Cold and Cats

The ridiculously cold weather is affecting many parts of life these days. Hearing it’s -14 (not including the windchill) outside the minute you wake up kind of kills your desire to get out of bed and go to work.



It’s also very dry so my skin is dying. There’s not enough lotion in the world to keep it hydrated. And the zillion papercuts I get everyday are magnified. My nose and sinuses have pretty much given up on me. I don’t have a cold, my nose is just so dry it bleeds at the drop of a hat. I’m doing what I can, but I can only drink so much water and shoot so much nasal spray up there in one day.

Also affected by the cold is my car. The check engine light came on (again) Thursday morning. So we did the great car switch and Adam’s dad took it in with him to work Friday morning. They ran the diagnostic and some gasket something or other is loose or something. I don’t know. But my car isn’t the only one who’s come in with this problem so they didn’t have the right part to fix it. And it’s backordered. So, my car will be fixed in two or three weeks. They tell me driving it won’t hurt it. I’m holding them to that. Luckily I don’t drive much anyway.

Anyway. All anyone can talk about these days is the weather. It’s supposed to warm up at some point. In April. *sigh* We’ve been kicking the heat up a couple of degrees the past few days. 65 just wasn’t cutting it. We still let it re-set to 63 overnight though. I’m plenty warm with blankets, Adam, and at least two cats sharing their warmth with me. And since they say most of your heat escapes from your head (although I remember reading something recently that debunked that), Carly takes care of that by wrapping herself around the top of mine. JC usually curls up by my knees. Even so, I’m not looking forward to our next gas bill.

Speaking of bills (and we were, kind of), I had my review at work a couple days ago. Four years now. One more year and I get an additional week of vacation. Boo-yah. Everything is great and wonderful. Go me. And this year I got 3.3% because they did some kind of funny math to get around the 3% freeze. Or something like that. It’s nice that I got a raise at all though, I know. Adam’s salary has been on a freeze for over a year. It’s rough. And now he’s gone back to hourly, which he was not too happy about. We do what we have to I guess. On the plus side, he now gets overtime again so when he worked on Saturday morning he got time and a half.

The weekend was pretty un-exciting. I did some shopping while Adam was at work yesterday morning. When he got home we headed to Simon's for cheese, Sam's club, and to American to complain (again) about our missing lamp. It's supposed to be delivered to the store tomorrow morning so we'll see. I made this leek & gnocchi bake that was so good.



I used prosciutto for the first (and probably last) time. It was so salty. And expensive. I'll probably go back to swapping bacon for it, but it was good to experiment a little.

This morning we did our weekend trip to Menards. We watched Mr. Woodcock. Well, I missed parts of it because I was doing laundry. But that's ok. I don't really dig Billy Bob anyway. He's... creepy. Adam went to get his haircut and then picked up lunch from this new place in town - Bumpa's Bagels - on his way home. The sandwiches were good. Mine was a bit messy, but they really piled the chicken salad on! The rest of the day was football. I spent the afternoon/evening going through all my old Rachael Ray magazines to clear off some shelf space and refresh my recipe library.

I also spent a good portion of the evening taking pictures of the cats. They seemed to be doing all kinds of weird and interesting things:

JC & Carly, tolerating each other's existence:


Connor, so serious:


Seriously, this cat HATES me...


Aah, the fun of a see-through coffee table:


In my head this shot reminds me a lot of that scene in As Good As it Gets where Greg Kinnear's character is sketching Helen Hunt's character in the hotel bathroom. When she walks, she's like a cat version of Raquel Welch. Does that make me weird?


This one will mess with your eyes. I caught a great photo op when the sun was shining in my eyes and I had to close the curtains. Looks like a shadow of Ted, right?


But you can tell in this one that it's actually Connor behind the curtain. So cool...


This one just amused me for some reason.


Streeeeeech!


Amazingly enough, Ted can still squeeze himself into the teepee.


Connor nabs the best seat in the house.


The legless position that still baffles me.


And, finally, Adam's cat moustache that makes me crack up every time.

Captivating Carly

Proof that they CAN co-exist if they want to:



(Carly's up in the top corner by the light...)


or not...


What's got JC so interested?


That would be Carly, taking a bath.


You must pet me, I have your hand captive!


and finally, her favorite after dinner hangout. She must think she's a cookbook...

Weekend Shenanigans

Friday night we decided to go to dinner at Applebee’s and use the gift card that Adam got for Christmas. We didn’t repeat the mistake of sitting in the bar this time. Neenah doesn’t have a smoking ban and it can get quite smoky in there. Nothing extraordinary about the meal. Adam had a salad and I had some garlic chicken thing. Their menu seems to get smaller every time we go there. Maybe it’s all in my head… We went home and watched Burn After Reading. I have to admit that I just didn’t get it. Was there a plot? Any point at all to the film? There were a couple “what the &$^#” moments (and the wedge? A purple one even? Fantastic. (Not that I know what that’s about (hi mom!) or anything…ahem)) but other than that it was just mainly a head-scratcher. And I was looking forward to seeing it too. I guess you never know until you watch it.

Saturday was a busy day. We cleaned out litter boxes and I vacuumed the cat room. We did our weekly Walmart/grocery shopping in the morning. We even managed to stay within our weekly budget, which is impressive. I then headed back out to run some errands of my own. I stopped at Petco to pick up some more Nature’s Miracle (which we then saw was WAY cheaper at Fleet Farm so Adam returned it today.) I then got some lunch at Erbert & Gerbert’s using some of the gift certificates I got from Adam for Christmas. Yum. Then it was off to DSW to look for shoes. I didn’t find any dark colored sneakers (that were a price I wanted to pay) but I did find some black dress shoes that I’m more comfortable wearing on a daily basis. What I can I say, I’m in a shoe rut. Next stop was Barnes & Noble (another gift card redemption) for a Glycemic Index cookbook. The cashier made some comment about how she could never follow that kind of diet because she likes meat too much. Mis-information much? My biggest dislike of a low-GI diet is that potatoes (except for baked) are off limits. This sucks and I will probably cheat on that front. Adam paged through the book and marked quite a few recipes, so we’ll see where this goes.

I stopped at Shopko to browse their Payless Shoe section for sneakers as well as their purse section. Like my shoes, my purse is another item that I have a hard time giving up. But when the tape that had been holding one side of the strap on came off a couple weeks ago I decided I should probably start looking for a new one. I checked out the selection at Kohl’s last weekend but couldn’t justify spending $30 (on sale!) for a purse. I’m so cheap. I didn’t find anything I liked at Shopko (shoes or purse) so I went to Walmart on the way home. I found a pair of black and purple sneakers (that Adam laughed at) and a purse for $13. I don’t like the belt buckle design on the front of it, but it will do until my next great search.

I got home, unloaded, and then spent three hours in the office purging the file cabinet. I think the last time I did that was back at the beginning of 2007, so I had quite a few things to shred. I killed the shredder many times. It overheats and I have to give it some time to recover. I finally finished shredding everything yesterday evening. The cats all had a fabulous time playing with file folders and the piles of papers I had lying around. I don’t see the appeal of a stack of paper, but then again I’m not a cat. I made grilled turkey sandwiches for dinner and still couldn’t figure out how to get them crispy and not soggy. Grrr.

Sunday morning Adam vacuumed, I mopped the kitchen, cleaned my bathroom. The afternoon was spent mostly watching football (or in my case, laying on the loveseat trying not to fall asleep.) Adam made rotisserie chicken on the grill for dinner. It turned out great and he just cut the bird in half (and took the wing and leg off my half) and we went to it. Some clean-up in the kitchen and I was ready for bed.

This week is boring with a capital “b”. Hand bell practice was cancelled for tonight so I don’t even have that going on. I’ve got three new recipes on the menu and I hope to update the neglected cooking blog and Flickr photostream. Adam wants to reorganize the kitchen cabinets so that might make it onto my “to-do” list for next weekend.

At work, I’m finally getting around to moving 2007 out of my file cabinets (yes, I do mean 2007. I keep prior year files close by in case I need them.) I even discovered some 2006 stuff still in the back. Argh. I’ve got one last report to complete for 2008 and then I’m all 2009. Hopefully. I’m sure 2008 will come back to haunt me soon enough. I was volunteered to do all the tax books again this year (boo) and I have a feeling a consolidated MHR file will be headed my way at some point as well. Damn this Excel guru title… Is it my fault I can do things four times faster than everyone else? :) It’s all in the pivot tables.

Anyway, I added all the movies currently on the awards list (well, ones I haven’t seen yet) to our Blockbuster queue so we’ll see how quickly I can chip away at that. There are quite a few movies in the theater right now I wouldn’t mind seeing as well, but I doubt that’s something I could bring myself to do on a weeknight. Way too expensive.

That's about it for now. I'm looking forward to a call from the auditor tomorrow. He was supposed to call me today but apparently didn't get around to it. Darn... Ha.

A Rude Awakening

I’m kind of tired today.

Why, you ask? At 4 this morning we were wrested from slumber by a cat’s retching. Carly had a regular old kitty barf party. And since she sleeps on my pillow we all know where it ended up. My idea of a good time is definitely not cleaning up cat puke at 4 in the morning. Unfortunately for me, Adam has a sympathic reflex that makes him unable to deal with all of the many messes that the express excavation of bodily waste can create. Reason number 2,014 why we shouldn’t have kids.

Anywho, after shuttling Carly off to the cat room (and kicking Ted and Conner, who were all cute and cuddly on the cat bed, out) and shooing both JC and Adam away from the bed I cleaned up the mess and stripped the sheets off the bed as quickly as possible. Adam did an impromptu linen closet reorganization while searching for the back-up set of sheets. He came to the conclusion that we need a back-up for the back-up. My pillow I chalked up as a complete loss and the only other lasting spot was a relatively small circle on the mattress pad, which we turned so it’s by our feet now. We remade the bed and were settled by around 5. The alarm went off at 6.

It doesn’t appear that Carly was in any way affected by this ordeal. She bee-lined for the food bowl when I put in her the cat room. In any case, her food was much more well-digested than Ted’s “I turbo-ate my food and it came right back up” barf. And it was nothing compared to Ted’s “I didn’t even attempt to get my big pile of runny poo in the litter box” that I had to deal with yesterday afternoon. Ah, the joys of pet ownership.

And that is much more than you wanted to know, I’m sure.

Cute Overload

I got myself a new page-a-day calendar for 2009. No more Dilbert. It was time for "Cute Overload." The first week of the year hasn't disappointed. Try looking at these without going "awwwww." (click on the pictures to enlarge them)













See. You couldn't do it, could you? Sometimes the caption makes it even better. I admit I'm partial to the rodent and feline days. It's going to be an interesting year.

Furnaces and year-end and cooking (oh my)

We met with the (very talkative) furnace sales rep on Monday evening. I know nothing about furnaces or air conditioners and I don’t really care to learn. So Adam took care of the details and I signed on the line. We went with York rather than Trane since Trane doesn’t yet make a modulating furnace. In total, the cost fell about where I thought it would. (Still painful.) Citi offers 6 months no interest and we’ll see where everything else stands at that point to see what we do from there. Being slightly more positive about this whole thing, the new furnace is rated 95% efficient and will have 58,000 BTU max compared to the 100,000 BTU, 40% efficient beast currently in the basement. So our gas bill should go down. Woo. Installation is set for February 2nd.

Nothing much else going on these days. Month-, Quarter-, and Year-end are going fine so far. As much as I complain about working that first Saturday of the year, it fell in such a way this year that I was able to get a day ahead. And not come in at 6:30 on day two. So that was nice. It’s technically only day five and I’m already done with all of inventory and have made good headway on my quarterly and sales reports. On the flip side, I did absolutely no preparation to roll the year on all my files so I’m accumulating quite a stack of 2009 paperwork with nowhere to go yet. Bad planning, but (almost) unavoidable because of how strange the end of the year was. Stupid NAFTA.

The calendar looks depressingly blank for most of this month. I’ve got IMA on the 20th and we’ll be going to see Cinderella (in ballet form) on the 29th. Really, that’s about it. I recently got the new issue of the Rachael Ray magazine and I picked up a Cooking for 2 at Walmart. Between the two of us we were able to come up with a fair-sized list of new recipes to try out. My cooking blog has been languishing, totally ignored for awhile since I wasn’t making anything new. Trying to reverse that trend. But still use up what’s in the house at the same time. We have so much stuff in the freezers we could probably not go shopping (except for items like milk) for a couple months.

On Wearing Heels...

I recently got a new pair of shoes. OK, so really I bought the shoes months ago and just started wearing them this week. I have a problem letting go of comfy, yet on the edge of shabby, shoes. This time I took them off, put them in the trash, and then cleaned out the fridge - just in case I had the urge to take them out and wear them again. Ha ha! I so control me.

Anyway, the new pair of shoes is different from what I generally wear. First off, the heel is a good two inches taller than my last pair. This alone causes all kinds of new issues. There’s something to be said for people who can walk normally (or run, or crime-fight) while wearing heels. Putting on shoes with a heel over an inch and a half shifts your center of gravity. Your posture changes, you walk differently. I cannot walk normally in heels. I am suddenly very conscious of my butt. I can’t explain it.

Secondly, these shoes are very noisy. Not because I’m stomping around in them (although I admit I could probably be lighter on my feet) but because the heels clop. I am also very conscious of the noise I make while walking around the office. I can no longer sneak up on anyone. While good for avoiding bathroom door crashes by letting those coming out know that I’m coming in, this noisiness hinders my ability to drop things off in peoples’ inboxes and run away before they can ask about them. (Not that I ever do that.) (But if I wanted to, now I couldn’t.)

I’m not sure I like these new shoes yet. I haven’t even attempted to wear them outside since it’s been snowy and icy all week. I have been planning to go shoe shopping to find a dark sneaker so I might keep an eye out for a black dress shoe with a less noticeable heel. We’ll see.

So, There's Good News and There's Bad News...

The Good News: It seems like when the house decides to fall apart, it does so on the weekend or a day that Adam (and usually his dad) have time to fix it.

The Bad News: Remember the knocking on wood? Totally didn't work.

We awoke on Saturday morning to the smell of burning plastic. As I got ready to go to work (yay! Year-end is SUPER FUN!) Adam walked around trying to figure out where the smell was coming from. It was definitely more noticeable in smaller rooms (bathrooms) and it seemed to be coming from the heating vents. He went downstairs and looked at the furnace, but didn't really see anything odd. He vacuumed it out with the shopvac. Then he had me turn the thermostat way up and it took a while for the furnace to kick on. And when it did, it was pretty much doing nothing. So I left for work (did I mention "yay!") and Adam called his dad. He also called some repair people for options.

Turns out the blower motor had died. That explained the burning smell and lack of hot air. Luckily we were able to get someone in right away to replace the part (and with a not totally obscene weekend labor rate.) The other side of that is while we were planning to replace the furnace and A/C unit this spring anyway, if we do it within 30 days, they'll credit us back a portion of the cost of the replacement part. So we should be getting a call from the estimator people tomorrow and see how things go.

Grrr. Nothing ever goes as planned. But I figure eventually we'll have replaced every single thing in the house. And then we'll get to start all over again. Woo!

I Guess We'll Keep Her.

I'm determined not to fall into the gaping hole of year-end again this year. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, we got a second poo sample from Ms. Carly on New Year's Day and Adam dropped it at the vet on his way to work. They did their fecal floatation tests and she's all clear and free of unwanted parasite friends. We're relieved. Not sure what we would have done if the results had gone the other way.

Completely Unoriginal Year-End Recap

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? I didn't really do many exciting, daring things this year. I did get summoned for jury duty though. The case was dismissed before we even left the jury holding area, but at least I can say I fulfilled my civic duty.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't know that I ever officially make resolutions. They'd always be the same and I've always failed miserably.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? I didn't think so until I found out on Christmas that my cousin, Lori, had a baby in September. Wonderful family communication, don't you think?

4. Did anyone close to you die? Not that I can recall.

5. What countries did you visit? Travel in 2008? Very limited. Our travel this year involved a trip in May to Chicago, a day out at the Mall of America, and a day in Door County.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? More money (or less debt, however you want to look at it.)

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Nothing really happened this year, so I have no idea.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I don't know. Not freaking out and quitting my job some days? I'm telling you. It was a boring year.

9. What was your biggest failure? I'm disappointed that we didn't end up being able to pay off the last credit card balance by year's end. That was my original goal and even though I threw it out the window mid-year, it's still a bummer.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nothing serious. Just your normal "I live in Wisconsin and am perpetually sneezing" kind of thing.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Um. I don't remember making any big ticket purchases. I got a lot of kitchen things for Christmas, but I didn't buy them so I don't think that counts.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? I don't have an original answer for this, so let's copy everyone else and say "the American people, for getting out and voting."

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? So many stupid politicians this year, eh? I've never been impressed with anyone who chooses that line of business, but this year was especially disgusting.

14. Where did most of your money go? Mortgage, bills. Absolutely nothing fun, I'm sure.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? I don't think I get that excited about anything (three "really"s is a lot...) and this year was, as I've said, BORING, so no excitement for me.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? That stupid Flo Rider "Low" song. It freakin' followed me around for MONTHS. Just ask Adam. Every time we got in the car that's the song that was on the radio.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? About the same , really. b) thinner or fatter? fatter. Boo. c) richer or poorer? About the same here as well. Also boo.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Anything. We did pretty much nothing all year. We're so boring.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? I'd say "spending money" but most of the big hits were unavoidable. When your water heater dies, you kind of have to replace it.

20. How did you spend Christmas? We went to Falls to have lunch with my dad, Cheryl, Catherine, and others from Cheryl's family.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Not with anyone new, unless you count a cat.

22. What was your favorite TV program? I've become hooked on NCIS. How is it that I never knew this existed before? It's like Law & Order, CSI, and JAG combined. Awesome.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No, I hate all the same people. Ha.

24. What was the best book you read? Honestly, I don't remember reading anything new this year. How sad is that?

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Also don't know that I discovered any new artists this year. Still like the same stuff. David Archuleta is pretty good though.

26. What did you want and get? My wish list is pretty much always the same: kitchen stuff and books. With Linen's N Things going under, I was able to get a lot of kitchen stuff for Christmas.

27. What did you want and not get? Nothing.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? I watched a lot of movies early on with my Oscar challenge but then things really fell off the second part of the year. I don't remember one particular movie that stood out. Dark Knight was pretty good.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? This year I turned 26. Adam was in California the days before my birthday and he flew back the morning of. We went out to dinner.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? No lingering credit card debt (and, related to that, getting paid what I think I should be given the amount of additional work I've taken on. But I get the feeling that's a pipe dream.)

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? I don't have one. I wear what fits. That's all.

32. What kept you sane? All this assuming I'm sane thing again.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I'm not sure who my celebrity crush is right now. I'm kind of disconnected from that, despite how much E! I watch.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? I hate politics, but the whole Sarah Palin thing freaked me out.

35. Who did you miss? No one in particular. Most people are a phone call (or email) away.

36. Who was the best new person you met? I don't know that I met anyone new. Apparently no one who made an impression anyway.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. The year was too boring to produce a life lesson. Maybe that's one - don't be so boring you learn nothing for a whole year.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Sit around and watch the tube but nothing's on, change the channels for an hour or two - Green Day, "Longview"

SAG additions

When the SAG nominations came out I compared the list of films to those on the Golden Globe nomination list. Many repeats, but two additional titles which I’ve added to my list: Frozen River and The Visitor.

Since posting the original list I’ve managed to watch two more: Kung Fu Panda and Mamma Mia. Neither of these movies is deep or meaningful, but both provide some laughs and, in the case of Mamma Mia, some cringe-worthy moments of well-known actors attempting to sing (Pierce Brosnan, I’m looking at you.)

Oscar nomination ballots are out and the nominations are set to be announced January 22nd.

Christmas Recap

I had the afternoon of the 23rd off which was spent decorating the tree, doing grocery shopping for non-perishable party food. Adam left work a little early and came home with an early Christmas present for me -



a journey pendant on a box chain that I proceeded to break almost immediately. Luckily we weren’t pressed for time and could stop at the jewelry store on the way to dinner to get it replaced. We dined at Victoria’s for the first time since a three-on-three wrap up dinner three years ago. I kept it simple with salad and some rigatoni and meat sauce. A lot of rigatoni. I ate some there and had three more meals at home from it. Adam was kind enough to walk my leftovers back to the car and then rejoined me inside the PAC. We took our box seats on the right side of the stage. Unfortunately this left us with no view of the performer’s hands, which I think would have made the night much more interesting.

So, George Winston. First off, not at all what I expected. Second, definitely not my thing. Although I suppose when my mom compared him to Yanni and John Tesh I should have considered that a warning. A few of the pieces in the first half were easily fifteen minutes long. On and on, repeating the same rather unexciting “melody” over and over. *yawn* The second half had mostly shorter tunes with some semi-recognizable songs. But mostly the same old stuff. He could just be improvising up and down the keyboard for two hours and no one would know the difference. He seemed very uncomfortable on stage. He bowed in a very quick and jerky manner. He said very little aside from “thank you very much” and “the next song is…” He didn’t have shoes on. He stomped his left foot quite aggressively while he played. I will admit he had some interestingly unconventional piano-playing techniques. At one point he reached up into the piano and held the strings down so all we heard was the banging of the hammer rather than any notes. And if I were into the new age music scene, I’m sure all the names he dropped while introducing his selections would be impressive.

Christmas Eve morning I did some prep work for lunch, put the ham in, and relaxed. The Dodds crew showed up a little later than usual but luckily our meal choice was flexible. We ate, did a gift exchange (yay for fun holiday socks!) and observed some strange kitty behavior. Catherine even managed to get Carly to sit on her lap for a little while. Everyone left to go to a birthday party and I cleaned up. I’m not even sure what else we did the rest of the day. We did open our gifts. Well, the few that we hadn’t already opened - mostly the ones from my mom. I considered using the Santa cake pan for the party but decided I was already being ambitious enough. We left for church early since it was snowing still and we wanted a good parking spot. This also gave me an excuse to leave early since I set everything up. For the first time the concert didn’t go over its allotted time. It was also not unbearably hot up in the choir loft. We wished everyone a Merry Christmas and then went home. It was way past my bedtime.

Christmas morning we lounged in bed a little. Adam made some Chex Mix. We left early for lunch down in Falls. This was a good thing since we saw an accident on northbound 41 near Oshkosh and then got stuck at another on 23. We turned around and took a detour that went up and down some mighty scary hills. We made it in one piece, arriving a little early even. We gave Gus and Max their Christmas gifts. We said hello to Catherine’s cat. This is the first time I’d seen him since, well, forever, and compared to our behemoth monsters, he is TINY. Brooke was there (minus Tom, which we found a little weird) but we didn’t really interact much. We had lunch, which included an absolutely fabulous chocolate cake for dessert. We looked at Catherine’s pictures from Argentina. We discussed movies. Then we left to get home and feed our cats. They were appreciative.

Friday Adam had to go back to work and I had the day off. I went up to my hair appointment and since Adam had told me the roads were horrible I left myself a lot of time and ended up arriving half an hour early. I sat in my car and played solitaire. After my haircut I stopped to get the perishable ingredients for our party food. I spent over an hour and a half looking for wonton wrappers. I went to four different stores before I found them. Apparently everyone in the Fox Valley was making wonton stars. This made me kind of crabby. When I finally returned home I spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen baking cookies and making meatballs. We also had our loveseat swap to wait for. They were to show up between 4 and 8pm. What time did they arrive this time? 9:15. I guess they were having a bad day. Again. But hopefully this is the last time we’ll have to worry about it for a while.

Saturday morning I started in the kitchen pretty early prepping veggies and cheese. I had planned my day so I made things in a logical order while enabling myself to clean up in between. I think I sat down for maybe twenty minutes between 8am and 3pm. My feet hurt. But everything was ready for 3. No one showed up until after 4, but things were ready. Everyone had left by a little after 7. We put food away, I loaded the dishwasher, rinsed off other dishes, and called it a night.

Yesterday I did round two of dishes. We looked at ads. Went to Menards (where we got new barstools that actually fit.) Adam’s parents came over to eat some food during the football game. I did my best to be civil. I finished washing all the rest of the dishes and put everything away. We took down the tree. I did laundry. We watched Mamma Mia. Ate leftovers.

And today I was back at work. I spent most of the day catching up from being off for almost a week. The rest of the day was spent preparing for The Longest Day of My Life (aka Wednesday, the day of year-end inventory counts with an auditor trailing me all day.) I have a feeling I’ll need to drink heavily to ring in the new year.

Post Party Post

I've written this post twice already and have deleted it all and started over because it became something I didn't think I should publish. So I'm going to keep it short.

We had a party yesterday. Profound thanks to the six people who attended: Dad, Cheryl, Rich, Julia, Karen, and Jackie.

To those who didn't, you missed the fruits of days of planning and two days worth of my time spent baking and cooking for you:







Thanks to you, we now have 90% of what I made still in the fridge.

I don't know what else we could do. We sent out invites in October trying to get ahead of other parties. But through a series of events, this is how things turned out. Makes me wonder if it's even worth it to try again since we're obviously not a priority.

That's all. More of the rest of the holiday week when I've stopped wanting to throw wontons stars around.

Tummy Rub

A Kitty Christmas

Baby, it's Cold Outside

I chose a good day for vacation. While I didn’t really do much on Friday, it was a nice day to stay inside and cuddle up with a blanket (or a cat.) I wrapped the remaining Christmas presents, did an initial run through our taxes (it was Adam’s last payday of the year and my paycheck is always the same), watched The Muppet Christmas Carol, unboxed the new crock pot, beverage dispenser, and toaster oven (that Adam got me after noticing me lusting after the one at the IMA party.) Adam stopped home at lunch to blow out the snow that had accumulated in the drive-way. I called my mom. I made dinner.

Saturday morning we went grocery shopping before heading up to De Pere for Adam’s grandma’s party. It was held in the community room at her apartment complex. It was a great room. There were two sections, really: a sunroom in the front with tables for playing games and a big Christmas tree and a lounge area with a fireplace and couches in the back. We ate some food, chatted with some relatives. Gifts were exchanged. We left and headed to Walmart and then to Simon’s where we loaded up on the cheese. We spent the rest of the evening indoors. It had begun to snow again.

Sunday came with more snow. And cold, cold temperatures. Adam went outside to clear the driveway and spent probably an hour or so out there in -2 (-30 with windchill) weather. He had ice frozen to his face.


(in my defense, he WANTED me to take this picture...)

It took him awhile to warm back up. We went to Menards (what weekend would be complete without a trip there?) and got an additional runner for the front door along with some other things. We also stopped at the Wire Whisk so Adam could find some orange peeler thing that I’d never heard of. They, of course, had it, being the awesome store that they are. If you’re looking for some obscure cooking utensil, try them. They have all kinds of strange things. We then went to Red Lobster for lunch (Adam got a gift card from someone at work.) Their new wood-grilled menu offers a lot more options for the non-seafood diner such as myself. When we got home Adam started a fire and then did some closet reorg. I went to Copps and got all the party food I could buy ahead. I’m going to have to find a better place for it than on the kitchen counter before Wednesday though. We watched Transformers (in Blu-ray, with surround sound. Awesome.) Had leftovers for dinner. Went to bed early. My excuse is that Carly wakes me up multiple times each night.

Sunday night it was more JC that caused the disturbances. I (stupidly) left a glass of water on the nightstand that he knocked over around 4am. I put it in the bathroom and he knocked it over again about 10 minutes later. *sigh* I finally took it out to the kitchen. When I returned, Carly had taken over my pillow and JC had jumped up on the bed too. I had to rearrange cats so I could lay back down. Sometimes I think they’re trying to get rid of me…

Anyway. This week is a short one for me. I worked a full day yesterday, half a day today, and now I'm done until next Monday. Yay!

Adam put up our new tree last night and I decorated it this afternoon.



So far not too much kitty interference, although they do love laying underneath it.



Except for Carly. She's shown absolutely no interest. Adam even picked her up, put her next to it, and she just walked back to the couch and laid back down. What a weird cat...



Right now the forecast for Saturday shows snow. Boo. Tell it to go away.

Newsflash: It's still snowing.

Tuesday night at IMA was successful despite the crappy weather. We did end up having four people not show up. Not too bad overall I suppose. Dinner was good and we had some wonderful veggies and the awesome potatoes I like so much. Mmmm. Carbs. I somehow got roped into doing all the raffles, so I got a lot of face time. Adam and I had bought $10 worth of raffle tickets and Adam bought some on his own. There were 27 prizes raffled off. I had my eye on the toaster oven from the start. Unfortunately it was not meant to be mine. We did win a crock pot - because I totally needed another one. Although now I can make another dish for our party! I’m thinking some kind of beef chili dip. The menu has a definite red meat void. We also won four (yes, FOUR) mugs left over from a sales pitch from an office supply rep at the October meeting. Stellar. We became this year’s running gag as we kept winning the mugs. Grr. We also each got a gift from “Santa”. I got a Wisconsin Badgers cap and Adam got a travel throw blanket. I think we’ll swap.

Driving home was interesting. It was still snowing and the visibility on the highway was down to almost nothing when it blew around. Totally sucked. We had taken two cars up since my “check engine” light had come on earlier in the day. We planned to bring my car up to Adam’s parent’s house so his dad could take it in to work with him on Wednesday to get looked at (aah, connections...) Of course the light went off on my way up to the meeting. So I was stuck driving home in the snow. Boo. It's snowing again today and a lot of things in the area are cancelled again, including our furniture swap. And it’s not even officially winter until Sunday. It’s getting to be a little nuts.

Last night was the Milprint Holiday party. At Holidays in Neenah. Cute. This is the first year we've had this kind of get together. It looked to be fairly well attended and there was an open bar (!) The food was ok - good eggrolls. And luckily it hadn't started snowing yet when we left for the evening.

The Christmas cards keep coming. I like this time of year since I like getting mail. We got a package from my mom on Monday, but both Adam and I failed to notice it by the door until Tuesday morning. I don’t know how we managed that since it was totally obvious when you looked left. My excuse is it was dark when I got back from hand bell practice. I don’t know what Adam’s is. In any case, it was marked perishable so I’m figuring it didn’t hurt it to sit outside in sub-zero temperatures all night. Right, Mom? Now I consciously peek by the door when I get home. Not that I expect to be getting lots of big packages, but you never know. Also, no cheese from work yet. If nothing shows up by Saturday I’ll go up to Simon’s to get some. We’ll be heading that direction for the Van Rooy party anyway.

On the cat front, Carly is not really progressing in her “be nice to the other cats” path. I have no idea what they do all day when we’re not around, but each evening she spends most of her time curled up on the couch. At least once Ted will get too close and they will have a noisy confrontation. JC often gets one as well. She still spends most of the night on my pillow. She’s been eating pretty well although we have to keep everyone else away from her or she’ll abandon the food and hide. No accidents that we’ve found. Hopefully she chills out at some point. She even growls at Adam and me. We’ll be sending another poo sample to the vet soon to see if her parasites are gone. We sure hope they are, as the forcing of medication into the cats mouth was not fun. If they’re not, we’ll have to regroup and decide what we want to do.

Anyway, since I now am free from the bonds of waiting for delivery men all day, I have to decide what I want to do. I'm thinking vegging in front of the tv is a good idea. I'd just be following the cats' lead:









But then again there's a lot of prep work for our party next week to be done. *sigh* such a dilemma.

Weekend Rewind

Friday night we stayed home. We watched Kung Fu Panda (not a bad movie) and I made a clam chowder that turned out not so good. Oh well.

Saturday we had furniture being delivered. Their computerized person called four times on Friday to tell us they’d be there between 10am and 1pm. When did they show up? 1:50. So our entire morning was shot. They dropped the furniture off and about a minute after they’d left Adam found a rip in the loveseat. So we’re going to have that swapped out this coming Friday. Luckily I have a vacation day so I’ll be the one sitting around waiting all day. The floor lamp we got with the set was also apparently out of stock (which they neglected to tell us) so we’re waiting on that as well. Such service.

After the delivery, we set out to do everything we had planned to do. We went grocery shopping. We went up to Menards to get wood to reinforce the couch. Then Adam went up to Green Bay to help his cousin shop for a new phone. This left me by myself for the evening. I went to Blockbuster and swapped two DVDs for Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (cute movie) and Step-Brothers (funny, but entirely too much swearing, which seems to be common in the Judd Apatow world.)

Sunday morning we went back up to Menards since we forgot about half of the things we’d needed the day before. We also stopped at Walmart. Then we went back home and Adam watched the game (ack) while I caught up on some food blogging. Adam made dinner (French toast.)

That’s about it. I’m almost done with all the Christmas cards. So far we’ve gotten one returned card – one of Adam’s I might add – but it had the forwarding address on it so I could re-send it. Not too bad all things considered. We’ve gotten seven cards from other people. Yay.

This week begins the festivities. Tomorrow is the IMA holiday meeting. We’ve got a good crowd signed up. Not stellar, but it should be a good time. We’ll see if we can win some raffle prizes this year. Thursday is the Milprint Holiday Party. Saturday is Adam’s grandmother’s party in De Pere. Since his mom’s side poached our party next week for their “Van Rooy” get together, this will probably be the only chance to celebrate with most of the people who will be at this party. Then next week we’ve got a PAC concert (George Winston), two Dodds Christmases, hand bell concert, and our party. And a yet to be scheduled Paalman Christmas some time the following week. And then it’s New Years (and year-end! Woo for working on Saturdays!)

On a completely un-related note, I managed to get a picture of Carly not looking completely pissed:



Although this might not count because, well, she's asleep.

New Furniture

Definitely brightens the place up. And we're already having fun with the glass tables. We put a spider toy on top of the coffee table and had a good laugh while JC tried to attack it from below. I'm sure endless hours of hilarity are yet to come.

Photographic Evidence

At least she’s stopped slobbering on me.

Carly’s back to sleeping on my pillow again. She’s not there when I fall asleep, but when I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ve got cat feet in my face. I get up, go to the bathroom, and when I return she’s completely taken over the pillow. I nudge her northward with my head as I lay back down and I get growled at. *sigh* It doesn’t help that JC is usually on the blanket down by my feet, so not only am I pushing a cat out of the way with my head, but I’m kicking one around with my feet at the same time. It’s a tricky dance, getting in and out of bed at night. Meanwhile, Adam’s blissfully snoring away on the other (read: not kitty infested) side of the bed.

Golden Globes

So the Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning. Since they’re usually a good indication of what will go on at the Oscars, I decided to see what was on the list and get a head start. Here’s the list (film only, excluding the foreign category)

BOLT
BURN AFTER READING
CADILLAC RECORDS
CHANGELING
CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, THE
DARK KNIGHT, THE
DEFIANCE
DOUBT
DUCHESS, THE
FROST/NIXON
GRAN TORINO
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
IN BRUGES
I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
KUNG FU PANDA
LAST CHANCE HARVEY
MAMMA MIA!
MILK
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
READER, THE
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
TROPIC THUNDER
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
WALL-E
WRESTLER, THE

Of this list of 27 films I’ve seen only 1. Not so great. But not so bad either considering quite a few of them haven’t even been released yet. There are some that I meant to see or won’t mind watching. Then there are the others that I’ll watch just because they’re on the list. We’ll see how many others I pick up after the Oscar nominations are announced.

Sticker Shock

We got the bill from the lawyer for our marital property/power of attorney dealings.

We're definitely in the wrong professions.

Little Helpers

JC and Conner "help" with the laundry:



Carly "helps" with dinner:



What would I do without them?

Christmas Party Preview

With two and a half weeks left until our party, the menu is pretty much set. I’ve still got some room in the roaster for a couple more hot dishes, but I don’t know that I’ll add anything unless it really sparks my interest. Here’s what’s on the docket:

Chex Mix – both Traditional and a yummy Caramel Chocolate version Adam spied in the latest issue of “Taste of Home.” This is Adam’s thing – he made it last year and it turned out great.

Veggies & Dip – I plan to get a container of ranch dip from the store and I’ll also be making two of our favorite dipping sauces from The Melting Pot: Green Goddess and Gorgonzola Port. I might also throw some mini ham wrapped pickles in the mix. They’re delicious.

Crab Dip – I found this recipe on a crock pot blog I read. Looks simple and will fill the seafood void. I tend to lean toward making things I’d actually eat, so some things get overlooked.

Cranberry BBQ Turkey Meatballs – Last year we had sweet and sour meatballs. This looks even better. And easy!

Spinach Artichoke Dip – You can pretty much assume any get together we have will include this dip. It’s fantastic!

Sky Blue Potatoes – I’m hoping they turn out prettier than the last time I made them, but they still taste good no matter how they look. And I figure I’ll have some gorgonzola left over from the dip, so why not?

Chicken Wonton Stars – a favorite from the past couple years.

Sausage Wonton Stars – a new spin on a favorite.

Cheesy Corn Bites – so simple, so yummy, and good at room temperature!

Cheese, Meat, Cracker tray – I’ve already got a huge summer sausage stashed in the cupboard. I’ll wait a week or so to see if my employer will be sending the box of cheese from Simon’s I’ve gotten for the past few years. If not, I’ll have to plan a trip up there myself.

Cookies – I’ve got two boxes of pre-fab dough from Market Day due to show up this Friday: Chocolate Mint Chip and Macadamia Nut (I’m harboring a grudge against the macadamia nut recipe I made – it broke both my scoopers.) I’ll also be making some M&M and Snickerdoodles myself. I’m hoping other people will fill the remaining sweets void. Baking is not really my thing.

We’ll have the hot water set up with tea, coffee, and a variety of hot chocolates. We’ll also have water, lemonade, etc.

Hopefully this spread has a little something for everyone. I tried to have a good variety of ingredients and types of snacks while still sticking mostly to things that I won’t mind having leftovers of for a week if we get snowed out again. If you have any ideas for one or two other hot appetizers we might like, drop me a line!

Post-Dated Ponderances

I wrote a check for our water bill dated 12/16 – the day it’s due. I mailed the check earlier this week because I was at the post office anyway. It hit our account today, even though today is only the 10th. Are they allowed to do that? It’s not really that big of a deal. The money is there and if I were cutting it that close I wouldn’t have mailed it yet. But the check was postdated and the bank took it anyway? I guess I’m fuzzy on the rules about that. We’re almost completely online payments now, but there are a few checks still. Makes me wonder what other things can slip through…

I Spoke Too Soon

Last night I broke our couch again. It originally broke two years ago. Adam's mom and I sat down on it at the same time and it went "crack." The supports on the bottom came off the frame or something. Some staples and an air compressor later, it was fixed. If just temporarily. Last night I sat down and it broke again. So between the cat pee and the sagging bottom, we decided perhaps we should jump on the good deal that we had checked out at American over the weekend.

So away to Appleton we went, where we purchased this:



minus one chair, the ottoman, and all in the green color. We got three tables and a floor lamp as part of the set as well. And stain protection. They'll be delivered on Saturday. Adam will then reinforce the bottom immediately.

*sigh*

The Death Glare

Friday Adam was supposed to be out for most of the night. He had a picture appointment with his sisters for their parents’ Christmas present and he had an appointment at the Blood Center to donate plasma. The plasma appointment got canceled and he was home around 7:30. Meanwhile, I had been cat wrangling, trying to keep everyone alive and uninjured. Carly and Ted got into something heated while on the couch and I had to break that up and put Carly in the office to cool off for a bit. Other than that there weren’t too many frays. Almost constant growling when any of the three cats gets close to Carly, but that’s tapering off a bit now. Maybe it would help if Carly wasn't seemingly in a perpetually bad mood. Seriously, this cat always looks pissed:







I mean, I know she wishes death on me, but geesh. She could TRY to conceal it a little. :(

I also discovered that someone had peed on the couch. I’m guessing Carly, but I have no proof. So most of my time alone was spent cleaning up the mess and holding a blow dryer aimed at the cushions.

Saturday was a busy day. We rearranged the pet room (again) and cleaned out litter boxes.



We did some shopping. Spent some money. It seemed like all the grocery stores were having sample mania. We got back home and Adam mopped the kitchen/dining room floors. We watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. We made Schnitzel for dinner. Adam does a great job of pounding meat really thin – especially chicken (although Schnitzel is pork and he did just fine with that as well.) I always manage to mangle it badly. We went out pretty early and got to The Monkey Bar before it opened. (Note to self: The Monkey Bar doesn’t open until 8.) We had a couple drinks, chatted with the bartender (not the usual one) and then called it a night.

It had been a long night the night before with kitty fights and Carly being indecisive about where she wanted to sleep. Saturday night was even worse. JC spent most of the night by my feet. Carly spent most of it by my head. Or on my head. Or eating my hair. I have no problem with that. It was when she’d drool and then shake her head, thereby dousing me in cat slobber, that I began to have a problem. *sigh* Whenever JC decided to move around Carly would growl at him. He wanted to come under the covers like he usually did but couldn’t figure out a way to get there without having to be right next to Carly for a few seconds. Poor guy.



Anyway, Sunday morning we slept in a little longer than usual. We watched "SNL" on the DVR while we ate breakfast. Then Adam vacuumed while I cleaned up in the office a little. We went out to do some additional shopping. We considered purchasing a new couch/loveseat set but decided to wait. We stopped at Linens ‘n’ Things which is now up to 40-60% off. We went to Menards to get shelving to make window seats for the cats. We got home after the game started. I unpacked and arranged for a bit. Then I worked on finishing our Christmas cards. I engaged in the annual torture of making Adam sign them. I actually also made him write in his family’s cards. Most of them are done and I mailed a batch at lunch today.

We had Adam’s parents over for dinner since we (and by “we” I mean “Adam”) bought a huge rib roast and needed some help eating it. Since prime rib is really not my thing, I didn’t mind. (I did eat a little of it though.) Plus it was “Adam makes dinner” night so I didn’t really have to do much. We discussed Christmas and while things are still up in the air for the Paalmans, I know for sure it’s not going to be Christmas Day so we should be able to go down to Falls for the festivities at Dad and Cheryl’s house.

Last night was pretty uneventful. Carly slept down by my feet all night except when she was wandering up and down between us. (Perhaps she took JC’s spot on purpose? Who knows...) JC jumped up a couple of times but never stayed for long. Much better night of sleep though.

Tonight I had bell practice. Looks like Kim has agreed to fill in for Christmas so we should have a temporary full crew. Aside from that, the week is clear on my calendar. This may be a good thing if we end up getting as much snow as they predict we will:

"A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT CST TUESDAY NIGHT.
SNOW WILL OVERSPREAD NORTHEAST WISCONSIN EARLY THIS EVENING. THE SNOW WILL
THEN BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES LATER THIS EVENING INTO TUESDAY MORNING. A TOTAL
SNOWFALL OF 8 TO 13 INCHES IS EXPECTED... WITH THE HEAVIEST AMOUNTS IN THE FOX
VALLEY... KEWAUNEE AND MANITOWOC AREAS.
INCREASING NORTH WINDS WILL ALSO
LEAD TO SOME BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF THE SNOW LATE TONIGHT INTO TUESDAY EVENING.
A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS
ARE EXPECTED. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL
HAZARDOUS. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... USE EXTREME CAUTION... OR WAIT UNTIL THE STORM
HAS ENDED."

Church Directory Photo

Wow, is Adam's shirt GREEN! This picture showcases my haircut, but not my new glasses. Eventually I'll get around to that...

And then there were none

RIP Mo



Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy there. We figure Einstein went around lunchtime yesterday and Mo didn't make it through the night. When I checked on him before bed I took him out of his house and the first thing he did was stand in the corner and look at Einstein's empty cage. He didn't want to go back to his house. I figured it wouldn't be long.

So, another era has ended. We're now a completely feline household.

And then there was one...

RIP Einstein



Things went quickly downhill in the past week. He basically just gave up. I cuddled with him extensively over the weekend.

Mo is looking to follow quickly down the same path. A gay guinea pig version of Romeo and Juliet I guess. I'm still trying to convince him to eat, but there's only so much I can do. I will cuddle with him as well.

In the feline world, we released Carly from her enprisonment this afternoon and the evening has been filled with hissing and growling. Yeah. That "absence makes the heart grow fonder" thing didn't work out so well. We'll see if we have to close her in the bedroom for the night later on.