The Scene In Which I Think That Was The Holidays

So, the holidays happened.

I mean, I'm pretty sure they did. There was mid-November, and now it's January 1st, and I'm 99% convinced that in the six weeks between those two points I logged a couple thousand miles on my car, went to Detroit, went to Chicago, went to Detroit again, went to Toronto, wrapped a bunch of gifts, sent a bunch of cards, cooked a bunch of food, ate a bunch of food, and generally was merry.

The week of Thanksgiving I drove around solo a lot, and I spent a lot of that driving time listening to NPR, except for the one time I crossed a state line and the channel change and I totally thought I was still listening to NPR but in fact I'd tuned into the Christian Family Values network, and let me tell you, NOT the same.

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents house in Chicago with Cute Boy and his family, which was good for a lot of laughs and some very yummy food. It was Princess's first Thanksgiving with us, since we got her just after it last year, and she was amazed by the idea that the whole day was dictated by the process of MAKING, BAKING, and EATING FOOD.

We actually had to lock her out of the basement, where the turkey roaster was, for fear she'd pull a sneaky move a la the dogs in "Christmas Story" and we'd wind up with Chinese for dinner.

This, of course, from our dog with the, shall we say, discriminating palate, whose antics lead me to have to send texts like this:
Me -> Cute Boy: Princess just ate one of your socks and then barfed it back up. It's in one piece but it's really gross so I'm just going to throw it out.

After I thankfully was able to visit her just before Thanksgiving, my grandma passed away the week after the holiday and my family went to Detroit in early December. While I'm sad that she's gone, I am grateful that she was spared long-term suffering, and it was really nice to see some of my dad's immediate and extended family. I can't honestly remember the last time we all got together, even with just his brother and sister, and I was especially glad to get to spend some time with my only cousin on his side and am really looking forward to that relationship developing.

I hosted an end-of-year party for the amazing girls who help me out at lilly lane, for whom I have to thank for an incredible year with a record-setting number of weddings! The party was also a surprise baby shower for one of our gals, who is expecting the first lilly lane baby in January. We decked out the kitchen and living room in pink and Cute Boy demonstrated extreme tolerance for having a whole lot of estrogen in the house.

I watched Christmas Vacation and am completely, entirely convinced that Chevy Chase's character in the scene where he goes off on his boss for enrolling him in the jelly club is based off of one of my Uncle Bob's rants.

I got jelly for Christmas from Uncle Bob's daughter. Even though it was totally not a reference to that movie at all (she just knows how much I freakin' love Traverse City Cherry Jam) it was funny, because, um, see above if you don't know why that was funny.

We went to a holiday concert at Butler, my alma mater. It was on the same night that IU, Cute Boy's alma mater, beat Kentucky. Pretty much every single IU alum was glued to the TV.

He watched the score auto-update on his phone while chatting with other alums during the pre-concert reception.

That's love, folks. I'ma marry that boy.

I surfed the Interwebs and Etsy and found approximately eight million adorable, easy holiday crafts that I wanted to make and I bookmarked them all and then I made exactly ZERO of them, which is fine. And then my aunt, who is awesomely crafty when it comes to knitting, actually made me one of the crafts that I had had the idea for last year except that it never left the idea stage for me whereas she actually DID IT, and I LOVE IT, IT'S SO AWESOME, and I am totally going to try to do more of my ideas this year, and by more I mean AT LEAST ONE.

I earned major awesome-future-wife points by buying Cute Boy skis for Christmas, and let me tell you, I am going to remember this for the future, because this is how THIS went down:
1) I told Cute Boy I would buy him skis and gave him a budget
2) He went out and did all the research
3) He went out and bought the skis
4) I paid for them
5) He put them out on display in his "man-room" and told everyone how awesome I was
6) He wore them around the house and told everyone how awesome I was
7) He booked a ski trip with a pal (code for: girls weekend for me at home!)
8) He put them by the tree and I stuck a bow on them.

Guaranteed love of the gift + no wrapping + no shopping +points for me = CHRISTMAS AMAZINGNESS.

I also got him a calendar. It's a tradition.

We spent Christmas in Indy with my parents (visiting from Chicago) and brother, Cute Boy's folks and sister, my aunt, uncle and cousin, and "Grandpa Ed," the neighbor we got Princess from when he went into a nursing home last year. Which, if you're keeping tally, means that yes, I hosted Christmas Day Dinner for 12 people in our house.

Unfortunately, I was apparently convinced that we had, in fact, already recieved the kitchen and cooking things we registered for recently, like, say pots and pans and baking pans? Which led me to do a whole lot of dishes and scrape together a whole lot of interesting cookware solutions and have to send a couple texts to my future sister in law that looked like this:
Me -> Sister: Can you bring some water glasses? Ours all say Coors Lite.

Me ->Sister: Also, can you bring some spoons?
Sister -> Me: Like, regular spoons? Or serving spoons?
Me -> Sister: Yeah.....both please.

I talked to my Grandpa on Christmas Day, which was sad because he was missing Grandma, but then just sort of odd because I'm pretty sure he thought I was actually my dad the whole time I was talking to him, so either he wasn't listening to me or my voice has hit a new low, no pun intended, in sexy huskiness. Either way, meh, it's cool.

My brother learned to cook and made an amazing roast and a couple side dishes, and my mom brought a ham, and I made the rest of the meal and breakfast and snacks and they actually all turned out OK and it miraculously ALL CAME TOGETHER at the right time and then at the end of the night after everyone left or was outside or was passed out I poured my mom and I shots of rum and made her drink one with me because I never realized how freaking hard it is to host a huge holiday party.

We went to Toronto for New Year's to visit Cute Boy's pals and family who live there (Cute Boy is Canadian, eh? Have I told you that yet?) and, as always, I discovered something new about the city, namely:

While out to dinner at Pangea, an amazing, amazing, amazing restaurant that Cute Boy's best friend (and best man) is chef at:
*rumble rumble rumble rumble rumble*
Me: What the eff is that? Is there some sort of freaking underground train here that I don't know about?
Cute Boy: Ummmm........you mean the subway?
Me: Get out, Toronto has a subway?
Cute Boy: *hysterical laughter*

Whatever dude, I didn't grow up here, the subway is effing UNDER THE GROUND and I just totally hadn't noticed it yet.

And then it was midnight on December 31st and 2011 came to a close and I got to kiss this really adorable blonde dude and I realized that HOLY HELL, we are getting married in less than four months, and if you think the HOLIDAYS went by fast- well, hang on, sister.

Happy New Year to you all!

The Scene In Which I Think My Dog Is Actually A Small Child

Our foster friend Princess has been with us for about three weeks now, and if the present situation is any indication, we're in for a lot of fun and snuggles with this one.

And a lot of patience.

I think she may actually be a small child, and by that I don't mean the "children of the four-legged sort," I mean there might actually be a small child going through her terrible two's while teething, crying and going through a destructive phase hiding inside my dog.

See, here's the thing. The last time I had a PUPPY was in the second grade when my family brought home Molly the Border Collie (yes, we'd actually refer to her as such on occasion). When I was in high school, we found Bennett, our first rescue golden, in a park. After Molly passed away Benson came to live with our family, another golden rescue. And when Bennett passed away, we took home Maggie, a -you guessed it- golden rescue.

Even Finnigan, despite his blindness and relatively young age at time of rescue (we think he was about two) came fairly housebroken and well-behaved. Sure, he peed in the house a few times, but he got over that pretty quickly, and he has been known to make some messes playing with a toy, but big deal.

So when we got Princess, I figured, "hey, whatever." She is at least 6 years old, so I figured the puppy-energy was gone, and as long as she was housetrained, we'd be fine.

Holy crow.

I was wrong.

In fact if there is any sort of good indication as to just HOW WRONG I WAS, it might be that I'm finding myself relating to my two favorite mommy-blogs as they write about all the weird things they've said outloud to their kids this week.

(Random sidenote? My favorite is "I don't believe you when you say you're afraid of corn." HILARIOUS!)

Because if she isn't actually a child, I'm pretty sure this dog, in fact, has been sent by the angels to teach me what it will be like to have toddlers one day.

Or she's a demon.

Either way.

Overheard at our house this week:

"Please don't bite him."

"No, that is Finnigan's food, not yours."

"My glove is not a chew toy."

"No, this is Finnigan's treat. You just ate yours."

"My hat is not a chew toy."

"NONONONONONONO!" (Peeing on the rug. AGAIN.)

"My hairbrush is not a chew toy."

"No, this is Finnigan's food. This is yours."

"What do you have? Put that down. Don't put it in your mouth."

"Hey! Drop that! Gimme that. Gimme that out of your mouth. Open your mouth."

"That's his food. I said THAT'S HIS FOOD! Hey, that's HER FOOD! Come on guys-that's not your food! Ok, if you want to eat out of each other's dishes that's fine. Whatever."

"My underwear is not a chew toy."

She's lucky she's stinkin' cute.

The Scene In Which It's (NOT) Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Towards the end of last week/over the weekend I was feeling like a Scrooge, big-time. Normally, I am ALL ABOUT CHRISTMAS.

Just not this year.

Ahem.

'Twas the night weeks before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a Many a creature was stirring, not even a mouse thankfully except for our mouse

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care (oh fudge it, I STILL can't find mine. I found the dog's. I bought Cute Boy a hockey-skate one. But mine? Gone. Gone. Gone.)

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there would stay the eff away until I have time to finish shopping.

The children dogs were nestled all snug in their beds running amok through the house

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads chewing every dog toy, sock, pair of underwear and the occasional pen, plastic bottle, and OH FUN, paycheck into a soggy heap.

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my (new adorable) cap, (now covered in dog slobber)

Had just settled down for a long winter's nap effin' glass of wine

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter didn't much notice amongst all the chatter.

THAT'S WHAT IT'S BEEN LIKE AROUND HERE, FOLKS.

Scrooge. Scrooge scrooge scrooge, that was me.

I wasn't done shopping, I hadn't started wrapping, my cards were not done, and I was NOT FEELIN' THE HOLIDAY LOVE, ok?

That was then.

Since then I've put up some more decorations in the house, wrapped some garland around the outside, managed to snatch all my underwear back from Princess' hiding places (SERIOUSLY DOG, you have gotten waaaaay too used to cushy indoor life waaaaaay too fast) and addressed, if not written, my cards.

And I've been reminded that the holidays are about love and joy and the opportunity to be with one another, and I'm filled with the shiny happy holiday spirit.

So if my house is more cluttered than usual (it is), if I am using a tupperware ornament container instead of a coffee table because we haven't brought the coffee table back out from storage after Thanksgiving yet (we are, and we haven't), if the combination of new dog and old dog is producing an unholy amount of hair despite vacuuming (they are), and even if I STILL can't find the freaking stockings, or a perfect gift for Cute Boy, or the opener for the wine cork........it's ok.

Wait. Not the opener for the wine cork.

I need that.