What happens when Paul gets hold of the Christmas baking

Behold! Tarred and feathered gingerbread men! Making Christmases merry for those nearest and dearest to Paul who understand his totally warped sense of humor.

After much discussion on what to use, we quickly determined that melted dark chocolate would be perfect for the "tar" portion. The "feather" part was a little trickier. Coconut flakes seemed like the natural choice but neither Paul nor I like coconut. We finally settled on crushed peppermint candy canes (although, we worried the red might look a little gory.) I will add that this is definitely the most successful of Paul's experiments. We try not to ever mention the horrid attempt at "Biscuit-cheetos", Paul's take on the the traditional NM cookie, the biscochito. (And my participation in these messes is solely to make certain the house doesn't burn down.)

Really, I'm here just to keep things from melting, warping, or flaming.
Paul works on the crushing of the candy canes. To cut down on the red = gore factor, he wanted the candy canes crushed very finely.
Let the tarring of innocent gingerbread men (and women and children--we used Pepperidge Farm's Ginger Family cookies) begin.
The end results--lots and lots of tarred and feathered gingerbread man. We mixed the extra chocolate and crushed candies to make minty lumps of coal. I suggested reindeer poop but Paul said that wasn't nice. So lumps of coals it is.
Paul who was very proud of his creation, which are actually quite tasty.

In which I quote poetry

This evening as I was leaving the gym, I walked out to discover the entire city blanketed in fog. It is one of those thick, heavy fog that obscures the lights of the entire city. Our city view from the back balcony is one of my favorite things about our house and tonight, I love being able to not see those lights. We don't get fog very often at our house--our house sits at about 6000 ft. so when we do have it, it really is just a low cloud hanging out over the mountain. Plus, we live in the desert so fog in general isn't typical weather since we don't have extra moisture just hanging around. A few years ago, on one of our other rare foggy days, I quoted to Paul a Carl Sandburg poem, aptly named "Fog":

Fog
The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Paul mostly just stared at me like I'd grown another head as I recited this. I don't think he appreciates Sandburg or the fact that I have this poem memorized. I get no respect.

And, of course, a gratuitous picture of my cat who most definitely does not have little fog feet. There are times he comes down the stairs and makes more of a racket than either Paul or I. Jub has claimed this chair, the small recliner we purchased for the bedroom last spring, as his own. We've given up on ever getting to sit in it ourselves and now just keep a towel in the seat so he doesn't completely muck up the upholstery by shedding.

Nothing clever for this one

I was going to post a glib little thing about my adventures in cleaning the grout this morning (used *way* too much cleaner and ended up mopping the floor four times trying to get the soap up but the floor and grout now look fabulous).

Then, I came across this article and it didn't seem quite so necessary. Paul and I came upon this wreck on our way home from dinner on Friday night. Paul was in his own car and took a different route home, turning off of Tramway onto Spain and away from the wreck. I went up Spain and sat by this wreck for several minutes waiting for the light to change. Police and rescue hadn't yet arrived but NMDOT pickup was there with lights on and several cars had also stopped. People were out of the cars and sitting on the curb but I couldn't tell who belonged to which car. When I saw the Mustang (I didn't realize it was a Mustang until I heard the news report), I immediately said a little prayer for the people in the car. It was wrapped around the light pole and there was very little left of the car. I later told Donna that I wasn't so sure I hadn't seen a fatality. Police and rescue arrived on the scene just as my light changed. We heard the sirens from the house for an hour or so. I saw flowers and candles at the light pole this afternoon and wondered if the boy had died. I'm sorry to hear that he did and my heart breaks for his friends and family.

This wreck most likely could have been avoided if either car had stopped (or at least yielded) at the yellow light. In the seven years we've lived in our house, it's crazy how many times we've seen people blow through yellow and red lights at this intersection. I've seen at least three wrecks and dozens of after-wrecks (broken glass, fluids, etc.) at that intersection. Paul and I joke that it's "two minutes of our life we'll never get back" every time we don't make the light or are the first car at the light. But I'm even more thankful for those two minutes now.

Have a seat!

Here are pictures of our new couch and recliner. We haven't gotten the accent chair and ottoman and with the craziness of the book fair, I haven't had a chance to call to arrange delivery which probably won't be until after the new year. Our friend Kristina, to whom we gave our old couch and love seat to, was so appreciative. She'd been to the house several times but as one is apt to do, hadn't paid much attention to the furniture even while sitting on it. So when we pulled up in the pickup last weekend to put everything in her storage room, she exclaimed "Oh, I like it!" She clarified that she didn't think I would have bad taste, just that she wasn't sure what she was getting. My friend Devlyn later told me that Kristina kept talking about how great the couch was and oh, they are from La-z-boy and wow, I'll be able to have them forever. She's 24 and very excitable.

Here's our new stuff that makes me excitable. Looking into the living room from the front door at the new couch.
Paul was sitting in the recliner the other night and he looked like such an adult. Probably a good thing since he's 35. Then again he wasn't reclining, he'd just stuck his feet up on the coffee table so he needs a little work on the grown-up part. (And I really should remember to clean up the stuff in the background of pictures. Eh, well. There's how we live, people.)
Looking into the living room from the dining room. The accent chair will probably go where the rocking chair is sitting.
Nothing new here. This picture was for Mom's benefit to show her where I hung my birthday present. But that wall really is E. I told Paul we should get an N, W, and S to go with it. On the wall in the hall is my photo project. I've gotten so far as to hang the frames--3 months ago but who's in a rush. My idea is to do some old pictures of our families, us as kids, and a few newer pictures. I want to copy them in B&W but Paul keeps insisting that now we have color and the pictures should be in color. So, I've gotten so far as to hang the frames.
And that's pretty much all there is to my living room. It's definitely got "cozy" down if by cozy one means "impossibly small." But it's home and I like it.

Now and some stuff from Then

The Now:
It is book fair week at my fair school. Everyone's reaction when I say that is always "Oh, I love the book fair!" Yep. I used to as well--you know, until I started running the book fair. It's not bad, just a very high-energy week for me. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are scheduled with all the language arts classes so it's super busy. This morning was Doughnut Day so I was there at 7:30 with 4 dozen doughnuts and my husband to hand them out. I'm all about recruiting those close to you to help out. Paul didn't think it was too bad as the children were well-behaved since he was the Doughnut Guy. We'd debated if 4 dozen would be enough. I think we could have given away another dozen easily. The doughnuts were "free with a fair purchase" or a quarter each. Paul was concerned that we wouldn't break even and thought we should charge 50 cents--I didn't care so much about breaking so much as generating a little interest in the book fair this morning. I picked a quarter because the cheapest thing we have at the fair is a pencil for 35 cents. The doughnuts definitely a hit and something I'll keep in mind to do during the next fair. (Speaking of recruiting family members, my FIL helped man the register during lunches on Monday and my MIL was there today. And if my own family was closer, they would have been called into service as well.) Tomorrow will most likely be a bit slow as no classes are scheduled and there isn't the urgency to buy stuff that comes with Friday. Friday is always busy with walk-ins and the two lunches are crazy. But then it's over and I can shelve all the library books that have been returned and ignored.

The Then:
For the December Junior League meeting, we were asked to submit our old prom pictures. The president is going to use them during to create a funny a little presentation on "What Not to Wear" for holiday parties. It took a while but I managed to dig them up.

My junior prom in 1992. I'd had to screw up all my nerve to ask Bob to be my date to the prom. I was in Lubbock for the UIL Regional Academic contests and he went to play Putt-Putt with all of us from Texline. Everyone, including the sponsor, knew I was trying to gather enough courage to ask him to go with me as I'd blathered on about it for the entire trip to Lubbock. I'm not sure why I was so nervous since we were kinda sorta dating at the time and he wouldn't be surprised by my asking. But he was a sophomore in college and I didn't know if he'd want to come back for a prom. He did and we had a fabulous time. Definitely my favorite prom of the four I attended (yes, four. And I was actually asked to go to a 5th. I made a very good prom date.)

Most people are shocked when I say 1) the place I consider my hometown, Texline, has 450 people (yes, I realize your graduating class was bigger than that) and 2) there were 14 people in my graduating class. Here's the proof. That is everyone in the Texline High School Class of 1993. One of my coworkers asked which one was my boyfriend. I can honestly say none of them although I did kiss one of them quite a bit. We won't go into that further because my mother and sisters will read this.

My senior prom in 1993. Like my dress. Didn't like my date. I'm still not sure why I didn't ask Bob to escort me again (oh yeah--that whole drama queen thing). My h.s. best friend (she's the one in the black and white dress in the front row in the class picture) and I still bemoan the fact that we didn't just go together because we probably would have had a lot more fun in the end as she wasn't terribly fond of her date at the time, either (that would be the blonde boy on the right in the front row in the above picture). I don't think half my class was talking to each other by this time and it was just a very teenage-dramatic evening and not nearly as much fun as it should have been for a senior prom.

And I had to throw in this one of Amy and David because I love both the size of Amy's hair and the size of her ruffles on her dress. (The dress was very cute in a 1992 kind of way.)