Ten on Tuesday

Happy Tuesday!  What better a way to celebrate than for me to talk about myself?  I can think of none.

1. Who makes your Thanksgiving dinner?

I, luckily, get several dinners this year.  Corey and I will start at my friend Liz's house where my family will be eating.  Then we will go to his aunt and uncle's house where all of his family will be eating.  Then on Saturday we will head up to my parents' house where my mom will be making her own dinner and at some point in the very near future Corey and I will make a small dinner for ourselves.

I am just giddy about it.

2. What is your favorite recipe the includes pumpkin? (bonus points for including the recipe)

Pie.  And that's about it.  I'm not a big pumpkin/squash fan.  It's just not chocolate.

3. What are 5 things you want for Christmas?

Realistic items: iPod holder thingy for my arm, Saratoga Beads gift card for a million dollars, salt and pepper shakers, old dinner plates in various colors and designs, and this MAC makeup shown on PW's website yesterday.

Unrealistic items: a house, a horse, manageable hair, thinner ankles, and fashion sense.

4. Does your family draw names or do you buy for everyone?
We buy for everyone (read: freak out about whether we've gotten the right gift 7-9 times)

5. How do you feel about motorcycles?
They scare me.  It seems too easy to fall off.

6. What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy Saturday?
Read, or bake, or watch sappy romantic comedies, or all of the above.

7. What is the coolest thing to do in your city?
Festivals!!  We have what seems like one festival a month.  We just missed Cowderfest, there's the Victorian Streetwalk coming up, followed by First Night Saratoga on New Years Eve.  The whole main street shuts down to traffic and hundreds of people walk around visiting stores, eating cookies, drinking cider and hot chocolate.  I, of course, make several passes through the stores with good, homemade cookies.  As would anyone, I'm sure.
8. Do you paint your fingernails?
Yes ma'am.  Bright pinks and reds usually, but I do like my chocolatey brown for fall.

9. Who is your favorite actor over the age of 50?

I...I....I just don't know.  There are waaaaaay to many to chose from, and I think actors just aren't seasoned until they get old.  I mean older.

10. Do you have a high school letter jacket?

I wanted so badly to have a letter jacket, but I didn't get my letter until senior year, and I wouldn't even have the jacket until the middle of the winter.  Common sense reigned in and I decided it wasn't worth it.  So now I have this silly fabric letter "C" just hangin' out with all my other school stuffs.  In 20 years I won't even know what it was from that I earned it.  Golf, just so you know.

No Connection Mondays

Friday I was home sick.

I was sick of sitting at my desk the entire week with nothing to do but search the Internet for a thousand different ways to make a stinkin' fabric flower.

By the way, when did the world wide web get so big?

So, I took a mental health day that actually started as a real sick day.  Headache.

I walked around town a little, did some chores, then I spent the rest of the day reading with no make up.

Ladies, if you've never tried reading without your face on I would highly recommend it.  See, when your pores aren't clogged with gunk and powders, the pathways are clear for oxygen molecules to travel directly to your brain allowing it to breathe just like your lungs.

I obviously am wearing make up today....

David vs. Goliath: A Modern Day Fight For Ultimate Control

There was a war in my house last night.  A full on, me against you, I will fight you to the death, war.

Over the thermostat.

And our positions in this conflict were not what you would have thought.

(Now for some reason, I picture this in my head as Israelites vs. Philistines.  Something to do with today being the day after a church day and the influence of the gladiator sandal movement of the summer.  So for the sake of keeping things straight we'll call my side....oh, let's go with Israelites and the Philistines represents Corey's side.)

Philistines:  The temperature should be set to 70 degrees at night while we are sleeping.

• everyone in the world does this
• anything less than 70 is too cold
• because I said so

Israelites:  The temperature should be set at least to 64 degrees at night while we are sleeping.

• this saves us money on our electric bill
• we have fleece sheets
• I wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat
• at this point I am down to my skivvies and can take off no more in my pursuit to sleep peacefully without my hair pelted to my forehead

Now, if you are at all familiar with your Bible stories, you know who comes out the victor.

Me. 

I mean the Israelites.  However my victory last night had absolutely nothing to do with faith in God to be victorious over my temperature oppressor and more to do with the stubborn will of a donkey, or jackass as some would say.

(Mom, that's what they are called.)

By settling myself in on the couch all night I had full access to the temperature-changer.  I also knew when a certain someone I am married to tried to change the changer.  Which would be my cue to change it back.  And at 4:41am, after going three rounds of change-it-change-it-back and realizing I was shivering under my light blanket, I crowned myself victorious.

I crawled in bed and slept the peaceful sleep of a winner.

For an hour and a half.

This is where Corey and I differ from our ancient counterparts: (because David and Goliath really did fight over the temperature they were going to set in the temple at Jerusalem.  Eye roll to myself.) I did not chop off Corey's head.  There was actually very little violence, which makes for an anti-climactic end to my story.

Sorry.

Cage fight ending next time.

Driving Me Crazy

After screeching to a halt upon looking up from his text message and noticing the car in front of him slowing to a stop:

"Corey, you are a baaaaad driver!"

"Not as bad as you!"

"Oh, I don't think so."

"You drive slow, people honk at you and don't tell me YOU don't look at your phone while driving."

Several minutes later.

(mumbling to myself) "I'm a bad driver, huh."

"No, you're a good driver."

"Wha?"

"Who said you're a bad driver?"

"You did!"

"Oh, I did?  Sorry Beetle."

I've discovered my husband has multiple personalities.

Or a very bad memory.

A Light at the End of a Dirty Tunnel

The end is near, folks.

Yes, I am talking about THE end...of our messy neighbors.  Can I get a woop-woop, raise the roof, fist bump with a fireworks ending?

easy killer

The end of election day marked the end of our neighbors' employment.  The end of their occupation of the space attached to the kitchen.  And the (unfortunate) end of entertaining conversations such as:

"Hello, this is Josh.  I am a volunteer for Congressman Murphy's campaign.  It is important that blah, blah, blah.  Can we count on your vote?.....Hello?......uh, hello??"

The kind dears, however, left us with a small parting gift.  Piles of rotting trash and the smell of death.

I called our landlord and left him a message letting him know we can't breathe without gagging.  If he responds as quickly as he did when our heat wasn't working I'm sure we'll see an end to this mess by Monday.

Phew!  Because a day later than that and the maggots writhing through the deli meat might start attracting rats.

I have no words.  Just dry heaves.

Fortunately, they left us with  4x4 inches of refrigerator space in which one of us can store our lunch, so that was nice.

And because we still have to use this dirty, stinky space, I figured they owe us.  So I took their Reese's peanut butter cups.  And their Snickers bars.

And their laptops.

Just kidding!

I left the Snickers.

Ten on Tuesday

Welcome to Ten on Tuesday on Wednesday.  It's this new thing I started just to mix things up a little.  And because I forgot yesterday.

1. Do you color? If you do, is it with markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc.?
L-O-V-E to color.  I have every Sharpie color ever created.  In both fine and regular point.

2. What’s the most organized part (or system) in your house?
Corey's socks and undies drawer.

3. What’s the most unorganized part (or system) in your house?
Our one and only storage closet.  The shape it's in, we have to lay on boxes to reach other boxes.  I have nearly impaled myself on the vacuum cleaner to reach what is on the floor behind it.

4. If you had unlimited amounts of time and money, what museum would you want to see and why?
OhmigoshIwanttoseethemall!!!  I like museums.  A lot.

5. What is your favorite part of the fall season?
Putting on my pjs and thick gripy socks when it gets dark at 5pm and laying on the couch with my blanket and a cup of hot apple cider while watching Matlock movie marathons.

6. Did you dress up for Halloween?
I skipped Halloween this year.  Ba-Humbug.

wrong holiday...

7. Have you started Christmas shopping?
No, but I usually make most of my gifts.  This year, however, I'm stumped on what to make so I may fall back on a previous project.  I just hope everyone likes macaroni art.

8. Do you crack your knuckles?
No, I devoutly follow the "if you crack your knuckles they will get big and puffy and ugly" philosophy.

And because it hurts.

9. If you had to live in another city for a year (all expenses paid), which city would you choose?
Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach.  Every year on vacation we drive by Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago and his neighbors with their lattice shaped hedges and gates and fancy stone lions and I always wonder what it would be like to have 45 bedrooms, and a million bathrooms, and servant quarters, and pool tables, and pools, and green lawns, and beach access, and walk-in closets, and showers as big as my current bedroom, and real marble.

But then I would have to find a way to stay because there is no way I could go from Palm Beach to Upstate New York and my laminate counter tops.

10. Do you have any reoccurring dreams?
I used to have a dream where I would enter a rickety old shack that was my house and on the inside it was a 20+ story mansion.  My favorite floor was toward the top, all the walls were windows.

And then there are the dreams where I am my dad.  We-ird.

TGI Monday

Here we are.  It's Monday.  Again.

Do you ever wonder where I am on Saturday and Sunday?  I never post.  Bad blogger, bad.

Jeez Stace, you couldn't give the people a little morsel to hold them over until Monday?

Well, no.  I actually can't.

This is a typical weekend:

Saturday

• run
• breakfast
• start laundry
• forget to help my with my mom's sewing class
• drag Corey to the mall
• buy skinny jeans
• drag Corey to the Christmas Tree Shop
• buy cheap things I probably won't use
• drive to Lakeside Farms
• try to avoid rally for the candidate I am not voting for
• eat lunch
• buy cider donuts
• buy cider
• stop at Scotty O'Dwyer's house
• unplug weed wacker
• say hello
• go home
• make a million felt balls
• eat dinner
• make another million felt balls
• fall asleep on couch to Beetlejuice

Sunday

• walk dog
• church
• lunch
• grocery shopping
• prepare to make pumpkin pie
• load laundry
• realize I can't cut open pumpkins
• smash pumpkins open on cement
• bake pumpkins
• mush pumpkins
• mix pumpkins
• make crust
• bake pie
• melt polyester fabric
• make fabric look like a flower
• string felt balls
• check pie
• string felt balls
• check pie
• more laundry
• check pie
• melt polyester fabric
• check pie
• take pie out of oven
• string felt balls
• more laundry
• eat pie
• pass out on couch to Van Helsing

Hmmm, this seems very specific to be typical. 

This is typical in the amount of activities.  See?  No time.

No time!  There's never enough time!  I don't have time to study, I'll never get into Stanford!

Whoopsie.  Sometimes Saved by the Bell lines just creep right into my daily conversations.

But anyway, now that I'm back at work and back to having a tad more free time (read: it's Monday and I have no desire to touch my actual work) I can share all the juicy details of our daily lives that have come to make you think twice about coming back.  Yay!