Christmas!
Small haul, but considering I asked for everything Mom got me and two items were not small themselves, a good haul:
Ditigal camera + memory card
Dremel tool with case
Three pairs pajama pants (may need exchanged or a run under the sewing machine, must first check if all Target's men's PJ pants come with fly now)
Tiny tiny tiny Swiss Army knife
Half a dozen tiny Transformers
Also I finally got a decent winter coat a few weeks ago, so that should probably count. I sort of haven't had one since all the buttons finally tore off my red one a few years back. Good thing I live in the Bay Area, yes?
The sister and brother-in-law came over; we shouldn't have given them snacks as we now have a metric fuckton of leftovers. For some reason, we had FOUR main courses. I don't even know.
Also it was nice to be the one who helped. I got to stay home Christmas Eve instead of going to visit Dad's family, and I used the time to clean the kitchen and eat a nice, liesurely dinner of leftover pizza, then I dyed my hair (the wrong color, but oh well, it's dye. It's not like it's un-fixable). Fully half the house is clean and I did a LOT of it; it's a very satisfying kind of feeling. And I laid the hell out of that table. I wanted pretty. I wanted something nice.
I think I wanted about three more people, too, but what can you do? We definitely had enough food and space for more, even if the breakfast nook and family room are disaster areas, still. Ah well, today was only the FIRST day of Christmas; I'll have the rest of the house clean by Epiphany.
Got Mom four rather expensive presents by using the barter system; she was surprised and pleased.
... Seriously, I feel like I ought to go on about the domestic stuff some more. I made things clean and pretty. This house hasn't been properly clean and pretty since before my sister moved back in three-or-four-ish years ago. (She moved out two and a half years ago.) It's a huge sense of accopmlishment and it adds to my Christmas spirit just about more than anything else does. Doesn't help-- well, for a given value of 'help'-- that now it feels like time to work on New Year's Resolutions for 2009, so I'm all het up to try to keep the place looking this good if not better, and because for a year now my doll journal has been full of 'today I accomplished X, Y, and Z,' it seems like that's what I ought to be putting here. Today I devised a system for making sure we didn't run out of room for all the food we had planned for Christmas Dinner. Today I used the Good China.
Possibly because it's either go on about the work I did or ask if anybody wants to come over and help us eat the remains of a ham, a roast, a turkey breast, some stuffed salmon, a lot of mashed potatoes, some gravy, a salad, some asparagus, three pies, a cake, and some Silent Hill Cupcakes.
Take:
One box chocolate cake mix
One 21 oz can cherry pie filling
One cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I have been told these SHOULD be optional)
Three eggs, beaten
Combine wet and dry ingredients using a rubber scraper in a bowl that is significantly larger than you think you need. Portion into cake pan, cupcake tin, whatever, and bake for approximately five minutes longer than you normally would (or than package directions indicate; test with a toothpick).
Remove Silent Hill Cake. Note that despite the fact that it is dark brown with streaks of black and blobs of raw-meat-red, it smells incredible. Allow to cool. If gore-streaked baked goods creep you out, frost as desired.
Consume.
Be happy.
We also have lots of chocolate and some candy canes. Oh, and cookies. Kinda funny-lookin' cookies cos Mom's baking powder was getting old, but we have cookies.
(We did have the traditional Holiday Shouting from Dad, but it was aimed at the dogs so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Granted, nobody-- NOBODY-- ever got out of the kitchen when Mom and I told them they were underfoot. That was weird.)
Ditigal camera + memory card
Dremel tool with case
Three pairs pajama pants (may need exchanged or a run under the sewing machine, must first check if all Target's men's PJ pants come with fly now)
Tiny tiny tiny Swiss Army knife
Half a dozen tiny Transformers
Also I finally got a decent winter coat a few weeks ago, so that should probably count. I sort of haven't had one since all the buttons finally tore off my red one a few years back. Good thing I live in the Bay Area, yes?
The sister and brother-in-law came over; we shouldn't have given them snacks as we now have a metric fuckton of leftovers. For some reason, we had FOUR main courses. I don't even know.
Also it was nice to be the one who helped. I got to stay home Christmas Eve instead of going to visit Dad's family, and I used the time to clean the kitchen and eat a nice, liesurely dinner of leftover pizza, then I dyed my hair (the wrong color, but oh well, it's dye. It's not like it's un-fixable). Fully half the house is clean and I did a LOT of it; it's a very satisfying kind of feeling. And I laid the hell out of that table. I wanted pretty. I wanted something nice.
I think I wanted about three more people, too, but what can you do? We definitely had enough food and space for more, even if the breakfast nook and family room are disaster areas, still. Ah well, today was only the FIRST day of Christmas; I'll have the rest of the house clean by Epiphany.
Got Mom four rather expensive presents by using the barter system; she was surprised and pleased.
... Seriously, I feel like I ought to go on about the domestic stuff some more. I made things clean and pretty. This house hasn't been properly clean and pretty since before my sister moved back in three-or-four-ish years ago. (She moved out two and a half years ago.) It's a huge sense of accopmlishment and it adds to my Christmas spirit just about more than anything else does. Doesn't help-- well, for a given value of 'help'-- that now it feels like time to work on New Year's Resolutions for 2009, so I'm all het up to try to keep the place looking this good if not better, and because for a year now my doll journal has been full of 'today I accomplished X, Y, and Z,' it seems like that's what I ought to be putting here. Today I devised a system for making sure we didn't run out of room for all the food we had planned for Christmas Dinner. Today I used the Good China.
Possibly because it's either go on about the work I did or ask if anybody wants to come over and help us eat the remains of a ham, a roast, a turkey breast, some stuffed salmon, a lot of mashed potatoes, some gravy, a salad, some asparagus, three pies, a cake, and some Silent Hill Cupcakes.
Take:
One box chocolate cake mix
One 21 oz can cherry pie filling
One cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I have been told these SHOULD be optional)
Three eggs, beaten
Combine wet and dry ingredients using a rubber scraper in a bowl that is significantly larger than you think you need. Portion into cake pan, cupcake tin, whatever, and bake for approximately five minutes longer than you normally would (or than package directions indicate; test with a toothpick).
Remove Silent Hill Cake. Note that despite the fact that it is dark brown with streaks of black and blobs of raw-meat-red, it smells incredible. Allow to cool. If gore-streaked baked goods creep you out, frost as desired.
Consume.
Be happy.
We also have lots of chocolate and some candy canes. Oh, and cookies. Kinda funny-lookin' cookies cos Mom's baking powder was getting old, but we have cookies.
(We did have the traditional Holiday Shouting from Dad, but it was aimed at the dogs so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Granted, nobody-- NOBODY-- ever got out of the kitchen when Mom and I told them they were underfoot. That was weird.)