Missing in Action

I'm sure you've noticed by now that I've been a little absent from this blog. What have I been doing you ask? Well, here's a sample of things that were on my to-do-list for last night alone:


Cook dinner for 5 - this is usually my mother-in-law's job during the week, but she broke her ankle on Friday so it now falls to me
Bake 3 cheesecakes
Bake 24 cupcakes
Bake 1 large loaf and 6 small loaves of banana bread
Package said banana bread
Wash, dry & fold 2 loads of laundry and start a third
Make sample wedding invitation for customer
Finish cropping pictures for Braden's scrapbook
Finish one more page in said scrapbook
Start making list of things to pack for trip to Colorado


Needless to say, I was a little tired and I'm already exhausted for today knowing that I have the following to do:


Frost and decorate 24 cupcakes
Make birthday card for co-worker
Finish third load of laundry and do 2 more
Clean room
Clean craft room
Clean bathroom
Cook dinner
Pack
Finish 8 pages of Braden's scrapbook
Pay personal bills
Do the books for three other clients


Anybody want to come help? My goal is to be able to relax and finally enjoy Christmas come 5pm tomorrow night when we all gather for Christmas Eve dinner at hubby's grandma's.


Blogging will be intermittent over the next couple weeks because I'm without internet at home (a power surge two weeks ago took out all wireless devices in our house and it's been real fun working as a bookkeeper without having access to online bill paying or banking...we've been working on it and hopefully today we'll be able to get it back up and running for good), no computer at work (thus no photos), and travelling.


Until then, wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2009!

Christmastime in NYC - Part II

The next day, my mom flew in to LGA so we could go and see all the sites in NYC. I was very proud of myself because I've driven to LGA before, but I normally always take public transportation when I go to the city unless I'm the passenger in the car. Seeing how we were going to need a place to store mom's luggage, though, I decided to brave it and test my NYC driving skils. And, I must say, I impressed myself a lot! Heck, I could work as a NYC cab driver and probably do a better job now. I didn't get lost once and I'm very surprised at how well I've gotten to learn NYC. It seemed so daunting the first few times I visited, but it's really one of the easiest cities to get around.

Anyways, after I picked mom up, one of the first things I said was that I wanted to go to this little cupcake bakery that I read about online. She said she wanted to do the same thing because she saw it in a magazine so our first stop was Crumbs. I had the caramel chew and mom had the red velvet and both were out of this world. I brought hubby a chocolate pecan pie one that he said was pretty wonderful too. We figured we'll eat dessert first seeing how it was right near the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Next it was looking at all the shop fronts along 5th Avenue. Some beautiful stuff, but I think the Disney store was actually my favorite. The angels near the Rockefeller tree were beautiful too. The white metal ones we're pretty as well :)

After that we decided to go to Rosa Mexicano's for dinner. Yes, the same one I ate at the night before. I'm telling you people, it was THAT good. And yes, I ordered the exact same thing too, minus the pomegranate margarita. With bellys full, we walked back to our car (we sure got a lot of walking in!) and on the way decided we'd make one more swing my Crumbs so we could get another cupcake for mom if they were still open seeing how she ate all of hers beforehand and I only ate half! Unfortunately they were closed so we drove by the Macy's windows on the way out of town and made the long trip for home.

The next day we went and saw Australia. It was a great movie and I think even men would enjoy it. We also hit the Christmas Tree Shops for some shopping seeing how that's one of her favorite stores and they don't have one in Colorado.

I drove her to the airport on Sunday where my hubby hopped on the plane with her to head to our house to finish demoing the kitchen.

How about you? Have you been doing any fun Christmas activities?

Christmastime in NYC - Part I

Last week I had the opportunity to go to NYC two nights in a row. The first night was with hubby because some of his clients gave us free tickets to La Damnation de Faust at the Metropolitan Opera. We had never been to the opera before, so we were both excited to experience this.

Beforehand, we met up with one of hubby's good buddies for dinner at this delicious Mexican restaurant right next too Lincoln Center. It's called Rosa Mexicano and if you are ever in NYC and you love Mexican food, I highly recommend it. They make fresh guacamole right at your table tailored to your personal heat level. Their special drink is a pomegranate margarita, and their Budin de Pollo was out of this world.

Next it was on to the opera. We had been warned that it was a modern opera, but we didn't know the difference between modern and regular seeing how we had never been. It was all in French. We don't speak a lick of French. Thank goodness there were English subtitles on the back of each seat so you could follow along, but if you read them, you missed what was happening on stage. By the time intermission came, we both had to make a mad dash for the bathroom only to wait in the typical NYC theater line of 100 people or so wanting to do the same thing. We return to our seats and start admiring the beautiful plaster ceiling only to notice that they need to do a lot of renovations too. Then, our house renovating minds kick in and we start trying to figure out how tall of a scaffolding they'd need in order to accomplish that and realized it'd need to be taller than a 5 story building in order to reach the ceiling. Don't think you'll find me working on that plaster!

About 10 minutes before the end, I committed the unthinkable at the opera and feel asleep. Thankfully I wasn't snoring because hubby didn't even notice I feel asleep until I told him. I awoke when huge flames burst out as Faust entered hell.

Very fun night with hubby. Don't think we'll ever go to another opera again seeing how as my husband says you could really sum up the three hours in a few sentences: "Faust wasn't happy. Devil told Faust he'd make him happy. Faust sold soul to devil and ends up going to hell. The end." The food and fellowship beforehand and the ability to say we experienced the opera together, though, made it all a memorable evening.

Christmas Decor

I've been saying I'm going to post these photos for a few days now and finally they are free from my digital camera. Unfortunately, the one of the tree is blurry, but still pretty. Now, if only I had more time to actually sit in the living room and enjoy the tree instead of always working in the basement or up in my craft room!

I know, the ribbon looks goofy, but I didn't have enough to go around the tree horizontally. Next year I'm going to get that tiny foil garland that I use at work (see last photo). Also, I always have to have my tree in a corner because it has a big hole on one side from where it's missing a branch. Yes, it came that way. Yes, the box had the number of branches that it says it should have for that level, but there is one more spot for a branch than is included in the box or the instructions. I guess that's what you get when you buy an evergreen made in China.

My pitiful garland. I took the advice of the Nester, as far as interlocking all my different fake greens together to make it more lush, but I just didn't have any extra money or time to try to find my boxes with all my picks in it to make it a real beauty. The bows are cheezy. They will not be making an appearance next year. My lights, they burned out, but it wouldn't have made a difference seeing how the cord couldn't reach the plug anyway and I didn't want a huge extension cord to reach the extra 6 inches. But, for this year it's festive and as my in-laws say, it looks like the Christmas Fairy came.

The top of the TV needed some decking out too. Gotta love Michael's after Christmas sales. Those reindeers I got for a buck a piece!

Oh yeah, I also get to decorate our office too. Do you love our 80's decor? I do the best I can with what I have. Yeah, the color of the counter is a little 80's too, but unfortunately it's our logo color so it's got to stay.

And here's our work tree. It looks better when the front lights are off, but I didn't want all the guys to think I'm crazy for turning off the lights and photographing our work tree, so this will have to do. This doesn't look 80s because last year I was given the company card and freedom to go buy a new tree and whatever decorations I wanted when our other one bit the dust. Have I mentioned I love my boss?

(Side note: Anyone work for a hospital that is looking for casework? See that thing behind the tree? That's a patient closet...one of the many items we design and manufacture where I work. If you're interested, let me know and I'll hook you up with our sales dept.)

Belated Thanksgiving Decor

I know we're in the Christmas season right now, but I just wanted to post the few photos I finally pulled off my camera that had to do with Thanskgiving. I could be on that commercial with all the people that are trapped inside the digital camera it takes so long for me to download my photos!

For placecards, I stamped everyone's names on paper leaves I cut out and then attached them to real pears with upholstery tacks. This also served as a favor that people could take home. Very inexpensive and they were a big hit!

For my centerpiece, I used a glittered magnolia leaf garland that I got for 80% off at Michael's and a copper container that I already had. I filled it with pinecones and paper pumpkins and dried leaves that I also got at Michael's for 80% off.

And, here's the table all set and ready for the spread of food. This is my mother-in-law's dining room and china set so it's a little too blue for my taste, but I think it still came out pretty. I set the placecard pears on each bread plate next to the homemade herb butter pats I made which were also a big hit. Here's the directions in case you want to make some of your own:

HERB BUTTER

For each softened stick of butter, chop about 2 Tbsp. of fresh herbs (I used sage, thyme and parsley...all herbs that appeared in other dishes for the meal). Stir together. Scoop into a ziplock sandwich bag and flatten out into a rectangle about 1/8" to 1/4" thick. Freeze until firm. Place butter in fridge for one hour before serving. Right before serving, cut away ziplock bag and cut butter into squares.

Coming Tomorrow

A photo dump. I finally downloaded my camera, but don't have time to post now. But, stay tuned my one loyal follower (yeah! how exciting!!) and few faithful readers.

Hope you are all enjoying your Christmas preparations and fesitivites so far. I know I sure am!

Promise No More

I know I promised to post pictures of my Christmas decorations on Monday, but I really have to stop promising things because my weeks just get too crazy anymore. The pictures have been sitting on my camera since Sunday, but I don't have the time to pull them off yet, and I'm not too happy with how they turned out. So, I'm going to TRY to take more this weekend and TRY to post them on Monday. That's not a promise, though!

I'm looking forward to a fun weekend (which I need after Wednesday night's debacle...see previous post) which starts tonight really...oh how I love having Thursday's as my Friday!

Tonight hubby and I were given amazing seats to the NYC opera. I've never been to an opera before so it should be a lot of fun. I haven't asked my boss if I can leave work three hours early to get there yet because we didn't know we were going to be able to go until last night. Hopefully he won't have a problem with it.

Then, tomorrow I get to make another trip into NYC to pick up my Mom who's coming in for the weekend. We're going to look at all the window displays and the tree in Rockefeller center. It should be a lot of fun. Saturday we're planning on going to see the movie Australia and get some shopping in at a few stores we have out here that she doesn't have in Colorado.

How about you? Any fun plans for the weekend?

Why?

That is the question I'm asking myself today. Why? If you think about it, please be praying for hubby & me. We had a really frustrating night last night. I'll try to give the brief synopsis, but those of you who know me know that I don't tend to be brief!

Our town is suing a former attorney because of some actions he took that put the town at risk. This is the same guy who's been trying to fight this for two years by following hubby and suing him saying he violated his 1st amendment right and all that.

One of our township committee people (a lady who used to be our friend and was one of hubby's running mates) is very good friends with this attorney. She doesn't like at all how the town is suing him and released confidential documents regarding how the town is pursuing the litigation to the judge who then handed them over to the attorney we're suing, thus making them public documents. She doesn't see how she did anything wrong and thus, two weeks ago at a meeting, hubby & the rest of the governing body censured her and another committeeman who did the same thing.

Well, fast forward to the next meeting which was last night and she had organized (with the help of the attorney the town is suing no doubt) a lynch mob of people to come out and lambaste my husband and defame his name for about an hour and a half. I shed some tears at one point as I witnessed person after person who used to be our "friends" go up and call him unethical and question everything he's ever done. They even brought in people from another town to attack him.

It's so hard to sit there and watch this happen. But, at the same time you can't give up because then they "win". I admit, I lost it at a point and called some of them bad names under my breath as they walked past me on the way back to their seat. Then I get more mad because I'm allowing wackos to aggravate me to the point that I act in an ungodly manner.

The unfortunate thing I've learned about politics is that the good people get burned out due to stuff like this and the minority of uninformed crazies has the loudest voice. Oh how we need good and godly politicians, but I'm really starting to ask myself why anyone in their right mind would want to put up with all this crap.