Bang!

Today was my last day at work for the year!!  And I left early to boot!

In other exciting news, I got bangs yesterday. Please nevermind the luggage under my eyes, as I am very tired from all that holiday prep, running (lots less running now admittedly), and yoga teaching I've been yammering on about.

We will be in the land of NO INTERNETS starting tomorrow, and I will be limping along on free wifi on my iPod when I can get it.

Headed to the center of the universe, Gainesville, FL for four days with the inlaws.  We have fun with them, but four days is a long time to be company at anyone's house in my opinion. However, they LOVE Christmas, and love to entertain us, and we always have a fun celebration this time of year.  In January we will visit with my family for a belated Christmas.  How lucky am I to have two families to celebrate with? We're certainly thankful for both.

Anyway, Merra Merra Chrima.

Winter Eclipse

Well.  I was hoping for some awesome pictures of the total lunar eclipse to share with the internets today.  But it was far too cloudy last night to see anything at all!  I was so excited too.  Foiled again by our lame Birmingham AL weather.

Oh well. Here is the next best thing. A parrot singing "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor".  Hilarious after the 1st 10 sec or so.

4 days til Christmas!

Dumb Invention??

Based on what I know about babies, this was not a dumb invention at all.


Ladies and Gentlemen, the baby cage.

The End.

A Lump of Coal in our Stocking

As if Birmingham wasn't completely overrun with bad boys and girls,

SOMEONE HAS BURNED DOWN OUR CITY CHRISTMAS TREE!!

See this link..

A trip to the pharmacy

Nowadays, you are treated like a common criminal when the only problem is that you have a common cold.  

Sudafed purchases now require you to show your drivers' license and sign a form saying you are not going to make meth.  Unless you buy the stupid sudafed made with phenylephrine, which doesn't even work.

ALSO, this is actually being phased out so that you will actually need a prescription to unclog your head due to a cold.  This is already in place in MS, and well on its way in AL.  According to the pharmacist, it will take place in all 50 states. Which means you and I will both be those assholes that go to a doctor when all you have is a head cold.  But if you are like me, not breathing is not an option.  Stock up as best you can.

I wish I lived in the olden days.  See below.

I think I should move to a country in which you can purchase codein in a coke-bottle sized package. See the bottom of the picture, it also came in GALLONS.  Who measures medicine in gallons??  Probably the same people that eat canned octopus.

And, what ever happened to putting old people in their place?

And finally, I could really use a an ampule of sodium pentobarbital right now, especially after witnessing first-hand what it does to mice. And hearing about how Marilyn Monroe met her unfortunate end.

Thanks Joy for these jewels.  Happy Wednesday everybody!

Baking Extravaganza

This week, it's all about baking.  

Last night the "Great Cranberry Bread Baking Adventure of 2010" came to a conclusion.  Now all that's left is passing out the rest of the loaves.  

As if you don't know what cranberry bread loaves look like, here is a pic of the last batch. Excuse the fact that it looks like a war zone in my fridge.

I also made some homemade cookie dough with baby semisweet chocolate chips and made plans for baking homemade bread later in the week for our departmental potluck. 

Also, a true christmas miracle has happened!  My two cats (Homie and Slick) and dog (Bells) have gotten over their mutual lukewarm hatred of each other (and Bells stopped harassing Homie long enough) to cuddle together on the couch!  I'm sure this is due to the fact that we have gas heat, so in order to save money it's chilly in our house all the time.  At any rate, this is the first picture EVER of all three of them sitting nicely on the couch together.  Rob was there to mediate just in case there was gnashing of teeth. 

Finally, my dog is cold ALL THE TIME.  I gave up my search for a plain black sweater for her to wear and finally just bought the dog a damn sweater.  I hate to look like one of "those people" who dresses up their dogs, but she has a striped multicolored creation with a vinyl pink bone sewn into the back.  She also has a puffy pink jacket lined with fleece, complete with hood.  I am embarrassed, but at least she is not shivering as much.  Here is a glamour shot of my husband with Bells:

I think it's pretty clear from this post how very exciting my life is.

Happy Tuesday :)

A very fabulous Christmas indeed.

Rob and I totally rocked this weekend.  Friday night we went to the $1 movies to see "The Town".  Totally worth a buck- we LOVE the $1 theater.  Even though shopping traffic was so heavy it took us nearly 40 minutes to get there, when usually it takes 15.  Thank goodness for a half hour of previews. Saturday morning I got up and made pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips and headed over the Chelsea Park for a Christmas brunch at my friend Joy's house.  It was really fun, for ladies only, and I won the door prize for winning the Christmas song game (of course I won the Christmas song game). 

Then, I fought traffic and went to the grocery store to pick up all the ingredients I needed to make a million loaves of cranberry bread. I made about half a million of them this weekend, but still more to do.  My mother in law has this delicious recipe, and I decided everyone should have cranberry bread this holiday season.  I wonder if Rob's labmates will believe that he made the cranberry bread for them...

Wrapping gifts, buying a couple of last minute things, and insulating our house against the frigid weather were also on the agenda for the weekend.  

Saturday night was Marjelo's birthday party!  She is 30!  We had a great time (especially with the ring pops), and she puts on a fun party with good food and fun people.  

Sunday was baking and baking and teaching piano and wrapping the cranberry bread loaves and wrapping presents and the Stillman Choir Christmas Concert!  I swear this is a very talented group of kids.  Lots of the music was sung a capella and was very technical.  Beautiful.  It was nice to sit back and relax for a change when getting in the Christmas spirit. 

I am very lucky to have such good helpers when wrapping gifts.

I liked it, so....you know.

Dang, that's one fine lookin' birthday girl!

Y'all know my husband thank he black.

(Still can't get over how beautiful Jel looks!)

Eleonore and I show off our bling!

Jel with her fam.

Like I said, the ring pops were a big hit.

Happy 30th Birthday Dr. Marjelo!

Some of my one million cranberry loaves.

Less than two weeks til Christmas!

Happy Monday!

The "Trifecta from Hell" has separated, but wish each other the best.

Abby has finally embarked on her loooong journey to Providence, RI.  She will be traveling there over the course of 3 days with her two cats in the UHaul.  And she will be towing her car.  So that should be fun for her.

Today Johanna, Amy and I went to see her off.  There were plenty of tears.  (None from me, because I have a heart of stone.) All of us are sad to see her go-we had so many fun times together. Although, I'm finding it hard to be sad because I'm so happy and excited for her-and simply can't wait to hear about all of her many adventures.

It didn't seem right to let her drive off  with no one to wave.  So Amy and I loaded up her three kids and the dog Hank and went over to Abby's house for the last time.

Abby and Johanna are obviously sad.

I look like I don't care.  But mostly I want everyone to stop crying.

Abby and Amy are sad.

Amy is not obviously sad.  

Addy and Karis do not care.

Abby gets in the U-Haul for the long haul.

The U-Haul had a walrus on it!

Which, I believe, symbolizes cold weather.

Happy Trails, Abby!  Be sure and let us know how you're doing!

It's beginning to look a lot like....a holiday tiger!

We finally have our Christmas tree up (and decorated, not just sitting in a plastic bucket)! I wrapped gifts for about 4.5 hours on Sunday afternoon, still not done, but almost there!  I have to spread out the joy, because, as you know, wrapping gifts is my FAVORITE.
SO:
Amy came over, we ate Mediterranean  food (yay, falafel!), watched "Eat, Pray, Love", and wrapped and wrapped and wrapped.  I would just like to note here that "Eat, Pray, Love" is a terrible movie and the main character is a completely self-absorbed asshole/moron. But we still had fun like we always do, and it was nice to not be running for a change!

Then, yesterday, we decorated the lab!  We have this really awful mirror painting of a tiger from the 70's hanging in our lab (because it is awesome), so we decorated the tiger for Christmas.

Here are some pics of our gifts and tree. And of course, the holiday tiger.

Not a great pic, taken with Joy's cell phone.

But I think you get the point that we are an awesome lab.

We are going to decorate him for every holiday, yes we are.

A close-up of Rob's first gift to go under the tree!!

(note the jingle bells and home-made tag, *toots own horn*)

"To: Momma

From:  Rob and Keri"

Bells and I try to keep warm.  Yes, that is my fleece she is wearing!

Her doggie sweater wasn't doing the trick.

As close to snuggling as these two get.

Can you even see Bells buried in the blanket?

Also, Slick is about 2X the size of our dog.

Our tree!  With presents!

Turns out some of the ornaments accidentally got left in the attic.

Oh well.

Happy Tuesday everybody! Hope your holiday prep is going smoothly and you're having fun :)

Always wear underpants!

This past weekend, I (with some help from a few friends) threw Abby a farewell party!  There was food, wassail, mulled wine, a slideshow (yay for a grant-purchased projector!), and lots of great friends and memories.  And of course it wasn't without a few tears.  Mostly Abby's because she cries about everything.  I have to admit I will be holding back the waterworks this Friday while I forlornly wave at the U-Haul. 

It wasn't without stress, since our water heater broke Friday night, and it wasn't repaired until about 1 hour before the party.  Therefore, I spent the day doing this to water so that I could wash dishes (BY HAND!) and bathe:

At any rate, I think everyone had fun, and the party was an overall success.  Thanks to Amy and Edie for coming over and helping with setup.  Thanks to everyone who brought food.  Thanks to Johanna for helping with the slideshow. Y'all are great.

Lookin' SEKSI in my leopard apron and fuzzy pink 

slippers during party setup!

Katie (Abby's roommate) didn't want her picture taken. 

But I'm the boss at my house, so there.

Some of Abby's well wishers.  Note I took off my apron for the party!

I made those cupcakes, Johanna!

Devils food with white chocolate/cream cheese/peppermint frosting.

Yummy winter treat!

Because of our broken water heater saga

(and the SEC title game) 

the Christmas Tree did NOT get decorated.

My main helpers for the night.  

Couldn't have done it without Amy and Edie!

How is it that Malarkey always ends up the only guy in a group of ladies?

Lucky I guess.

Amy and Jel discuss dreads.  Really.  

Both Amy and I are obsessed with ethnic hair.

I gave Abby a picture of girls, and we all signed the mat.

Of course, in large letters it says "Always wear underpants".

Just in case she forgets in RI.

Kind of a running joke of the past 5 years.

Buds!

Even Jel agreed to pictures.

A deathly ill Alicia showed up to give Abby the plague.

(*we're really happy you came! feel better*)

Well, Abby, your long goodbye is almost over!

We will miss you, lady!

Much better, thank you.

I still can't explain my *funk* from earlier in the week, but today I'm feeling happy, healthy, and most of all, lucky. The way I feel 98% of the time. I don't fall into funks very often, but when I do, WOW it sucks. I guess it's somewhat normal.

I'm such a worry-wart.  Anyway.

This morning, Amy and I ran for 45 minutes, and I narrowly missed falling down in the exact same spot from earlier this week. (You know, that time I obliterated all the skin on both my kneecaps?)  Today is yoga day, love those ladies and can't believe they come back to have me teach them yoga week after agonizing week.

AND! Rob and I are going to get our Christmas Tree tonight!  The best part about this is that he won't be at work until 11 p.m. (doing stoopid electrophysiology) and I will actually get to see my husband.

I'm excited because Abby's farewell party will be held at our house this weekend, and I'm getting together with Amy to wrap our Christmas gifts, watch "Eat, Pray, Love", and have some bad food. Of course, we are also going to run.  But we rarely do anything besides run together, so this eating/wrapping thing should be momentous!

I've certainly lost count of all my blessings.

So, for those of you that were annoyed at my earlier whiny post, here is a cheery update. Woot!

Happy Thursday!