Random Thought

I've just been adding some images to my Tumblr photoblog, and a thought occurred to me.

Does anyone know if there is a blogger widget that I can add to my sidebar so that some of my Tumblr images show up? Is rather not post the images directly as a daily post, but it might be fun to have the latest ones pop up on the sidebar.

Is that even a possibility?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Twelve Days of Christmas Fail...

So, I was floating about today on the interwebz, and what do I discover? The 12 days of Christmas are not the 12 days leading up to Christmas day, but rather, they begin on December 26th and extend for 12 days until January 6th, or Feast of the Three Kings. There is even a special cake/bread that is eaten on January 6th, called a rosca de reyes, which roughly translates to King cake or King ring.

So, my carefully planned 12 Days of Christmas posts are pretty much a giant fail.

Wouldn't you know it?

I Am On a Mission...

To all my readers:

I may or may not be around after tonight. You see, tonight I will attempt to travel back in time and change history.

You'll know I succeeded if Germany loses World War II and if Sarah Palin quits the governorship of Alaska.

Wish me luck!

Post-Christmas

I hope everyone's Christmas day was filled with family and fun. Mine was better than usual, which is not to suggest that my family holidays are filled with drama and unpleasantness, because they are not. It just seemed very festive.

The Christmas crackers were tone of fun. We pulled them after dinner, though everyone wanted to pull them one at a time, rather than around the table. But still, fun fun fun! We all wore our paper Christmas crowns that fell out, though to varying degrees of happiness and time. The party poopers took them off immediately after we took the family photos, and I wore mine until the last people left at 10:30 pm.


Christmas lunch was good. I made a turkey baked with a lemon garlic butter under its skin, a glazed ham, green beans with bacon, buttered corn, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and southern style biscuits. I forget about desserts completely, but my sister brought over a pumpkin cheesecake, so that was a saving grace. I had meant to take a couple of photos of the Christmas feast to put up here, but my two nephews were acting like they hadn't eaten in a week. I hadn't even managed to get all of the food on the table before they were serving themselves, and I didn't want to take photos of a mutilated turkey bowls of food that had been gotten in to.

I was laughing that this year should be called The Year of the Alcoholic, because so many bottles of alcohol were exchanged! My brother gave everyone, EVERYONE, a bottle of wine. He bought them when he was out at some fancy wine place and couldn't help himself, he said. Ha ha! My 23 year old nephew got a bottle of Amaretto, my dad got a bottle of Jeremiah Weed bourbon liqueur, a bottle of Makers Mark whiskey, and a bottle of Jack Daniels, my brother got Jack Daniels, my 23 year old nephew gave away a bottle of Chiroc vodka and a bottle of Makers Mark whiskey to friends. It was totally nuts! We never exchange alcohol and this year was a boozefest.

My uncle is the one in the center dressed as a Chinaman

My mom's brother came by and livened up the place by playing his guitar for a while. He is a professional musician; when he was younger, he was in a band called The Latin Breed that put a few albums out, so having him play for us is always fun.

My brother sang a few songs with him and so did one of my cousins, his daughter. My mom videotaped it all, along with my five year old nephew attempting to strum along on the guitar my brother gave him for Christmas. It was pretty funny watching him try to play as he scowled in concentration and not coming anywhere near a tune. He is very sharp, though, and I expect him to become good in short order. I just hope I'll be around to get to watch him. To be truthful, I am not expecting to, but I am still hopeful.

Merry Christmas!

And may God bless us, everyone!

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 12

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Twelve drummers drumming

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 11

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

 Eleven pipers piping

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 10

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Ten lords a leaping!

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 9

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Nine ladies dancing

Christmas Cartoons

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 8

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Eight maids a milking

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 7

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Seven swans a swimming

Christmas Cookies FTW!

In yet another weird bout of Christmas cheer, today became cookie day. Yay!

These are chocolate chip pecan cookies and coconut macaroons. Elsewhere, there are mounds of oatmeal pecan cookies. I think I made way too many, to be honest. I tried giving some away, but no one who came by were interested. Weasels....

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 6

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Six geese a laying

Early Christmas Present

As an early Christmas present to you, my readers, I am sharing the directions to my vegetable seasoning spice. Now, I don't call this a season all, because I don't generally put this on any sort of meat. However, on pastas or vegetables, this seasoning mix is really delicious.

In fact, for most vegetables, add this and a dollop of butter, I can guarantee that they will be tasty. When I make corn, my niece always says that it is the best she has ever had. Lol!

The mix is quite easy to make, and I suspect most of you will have all of the spices on hand already.

Dr Mandragora's Vegetable Seasoning
2 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp ground mustard

I would package some for all of you myself, but you know, postage would just be ridiculous.

If anyone tries this, please please please let me know what you think. Enjoy!

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me

Five gold rings

Fried Pies FTW!

In an excess of holiday spirit, I decided to make some fried sweet potato pies this afternoon. The dough is flavored with anise and cardamom, and the sweet potato filling is a mixture of sweet potato, brown sugar, butter, and vanilla.

Yum!

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 4

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Four Calling Birds

Christmas Crackers

On a bit of a lark, I purchased 12 authentic(?) English Christmas Crackers from Williams Sonoma. I've heard them mentioned on a couple of shows I watch on BBC America, and I remember there being a reference to them in one of the Harry Potter novels, but I've never actually seen one. So, when I remembered that Williams Sonoma carries them, I decided to use some of my remaining money to get some as a treat for my family.

To be honest, I don't even know what I am supposed to do with them. American "crackers" are lit with a fuse, but I'm fairly certain these are supposed to be pulled apart. According to the bastion of knowledge, Wikipedia, the original Christmas Crackers were made to "snap" and contained an almond. Yeah, I know, that sounds pretty sucky. There had best not be a stale and sour nut in these crackers, that's all I'm saying. Lord knows there is going to be enough "nuts" here at Christmas, if you know what I mean. In the Harry Potter story, their Christmas Crackers exploded with sparks and glitter and dropped a fun hat the characters then got to wear. Something tells me that I won't be getting a big Santa hat out of this particular batch.

Well, a rancid drupe, a flashy hat, or anything in between, the fun will be in experiencing something new. Besides, if Christmas Crackers are good enough for Gordon Ramsay's holiday celebration, they can't be all bad.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 3

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Three French Hens

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 2

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Two turtledoves

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 1

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

 A partridge in a pear tree

Graham Norton and Justin Bieber

I just saw Justin Bieber on Graham Norton’s show. Now, before I start, let me just clarify that I do not hate Bieber; I am not a fan, but I am not on the Bieber hate squad either.

However, I have to say that he did not come off well on the show. First off, he came onstage with his pants sagging so badly that he was duck-walking to keep them from falling down. And when he sat, the crotch was midway down his thighs. I am sorry, but since when do Canadian white kids dress like street trash? Doesn't his mother travel with him? She really should say something about that. There are no parents that I know who let their kids sag like that in public. Well, no good parents, anyway.

Secondly, hearing him speak was so very very painful. I realize he is 16, but the 16 year olds I know can carry an intelligent conversation. I guess I just expected him to be, oh I don’t know, smarter? My experience is that musicians tend to be more creative, smarter, more well rounded than most. He seemed very shallow, uninformed, sort of a "if it doesn't have to do with me, I am not interested or informed about it". Ah well, I guess you don’t have to be smart to smile and flip your hair.

Finally, when Confessions in the Red Chair began, the first guest was a lady from Washington state. Bieber kept interrupting Graham with prattle and inane questions, like a child pestering his mom when she is talking on the phone. When the Biebs asked if the woman was transmitting from Washington, I just sighed. No, Justin, you are in England on an English talk show. Why would there be cameras in the US? Please don't "belieb" the smoke your people blow up your rear end; the world does not revolve around you, people were not lining up to talk to you, and not everyone at Graham's show was there to see you. I was embarrassed for him, to be honest.

He seems like a nice kid, but I just don't get his appeal. Omg.....unless it's because I am finally getting....GASP.......old?

Nah, that can't be it.........

<_<

>_>

Baby It's Cold Outside

I have to preface this with a comment. I do not watch the show Glee on a regular basis, which means that I have never watched a full episode in my life. However, I love Christmas and anything, well...most things, associated with it. So, when I saw that Glee was having a Christmas show, I decided to tune in.

Out of the several Christmas songs they sang, their version of Baby It's Cold Outside was my favorite. Considering that I hate hate hate that song, that is definitely saying something. The fact that it was performed by two gay guys just made the performance that much more fun.

If you did not see the show, please take the time to see the performance in the video below. I don't think you will be sorry.

Lulu Assumes

We had company over the other day and not enough beds to accommodate everyone, so a comfy pallet had to be put together. Lulu assumed that the comfy spot was set up just for her, the silly girl.

Josh Douche-hamel

I don't usually blog about stuff going on in the entertainment world, but these sorts of behaviors from actors and their ilk really irritate me. The following story was copied from Yahoo's entertainment news.

*****

Josh Duhamel didn't get to fly the friendly skies on Thursday. The actor, 38, was kicked off a flight headed from NYC to Kentucky after refusing to turn off his BlackBerry before takeoff, TMZ reports.
A passenger on the flight said that Duhamel was "very rude" and "taunting" a male flight attendant's repeated requests to turn off his device.


Upon the attendant's third request, Duhamel reportedly laughed. At that point, the still-grounded plane left the runway and headed back to the gate -- further delaying the flight and reportedly angering other passengers.

Two officers later boarded the plane, and escorted the Transformers actor (and husband to singer Fergie) off the vessel.

A rep for the actor told TMZ that Duhamel was simply texting about his flight being delayed. "He's sorry," the rep added.

*****

Now, I realize that the job of Duhamel's rep is to cover the actor's ass, but still. Does he really think we are falling for that line of bullpoop?

Here's a news flash Duhamel. You aren't that great of an actor. The fact that you boink Fergie doesn't give you the right to thumb your nose at the rules. You aren't better then I am or entitled to privileges that the rest of the passengers on the plane couldn't have. Lastly, your childish behavior inconvenienced many people, hard working people, people with real jobs, because you thought you could do whatever you wanted to do.

I hope the airline you inconvenienced bars your spoiled ass from flying on their planes ever again. I hope you get charged with being a public nuisance. And I hope you realize what a jerk you were being. But I don't really expect any of those things to happen.