My $133 day

To respond to my critics, no.  I’m not at a loss of material.  I have a four year-old, my life is nothing but material.  I just like to spin it out a bit, sometimes, and not make my blogs all about me.  Now that I got that melesscentric post out of the way, we can get back to talking about me, if that’s what you really, really want.

My boo switched it up a bit this weekend and mentioned last night, when going to bed, that he’d get up with the boys this morning.  It meant that I got to sleep in this morning.  And boy, did I need it.  I started moving around about the time that I smelled the coffee brewing.  I came out of to a surprisingly quiet house.  Quiet because there weren’t nobody here!  This NEVER happens.  Where, oh where, could my boo and the kids have gone?  Was it planned?  Was this premeditated?  My quiet would be short lived.

The boo and the twin bulls came bursting in the door with BREAKFAST ($11.20), from McDonald’s!  It was a banner day, indeed.  Adrian announced, “DADDY!  I GOT A MAGIC WATCH!”…and I knew it was going to be a fantastic day.  A magic watch!  WITH BREAKFAST. 

We piddled around the house a while.  Adrian cleaned his room a couple of times while Nathan kept messing it up.  After watching more America’s Next Top Model than I could stand I begged the Kat to get us out of the house.  I convinced him to take another stab at one of our road-trip restaurants/cafes.  There’s one out of Austin, just a hair, that we were told about several weeks ago.  It’s a little town called “Manor”, and, while technically not Austin, it may as well be. 

 

290 Cafe is, obviously, on 290 about 15 minutes outside of Austin.  They’re well known for their chicken fried steak, and for good reason.  While I really was in the mood for a breakfastie type item, I went for lunch instead.

I was hard pressed to find something that didn’t sound good on the menu.  Granted, 70 percent of the items were fried, I’m not passing judgment, yet.  ALL other items were standard “comfort food” items: Roast beef & veggies, fried shrimps, etc.  After I heard the boo order his “chicken fried chicken”, I realized he was doing me a favor and opening the door for me to order the chicken fried steak.  We started off requesting an appeteaser of their onion rings and, for some stupid reason, proceeded to order the rest of our lunch as well.  Chicken strips for Nate, Steak strips for Adrian.  Chicken fried chicken with fries and okra for poppa, chicken fried steak with mashed taters and okra for me.  I was a little disappointed when everything came out together, but…

It was quite tasty:

And yes, quite fried.  Now, I did have one problem with it.  The batter was the same batter for everything, except for the okra.  The okra had a different type of batter.  But the onion rings tasted like the French fries tasted like the chicken fried steak tasted like the chicken fried chicken.  That’s coo.  I realize there’s only so many batters to pick  from.  It was tasty nonetheless. 

Now, clearly this picture was taken BEFORE Nathan started eating.  There’s no ketchup/gravy/grease anywhere on the shirt, that’s the dead give-a-way.  But the smile on his face PRE food was as big as his smile post food.  The grand total for all this deliciousness?  $51.64.  I personally felt like it was a bit expensive, particularly for lunch in a small town cafe.  I have to give the 290 Cafe a whopping 4.5 stars. 

After lunch we headed back to the house for mandatory nap time.  I’m a bit sadsies that Adrian “don’t want” or “don’t need” naps any more.  Really, it’s one of the things I counted on for the first 2 years of his life.  Fortunately Nate still digs his sleepy time.  I have NO idea what I’m going to do when he’s too big for naps. 

Adrian had been begging for a movie all day.  I decided to take him and the brother to see “Dog Hotel” at the theater.  JEZUS CHRIST the movies are expensive anymore.  $20.50 for the tickets (just for 3…we still have Nathan play “two-year-old” since he’s not talking yet!) and $17.50 for the popcorn and 2 drinks.  Adrian also wanted CANDY, and knowing this in advance, I stopped at Sun Harvest on the way to the theater and picked up a pounder of gummi-worms ($1.20), cuz there was no way I was paying $7/.25 pound at the theater.  I really dug  the show.  It was funny (for kids), emotional (for parents who have adopted children), and cute.  Sure it won’t win any awards, but it was still cute.  I mean, come on.  It had DOGS for goodness sakes.

Before we left the house for the cafe, I had put a crock pot of beef stew on. 

***COMPLETELY RANDOM THOUGHT:  I HATE that newer crock pots these days have plastic lids instead of the regular heavy glass lids.  I really feel like they don’t get weighted down enough to keep the heat in properly.

Dinner was waiting for us when we got home, the house smelled delish.  Not that we needed anything to eat after 2 gallons of popcorn and 6 (combined) liters of soda. 

I forgot to mention, while at the 290, I was a bit of an “A-Hole”.  To make up for it, I went to buy Jed a bottle of booze ($14.06) to make him some tasty frozen drinks and fill up his car with gas ($17.81) to make up for it.  Yeah, apologizing is easier, but…

So that’s how I ended up spending $133.91 today.  I can’t believe I spent so much money, but spending the time with the family…so much fun.

Waiting for milk, man

It’s a strange thing I do for the many people I love.  Earlier in the week, my hot Cousin Larry sent me a tweet telling me he’d love me for ever if I’d take the fam to the Dairy Queen that Parker Posey worked at in “Waiting for Guffman” and take pictures of us eating a blizzard.

I suppose it’s a logical assumption that as a Texas I should be a huge fan of Dairy Queen?  I mean, after all, the Dairy Queen sign pictured above is “the official stop sign of Texas”.  But, like being a bad gay, I’m also a horrible Texan.  For example, I don’t support “Death Penalty Thursdays”, and as of today I’ve only eaten at Dairy Queen twice in my life. 

It’s not that I don’t like Dairy Queen.  I suppose it’s tasty enough.  But their menu is harder to figure out than your federal income taxes and there are MUCH better places to get “ice cream” than Dairly Queen.  And yes, “ice cream” fully deserves to be in quotes there.  Cuz I don’t know what that shit they serve is, but it surely ain’t ice cream.  Apparently it comes in a colostomy bag that is pre-mixed and frozen on the spot???  That ain’t ice cream folks.  I’ve made ice cream, and I know that ain’t how it’s done.  So how do I know so much about the DQ having only been twice in my life???

As I was ordering our lunch-by-number from the apathetic angry person behind the counter, I started, as I always do, with the kids. 

“I’ll take a number 8 (three tacos) with a milk”.

“We don’t have milk”.

I laughed, because surely this cow behind the counter was yanking my chain.  “You don’t have milk”?

“No.  I di’uhnt stutter.  We ain’t got milk”.

I asked, “Well how do you make MILKSHAKES”? 

She said, “Like everyone else.  I lift the lever up”.

Whore.

So, I’m guessing the milkshakes you get at Dairy Queen aren’t, uh, authentic? 

Since I had “ordered a combo” she pulled down a 3 liter Styrofoam cup for me to get the kid some soda from the teeth rotter.  I told her it wasn’t necessary, that if THEY DIDN’T HAVE MILK, the kids WOULDN’T BE DRINKING ANYTHING…and CERTAINLY NOT 3-liters of soda…each.

So I ordered the second meal, the #6 (“The Dude”) with a diet soda for Jed.  I think Jed was hoping I’d actually say, “Give me the dude” instead of “I’ll take a #6”.  Sorry to disappoint again.  Then I went on to get Nate’s.  I said, “I’ll take the number 9 (chicken strips)" and as I gave a long pregnant pause to order something for myself, I noticed Ms. Mensa 2008 pull another 3-liter soda cup down.

Now, I sort of see the confusion.  I had just ordered Jed’s meal WITH a soda, but I didn’t ask for one for the chicken strips.  I went on to add to my order, “and a number 2” (the “belt buster”) with a coke.  When she pulled down another cup I said, “I only need two cups.  I asked for a coke and a diet coke”.  And  she said, “But you keep ordering by number and the combos come with a soda”.  Uhhhh, NO MENSA, THEY DON’T.  Perhaps it would benefit you if you looked at your own menu once in your career at the Queen.  ALL of the combos CLEARLY have the option of the meal by it’s self AND, priced separately, the same combos “WITH A SODA”.

In an effort to not have Mensa wipe my bun on her crack for pissing her off, I just dropped it and told her I was done with my order.  Four meals, two sodas, and a smile.  BUT, having gotten my lunch.  I have a question.  If you’re going to label a DOUBLE PATTY BURGER a “belt buster” WHY NOT GO AHEAD AND THROW A SLICE OR THREE OF CHEESE ON IT?  For real?  Can it really be THAT difficult to … never mind.

So, for the pics…

And JUST for my hot Cousin Larry…

Can I go ahead and make this one of my official restaurant reviews???

5 stars for eating where Parker Posey filmed, 1 star for the rest.  For reals.

 

P.S. For any of you regulars who are in touch with DQ Rick (the Dairy Fairy), make sure he sees this.  He’s got some splaining to do!  :-)

So...I'm just a little late

I mentioned several weeks ago that I had FINALLY figured out what was wrong with my video editing thingamabob and that I had several videos to get out. They seem kind of silly and pointless now; Christmas, New Years...events long since past? Nah! I beat that 30-day self-imposed deadline! I guess I should have done them in order too? But this is MY blog and I'll confuse you with randomocity if I want to.

Lady and Gents, I give you our 2009 NYE!

Monument(al)

I’m a sucker for old timey nostalgia. I enjoy getting off the major arteries in town and getting out a bit into the country and seeing things in the country. To that end, I had a couple of items on my Amazon wish list to help me find some points of interest along the way in Texas. Two years ago Jed’s mom bought me “Texas Landmark Cafes”.



Over the last two years I’ve kept it near me, either in the car or in my backpack, so that if we happened to be out and about I could see if there were any places in the book we could scratch of the list. We have actually been to quite a few over the last couple of years.

This past year Jed’s mom got me Volume 7 of the Texas “Off the beaten path” series. It not only lists restaurants to try in out of the way places, but offers suggestions of places to stay, shop, play, and see. When I woke up this Sunday morning I had a hankering to get out of life for a few hours and asked Jed if he wanted to take a stab at finding a place in either of the books and going for lunch. We had a limited amount of time, as we had a birthday party to attend at 3 Sunday afternoon. So I limited my choices to the section(s) of the book centered around the Texas Hill-country. Generally speaking, these would include areas we could get to within an hour-to-two hour time frame.

In the Texas Landmark Café book, I noticed several places that made my mouth water. I flipped through the OTBP book to see if there was anything else that sounded good and noticed they had a place that I had just flipped through in my TLC book. (It wasn’t until this morning I noticed both books were written by the same author!) I asked Jed if he wanted to try the Monument Café in Georgetown, a mere 20 miles from our house. Not quite as “off” the path as I would have hoped, but off enough! He said, “Isn’t that the place that Kevin & Leslie keep raving about and asking us to go with them”? I sent Les a text message asking her if it was and asking if her husband wanted to join Jed, the boys, and I for lunch. She replied that it was the place and to eat some fried pies for her…but Kevie had other plans (that didn’t include hanging out with homos that worship him).

Jed and I loaded up the boys, programmed in the address in the GPS and headed up the road to Georgetown, Texas. When we got to the location identified in the book I was disappointed in seeing an empty parking lot and, what appeared to be, a vacant building. I thought, surely, the GPS was wrong…so I circled around some blocks and tried to find it. We were navigated back to the vacant building. I pulled into the parking lot and there was a tiny little handwritten note on the front door that said they had moved to their new location. YAAAAY…not a wasted trip. Having reprogrammed the GPS, we headed a bit further north to the brand new location.



There were some really, really good things about this place, and some things that were really, really bad. Let’s start with the bad???

#1: For starters, there were 350,000 people waiting to get in. Is that good, or bad? Depends on how you look at it. 350,000 people trying to get into a place means the food either is good, or is covered in crack. It also means a wait. Though, seriously, I don’t think we had to wait more than 10 minutes…and so I guess, now that I’ve added this to the bad column, it really wasn’t all that bad. BUT…#2: We arrived at 1115 am on a Sunday. They cut their breakfast service off at 11. Who the fuck cuts their breakfast off at 11 on a WEEKEND? ESPECIALLY on a Sunday? Don’t they know this is prime breakfast eating time? This is when, as evidenced by the 349,996 other people wearing their Sunday suits waiting to get in, PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY FOR BREAKFAST. Now that I’ve mentioned #3: the 349,996 people in their Sunday suits, I suppose it’s time to mention another uncomfortable fact. It was clear that Sunday, January 11, 2009 was the first time 349,996 people in Georgetown, Texas ever saw two gay men with children in their lives. Talk about awkward stares. JESUS H. MARY-CHRIST. Adrian asked, at one point, “Daddy, what’s everyone looking at”? #4: They had a menu board FULL of delicious “vegetables”. Seriously savory, mouth-watering vegetables…like Mac n’ Cheese, fried zucchini, fried squash, French fries, cabbage…with fried bacon. They had ONE healthy vegetable, steamed broccoli, on the menu. We ordered our dinner(s). Adrian got the fried chicken strips with macaroni. Nathan got the fried steak fingers with macaroni. I got the chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, mac n’ cheese, and fried zucchini. Jed got the chicken fried chicken with the STEAMED BROCCOLI, onion rings and French fries. The waitress came back ten minutes later and said, “Sir, I’m sorry, but we DON’T have broccoli today”. He ended up getting fried zucchini instead. YES, everything on Jed’s plate was fried! #5: The bill, JESUS CHRIST, was it expensive for a lunch. $62 for the four of us.



So now the good. HOLY SHIT THAT FOOD WAS GOOD! Was it worth $62? HELL NO. Was it worth writing a blog about? Hell yeah. Is it worth going back? Maybe. The chicken fried steak was done right. It wasn’t a leathery, gristly piece of meat. It was prepared the right way…prepared in such a way that it could be cut with a plastic spork. It DID need some seasoning (IE: salt), but otherwise, was great. The mashed potatoes were REAL potatoes…though, curiously, they didn’t have gravy on them. Weird. The mac n’ cheese was HEAVENLY. OH-MY-GOD, was the mac n’ cheese good. And the fried zucchini was both interesting and delicious. It was the first time I’d ever had fried zucchini that was sliced the length of the zucchini, rather than “medallions” of zucchini. They were properly coated and brilliantly fried…not limp and disgusting. Jed’s onion rings were delicious…and the fried chicken (strips) were tasty too. All of the food we had was delicious. When the waitress came and asked us if we wanted desert the Presbyterians were starting to replace the seats vacated by the Lutherans...and the stares were starting up again. We told her no thanks (besides, there wasn’t any room in our bellies!).

If you’re in the area and looking to try some delicious southern comfort food, DO check out the Monument Café in Georgetown. Though, it’s not at 1953 South Austin, you’ll find it just up the road a spell at 500 S. Austin!

Tonight I died and went to Fuego's.

Y’all, I have, very seriously, eaten the very best dinner I have ever had in my entire life tonight.

Several months ago I started eating around at different hamburger places that had recently opened in town. Anyone who knows Austin knows Hut’s is the place to eat burgers. Recently 5-Guys came to town, they’re a chain. A big effin’ chain with links all over the country. Next came Mooyah’s. They’re a chain also, but they’re a Texas chain, so I forgive them. Then there was Mighty Fine. Mighty Fine isn’t a chain, yet…but it screams chain potential and everything about the place tells me you’ll be seeing one on a corner near you…soon.

Now before I get to tonight’s dinner, let me recap the three I’ve just mentioned.

Five Guys sucks balls, and not in a good way. The burger was mediocre at best. The bun couldn’t hold up to the moisture from the meat/condiments and fell apart in my hands the second I picked it up. They also forgot to put the bacon on my BACON CHEESEBURGER, which is a bit unforgiveable in my book. Even when I went up (with my receipt) to tell them they forgot to put the bacon on my BACON CHEESEBURGER the woman turned around to the prep counter, grabbed two cold limp pieces of bacon, wrapped them up in a napkin and handed them to me. FUCKING UNACCEPTABLE. Unfortunately, their fries were the bomb-digity-bomb-bomb. Why did their fries have to be so delicious?

Mighty Fine sucks donkey cock…which is a step up from balls. Their burgers are MUCH better than Five Guys, but their French fries are limper than an 87 year-old cock. And I hate limp cock…er, uh, fries. They also have a LEMONADE MILKSHAKE that is not slap your momma good…it’s give your momma an Italian necktie good.

Mooyah WAS my favorite (until…wait for it, wait for it…). Their burgers were just as good, if not better than Mighty Fine. Their fries were better than Five Guys. Mooyah is the entire package…and I WILL be eating there, still…but tonight I’ve found my 2009 every-date night-date night place. Fuego’s!

So I had been sharing with my fellow fatty (WHOOPS! I mean foodie) Kay the joys and sorrows of the burger places we had been to. A few weeks ago she told me about this place that was “somewhere near” my house. The Austin Foodies network had been RAVING about the “burgers” at this place. Purportedly, Fuego’s “Fat Burger” was the NEWEST BESTEST MOST FANTASTIC burger in Austin. I read the description of the burger which included “thick cut peppered bacon” (YUM) and …well, other burger toppings. They said the fries were the bomb. While Jed’s mom was here over the Christmas holiday I thought we could try the place out. I drove up and down Lamar by my house looking for the place. I finally spotted it at an awkward intersection on a very busy section of Lamar. At first glance I noticed A) it was in a crappy strip mall, and B) the sign actually said, “Fuego’s Mexican Restaurant”.

I wasn’t in the mood for a new Mexican find. I have my “place”. I don’t need another. I live in northern Mexico. I’m surrounded by awesome Mexican food. So we drove by, passed it. I told Kay that I wasn’t impressed with what I saw, but also admitted we hadn’t gone in.

This morning Kay forwarded me an email from her Foodie group. It was basically a plea from one of the Foodies to URGENTL get to Fuego’s before it was too late. This person had gone in last week and had a “fantastic” dinner experience but was concerned about the lack of people in the place. This person said when she paid her bill she asked the owner how business was going and she replied that it wasn’t going well because she was having problems getting people to come in the door. She had recently applied for a liquor license and was hoping she could get that before she had to close her doors for good.

It’s really not the outer appearance of the building that turns people off. Like I said, it’s on a very awkward corner. It’s at the intersection of Morrow and Lamar. Going north on Lamar there’s no left turn onto Morrow. So you have to exit Lamar onto the feeder road, go under 183, loop around the highway and u-turn back onto Lamar southbound to get to it. It’s HORRIBLE to get to. (FORTUNATELY, from my neighborhood I only have to go North to Morrow and head east to Lamar and BAM! I’m there!!!)

The thread following the plea was AMAZING. Every single person raved about how delicious everything there was and how sad they were they weren’t doing a bang up business. They encouraged everyone to pass the word to save this place.

So tonight Jed and I took the boys to Fuego’s for dinner. We decided to do a sampler menu so we could try a little bit of everything. We were, literally, the only four people in the restaurant the entire time we were there (except for the staff), so we obviously got stellar service. (Ironically as we were paying our bill and getting ready to leave a lesbian couple with a baby came in!) The food was…

HOLY

SHIT

DELICIOUS.

For the boys we ordered cheese quesadillas. Their tastes aren’t refined, therefore we stuck with the basics for them.

For Jed and myself we ordered the Carne Asada French Fries. These fries were perfectly cut and fried to a crispy crunch. They were topped with a heaping helping of carne asada (basically a crumbly roast beefy type mean) with guacamole, sour cream, and pico. We ordered a fat burger to split between us (which also came with fries) and it was every bit as good, if not better, than ANY of the previously mentioned 3. But the best part of the meal was the BBQ Salad with blackened shrimp. I seriously almost got into a fist fight with Jed for the rest of the salad. The plate was piled high with mixed greens, apples, walnuts, bleu cheese, tortilla chips, blackened grilled jumbo shrimps, and BBQ sauce. I have never eaten anything I’ve enjoyed as much as I enjoyed that salad. It is hands down my new favorite meal.

For those of you fortunate enough to live in Austin, get to Fuego’s now, today before it’s too late. It was be a crying shame for this place to go out of business just because they picked a shitty location. For those of you not in Austin, plan a trip. Not only will you get to visit me, but you’ll also get to watch me have a Meg Ryan moment with a salad that you’ll never forget.

Rachel Ray is the spawn of Santa

One of the things I hate about Rachel Ray, besides everything, is the amount of dishes her recipes take to make. I’ve blogged in the past about what a crock of pooh her “30-minute recipes” are. While they might be tasty, they certainly take more than 30 minutes to make…unless you happen to have a staff of sous chefs waiting at your beckon call with all your chopped up veggies and meats and stuff.

Jed’s mom bought me Rachel’s “Big Orange Book” for Christmas and I’ve made a couple of the recipes this weekend. Tasty, yes. But the clean-up has taken a better part of the weekend for each meal. I didn’t get a photo of the first dinner, but I did catch the aftermath.

Saturday night’s dinner was Shepherd’s pie with a grilled shrimp tomato salad with a horseradish yogurt dressing. The dinner was delicious. The dishes were a pain in the ass.

Tonight I made a Philly Cheesesteak macaroni and cheese with a Romaine/pepper/artichoke salad drizzled with a balsamic vinegarette dressing. Again, the food was the bomb digity bomb bomb, but seriously, can’t Rachel cook anything without using every pot/dish/utensil in my house?

Was it worth it?

You betcha.

Another thing I’ve noticed is her book is full of errors. Both recipes I’ve made from her book had errors. For example, in the Shepherd’s pie I was supposed to start by crisping 5 pieces of bacon and then set aside. Done. But nowhere in the rest of the recipe did it say where it was supposed to be added back in. I ended up crumbling it up and sticking it in the meat mixture…but in hindsight, I wish I would have crumbled it up and mixed it in with the bleu cheese mashed potatoes before putting it all up under the broiler. Next time, the bacon is going in the mashed potatoes. Tonight’s dinner called for 2 cups of shredded Provolone cheese. In the Bechamel it called to mix 1 ½ cups of the shredded cheese with the sauce. Then for the grand finale it called to “spread the remaining 1 ½ cups of shredded provolone” over the top of the mac before putting it under the broiler. My 4.0 tells me that 1 ½ and 1 ½ equals THREE cups, not two. You’d think the devil would have better editors.

December Challenge Day 31

DEAR BESSIE I’m glad this month is OVER!

So I sorta made the challenge, eh? I missed only a day or two? Not bad.

The boys and I had a great day. We started off the morning returning all of our duplicate Christmas gifts. The only frustration was at Best Buy trying to exchange season 4 of Oz for Season 6. They only wanted to credit me the “lowest advertised price” for the set and have me pay the difference DESPITE the fact that both sets were the same price. They said that since I didn’t have the receipt they had to assume that it was bought at the sales price. I said, “With that logic I have to assume that season 6 was on sale the same time season 4 was on sale and purchased therefore I shouldn’t have to pay the difference”. They didn’t see it that way, so I still have two sets of season 4 of hot prison love.

We made our “magic wands” later in the morning. Honestly the boys had more fun throwing confetti around the dining room than they did actually helping me out with the project. I have it all on video and I’ll be posting that in a bit…more on that later.

We took lunch up to Poppa at work and had lunch with him. At this point the boys were beginning their morning melt-down, so I rushed home and the three of us took a nap.

We made pizza for dinner and then the four of us hoped on the #5 to head downtown for “First Night” festivities. It’s Austin’s NYE celebration. I noticed earlier in the week they had built this huge, gorgeous 3-story wooden clock down on Auditorium shores. I heard on the news that it was a “resolution clock” that was basically an effigy to resolutions that was set to be set ablaze at 8 this evening. I was partly disappointed they were going to torch it, cuz it was that nice, but I was also excited for the boys to see it. We ass u med the bus would be a better, safer, option for us to get downtown…and we wouldn’t have to fight for parking. As it turns out, the buses were on “parade route”, therefore they dropped us off at 12^th and Congress and we had to hoof it the 13 blocks to auditorium shores. We made the most of it.

After having family fun down at First Night, I decided I’d rather catch a pedicab to get back to 12^th rather than carry the 35 lb. boys all the way back up there. I don’t know how or why, but Jed and I always manage to find the ONE pedicab driver that can’t support our weight. Seriously, we could have gotten back to the Capital faster on foot, but it was nice not having to carry the kids. AND it didn’t hurt the cabbie was on the cuter side (and I use that term loosely, cuz none of them were all that!). He got us back just in time for us to see our bus drive right past us. So we had to sit and wait 30 minutes for the next one. We ended up not getting home until 1030…WAY past the boys bedtime and, honestly, after mine.

I FINALLY figured out a way to get around with the problem I’ve been having with editing my videos lately. I’m bummed I haven’t been able to post or send our Christmas day video to my folks (or my interwebs stalkers) yet…but I’ve been having problems with my program. I was having the same frustrating problems editing the videos I took today and ended up downloading a different (older) version of the software and it seems to be working now. HOWEVER, as it’s 1137 in the pm, I’m too tired to work on it tonight…so I’ll get it out when I can.

It’s been a real pleasure getting to know some of you better throughout this past year. Looking forward to writing more for you and reading more of you. Hope you and yours have a safe and happy new year.

And with that, the challenge is O-V-E-R!!! YAAAAAY ME!

December Challenge Day 30

I committed one of the 7 deadly dressing sins this morning and have been mostly ashamed all day. I wore basic dungarees with my cowboy boots. I know this may not sound like a big deal to most of you, particularly anyone north of I-40, East of Slidell and West of Albuquerque, but it’s one of my many clothing pet peeves. It’s more offensive to me than “skinny jeans” on men. I can always tell when attorneys from New York or D.C. are visiting the office because they always come into town and stop by Cavenders to pick up a pair of “authentic ostrich skin cowboy boots” (cuz NOTHING says Western like OSTRICH) and they wear them with a standard pair of 501’s. For those not in the know, it is AGREGIOUS to wear cowboy boots with any jean that is NOT specifically boot cut. DO NOT wear, especially, PLEATED jeans (or khaki slacks) with cowboy boots in my presence or I will ridicule you, for real.

This morning I got up UBER early…which means I got the kids up uber early. Which means they had me rushing around at to get them out of the house before they drove me crazy. I KNEW, when reaching into the closet, I had grabbed a standard pair of dungarees, but I didn’t have time to look for MY pants (Jed don’t wear boots, only (F)reddy)…cuz Jed had been doing laundry and when Jed does laundry there’s one of 50 places my pants can end up. So I put on A) a pair of dungarees and B) a pair of LOW RISE dungarees at that (DIS-GUSTING). The top 2/3 of my ass crack was hanging out of the back of my jeans all day and to top it off I looked like I was wearing MC Hammer pants with my cowboy boots. I looked like those visiting attorneys from the north MYSELF today and I deserved every disapproving glance I got.

I mentioned I got a new dining room table from Ikea the other day. I also purchased an “occasional table”. Those damn Swedes are so funny. Here in Texas we call it a buffet. Nonetheless, I put the occasional table together and placed it in my dining “room”. I should explain that my technical dining area of my house is a 4 foot by 8 foot space off my living “room” (which is also tiny, but that’s a whole nother story…just one of the joys of living in a 1940’s era “bungalow”). For the last 10 years I’ve had my previous dining table (which was a wedding present for my grandparents 80 years ago) along the length of my 4 foot wall in my dining space. Every night at dinner we’d pull it out from the wall so the two wall seats could be seated (Jed and Nathan) and then Adrian and I would take the two non-walled spots.

Our new dining room table is actually a slight bit longer than our previous 4 foot table (6 with the leafs). But it occurred to me to position it horizontally against the four foot wall leaving it off the back of the other four foot wall. Thus creating an adequate sitting space on the back side of the table for two chairs and two seats directly across with the backs of the chairs facing the living “room”. This way we don’t have to constantly move the table back and forth betwixt meals. AND, if we ever have more people over, we can just flip it back the way it was to add the leaf to give us more space. So the new configuration, though it has more furniture IN it actually gives us not only the APPEARANCE of more space, but it’s more user friendly as well. I couldn’t be more pleased with the new layout of my space.

I got a HUGE package from my sister’s husband today. He drew my name for the holiday gift exchange. He went BALLS OUT for me. He’s really an awesome bro-in-law. I got a new watch (honestly, my VERY FIRST WATCH that I’ve worn in 19 years!); Oz Seasons 4 and 5; The last Pirates of the Caribbean movie; NEW UNDIES; and an official White House souvenir Christmas Tree Ornament. NOT TO MENTION, the kids got a HUGE (and I mean HUGE) assortment of musical instruments (an accordion; a triangle, a tambourine; and some mariachis and some other things. They went ape shit crazy with the instruments and we’ve been singing since we got home. Seriously, my bro-in-law rocks socks.

I’m off for the next 5 days again. Tomorrow I’m going to spend the day with my kids making party wands filled with confetti and some noise makers too for an early NYE evening with them. I’m so looking forward to spending quality daddy time with them tomorrow. We may even go to Chick-A-Fil for lunch!

December Challenge Day 22

For some bizarre reason, between 10 pm last night and 515 this morning my SIM card in my cell phone fried itself, dead. This now makes two days in a week’s time that I’ve not had my cell phone with me during the day. I cannot believe how lost I feel without the damn thing. I am a crack whore and, apparently, my cell phone is my crack. I was in a cold sweat the better part of the day.

If I never see the inside of another Target in my lifetime it’ll be too soon. Yes, I filled up the tank so I could make yet ANOTHER trip to my local Target. I swear one of these days I’m going to win a door prize for being the one millionth customer or something.

We have been super busy tonight getting our house in tip-top shape for the “big day” on Thursday. I plan on videotaping the wrapping paper massacre that’s sure to take place after the kids toss their gifts from the jolly fat man aside. Perhaps that’ll even be my blog-o-the-day post on Christmas day. I KNOW you’re dying to hear me scream at my children on film.

In preparation we cleaned up our dog’s bedroom. She has completely torn that shit up. I don’t know what she was looking for in there, but she tore that shit up. FOR REAL, she tore that shit up. Jed did a bang up job cleaning up her room (for his mommy, who is coming to our casa for the Christmas carnage)…but he brought PILES AND PILES of “stuff” into the living room (which I was supposed to be cleaning) to sort through. He basically cleaned his room by messing up mine! Ain’t that love? Don’t answer. It was rhetorical.

The good news about Jed doing a through cleaning of Sam’s room was that he found tons and tons of paper products that I could just recycle. IE: Time Warner bills from 2006. Since we haven’t HAD Time Warner SINCE 2006 I felt it was a safe recycle. It feels GREAT purging that much stuff.

I’ve decided that after the boys have their fun tearing up my freshly cleaned house on Thursday that I’m going to have them each fill up a (large) box of old(er) toys to get rid of before they’re allowed to open any of their new stuff. Call me Scrooge, call me a dick. Call me what you want, but I prefer practical.

I gotta get to sleep. I’m exhausted. The next 2 days are going to be INSANELY crazy for me. Happy Monday, yo. For real.

P.S. Sean, you sure got some real pretty handwriting.

December Challenge Day 21

Folks, I gotta make this quick! I can't believe I almost missed it today. Curses, where has my day gone...

(tick tick tick tick)

I got to sleep in a bit this morning. Jed and I split the weekends so each of us get to sleep in late at least one day a week. And by late, I mean I didn't have to get up at 530 this morning, I got to sleep until 615. The very first thing I did when I woke up this morning was run to Target for my 113th time this week. You know it's bad when the person who checks you out (er, uh, rings you up) A) says, "HI (F)REDDY" when you walk up to the register and B) is the same cashier that rang you up at 1030 the night before. BUT since today WAS Sunday AND the start of a new sales circular week I felt it was necessary to run up there to find anything I may be missing. NOT TO MENTION I still hadn't found the gifties for Cousin Ash's husband, Derwood. WHAT TO YOU BUY AN ACCTUARY? Every place I've been is out of hand stitched leather pocket protectors...so I was a little lost. I FINALLY got a text message from Ash about som Wii games he wanted, so I ran up there to see if I could find them. NO SUCH LUCK. I DID happen to notice, however, that the Dual Screen DVD players that I found on Black Friday for $88 that immediately went up to $164 the hour following Black Friday were back on sale for $83. I went ahead and bought it as a back up gift just in case I couldn't find the Wii games anywhere. The thing is, ASH is the one who wanted the DVD player for the car, NOT Derek.

I went home and loaded up the family and we drove to Columbus to drop Adrian off with grandma. Relax bitches. Columbus, Texas, not Columbus, Crazy. We had a delightful lunch at Schoebles (pronounced "Shy-bulls" for you Yankee folks), seriously, it was FANTASTIC. We couldn't get Adrian and his crap out of the car fast enough before we got back on the road to come back to Austin.

We stopped at the South Austin Wally World, the ONLY place I could find on-line inventory listings that had the Wii Game Donald wants for Christmas. AS A BONUS, the game was on sale in the store for cheaper than it was on the web. Daniel better be DAMN happy with this game for as much as I did to get him something HE wanted!Got home and napped with the bug while Jed visited with our dear sweet Heath-O (Pronounced "Heath-O" for you Yankee folk).

When I woke up I ran some errands in this order:

Furniture in the Raw: We've been looking for a new dining room set. We found one we really liked there in November for about $180 (for the table) and $80/ea. for the chairs. There was a commercial on T.V. last night that the entire store was 50% off...so I went. I, jokingly, said to Jed on the way to Columbus (TEXAS) this morning that I'd be willing to bet my third testicle that the store marked their prices up 85% to give 50% off. AND I WASN'T TOO FAR OFF. The table that we liked A MONTH AGO was marked up to $999 with a 50% off sale price of $499. STILL $210 MORE than it was originally a month ago. OH, and those chairs. Today's price $274/ea. marked 50% off. FUCK YOU furniture in the raw, fuck you very much.

HEB: Jed asked for Chicken Pot Pie for dinner tonight. After I pulled the car out of the ditch I drove into when he said it I said, "OKAY", without giving him a chance to change his mind. Cuz TRUST me when I say my boo ain't a chicken pot pie kind of guy. Perhaps it had something to do with the bitter cold weather this morning???

Target: AGAIN. For real. I've been to Target 3 times today and I think "Ryan" the cashier thinks I'm stalking him. But I had to return the DVD player and buy Jed some fru-fru peppermint flavored mocha frappasumthing.

Crestview IGA: I was outta beer and there was a little girl in there selling fresh hot tamales that I bought...

Dinner was just getting out of the oven when I got home and Heath-O joined us for a family dinner. Out of habit we grabbed the "guest chair" for her place at the table and then we all realized Adrian wasn't there. BOO HOO. So quiet in our house tonight.

I wrapped 513 Christmas presents tonight while we listened to Christmas music and Jed asked me how much a GPS unit costs these days. It was while looking on-line that I realized I hadn't entertained you people yet today...and so here I am.

What a super fantastic weekend. Hope y'alls was swell too. Gearing up for an UN-believably busy holiday week. But you know what? I'm blessed with a super fantastic family and a great group of friends (both IRL and IIL)...so it's all worth every second that I don't have to myself.

December Challenge Day 19

December 19, 2005 I went to Georgetown, Texas to meet Nathan and find out when he was going to get to live with us. CPS ended up throwing a car seat in the back of my Jeep and wished me luck as I headed out of the parking lot.

It’s been a mostly wonderful 3 years. Yeah, sure there was that almost two year period with the social worker who ended up being a felon and had to have our case start over from scratch. And there’s that whole “not talking” thing (WHICH, now that he’s talking doesn’t seem as bad…in hindsight).

We’re a family of celebrations. We celebrate each day each boy came to live with us. We celebrate the days that both of us got to adopt each of them. We celebrate the birthdays, the first poopie in the toilet days, the first made it through the day without getting in trouble at school days (haven’t had any of those yet!). But these days that each of the boys came into our lives are extra special for me. They’re the equivalent of having my water broke, it’s the only similar experience I can think of.

So tonight we celebrated 3 great years with Nathan in our lives.

That was then:



This is now:

December Challenge Day 18

Since the last two posts have been boringly serious, let’s aim for levity today, shall we?

I’ve been sitting on these pics for about a week now. After the Chuck E. Cheeses party Adrian and I went to last weekend we stopped by my gal-pal, Elizabeth’s house. She had gotten a couple of pot bellied pigs about a year or so ago and had been wanting the boys to meet them. I don’t know how it works in the rest of the country, but here in Texas our farm animals are 100% fully integrated!

This here is Nathan…cautiously optimistic that the pig won’t eat him.



This are my friend, Elizabreast. She’s a hottie WITH a body.



Where do you feed YOUR pigs?



I had mentioned to Nathan the best way to dispose of a body is to feed it to the pigs. You can understand his apprehension in waving a cucumber slice near his mouth.



Adrian, however, was fearless and didn’t believe me when I told him about the dead bodies.



YES, everyone in Texas has pigs in their house. Just deal with it ya damn Yankees.

December Challenge Day 17

Forgive me in advance. I was at the school today in a 3 hour meeting with the vice-principal and the counselor. Little was resolved and we both need to be back tomorrow at 150 to add the teacher into the exact same mix. That was my day. Needless to say I am in a shit mood, and this is all you get.

December Challenge Day 16

I’ve had a really weird day. I woke up in a surprisingly fantastic mood following a night of restless sleep. I’m not sure why I didn’t sleep well. The boys and I had a great morning. There were few spills at breakfast. No tears while getting dressed and getting off to school.

I should back up about 13 hours before I woke up…

Everyone knows we’ve been having behavioral issues with Adrian at school. These past two weeks have been horrible. We had worked out an “improvement plan” with his teacher, wherein she was supposed to fill out a daily calendar and send it home every night so we could see exactly where it was he was falling down on his behavior. Jed had ANOTHER parent/teacher conference with her this past Friday, and I guess since she had met with him she decided it wasn’t worth sending a daily report home. According to Adrian he had a “good day” on Friday. When I dropped him off at school yesterday she said he, in fact, hadn’t had a good Friday. When I picked him up yesterday he again, was missing his daily report. His after school peeps reported he had a fantastic afternoon and was very well behaved. Since his folder wasn’t in his backpack I asked him how his day was. He said it was “good” and that he “listened to his teacher”. I took him at his word, and we had a great evening. We went to the store and bought a gingerbread men(s) kit to take to his class for a fun project and ordered a tray of sammiches for his holiday party tomorrow afternoon. We had a great night.

So back to this morning…

As I said, I was in a surprisingly good mood when I woke up this morning. I took him to school and went in with the gingerbread kit. When I got to the classroom I handed it to her and mentioned how I saw it and thought it’d be fun for the class. I also mentioned how I had ordered the sammiches for the party and she said, “Oh thank you so much. Not many parents signed up for stuff and I was worried. I really appreciate it…” and in the same breath, without skipping a beat, she dropped her chin to her chest and her eyes to the ground and said, “Did Jed get my message about yesterday”? And I was clueless, but knew that I was fixing to get the wind full on blasted out of my sails. I told her I didn’t think so because he hadn’t said anything to me about a phone call from her. And then she went into a tirade about what a complete and total shit Adrian was yesterday. I swear to god I went from 70 to 0 in 1.7 seconds. She also told me that she had to send him to the principal, who then sent him to the counselor, who decided it would be best for both of us to come in again to talk to the teacher, the principal, AND the counselor. I looked at Adrian and said, “You told me you had a good day yesterday”. And he just looked like he was going to cry. And so I told him to not worry about it, we’d discuss it later. I told him to have a good day and to try as hard as he could to be a good boy today.

So I was ten-shades of pissed for getting bamboozled while in my good mood. While I take responsibility for my son’s behavior, I was mostly angry that if she was having issues with my child that she needed to follow through with HER responsibilities and commitments. Why the fuck didn’t she send a note home with her “issues”? I steamed for a better part of the day. I can’t tell you what being told what a horrible child your son is EVERY SINGLE DAY does to you. I get filled with anxiety EVERY SINGLE DAY that I have to take him to and pick him up from school. I can’t stand to walk in that building any more. I can’t stand forcing him to go into a place I know he CLEARLY isn’t enjoying.

So I picked him up this afternoon, hole in my stomach, filled with anxiety. I got him from extend-a-care and Mr. Hottie Bobby came up and said that Adrian had a FANTASTIC afternoon; he was really well behaved; and he was just a joy to be around today. I grabbed Adrian’s backpack and I’ll be fucked to ever loving tears if his mother fucking notebook wasn’t in there again today. So I asked Bobby if he knew how his morning was and Bobby said his teacher didn’t mention anything about it. She, of course, leaves at fucking 2 o’clock every day, so there’s no fucking chance for me to talk to her about whether or not he behaved today. I asked Adrian how his day was and he, as always, says it was “good” and that he listened to his teacher. And, as usual, I have to take him at his word.

To say I was livid when I got home is an understatement. I am so angry with his teacher right now. One would think that in this time when WE are supposed to be getting HIS behavior in check that SHE would take the fucking ONE MINUTE A DAY to fill out his fucking calendar with a SYMBOL representative of how his hours went. It’s not rocket science the routine we’ve come up with. It’s a fucking calendar with ONE HOUR TIME BLOCKS through a regular day and she either puts a “STAR” for “excellent behavior”; a “SMILEY” for “pretty good behavior, minimal redirection needed”; a “STERN FACE” for “not to good, but not horrible. Needed lots of redirection”; or a “FROWN FACE” for “I wanted to kill him”. IT’S NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE. WHY IS IT SO FUCKING DIFFICULT TO MAKE SURE IT COMES HOME EACH DAY?

The negative side to this frustration is it (I KNOW THIS IS WHERE I FAIL AS A PARENT AND A PARTNER) makes me take it out on MY FAMILY. When Jed got home I was angry, and loud talking about my frustration. And while it isn’t directed AT HIM, it comes off as me attacking him. And regardless of what the boys do I find myself being hypersensitive to their behavior and overreacting for the most ridiculous of tiny offenses. PERFECT EXAMPLE: I asked Adrian to sit in a chair and watch Suess’s “Grinch” when we got home. After the third time of him getting up and walking around I flew off the proverbial handle and put him in his pajamas and told him to go to bed…AT FIVE FORTY FIVE IN THE EVENING. I KNOW my reaction wasn’t rational. But I don’t know how else to get him to “listen” to his teacher…or me.

The thing is, I don’t have a problem with Adrian and his behavior. BOBBY doesn’t have a problem with Adrian and his behavior. NOBODY has a problem with Adrian and his behavior EXCEPT FOR HIS TEACHER. She’s THE ONLY person who can’t connect with him and get him to “perform” for her. And I don’t know where the disconnect is. This whole school experience has turned me into a monster and I don’t know what to do about it. So Adrian is in his room in his pajamas in his bed crying…and I’m in the kitchen feeling like a shitty parent.

I don’t want to “out kid” the kids. I WANT them to enjoy the best parts of their lives…their childhood. I don’t want my child to respect me because he fears me, I want my child to respect me because I’VE EARNED HIS RESPECT. I failed my son as a parent today. Today I don’t feel like I’ve earned anything except for a hot steamy pile of shit in my mouth.

Eventually I had Jed play “good cop” and go get Adrian out of his bed. We had a wonderful family dinner. And I tried to refocus and end the day on a positive note. After dinner, Adrian and I…

Made a Gingerbread House…and reconnected…and made the best out an incredibly shitty day.

Enjoy.

December Challenge Day 13

I’ve had my tits slung over the stove ALL friggin’ day. Well, except for that hour I had to go hang with the straighties this morning followed by the hour at the grocery market followed by the hour and a half nap with the kids. With the exception of THOSE few precious hours, I’ve been in the kitchen ALL EFFIN’ day. Did we rewind to Thanksgiving? It sure feels like it.

So I wanted to put some drivel out for you, the ones who are expecting me to fail miserably in the challenge. I figure if I get this put out by midnight on the west coast, I’ve complied with the rules of the challenge.

TOP CHEF:

Cuz I’m a…

Anyway, so I spent the day in the kitchen finalizing 2/3 of the treats that I’m making for the holidays for friends, teachers, Jed’s co-workers, etc. The kids helped me out a bunch, and had a lot of fun. We made about 12 pounds of spicy pretzels; chocolate covered pretzels (they didn’t turn out too pretty, but, as Adrian said, “Drizzlin’ chocolate is the shit, pops”; chocolate covered Oreos (again, drizzle baby, drizzle); and 18 pounds of caramel corn. I’ve still got a little bit left to do tomorrow, but…hopefully it won’t take me the entire again. I’ve gone through a minimum of 180 Ziplock baggies; 28 sticks of butter; 8 pounds of brown sugar; 6 pounds of chocolate; and a gallon of corn syrup. I’ve literally used more butter today than I have all of last year.

Cinderfella, Cinderfella, all he hears is Cinderfella:

The boys played hurricane Ike in their room today, minus the water. The room looked like a bomb had gone off. Jed cleaned it three times. On the third time, he decided to start pulling toys out, leaving each boy with 5 toys. There’s a little anger in the house tonight. The boys are angry cuz they only have 5 toys each. Jed’s angry cuz he had to be the Grinch who stole the gifts of Christmas past.

Toilet madness:

I don’t know how often the rest of the planet goes through toilet seats, but I seem to be cursed with the shittest toilet seats in America. I have, no kidding, replaced my toilet seat a minimum of 4 times in the last year. For some reason the rim keeps cracking and breaking. NOW, in case anyone is interested, I did NOT change the toilet seat today while I was doing all my cooking…but it IS on my list of shit to do tomorrow.

Satan Clause:

The shopping is officially done folks! After we had dinner last night, Jed sent me to Toys R Crap for the “Sale of the CENTURY”. He was off all day on Friday and said several times throughout the day they were advertising on the television Toys R Us’s biggest sale of the year. Jed said, “The whole store is 40-75% off”. While he was shopping throughout the day, looking for gifts for the boys, I had given him a $40 each/boy limit on the gifts. Honestly folks, we’re about to get SO MUCH STUFF over the next two weeks from all the family/friends that the thought of where to put it all has already overwhelmed me. That said, I didn’t see the need to go and buy a bunch of stuff of our own, because by the time all the gifts are opened, the boys are going to be so distracted they’re not going to care who got them what. I did buy two special gifts from Santa…

I have to say, sending ME to Toy’s R Us by myself isn’t a good idea, at all. The place is a grown up kid’s wet dream. I found so much stuff that I couldn’t live without. I ended up getting Nate some dinosaurs. The kid is REALLY into dinosaurs lately. I got Adrian a really cool kids keyboard that plugs into a regular computer and it’s got a drawing pad on the side with an electronic pen. It’s supposed to help him learn how to write and read. I have a feeling what it’s REALLY going to do is eat up some of my precious computra time. I had a lot more stuff in my basket, but I ended up putting a lot back cuz I didn’t want to go crazy.

I’m really so tired that’s all I can think of at the moment. This will have to do for day number 13, I’ll try to do better tomorrow.

December Challenge Day 11

MIND PURGE:
I’ve been mostly awake since 242 this morning. I know this, because I got up and walked into the living room to see what time it was. The funny thing is, when I woke up I felt completely refreshed. Like I seriously thought I had OVER-slept and was running late. Noticing it was only 242, I knew I should probably lay back down and try to finish out the night. But I couldn’t fall asleep, of course, UNTIL about 30 minutes before the alarm was scheduled to go off…then I was COMPLETELY knocked out. My mind, during that three hours, was racing on a variety of topics. None really interesting, mind you. BUT since I have this “challenge”, what better place to purge, eh?

THE CONTINUING SAGA OF MY TOOTHLESS ASSHOLE:
I’m so glad hot Dr. Michael from Stuttgart took the time to post a comment on my blog yesterday. He rarely does, so when he shows up it’s an extra special treat. It may have been the subject matter, given Michael is a dentist, and one that I wouldn’t mind drilling around in my mouth! But he sort of touched on something very important in follow up to yesterday’s shag-nasty story.

I went to the Dental Barn and my uber-Metrosexual dentist listened to my tale of woe. He then said, “I can do an impression for you for a new crown today, or you can continue looking for your crown for the next two days and if you find it you can bring it in and I’ll put it back on”. Now, folks, I didn’t drop the thing on the floor in my living room and just couldn’t see it. What he had in mind was totally what Jed suggested. He wanted me to filter through my pooh and look for my tooth. He said, “I know it sounds disgusting, but we do it all the time. We’ll just wash it off, pop it in our sterilizer and it’ll be cleaner than it’s been for the last 8 years you’ve had it in there”. And he actually put my mind at ease. What sealed the deal was when he said, “It’ll be the difference between $518 for a new crown, or a $20 co-pay to have the original cemented back in”.

$498 is a lot of money. It didn’t take much convincing for me to decide what I was going to do. I told his dental hygienist that I would schedule an appointment for Friday morning and that I would look for the tooth between now and then. On Friday I will either bring in a corn-covered tooth, or I’ll have a new one made. I called in sick to work (NOT GAY), stopped by my local Walgreen’s for a bottle of Mag Citrate and went home to shit myself crazy for the rest of the day looking for my tooth.

NOW, I realize I’m opening myself up to a life-time of “Your breath smells like shit” jokes. SO, I have decided that I’m NOT going to reveal, ever, whether or not I found the tooth and whether or not I’ve got a new one. If any of you meet me in person, you’ll just have to wonder yourselves for the rest of your life! So this is officially the end of my traveling tooth saga.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME FOR THE HOLIGAYS:
Jed and I are 100% on the same page about where we spend Christmas day. Our boys WILL wake up in their own beds on Christmas day for the next dozen or so years so they can see what Satan brings them. This is our decision. It doesn’t matter what we have to do to be sure we’ll make that happen. The last couple of years we have gone to Galveston the day before Christmas eve, done the family Christmas eve spectacular on Christmas eve and then we load up the car and immediately head home at warp speed. Yeah, driving at midnight for 4 hours on Christmas eve sucks, but it’s completely worth it to see the boy’s faces on Christmas morning. THIS year, I’m not sure what’s going on. For the first time in a decade, our schedules don’t match up. Jed is off on the 24th and 25th, and I am off on the 25th and 26th. I guess the good news is we’re both off on Christmas day. But we may need to split up on Christmas eve, which totally sucks. The LAST time we split up on Christmas eve didn’t end well and I got stuck in OKC for a week! I’m having a mini-freak out about what this Christmas will look like.

ADDITIONALLY, my mind was racing about things I still have left to do “gift-wise” to finish preparing for the holidays. I still haven’t bought the boys anything. It’s hard to buy stuff before I actually need it. Living in a very small house, we have limited hiding space, and it never fails that Adrian will find it and bring it to me and ask if he can open it now. So I’ve been putting it off on one hand, but on the other hand I still don’t know what I want to get them. I also still have to get some more stuff for Cousin Ashley’s husband…whom I don’t really know that well insofar as what kind of stuff he likes…but I “drew” his name for the family gift exchange and am obligated to do so. AND ON TOP OF ALL THAT I still have to make all my candies and snacks and other stuff for all of the teachers, aides, bus drivers, etc. that are involved in the boy’s lives. I’ve got to do that this weekend…and while I love cooking, I stress out about whether or not I’ve forgotten anyone.

My dearest Walt has sent me 4 gigs of Christmas music that I’ve been playing on a non-stop loop since the beginning of December…so that’s been helping me get in the mood for Christmas and getting all this stuff done.

ABA:
I’m not talking about the Swedish pop SUPERSTARS…I’m talking about the end of this very long semester. The semester wasn’t longer than usual, it was mostly long because of the HUGE number of complete idiots in the classes I’ve had. I’ve discovered that I actually ENJOY math. Who knew? I distinctly recall, from high school, saying daily that this stuff was pointless and I’d never use it. And I was right. I’ve NEVER used it. And so when I had to take all these math classes for my degree program I had a little mini-freak-out. It turns out that I’m purdy good at this math thing. It’s like working a puzzle in a way. I killed the curve in the math class I took this semester. I was kicking myself last night because I showed up to take my final. And as professor hottie was handing out the exam he asked the idiot next to me if she had taken the last test yet. She said, “No, I’m going to take the zero and substitute it for my final”. I was confused. I said, “Huh? We don’t have to take the final”? And I was informed that the lowest test grade is dropped and that if we were fine with our previous grades we didn’t need to take the test. I’ve gotten a consistent 98, 98, 98, 94 on the four tests we’ve taken. So I technically didn’t need to take the test. BUT since I was there already AND I find it disrespectful to not show up when the professors give up their time, I decided to stay and take the test. And I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed taking that test…and that class, in general.

My history class sucks balls. I hate history. History sucks. You know why history sucks? Because everyone from history is dead, and being dead sucks. What I beat myself up about is I didn’t even have to take this fucking class. It wasn’t a requirement for my degree program. I was SUPPOSED to take a GOVERNMENT class, and I accidentally signed up for history. I didn’t realize it until a week before the final drop date, and by that point I had committed and decided to finish it. DESPITE the fact that it’s going to completely fuck up my 4.0 GPA. Because I’m going to be DAMN lucky if I get a B in the class. The final is tonight, so this is another thing that kept my mind racing.

My English Comp II class was ANOTHER freebie class that I ACCIDENTALLY signed up for this semester. I REALLY must learn to read the fine print, eh? I thought it was a logical assumption that if you were required to take ENGLISH COMP I, that English Comp II was going to be a requirement. OTHERWISE, why the fuck would you put the “I”??? So I’m beating myself up for wasting an entire semester with two classes I didn’t even need. Fortunately for me I skated through my English Comp II class. And I really, really enjoyed it. I had a mini-anxiety attack at the beginning of the semester because the Comp II class was different than the Comp I class in regards to in Comp I you were allowed to pick your own subject matter for your essays. In Comp II, we had to do literary analysis of short fiction. I think everyone is aware that I don’t “pleasure read”? I hate reading almost as much as I hate dentists (EXCEPT FOR YOU MICHAEL!). The thought of having to read 19 stories in 9 weeks filled me with dread. It ended up not being so bad, but…fine print (F)reddy, read…fine…print. As I said, SKATED by, got an A. Done with it.

While on the subject of my grades and school in general, I suppose now would be a good time to announce the results of the latest blog poll. In regards to how many classes I should take this next semester: 4 of you think I should cut back to 1 class and take 19 years to finish this damn thing; 6 of you think I should go back to the 2 that I took last semester; only 2 of you thought I did okay with the 3 classes I took this semester while maintaining my on-line life; and 2 of you thought I was too old to be in school and should finish this up quicker and take 4 classes. While I didn’t take any of the votes into serious consideration, I decided to (AND ALREADY DID) enroll in 4 classes this next semester.

WHERE ARE MY…:
The last thing that was rushing through my pea-sized brain during the early morning hours was the amount of stuff I want to get done around the house during the next 4 weeks before this next semester starts. I have NO idea how or if I’ll be able to get it done, but my list is growing. I’ll just check it off a little at a time and won’t sweat the rest.

December Challenge Day 9

Yet another Christmas post, this is a tour of some of my more favorite ornaments on the tree. This isn’t an inclusive photo blog, but some of my more favorite ornaments…

A parent’s tree wouldn’t be a parents tree without handmade ornaments from daycare from the kids. This is one that Nathan made last year.



This is one of both of our favorites. This was Adrian’s second year of daycare. He was, apparently, sick the day the photo was taken, but it gets put on our tree every year cuz it’s so fucking adorable.



And until this just completely falls apart, this will ALWAYS be our tree topper. It’s a reindeer made out of a toilet paper roll. The antlers of the reindeer are cut-outs of Adrian’s hands.



Every German household has a pickle ornament. It’s a tradition. I like my pickle.


Our dear friends, Leslie & Kevin, have made us ornaments for the last two years. I hope it’s a tradition that continues, because I truly look forward to them. (NO PRESSURE LESLIE!)





My folks picked up this one for us in Hawaii. Who doesn’t love a guy in a skirt?



A comic geeks house wouldn’t be complete without passing on the tradition to the kids. This is Nathan’s favorite comic book character.



And Adrian’s favorite???



There’s a Mexican game called “Lotteria”, which is a complete rip off of Bingo. Instead of letters and numbers though, they call pictures. There was a vendor at a street fair here in town a few years ago selling Lotteria ornaments. I liked this one.



Mukwanago is a small town in Wisconsin where my favorite of favorite relatives, Uncle Clyde, lives. It also happens to be very near the one horse town my mom grew up in. When we went to visit Clyde for my aunt’s funeral a couple of years ago we picked this one up.



Jed’s aunt started buying us the Radko collectable ornaments a few years ago. I think people are crazy for spending this much on single ornaments, but I really like them. They, of course, go at the very top of the tree so the boys can’t reach them.

Radko’s cupcake.



Radko’s Satan in a hammock.



Radko’s Satan checking his list.



Radko’s bionic dog.



We picked this one up earlier this year in Gruene (pronounced “Green”) Texas at a market days event. It’s a very simple collection of stars cut from a steel drum. Because nothing says Christmas like stars cut from a toxic waste drum.



And finally, I don’t even know what to say about this one. It’s so awful that I think it’s one of my favorites. The legs on this little fella are slinky like, so you can stretch them. I LOVE my hairy monkey boy.

Ecemberday AllengeChay Eight ointpay ewwwwtay

I uzway eyingtray ewtay ebay ubtlesay at innerday while alkintay ewtay Edjay. I entionmayed that Athannay issmayed Antasay at oolskay this orningmay.

Jed looked at me onfusedkay and said, “(F)reddy, did you say something.”

And osay I epeatedray what I had just aysayed.

He looked at me again like I had a okstray.

I repeated it one more time.

He said, “I have NO idea what you’re saying.”

I uldn’tkay opstay aughinlay. I said, “Don’t think I’m not going to ogblay about this”! And then
I asked him if he wanted another ammichsay!

I love my ittenkay.

Off to a test...wish me luck...I think I may need it onightay.

December Challenge Day 8

Christmas Vomit:

Christmas threw up over our house on Thanksgiving weekend, here’s a little tour for ya.
We’ll start with the stockings that we will all find our Satan gifts on Christmas morning. NOW I KNOW everyone is saying, “Where’s the ‘f’, where’s the ‘j’”? THINK ABOUT IT FOLKS!



Somewhere along the way Jed managed to start collecting Satan. His mommy gets him one a year. The problem is, if you’re doing the math, he should have a lot more. We think one of our former roommates accidentally took a box with them when they left. What’s left over are the Santa’s you see on top of the bookcases. Some of them I really dig.









This is our finished tree product. I don’t have the lights on in the pic, but the lights are colored. BJ I was a HUGE fan of the white lights. Jed likes colored lights, and this is a compromise I have accepted. ALSO, I like big gay trees, but Jed feels like my trees resemble more of a Liberace fingerset rather than a Christmas tree. So I’ve lost the gold wrapping. BUT I’ve also not found anything I like better, so I don’t wrap anything around the tree.



This bookcase is our main focal point in our living room. Therefore this is where we’ve staged quite a bit of our stuff. I’ll get down to the specifics below.



This is our countdown to Satan.



Jed, apparently, also collects Nativity scenes? Weird. Actually, now that I’ve said that out loud, I think one of them is mine! Bygones.



This is Jed’s nativity scene. I “like” it, but we don’t GET IT. Toothpicks? Toothpicks for a stable? For real?



This be the last of our Christmas vomit. My sister made me one of the trees a few years ago and I don’t recall where the second one came from. The Santa is another of Jed’s collections.



We’ve got some shit outside of our house too, but you may have to just cope with the loss, or perhaps I’ll do an outdoor blog in the next couple of weeks.