A Haiku

*Not really because I'm not totally sure what constitutes a Haiku, and I don't feel like Googling it.

If I wrote a Haiku it would be about shoes

Not just any shoes but shoes by Great Loub

Shoes of black and white and red

Shoes that make the other women pout

Check these bitches out

Christian Louboutin

My Christmas present to my Mama because she loves shoes just as much as I do.  Late, but still great.  Enough of the rhyming.  When I figure out what is equivalent to Louboutins in the man world I will totally buy it for my Daddy.  My parents are the best.

Oh, and P.S., I wrote that Haiku myself.  Just in case you couldn't tell.

Worn Out

Christmas is big times, y'all.  Now I am just exhausted.  It was great, though!  I hope you can all say the same. 

Little J decided that he would give me three special gifts:  longer naps (word), sitting up (finally), and sleeping on his stomach.  Hold the phone... I totally did not request the latter.  Oh well, what can you do?

Seriously, I think I'm so tired that I can't even think of what to write.  We will go with this instead...

This little sign is in my kitchen.  It cracks me up.

Little J at his first oyster roast, which just so happens to be

the First Annual Jax Christmas Eve Oyster Roast.

Merry Christmas, Mama!  I'm sleeping on my tummy! 

(FYI, Sleep Sack, not a blanket)

I got a big boy toy!  VROOOM!  I haz happiness!

AJ haz happiness, too!  (times 2, thank you Mama and Jax!)

"The State" = The most awesome old MTV show EVAH.

Adorable, just adorable.

Oh yeah, and y'all, IT SNOWED!  Not stick to the ground snow, but honest to God big fluffy snowflakes!  It was wonderful.  Combine that with family, chili, and a nice afternoon nap and I had the most perfect end to Christmas that I could have imagined.

*These pics were all taken on my phone.  I swear I have a real camera.  And I use it.  If I think about it, I will post better pics later.  Don't hold your breath, it might take me a while.

Merry Almost Christmas!

I am not sure how often I will be posting over the holiday.  If something totally cool and awesome happens, I will be sure to stop in and inform you.  For example, if Santa Claus sets off the alarm or Duke catches a reindeer, you will be the first to know.  Swear.

Please have a happy and safe holiday.  If you are traveling, watch out for bad drivers and those who have partied too much.  Enjoy your family and friends.  Stay warm!  And if you get snow, you damn well better not tell me about it because I am crazy jealous.

Take a moment to remember the reason we celebrate.  And if you don't believe in that kind of stuff, just take a moment to reflect on all of your blessings.  Please also keep in mind those that are less fortunate and those who can't be with their families because they continue to fight the battles for our freedom.  Feel free to shed a tear for the loved ones you've lost, but smile at how much joy they brought to your life.

I hope you all get what you are wishing for this Christmas, whether it be snow (ahem, me) and iPad (me again) or a closet full of designer bags and shoes (that would be me, too). 

Peace, love, and happiness to you and your family!  Merry Christmas!

And The Shining Stones Winner Is...

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway!  I sincerely wish that I had enough dough in the bank that I could give each and every one of you a gift certificate to Shining Stones.  Actually, I wish I had enough to give you all a Benz or a Louis Vuitton purse or a trip to Australia because that would mean that I was like Oprah... mega-rich with my very own talk show.  Alas, it is just me and my leetle ole blog.  BUT I can still give you Shining Stones, y'all!  So, want to know who won?

Since there were some who did not leave separate comments, I decided to just put all of your names in a shoe with the correct number of entries and draw one instead of using Random.org.  And the winner is......

Jenny from Life After Yes!

Yay, Jenny!  I will contact you soon to give you the details on how you can redeem your gift certificate. 

I would also like to give a big thanks to Ellie.  She has been so wonderfully easy to work with and she makes gorgeous jewelry.  I sincerely hope that you will all check out her shop.

Hopefully, you have all gotten your shopping done!  I am almost through.  Now for the wrapping.  Ugh.  My most dreaded task.  I will be spending my evening under piles of shiny paper and curly-Q ribbon.  If you don't hear from me tomorrow, I implore you to please send help.  In the event that I survive, there might be pictures tomorrow.  I can't promise that it will be pretty!

Here We Come A-Wassailing!

This is going to be chock-full of good information, so be sure to pay close attention.

Philosopher, I am not.  Now, PhilosophIZER, that's more up my alley.  (BTW, I didn't know that was a real word, I thought Derek Zoolander made it up.  Whatevs.)  Anyway, see if you can follow this A+B=C philosophizing.

1.  To Wassail means To Carol
2.  Wassail is also an Alcohol Treat

So, it stands to reason that the carol "Here We Go A-Wassailling" is ambiguous, correct?  Here is the proof:

Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wand'ring
So fair to be seen.

Carolling?  Drinking?  From reading those lyrics I think possibly both.  So I say, let's all get our Wassail on!  Woot Woot!  And in case you were curious, here is a recipe for Wassail courtesy of Alton Brown (the first recipe I found was from the Pagan/Wiccan site, thought that was interesting).  Skip all of the purple if you don't care.

Ingredients

• 6 small Fuji apples, cored
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup water
• 72 ounces ale
• 750 ml Madeira
• 10 whole cloves
• 10 whole allspice berries
• 1 cinnamon stick, 2-inches long
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmed
• 6 large eggs, separated

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put the apples into an 8 by 8-inch glass baking dish. Spoon the brown sugar into the center of each apple, dividing the sugar evenly among them. Pour the water into the bottom of the dish and bake until tender, about 45 minutes.  Pour the ale and Madeira into a large slow cooker. Put the cloves, allspice, and cinnamon into a small muslin bag or cheesecloth, tied with kitchen twine, and add to the slow cooker along with the ginger and nutmeg. Set the slow cooker to medium heat and bring the mixture to at least 120 degrees F. Do not boil.  Add the egg whites to a medium bowl and using a hand mixer, beat until stiff peaks form. Put the egg yolks into a separate bowl and beat until lightened in color and frothy, approximately 2 minutes. Add the egg whites to the yolks and using the hand mixer, beat, just until combined. Slowly add 4 to 6 ounces of the alcohol mixture from the slow cooker to the egg mixture, beating with the hand mixer on low speed. Return this mixture to the slow cooker and whisk to combine.  Add the apples and the liquid from the baking dish to the wassail and stir to combine. Ladle into cups and serve.

I don't know about you, but I'm going to Wassail my ass off for Christmas celebrations!  Is that wrong?  And I use the term "Wassail" in the "drinking" sense because I can honestly tell you that I won't be trying this recipe.  Mainly because I don't feel like going through the hassle when I can just open a bottle of wine. 

Have I cluttered your brain with enough mindless drivel for one day?  Awesome.  Don't forget to enter the giveaway below if you haven't yet!  And because I've been so ridiculous today, I will leave you with this:

How cute are those leetle red shoes on my sweet boy?

Reindeer Food

Let me see if I can correctly remember this conversation...

Me:  Little J and I are going to make Reindeer Food on Christmas Eve to leave out for Santa's reindeer!

Jax:  What is Reindeer Food?  What do you mean?

Me:  It is oatmeal and gold glitter.

Jax:  Reindeer can't eat glitter.

Me:  No, the glitter shines and shows them how to get to our house.  Then they eat the oatmeal while Santa is leaving toys.

Jax:  Wait, so do you add water?

Me:  Ummm, no.  Why would we add water?

Jax:  So, what do you do, put it in baggies?  Is it real glitter?  What are you talking about?

Me:  We are going to put it in baggies for him to give to his friends, but we are also going to put it in our yard.  And yes it is REAL glitter!  And oatmeal!  For the reindeer to eat!

Jax:  If I see you come home with a big box of oatmeal I'm going to hide it from you until after Christmas.

Scrooge.  Whatevs, we are totally doing it anyway. 

Reindeerz gotta EAT, y'all.

I just realized that Christmas is like two weeks away.  And I still have the majority of my shopping to do.  Including ONLINE shopping.  Oh my, this is so not like me. 

HALP!  HALP!  PANIC!  CHAOS!  Good Lawd, I'm going to need a Valium to make it through the next two weeks.  Especially if I keep having conversations like that with my husband.

I Got The Funk

I've been struggling with what to write today.  I was going to talk about how super cold it is- 16 degrees when I left my house this morning.  Mainly because I'm too cranky to write about anything awesome. 

I haven't felt very Christmasy this year.  We put our tree up late.  Little J has been fighting some kind of cold/junky cough/crud since Thanksgiving.  Jax and I had not been able to catch a moment to sit down and figure out where we are going and when and what we are doing for Christmas (past tense because we actually made some time last night while cooking dinner).  My Christmas dishes are still put up in the pantry.  I haven't been shopping.

I guess in a way it is the usual Christmas hustle and bustle, but it has left me in quite a funk.  To say the least.

Then I read Blair's post today.  Y'all, it almost made me cry.  I highly suggest you read it if you have been in a funk like I am.  It was one hell of a wake up call.

I have warm clothes and a cozy house to come home to. 

I have an amazing family to share the holidays with. 

I have the money to pay my bills and put food on the table

and still buy nice gifts for the people I love.

I wish I could say that I would be so generous and thoughtful as she was.  More than likely, I would not.  Not because I wouldn't want to, but just because it would be too easy to ignore.  To be scared.  To come up with some excuse as to why it was probably a bad idea.  And it makes me sad.

But as much as it saddens me that my reaction would probably be the norm, it gives me hope.  With all of the drivers with road rage, angry shoppers, thiefs, and other bad things that come along with the holidays, there are people out there who still do good for others.  These people get it.

It isn't about trees or snow or sparkly lights.  It is about giving- and not necessarily Christmas presents.  It is about remembering why we celebrate this holiday.  It is inspiring.

Starting right now, I'm going to do my best to put all of my petty crap aside and enjoy this time.  I'm going to get out of my Christmas funk and get into the Christmas spirit*.  I'm going to enjoy it, and maybe do something nice for someone else.

*I totally feel like now would be the perfect time to break out the pom poms.   I mean, I did say SPIRIT!  But I'll spare you.

The Stockings Were Hung

... on the deer antlers with care.  'Cause that's how we roll.  Seriously.  We are still remodeling and don't actually have a mantel yet, so deer antlers it is.  And here is our beautiful tree.  You can kind of see one of the deer hidden behind it.

Please excuse the decoration chaos/explosion/mess going on.

This weekend was really nice.  I got off work early on Friday, spent Saturday doing some cleaning and then went to our town Christmas party that night.  Mama and Daddy kept Little J, which means that not only did Jax and I get to sleep in on Sunday, but we had dinner prepared Saturday night and breakfast Sunday morning.  Perfection (thanks Mama).

Sunday was just fantastically relaxing.  There is nothing better than snuggling up with my little boy by the Christmas tree and watching a movie.  Have y'all seen Enchanted?  So stinkin' cute.  I love it.  Unfortunately, Little J is one of those people who wants to chit chat through the whole movie, or sleep. 

So sleepy, but completely fascinated by the tv.

He doesn't really care to be rocked, which is usually a good thing since it means he goes down for naps and bed at night really well.  So having him fall asleep in my arms on Sunday was wonderful.  Everything was all warm and snuggly and bunny rabbits and ice cream cones- or wine, whichever you prefer.  And y'all know me, I prefer wine.

Oh, and speaking of being lazy relaxing, Couch 2 5K got put on hold when I was sick a couple of weeks ago.  I have yet to resume.  Is it crazy to think that I'm going to start this before the end of the year and be successful?  I mean, most people just make it their New Years Resolution and then fail.  Why am I determined to get my fail on during the most wonderful time of the year?

I Love These Mieces to Pieces

Are you as excited as I am to see these guys?! 

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

I'm going to take your silence to mean that you are now dead because you died in a state of euphoria. 

Every year, I scour the DVR Search frantically for my favorite leetle mouse family, so that I can record, watch, and keep for months before I finally give up and resort to deleting and making room for more soap operas.  Gasp!  Shock!  Horror!  I know, right?

Finally, Amazon has given me a way out of this unfortunate predicament.  Y'all... I am now the PROUD owner of Twas The Night Before Christmas- 1974 TV Special by Rankin Bass.  On DVD even!  My heart is so full that it just might explode into a nasty mess all over my keyboard.  I will try to contain myself.

But for real, I will now be able to share my unnatural passion for this old as dirt take on the classic with Little J.  I hope that he loves it as much as I do.  And if he doesn't?  Tough cookies, kid.  We will watch anyway because Mama wants to ::sticks tongue out like a baybee child::

Oh, and if you happen to hear the fat man Ho Ho Ho-ing like he is going to bust his bowl full of jelly gut, it is because he just got my Christmas List.  And found out that I want an iPad.   

And some Louboutins... or Choos, I'm not picky.  Anything special on your Christmas list this year?