Octopus’ Garden

New Year’s food fun for the young ones:

For the grown-ups, Forever Roasted Pork (again) from Tra Vigne.

Unearthed Bucket List

This morning I was cleaning out my Franklin Planner from back in my (paid) working days.  I decided to go back to the planner instead of scratching things down on a random cute spiral notebook that I pick up at Target every quarter.  This movement is in the hopes of making my life a little more organized.

While I was looking through the left over pieces of paper, business cards and items on my To Do List from 2002, I ran across a list I had shoved in the back of my planner.  It was my once written and long forgotten Bucket List.  Here it is:

Things to do b/4 I die

1. Start my own company, catering and/or store
2. Raise loving, self confident and self loving children
3. Get my masters
4. Go to Greece
5. Go to Europe
6. Go to Italy
7. Learn another language
8. Learn pottery
9. Work in a kitchen to learn more about cooking
10. Triathlon
11. Make a quilt

It feels like I have opened a little time capsule to myself.

I’m happy to say I have knocked off number #1, the catering company.  For those of you who did not know, an old friend and I once owned and operated  our own catering company for two years.  It was called Eat, Drink & Mary. It was a lot of fun and a lot of very hard work.

As for #2, raising children is a life long endeavor.  I guess I will only know if I have succeeded in this matter a little later.

#10 is scratched off.  As most of you know, I have jumped whole hog into triathlons.

As for the rest of the items, I will keep them there, work on them, determine if I still want them there and even add some new ones.

What’s on your list?

Yet another proud moment as a mother

There are so many Christmas stories to share, I’m not really sure where to start.  So…we’ll start a few days before Christmas.

We needed a little something to do, so I told the kids I would take them to see Santa.  Thinking by 3:30 pm all the littles would be home taking an afternoon nap and we could just breeze right in and lay it on down for Santa.

Well, not exactly.  There was eerily NO ONE in line but swarms of people everywhere.  So we walked up to the two Santa gate keepers at the head table.  Quickly we find out that there was a 5 1/2 hour wait.  When asked when the best time to see Santa would be, gate keeper number one says to me, “Well, that would be November 15!”  I almost kicked her in the teeth, smart ass, happy holidays, whore.  Oh goodness, did I just say that, sorry I digress.

We (ok…I) come to determine that Santa is so not worth that, so I gave them each a quarter to put in the gumball machine and the nod to take a quick tour through Build A Bear first.

We zip through the store and hit the wall of gumballs.  I realize KP is digging through his filled pockets (there are always treasures in there) to get at his quarter and there is something blocking his fat little fist from making it to the bottom.  He pulls something out, something I have never seen before.

When questioned about it, his first instinct is to lie, tell me it’s his, he found it, he brought it from home, some strange man in a red suit gave it to him.  After a few more questions he comes clean and tells me he lifted it from Build A Bear.  Swift, fast and undetected…it is truly a gift and not a good one (he does it at preschool all the time, we now pat him down before he leaves).

This photo is us marching him back into the store so he can return stolen goods (see right hand).

My life in crime

To Levitate

Air Dog

to float, rise, rise into the air, hover, be suspended, glide, hang, fly, or soar up…even if just for a second, Big P caught some serious air.

Thanks…

To Peevish Mama’s post I requested this book for Christmas.  I’m only 20 pages in, but it’s good, real, real good.

New Christmas Song

I’m thinking there has got to be a rendition of The Dog Ate My Danskos to the tune of We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

If not, I’ll put the little down that is running through my head…right after I hit her with the remaining portion of my clog.

Tooth Fairy Whore

That horrid nasty wretch of a creature, how on earth could she have forgotten my baby girl’s front tooth? Leaving her sobbing and heaving with tear soaked sheets this morning.

It must have been the weather.

I pulled this out myself!

After a day of vigorous pulling and twisting and sticking the nail cleaning arm of a nail clipper in there…she finally got it out.

Now sing away, All I want for Christmas is my front tooth!

Here is to hoping the Tooth Fairy remembers tonight.

This morning’s run

Megan’s virgin cold weather run

Big M (the woman in red) is the newest addition to our running group. She use to run on her treadmill during the winter months…until she met us.

Nice work everyone, -15 wind chill is not so bad after all.

The white haze in the photo is the heat from my hand, I could not get away from it.

Land of misfit knitting

I’m not sure why I continue to knit.  I don’t have a lot of success at it, especially if I have to do math to get the item to fit right.

The hat pictured above is a Christmas present for my chemo loving, hair falling out dad.

I started it a while ago.  As I was knitting it the first time, Jen looked at it over coffee with my running group and asked who it was for and what it was, because it was SOOOO big that it certainly could not be a hat.

So my second swing at it was going alright. But, as I was finishing it up last night, I began to wonder why it was not bigger and how on earth it was going to fit on his head.

Then I realized, I missed a whole section, THE BODY.

He’s getting it anyway…my dying father will LOVE it, because I made it.