What do you think?

Did you see The Office last night?  That last scene was incredibly sweet.  It has been SO cringe worthy the last few weeks.  Last night’s BEST SCENE was when Jim got Kelly the Twilight poster.  I nearly lost it.

Anyway. Yay it’s Friday.  It’s going to be rainy here all weekend but at least it’s the weekend!  Lucy was too cute this morning.  She loves to help out and she thought that she could help by carrying my purse/camera bag to the car:

She dragged it pretty far before she let me trade her for my umbrella.  So cute. Don’t worry she did get a jacket before we went outside.

In other news I’m getting a haircut today!  I’m trying a new place and I’m a bit nervous.  I’ve been paying WAY too much for my hair.  I’m a bit embarrassed actually by how much I’ve been paying.  I have really hard hair to cut and I found someone who could do it but her prices just kept going up.  When I first started going to her it was $110-which is RIDICULOUS for a haircut but I rationalized that since I don’t color my hair, it was okay to pay more for a really good cut.  Well the last year or so her price has been $147.  Add a 20% tip to that and I’ve been paying $175 for a HAIRCUT Ridiculous.  I DO NOT have that kind of money.  Add to that, the fact that I’ve been EXTREMELY unhappy with my hair for the last 3 cuts.  That’s 5 months of hating my hair at $175 a pop for a grand total of $525.  That makes me a little ill.  Here’s my hair this morning:

Ugh that does not look like $175 hair.  I don’t even know what $175 hair looks like but that is not it.  I really hope that this new lady is good because I DO have really difficult hair to cut.  This place is right around the corner from my work and there are over 200 reviews on Yelp and they have 4.5 stars.  The girl I’m going to has FABULOUS reviews, so I’m hopeful.  The only negative for her according to Yelpsters? She’s expensive at $60 a pop.  I literally laughed hysterically.

Enough of that.  Onto CHRISTMAS!  I am usually the BIGGEST scrooge.  I used to LOVE Christmas but ever since adulthood hit I’ve basically despised it.  I won’t get into why here BUT having Lu has completely changed that.  I’ve been listening to Christmas music, I’ve decorated, my Christmas shopping is done, my Christmas menu is planned, and yesterday I bought my first poinsettia!

It’s so pretty!  And Shaun even exclaimed and liked it (he’s usually not into things like this).  It really gives the room a nice feeling. Yay!

Lastly, Shaun and I stayed up WAY too late last night.  This necessitated a trip to Starbucks this morning.  I don’t think I was the only one who stayed up too late.  Check it out:

It was seriously packed.  I am enjoying my Tall Soy Eggnog Latte though.  I only allow myself one once a season since they are so full of sugar but it was worth it this morning.  Now I’m a little hyper.  Off to burn that energy off working!

I got burned out on salad.  I used to eat it every day, if not twice a day.  Finally, one day I was like “NO MORE SALAD!” and I’ve hardly ever made it for myself again.  I get it sometimes when I’m out but almost never at home.  The same thing happened with apples.  I used to eat one every day and now I can hardly stomach them 🙁

Anyway-tonight may have changed my salad aversion! It was just Lucy and me tonight and traffic was HORRIBLE.  We got home basically in time for her dinner and then straight to bed :(.  I heated up leftover pizza bombs for her and then went rummaging through my fridge to find something to eat.  I came up with this:

It’s a bed of baby spinach, with cucumber, orange peppers, smoked wild salmon, capers, and shredded goat cheese with a citrus vinaigrette. It was absolutely DELICIOUS! I think what made it so good was the combo of the goat cheese, salmon and capers. YUM.

Lucy enjoyed hers too:

I’d say we both REALLY enjoyed dinner:

I have Shepherds Pie on the menu this week and I really hope that I get to make it tomorrow-so be on the lookout for that!

I prepared and shipped three packages this morning:

Evidently I always open boxes from the bottom?  Both of the boxes I reused were opened upside down. 2 were gifts for friends (I finished knitting a hat last night for a friend’s little boy and I FORGOT to take a picture). And the last one was the pumpkin butter!

It got shipped this morning!

While I was in front of the bookcase, I thought I’d take some pictures of my stockings.

I knitted and felted Lucy’s (the middle one) last year and have mine and Shaun’s almost done but I knew I wouldn’t have time this year to finish them so we bought those from Pier 1. The reindeer hangers are new and I love them!

(Target)

I’m increasingly frustrated with my picture taking abilities.  I think I’m okay at close up stuff but I think anything that’s not close up is pretty awful.  Shaun encouraged me to take a photography class and I may look into it.

Okay, the shipping took a big chunk of my time this morning, I’ve gotta hop to!

Divya!

Divya-I’ll need your name and address where you’ll be able to receive mail on Friday!

I had so much fun reading all your comments but before I get to that, I am BURSTING at the seams with excitement!  Because I ALSO won today and I am the PROUD owner of this!

Including the awesome, special addition Windows 7 bag (you could only get one of these if you signed up to host a Windows 7 party-yes someone on my team did sign up to host a party):

I had to be quite ruthless.  It was between that and this:

I stole both many times but on the last turn the champagne had been stolen 3 times in that round (meaning it couldn’t be stolen again) and the Clapper was off limits to me since it had just been stolen from me. I stole something that Elaina wanted and somehow she got the Clapper back and we traded. I don’t remember the exact details of how it happened BUT we were totally devious.

Some of the other gems?

There was another Snuggie (a much more tame blue):

And, quite the find-Handerpants!

Just look at all the uses! Night Blogging! Texting! Cruising!

The recipient of the leopard print Snuggie was quite pleased:

And yes that IS a huge banana saver in the background!

We had a ridiculously fun time.

Check out the rink (I feel like this picture could have been taken 25 years ago):

On the door-No prohibited skates!:

Roller Derby Elaina!

My skates:

My skating abilities did come back.  Although not to their full glory.

Now, onto some of the comments from the giveaway!

First, the winner mentioned fruitcake-I never liked fruitcake until my wedding in Jamaica.  The traditional wedding cake there is a rum fruit cake with fruit that has been soaked in wine for a month or more-it was the best cake ever! So dense and delicious!

Next, stuffing! I LOVE stuffing and have plans to post my grandma’s cornbread stuffing recipe very soon!

Then there was mention of gingerbread.  MMM MMM GOOD!  I have a FANTASTIC and time consuming totally unhealthy ginger snap recipe that may need to share with you all.

Oh and then the mention of Latkes.  Latkes are quite literally heaven on earth.  Mmmmm, with some apple sauce and sour cream-nothing better!

The last one I wanted to comment on was tamales.  Tamales on Christmas is a HUGE tradition in my family as well.  We had many Latino friends who would bring them over for Christmas and we always had a Mexican feast on Christmas Eve.  This year will be no different-if you look at my monthly menu for this month, you’ll see that I’m planning on a Mexican feast for Christmas Eve!  This was a huge shock to Shaun.  I had to mentally prepare him for Christmas Eve with Mexican food for his first Lingo Christmas.  Now? He loves it! 

Does anyone have a foolproof tamale recipe?  I even know where I can get lard, which I hear is crucial to tamale making. Or, if you have a foolproof lard-less recipe, I’ll try that one out too.

Today is my team’s holiday party.  We’re going roller skating (so excited!) and then out to Mexican Food afterwards.  We have a tradition of a White Elephant exchange and it gets pretty brutal.  In our White Elephant exchange you open your gift as you get it and then subsequent people have the option to steal your gift or get a new one.  But they know what they are stealing.  It’s fun!  I normally get burned and get a horrible gift and so I’ve learned from this.  I no longer give nice gifts-one year I knit coffee cup cozies and went home with a fake leather case for a Palm Pilot (I didn’t own a Palm Pilot nor is fake leather high on my list of wants). So now I give atrocious (but fun!) gifts so that whatever I end up with, I don’t end up feeling bummed. This year’s gem?

HA!  I love that it’s “Snuggie-Wild Side!”  And seriously? With how cold I’ve been in my house lately, if I end up with this, I would totally use it!  I’m secretly hoping that there will be a Clapper (Clap On!  Clap Off! The Clapper!) because I really want one of those.  All I need to do now is wrap it up-making it look really pretty and enticing.

I think this one may beat the year that I re-gifted a gold plated “hand painted collectible” Tiger Plate (you know-from the commercials in the 80s) that we got at a family gathering one year.  Yes! Someone actually took that off their wall, had the original box and gave it to us as an “heirloom”. My Mother-in-Law assured me that they just wanted to get rid of it and it was okay for me to throw it away.  I re-gifted instead.  I do think that the leopard print Snuggie beats that gift 😉

Today is my rest day and I got to “sleep in” until 6:30. Tuesday nights I stay up “late” watching So You Think You Can Dance (the best show EVER!) and so I use Wednesdays as my sleeping in days.  Too bad I went to sleep an hour later so I still ended up with 7 hours of sleep.  So, I’m happily drinking this:

It is, quite literally, bringing me joy!

Something else that brings me joy (bet you can guess where this is going) is Lu!  She looked SO grown up today.  I no longer have a baby-it’s official.

She no longer crawls 🙁 BUT! Since she started walking exclusively, she’s been sleeping for well over 12 hours! We have to go wake her up in the morning now so that we can get to work on time.  She’s so cool.  This one is blurry but I love it:

Alright, off to get some work done before the party.  Remember you have until noon today to enter the giveaway.  I’ll be back after my party to announce the winner (probably around 4 or 5 PST).

I seem to have comfort food on the menu this week.  It must be the chilly weather.  Mexican Pasta is an old favorite in my household.  My Dad made it up one day when the cupboards were pretty barren and we all fell in love with it.  He used to make it MUCH more fattening than I do but it was oh so good.  I had to “healthy it up” as this is one of my favorite comfort foods of all time.  I will warn you though, that I described it to a friend at work and he said it sounded absolutely disgusting.  *I* think it’s delicious and so does everyone else that’s ever tried it.  I’ll let you decide what you think.

Ingredients:

-1 pound leanest ground beef-if you want to make this veggie you can use 1 can of black beans-it’s good this way too
-1 pound of small pasta (macaroni, rigatoni, farfalle-I prefer macaroni. I used brown rice penne tonight)
-1 onion diced
-1 can of diced tomatoes with chilies (chilies optional)
-1 can of corn
-1 can of sliced olives
-1 taco seasoning packet or 1 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp onion flakes, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (omit cayenne to make it less spicy)

For Garnish:
-Cheese (my Dad used to mix a bunch of cheese in)
-Avocado
-Sour cream or plain yogurt

Instructions:

-Boil water and prepare pasta according to the package.

-While the pasta cooks sauté the onion until translucent, then add the beef and brown.

-Drain the beef/onion mixture if needed (I find 96/4 doesn’t need to be drained)

-Add spice packet or spices, mix well.

-Add can of tomatoes, drained corn, and drained olives to meat mixture.

-When the pasta is done, add the meat mixture and mix well.

Serve with cheese, sour cream, avocado and Tapatio!  Shaun takes all the fixins’:

I take just the Tapatio and avocado:

Lucy takes everything but the Tapatio:

In the future I would omit the cayenne because it was a little too spicy for Lucy.  She LOVED it but kept making a “Woah that’s spicy” face as she shoveled it in and drank double the milk that she normally does.

Shaun commented numerous times that this was “Awesome,” “Amazing,” a “Home Run,” and “Delicious”.  He even gave me a high five. And? Even with the weirdo brown rice pasta, he gave it 4.5 stars!!! For a meal that takes less than 30 minutes start to finish, that’s pretty awesome!

Looking at this picture, it tells you many things:

a) I was at the gym at 5:51 am
b) It takes me 4 minutes to get there
c) I desperately need gas (shh! don’t tell Shaun!)
d) It was 33 FREAKIN’ degrees this morning!

For the Bay Area that is COLD! I know for those of you east of me that that is nothing but for us it’s COLD.  You also lose your ability to be in cold weather pretty quickly.  The winter I was in DC I went mountain biking when it was –20* with the wind chill.  It was cold enough that our water bottles froze SOLID while we were mountain biking (the water was being jostled constantly). I also remember remarking that it was quite warm one night and the thermometer said 25*. Besides all that, this morning I felt pretty dang cold!

All I want to do is curl up in bed and read:

But instead, I get to work.  An 8 am meeting at that 🙁

I love how you can see my tree in the reflection of the table 🙂

I have a pot luck later today and I’m going to need to control myself.  I think I’ll be able to do it.  Sadly, I made pumpkin bread for the pot luck and it’s NASTY.  So I have to throw ALL of this away:

I was trying to “healthy it up” and instead I “nastied it up”.  Sometimes that happens 🙁 I’m going to get some dark chocolate and fruit and then stop by the local Beard Papa (we JUST got one in San Mateo) for some cream puffs.  I may take in some pumpkin butter but I can’t figure out what to take with the pumpkin butter that is desserty.  We shall see.

Speaking of pumpkin butter-the giveaway is still going on! You have until noon tomorrow.  In all my excitement to get the giveaway up, I forgot to mention that it’s homemade by me! My own recipe that you can try at home!  All of your comments from the giveaway are making me HUNGRY.

Okay, off to work…

A good friend send me a link for stuffed pizza rolls that she raved about.  Their family refers to them as pizza bombs and now so do we.  I’ve altered the recipe quite a bit but you can always see where the inspiration came from. 

Shaun requested pizza bombs and I put them on the menu not even thinking that I’m not doing well with dairy right now.  I know he loves them, so I made them and they were a hit once again! (I ate pulled pork-it was still good!)

Ingredients:

-Whole Wheat Pizza Dough (I buy Traders but you could always use Rhodey Girl’s recipe-yeast still scares me for some reason), we’ve tried this with regular pizza dough and we, hands down, like it better with whole wheat
-Mozzarella Cheese
-Things you would normally put on a pizza-tonight I did:
-Chicken Sausage
-Mushrooms
-Bell Pepper
-Olives
-cooking spray

For dipping:

-Pizza Sauce

Instructions:

-Preheat the oven to 400*
-Chop up all your ingredients and if you’re using ingredients like I did tonight, you should sauté them first. If you’re using pepperoni, ham, pineapple, etc. no need to sauté. I’ve found that pepperoni is too greasy for my taste thought and I prefer chicken sausage. Here’s my filling sauté-ing away!

Until nice and steamed:

-While that’s steaming get your dough ready. I let mine rest for about 20 minutes:

-Roll out the dough-attempting to make a square:

-Stop when your two favorite people come home

-Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into squares

Put cheese on each square-I’ve found that the more cheese you put, the better they taste-not surprising!

-Stop while your husband celebrates PIZZA BOMBS!

-Put the filling on the squares

-Pull the corners in to seal the bombs and then place in a greased (in my case sprayed) pie dish:

-Bake in the oven until golden brown 10-20 minutes

-Serve with Pizza Sauce for Dipping

Enjoy!

Shaun gives this a 5.  He REALLY likes Pizza Bombs :)  I hope you do too!

Yeah, that was the only time she cried yesterday.  Santa is evidently quite scary.  Does it make me a horrible Mom that I laugh every time I see this?  Probably.

Here she is seconds later, thinking “GET ME AWAY FROM HIM”:

And here she is minutes later:

She recovered.  Here’s her new favorite thing to do-kiss HERSELF:

I’m ignoring the germs.

In other news-I got up this morning and went to the gym.  I ran on the treadmill and it sucked.  I feel great now that I’ve done it but while doing it (with no headphones to watch tv) it was PAINFUL. I got through it though.  I’m now eating my oatmeal and Barney Butter and I packed a delicious lunch for the day.  Today is going to be a GREAT day!

Yesterday I made some more pumpkin butter!  To go along with theme of this post (HAPPY HOLDIDAYS!) I’m going to do a a pumpkin butter giveaway!

Pumpkin Butter Giveaway

Since the pumpkin butter is not technically shelf stable (even though I DID can it) I’m going to need to overnight the frozen pumpkin butter to you. You’ll need to be able to receive a package from UPS on Friday, December 11th (that’s this Friday) and I’ll only be able to do U.S. Residents 🙁

If you’d like to enter, in the comments, tell me what your favorite holiday food is.  I’ll use a random integer generator to decide on the winner.  The giveaway is open until 12 noon on Wednesday, December 9th. I’ll announce the winner after that and I’ll need your address in time for my UPS stop on Thursday!