Happy Friggin' New Year Already

What better way to spend one of the lamest New Year's Eves ever than blogging? How about blogging and listening to indiscernible live jazz on NPR? Lenore and I are also drinking hot chocolate with roasted marshmallows (a delicacy I just made up...mostly because the marshmallows were a little stale, so hence the need to roast them), admiring the blue moon (which I just learned about...for those who don't know, it's when you get a second full moon in a month, and it only occurs every 2.5 years, though on New Years Eve, you'll only see one every 19 years), AND boiling beets. For borscht. Which we're going to make tomorrow.

But I digress.

It's OK that it's lame, because neither of us is in the mood for crowds, alcohol or frivolity. This whole xmas break has been fairly relaxing and uneventful, so why stop with the apathy now?

2009 marked the 20th anniversary of the annual McDonald Christmas Competition -- complete with commemorative t-shirts. If you click the link, note that if you click on each photo, you'll see more photos. This year's winner was Graeme, and Hoops' entry won an honorary "best recycling" award. She had to eat a lot of tinsel to get her entry to sparkle. Guess what it's made of.




I won't bother posting a photo of my entry, which were a couple of mini potholders. I know...lame, the theme continues.

Lenore got home from Edisto just after the big snow (close to 12" I believe), so she missed out on snowshoeing and other reindeer games. Roland, Amy and I went out to Raceway woods, which I managed to document a little (Roland, send me your pictures!), and I also got in a couple of x-country ski outings. That was in between snow blowing, shoveling, and sleeping 'til about 10 or so (I could totally get way too used to this).




We were enthralled (or, at least I was) by these interesting looking ice formations in the creek at Raceway Woods. They look both alien and musical.






This was taken at Beverly Lake Forest Preserve.



After xmas with mom and dad, and after Lenore got home from her family xmas, we had a little xmas celebration with Roland, Amy and my parents that involved a lot of lasagna (recipe available in the Pseudo Gourmet) and about three tons of cookies.



Also, my mom makes the best salad in the world. I can't seem to replicate it.



I got some good loot, including this spiffy new snow shovel (I tried to preserve the wrapping job, but it wasn't designed for hard labor).



Also, the Onion's latest tomb was very popular -- I wasn't sure I was going to get to take my copy home.



Speaking of food, we made strombolis (or are they calzones?) one night, which turned out to be a good experiment. I cooked stew meat in the crockpot all day with onion and a tomato-based sauce, and Lenore made the dough in her bread machine. Next time, we'll add more cheese I think.






So...another year. Marked by "yes we can," and "yes we did," though I'm not sure what we've got to show for it. The audacity of "nope" and an ever blossoming cynicism in...just about everything. Case in point: Sugar is being marketed as a health food. As reported in the Wall Street Journal (which, for the record, I don't read on a regular basis):

In their quest to reach health-conscious consumers, some beverage companies are turning to a surprising ingredient: sugar.

Jones Soda Co., a Seattle maker of quirky soft drinks sold by Target Corp. and other retailers throughout the U.S., plans to replace high-fructose corn syrup -- a ubiquitous but demonized sweetener -- with cane sugar in its drinks, starting in January. The move by Jones, which churns out Blue Bubble Gum and Twisted Lime sodas, along with an energy drink called WhoopAss, aims to capitalize on the bad publicity surrounding high-fructose corn syrup, which some scientists have linked to rising U.S. obesity ...

Anyway, the ball's about to drop, so Happy New Year!

Caroling of the Dominos

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Dominoes Everywhere for the holidays from Jared Lyon on Vimeo.

Normally I'm not a big fan of bell choirs, but this is pretty clever. I hope he got it in one take.

Also...these guys are too much fun.

There Will Be Bounce!

I almost forgot about my cherry bounce infusing away down in my pseudo wine cellar/dungeon! This (below) is actually some hasty documentation of the sticky dark goodness of wild raspberry bounce, made with raspberries Lenore and I picked along the bike trail. I took about 95 pictures with various settings in an attempt to get the delicious dark ruby color, but the stuff just looks like tar in every photo. I think I like the flavor of the cherry bounce better, but this is pretty good. After several shot glasses, it's fantastic! The vodka-soaked raspberries are great on one's morning cereal too. (hic) I'll probably strain and bottle the cherry bounce this weekend.



Also in the "need to document" file is a trek through the snow with Laura to view xmas lights. We bundled her up good, no?




And here's Todd, one of my Perky Potholder Pumpkin Carving winners putting his PP to good use making soft pretzels. Mmmm. Todd and Joules were the onliest ones who sent me potholder photos (sigh).




I should note that Todd also wins the suck-up prize, for this is what he sent me upon learning of his win:

"Thank you from the bottom of my heart Paula. This is really incredible news! It was an honor just to participate in this contest, but winning a potholder was beyond my wildest dreams.

I fully expect that having a Perky Potholder will bring me such good fortune that I’ll be able to retire within the next few months and sit around the house baking my specialty… German Soft Pretzels. I’d be honored to make a dozen of them for you, in return for this gracious prize!"

I need to cash in on that.

And this? Lenore is to blame. I was all ready to hit the water slides at The Wilderness Water park. Amazing how all the ankle biters veered away from me, I can't imagine why.



P.S. Current temperature: 9. As in 9 degrees.

Blanket Fans

Austin made (!) this fabulous quilted blanket for me, but it's been usurped. By the cat. Seriously. I was reading and enjoying the cozy confines of my blanket and *sharing* my lap with Hoops. Then I got up to "cook" (using the term loosely) dinner, and returned to this. This is the look I got when I said, "Hey, whadya think you're doing?!"



It wasn't long before I was faced with this.



How do you disturb such peaceful slumber without going to hell? Since my house drops to about 60 degrees at night, Hoops likes to crawl under the down comforter and sleep with me (until about 4 a.m., at which time she must walk around on the bed, stick her nose in my ear, chew on my hair a little, commence with sentry duty and return to drop toys on my head...but I digress), but last night she slept on HER new blanket ALL NIGHT. However, seeing as Hoops has claws, from now on, there will be no unsupervised visits with the blanket. And no more catnip mice in bed either. Whose house is this anyway?

Winter Walk

Laura took this photo last night as we embarked on a short walk to view some of the xmas lights in the 'hood. Blustery conditions have prompted us to keep Laura for another day so she can fully appreciate the blizzard and negative wind chill. It's the least we could do. We are all three maximizing the WiFi during this impromptu snow day. Though I may need to go out and lay in the street in an attempt to get the snow plow to STOP PLOWING IN MY DRIVEWAY. Each shovelful of snow weighs about 300 pounds, because the snow is so wet and sloppy.

Siblings

This blog entry is dedicated to siblings. Yay! To mine, who can travel again and has therefore jetted home twice to empty the refrigerator and get my dad out of the house, and to Lenore's who are tag teaming to chaperon Lenore through recovery lest she attempt to re roof the house or steam clean the carpets. Yes, a pale and scrawny Lenore is home after braving yet another abdominal invasion, this time to remove a grapefruit-sized reoccurrence of that MF cancer and a hunk of intestine for good measure. Austin came earlier in November, Lyla stood sentry in hospital, and now Laura is here to provide both nursing and bonus computer support. Starbucks and the pie shop should note a jump in December profits. Lenore's 5th (!) round of chemo starts after xmas, at which time aforementioned profits may decline. Please invest accordingly. Shout out to Lynda, too, who's already started her chemo for the way too many-ith time.

Lenore documented several new faces, though some where possibly dilaudid induced, so they speak only to her. Check out the more coherent additions here.

In other news, there really is none. Seriously. The highlight of my day is crawling into bed with a bottle of Jack and Hoops purring in my armpit, and the low point is when the alarm goes off the next morning. Just kidding. I prefer gin.

18 shopping days...doesn't someone on your wish list need a wonderful signed cookbook?