Am I Starting The MMP?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
201

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’. YAWN 'Tis 42 Amurrkin out with a predicted high of <snerk> 69! <snerk> That just never gets old does it? :smiley: Right now in Ye Olde Home Towne where I shall be headed in a short while ‘tis 39 Amurrkin with a predicted high of 63. Plus, no rain predicted for Christmas day! YAY!!! Most of the Christmases growin’ up were rainy ones. Just the norm in these here parts.

A[sup]2[/sup] YIKES! That is scary. Hope the doc and you can figure sump’n out.

ShortDrum I am impressed with your mad cookin’ skilz! :smiley:

Yay for bonus money ShinyCat!

{{{phouka}}} dealin’ with agin’ parent(s) is no fun. Yay on gettin’ the closet all organized though. I’ve given up. The best I can do closetwise is semi-organized.

Hope you survive doggio.

Have a safe trip Spaz!

StickyBuns :eek: The Maul :eek: on Christmas Eve!!!??? I shudder at the thought. Just :eek:

Now I must seek out more caffiene. I think I shall get a bizkit on the way outta town for brekkie. Also, purtification must commence soon. Then I get to pack up twuck (twuck is better on the road than 'Stang gas mileage wise) and head up to Ye Olde Home Towne.

I might or might not be around today and/or tomorrow, so just in case…
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

202

I believe this is our 29th year of this tradition in which we only missed one year. It’s actually not as bad there as you might expect.

Have a safe trip, swampy.

Also, I was too out of it last night to say congrats to VBob and son and to Tyger and to send hugs to phoukaroo.

And if I missed anyone else it’s because I was more out of it than I thought.

I woke up really angry this morning. I’d had a dream that I was still working at the dealership (haven’t been for almost 6 years). And a fellow team member had complained about my hair which as of the last couple of days has much more purple than before so I was going to have to get rid of it. :smack::dubious:

203

Amen, sistah!! I just don’t get the appeal of this stuff. Of course, I have my own personal war on cream-of-anything-soup used in recipes. I refuse to do it.

Good morning!! I just finished boiling 18 eggs, and they’re cooling in a pot of ice water right now. Before the day is done, they’ll be halved, the yolks will be mashed and mixed with stuff then put in a zip lock bag, and it’ll all be packed up for a trip to bro’s in the morning. Well, except for a few eggs I’ll prep and leave for my sweetie. I hate that he’ll be home alone most of the day, but he insisted. So he’ll watch his John Wayne marathon and nap and stuff while I celebrate :rolleyes: with my side of the fambly. No, I’m not going to explain - it’s way to complicated to understand my people.

I’ve been productive otherwise this morning. I emptied the dishwasher, then refilled it, bagged some leftover bean soup for the freezer, and tidied the kitchen. Yes, it is easier to cook and stuff in a clean kitchen.

FIL called yesterday - he’s picked up a virus on his computer and he hoped **FCD **could help him figure it out. That’s nearly impossible to do over the phone with a timid computer user. Daughter will be going down there on Monday, and she can fix it up and set up a password-protected admin account so this won’t happen to them again. People who create and disperse viruses should be flogged and kicked and punched and set on fire, then given a fair trial and shot into the sun.

Last night, I tried to order a couple of restaurant gift cards for the inlaws, but I kept getting a message that my credit card was rejected. I called VISA and they said my account is fine and it must have been the website. So today I get to go to the stoopit restaurants and buy the stoopit cards in person. If *someone *had agreed to this last week when I brought it up, I could have had this all done. Merry freekin’ Christmas… :stuck_out_tongue:

That will be my day - gotta drive all the way to Waldorf for 2 gift cards because the closer chains to us don’t have locations in Ocala. And I can’t do it now because the places don’t open till lunch time. Yeah, that’ll be fun. I can see how the grinch became the grinch.

Happy Saturday. And leave me the heck alone. :stuck_out_tongue:

204

To the dump, the dump, the dump dump dump…

It just isn’t the same if you use the PC term ‘convenience center’…

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But there’s a difference between the dump and the convenience center - the dump costs $10!!!

206

That’s less than we pay to use the dump, FCM. Minimum load is around 20 bucks.

I overslept this morning. I am aggravated with myself for doing so. I pooped out last night around midnight, but I still have stuff that needs doing. Fortunately, it’s not really much, so that’s a relief.

Have to be at MiL’s by 2:00. I really wish my husband wouldn’t have volunteered our help for the meal preparation. I’ve got my own prep to do. I suppose that’s grinchy, but jeebus, we’ve been telling for years to scale it back. Maybe just do appetizers, or make it potluck and she refuses. She’s in stubborn old lady mode when it comes to that. I understand her desire to have her kids, grandkids and great grankids at a gathering, but she puts too much stress on herself.

She fell down off her stool two or three times this last week and hurt herself. This is what I’m talking about. Fortunately, my nephew is going there this morning to help her out too. I honestly don’t think she would have mentioned it to us, but she called earlier this week and it came up and that’s when my husband volunteered us.

This is part of the reason I was such a whirling dervish yesterday with the cleaning. The last thing I did last night was to steam clean the front hallway. It took forever and lots of spot treating, but it finally looks great again. I had visions of doing the great room too, but my midnight I was plum tuckered out.

Anyway, it’s going to be a loud noisy affair at the MiL. All seven of the great grandkids will be there and the oldest is six. The youngest two have recently been born. They’re loud and excitable, especially with Christmas (I don’t blame them), but it’s just a bit much anymore for MiL.

The only part of Christmas I look forward to anymore is the morning Christmas Day celebration with just my husband and kids, and now my daughter’s boyfriend. The rest is just craziness.

We have two last minute guests because we found out they’d be alone on Christmas Day. They are pleased and wife has already messaged me telling me how much she’s looking forward to it. We like them a lot, they’re good friends, we just don’t see them as often as we’d like. We’ll now have eleven folks around the dinner table.

Well, I must get my butt in gear instead of being grinchy here.

Merry Christmas my friends. Safe travels to those of you traveling.

207

Well, phoukaMom has a hard time taking hints. She got in late last night, and I said, “why don’t you hang your sweater up in the closet.” Hint. Hint. Hint. She gave me this hurt look. “You don’t like my sweater?” (It was a cheerful Christmas sweater.) “I love your sweater, Mom. But you need to look in your closet.” Hint. Hint. Hint.

It took a couple of minutes for her to get that, no, really, go look in the closet. I pretended to read a book while she opened the door, and I heard her say “Oh, damn!”

Then she checked the other side. “Oh, damn! How did you- When- Well, this is just a GREAT Christmas gift!”

So, I’m happy.

208

Friends, remind me never again to cook for my in-laws.

209

Fiat, never again cook for your in-laws.

You’re welcome.

210

Ooh, thanks. I have a turkey thawing I was going to cook and take to my in-laws tomorrow. Now, I think I’ll give it to the neighbors dog. Thanks for reminding me. If they get hungry they can go to Taco Bell.

211

Doctor Who-a-thon on BBCA. Merry Christmas to me. :slight_smile:

212

What happened fiat?

Just did the annual attempt at getting a nice Christmas picture of the dogs. It’s even harder with 3 dogs than it was with 2.

213

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHhhh!

214

I’m alive, but not well yet. I just feel pummeled. Ox and Flexeril only take a a slight edge off the discomfort. But the doc says it went well.

One surprise he laid on me at pre-op – they want to follow my case for a study on these devices, so I’ll probably be seeing him once every three monts for a year or so, then I think he said once every 6 monhs for the following five ro so years.

215

We got three $30 restaurant cards for the inlaws - Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, and Red Lobster. No cracks from the peanut gallery - they like those places. When we got home I did the deviled eggs (What is the trick to boiling eggs that don’t come apart when you peel them? Half of mine look awful!) And I just finished wrapping the mega-gift for my mom - 6 bottles of Merrylande wines, plus some wine vinegar, olive oil, cookies, crackers, and fire-lighting thingies. The last 5 were just to fill up the compartments in the wine case. :smiley: The fire lighters took up two slots. :smiley:

My last big chore for the day is the aquarium water change. I’ve never done it before, but **FCD **can’t do it yet, so I get to. rah. :stuck_out_tongue: It’s a stinky, messy job and I don’t want to do it, but it’s gotta be done this weekend, and tomorrow is out.

I found out my sister is giving my daughter a check. I wasn’t going to give her kids anything since they’re disinclined to say Thank You. Maybe they’ll get hand-made ceramic somethings… :wink: Seriously, once you’re a teen, then a 20-something, Mommy shouldn’t have to remind you to say thanks. Brats.

It’s official. I hate Christmas. Next year, I think we should just go somewhere and hide - preferably somewhere they don’t do Christmas. Hey, **Nooner **- you got a guest room?? :smiley:

Bah, humbug.

PS - **gotti **- if your recuperation goes anything like my sweetie’s, it’ll be 3 or 4 days before you start to feel human. Take care!!!

216

Howdy from sis’s ‘puter! :smiley: Enjoyin’ beerverages and helpin’ with puttin’ together tonight’s festivities with BIL’s family. Ok ,mostly enjoyin’ beerverages.

Glad you’re on the mend gotti.

Fiat never cook for the in-laws.

217

My mumsey, step dad, and step brother are gone. My mom got us each a travel mug that plugs into the cigarette lighter and keeps your drink to the temp you want until it’s empty. My step brother gave us an awesome elf on the shelf cookie plate (we don’t do the EoaS thing but we have 7 ornaments from the 70’s that look like the elf from the book and they’re our favorites) and another travel mug. Who told everyone we needed more travel mugs? (we really do. Needed to throw out 4 of them recently).

My mom loved the freshwater pearl and crystal glasses lanyard and earring set and the freshwater pearl and crystal bracelet and earring set I made for her.

She asked if I would go to her church service tonight. I hate to say it but I luckily have to get ready for Sweetie’s family visit tomorrow so I couldn’t go and it made me happy. I am agnostic and while her church is very nice and her church friends treat me very well, I still feel uncomfortable in a Baptist church. I feel only mildly less uncomfortable in a Catholic church and that’s only because I used to be an altar girl.

218

My wife decides we (WE, not her) should invite her folks and two sisters and their respective families over for supper last night. Yay. Actually, it sounds good to me. I get to cook a nice meal, and everyone gets to visit.

The menu: marinated pork loin roast, wild rice pilaf, salad, rolls, and dessert.

So 7 am comes way too early. I get up and start cooking. I make a doubke batch of chocolate chip chocolate cookies and a Texas sheet cake. That takes most of the morning. While I’m doing this I mix up a whiskey marinade for the pork and get it soakin’. Noon. Finally I have enoufh time to take a shower and finish some last minute cleaning. I make up the salad: greens, sliced red onions, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers and bell peppers. I make up a zesty Italian dressing, and oven-roast some seasoned bread bits for croutons. Four pm: start the roast, cooking on a low heat to do a proper slow roast. Afterwards I get the table set, place settings, centerpieces, etc. (my wife is at work so most of this falls on my shoulders). Start the rice cooking, in an awesome rosemary/fennel infused water. Mmmmm.

Fast forward to dinner. Sister-in-law is 45 minutes late. The one HUGE pet peeve I have is people who are late. So dinner is late. During all of this my back, which hurts on a good day, says “fuck you”, and gives up in disgust. I had been on ky feet almost twelve hours by this time.

Ok. All of this doesn’t particularly bother me, I’m used to pain and my SIL being late. We sit down to dinner. My wife and two boys start eating with relish. Wife’s family looked down their noses as they lightly pick at the food. After a couple of minutes my SIL goes to the kitchen, rummages in a paper sack she had brought that I hadn’t paid attention to, and brings back to the table an industrial sized bottle of Kraft Thousand Island dressing.

“We aren’t into gourmet food”, she mutters, then proceeds to slather everything in that.revolting pink goo. My meat, that I marinated to perfection with a wonderful sauce that took me quite a.while to perfect, my rice, the perfect blend of jasmine, brown, and wild, and of course my salad, which was already lightly seasoned with a homemade Italian. The whole plate. Ok. So you have no taste and want my cooking to taste like a Big Mac. Whatever. But then… everyone else, my wife and kids excluded, grab the Thousand Island and proceed to slather their plates with it.

Afterward one of them complains the pork wasn’t done. Horseshit. I know how to use a thermometer. I love love love to cook, and its wasted on these clowns. I spent close to $100 I didn’t have to put together a top-notch meal, and it was looked upon with disgust.

Fuck it. Even my wife, who usually defends their asnine behavior, agrees that we aren’t going host them again next year.

[/ Rant over. Carry on]

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Bobbio – congrats[sup]2[/sup]! :slight_smile:

Phouka – good job on the Christmas Surprise for your mom!

Speaking of [sup]2[/sup]-s – A[sup]2[/sup]- Yikes! :eek: I have plenty of times where I sort of blank out for a moment (e.g., did I turn off the A/C before going out?!), but nothing like this!!

**Tyger **-- yay for employment! And double yay for a nice bonus! :slight_smile:

'Tis now past midnight in Bethlehem, so
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

… and it’s also past midnight in Tel Aviv, so good night, y’all!

220

I’ve been quite absent this MMP, but checking in from Florida to wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!