All I need is this thermos. And this chicken. And Linda.

If I had a chicken I wouldn't have to go to the store this morning and buy eggs.  I could just send my little ranch hand out to gather the eggs and then I'd have something with which to make breakfast sandwiches which everyone residing in my house has a craving for.  Also, to make cookies which is the logical thing to do when you have two giant bags full of cookies on your counter.  It's the holidays.  We make cookies until we toss 'em. If our collection gets under 200 or so, we start to panic. 


Will someone mail me a hen, please?  A little red one, one that preferably will grind wheat and make me homemade bread when she's not popping out eggs.  That'd be great, guys, thanks for taking care of me.


I discovered another Murphy's Law of Parenting:


#4876:  sweeping your entire house will ensure that a small being will have a jonesing for burnt toast.  Burnt toast that they will cart all over the just swept house, leaving behind a trail of breadcrumbs for their mother to find.  No wonder Hansel and Gretel's mom had had enough.  At the end of every mother's rope, you find a trail of telltale crumbs.  I sympathize with Hansel and Gretel's mother - we'll call her Linda.  Linda and I would be pals.  We'd sip margaritas in the back yard while our children wander off in the woods to eat the neighbor's houses.  


I love the word telltale.  We don't use it enough.  I smiled when typing it.


I don't actually have a theme to blog about today (or is it a meme? Is that the term?  I don't know.  I'm not a real blogger, I just play one on blogger.com).  I just need to keep my fingers from falling asleep because I woke up at 2 a.m. with a sore throat and a bout of frenzied brain activity and decided to glug half a bottle of Nyquil.  So when Moose was soft shoeing on my face at 8 a.m. I was forced to get up.  And discover the lack of eggs and fresh cookies.  Which was depressing.  But only mildly, because Nyquil has antidepressant powers.  I think.  Or maybe it just dulls your mind so much you don't realize how depressed you are or how your throat still hurts or your feet have grown another Hobbit size or how you haven't done any Christmas shopping yet.  It's like Forget Juice mixed with some Relax Nectar and followed by a shot of Sleepy Water.


In spite of that and the fact that I probably should not be operating machinery like a minivan, I really need to make myself presentable and go buy eggs.  And gifts for upteen people.  If this post confuses you it's due to the haze of Nyquil fumes I am currently under, and it's okay if you don't get me.  Linda is the only one who really gets me anyway.

Weirdbeard

No Shave November turned into No Shave December around our house, and not just because the razor likes to fall off the shower wall at night and scare the living daylights out of me, but because I like my guy scruffy and he knows it.  But tonight he couldn't take the Sasquatch attacking his face any longer so I bring you...in stages...the evolution of man.

Grizzly Adams.

Bob Cratchitt.

Rob Reiner/Meathead.

Ummm....1970s man in a questionably morally wrong line of work?  (hey, this is a family blog!)

Well, we all know why this look went out of style.  Speaking of which, Will Farrell singing Springtime for Hitler is just something we should all see at least once.

Bare as a baby's bottom.




He knows I like the mountain man look so if he knows what's good for his love life, he'll grow it back pronto.


P.S.


Gianni refuses to call him Dad any longer and now refers to him as Uncle Mike who lives in New York.

If Cousin Eddie Built Gingerbread Houses

When it comes to bread...
...pizza
...fudge
...Christmas trees
...dishwasher detergent
...coffee
...dark chocolate
...trash bags
...feminine hygiene products
...paper towels
the motto 'round these parts is no substitutions, spare no expense, from scratch or name brand.


When it comes to gingerbread houses
...crafts
...DIY projects
...homeschooling
...laundry soap
...make up
...dog food (sorry, Milo, that horse may have turned)
...ziplocks
...butter
...did I mention DIY projects?
the motto 'round these parts is easy, cheap, fast.  Which sounds more questionable and awkward than it actually is.


So, while our fudge may be homemade (see last year's post ) our gingerbread houses are graham cracker/tub o' frosting el ghetto wonders.  


After I built the walls for him, Gianni asked,
'Do I get to kick it over now?'
Because, of course, the only logical to do with something constructed is to demolish it.


During the Extreme Make-over; Gingerbread House Edition we watched Christmas Vacation.


Which we really need to get a family friendly rated version of one of these daze.  But oh my, it's funny. And the source of year around quoting.  Speaking of which, can you name the movies these Christmas movie quotes are from?


'Tis a ponderous chain.


If I woke up tomorrow with my head stapled to the floor, I wouldn't be more surprised.


I can't put my arms down!


We elves like to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup.


Well, here's your hat, what's your hurry.  Alright, Mother, old Building and Loan pal, I think I'll go out and find a girl and do a little passionate necking.'


We ate a bowl of sugar, field dressed a cat, played with shot guns, drank some brown liquor, looked for women...


The insolence! The audacity! The unmitigated gall!


I want you to get married.  I want you to have nine children.  And if you only spend five minutes a day with each one, that's forty-five minutes and I'd at least have time to go out and get a massage or something.


Well, you really can't spell families without lies.




First correct answer gets a homemade gingerbread house and a batch of fudge a warm, fuzzy feeling.  And also a Christmas card.

attendant has been notified to commit me

Attendant has been notified to assist you...


... but I don't need any assistance.  I just need to pay for my milk and scan my swiss chard.


Please remove the last item from the bagging station...


...um, I didn't put anything in the bagging station yet.  Are you talking about that gnat that flew by?


Attendant has been notified to assist you...


...I don't need assistance!  Ok, fine.  Whatever.  Where is said attendant?  Hello?


Item not found.


You can't find bananas?  They're a pretty common item.  


Quantity?


Umm, looks like nine. 9.  Noooo!  Wait, not nine bunches of bananas - nine total bananas!  Nine bananas!  I'm not running a school for monkeys!


Please remove the last item from the bagging area.


Ok, ok, it's all gone!  I put everything back in my cart!  Stop yelling at me!


Please put the last item back in the bagging area.


Argh!


Why do I do this to myself every time? I like customer service just fine.  I'm not avoiding the friendly checkers.  Why do I think I can do their job faster?  I can't.  They're better.  I can admit it.  They can scan, I can tour jete, they can tally, I can pirouette.  They don't come to the ballet studio and expect to teach their bunheads themselves.  That would be silly.  


And trying to feed crumpled one dollar bills (earnings from your yard sale) into the machine is almost as embarrassing as - well, insert your most embarrassing scenarios here.  Especially if you mention to the skeptical checker-who's-not-a-checker-but-is-just-a-bored-employee-who-carries-a-magic-box-that-can-erase-your-mistakes, that you're a dancer.      

new blog launch

Hello, my peeps.  I began a new blog, this one dedicated to children's books.

Will you pop over and say hi?

If you have a children's book for me to review (or just gush over), let me know.

I think this could be fun.  You?

http://chocolateandpages.blogspot.com/

sometimes

Sometimes you have to drill your four year old like a potential oil field about the True Meaning of Christmas.  Because when you are a Santa lovin' family, but also Christian, you have to groom your children to not embarrass you in front of church friends by staring blankly when they talk about Jesus' birth.  So you have to plant that holy thought in their playdough moldable brains every opportunity you get by randomly barking out,


'Why do we celebrate Christmas?'  

This way when someone from church asks he can stare mutely at them and whisper,

 'presents?'

but when a total stranger tells him he's cute, he'll respond with a passionate shout of,

'JESUS!!!!'

that sends them scurrying the other direction in a flustered state of mild panic.

Are we the only ones with this particular problem?  It's a pickle.

sleepy

Glad you're comfy, Buckaroo.

Go ahead and spread out.

Really.

You and The Other Woman (hubby's body pillow.  She's a redhead.  Sometimes I call her Ariel) just take all the space you need.

Catch up on all that sleep that eluded you half the night due to hurt fingers, scary noises, tooting, crying, the blanket not being tucked in correctly, a threat to spank which made you exclaim "after my spanking, will you tuck in my corners the right way?", a million glasses of water, the looming certainty of death by starvation since your parents wouldn't let you snack at ten p.m., and many other reasons.

You go on and take the bed, sparky.  You had a rough night.