It's over.

                                                                         

Well, The holiday's have come and gone without much fanfare. "Good" I say, I was looking for a fanfare-less kind of holiday season anyway this year.
 Everytime someone asked me what I was doing for Christmas, I felt myself stiffen and a knot form in my stomach, because I knew the next line was coming..."Oh...This is your first Christmas without your Mom"....Yes... Thank you for reminding me. As if I need reminding.
 I think my Mom was popping in and out on me alot during the last few days before Christmas to be sure I was alright, because I felt very peaceful about my first parentless Christmas. And even though it seemed like she was on my mind constantly, it was in a good way more than a sad way. 
This year I felt more like a Mom myself than ever.  Call me a spoiled only child, but Christmas has always been about "ME".  Even the last couple years, of course we spoil Carlie and she gets more than she could ever want... but she was too young to really get it.     My Mom always spoiled me... I was her only child and that's what she did best. And no matter how old I was, I loved it...really, who wouldn't???    But not this year, for the first time in my life it was totally about someone else.  Yup, it's official... I'm a grown up...like it or not.
Oh these life lessons are so much friggin fun.

    I had the week after Christmas off and so did Carlie. We hung out alot at home for most of the week, until New Years Eve day when we made a pilgrimage to Bostons Childrens Museum with Jen (Carlie's Godmother) and her two daughters Olivia and my Godchild Ava.  We had a great time...The kids seemed to enjoy it too.  There was so much to do and see it was absolutely amazing! I wanted to see it all, but we were short on time.  It went pretty smoothly too!( if you don't count the fact that I was put in charge of "Ava watch"  twice and lost her both times....But I found her...and that's what really matters). 
   It was a much diffrent place than I remember. The last time I was there I think I was about 9 years old and the only thing that sticks out in my memory about the whole trip was that my Mother got screwed on a taxi ride from the bus station to the museum.  From that point until today I have always thought of Boston as a bad place full of bad people.  I have also learned through experiences in my fairly recent adult life  that nothing good happens in Boston, so I normally avoid it like the plague.

It was a refreshing experience to go to Boston for some fun, not get screwed (except for the prices at the cafeteria in the museum) and to be able to relax and enjoy.  Thank you Jen for that.

 We got home by 6PM and I was expecting company for dinner and a movie...at 6PM.   A quick txt to Henri to txt Thom and Amy and hold them off for a half hour longer...a whirlwind of putting toys away and wiping down the counters and bathroom...A zip trip to Windfall Market for dessert, snacks and a few essentials and VOILA!  A New Years Eve shin-dig that would have made June Clever proud.  (Except I forgot to put on my pearls).  We watched Julie and Julia wich was FANTASTIC and ate Chineese food  (Wich I detest...but seem to be the only one on earth that dislikes it). And had a great time visiting with friends that we haven't seen in far too long.   Everyone went home early, Thom had to work at 5AM. Henri and I were in bed and watching CNN countdown to the New Year  by 10:30PM. Perfect.

  I recieved a few HAPPY NEW YEARS txt wishes and watched for my friends Andy and Jess in Key West on CNN LIVE till midnight.  That was that. It's over.  Happy 2010 and here's hoping we can all get through it healthy and happy and better off by the end of it.
  
    

How NOT to make a Gingerbread House.

This is the story about the day that I decided to become a "Martha Stewart Mom" and make some memories with my daughter


Step 1.) Decide that since your husband has gone to a high school reunion for the weekend and it's raining, this would be a good time to "bond" with your daughter over a home baked gingerbread house...how festive!!! and how hard could it be...really???

Step 2.) Take your little angel to the grocery store and buy $29.00 worth of candy and

supplies...telling EVERYONE what a wonderful mother you are...and your going to bake a beautiful festive gingerbread house!!...Forget a bag of ingredients at Walmart and stop halfway through the recipe to load back up in the truck and go get said bag.....OK, back home...




Step3) Dress your daughter up in a new apron and get crackin! Within minutes use every mixing bowl in your tiny kitchen and have at least a pound of flour at your feet....but were having FUN!!!







Step4) Run out of molasses 1/2 cup short...but so what?...whose going to REALLY eat the walls???...Keep on baking!!!

(I am NOT going back to the store!!) The dough comes out great!! and actually seems like things are going remarkably well so far!!

Step5) Cut out the walls and roof using the downloaded template from the computer....Here is where things went wrong I will learn MUCH later....

Step6) Create a graham cracker cookie house for your daughter to keep her from asking you for the 1,000,000th time..."Mom, can we put the candy canes and marshmallows on now?" So she can do just that while the gingerbread house bakes and cools...and I sit down for a few minutes....This keeps her quiet for a while....(Because her mouth is now completely full of candy for pretty much the remainder of the day). This is where I stopped taking pictures because the house was done and it was time for me to start my "Creation".

Step 7) As I said in step 5...things went wrong at the "cutting out" point because the template "eluded" to a cut that shouldn't have been...I learned this as I was holding two walls up with one hand...trying to "glue" them together with my homemade Martha Stewart royal icing...propping up one side with a box of jell-o that I grabbed with my teeth from the cabinet and of course I couldn't let the walls go until the icing "set up" then, as I stood there going over the next step in my head the realization set in ...there was no place to attach my roof.....ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDING ME???????

(probably a good thing there are no pictures of this particular part because it got ugly.)

I propped up the walls with everything I could reach and grabbed my roof to be SURE I wasn't mistaken. I wasn't. Just then, the whole thing imploded...one wall cracked in half and I snapped.

Step 8) Open the kitchen window and hurl the entire gingerbread house out of it. OH yes I did!!!

Carlie came out into the kitchen to say..."Mom?...Why you trow de gingerbwead house out de window?" Because I MESSED IT ALL UP!...(What a wonderful lesson to teach my impressionable daughter....But right then and there... I was too mad to care!!!)

She thought that was just hysterical, disappeared and returned with a pretzel..."Mom...You shawe my pretzew wid me?"
I wondered if anyone was walking down the street when I opened the window and flung a whole gingerbread house out it... My neighbors must think by now I'm a lunatic, this isn't the first kitchen disaster to go out my window....

Step 9) So now what do I do with the fact that I have all this friggin candy and no gingerbread house?

I go to Shaw's and buy that damned kit that I scoffed at a week ago thinking...."That's for losers... I can make my OWN!" HA HA HA!!! Foolish me.

So at 6:30pm I loaded up Cricket Carlie and myself and we headed to the store to by the "Looser Gingerbread house kit" just to get the FRIGGIN THING DONE!!! After that, we stopped at McDonalds for dinner ( Because we've eaten so healthy so far all day, why break a cycle?) And then headed home.

Step 10) Once we ate our most nutritious dinner, I opened the " Looser kit" and took out the dinkiest little cardboard looking un appetizing gingerbread house I have ever seen..."F____IT!" I dove in with every bag of candy I had and decorated the hell out of that house!!

Carlie had long since lost total interest in anything but stuffing as much candy into her mouth as possible and was continually hopping at this point on a crack like sugar high while watching NICK JR. for the third cosecutive hour.

Before I knew it it was 8:30PM and I had run out of places to stick candy onto this little creation of mine. THANK GOD THAT IS OVER!!!!

Step11) Survey the damage. After all was said and done, the kitchen was DESTROYED. Royal icing by the way sets up to a cement like substance that can only be removed with scalding hot water and a putty knife. I had dishes everywhere and I was stepping on graham crackers, candy and chunks of gingerbread house everywhere I went...(This was SUCH a good idea).

So after bribing Carlie into my bed and getting her to lie still for 5 minutes she passed out cold.

I did the dishes....chiseled off the counter tops and made myself a spiked eggnog with an Excedrin chaser.

I will probably never attempt this again...good thing I took these pictures so I can one day prove that I made an effort at being a "Martha Stewart Mom". But by then, Carlie will know me well enough to realize I tried...and it's not me. And I think I just realized that too.

Lazy Thanksgivings are the BEST!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I'm sitting here waiting for the turkey to finish it's last 15 minutes in the oven.

Everything else is done and I am looking forward to getting this turkey dinner over with so I can finally have some PIE!!! The dinner is the formality before the dessert as far as I'm concerned.

I have spent a very quiet relaxing day with my family today. We are eating a little later than most...probably around 6pm..but that gave us the day to just sit around....and do NOTHING!

We woke up and lounged in bed (ALL of us) till around 9am. Then I got up...got Carlie her Ovaltine, got us some coffee and had a scrumptous breakfast of homemade banana bread and cranberry bread slathered in REAL butter.... (As much as I dislike Rachael Rae...I have to use her description because it suits the moment..."YUM-O"!!) We had drop in guests later in the morning, Jen and her girls Ava and Olivia popped in and caught me in my robe, still glowing from breakfast and my house in turmoil. (I am thankful for friends that show up un announced that don't make me panic about those things!!) So I sat around in my robe and got to have a bonus visit with Jen, while the girls enjoyed some time together playing in Carlie's room.

After they left...(around 1pm) I shamed myself into getting myself and my daughter into some clothes finally...I mean, It IS a holiday...we should probably get dressed at some point... And we started cooking. Once the turkey was in and everything else was ready to go, Henri headed out to the store for a few forgotten items and while he was there, he hit up a "Red box" and got the Disney movie "UP". We all sat in the living room and enjoyed a quiet afternoon with each other.

Besides a few phone calls from friends with Thanksgiving wishes...we were just "here" and it was heaven.

Took a break from blogging to eat dinner and now I can finish this post by saying...dinner was great...

BRING ON THE PIE!!!!!

So THERE!

Today is my 19 year anniversary at the VNA. It came and went without any fanfare...I made it a point to tell at least 6 people today... I got a grin and a "Oh WOW! Congratulations!" That was about it. It seems surreal to me that I am old enough to have been at a job for this long. I am standing on the edge of a cliff at 39 and teetering on the brink of 40. (Yes, that was a necessary analogy.) I am still not sure how I feel about that. One part of me is saying."Suck it up, so your 40...so what?" And another part of me is cringing at the thought. 40 is "old". ( Sorry to any 40 year old's reading this, but it's the damned truth.) I remember thinking 30 was old...so 40 must be REALLY old. I was just told the other day that I look like I'm in my early 30's. My response to that was, "Fat don't crack". And It's true. So there's one good thing about being a round girl.

I was reading my blog back to this time last year and thinking about how much can change in just one year. I am so glad that I started blogging, because I realized what a nice chronicle it is of my life. The pictures and the day to day things that go on that I have forgotten about in this whirlwind of the past year...I am especially grateful that I blogged about not having enough pie dough to make pinwheels with Carlie last Thanksgiving. I forgot about that and probably would have done the same thing again this year! I'm looking forward to the holidays with mixed emotions. I feel like a grown up more without my Mom around and am trying hard to remember that Christmas is for the children. And at the same time realizing that I am no ones child anymore. So weird.

I'm going to be taking a to a trip down Rt.6A this Saturday with a good friend. We'll be stopping at the artisan stores and visitng gift shops that smell like cinnamon, and I'll get to spend some rare time with a great friend who works allot. I can hardly wait! I'm sure there will be lots of laughing... a stop (or two) at Dunkin Donuts for coffee... and hopefully a lunch. There may be trouble though, there usually is...I'll keep you posted.

I'll be looking forward to doing something different,having some fun and beginning my Christmas shopping!! CHA-CHING!