My Christmas resolution...

Cause you know, just having a New Year's resolution isn't enough for me. LOL

First off - I hope everyone in blogland had a fabulous Christmas!! We sure did. Last week started off a bit on the crazy side considering we had just come home from our trip to Mexico, had to spend plenty of time with the cats to make sure they didn't think we completely abandoned them while we were gone and begin the preparations for the Christmas feast. I spent Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday either baking the 5 desserts I had on the menu or prepping the many side dishes. So between rolling peanut butter balls and rum balls and mixing the ingredients for stain glass cookies and popcorn/M&M treats, I somehow managed to clean the house and make deviled eggs, a strawberry rhubarb crisp, homemade scalloped potatos, and eggplant parmesan. And that doesn't even include the ham and it's customary glaze topping! In all it was a wonderful meal (I finally got a chance to sit and enjoy everything I had been slaving over!) and everything turned out great.

And since I was so industrious during the week, I made a resolution to myself that I would FINALLY copy all my recipes to a set of recipes cards that J had given to me something like 2 Christmas' ago. Everytime I walked by those cards and album, I felt guilty that I hadn't started working on them. And my frustration over the bulging cookbook I had on the counter that was chock-full of papers, index cards, and other misc recipes I've collected over the past 8 years reached an all-time high when it took me over 15 minutes to find one stupid recipe buried somewhere in the middle of that mess. Something had to be done. And so I made a resolution to go through all that was jammed into that cookbook, throw away the recipes I never have and probably never will use and copy all the others so that I have a nice "easy to find" collection. I figure I've re-written about 45 so over the past few days and my hand is positively aching today. But I've got a good 60 more to go! My goal is to finish this before the New Year because that begins a whole new resolution timeframe and heaven forbid the old resolution overlaps with the new! My sequential little ordered brain could never handle such chaos!

Back from summer to winter...14" of it to be exact...

We made it back from our trip to Mexico on Saturday with very little delay which was rather impressive given the snow storm that was going on here in the northeast. So after spending the morning in shorts and a t-shirt in the 85 degree warmth, we arrived home only to see a little over a foot of snow in the driveway. I think my body is still in shock. The massage I received on the beach at the resort feels like it was years ago thanks to all the shoveling we did on Sunday. I'm ready to go back! Anyone care to join me??

Last week was definitely a fun-filled week (child-free fun too since B spent the week with my parents.) The ocean was warm and a beautiful turquiose color, the sand was so soft - it was every bit of heaven that I imagined it would be. We took 2 trips off the resort - one for some snorkeling in a lagoon and cenote (a water-filled sinkhole) and the other was a trip to Cozumel for more snorkeling and scuba diving. The rest of the time was spent either at the beach, at the pool, playing archery, eating, drinking (I am officially in love with all-inclusive resorts!!) and just soaking in the sun.

As soon as I get all the pictures downloaded from my camera I'll post some up.

Going from winter to summer...

I'm posting a picture of my travel ticker here (because it's all the way at the bottom of the page and I doubt it gets looked at!) Today is *the* day to look at it anyway since I'll be taking it down soon, for obvious reasons. :-)

We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for a week of fun in the Mexican sun! I'm trying to get myself mentally prepared to take in all the sights, even if they happen to include Christmas lights wrapped around palm trees and Santas dressed in surfer shorts. Both of which just seem so wrong according to this hard-core New Englander! So hopefully the weather doesn't get too cold for my friends back home cause with temps like these, this cold weather we've been having will be out of sight and out of mind!

And depending on the WiFi situation at the resort, I hope to be able to post some pictures while we're down there. So stay tuned!

I've been tagged! I feel so loved :)

How appropos that my first ever tag in blog-land came from someone who I probably played tag with in real life too. Although I can't remember if she was the first person I ever played tag with, I definitely remember running around the playground with sj (aka snowbird) back when we were 5 years old. Ahhh..the good 'ole days!











So here are the rules regarding this tag:

1. Link to the person where you received it - done, see above.
2. Share 7 random/weird facts about yourself - also done, see below.
3. Tag 7 Random people at the end of your post and include links - ok, this is going to be tough since I don't really know that many people I could tag. so I won't do 7 but I will tag a couple.
4. Let 'em know they were tagged. - done, see below.

My 7 random/weird facts about myself:

1.) Three years ago I completed 3 out of 4 levels of basic adult figure skating lessons. The 4th was all about jumps and my already bruised knees protested loudly enough that I just stopped after I finished the 3rd.

2.) My winter wardrobe includes a really nice scarf that I not only crocheted myself, but also spun the yarn with which it is made. It was just a pile of dyed Merino wool when I first started.

3.) My dream is to someday own several alpacas so I could have my own supply of wool for spinning and crocheting with.

3.) During my freshman year of college, I remember constantly running into this really tall guy who wore a black suede cowboy-type hat on his head and a long black trench coat. I thought he was weird for walking around campus everyday with the same hat on his head. Who knew that guy would eventually be my husband! And he still has the hat. He bought it when he was in Australia.

4.) I have never watched a single episode of Survivor and never had any desire to really. Is that show even still on?

5.) I flew in a small single-engine Cessna for the first time last year. I had a blast trying to find our house when the pilot handed the controls over to me. Someday J and I plan on taking flight lessons together.

6.) I have also flown in a hot air balloon and would love to do that again!

7.) If I had the money for it, I would buy a small apartment in New York City cause I absolutely love the food and nightlife but hate the 2+ hour drive back home. It would be so much easier to just crash there!

Ok I'm going to tag...
Brit Gal' in the USA cause she's a dedicated blogger and her photography is amazing!
Emilie au pays de Heidi (i.e. Emilie in Switzerland) cause she's my cousin and studying abroad in Switzerland this year.

A Letter from srg...

Dear family of mice,

I am writing to inform you that your eviction notice has been processed and will be forthcoming. I hope you have all enjoyed living under our roof rent-free, but the time has come to find a new home. In case you haven't noticed already, several of your family members have already been displaced. You may be asking yourselves why this horrible landlord has decided to take action at a time of freezing cold temperatures and imminent snowfall after years of living in relative peace and harmony in between the walls and floors of the dwelling you have called home.

That question will be answered momentarily, but first I must send you my heartfelt thanks. Thanks for keeping our wonderful cats entertained. They will surely miss the many hours of fun chasing your furry butts around our home. You have provided them (but most especially my girl Hailie) with some much-needed physical exercise and for that I'm grateful! I must also thank you for somehow not getting into our food pantry. I have no idea what you and your rodent friends have been eating lately to keep you all so plump and fat, but I have yet to find ripped up bags or any other chewed-through food items in my kitchen. So thank you for not making me have to throw away my expensive food!

Now that I have thanked you so gratefully, I unfortunately must inform you of the reasons for this eviction.

1.) I am sick of hearing the pitter-patter of your little feet above my head while I try to sleep at night. Why the hell you keep running from one end of our bedroom ceiling to the other (while my son sleeps on the floor above you) is beyond me and it's got to stop.

2.) We were also not pleased with your decision to allow your dead relatives to decay and rot in between our walls. That was just gross and the smell was horrid.

3.) You may think you have access to free lip balm in my car, but think again. Those family members who were brave enough to dare enter my car have been removed from the premises.

4.) Lastly, you have recently invaded yet another room in my house. I pride myself in keeping this room clean and sanitary and the fact that I have had to spend the last several days scrubbing the bathtub because you thought it would be a great location to tease the cats at 3am in the morning, well that was the last straw! I don't care how well you clean yourselves, the fact that your dirty little feet were scurrying all over a place designed for humans to relax and soak in a hot bath is just disgusting. For that - you have to go. It's bad enough I have to clean up after 2 cats, a kid and a husband. I refuse to add your big black-eyed brown-furry self to the list of family members that I must tidy up after. So your days in our home have come to an end.

Please keep an eye out for the nice cracker slathered with peanut butter. Follow its scent and approach the room it is kept in with complete confidence. Once in said room, you will be trapped, but have no fear. You will be transported to a location far away where you can make a new home for yourselves. And hopefully you will be joined by your other family members who have already been displaced.

Sincerely,Your landlord whose patience is running out.


P.S. Just be glad you don't live in KAT's house cause showing your face there results in not only an eviction, but a death sentence!

It's a wild, wild world out there!

Even if the "out there" is no further away than our own backyard. I meant to write this post days ago, but I think delaying it has only allowed me to add more to it. Some of you may already know this, but for those of who don't, we live in a somewhat rural area. By "somewhat rural" I mean that we are in a nice populated neighborhood, but our property is set back a bit from the street. Basically we can't see our neighbors and they can't see us - which is nice! And the fact that we're surrounded by privately owned forest land (which hasn't been developed yet and we hope it never does!) is one of the main reasons why we bought this house 8 1/2 years ago. Hubby J actually grew up in this town and is very much used to all that the wildlife has to offer since his parent's house abutted a state forest. Me being a city girl on the other hand...well let's just say, I'm still adjusting to all the critters that live surprisingly close to our front door.

The best have been the family of deer that usually bed down in our backyard under the hemlocks in the winter time...awww...the family of raccoons that ravaged our recycle bin looking for bits of food left in the cat food cans...the possum that I found in the garage (after accidently locking him) who insisted on played dead under J's car until J got in the car and started the engine...the fox we saw running through the yard one day...the bat that accidently got into our house while we were pulling in a window unit air conditioner (that little bugger was tough to catch!)...the baby squirrel J found running in our bedroom one morning...the mice who always return when the weather gets colder...the black bear who came up to our front steps once...and the bobcat we saw high-tailing it down the driveway with what looked like a rabbit in its mouth. Yup - we've seen a lot here, but none of it prepared me for what I saw this past Sunday morning.

We were sitting down to a nice late breakfact when out the dining room window I saw a few deer galloping through the yard. Nothing unusual there, except for the fact that their white tails were completely upright. That's usually a sign to the others that danger is nearby. The next thing we saw was a very large buck being followed by what we first thought was a fox. How a fox could antagonize a buck as large as that one was beyond me. But after this fox came out from behind a bush we looked again and nope - it was not a fox...it was a coyote! A coyote was circling this buck about 30 feet away from our back deck...at 11 o'clock in the morning! We watched it for a few minutes but the deer headed off deeper into the woods (with the coyote nipping at its heels) so I didn't get a chance to take a picture of all this. Then I freaked out - one of our cats was outside! I grabbed our handy-dandy locator device (aka the homing device we have for the cats) and ran out the front door looking for him. Thankfully he was in the garage stalking something (another mouse I'm sure) so I grabbed him and ran inside. Now I'm trying to train our one outdoor-loving cat to be an indoor-loving cat, but it's not going as well as I had hoped. It's funny - after living here for 8 years, I never once heard (nevermind saw) coyotes up until this past summer. Since this summer, we've been hearing them at least once a week, so we knew they were nearby. And there is nothing more freaky than hearing a pack of them howling and yipping. It's the eeriest sound in the world! If you've never heard coyotes before, just listen to these recordings...

Coyote howling - this is a pretty cool sound actually. We hear this off in the woods quite frequently.

Hunting prey - this is the crazy hunting sounds they make to disorient their prey. Very freaky!

I just didn't think they were right near our backyard! And I knew they moved around a lot at night so that's why we always made sure the cats were in at night. But now it looks like the poor cats' daytime adventuring is going to get cut very short.

Since that Sunday, it's been wildlife central over here. We had a family of squirrels that ate up every stinkin' pumpkin that I still had out on our front porch. All 5 of them! At first I thought they were just going for the seeds, but no, they ate the WHOLE thing!! We caught one red (or should I say ORANGE!) handed.

You think the excitment ends there? Heck no!! I woke up this morning and staggered my bleary-eyed self into the bathroom only to find my girl cat Hailie stalking a mouse...in our bathtub...nice... I tried but failed miserably to catch it. The mouse...not Hailie...

So stay tuned cause I don't think the adventures are done here in Wilder Land!

The Holiday Season is upon us!

And to commemorate the season, I was especially industrious yesterday to get the rest of our Christmas decorations up (we put up the tree the night before Thanksgiving.) And what is a day of listening to Christmas carols while putting up decorations without a festive fire in the fireplace once the sun went down? Well here you go!