it's December

Crazy how time flies; it's December One already! To recap the past few weeks:

Thanksgiving dinner was a success- it was the first year I made the turkey all by my lonesome. Super jazzed though, it was done way ahead of time and tasted GOOD. The past 5 years of training and assistance from my mom paid off! Also made homemade corn bread muffins, corn, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin roll for dessert. All from scratch!! Also brought to the table were the broccoli puff, string bean casserole and sweet potatoes, spinach dip for an app, and frozen mud pie for dessert. YUM-O.

Leftovers are, as always, challenging- but we did discover potato croquettes (breaded and friend potato cakes). Delicious!

To get into the holiday spirit, most of the house lights are up outside and the Christmas lists have been written. We saw my sister appear as the cutest mouse ever in a local Nutcracker ballet.

This week we're getting our tree, I'm going to make snowball cookies, and I've got to start my holiday shopping. I'm looking forward to the holidays - Only 24 days left now!!