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Cutie Pie playing w/his toy camera from Disneyland
CP: Say "cheese robot" (he's pretending to fix me-- the robot)
Me: Cheese robot
CP: No say "cheese"
Me: Cheese
CP: Hey this picture won't change (the little cube spins and the camera says phrases from the movie)
Me: I guess it's broken then.
CP: I guess we have to go back to Disneyland and buy a new one... [smile]
Ha ha ha. He says this on a weekly basis. "I guess we have to go to Disneyland..."
Too smart.
My mood: great
So on Friday I was supposed to work. Turns out that Nina is wonderful and fabulous and insisted that I take the day off, so twist my arm... I did.
Spent the day shopping. Cutie Pie was w/Gramps, so I was whine-free for the day. Woohoo! Missed him like crazy, of course, but I did enjoy myself. We hit Macy's and Ala Moana. Ate at Cinamon's and had Chinese food for lunch.
Last stop was Walmart and Sam's Club. Walmart was crazy crowded, but Trini really wanted to go. Got through okay, but when we hit the parking lot the entire parking lot went black. Yikes. We looked into the stores and the lights were still on. Sam's Club next. While there the lights went out inside the store. They told all the members to come to the front of the club, but they couldn't check anyone out because no power=no registers working. We hung out for a few minutes, then decided to leave. About half the store had left already. I felt sorry for all the employees, because I'm sure people had a lot of refrigerated items in their carts that were just left out. At least we told a lady we were leaving and Trini gave her the eggos and pie she was buying so that they could put it back in the freezer.
Getting out of the lot and home was a different story. The streets were really crowded. Ala Moana was closed and so was everywhere else and I guess people were just trying to get home. Turns out that the blackout was almost island-wide, except for Kapolei and Makakilo and Obama's vacation home. There were homeless people, marines and police officers directing traffic at the major intersections, but people are CRAZY drivers and don't know the meaning of 4-way stop. Took us over 40 minutes to get out of the traffic mess and onto the Pali. From there it was pretty smooth.
After I got home and reunited with my Cutie, we just hung out until bedtime. Power came back up at 5:45 Saturday morning. Woohoo! Trini's power didn't come back up until noon. Guess it helps us to be on the same power grid as Obama, although his grid was not the first to come back up. What's up with that? I thought he was all-powerful, but I guess not enough to stop Mother Nature or sway the electricity gods.
Guess it really was a black Friday after all... ha ha ha
My mood: good
1 pkg brownie mix (19.5oz)
1/2 c butter, melted, plus 3 Tbsp butter, melted
3 eggs
1 c dk brown sugar
1 c dk corn syrup (I used light)
2 c chopped pecans
1 c mini chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray bottom of 9x13 pan w/nonstick cooking spray.
In med bowl, mix brownie mix, butter and 1 egg. Press into prepared pan.
Bake 15 min. Remove from oven (leave oven on).
While crust bakes, in med bowl whisk 2 eggs, brown sugar, corn syrup, and 3 Tbsp butter. Stir in pecans and mini chocolate chips; pour over hot crust.
Bake 35-40 min longer, until just set and topping is golden brown. Cool. Cut into bars.
Makes 24-36 bars.
I am extremely lazy and tired and not ready to write about Christmas. We had an enjoyable day (mostly, except for the no-nap antics) with family (miss my Sis!). He was quite thrilled with his loot. He got a LOT of toys and games and very few clothes, except Transformer shirts, so that counts as cool. Surprisingly he got 7 (yes 7) Transformer t-shirts and not one duplicate.
Christmas w/the family was at Natsunoya. It was planned by the O clan. Next year is the S's turn. Woohoo, I don't have to do anything! Not sure when it's our turn again...
Here are some shots from Christmas this year -- not from today. I'm too lazy to upload the shots, maybe this weekend???
A shot by the tree...
His first Gingerbread House, which he decorated by himself. It has a milk carton frame covered w/goodies.
The usual ride on the Christmas Train. Will be sad when he's too tall for it. Maybe we'll get to ride it for one more year???
My mood: jolly and exhausted.
Ugh. Have I ever mentioned that I the crowds at Christmas? With working full time (no time off before Christmas), shopping, taking care of Cutie Pie and his ever growing defiant and stubborn nature, and baking for every event under the sun--- I'm beat. I'm so exhausted all the time. I can feel myself falling asleep when I drive, when I'm working (which is actually normal-- ha ha ha), and mostly when I come home and lay down on the couch.
Bro has had a negative effect on my efforts to save money. He's talked me into accompanying him to several Walmart and Costco trips which have resulted in impusle buying binges. For example, last nite at Costco he convinced me (or I convinced myself) that I needed a 32" flat screen LCD TV. I had no intention of getting it, but he made it sound like the deal of the century, I couldn't resist. Then to make matters worse, after we got home and he set it up for me, he wanted to check out the high definition on the TV, so he brought up his PS3 and put in the blue ray of Iron Man, which I haven't seen yet. So, of course, I had to watch it. It was fabulous!!! I love RDJr. He's right up there w/Obama (who I still haven't seen vacationing around yet). I ended up going to bed at 1:00 a.m. and was supposed to get up at 5:45, but overslept, so we were both late today.
Again, I am not sleeping. But extremely exhausted. Presents to wrap... we'll see.
Playlist: Turn your lights down low, Colbie Caillat; Waiting in Vain, Annie Lennox; Mamma Mia, ABBA; Fade into you, Mazzy Star
My mood: exhausted (still) and going to bed
On Tues, Dec 9, my Cutie Pie was scheduled to have storytime w/my favorite children's librarian at his preschool. Now, she is only doing storytime because I asked her to do it and she loves Cutie Pie (not thrilled with this name, thinking it's gonna change again). On Mon, Dec 8, his stomach was sore at nite and he proceeded to vomit everything he ate onto everything in sight. He even was sick in his sleep. He woke up on Dec 9 and SAID he was fine. I, being overly optimistic, decided he was fine and able to go to school to see Auntie Nina do her Christmas storytime. Everything is going well. We get in the car and near Craig's Bakery (or the former site of...) he says to me "Mommy I don't feel good." I say "Okay, hold on we'll go home." Next thing you know... Bleah. All over the back of my car. YUCK!!!!! Words cannot describe the grossness of it all. Fortunately, he managed to get most of it all over himself. So I get him out of the car and into the bath and there's NO WAY he's gonna go to school now. Tantrum begins.
Auntie Nina calls me immediately after the program and asks "Is he sick?!" I tell her the whole gross story. She's devastated and says that he should come to the regularly scheduled storytime on Thursday and skip school because he missed it. I agree that it might be a good idea. He seems cool with the plan.
On Thurs, Dec 11 we awoke to a storm. Not just a storm. A bad storm. Electricity cuts out at the library at 6:30 a.m. and cuts out at home at 7:00 a.m. I am again, overly optimistic (or stupid) and we get into the car. I have to take him with me because no one else is home and I am convinced that his school will just close anyway since most of the public schools were shutting down (they did close the school). I figure the power would come back on and he could watch storytime and then Grandpa could pick him up afterwards. WRONG. Not only did we not get power back on at the library, but Auntie Nina lives where the water was high enough that she couldn't leave her street. So guess what? Storytime is cancelled and we ended up shutting down the library because the school campus closed and pools of water were beginning to form in our parking lot. He cried AGAIN.
Auntie Nina says we HAVE to do a storytime. So she did a special (unadvertised) Christmas program for my Cutie Pie, Trini's kids, and Heavenly (who happened to be in the library w/her Aunty at the time). He was thrilled. I was too.
My mood: exhausted-- I've got so many things to do before Christmas I don't even know where to begin...
Decided to dress up dessert last nite. Idea was from Carleen...
We put the reindeer in snow (ice cream).
Stupid computer won't let me reinsert memory card once I eject it unless I turn computer off and then on again. And my darn cough still won't go away. It's been 3 weeks.
Raining again. That storm forced me to close my library because the power was out for 3 hours and then my A/C died (then restarted). Not like anyone would come there in the storm. Our parking lot was a lake and the preschool on campus got flooded. I felt bad because all I kept thinking was "I hope my library books are safe and dry." [yikes]
My mood: ready for the weekend
I am fascinated by this book. It's a children's book in our collection, brand new. Here's a some cool info from the book (short version):
Solar system in a grocery bag:
1 large yellow grapefruit
1 box of salt
1 box of granulated raw sugar
1 cherry tomato
1 sm green grape
2 sm frozen peas
1 box baking soda
1 orange
3 rolls gauze bandage 25 feet long
Sun = a grapefruit (distances are from grapefruit)
Mercury = grain of salt 18 ft away
Venus = grain of raw sugar 34 ft away
Earth = grain of raw sugar 50 ft away
Mars = grain of salt 75 ft away
Ceres = speck of dust 150 ft away
Jupiter = cherry tomato 240 ft away
Saturn = green grape 420 ft away
Uranus = frozen pea 300 yards away
Neptune = frozen pea 470 yards away
Pluto = speck of baking soda 465-600 yards away
Eris = speck of dust 600-1050 yards away
Comet = tie 3 rolls of gauze together to make 70 ft long (size of great comet of 1843) distance from grapefruit not given
Proxima Centauri = orange 2400 MILES away (nearest star to our Sun)
My tiny little brain cannot even begin to imagine the depths of our universe or others nearby...
My mood: small, but happy to have a weekend upon me!
Am enjoying a quiet and vomit free evening with Cutie Pie (I've decided to rename him). Cutie Pie and I were playing Transformers -- well, he was playing and I was repairing all the broken pieces. Why the heck do they make them with so many parts? I guess that's what makes them exciting to the male gender.
Christmas tree is decorated, lights are up, now all I have to do is wrap the mountain of gifts lying on the floor.
Joy to the world.
My mood: happy, but stressed
He's been vomitting for the last 4 hours and I've done a load of laundry because he's thrown up on the floor of the hallway, his bed, my sofa, and the bathroom. At least the last few times it's managed to make it into the toilet so there was no messy clean up. Ugh. Need to do more laundry tomorrow, but I'm too tired to start another load tonite.
Been too lazy and busy to write much. Plus, I have the cough from hell and there's not much going on to write about...
My mood: tired
In an attempt to get my Christmas pics out on time, I completed my Christmas photo cards which I order from Snapfish. Thinking that I could pick them up at Walgreens (but the fr()*cking website never gave me the option). So my cards will probably be late. Last year they arrived on the last day of the year. One would think that it would inspire me to get the cards ordered earlier. But I never learn from my mistakes. That would just be brilliant.
So I took these snapshots of the pups (they're not really pups). C-Man always wants to know why Sassy isn't on our card. I have to explain to him that she's not really our dog. And her name won't fit on the card. I know it's a lame excuse. What can I say? I'm a bad doggy mamma. Here are my cutie puperitos.
My mood: better, but still Sicko
I have that illness that causes one to cough uncontrollably to the point of gagging. Lovely description. Seeing as I work in an enclosed, air-conditioned space and my coworker has banned me from touching any phones or office equipment, I decided to stay home today. My day was utterly BORING. Not only that, but it was muggy and rainy all day which made me feel even more BLAH. And oh, so un-christmassy. I have mass piles of crap everywhere and I have no desire to clean it. Mostly I feel like chucking it in the trash can. My piles have been growing with mini piles of gifts that lay unsorted and unwrapped. Ugh. I hate being sick. Thankfully, I only get it once or twice a year...
My mood: dreary and sicko