"Bwuh-huh-huh!!! The devil made me do it. The devil made me do it! Bwuh-huh-huh!!!!"
This is Charlie's favorite toy these days. Chris bought it for him a week or so ago as a Halloween treat, and he hasn't put it down. Every time he grabs it or bites down on it, it repeats over and over again, "Bwuh-huh-huh!!! The devil made me do it. The devil made me do it! Bwuh-huh-huh!!!!"
Hope you enjoyed your Halloween!
Life has been a bit busy with work, and I haven't had any time to get any thing too super fun in to my schedule; here and there, there have definitely been some good times, but for the most part all work and barely any play has made the year zoom in to Spring well before I'm ready for it.
This is what I said to Chris on Monday, his birthday, since a) he didn't want a big elaborate dinner, b) he didn't want any cake, and C) I got presents.
Ta-Da:
Extreme close up:
I also got tickets to tonight's SU/Georgetown basketball game - GO ORANGE!!!
Take two - last night I tried to post this, but the pictures and the text were doing something weird, so I'm trying again.
Last night Chris and I made some eggnog - and by "made" I mean bought some from Harris Teeter and then dumped some booze in it. Then we played some Scrabble, and for the third night in a row I got WALLOPED. I need to study the dictionary, and I need to do a better job of paying attention to those triple letter and word score spaces!
As of yesterday afternoon, I got all of my Christmas shopping, wrapping, baking, and grocery storing d-o-n-e. It's been a busy week leading up to Christmas, and I'm thankful for the rest.
Last Wednesday we had my work party to attend:
On Thursday we had Chris' work party - picture him in a burgundy vest instead of gray and me in another red, shiny shirt. Since he's new, and we didn't really know anyone there, I didn't want to bust out the camera with, "Hey, can you take our picture?" Durh.
On Friday we had a party at Steener's (she and I taught together in Rochester and moved down here around the same time):
On Saturday we had choir practice (!!):
(We're in the back...)
And then after practice we went and spent some quality time with Chris' niece and nephews while his brother and sister-in-law got some time off. We brought some McDonald's Happy Meals over, and Chris' niece really didn't want to eat her last two nuggets - she wanted to keep them forever and ever. Can you tell why?
The one on the left was her Christmas tree and the one on the right was her stocking. I offered to exchange a photo of the nuggets for consumption, and that seemed to work. Seriously, how did people handle kids prior to the digital age??
We played games, we watched Frosty, we played Wii, and we colored some Christmas ornaments that are now hanging on the tree:
I then came home and slept for about 11 hours. AMAZING to me that people do this 24 hours a day.
Monday was baking day. Really yummy peppermint stick cupcakes, yummy blondies, and good M&M chip cookies - only good because I wanted big, flat cookies and instead I got small, fat cookies (so small and fat that I thought maybe I forgot baking soda or baking powder....but they're cooked all the way through and don't taste bad, so I guess I remembered everything).
Tuesday was wrapping day, and everything was wrapped and put under the tree along with the packages from the south:
So, we're looking pretty festive here, and I'd say we're completely ready for the Big Day:
When Chris got here last night, I think he liked what he saw, because here's where I found him when I came in to the room:
Chris and I made a long list of things we wanted to do to "enhance the holiday spirit" and that could be good traditions for us. The tree was something, and ornament shopping was something, marathon-movie watching was something, and there were a few more things on there that I can't recall right now. In any event, we got the tree, we did some ornament shopping (although we still can't find anything for the top of the tree that we like), the marathon-movie-watching turned in to catching-up-on-all-seasons of 24 (we'll finish season 1 this weekend - yay for Netflix!). One of the other things we wanted to do was to attend something that was Christmas-specific. Initially I thought this could be The Nutcracker or something like that, but I think, once you see the pictures below, that we really found our "something." We went to the Reston Holiday Parade with Chris' sister-in-law, niece, and three nephews. It was fantastic, and I'm already wondering what floats they'll have next year. Enjoy the photos!
Tonight Chris and I went to Michael's and bought an Asbury Pine to decorate. We picked out some balls and some other Christmas goodies. Then, we stopped at Friendly's for an early dinner. I was thrilled to have the turkey and stuffing melt and a buttercrunch caramel sundae! When we got home, we decorated to the sounds of the Transiberian Orchestra and Neild Diamond's Christmas Album ("ReJOICE!!! Reeee-JOI----CE!!!!").
Here's some of our handiwork:
I hung my first ornament.
Chris hung his first ornament.
Charlie suffers silently for a bit of a treat.
Here's our finished product:
We really like how the lights reflect off of all the windows surrounding the tree!
YAY!!!!!! Christmas!!!!!!!!!!
Today is Charlie's 2nd Birthday. To honor this, Charlie was treated to early morning lounging in bed with me, late morning/early afternoon lounging on the couch with me, and a post-dinner Frosty Paw for his treat! Look at what a mature young man he is, posing so nicely with his ice cream.
And, look at what a teenage boy he is now, totally horking down his ice cream!
(The ice cream isn't pink - that's his giant tongue.)
Yay for Charlie!
Yesterday wasn't the most stellar of days....work was sucky, the weather was sucky (yeah, it snowed - nothing that stuck, but still...). Anyhow, I broke out the iPod at work to jam out and perhaps improve my mood and the overall tone of the day. That didn't really work for me....the battery was dying, so I plugged the iPod in to the powerstrip beneath my desk. This meant that there wasn't a lot of room for movement of the iPod (and thus not a lot of room for movement on my part, as I was attached to the iPod, jamming out, remember), and since it's so small and lightweight I didn't notice that it fell to the floor. Nor did I notice that when it fell to the floor, it hit the charger box. NOR did I notice it was there, leaning on the charger, when I stepped on it with one size 7 pink Ugg. I did, however, notice it when it started to skip weird. Then I picked it up. Then I saw the damage:
Can you see it? Maybe this shot is better:
Yeah. That'a cool - a nice cracked face. Seeing as the last time I took my big, 2003 version iPod to a Genius with "It's skipping weird-like," and their solution was to wrap in a dish towel and "firmly yet gently" whap it against the counter, I whapped it in my hand - and lo, it's been working fine ever since (for the record, so is the two-ton 2003 version...).
One of the other things I wanted to post about was regarding Charlie the Wonder Dog. Charlie, who used to roam freely during the days, mostly lounging on his comfy bed with his cozy blanket. One day in July I was headed off to work, and he was chewing on a brand new big old Nyla-Bone. I decided that he really didn't need to be chewing on that the whole day, and oh-so-casually I swiped it out from under him, pointed to his bed, and said, "Adios, Amigo - have a good day."
Apparently what then went through his litte head was a nice long string of expletives followed by, "How can I get her back?!?"
Well. Here's the "BEFORE" picture:
(A very old picture - but it serves the purpose - look how cute he is, notice the big Nyla-Bone, AND notice the chair in the corner.) (also, that writing there? done with my finger on the touch-pad mouse - what up, Skillz??)
This is the after....
I walked in the door that day, and I was like, "Huh. Where'd that ripped up cardboard come from?" And then I looked around the corner and saw this. I looked at Charlie, and he looked at me like, "Whoopsie...ok, I gotta go." When I had a mini-meltdown, he looked at me like, "It's not MY fault. You're the ninny that took my dog bone away!"
Note Wii remotes off to the side and the pillow (in tact!) on the floor. Of all the furniture in the house, this is the least accesible, the least used, and the most valued in terms of sentamentality. This chair is the first piece of furniture my parents bought when they moved in to the house I was raised in. My dad was the one who said I could have it, deeming it appropriate to be one of the first pieces of furniture in my own new home (and, for 7 months, it really was the only chair I had!). In any event, I was crushed. That woven seat was not something I was going to be able to re-do on my own. Can you see me, with several thousand yards of raffia trying to recreate something that will look like the weaved seat? That's all I could picture.
Anyhow, eating the chair wasn't enough. Charlie had to REGURGITATE the chair as well:
Yeah - that pile of brown in the corner...there were a LOT of piles like that all over the house. At first I didn't know what it was, but upon further exammination I realized it was undigested rush chunks mixed with kibble and bile. I have a close-up, but I'll spare you the details. Suffice to say, that very evening I dragged Chris to PetSmart, and Charlie has since been the proud resident of an extra-large metal crate. Only this past week did I finally break down and buy a mattress pad for the floor in there. And, he likes going in there, because he ALWAYS gets a treat for going in.
In case you're wondering about the fate of the chair - thankfully I have Chris. I had stuffed the chair in my bedroom closet because I really was upset about it and couldn't stand looking at it. Meanwhile, Chris did some research, checked out a few places, including an antique shop in the area that does restorations - and lo, he found a DUDE who specializes in RUSH WEAVING. So after about 6 weeks and a mere $200, I had me a good-as-new chair:
Lessons learned all around!
It took me two hours of standing in line, but I voted. And now there's NOTHING on TV tonight except election coverage, and I can't handle the stress or tension, so I'm looking for other entertainment. (And, yes - I took knitting with me. I got a very large chunk of plain stockinette Christmas present knitting done!)
In other very important news - did anyone see the fantastic lunch bag my sister designed and made for me? (She didn't design it for me, but she designed it, and then she made me one!) A very famous bag-maker came out with a lunch bag, and since my mom, my sister, and my niece and I buy a lot of this very famous bag-maker's bags, I was all set to buy one. But my niece had bought one already, and found that the construction style of the bag mostly left her lunch falling out and on the ground. So my sister got thinking, and when I said I was buying one of the very famous bag-maker's lunch bags, she said, "Hold off - I have a thought, and I'll send you the prototype." So, this is what she sent me:
You can loop that top strap over your arm, and carry it without your goods falling out. Here's the inside of it:
In that back pocket there I slip a Rubbermaid frozen gel pack thing. Then in the front part, I put a yogurt, a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a bag of chips/crackers, maybe a Ziplock container of leftovers, maybe a Lean Cuisine. The point is (besides the fact that clearly I eat too much during the day), she lined the bag, and so I don't have to put my lunch in the fridge because between the lining and gel pack, everything stays cold ALL DAY. It's awesome.
Now, if you're crafty and you own a sewing machine, you can buy this pattern and make one yourself. It MAY be possible to buy a finished product, too - but to do either, you need to head on over to my sister's blog and leave her a comment. I think eventually there will be an Etsy link, too. But bookmark her site, and check back for buying info!
