this just in... part two...

I don't often start sentences with "the icing.".  So, when I did my thing where I re-read my post the following day, imagine my consternation (that's right) when one paragraph began exactly that way.  You know what that means?  That blogspot site chaps my ... hide.  This happens frequently.  One time would be confusing.  More than once is frustrating.  We are about to go vexing on this little quirk.  And it is super bothersome as, believe it or not, my posts are stream of consciousness situations.  I jump on, not necessarily knowing what I will be chatting up, and let my freak fingers fly.  So when parts of it go missing, they truly go missing.  I don't ever fully recapture that thought or moment again.  All the spontaneity goes kaput.  My solution?  Well, for today, I have edited last night's post to the best of my recollection.  For the long term?  My normal M.O. would be to stomp my feet and quit blogspot.  I'm a quitter.  Which is cool when it comes to smoking and bad boys and other nefarious (that's right) doings.  But it's not so cool when it comes to - just about anything else.  This time, I will try a new approach (something new, if you will).  I will start doing my post in a word document and then pasting that into my blog.  For some reason, I have this idea that something will be lost in that process but I will squelch that fear for now.  But if blogspot continues to make editorial decisions in which it cuts my post, well, I might have to press a word, if you know what I mean.  You know.  Use a WordPress.  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more.  So, we will catch up later.  I have begun my new thing for today and I am looking forward to sharing it with you later.  Word.

this just in...

In point of fact, I did not fall off the face of the earth.  Here's what I want to say.  I want to say that I watched the movie Inception and have been so busy puzzling over it that I couldn't even concentrate on writing something for you.  That my brain was so full of enigmata (that's right.) that truly, I couldn't fit another thing in or figure out how to pull anything out.  That's what I'd like to say.  Because that sounds pretty cool.  However, in keeping with my commitment to being honest, I can't say that.  Because I only just watched it two nights ago.  And it doesn't count for last night because we were at Hubs' work Christmas party.  Prior to that, I was kind of just being.  I was just a human, being.  I think.  Looking back, I'm trying to discern what I was doing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night.  As I said, I watched Inception on Friday night.  Pay attention!  Wait.  Okay on Thursday night, I had a mental health tune-up with my person who does that with me.  She's cool.  We hadn't seen each other since far too long ago and had much catching up, healing and processing to do.  Certainly more than can be contained in 50 minutes.  Plus, I dig her as  a real live person and had some interest in some personal stuff going on in her life so we did some post hourly rate chatting.  Don't be a judger.  Probably the people that feel like judging other people for doing therapeutic talking might maybe be people who could really use some.  I'm just sayin'.  Anywho, she wants me to figure out what relaxes me.  Yeah.  Like that's going to happen.  She's stressing me out by even asking this of me.  So. That explains Thursday.  Oh yeah.  Hubs came home on Tuesday.  From San Diego.  Apparently, he had a lovely view of the bay and some fantastic Thai food.  Not to mention some kid-free peace and quiet.  And Monday night football access as we do not have cable.  Apparently, it was like a little vacation for him, all gift-wrapped up in reimbursement bows and per diem wrapping paper.  If I were to suggest such to him, probably he would bemoan the quick turn around time, the fact that he didn't have time to go to do anything to enjoy the town - like the zoo or Lego World, and that he had to, you know, work.  Whatever.  At this point, I would like to point out that it hit 12 degrees while he was in California.  12 Degrees.  Let me tell you how cold that is.  I have to melt my van door in the morning so that we can get loaded up.  That day, as I was getting all my peeps to their destination in my interior heat blasting van, the residue water, of the hot water, that was on the window froze and crystallized.  And didn't thaw out.  So.  At this point, only Wednesday remains elusive.  I'm cool with that.  We have reached a point in this season that it's all rushing by like a blur.

Let's talk Inception, shall we?  I think if  you took another Nolan film - Memento and put that in a blender with Matrix and frapped, it would look similar to this.  That's not a bad thing.  I thought that Memento was a great movie.  Really innovative.  And I LOVE the Matrix Trilogy.  The whole dang thing - not just the first two.  I like Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  And John Hardy is one to watch at this point.  Leo DiCaprio.  The best work I have ever seen ol' Leo do was in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.  I thought he was brilliant.  Haven't seen a thing since that I feel shows any depth at all.  That dude needs to do a romantic comedy or something.  He takes himself and his "craft" way too seriously.  And I really do not enjoy much of what he does.  I don't seek him out, he generally just tends to be in a movie I'm interested in.  At this point, I can count on him being a tortured soul of some sort.  Much like the one he played in Inception.

Here's where we are at this point.  I started talking about Inception and my brain scrambled just enough to render this incomplete.  And now it is the next day.  It's cool though because I have lots of new stuff to report on.  We didn't finish Inception.  I am going to give it 7 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Anything that makes you think that much has got to have something going for it.

The first new I want to get into is Christmas cookies.  Hubs' mom makes them every year.  Every year he pines for them.  And every year I avoid making them.  This year, I made them.  I made the dough (of course it was a Krusteaz sugar cookie mix!  Don't be silly!) and rolled it out.  I got out my cookie cutters.  I made the kids watch while I cut out reindeer, trees, bells, ornaments, gingerbread men and candy canes.  I have a thing.  I made them watch because I hate mess.  Which is ironic given that I am such a and am surrounded by much mess.  Also, I hate chaos and having four kids hone in and fight over cookie cutters and who's turn it is and such is the very definition of chaos.  I cooked my first batch and the cookies were all squished together.  I wasn't counting on them rising and spreading so much.  Those were the eating cookies.  The next batch was a sparse 6 cookies sitting all alone on a huge cookie sheet for to come out correctly.  Much better results.  4 batches later (as I have just the one cookie sheet...), I was in business.  The next thing I did was get out my grandmother's Joy of Cooking.  Seriously.  Every kitchen should have the Joy of Cooking cookbook - even if you don't cook.  It tells you how to dress a table.  It tells you substitutions.  It walks you through how to cut up a chicken.  It has complicated recipes.  It has simple recipes, much like the kids' cookie icing recipe that I needed just then.  It was very complicated.  It was powdered sugar and water.  And you know what it tasted like?  Watery sugar.  No flavor.  No enhancing qualities.  No good.  Also, it was all runny and kept leaking off the cookies. I was so deflated.  This was not at all the experience that I wanted to have in bringing Suzy Homemaker joy to my family's holiday season.  And you know what?  The kids did not give one lick what the cookies looked like or the quality of the icing or where it ended it up.  It was just me and this ideal I had in my head that I alone was holding myself to and not measuring up to.   I was so busy trying to do the perfect Christmas memory thing that I didn't take the time to be in the memory.  Or let anyone else be in it either.  Boo.  Hiss.  It's gonna get a 1 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Look.  I still got to eat cookies.  And all I can do is do it better next time.  And soon.  I threw out that icing and I'm looking for a way better recipe ASAP.  Before the cookies get all stale.  Probably I should put them away.  Like in a bag.

The next new thing is fudge.  I know.  We have talked fudge before.  I decided to experiment a little more.  I crunched up some chocolate mint candy canes and stirred those in at the end.  I also used half semi-sweet chips and half bittersweet.  It didn't turn out just right.  It got all grainy.  The candy canes were not so crunchy and some of them were too big.  It's okay.  It's still fudge.  It's not like I'm going to throw it out.  I have a derriere to support.  I'll give it 4 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  And that is only on a fudge scale.  Which has a different value system than other stuff.  You know, since it's fudge.

Next up is merely a teaser. An amuse bouche if you will.  My mama sent me a Christmas present.  When I called to thank her, I got her voice mail.  What's a girl to do?  I asked her voice mail if I should open it now or wait.  I did not get a response.  So, I took that as a yes, open it now.  You know what it was?  An ice cream maker.  It's pretty.  It's shiny.  It holds serious promise.  If I had had some cream in my house, I wouldn't be here now with you.  I love you and all but the opportunity to create my own Jenny's splendid ice cream?  Don't worry.  I won't use that name.  I'm not mean.  I wouldn't take jeni's name.  I'll make up my own.  Like...Jenny's Jewels ice cream.  And I will use a gem stone in each of the names.  Like Rubylicious Rum Raisin.  Or Diamondback Decadent Double Chocolate.  I don't know.  That's a mouthful.  Alls I know is that I have some Cuisinart goodness (in sassy red, no less) waiting for inspiration.  And cream.  Lots and lots of cream.

Can you take me higher...

I don't know if you have noticed, but my views have bumped up over 1,000.  I'd be all impressed with myself if I could discern with any kind of certainty how many of those views were me.  I have this weird habit of revisiting my posts.  We will call it perpetual proof-reading so that I don't look so vain.  And then we will politely ignore the fact that there are still solid typos within any given post.  Although, I left the word as tattle tales rather than tattle tells.  I think they both work equally effectively.

I tried an experiment today.  I would try to improve my posture when it occurred to me.  It was awkward and slightly uncomfortable.  Because despite all their best efforts, let's face it, we all pretty much blew off the plea to stand up straight from our parents.  We are a schlumpy bunch, we the general population.  I am a good 5'3" - 5'4" on my best day.  I have begun to suspect that I am, in fact 5 feet 9 inches tall which is super exciting because then, this weight changes in all kinds of ways!  But over the years I have developed a non-scoliosis type curvature of the spine that has shrunk me up into a delicious bite-size portion.  Isn't it funny how fake it feels to stand up straight?  It was for me.  I felt like I was trying to pretend that my chest was generous and uppity.  And that I was constantly trying to suck in my guts. Which I could stand to do most any time of day but it feels like a lie.  Like padded push-up bras or horrible horrible comb-overs.  And also, it was a strain on my back to walk around like I had a stick up my patoot.  And, finally, as you can see, there is some awful stigma attached to all the time trying to present ourselves at a confident best.  I don't know.  I'm trying to figure out where and how the pros measure up against the cons.  Is it possible that after a certain point it's simply counter-productive to start standing up straight?  4 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Those in the medical industry are encouraged to chime in with their thoughts.

I have a friend who I like to call Krazy Mountain Killah.  I came up with that nick-name after she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.  That's right.  THAT Mt. Kilimanjaro.  She used to be a flight attendant.  She has taken mission trips to Mamelodi, South Africa and Nicaragua.  How fun is that word?  Especially if you take your time to roll the r and the g around.  I consider myself worldly but she might be otherworldly.   Anywho.  She is tall and blond and beautiful and has awesome teeth and is in great shape.  It would be so easy to, you know, hate her.  But she is an amazing amazing person.  So, you don't get to hate her - me neither.  I noticed that she facebooked about a Mt. Everest trip in the next 2-3 years.  Mt. Everest.  I mean, why not??  It's what all the kids are doing these days.  Crazy kids.  She's pretty in love with God and I'm thinking she's just looking for the uppermost portion of the world so she can high-five him or something.  Might as well take some Sherpas and a yak or two if you are going to roll that way.  I totally wouldn't put it past her.

It's bed-time.  Not for me.  For the kids.  And since I'm flying solo, I get the great joy of taking a break just now and fighting and screaming and drill sargenting the kids into their beds.  Be right to the back.

Hooo boy.  That was SO much fun.  There are those that say it is difficult to detect tone in email and general cyberspace situations.  Should that be your problem right now, not really trusting that you are picking up what I'm putting down, I am being 1,000 percent sarcastic.  But we aren't going to get into all that just right now.  We will simply move on.

I, wait for it... went shopping today.  We needed groceries.  And batteries.  And the new policy at Kroger is - we must have a mega-event every week.    Some of them have been better than others.  This one is decent enough.  I got cookie mix for .29.  Which I will NOT be adding any salt too.  And they paid me to take some tuna fish home.  While I was there, I picked out some lunch.  Healthy Choice and I have been friends off and on for many many years.  And we are BFFs whenever I can get it for 89 cents.  I tried the new Rosemary chicken and sweet potatoes.  It was pretty good.  I give it 6 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  It was 170 calories!  I was starving and didn't have enough time to savor the flavors, to discern the nuances.   I did follow that up with another new thing.  I love Greek yogurt.  You give me some Greek Gods honey flavored Greek yogurt and you are in like Flynn.  I don't know a Flynn and if I did meet one, I have rigorous tests and trials for he or she to go through to be in.  But  that is all beside the point.  If you gave me raspberries to mix in with said Greek Gods yogurt... Oh My Goodness.  That's just all goodness all the time.  10 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  The only reason I would have to mark it down is the price.  Which really, it's silly.  Per ounce it's as good if not better than the other brands.  Sometimes it's just hard to shell it all out at one time.  I often try other brands just to try to supplement and to see if there is a viable, more affordable substitute.  So far, no luck.  So today, I happened upon Atheno's Greek yogurt.  I had never seen it before.  It's made by fine people who make a fine hummus.  It was 10/$10.  Also, it had a divided container.  The yogurt was on one side and the honey was all liquidy and at the ready on the other side.  I was intrigued.  And as it had only 160 calories to add to my lunch numbers, it fit in nicely.  Until I tried it.  I realize that it's plain yogurt that you mix the bee spit into.  But I have had other plain Greek yogurts before.  I will say that somehow, once again, Greek Gods does it right.  For all the other national brands, there is this weird chalky aftertaste.  Imagine if Mylanta had no flavor at all - no cherry, no mint.  That's what I imagine this tastes like.  There wasn't enough honey to make up for it.  Not at all.  It's a no for me.  0 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Is that a first for me?  Cool!  And you were there for it!  I did supplement those responsible calories with some Tiger Butter.  Take some white chocolate - bar or chip form - whatever, about 11ish oz and put in about 3/4 peanut butter. Nuke that for 2-2 1/2 minutes until it's nice and liquid in form.  Pour that into a waiting pan lined with wax paper.  Spread it around.  Next take 2 cups chocolate chips and nuke those to the same fine liquid form.  Pour that on top of the peanut butter stuff and swirl real pretty with a knife.  Which totally matters when you are mindlessly breaking off one chunk after another because it's serious dang good.  So good that I bumped that 360 calorie lunch up by prolly another 800.  And kind of didn't care.  9 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.

I'm going to leave you with one final new thing.  Which is actually two new things in one.  I came across a little treat that I bought at a fair trade fair.  It's fair trade chocolate.  Specifically Divine 70 percent Dark Chocolate Covered Salted Fudge.  Salted fudge?  Yeah baby!  So with Hubs out of town, (ease up potential stalkers, by the time that you are reading this, he's on the way back home) I tore into them.  Y'all.  I'm so disappointed.  I'm trying so hard to stay the course and buy slave-free, fair trade chocolate but it simply has to be worth the price.  It has to be delicious.  I can't believe that I'm saying this but I'm throwing it out.  I tried so hard to like.  I tried so hard to stay the course and finish it.  I couldn't.  It's going to have to have a 2 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  This is sincerely a problem because my addiction to chocolate is true and my deepest hopes to end slavery are also true.  I don't mean to make light.  I really don't.  I gotta figure that out.

In the mean time, I will attend to the final episode of the evening of my present all-consuming addiction. Come on.  Do I have to even say it?  How many times has Veronica Mars made my blog at this point?  Whatever.  It makes me happy.  It lifts my spirits at the end of a long day.  You know, when Hubs ain't around.

Unexpected blessings...

I totally made a mistake.  I made a cookie bar.  I took my favorite cookie mix and added white chocolate chips and salt.  Remember when I was talking about the fudge?  Well, I had the same idea.  My friend Sarah makes an impossible cookie bar.  And it's got salt in it.  It's perfect.  She sort of got me hooked to the point where I went through my stash and had the nerve to call her and ask for a fix.  Seriously.  I don't know how much it would take for me to look all sweaty and have the shakes hovering furtively around her door.  So, I was trying to do my thing.  I made a big deal out of it to the kids.  I fed them a new dinner.  I'm a big fan of rice (think Ready Rice or Rice-a-Roni) mixed with a meat product (chopped up cooked chicken, ground round, Italian turkey sausage).  I'm probably playing that card a little too often lately.  Tonight it was the Italian turkey sausage crumbled and browned with Parmesan and Romano cheese Rice-a-Roni.  It was fine.  5 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  It was sustenance.  And sometimes, that's all I hope for.  But I made the cookie bar - using two boxes of mix and my biggest pan and it showed very big promise.  It was successful in getting 3 out of 4 to eat their dinner.  That's right.  I bribe 'em.  We all gotta do what we gotta do.  This is what I do from time to time.  It came out and I proudly served it up.  Then I got mine and took a bite.  Salt.  Lots of salt.  Too much to be a pairing for the sweet.  Bugger.  Princess didn't even finish it.  Scooby finished his but made sure to go on about it being too salty.  Hubs was lovely.  He lied.  So I made a powdered sugar glaze and drizzled that over the top.  Then I made another batch of powdered sugar glaze and poured that over the top.  I just took a sampling.  Unless some sort of miracle of osmosis occurs, I will be throwing these out.  And making regular cookies with no additional ingredients involved tomorrow.  Scooby and I have dubbed this batch Bikini Bottom Cookie Bar.  Not good y'all.  Not good at all.  3 out of 10 Jenny's jewels only because every now and then there was the ability to discern a chocolate chunk product.

Okay.  Let's talk Black Friday.  I didn't anticipate going out for anything.  But the pull was just too strong.  So strong, in fact, that I started the night before.  That's right.  I went out shopping on Thanksgiving night.  Sure, okay.  Some of you are thinking that's like sacrilegious or something.  I understand.  But I would prefer to consider myself patriotic instead.  I am doing my part to help our economy.  Let us not dwell on how many products have a made in a foreign country sticker or stamp on them.  I did the very best I could to avoid slave-made products.  Next year, I will do even better.  I am happy to report that other like-minded patriots were out en force to boost some NASDAQ numbers.  Actually, no, I have no idea what I'm talking about.  I was there at 11:00 pm at WalMart.  I know.  WalMart sucks.  But they had Leapsters for $25.  And since I was buying 3 of them, that's a significant savings.  Those were part of the midnight sale.  There was another sale that started at 5am.  I kid you not.  There were people who brought or borrowed lawn chairs and camped out next to the pallets for some of the items that went on sale - in 6 hours.  Laptops.  I thought I was hardcore.  Nope.  Not even close.  From there, I went to ToysRUs.  Not anywhere near the insanity that was WalMart. But that is only because the crowd had moved on.  Next up, Target.  Oh.  My.  Word.  I have truly not seen anything like it.  I have been out on Black Friday before, believe it.  But this was a whole new animal.  I didn't take a coat out with me.  I don't know what to tell you.  I didn't plan on being outside much.  I planned on parking and walking in and getting all hot in the stores and then walking to my car.  No need for a coat to slow my roll.  I pulled up just about 4 am.  The doors opened at 4.  This is a big Target.  Not a Super Target but still.  There are 2-3 stores next to it.  Small ones.  Then there is a Staples store.  Then there are a few more stores and then there is a Panda Wok or whatever at the end of the strip.  I hope this gives a fairly good idea of the distance I'm talking about here.  So, I pull into a spot.  I am looking to just kind of wander in but I can't.  Because the line extends to the Asian food establishment at the end.  There were people who stopped at a point to flow in when told to do so.  You know what I did?  I said, "screw this noise!  I am freezing!!  I need to keep moving!!".  That's what I said.  So I walked all the way to the end and started walking in the direction I had just come from so that I could go in.  I was still cold.  But at least I was moving.  And the pisser is that those people that were waiting at the point where I made the oh so smart decision to go to the end?  Yeah.  Those people were nowhere to be found.  They got in.  I was in line long enough to see people come out - with big ol' TVs.  One guy couldn't even put it into his car because his doors had frozen shut.  And when I got in there, there was this swarm around a bin that you would have thought had free gold in it from the activity surrounding it.  It was $2 gloves.  Those people were looking to warm up and I mean right now.  Which I get because I am now the proud owner of a super cute reversible pink/orange puffer vest for $7.50.  I picked up all the bargains I could find.  I got 2 $85 dual screen DVD players for the car for our road trips.  I got a hard drive for Hubs.  I got pjs and jeans for the green giant that is Scooby.  Now, I will try to explain the line to check out.  It was a very very large square that ran through the store and started doubling up on itself.  My strategy at this point was to find a cart for all the things that were straining and breaking my arms and fingers.  Also, to look like a thief as I made my way past the checkout area to the Starbucks to get coffee and a croissant for sustenance so that I may continue my quest towards giving them my money.  Also to look and look and look for more items because the longer that I wandered around, the shorter the line would get.  Which of course became problematic.  Because I walked out after $450.  Yeah.  I know.  It's okay.  I returned alot.  Including the dual screen dvd players. Both of them.  It was nuts.  And I loved it.  It was totally up my alley.  Hubs can't shop.  It's just not in him, at all.  He physically depletes as he goes.  I have seen it happen and it is so fascinating.  I don't mean that to sound as though I delight in his discomfort.  It's just so contrary to what I feel like when I go shopping.  I get more energized as I go.  So, the 6 hours I spent from Thanksgiving into Black Friday gets 7 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  If I had had a coat, a bottle of water and a few snack bars, I would have ruled the school.  Not in a camped out in lawn chairs looking like hobos around some pallets kind of way but still...

I saw "The Expendables" the other night.  I had high hopes.  I am a fan of testosterony movies.  I came up with a phrase for those kind of movies that probably someone else came up with already.   Plus, it's kind of naughty.  I won't tell you what it is but I will allude to it and you will get the idea.  You know how they call Rom-Coms (that's romantic comedies to you lay folk...) chick flicks?  Well, I would refer to Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Mickey Rourke, etc movies as Richard flicks.  Only I would use a nickname for Richard.  And it would rhyme with flick.  And it wouldn't be Rick. I told you it was naughty!!  But truly, these are movies that are all amped up and bad ass and macho and heroic and what not.  And I dig those movies.  It had some good casting.  But Stallone was a co-writer.  Which I would have thought would have been good as he has been in so many of these that he would know what to write but then I realized that he would also be responsible for dialogue and he's never been much of a talker in his movies.  Put him and Keanu together and you really might as well do it as a silent film for all their speaking contributes to what they are doing.  And Sly looked awful.  I don't know what was happening with his hair but it was weird and the botox has not been kind.  I like Jason Statham.  I think that he is charismatic and truly lends himself to the movies he does but  it was painful to watch him trying to carry this film as Sly's best friend.  And Dolph Lundgren?  Ouch.  If they could have at least attempted to make fun of what they have done in their roles, that would have been crazy awesome.  But they weren't.  They were serious.  They were really trying.  The only one who actually looked comfortable was, God love him, Eric Roberts.  Because he has done the same role in the same kind of movie for pretty much his whole career.  It was so bad that I actually fell asleep during the climactic near ending.  2 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.

So, here is what is happening on our quest for a different Christmas this year.  It got sketchy right away.  As a reminder, our goal is to take all the gift money from all the gift giving parties and pool it together giving each child 3 presents each.  So.  It started with the Leapster.  If you buy one, it doesn't have much to offer on it's own.  You need the games/cartridges.  So, I got three.  Each.  I've already gone over the 3 gifts each situation!!  What the hello kitty is it that I am supposed to do now??  So, after some breathing and some coffee, we decided that the Leapster with the games is a gift - gift number 1.  So, for Princess, her next gift was to be a craft like product.  But it felt so LAME to just hand her a Color Wonder packet or something.  It totally wouldn't be a Color Wonder packet.  There is nothing wrong with those but she's way more crafty than that.  We agreed that bundling 2 or 3 crafts together would constitute gift number 2.  And that's what we pretty much did for the remaining presents.  I know.  It totally looks like I fudged it all.  But here is exactly why I feel so at peace with how this turned out.  It made us really consider what it is we are buying.  As I said, my nature is to squeeze as much present as I can out of every dime and we end up with tons of crappy stuff that isn't even noticed or played with.  Hubs and I really thought through each gift.  Here is a for instance.  Big Stuff is getting an Imaginext Bat Cave.  I know.  Totally awesome!!  But at the same price, they also had this Imaginext Aircraft Carrier.  It was killer.  I bought it.  I also bought the Imaginext Space Shuttle because the shopping strategy for Black Friday this year was buy it all right now and return most of it later.  Whatever.  It worked.  The Bat Cave was a no-brainer.  That's a keeper.  And we were going to keep the Aircraft Carrier as well.  But then I came across this Buzz Lightyear backpack.  It looks like Buzz's space ship.  And I thought about all the pretending that Big Stuff likes to do and I decided that I would get him binoculars and a cool flashlight and turn it into an adventure pack because he likes to say "I'm goin' on a adventure!" and then he does.  It was going to cost a little more than the aircraft carrier but it is going to be so much fun for him.  That aircraft carrier was really cool.  And it was a good price.  I have a little bit of returner's remorse.  It's stuff like that - we just really thought about the gifts this go round.  The next reason I am at peace is because I fully believe that we have spent far less money on Christmas than we normally do and that is a direction we want to continue going in.  Our children have been mentioning how kind of bummed out they are about only getting three gifts.  I could focus on the fact that they are being materialistic greedy little so and sos.  Instead, I look forward to the morning when they are surprised by the quality of those three gifts and how satisfied they can be with less.  And the final reason - Yes.  Three gifts was good enough for Jesus and therefore, three gifts is more than enough for our kids.  But God's love is abundant and surprising.  He is not stingy.  He looks to bless us at every turn.  And that is a facet of God that I truly want to share with my kids as we celebrate the greatest gift He ever gave us.  Which, by the way, is what Christmas is actually about.  Ahem.  Anywho....  Staying the course and seeing our Christmas plans through gets 10 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.

This is what I have to tell you.  I shared how much our church raised for the 4 initiatives that we are trying to accomplish.  That number has actually gone up.  By about another mil.   Hubs and I have actually already seen some amazing, unexpected financial blessing as a result of our walking out in faith and committing God's money right back to Him.  It wasn't huge but the reality is that if you don't see it coming, anything can be generous.  And this is generous.  It means that the commitment we made to start making good on our pledge by the end of the year is a little less nebulous.  Some of it fell straight into our hands.  It's every indication to me that He truly does just want to know and give you the desires of your heart.  So if the desire of your heart is to please Him, He totally just pleases you right back and gives you the means to the end.  There's this diamond cut called the Gabrielle cut.  It is 105 facets.  Based on my extensive research (inclusive of a google search and perusal of about 2-4 sites to verify...), this is the most faceted cut for a diamond.  Imagine that God has ever shifting infinite Gabrielle sections. And every time that He allows me to gaze upon one of those facets and glean a better understanding of who He is and what He is about - it's a sweetness like no other - with no salt to be found.

Blimey, it's been a while...

Well Alright!  I'm back from all kinds of eating and, well, eating.  I devoured that round of fudge and made another and that's almost gone.  It's okay.  I rescheduled the family picture until January so I will have some additional time to eat the fudge and beat the pudge.  I just made that up.  It should be a slogan.  And do you know why?  Get this.  I took the already perfect Fantasy Fudge recipe (found on the back of any Kraft marshmallow fluff stuff) and at the very end, just before I poured it into my buttered pan (that's another big fat taste enhancer), I folded in an undetermined bit of coarse kosher salt.  It's undetermined because I put some in the palm of my hand, poured that in and folded.  And I didn't feel satisfied by that so I did it again.  Probably Rachel Ray would estimate that as 2 Tablespoons.  Don't get scared.  Salted Caramel is all the rage.  This is salted fudge.  And what I mean to tell you is that it's ridiculous.  You get this spark of salt while you are almost about to overdose on the sweet.  It's total OMG material.  Probably that's the wrong direction to go in when hoping to look good for  family pictures and just to look and feel better in general.  Don't blame me.  Blame that first lady who baked goods for the purposes of celebrating winter and Christmas and all the magic that comes with freezing your butt off while shopping til you drop.  Blame her.  I am merely one of the lemmings following her legacy around.  And this lemming accomplished something unthinkable.  Are you ready for it?  11 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Oh.  I mean it.

So, how was Thanksgiving?  I had a total miss when I was relaying just how blah I am in general about the great Turkey holiday.  You know what I forgot?  It's not just about some people landing on and infringing upon the land of the Native American/Indigenous folks.  It's about why they came here.  They came here so that I can have a blog and talk about how awesome I think God is.  And so that you can disagree with me (even if I'm right and you are wrong).  They came here so that I can go to church - to the church of my choosing.  So that you can choose not to go to church at all.  There are people on this planet who die because they know that Jesus rocks the house.  They die for having a bible.  Others die because of strict rules within their own religion and demanding that the followers act as tattle tales - ratting out people who do not follow the letter of their law and those people die - for hugging a woman who is not their wife or for denouncing their religion or ... other stuff.  I am humbled by this.  On Thanksgiving, I truly was so thankful that I was just born in the right country and so thankful for the people who left England and said they wanted to avoid religious persecution and rule.  But I am confused about where the English accent went.  I love English accents.  It's so hard to sound dumb with a British accent.  It's the one thing I do wish we had retained.  And double decker buses.  Those are cool.  And words like lift, chunnel, tube, bloody, and... others.  Our dinner was lovely.  Except the part where the kids hated most of it.  And all that stuffing I told you I got?  Yeah.  We didn't have any stuffing at all.  But I did make my own cranberry sauce  and it was the bomb - 8 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Just a touch more sugar and orange flavor next time.  And also I made a sweet potato casserole type situation.  I didn't like it much.  It needed more sugar and less egg.  It was like it was confused about being a souffle or a casserole.  But the crunchy bit on top was good.  Hubs liked it.  He's a good sport.  As for me, I'm gonna give it 5 out of 10 Jenny's jewels - the crunchiness on top earns it about 1.5-2 jewels on it own.  It was aight.  And there were no guests.  It kept slipping my mind to contact anyone and I think that the brain just does that sometimes - it wipes out information to protect us or take care of us when we are too stubborn to do it ourselves.  And also, my brain seemed to be privy to the fact that my kids were going to act like total lunatics that day so it's best not to have anyone around to see all our ugly bits.  You know - the kids going bonkers and being all belligerent and our stellar reactions to those situations.  Good public viewing material,that.  See.  I can talk like a Brit.

I'm on my last two episodes of the first season of Veronica Mars.  Which is delicious because I still have 3 seasons left to go.  Oh.  It has not let me down, not even once.  It's the writing I tell ya.  It's the same reason why I adored Cupid back in the late '90s (the one that starred Jeremy Piven).  It's why I loved Gilmore Girls.  It's why I loved The Shield and The Wire and why I love Dexter and Entourage and Glee and House.  You give me smart writing and I'm loyal for life.  You start getting lazy and cutting corners - getting predictable and hackneyed - you are out.   

Okay.  Today is a new day.  I started all of the above last night and didn't get finished.  So, here is what happened today. 

I got a burr up my butt and decided to do some exercising.  I'm a big fan of Crunch CardioNetflix and me and Marie got to it.  Our living room is about the size of a postage stamp.  And over the weekend we put up the Christmas tree and lost a lot of surface area.  It's not easy doing a work-out "video" that requires room to move in our living room under the best of circumstances.  While the tree was a challenge, I was making it work.  The mitigating factor was, wait for it... children.  They were all up in my business and despite my insisting that they move, they very much thought that meant move to another portion of my microscopic exercise arena.  So, I lost it, as I'm so prone to do, and told them to go to another room.  I think my exact words were "GET OUT!!!  Get out get out get out!".  Princess was running out in her stocking feet and slipped and hurt her knees and cried and I was all up in the high heart beat zone and had to stop and check boo-boos.  It was all over then.  I could have given up.  I'm kind of known for it, actually.  But I didn't.  I turned off the work-out and went downstairs to the elliptical.  I watched an episode of Veronica Mars while I ellipticaled (ellipticated?).  And that was wicked effective.  I have roughly 60 episodes left until the end of the series.  I'm sure to blast my butt in no time.  Or at least 60-120 days depending on the frequency with which I am able to force myself down there.  And hopefully my guts will take a hit as well because Justin Timberlake brought sexy back but no one seems compelled to bring front butt back.  And I have a choice - bring it back myself or take myself out of the position to be able to.  I'll let you know how that goes.  It's a new gig for me.  Accomplishment - work out = reward - Veronica Mars time.  I'm stoked.  For now.  Today gets a 10 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  I know.  I can't rightly believe it myself. 

I ate somewhat sensibly and since I finished off round two of the fudge last night, there was none to delve into today.  I put out the all-call on Facebook for hints on what I could eat after a meal that would satisfy my sweet/chocolate tooth.  I mentioned that it needed to be something that didn't compel me to eat it in it's entirety.  Here are some of the suggestions:  chocolate chips that I stow in the freezer and pop a couple in my mouth after a meal.  Chocolate cake, potentially made with some pumpkin.  I pride myself on being a pretty awesome and straight forward communicator.  I'm pretty sure I was clear as a bell.  I mentioned my weakness for finishing off items as they come.  I thought these were my friends.  Chocolate chips in my freezer?  A few in my mouth at a time after a meal?  As if I won't make that one bag of chips my entire meal in itself?  Or bake it into something that I force myself to eat a modicum of food that could be considered dinner so that I can get to dessert - and eat in it's entirety.  And chocolate cake?  Should I just strap it onto my thighs after I make it?  Perhaps as it crumbles it will just go ahead and resemble the cellulite that it would have become anyway.  I need something like chocolate paper.  They make rice paper.  I could have (organic, slave-free) chocolate paper that I could sit on my tongue and it would satisfy my craving but the texture and the experience would keep me from trying to devour more than one page at a time.  I have the best ideas.  You can take that one with you and see what you come up with but if it's successful, a) try to do an assortment of chocolate flavors - chocolate mint, chocolate cinnamon, etc.  and b) help a girl out and slip me a percentage.

I'm going to have to give up my computer time momentarily.  Wouldn't it be dreamy if a computer company or Apple wanted me to try a new computer?  Or an Ipad?  Glory be to me that would be fun.  And handy as I go through computers with a very certain and frightening frequency.  If some scientist wants to check into that and see if it's supposed to be a disorder or something, just send me a computer - please?  It's a true thing though.  Some people break watches - my dad has some sort of magnetic force field super power that would break all his watches.  Apparently that gene mutated with me and it's computers. 

We'll talk Christmas tomorrow night.  I will tell you all about Black Friday and how we are coming along with our quest to do three gifts for each kiddo. 

Thanks for taking the time.  Cheers, mate!

In the pink...

It's a pink diamond.  24.78 carats. Incredibly rare.  My guess is that it isn't being worn.  I think it is on display.  Or I think that it is in a safe.  It's pretty.  But pink isn't really my thing.  Even when it looks like that.

What is up with the phrase "Nothing is certain but death and taxes".  That is a crock.  You know what else is certain?  Laundry and dishes.  If they weren't certain, there would be a bunch of tetanus riddled naked people walking around.  So, can you guess what I was up to today?  That's right.  Cleaning.  Real cleaning.  Not just maintenance to keep Hubs happy cleaning.  

Apparently the new exertion of cleaning wiped me out to a degree that I was unable to post last night.  So, it is now today and we will continue on rather than begin anew.  How often do we get to use that word?  Not often enough, I say.

Fine.  I will come clean.  I was watching Veronica Mars.  Until 1:00 am.  Here is a little something about my personality.  I find something that I like and I suck the life out of it until I'm bored or it ends and then I move on looking for the next best thing ever.  Shows, games, people, hobbies, books, movies - whatever.  So, right now, it's Veronica Mars and I'm not savoring it.  Oh no.  I'm gobbling it up and then I'm going to be all bummed out when I reach the end of the series.  And then you are going to have to find me some other show that is comparable so I don't become a lunatic.  Or a really awesome book that I read up in the span of 3 days.  That's right.  It's on you.  No, really.  Help a girl out with some good suggestions...

Hubs is in the middle of some ridiculous deadlines.  He's working hard.  He texted me that he was coming home to help put the kids in bed.  And I told him that he didn't have to and he said that he wanted to.  So, he came home and took them upstairs and has been fighting with them for 10 minutes solid.  Because putting our children to bed, regardless of it being the exact same scenario every single night, seems to take them by surprise and they totally forget what it was they did the last time we did all this, which was, you know, yesterday.    And also, he hasn't eaten dinner yet so I'm thinking he's super glad to have made this special gesture of coming home to snarky hyper children who forget that they have exactly 3 directives every night - pee, brush teeth, get in bed.  That's it.  Even pajamas are optional but if they want them, they dang well better get them on before they get in bed because in bed is the end of the line.  Hopefully, eating some pizza I made for him and sitting next to his hot honey will make up for it.  He's awesome.  Last night he took some time to rub my back.  I felt like I either had a pinched nerve or was well on my way to one.  He's a good back rubber.  Then he asked me when I was going to start exercising and make my back stronger.  And what I heard was blah blah blah you need to get back to making fudge.  So that is what I did.  I don't care where I go, the fantasy fudge recipe on the back of the Kraft marshmallow cream jar is the best tasting of all time.  And the batch I made today is the best I have made yet.  It could be that it has been so long.  It could be that I needed it that bad.  But this is what I do every year just about this time.  And the earlier I start, the more frequently I can make it before the season ends and I just look pathetic.  And fat.  And happy.  Those can all go together, right?  

For today's new thing, I did some shopping.  I know!  But until the big companies start reading my blog and want to send me stuff to tell the world about, I have to write about what I know.  Or, you know, what I don't know because it's new.  

Ollie's Bargain Outlet

513-825-2500

2220 Waycross Road
Cincinnati, OH 45240

Hours of Operation
Monday - Saturday: 9am - 9pm
Sunday: 10am - 7pm

I was in a wandering mood today.  It's my last day of freedom.  I mean... it's my last day before there will be kids at home for the next 6 days.  Straight.  So for no particular reason, I thought of Ollie's and how I had never been there and should check it out.  Ollie's is excellent for wandering.  It's a little of everything.  LOTS of books.  Linens, some foods, Christmas goods, flooring - a myriad of products, if you will.  I tried to be pretty good.  I didn't even grab a cart on the way in.  I just walked.  It wasn't until I scored some $2.99 bags of coffee that I grabbed a basket.  And I didn't fill it up.  I was restrained.  It was mostly coffee and coffee related products.  And protein bars for Hubs.  There was other stuff I considered.  But I've made a commitment.  More on that in a sec.  If they had had a coffee maker that grinds the beans and brews them right up, I would have been in a world of temptation.  And since I left my mini muffin pan in Myrtle Beach last summer after not even using it, I had my eye on one of those.  But the only thing they had was a micro muffin pan. And that was not what I wanted so I didn't get it.  They had some Rachel Ray cooking stuff.  They had oodles of scrapbooking stuff...really cute, really inexpensive scrapbooking stuff.  And none of it made it into my basket.  I know.  It was fairly miraculous.  It's a close-out place so if you like to hunt, you are in luck.  And if you see something that you like, get it.  With close-out places, it's hit or miss.  The stock constantly changes.  And they don't take coupons.  I will give Ollie's 6 out of 10 Jenny jewels.  The organization is not awesome.  But there's some good stuff to be found.

On a highly reliable website that I have never checked before and have no intimate knowledge of it's accuracy, I looked up the phrase "in the pink".  What it has come to mean is in in perfect condition, especially of health.  One of the coolest things about that is that when I was googling, there's a reference to a site called "In the Pink".  It's a non-profit boutique for women living with breast cancer.  I love that.  It's got the pink and the hope all wrapped up in some lovely clothing for women living life in the most perfect condition that they possibly can.  My friend who has breast cancer has had an awful week but it's getting better.

During church this weekend, the number was revealed of how much our church is committing to all the initiatives we want to accomplish.  And it was all pink all the time.  We look crazy, but we are healthy.  We will be helping other people be healthy.  In South Africa.  In India.  In Cincinnati.  Are you ready?

46 Million Dollars.

I am surprised.  I am humbled.  I am excited.  I am ready.  I am in.  This is big.  This is how miracles happen.  This is how the world begins to change.  And it has to.

And that pink diamond up there?  A man paid $46,000,000 for it.  One ring.  One stone.  One man.  I wonder if I even have words to express how sad this makes me.  Over 10,000 people decided to sacrifice.  One woman decided that she will not be coloring her hair anymore so that she can give.  One couple gave up their motorcycle instead of keeping it or selling it - they gave it to the church.  I didn't buy that yummy smelling candle at Target.  I'm not saying that God wants us all to get down in a loin cloth and live in a hut and tend to lepers or live in a van down by the river.  We all have a call.  This is mine.  This is our church's.  It may not be yours.  And that's cool.  I don't judge you.  I do judge a dude who has the kind of money that he can blow a wad that big on something so audacious when so much more could have been done with that money.  I bet it wasn't even a conflict free diamond.  Knuckle head.  That is so not the word I wanted to use there but I'm trying to maintain some sort of PG to PG-13 continuity and honestly, I don't know where douche bag falls on that line.  Apparently, I'm not totally heeding God's call not to judge.  Or call people feminine care products...

I have to go now.  If I don't, Veronica is going to keep feeding me cliffhangers so that I watch just one more episode to see what happens.  And also, I've done like three lines of fudge so probably I should be on a different level of the house than the pan... And something got all wonky with my post and I ended up having to type it twice.  And that, my friends, is bordering on work...

foreign...

Mayhaps you would be surprised to know that I still have muddie buddies in my house.  I know.  Me too.  Although I just made a pretty good dent in them.  And I didn't make fudge yet but I got the ingredients.  And latch on to this magic.  You take pretzels (not the stick variety) put them on a cookie sheet while the oven heats up to 400.   You place a rolo on top and stick them in the oven for about 4 minutes.  When they come out, you smoosh a pecan half on top.  I haven't made those yet either.  But I have the pretzels and the pecans on stand-by waiting for the rolos and as you can see, I have memorized the recipe.  I didn't read it just now and type it out for you.  Oh, no.  It's up there just a waitin'.  You may recall that previously, I was interested in losing weight.  I think a more successful venture would be to see how much I can put on.  That way, if I fail, I win.

Turkey day is on the way.  It's going to be low-key.  I just realized that Hubs wants me to call the Saudi and invite him over to eat with us.  I mean, I didn't just realize that happened because we only just talked about it like an hour or two ago.  What I mean is that it will be interesting.  As I am serving ham.  The Saudi joked once about me serving him pork sometime and just not telling him.  I think he was joking.  There's a part of me that is convinced he really wanted me to because he wanted to try it but didn't want to be held accountable to Allah for eating it.  Let's be real.  Bacon is just about worth conversion.  But I never did bait and switch him.

Skunk and Peanut are having a Thanksgiving feast at their school on Monday.  We are supplying the corn and the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Because peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were sure to be part of the original cross-cultural exchange.  Peanut and Skunk don't like peanut butter and jelly.  They like peanut butter and "chocolate" - which is Nutella.  I fool myself into thinking that it's extra protein since it is derived from a nut.  So, we asked the teacher if we could bring both kinds of sandwiches in.  She said yes.  So, here is what I was thinking about the corn.  I was thinking about taking the little baby ones that come in the jar.  I mean, kids totally dig miniature.  Pretty much, the smaller something is, the more thrilled and obsessive they get with it.  Observe Polly Pocket et. al.  So, instead of taking boring old canned corn, what if they had miniature cobs that they could just eat the whole thing of?  Fun?  I think so.  Probably Skunk and Peanut are not going to touch corn in any formation so it doesn't matter much.

I have my sweet potatoes to do any myriad of ways to make many different people thrilled with the results.  And marshmallows to that end as well.  I'm not making green bean casserole this year.  I don't think we are going to miss it.  Really, if I just bought a can of the fried onions, that would be even happier than eating fatty cream of crud soup mixed with not so terribly green canned beans.  The only thing that makes that dish is the onions.  So, let's just eat the can of onions and call it a day!  Or maybe we could just go somewhere and order onion rings.  Who has the best ones?  My mom used to make beer battered onion rings.  I think she would make them like once a year or every two years.  They were the absolute bomb.  And not just in a hanging out in your arteries waiting to explode kind of way.  They were dang delicious.  That's what I would like to have on the table for Thanksgiving.  I'd be all thankful for that.

The Black Friday ads are trickling onto the Internet.  I can't figure out how much attention I should be paying to those this year.  Hubs and I have done Black Friday before.  And it's been fun.  Glorious deals to be had, caught up in the competition and the hunt and the score.  I totally get it.  Although, in some ways, Black Friday is for amateurs.  I do my gift shopping all year long hitting deals as they come and am usually pretty much done before the 4 am sales that day.

But this year is just a very different year.  For one thing, Hubs and I are doing everything we can to have a slave free Christmas this year.  I bought  some good stuff for some good people that helps some good people.  It's a win win win.  If you are interested in how you can help make that happen, start with some good fair trade coffee for the coffee drinker in your life.  Buy fair trade chocolate for the chocolate lover.  Buy local.  Check out Trade as One for a huge selection of items that help the people who make the items have a sustainable income.  It's just not okay for someone to sacrifice their childhood, their dignity, their quality of life so that I can have something cheaper - or anything at all.

For another thing, the presents for the kids will be a very different animal this go round.  For a few years, Hubs and I decided that we would only buy our kids 3 presents each for Christmas.  But the kids have 3 sets of adoring grandparents who buy them presents as well.  So three can easily turn into roughly one billion.  Give or take.  This year, we are asking for cash money, pooling it all up and buying each kid 3 presents total- from the lot of us.  For real.  Jesus got three gifts.  Good enough for the King of Kings is good enough for my kids! He's all the time giving us great examples on how to do stuff.  This is a good idea!  And you know, it's probably harder for me than it is for the kids.  I do get great joy out of giving.  And they dig getting stuff.  Unfortunately, as they have the attention span of gnats, once the getting is got, the care and keeping there is not.  Yes.  I do know I'm a poet.  I know it.  This is going to be a challenge to me.  I'm great at the gifts.  I need to be better at the meaningful.  Would Princess care if she didn't get a bracelet kit if it meant we could go do a cooking lesson together?  Would Scooby forego yet another Lego set if I took him out for pizza and laser tag?  It's just that much easier for me to express my love with a thing.  It's so much harder for me to express my love by actually giving it away or doing it how someone else needs me to do it, rather than how I most feel comfortable doing it.  Whoa.  That was deep and slightly somber.  Anywho.  A huge hope is that by reducing the number of gifts, the kids will take some time to discern favorites and there is less distraction so that when they get bored with those 3 things, they just dang well have to figure out a new way to use them.  And the thing is, I have no idear what it is they should get.  Skunk just keeps asking for various superhero toothbrushes.  I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth - or a skunk in the teeth...  If I just get those for him, I'm in the clear, right?  It's what he asked for.  And Princess and Peanut pretty much want every single girly thing that graces any catalogue coming across their laps.  So as I peruse the Black Friday ads, I'm hard pressed to see much of anything I'm willing to wake up crazy early to purchase.  Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that I won't be out there.   I

Here's today's new thing.  Veronica Mars.  Leave it to me to discover and enjoy a television show that is no longer.  I'm into the third episode of the first season and I'm totally hooked.  The writing is great and now I know where Kristen Bell came from and what the big deal is.  Yep.  This is gonna be one of those types of shows where I'll do marathon nights.  As it is, it's already midnight and as soon as this is over, I will allow myself to go to bed.  I'm giving it 9 out of 10 Jenny's Jewels.  Check it out - Netflix, library, whatever.  Let us marvel at what t.v. can be. Or was.  You know.  Since it got all cancelled or finished or whatever.

One final thing to share.  We went to church tonight and we got to hear the number raised for our campaign.  Unfortunately, that is all I can share about that.  There are 3 more services tomorrow and it is only fair to let that be as much as surprise to the people going then as it was to us going tonight.  The number is a miracle.  Any number would have been.  Given this economy, given the holidays, given all the things that demand our attention and our resources and our money.  Given the growing apathy and the growing blind eye - there's no reason to have raised as much as we did.  It's a number of hope.  It's a number of radical, unadulterated love.  I believe in my heart it's a number capable of changing the world - because of the hearts and the consideration of all the people in coming up with their own sacrifices - all in the name of love.  People are doing things they have never done before.  Our church is doing something it has never done before.  We are encroaching on new territory.  It's exciting.  And it's a little nerve-wracking like any adventure is when it begins.  Okay, Okay.  I will give you one hint.  There is a zero in the number...  S'okay.  I'll tell ya tomorrow.   Now let's go to bed.  Not together.  I only have a queen and Hubs would be confused and upset.

Here's mud in your eye...

Because I have a memory like a sieve, I want to start with the stuff I told you last night that I wanted to mention first.

Here's the cookie I want to make but I haven't yet.  I want to take a Krusteaz peanut butter cookie mix (made according to package directions) and then I want to take a box of milk duds.  Now, the next step is still a little sketchy.  I don't know if it would be best to place the milk duds on top of the cookies while they are baking or if I should go ahead and put them in the mix and bake it that way.  I haven't made these yet because I kept eating the milk duds.  All three boxes.  The movie theater size boxes.  Whatever.  Probably the same thing would happen in your house.

I like soup.  I don't make it alot.  Hubs doesn't believe that a meal is a meal if it isn't roughly 80% meat.  Sometimes that is tricky with soup.  One of the moms from my kiddos' preschool suggested doing a soup exchange.  We make a big ol' batch of soup and divide it up so that you can share with a few different family.  I got 4 different kinds of soup.  Baked Potato, Turkey Noodle, Chicken Rice and Chili.  I had the Baked Potato last night.  It was really chunky and hearty.  I loved it.  Tonight I had the Chicken Rice.  It was really creamy and delicious.  Peanut had the Turkey Noodle last night and ate it all down.  This was just such a fun and easy idea.  I guess I'm gonna have to make good on my contribution.  I owe 4 families my soup.  I'm making Taco Soup.  I'd feel guilty about how easy it is except for the part that it's delicious.  And now it's also time to stock up on a whole mess of crock-pot liners because it's getting to be time for me to plan a little less and work a little less and still provide food for people.  If you have any favorite crock-pot recipes - feel free to share!

Ginger and Zinger were strays dogs.  I drove about 1.5 hours to a shelter to check one (Zinger) out because his picture was on their website.  And since we wanted two dogs so they could be pals, I "interviewed" some other dogs with Peanut and Big Stuff.  Ginger was the very last and was perfect.  The shelter didn't really have any information to pass along about our new family additions.  I do know that Ginger's demeanor was timid and gentle and I wondered if she had been abused.  We have a short fence in our backyard that they manage to jump over.  Originally, Ginger would circle around to the front door and come back in.  Zinger was the wily one.  I always had to chase him down.  Now Ginger is just as stubborn and they run straight past me to check out the four legged neighbors.  They even have the audacity to run as close to me as a skim as they keep going and I can't get my hands on them.  Yesterday, though, I was fuming.  It took 15-20 minutes to get them - 15-20 minutes of running through mud and strangers' yards and various breeds of dog crap.  I get that dogs' memories are nutty.  They go insane if you left the room for 1 one minute and come back and they go equally insane if you take a month vacation and come back.  But really?  This is a good life here.  Sure, the kids smother them with attention but they aren't neglected, they aren't abused, they aren't hungry.  Trying to run away from us??  After all the time and money and investment. Ingrates.  Suckers.

I made a long to-do list today.  I think I accomplished 1.8 items on it.  I'm counting a .8 because there was an important thing that wasn't on my list but I needed to do it and I did it.  And so I didn't get the grocery store.  And after yesterday's experience of taking all 4 kids to Aldi, there was no way in ha ha that I was taking even half of them to another public place.  Let me just walk you through a little of it.  I was looking for some cheap turkeys and a ham and I knew that Aldi had what I needed.  And I thought that if there was even one store that I could manage all of them in, it would be Aldi.  Here's why.  It's a small store.  I couldn't lose anyone.  No nooks and crannies - it's pretty much one room.  Also.  I figure that I would be in good company.  I'm not slamming on Aldi or the people that shop there.  I mean - I'm there!  But I do figure that the more kids you have, the more you need to save money on food, the more you need a place like Aldi and the more kids you have, the less control you have to spread across more people.  I'm hoping I'm making any sense.  Let me lay this down.  I stood out at Aldi.  I was a lunatic.  They were running, they were yelling, they were ignoring, they were soliciting comments from others along the lines of "you have your hands full..." etc.  On the other hand, there was one lovely woman who said "I'm glad it's not just me".  Me too.  Meeee toooo

Today's new thing is Muddie Buddies.  I have enjoyed Muddie Buddies before.  I have never made Muddie Buddies before.  And it may be dangerous that I made them on this day.  Part of the problem is that I have all the ingredients to do it again.  A few times over.  And now I am armed with knowledge in the form of the recipe.  Because it is Yummy.  You know how some things just taste better when someone else makes them for you?  And then you make it and it's not quite as good.  Yeah.  This is not that.  It doesn't really matter who mixes chocolate chips, peanut butter, butter, vanilla and chex cereal together and then sprinkles powder sugar all over it and shakes it up in a bag for to keep all the ingredients locked in and on the cereal.  My only beef is that that box said from start to finish 15 minutes.  Apparently, even though the likelihood is that you are making such a fine, nutritious product for children, there are no children in the vicinity to bother you while you make it while they ask what it is, when it will be ready, if they get to eat some when you are done, standing in the way so that they can stare at the chocolate mixture in the clear bowl while their eyes glaze over.  I think start to finish was actually more in the realm of uhm, one hour.  It's worth it.  Believe that.  10 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  I LOVE the beginning of the holiday bake season.

That's all I do for today folks.  I have to get up and go to Meijer at 7am.  Don't get me started...

This is a test. This is only a test.

If you missed me last night, here is all you missed:

Two Valium plus nitrous oxide = 10 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.

And then I went to bed at 9:30.

Probably I will do the same tonight. My tooth crowning situation went well.  But I'm a little achy from the part where one tooth has to scooch over a little for the new thickness of my porcelain gloriousness.  If you need a dentist, check out Fennell, Baron and Associates in the Cincy area.  Tell them I sent ya.  They put a blanket on me when I got chilly and everything.  I know, right?

I'm perusing Black Friday ads.  We're going to save that conversation for tomorrow night.  I know.  I know.  I'm being a little lame and stingy for a second day in a row.  Imagine what the additional sleep is going to do for  our conversations.  Starting tomorrow.  I'll catch you up on soup, a cookie I want to make and how my dogs almost become homeless today.  Stupid, ungrateful dogs.

My carb coma is about to go live.  Sleepy smooch.

Lighten up...

Okay.  So what do you want to talk about today?  Wouldn't that be fun?  It would be almost like an improv session.  You could give me a topic and just watch me spin a yarn a mile long about it - perhaps even making some connective points.  Feel free to leave a comment if you have suggestions and want to try that out sometime.

I have to go to the dentist tomorrow.  It's time to get my tooth fixed.  I get to sit in a chair for about 2 hours or so while they build me a crown.  It'll be custom fitted.  I'm gonna feel a little like a car - they will be all up in my grill and everything.  Woo boy.  That was a good one.  Anywho.  I was at Target picking up a prescription for 2 Valium.  I was worried because I have gone to the pharmacy with a fraction prescription before and they tried to charge me for an entire lot and I was all like, heck no and my body was all like, uhm, yeah, you can't afford to skip this stuff and I was all like, nuh uh and my body was all like, see what I mean.  So I spent the $30 co-pay for like 4 or 5 pills.  But this a prescription that was written out for just 2 Valium.  And I didn't have to pay full price.  I get to take them tomorrow.  I don't mean to sound eager but when you are someone who is a little uptight like I can be from time to always, I'm interested in a mellow down moment.  On top of that, I have to just be still.  They said I could read or listen to music.  Or sleep.  Hubs has to drive me there and home.  This is gonna be like the best dental visit of all time.  So, I was strolling around Target with my $10 gift card that I scored for letting them fill my $5.99 prescription.  And I was feeling all giddy like I do when I have money to burn.  But I didn't have money to burn.  I realized that when I was looking through the clearance sections for these amazing candles I found a week or so ago.  The scent is so delicious - just strong enough and not overpowering.  All I found was one.  It was still marked as crazy expensive - $9.xx on clearance.  I was about to take it over to the "please verify that this item hasn't become more affordable scanny thingy" when I stopped myself.  I didn't need that candle.  I wanted it - sure.  I had a gift card that would about cover it if it wasn't marked down any further.  And the reality is that even if it was marked all the way down to 2 or 3 dollars, I still didn't need it.  It was an extravagance.  And I put the candle down.  This probably sounds perfectly logical to some or most of you.  But it's not that kind of no-brainer for me.  For me - if I want it, I get it.  Fortunately, I don't much want to be dripping in diamonds, wear designer clothing or drive the most gorgeous, brand new, deluxe mini-van.  What?  I'm just sayin' - I still have munchkins to cart around and there are a lot of them so what else do they fit in - it still has to be a mini-van.  Whatever.  You know it's a lovely, roomy ride when you are in one so don't even play.  But if I want a new shirt - I get it.  I'll search high and low for a good bargain on one, but I'll get it.  I loved this candle - sought it out and everything.  But it doesn't fit in with where I'm trying to take myself at this point.  I made a commitment and I'm thoughtless and I'm selfish from time to time but I'm trying to get there.  And even a $2 candle (should it have been such an incredible bargain... do you think it had gone down again?  Maybe I should have just checked?  Wouldn't that make this all the more poignant, if it had even been cheaper and I still walked away???...) shouldn't be enough to sway me.  Now, had Jungle Jim's had some salted caramel flavored jeni's splendid ice cream in stock today - you know for $9.99 a pint, perhaps that would have been a harder temptation to resist but they didn't so I didn't have to worry about it.  I bought some milk, some yogurt, 2 packs of coffee (the little one pot size) some shampoo and some conditioner and I left.  And I still have 2 bucks and change left on the gift card.  Maybe it's enough to double check on that candle...

Speaking of stuff I like to eat (what?  It just happened - I mentioned the jeni's splendid ice cream.  C'mon, I move fast, you gotta keep up...), I just tried the Yoplait Light Boston Cream Pie flavor that I didn't get to try during the get-together and it was DEEE-licious.  9 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  I will state that I am disappointed that I only save 60 calories with the light yogurts over the regular style.  What's up with that?  If it's all sugar free, shouldn't it be like 8 calories?  And don't tell me that it's because it's dairy because I hold firm that yogurt has barely any sort of a milk situation going on.  So, unless cultures are caloric, I am not understanding this at all.

Here's what I am processing through these days.  So, Unbound is over.  The campaign is over.  The Saudi moved out.  I know that I told you I had grieving to do.  And I still do.  But on top of that, I'm feeling ridiculous lightness.  I used to feel like the phrase "room to breathe" was really just that - a phrase.  But now I get the truly literal sense of that.  It feels as though these commitments were pressing down on me like cement blocks and I was barely even able to enjoy those things much less anything at all anymore. I'm not saying that I have made a total return and I'm Holly Golightly (I've totally never even seen that movie) but I've never been a Holly so that would have been an unrealistic expectation.  Just for now, I'm feeling an expansion.   Don't get cute - I'm not talking about my bum.  Not this time.

Okay - on to today's new thing.  And it is a doozy.  I have told you about my adoration of Netflix and the worlds it has opened up to me.  For instance, tonight I thought that I would check out a movie called, "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter".  I dig camp.  If it was pulled off just right, that could have been a killer combo. Are you kidding me?  The Light of the World against creatures who aren't allowed to be out in light?  Think it over peeps.  It could have been killer.   But they didn't do it right.  I watched the intro and the credits and knew that it just wasn't gonna work.  So, for background I turned on something that I have had in my queue for a while.  I don't know if I should just jump in with what it is or tease this out.  The reality is that I am watching it right now and I'm struggling just a little with words.  I know.  This is that good.  And by good, I don't necessarily mean Oscar worthy.  Which is an excellent segue as this has some Oscar connection.  Alright, alright.  I'll tell you.  It's called LXD.  Here's the premise as laid out by Netflix:

This unique Web series combines breathtaking dancing and a taut storyline about the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers: a group of former nobodies who suddenly acquire superpowers and face off against shadowy enemies. Injured ex-soldier Sp3cimen (Chadd Smith), widowed nurse Autumn (Pandora), petty criminal Jimmy Angel (Travis Wong) and the other members of the LXD seek to unlock the mystery of their newfound abilities


I would like to point out that it is in the comic book and superhero genre as well as the Urban and Dance, pop cross reference.

There are disjointed episodes with a dude who is doing some sort of cryptic story telling narrating.  And it's all melodrama and nuances and knowing stares.  And dancing.  Ridiculously talented dancing. I don't know if I'm looking too hard to find the connections or if I am missing something or what.  But I'm just having a little trouble following the common thread.

It starts with this motherless kid who grows up with an overly protective father and he's in high school and he just wants to go the last school dance of his high school career and stare at his crush who of course has a boyfriend.  But the dad is all - no way.  And the kid of course sneaks out and gets to the dance and blows everyone away because they just thought he was the quiet dork and he is an amazing breakdancer.  And some other guys come dance with him and the boyfriend of the girl tries to front him but oh, no, he can't because he's not an extraordinary dancer and therefore not in the League of eXtraordinary Dancers.  Which is who ends up recruiting the dancing kid.

The next segment is two dudes dancing it up in an warehouse.  And using packing peanuts to take their dancing to acrobatic levels.  That's right.  One says "later" to the other one because he's been recruited to the LXD.  He's all like - next time it'll be you dude.  So the other dude is all sad and doing some sort of dancey twirly stuff and this obviously bad guy is spying on him and sees sad dude's backpack and notices that there is a recruitment letter tucked in the pocket.  So sad dude was recruited too and he didn't even know it.  And I looked away for a second but I suspect that the bad dude hurt the sad dude.  Because in the next one, there are no words and this guy is in a hospital and some sort of ominous other guy is sticking a wood cube in his guts which starts dancing in him and he starts rehabilitating with dancing.  That's right.  And this nurse helps him but is wracked with guilt about something so she stops visiting him and he keeps waking up at the same time to dance with her but she's not there until finally she leaves him a note to get out because it was a set-up.  If you need to know what the set-up is - I can't help you there.

The last one I'm going to lay on you is the next one.  I'm finding it all very entertaining and definitely odd but I'm in front of it and I just don't know if it's coming across on your end or not.  It's an office setting and a secretary is filling the boss in on what's going on for the day and she tells him the new guy is starting.  So the new guy conveniently walks through the office right then and is all staring at the boss man.  And the boss man seems confused that the new guy is staring him down but he doesn't fire him - which is more proof that this is all quite so fantastical because he would totally fire the dude in the real world.  So, this goes on the whole day and at quitting time everyone leaves the office and the two dudes run at each other and have a dance off.  It's pretty awesome and only ends because in all their fury and flurry some papers go flying around and new guy slips on some paper while standing on the table and falls and cracks his head on the table.  Which is totally what I tell my kids will happen and now I have the proof that I can show them.

I'm mesmerized.  It's so weird and I just can't bring myself to turn it off.  Imagine the fine acting and cheesy set-ups of Power Rangers (without the stupid alien type beings - as of yet) and then put that to some pretty cool music and mind-blowing dancing.  You see what I'm saying now, right??  And the thing is - apparently the LXD performed at the Oscars.  Which I would know except that somehow I stopped watching the Oscars.  That's a story for another day.  One final note.  The dude who plays Mike Chang from Glee is a choreographer for the show and he is in the episode that is on now.  He has found some shoes in an ornate wooden box hidden behind a wall.  My guess is that they make him dance.  Like real good.  Yep.  I called it.  And they don't even need his help.  He's just sleeping and they are gonna dance anyway.  So far, this is my favorite one.  As a whole, I will rate The LXD 5 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  I'm so on the fence.  You know the phrase, "that's just crazy enough to work"?  I just don't know if it is or not.  I know it's crazy.  I don't know if it works.

Speaking of Glee, I got to watch it tonight and it was incredible.  I don't like Gwyenth Paltrow.  Probably it's jealousy but I like Kathy Griffiin  and she's met her and the way that she describes her in person is pretty much exactly like I have always imagine her.  So, I was right all along.  But I'm going to give her some mad props.  She did a great job.  And there was some serious music tonight.  I have never heard any Cee Lo before.  I don't even know what local station on my radio (do I sound like a total antique right now??) would play his music.  I'm going to go find more and listen to it.  He might be a little naughty so I'm not recommending him to the under 18 crowd.  I'm just saying I liked the way it sounded and I want to know if I'm missing more grocery store worthy music.  Glee gets 10 out of 10 Jenny's jewels tonight.

Here's the deal, folks.  You have GOT to stop keeping me up so late.  I have to hang with the four year old crowd again tomorrow.  And then I'm getting a crown.  And then I'm going to the Unbound celebration.  It's a big full day.  I can't be all the time staying up until 11:30!!  Oh well.  I'm just going to tell you that you are worth it.  Do I need a sign off?  Like a regular one that I use every time?  I don't want to become predictable.  Hmmmm...   At any rate, for me, for now, it's lights out.

Feast your eyes on this...

All right, all right.  Everyone settle down.  I'm here now.

I just got back from shopping.  I know.  Shocker.  Me and Lady Gaga had some last minute mega sale-ness to attend to.  She's my favorite shopping buddy.  She's very patient when I have to go back and forth across the store when I forget stuff I already passed.  Oh.  I'm gonna tell you how that shopping trip breaks down right here and now!  This is the part where Artie would raise his fingerless gloved hand in the hair and say "testify!"  You should totally get that reference...  At Kroger, I like to give my Kroger card after everything has scanned.  It's cheap entertainment. So, after everything was rung up and before my Kroger card, my total was $249.xx.  After she scanned my Kroger card, my total dropped to $155.xx.  After my coupons, my total was $71.59.  That's right.  My grand total savings was $173.76 OR 71%.  Imagine if I still didn't have to buy some pull-ups for that sweet  skunk of mine.  Bless his heart.  He just can't hold his own in the night time.  Literally.  And also, I did buy some hummus, black olives, shredded carrots, an avocado, a cucumber AND some clearanced out Flat Outs for a totally killer sandwich for my lunch tomorrow.  I have to eat with a bunch of four year olds so I'm feeling a little entitled to a lovely grown-up meal.  So, that was an additional 10 buxish of splurge but my rationale is that Hubs DID say he wanted to have some hummus around.  And those ingredients are mighty healthy.  So, if I could just NOT eat every morsel of sweet in my house, move my arse a bit to lose a bit of it, AND eat these sandwiches all week, something good has GOT to happen.  Right?  right?

So, let's address those dangling threads from last night.  I told you I would tell you my Christmas revelation.  One of my favorite things to do when I am driving around at night alone in the car, is to leave the stereo off.   When the weather warrants it, I like to have the windows down a bit and just seep in that moving silence - moving like I'm in motion.  Not moving as in my arm hairs raise a little and I get a little verklempt.  It's wonderful.  Last night, however, I decided to keep the radio on.  The radio has been locked to the same station since roughly Halloween.  You know what I'm going to say next, don't you?  That right!   Christmas music!  I know that Thanksgiving hasn't occurred yet, but I kind of don't care.  I'm not big on Thanksgiving.  I mean - I'm HUGE on giving thanks.  I'm rather insistent on it and I try to make sure that the big dude upstairs is fully aware that I am cognizant of my blessed beyond measureness.  But I don't really have feelings about Thanksgiving as a day.  I guess because originally it was this romanticized holiday all about the pilgrims and the Indians coming together and having a feast with corn and gourds and turkey and cylindrically shaped gelled cranberries.  I accept it as an excuse for family to come together.  I certainly accept it as an excuse to eat lots of food.  But I'm not terribly moved - moved like the arm hair version, not like in motion -  or excited about the rest of it.  Maybe I'm just such a rebel that I'm not into traditions that are kind of forced on me.  For example.  I don't like turkey.  I'll eat some pressed turkey deli style product on a sandwich.  I'll eat some turkey meat with some gravy on a sandwich.  But turkey is just so precarious.  You really do get what you pay for when it comes to those big tasteless birds.  And no one wants to spend lots of money on a turkey!  At least no one I spend Thanksgiving with.  And I get that.  But, truly, the more you spend on a turkey, the more succulent it is, the harder it is to dry out and the more tasty.  But I have probably only had some such turkey once or twice in my life.  Certainly enough times to know that there is a difference.  But not enough times to treat it like a holy grail that I spend time pining for it until the next Thanksgiving arrives.  So.  For our Thanksgiving, we have ham.  Honeybaked, preferably.  But this year, we are providing Thanksgiving boxes for our church and we aren't going anywhere and we aren't hosting anyone.  We are on a budget and I don't feel bound to abide by anyone's expectations of what should be on the table.  I asked the kids tonight what they wanted for Thanksgiving dinner.  Here are the answers:  tacos, pizza, cheese, and the taco soup that she wouldn't touch for dinner tonight.  She wouldn't eat it tonight, but she wants it for Thanksgiving.  Whatever.  I just wanted to know what they would say.  Then Hubs wanted to "throw out some options".  Turkey.  Sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top.  Apple pie.  Lemon meringue pie.  Chocolate meringue pie.  Pumpkin pie.  It would seem that he thought that his mother was coming to cook him some sort of Thanksgiving feast (complete with an entire pie buffet, apparently...) because not only do I not make any of those things, but I don't even LIKE any of those things.  Not a one.  I like my sweet potatoes with a crunchy pecan, praline kind of thing going on atop.  I would eat a chocolate meringue pie if it was all I had to eat for my sweet tooth but I don't like meringue.  So, I don't know what we are going to do.  But I do know that Hubs is going to be HIGHLY disappointed.  Anywho.  I know that it's early yet to be listening to Christmas songs but I love Christmas.  I love decorating and baking and magic.  And I love celebrating the most audacious act of love ever - that God crammed Himself into little baby Jesus (oh, Talladega Nights, how I love thee...) and crashed into the earth into a smelly barn with itchy hay.  And I'm all too happy to start celebrating all that as early as the beginning of November.  So, I'm tooling around (shopping, you know.) and the windows are down and Christmas songs are playing and it's night.  And do you know what I realized?  White Christmases are highly over-rated.  I looked at my temperature gauge in my car and it said 68 degrees and I thought about all those people in California and Florida and before, I felt sorry for them.  Because I really believed that part of the magic of Christmas was the snow.  But you know what else about snow??  It's flippin' cold!!  I've had plenty of white Christmases.  I don't need snow for Christmas.  In fact, as I was enjoying those very favorable conditions, I found myself jealous.  That's right.  I was covetous of warm, clear Christmas.  I want that.  I want to wish people mele kaliki maka and not be quirky or charming because I'm saying something a little off beat.  I'm saying it because I'm in freakin' Hawaii and that's what we all say!!  And that, my firends, was my Christmas revelation.

Now, let's talk stuffing.  I bought more last night.  I know.  I know!  But it was apple stuffing.  And I can't get that at the mega sale.  I can't get the cranberry stuffing there either.  It's not enough to have cranberries, you gotta have cranberries IN other Thanksgiving goods.  And also, there were tear pads of coupons to try the apple stuffing.  I could get boxes for 29 cents each after that coupon.  And then, when I combined that with my buy 4 boxes of stuffing, get a fifth one free coupon, I'm not really sure how you could expect me to pass it up.  No.  Really.  How do I pass that up?

I watched Repo Men last night.  It was pretty cool.  I try not to get caught up in the personal lives of celebrities.  Actually, that is a total lie.  I am all up in their business but I'm trying not to be.  But I will tell you that I have trouble not judging a celebrity by the behavior and holding it against them when it comes to viewing their movies.  Like.  I'm definitely hard pressed to need to see anything with Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie.  I just don't respect them as people and the very public things they have done to hurt other people.  I know there are two sides to every story.  I know that it's not right for me to judge anyone.  But I do and I don't like 'em.  So, here comes Jude Law.  He's a known skank.  And maybe he's changed his ways.  I hope so.  I hope we all get  the chance to.  But I went ahead and watched his movie.  Plus I love me some Forest Whitaker.  That dude can act.  Did you see him in The Shield?   Did you see The Shield?  You just gotta.  On both.  So, Repo Men was all science fictiony and pretty violent.  I don't mind violence per se.  It's all in the circumstances.  For instance, I didn't mind it in Inglorious Basterds.  I think because it was Nazi violence.  I'm just sayin'.  They were stupid.  But the violence in Repo Men was a little tougher for me.  And I don't have something I can point to and say - that's why.  What was funny about it was that after we watched it, Hubs and I read the summary that Netlix had on it and it was completely different than the movie we watched.  The movie was based on a book so maybe that summary was about the book version.  Which is frustrating because I think you all know how I feel about the disassembly of the story that occurs when they turn a book into a movie.    I will give Repo Men 6 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Hubs was supposed to be working and was more interested in the movie than his computer so I'm going to say it was interesting and was a decent way to pass some time.

Since it is once again after midnight, I will leave you with my new thing for the day.  I actually have a couple I could relay to you but I'm going to go with the biggie.  Hubs and I made our commitment to the Game Change campaign at our church today.  Really we had already done it last Thursday but today was the official version.  The amount will make us bleed.  (You had to be there...).  And I feel really good about that.  I feel good that it gives me a chance to prioritize.  It gives me a chance to make choices and honor my husband, my family and my Lord.  I feel changed by the journey we went through to get to that number.  I feel more peaceful.  I give Game Change journey to commitment 9 out of 10 stars.  What?  I'm not going to be able to buy new jeans for like 3 years!  That's why I gotta exercise like right now. I can't afford to outgrow these.  It will be embarrassing on many, many levels but mostly the one where my thighs actually bust the seams.  In public.  Anywho.  I can't wait to hear the final number of how much we raised.  Don't you worry.  I'll let you know.  We find out next weekend.  Just before Thanksgiving.  And I will give thanks for all that our church will be doing in the name of love while eating at a Golden Corral restaurant so that everyone gets what they want...