Christmas Shenanigans

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. I just so happened to have a great one. Here are a few tidbits of my fabulous last few days.

- Snow on Christmas Eve in Texas! Yup, that's right. We had a blizzard all day on the 24th. I have never seen snow blow completely horizontally. See below...

- Dreaming of a white Christmas? Snow was still on the ground Christmas morning. :)

- My baby drove up Christmas day to spend the next few days with me. I wish he could have been here for all our Christmas Eve traditions, but he had a family shindig. I am just happy to have him when I could. Compromise is something I'm still getting used to when it comes to holidays and families in three different cities.

- Catchphrase is the world's most AWESOME game. Playing sober is fun, but playing after a few drinks is UBER fun. I think we played for 6 hours. I have video on that too, but I don't want to embarrass/incriminate my loved ones in my blog. ;) I would never do such a thing.

- My biggest surprise gift this year had to be my Keurig K-cup coffee machine. I had a perfectly (cheap) basic Mr. Coffee pot and didn't expect anything coffee-related at all. But now that I have my Keurig, I don't see how I've survived 27 years without it! (Ok, only like 8 years of my coffee-drinking life). You plop in a K cup, press it down firmly, press the shiny blue button and BAM, you've got a perfect cup of coffee. Brilliant.

- My most-used gift was definitely my Flip video camera that my boyfriend bought me. I got snow/blizzard footage, church service footage, silly Catchphrase footage, future brother-in-law screaming like a girl while making a snow angel footage, etc.

- I made the infamous Monkey Bread for the first time. Turned out great! So did my broccoli cheese casserole on Christmas day. Score!

- I got sick on Dec. 23 for the second year in a row. I made my annual trip to the doctor and let him do another strep test. This year, it's not strep! Yay! But it was a bacterial thing. Boo! Not to worry though, I got me some amoxicillin.

- I made myself (and my mom) a deal that I wouldn't completely wig out about being unemployed over the holidays (since there is essentially nothing I can do over Christmas). I continued obsessively applying through the 23rd. Since that time, I have made a concerted effort to just relax. That's not to say that a few Eeyore moments haven't crept up on me, but I'm doing fairly well. I will likely (99% sure) get back on the obsessive-compulsive job hunt tomorrow.

- I thoroughly THOROUGHLY enjoyed having the whole family together. I'm so very blessed to have two amazing parents, my sister and her fiance, and my boyfriend all spend quality time together under one roof. I made sure to take lots of mental pictures (and flip videos).

Now that the company has all gone home and the house is quiet, I realize that New Year's Eve is only a few days away. So I must go rest up (I'm going to sleep like a rock) and recover from my tequila induced Catchphrase over-indulgence that was this weekend.

My Weekend In Numbers

I had a great weekend. My baby came to visit, I cooked for us (successfully) and there was much football. Had we done any Christmas shopping, then it may have just been the perfect weekend.

My weekend in numbers...

1.5 - number of hours it took me to make King Ranch Chicken. Turned out so good! I will totally make this again.

45 - number of minutes I allowed myself for a nap on Saturday.

10 - number of minutes I actually slept out of that 45 allowance.

4:30 - the time we arrived at the Cowboy's stadium to tailgate for the Big 12 Championship game.

25 - number of minutes I had to stand in line at the ONE port-o-potty near our tailgate. Miserable? Yes, considering it felt like ten degrees outside. And let's not discuss how disgusting the port-o-potty actually was. (shudder). Let's also not discuss how I dropped my glove on the nasty, E. coli covered floor (double shudder). And we may as well just leave out the fact that someone ahead of me went the big #2 and I had to endure it when my turn finally arrived (quadruple shudder!).

2 - number of hours that I froze my little butt off tailgating. I then sat in my car with my heater full blast and let my raw fingers thaw out. They started to itch like crazy (proof that I had minor frostbite as a child).

467 - number of ultimate nachos for $8.50. I ate about 7 of them. Then I had heartburn.

13/12 - final score of the Texas/Nebraska game! HOOK 'EM HORNS!!!

2:30 - time on Sunday that my man had to leave me. Wahh!!!

2:40 - time that he texted me, "Babe, I'm coming back for you. Pack up your stuff." I actually considered and let him know that I would not need much convincing. I could easily pack myself and my chihuahua. Might be fun. No? Then reality set in, and I don't have a job, which means I couldn't get a place of my own...so I guess that won't work.....

45 - number of degrees outside when I took a nice evening stroll - chihuahua wrapped up in my jacket and all. It was cold and misty, but at least I got my walk on.

Hope everyone else had an equally fab weekend.

Domestically Challenged....NO MORE!

People who know me well may agree that I'm a tad domestically disabled. But once in a blue moon I get a strong urge to either clean something or cook/bake something. Lately, my baking urge is strong.

So, my friends, I have decided to develop a list of things I must learn how to bake before I tie the knot. I don't want to be the wifey who shows up to every gathering with grocery store bought cookies. BO-RING! (fyi - no one is getting married yet. I'm just sayin'...)

Here are the things that I have already tackled:

Sugar cookies - these stuck to my counter top when I rolled them out. Then I decorated them. Badly. They tasted great though.

Banana bread - This was excellent if I do say so myself.

Pumpkin bread - This was very good, although I already know what to do differently next time.

Crepes - made fresh this morning. No small fires, no cursing, no mess with flour. I'd say a valiant effort!

Things I must tackle:

Pumpkin pie - this is my boyfriend's fave!

Cupcakes - any kind, but the key is to make sure it does not look like a 6 year old did the icing.

Cheesecake - the springy pan intimidates me.

Sourdough bread - warm & delicious.

Homemade blueberry muffins - another favorite of both mine and boyfriend's.

Mom's 'Monkey Bread' - cinnamon-y buttery goodness in a bundt pan!

iLove

Soooo....I recently decided to say farewell to a miserable cell phone service that has caused me to pull out my hair on multiple occasions, and switch to a provider who I believe is better (and sells the iphone). So long Blackberry. Helloooo iphone!

I must say - I'm completely loving it. My boyfriend and I planned it just right. We switched services together. This is important, you see, because he lives about 230 miles away and we depend on our phones as our main source of communication. And since we talk about 1600 minutes a month to each other alone, free mobile-to-mobile minutes is the ONLY way to go. So for the past week, because we decided to both get the iphone, our conversations have been going more like this:

"So what apps have you dowloaded?"

"Tap Tap revenge 2 is fun!!"

"Oooooh did you see how you can turn it sideways and get a wider screen?"

"Wow!! I'm actually getting service at my kitchen table/in bed/in the bathroom/on my back porch!"

"Wait - what will we do without blackberry messenger?" (<--still having withdrawals from this one. But still couldn't pay me to go back.)

Ok, that's enough iphone talk. For now.

My man and I had a good weekend together. He came up for a visit, and Friday night I decided to.........wait for it......cook him dinner. [insert dramatic music here].

So my day Friday went like this:

1) Wake up early (yawn) and go to my meeting. Nod, smile, politely chit chat, and haul ass out of there. Time is of the essence!

2) Go to the grocery store for 1 thing: chicken.

3) Proceed to spend $107 on groceries. (What???)

4) Get home, unpack, make coffee, clean everything on the planet.

5) May have downloaded an iphone app or two while cleaning.

6) Start cooking dinner, had to get on facebook and ask for help on how to cook my chicken.

7) Chicken boils over and makes scary burning noises.

8) Save chicken and cook the rest of the dinner.

9) Boyfriend pulls in at EXACTLY the moment the oven beeps (go me!!!)

10) Pour glass of favorite red wine and play some nice music.

11) Dinner turns out well (yay!) and he loved it.

In conclusion, I successfully made a dinner that didn't suck. I also did not start any small fires or melt any kitchen utensils. I consider that a success as well.

The rest of our weekend was fun too. We went out with some of my friends on Saturday night, had some dinner and went to a new bar that just opened. It was rather nice. Then we spent Sunday (today) being complete and total BLOBS on the couch, which we don't get to do nearly enough together. So we made it a point to be lazy today, but that wasn't until after we cooked a big and yummy breakfast. Then we sat and watched Travel channel and cuddled up with my dog (who always has to be right in the middle of us. The warmest and smallest space he can find).

He left today around 1:30 and it's always hard to say goodbye. But it's ok because I know that eventually we'll live in the same town. I don't know when and I don't know where, but it will all fall into place when it's supposed to. (Look at me and my positive thinking today! haha)