It's all about product placement

This is what happens when I have too much time on my hands. Cookies. Chocolate Chip to be exact. I use the good old Toll House recipe from the bag. I have never tried any other chocolate chip recipe. I find this one to be just fine thank you very much.



I realized after taking the before picture that my Ov Glove is in the picture. The Bob got this for me as a stocking stuffer one year, and I love it. I don't eat lobster, so I have yet to try out the whole "you can stick your hand into a pot of boiling water" claim, but it has yet to let me down in the keeping me from getting burned department.



And here is a picture of Cooper and his makeshift drum. First thing this morning he wanted to be drumming away, but since he thought getting up at 6am was a good idea, and the Bob got up with him, he didn't get to drum while the mama was still in bed.

We expanded his viewing options over this weekend. Now he has been introduced to the other Bob, as in SpongeBob Squarepants. And he likes it. Since he has a very highly evolved appreciation for slapstick comedy, SpongeBob is right up his alley. He also finally sat through A Bug's Life. We have had this movie for awhile now, but it was too cerebral, i.e. SLOW and not filled with pratt falls and eye pokes, it has taken him awhile to warm up to it.

MidLifeMama's Wish list:

Cooling racks. I don't have any. I had one, once, but it seems to have been lost in a move. It is hard to cool cookies without cooling racks. We had a neighbor once who cooled her chocolate chip cookies on newspaper. That seemed slightly unsanitary. Besides, we don't even get the newspaper anymore, so I don't have that to fall back on.

It snowed here today for about 10 minutes. Now it is raining. I like snow up until New Year's Day. Then I am ready for spring. Unfortunately, my clock is out of sync with Mother Nature by about 3 months.

Bang bang bang

Cooper has shown a decided interest in musical instruments. We were in Target today, looking for a present to give to one of the neighborhood kids who has a birthday party coming up next weekend, and we decided to get this set of instruments for Cooper for Christmas. I could have saved myself $20 had I realized that a set of empty cans and the left over tin from one of those three kinds of popcorn gift sets would be JUST FINE as far as Cooper was concerned. Add one mixing spoon and at least an hour of fun is to be had.

Of course it helps if you don't intend to be able to hear anything else for that hour. Like the TV or talking on the phone, or to each other. But it was worth having him joyfully occupied.

We also went to the Christmas Tree Shop. This, I believe, is a chain that is unique to Massachusetts. One time my friend Crazy Tom was visiting, and I took him there for some reason. He is a dude who is happiest shopping flea markets and yard sales. He LOVED the Christmas Tree Shop. I am not sure how it got started, but it is not just for Christmas anymore. Sure you can buy a lot of Christmas junk. We did. I wanted to put those electric candles in my windows this year. I have great windows for these candles, and I didn't want to pay $10 a pop at Target. So off to the CTS we went. I got them for $1.99 each. I needed 6. $12 vs. $60 is a good deal of savings. I also acquired a new banner for the flag pole ($2.99), an ornament wreath and wreath hanger for the front door ($9.99 and 1.99 respectively). One could really channel your inner Martha at the CTS. Every manner of holiday crap is available there. Giant electric powered snowglobes with snowmen inside, lots of hanging goo gobs for your doors and walls, every kind of stringed light you can imagine, as well as candy and snacks and tea and coffee and whew I am tired.

I got stuck, inevitabely, behind a woman who I thought either was the best stuffer of stockings EVER or had a major bingeing problem, because she had at least two carts worth of stuff she was buying. Turns out she was buying stuff to give away as prizes during bingo at this assisted living place where she worked. The CTS is the place to shop for that kind of thing.

In other news, The Bob bought me a Flip video camera. VERY exciting. Not on the "trying to save money" list, but we have already sent at least one fun video of Cooper to the grandparents in Oregon. Now I will be able to have video evidence of my great singing debut on Monday. Whoohoo. Stay tuned!

Thanksgiving/Christmas tradition

It has been my experience that people fall into one of three categories when it comes to when you put up your Christmas tree: A) As early as acceptable, usually around Thanksgiving weekend B) two or so weeks before Christmas and C) Christmas Eve.

It is the last group of people that I totally do not get. Christmas EVE?? All that work for like, what, a few days of enjoyment? Even if you leave it up for the 12 days of Christmas, til Boxing Day or something, that is still not acceptable.

I LOVE Christmas trees. I love the lights, the ornaments, all the sparkle and special ornaments that mean something to you. When I was little and was old enough to help decorate it was fun to find my favorites and find that special place on the tree for it. Heaven forfend my brother and I wanted to hang the same ornament. I either had to be gracious about it and let him hang it (unlikely for my 8 year old self) or pull seniority (definitely likely).

I think it began sometime when I was in college that my family began putting up our Christmas tree on Thanksgiving weekend. I would come home for that weekend and we would put the tree up. I am a firm believer in having as much opportunity to gaze upon and enjoy your tree as possible BEFORE Christmas. After Christmas all the anticipation is over, the magic has happened and now the tree needs to be put away, or tossed out.

I held out for a long time about having a real tree. I felt it was the only way to be truly traditional, despite the fact that most of our family was allergic. We eventually got an artificial one. That is what we have now. I have different feelings about real trees now. I really hate the idea of killing a tree for my personal enjoyment once a year. And the cost seems unnecessary. The Bob went out and bought the one we have now two years ago when I had delivered Cooper early and couldn't conceive of putting up the tree and all the lights etc. just after a C-section and in a serious brain fog. It comes in three parts, pre-wired with lights. It takes less than 15 minutes to put up, outside of the decorations. I took two pictures, one without a flash. I used to be an avid white lights person, but when he came home with this tree, I was okay with colored lights. As long as they don't flash or twinkle. They always blink in a pattern and it irritates me. That is probably as close to OCD as I get, being irritated by patterns in blinking lights.

Anyway, the tree is up. I also decorated our window boxes. Rather than spend $60 to get window box swags from a place like Smith and Hawken, I did my own from greenery in our yard. Our holly bushes have a lot of berries this year so it adds to the effect.

The other thing I did today was de-Buster my house. Buster is our beagle, and he has gone for a week long visit with the ex-wife. I love de-Bustering my house. Beagles shed like no other dog I have experienced, and I have lived with a golden retriever. I have hair rollers everywhere - in my bedroom, in my car, in my office. I am removing hair from my clothes all the time. So the opportunity to remove the hair for a week from my life is soooo nice. I love Buster, but I love being hair free too.

Thankfulness in pictures

What I am thankful for, in pictures...

My Guys.

My brother and family

My dad

My mom

Because the MidLifeMama household is trying to save money, we are buying 3 Buck Chuck, which is actually really great wine, found at Trader Joe's. I used the Chardonnay to cook the turkey and it was YUM.

I have a teenager in the house tonight. One of the two step sons came for dinner, and is staying over. Cooper officially is in love with him. He keeps talking about Mick, although his name is Nick.

Dinner was great. See the turkey, before, at around 2pm, and then after at 2:30. 5 hours of prep, 30 minutes of appreciation. Sigh.

A new blog to check out

So I was off reading the latest entry by Jenny The Bloggess, see her blog link under bloggy love to the left, and was reading the comments other readers were leaving, and noticed a comment by a guy, Scott, who often leaves comments. He leaves interesting, odd, enigmatic at times, comments, so I wandered my way over to his blog, Caveat Emptor, which I have now added to my bloggy love list.

To say that he writes well is an understatement. He writes REALLY well. It is artful. And thoughtful. And funny. He kind of reminds me of my brother, who has been woefully lax in his blogging - dude, what's up with that. But in the bizarre yet not totally off track line of thought Scott takes, he is very much a kindred spirit. I haven't gotten very far in reading past posts on his blog, but I have to say I enjoyed the one about hobgoblins. First off, he blogged about HOBGOBLINS. Just mentioning them makes me happy. But his thoughts on loneliness and making a three cornered hat, feather included, were on point.

So check him out.

Cereal in my coffee cup and stickers on my butt

Today it is raining. RAAAAIIIINING. I woke up and everything hurt. And my brain was foggy. I put cereal in my coffee cup. I stood there looking at the cereal saying "What the hell..." and then Bob got mad at me because I wasn't responding to him when he was talking to me. I could barely think and he needed me to consider if the dogs needed to be walked in the rain. FOCUS Michele. Yes, they did need to be walked, at least Gus, who has issues about pooping in the back yard. Generally he finds that offensive and insists on being walked down the street to do his business.

Then I found I had part of the alphabet stuck to my butt because Cooper has been going around sticking letter stickers to everything, including the couch and I sat on some. Fortunately I found them BEFORE I got to work.

A is for ass
B is for butt
C is for coccyxes (that is a good scrabble word)
D is for derrier
E is for enourmous derrier
F is for fanny
G is for gluteous maximus
H is for hiney
I is for incredibly large hiney

Ooofdah, that is as far as I can get right now.

Perhaps more coffee will help, but I doubt it. Cooper's class was invited to bring in something about their Thanksgiving traditions from home. Short of sending in a full turkey dinner, I had nothing to send in with him. Bob suggested sending in a football, since that is one of Bob's traditions, watching football on Thanksgiving day. My mother has these candles that are little Pilgrims she is going to send to me, which are the exactly the same as ones we had when I was growing up that we put out on the table for dinner. I remember the one shaped like a turkey too, but I think that was at my grandparents house. Maybe next year I will have candles I can send in with him to show his Thanksgiving tradition. The ones in the picture are available at the Vermont Country Store, that bastion of all things retro and bizarre from your childhood. LOVE IT.

Tomorrow is a half day and then we have off til Monday. I will say that it is a good thing I am not a stay at home mom. It is really really easy to stay in your jammies or sweats and not shower til 2pm when I don't have to be at work. No wonder my neighbor is always complaining about not having showered. And it is also good that this blog doesn't come with smellavision, so when I write an entry on Friday, you won't be able to tell if I have showered or not. I promise not to blog until I have showered. Just for you.

The chance to make a complete fool of myself gets closer

One week from today our jazz group has its first "gig". AAAGGGHHH. We have two scheduled - one on the 1st and the second on the 8th. Both on campus. The first one will be for the residents at the retirement community attached to our college. We were one of the first colleges in the country to create a retirement community as part of the campus community. The residents take classes, teach classes, and tolerate musical performances by the student chorus and the faculty/staff jazz ensemble. And it is not that they are a captive audience. This isn't the nursing home part of the facility, this is the retirement part, they come and go as they please.

The second performance is more nerve wracking. We have a symposium at the end of each term in which students and staff present the projects that they have been working on all term. This performance will more likely draw other members of the college community I work with. Or worse, the students I have to say no to when they ask for more money. Sigh.

But we are ready. I have to sing higher than I probably should on Winter Wonderland, but otherwise feel really good about the other songs. We only have four prepared, so the pain will be brief.

The first song is How High the Moon, and I sing the first stanza. Which means the whole thing hinges on me being in tune for the very first note. Double sigh. It will be fine. Noooo problem. I need a nap.