Christmas is coming...

the goose A.K. is getting fat.

Ah, the holidays, time to break out the elastic pants and bulky sweaters. Remember those cookies from the last entry, oh about half gone, and I really didn't give away that many. Now, let's add in the 4 dozen or so cookies that my mother-in-law brought and well, who cares it's Christmas!

Lots of yummy treats on the horizon as well. My sil's boyfriend's parents are coming over to meet my ILs, so tonight I am making lasagna and a big salad for dinner. Add in some wine and I'm sure some cookies and there's round one.

Christmas Eve is our snackfest/app-o-rama. We dine on shrimp, chips and dips, rye bread/dill dip, cheese and cracker and I throw together a raclette platter. For those who aren't familiar with raclette, first YUM, second:



Basically, it's a Swiss meal (akin to fondue) where you melt raclette cheese in the trays and place them over boiled potatoes and serve with pickled onions, gherkins and black pepper. We add in prosciutto, salami, green onions, various other veggies as well. It's very casual and delicious.

Christmas morning we will gorge ourselves on stollen, monkeybread and various other pastries. Then for dinner we're having honey baked ham, taters, etc... for dinner and I'm doing chocolate fondue for dessert. I have strawberries, raspberries, bananas, marshmallows, cheesecake, spongecake and pretzels for dipping. Last year we ran out but the pot was licked clean, that is how good the chocolate is!

So, if you don't hear from my for several days, it's likely because I can't fit down the basement steps any longer and will have no access to the computer.

Merry Christmas!!

It is Done.

The six hour cookie baking marathon is complete. My sis-in-law came over yesterday and cookies we did make, lots of cookies. And wine we did drink, lots of wine, which is probably why we have oh, about one batch of cutout cookies that are not crispy.

It's always a lot of fun and something I look forward to, but by the end, all you can think of is plopping your cookie-stuffed, flour-covered ass on the couch and falling into a sugar coma.

The elder was quite the helper:


The younger was not, this is what he did for most of the six hours:


But it is done, we have a plethora of buttery, sugary treats for the giving. Don't you wish you were my friend? ;-)



And yes, that is my new stove, it did a super fantabulous job. I love it, if I were an appliance, I would so marry my stove.

Huh? Wha?

"stylist haircut on pelvis"

I'm stumped when it comes to this search. Were you looking for a pube stylist or a stylist who lays on the floor or a stylist with a nice pelvic cut?

(yes, I'm still procrastinating, shut up already)

How To Make A Trip to the Dentist Even More Fun

First, make the appt six months in advance thinking you'll be more likely to go to an already made appt than you will if you actually have to call and make one. AND make that appt for the busiest time of the year because in June you aren't thinking about Christmas.

Next, tell your husband you will stop by his office before the appt to do him a favor. Even though this favor involves driving to a busy township, during the lunch hour, finding parking, unloading two children from the car and running them up to the 9th floor of a bustling office building--for a five minute stop. Then repeat in reverse.

Add to that the fact that the small child actually takes a decent nap making you 45 minutes later than you anticipated being there, thus leaving you 30 minutes to pick up lunch, feed the kids and myself and get to my dentist (a 15 minute drive) after stopping by husband's office.

Drive through Hardees, and of course it being 12:30, make sure the line is long. Get food, pay, get back on road while unwrapping thick burger and shoving it down throat in record time. Don't forget to spill soda down the front of your clothes just for fun.

While at a stop light, do the polite thing and make room for a car to pull out in front of you so they can turn left. Then helplessly watch (while flailing your arms and yelling) as she almost runs smack into a car rushing down the center turn lane. Breath a sigh of relief when the oncoming car swerves just in time to avoid a collision and think it probably would have been more effective had you actually honked your horn to get the person's attention instead of gesturing wildly.

Arrive at the doctors office with about five minutes to spare, hand elder his chicken fingers and a few fries while begging he not touch anything in your brand-new-less-than-500milesonit-minivan, because despite the inevitability of it turning into a true family car, grime and all, you aren't ready for it to be there yet. In the meanwhile shove pieces of banana into babies mouth at record speed, then say a prayer of thanksgiving that he managed not to choke and thus hurl banana all over new vehicle. Break out wipes, clean two faces and four hands. Get stroller out of back. Pin arching, screaming baby into stroller while you try to get the belt snapped and threaten toddler with bodily harm if he moves one inch towards the parking lot.

Wheel/walk everyone into the office with 2.5 seconds to spare and unwrap kid meal toy for elder child to play with. Get called immediately into office, park stroller right outside room and beg toddler to stand next to stroller. Get in chair and open wide. Tell dental tech about fun trip over and proceed with scraping of teeth.

*Begin wailing*

Ask toddler to play with baby. Ha, I know.

*Louder wailing*

Who ever thought that having one's teeth scraped would be made to sound pleasant?

*Hear receptionist asking toddler not to touch dental equipment--great, threaten with more bodily harm*

Eventually get up from chair and retrieve wailing child, remind toddler to touch NOTHING. Go back to teeth scraping, while holding squirmy baby who happily plucks up the mouth suction tube and starts chewing on it. That works for two minutes until he drops it. Resume arching and screaming. Try to bounce child while tech scrapes under gumline. Flip child on stomach so he can watch. Toddler asks tech a litany of "what's dat's?" while pointing to everything on tray. Baby grabs for dental pick, tech's hair, bib clip, tooth polisher, water/air gun all while tech trying to clean teeth. Tech was a saint, didn't bat an eyelash.

Tech finishes teeth cleaning in record time and now we wait for the dentist--who incidentally takes as long to come in to look in my mouth for 5 seconds than the tech took for the whole cleaning.

Thank tech, profusely. Pay. Leave. Place screaming arching baby back in car seat. Clip pouting toddler in car seat who is told no, we're going not to see his best friend now. Start driving, two sleeping children. Figures.

Yes, I should be cleaning, but I figure my teeth are clean, that's enough for today.

Baby Steps

No, GB isn't walking, thank God. I'm just steadily getting things crossed off my list (and yes i should be cleaning).

-Past two nights I have hand addressed and written notes in 70 Christmas cards, I just need to add stamps and return address labels and off they go.
-Last night we moved the old shredded sofas out of the basement to make way for the new sectional being delivered on Friday.
-Made it to the grocery store to finish stocking up for my cookie baking extravaganza tomorrow.
-Also bought lots of wine to make it through the next week. :)
-Got a gift I'd been working on for a long time finished and ordered and it should be here in the next couple of days. Yay, I was worried I wouldn't get it done in time.

Now, I'm off to the dentist, weeeeee fun.

Drive By Blogging

As the holidays grown near, my time grows sparse. It seems like I have done so much, yet there is so much left to do. Details details, so many details involved with Christmas time.

What I have done:
Finished gift shopping
Wrapped half my gifts
Ordered Christmas cards and updated addresses so they'll be ready to print when cards arrive
Decorated tree/house (as much as we're going to anyway)
Got a new sectional for basement
Bought a fire pit to enjoy chilly nights outside, and roast marshmellows!

What needs to be done:
Clean house for impending familial invasion
Plan Christmas menus
Finish wrapping gifts
Clean more
Address and mail cards
More cleaning
Bake Christmas cookies
Did I mention the cleaning, of the whole house, with two kids, two dogs and a husband residing within. I hate cleaning.

Anyway, if I'm oft absent, I'm probably cleaning, but if I'm here, I'm definitely avoiding (cleaning) so please remind me of the many people visiting my house in mere days.

In the Words of HG...

When blogged down, distract with pictures...


Sitting with Santa 

Guten Tag!

Cool, someone from Westfalia translated my blog into German. That's where my mom is from.

Be Thankful There is No Smellivision.

You can be pretty darn sure it's going to be an awful, horrendous, sleepless night when your toddler vomits eggs and sausage all over his pillowcase at 10:30pm. Yup, I can vouch for that. Poor kiddo emptied his stomach during multiple trips to the bathroom and was reduced to dry heaving by 2am. It would have been easier to pity the lad had the smell not been so horrific as to eventually cause me to purge my system as well. And the sound, ugh, the sound of someone vomiting is almost as bad as the smell (but not quite). And then there's the laundry, the never ending pile of pukey sheets and jammies that accompany an all night barforama. Did I mention the smell?

I'd say we maybe got a collective 3 hours of sleep, except for the baby who picked last night of all nights to sleep through--when I absolutely could not enjoy it. But, he didn't want to miss out on the excitement so he greeted us with the stinkiest, nastiest, messiest blowout diarrhea diaper he could muster at 6am. Just when you thought it was safe to sniff again...

Hello Integrity, are you out there?

Does no one have integrity anymore? Seriously, I'm so damn sick and tired of dealing with people who do not live up to their word and when they or their superiors are confronted about it, nothing is done to make it right. What happened to people who went the extra mile or businesses that fixed their mistakes without numerous calls to higher ups? OK, there are some, the man who sold me my Cingular phones and switched my account was awesome, so if you live in the area and you are looking to get Cingular-go to the Cingular store at St. Louis Mills and ask for John. But, he's the exception.

Yesterday, I was at Value City Furniture looking for a sleeper sofa as we are hosting Christmas and I need another bed for the basement. We'd purchased our living room sofa/loveseat there and were really happy with the quality, price and a most excellent warranty that covered stains, rips, tears, etc.. and with a couch destroying dog, this was a HUGE factor in us buying from them. So, in my dealing with VCF yesterday, I was comparing a couple of different sleepers and my salesguy was telling me about the warranty. I told him I knew all about it and how it was mandatory at our house due to the dog.

Him: Oh, I'm certain it doesn't cover that kind of damage.
Me: Um, what? No, see, the guy who sold us the couches said it did.
Him: Well ma'am, like I said, pet damage is discluded.
Me: No, we asked SPECIFICALLY about dogs because we have the couch killer dog.
Him: I don't know what to tell you.
Me: If this is true, I'm going to be really pissed, because THAT warranty is why we bought the couches in March.
Him: Maybe you should go see the manager...
Me: Yup.

So, I go to the desk, after 5 minutes a manager finally comes out and I explain the situation. He looks up my information, and asks if there is damage to the sofas. I told him no, that I was here today for something totally unrelated, but found out about this. He confirms that the warranty indeed does NOT cover pet damage, and all the sales people know this.
Me: Ok, then WHY would he specifically tell him that it did.
Him: I don't know.
Me: Look, I have no reason to lie about this, I'm not here because my couches are destroyed, in fact I'm here to buy more furniture from you.
Him: Well ma'am I can credit you back the $99 for the warranty.
Me: Um, that's not the point. The point is that the salesman LIED, and we bought the couch and loveseat based on that LIE. Are you even going to talk to him?
Him: Sure, I'll talk to him, but he'll just deny it.
Me: And that's that, huh?
Him: I'm not sure what you want me to do.
Me: *fuck, I don't know what I want him to do, but I'm damn well pissed off* Look sir, I just don't like feeling manipulated so some salesman can get a commission.
Him: uh huh *looking at me like I'm some stupid SAH mom who's wasting his time*
Me: *seething with hate* Well, I guess the only thing I can do is to NOT buy from you anymore.
Him: OK
Me: *daggers from eyes, walks to door*

At this point I'm really pissed off, and as I'm putting DB's shoes back on by the door, my salesman comes up to me and says I hate to lose your business, is there something I can do? Yah, I say sarcastically, you can make me a really great deal on a sleeper sofa *smirk*. He gets all serious, well, if you take that $99 credit and apply it to the sleeper.... I'm dumb-founded. Are you serious? Are you telling me I can take my money and put it towards the furniture, and call that a discount? Do you realize how stupid that sounds?

I drive home getting more and more pissed. Once home I get out all the info from the purchase of our sofas. Nowhere in the brochure for the extended warranty does it say that it does not cover pet damage. So, it's not something I could have read in the store and called the salesguy on. Now I'm even more angry and call the store back and speak to a different manager. Apparently there is a full warranty that says it doesn't cover xyz... So, I ask, why do I not have that paper? Good question, he replies. I spend the next 20 minutes telling him how tired I am of being treated less than honestly and how I hate that I can't take any salesperson word for anything these days, and basically just bitched. In the end he said he'd mark into my acct that I would get free delivery on any future purchases (a $69.99 value). Goody, thanks, does me a lot of good if I'm not shopping with you any more.

Herein lies the problem. I am happy with VCF's quality and price. I NEED a sleeper sofa and there were a couple of good options at the store. BUT, I know that the only avenue of recourse I have is to NOT shop there anymore, and if I do, aren't I saying that it's ok that I was lied to? Fuckers.

This might seem petty, but in the last couple of years, BWB and I have dealt with some really asses that didn't stay true to their word, like the contractors for the basement, the guy who sold us the range, and a huge disastrous dog adoption issue that ended in police being called. I'm just tired of it all.