Let's see.

Wednesday was fun hang-with-Nelson day; I got the builk of the buttercream truffles dipped and the chocolate truffles mixed before Scott called and reminded me about the trash and so on. Nelson incidentally got here right about when I made a mad dash to Wawa to get two $10 bills for the garbage dudes, so we had Wawa sandwiches for breakfast.

He kept me company while I packed the England box, burned some discs, packed some cookie tins, and wrapped all of Scott's gifts. We also made it out to the mall for some small errands/last minute gifts, and he scooted right before my lesson du jour popped in. After she left, I got showered and changed to go perform at Longwood, and Scott and I got up there in time to walk around a bit and see the lights before I had to go rehearse and ring. Kate and Wes came up and joined us, and we all went to Timothy's for 1/2 price burgers afterwards (which were full of noms). Ran into Becky B---/R----- and Melanie Z--- and Rob R-----, of all people. It really is a small state.

Thursday was pretty much painting the piggies in the morning, then a mad dash to clean the majority of the house in about two and a half hours before Scott's mom came by. I'd just gotten out of the shower and dressed as they were pulling in the drive. I dashed downstairs to grab the spare room comforter out of the dryer to put it in place right as they were walking in the door. Ugh. I don't know why I let it get so bad, besides not wanting to clean up entirely after every single batch of cookies. And all the mail everywhere. And just the general accumulation of dust and cat hair. But the house looked FANTASTIC when I was done. I like the results of cleaning, I just hate doing it, especially in a rush.

Scott's mom was last here pretty much a year ago when we'd just settled and had no furniture. The house really has changed a LOT in the past year...we have furniture and pictures hanging and a piano and books and paint...it's changed a lot.

Wrapped his mother's gifts and the kids gifts (what wasn't a piggy bank) in about a half hour before going to Cindy and Steve's for dinner, and the ham, potatos, broccoli, and rolls were excellent as usual. Went home, painted piggies, wrapped the rest of the gifts, then collapsed and went to bed.

Christmas morning, we woke around 8:30/9:00, had a small nibble, opened gifts, showered, dressed, and went to Cindy's again for brunch and gifts, this time with their dad and Carol in attendance. After brunch, we came back to the house to reload the car with other gifts, then I went to Amee's while Scott went to his dad's with their gifts. I ended up going to MD with Amee because she had to check the tanks, and we had fun with a tour and some shenanigans at her work. Came back to DE, then came home, then we packed the car for a third time and headed up to my Aunt Angela's for her usual dinner, but even though we were only an hour or two after it started, everyone was gone either due to work or illness, which made me sad. We did get a nice visit with the Aunt and Uncle and Mother and Brother, then headed over mom's for gift exchange with them and WOW did mom spoil us all this year...Scott said he'd never gotten so many gifts at one holiday from one person before...which makes me feel like I was spoiled rotten as a kid (by comparison). It was nice, but it really makes me worry more about mom's finances, especially given her most recent debt solution method. I know that Buddah provides and all, but there's also little sense in tempting fate or teasing your creditors.

Saturday, we slept in a bit, and I was going to go discounted ornament hunting with Amee and Christy, but Christy's family fed her dog too much people-food and it was ill, so Christy had to stay home/catch up on sleep and then Amee had to go to dinner at her mom's friend's house. From the morning to the afternoon, Scott and I hit up Lowes, Home Depot, and Happy Harry's to get some christmas stuff that was heavily discounted so now we have lights for the house and the outside tree, as well as some other decorations (like a tree topper) and some boxes for wrapping. We also hit up PetSmart to get Loki's food and a kitty first aid kit and went to Stewart's for lunch...I've never eaten there before but OMG...their Chesapeake Crab dip is AMAZING. Holy crap. I could live off that stuff! maybe. But I'd probably get tired of it. But it was fabulous. When I got home in the afternoon, I took the kitty med kit and tried patching Loki's head wound up...woo for adhesive bandage! We were finally able to take the Cone of Shame off! We met up to see Sherlock Holmes at the People's Plaza Regal Cinema with Amee and a bunch of other people at night, and it was AWESOME. I would suggest that you sit in the back section if you get motion sick while watching this though, simply because the fight scene cinematography and some of the camera angles started making me a little seasick, and normally I have the stomach of an ox. Overall, a well played action mystery, and ... I'm just a dork. I was slightly disappointed that they released the movie on Christmas rather than a week later on Holmes' birthday, January 6th. But whatever. Would strongly recommend. Wouldn't mind seeing the Princess and the Frog as well as the new Chipmunk movie.

Today, we woke up at a decent time, had breakfast, puttered around the house, went to Amee's for football, then Amee andI did some running, then had pizza for dinner, finished the Eagle's game, and came home. Scott's been working in the basement and I've been futzing around a bit. Loki's been much more affectionate and active since the latest food change (he's now on the Royal Canin Hypoallergenic) and removal of the cone, so yay for that, at least.

Tomorrow: errands in the morning, prepping for NY, and relaxing!!!

...and Scott's officially crazy. I hear him going 'myow myow myow myow lookit the kitty!' upstairs. Landed me a good one, didn't I? Heh. But I loves him :)

Was very, very productive. Didn't quite get everything done that I wanted, but it was better than nothing.

Made the innards for the buttercream truffles, but that's about as far as that went today. Fixed fudge was cut and wrapped, and cookie bags were put together for NY and VA. Jerry came over, we had breakfast and talked, then went to mom's to pick up the mail-needing gifts and my holiday wax, then came back, finished out the boxes with the cookies, my cards for those families, and some packing peanuts. Sealed, addressed, and put those in the car.

We did a decent amount of running - Rite Aid, mailbox, Lamplighter (didn't have what I needed), Accent, Cannon's supplies, the mall (GameStop, Hallmark, Pottery Barn, Hickory Farms, Food Court, games store), Van Scoy (to get my rings cleaned), Modells, aaaaaaaaand the Kinko's/FedEx on Elkton. Lots of running. Everything's getting wrapped tomorrow, and the England package is going out if it kills me.

Came home, taught a lesson, jumped in the shower, got dressed, and went to play the Rotary Club gig at the Holiday Inn. Saw Kim from Jobies...wow. blast from teh past. Came home, futzed around on the computer while Scott played his hockey game for a bit, and then we put the tree together.

Wow.

Talk about your Charlie Brown tree. I wanted a deal for $40, prelit...and man.

We're getting a better tree after the holiday when everything's marked down.

It doesn't look too bad, fluffed out and ornamented within an inch of its non-life to hide all the bare spots....but we took bets on how long it would take the cats to pull it down. The odds aren't good.

it's after midnight and I'm exhausted...and have just as much to do tomorrow. Nelson said he'd come keep me company and run around with me since he's got the time, so I should get to bed now so I can do stuff before he gets up here from Dover.

I have baked dozens and dozens of cookies. I can't even count them all. I had 120 of the chocolate crinkles alone, but then Scott found them and started nomming on them. I have also done:

gingerbread men, women, snowmen, and bears (and they still need icing details)
Stained Glass Window cookies (which were ten shades of annoying...will not do next year. Burnt Life Savers are NOT GOOD and there is a window of about 30 seconds between 'done' and 'burnt'.)
Peanut Butter Rats
sugar cookies decoated of course)
chocolate chips (toll-house recipe, from scratch)
mint chip sugars
chocolate chip meringues
peppermint meringues (which are still in the oven for another 10 minutes or so, which is why I'm taking the time to post....and I think I screwed them up somehow, they didn't peak nicely and are just kind of...blobby. Will try again tomorrow night.
Fudge (which I also messed up, but mom said it was fixable/told me how to fix it

The last five were done mostly today (the fudge was fixed today...hopefully. It's been chilling and I have not yet attempted to cut it into bricks again).

I also did all (read: 4 loads) of the laundry, fixed and tidied random things, hunted down a bunch of songs to upload to various drives and playlists, and spent some time cuddling the kitties.

To be done tomorrow: Truffles (buttercream and peanut butter), and then I am DONE with the making of the things.

Thursday night's adventure to MD: Uneventful. Missed the turn by one road, but found a junctioin and got there on time anyway.

Friday's adventure: There...wasn't really one. I think I spent all of Friday watching movies and making cookies. Scott came home, then Rideout called and invited him over for video games. He felt bad about leaving me home by myself (like I hadn't been home all day by myself while he was at work...), so I kicked him out to go play with his friend, seeing as we were going to be snowed in all day together on Saturday (woo Blizzard of '09). He seemed to agree with my logic, as he left around 4 and didn't get home until past 10. I think I got 3 or for kinds of cookies done in his absence.

Saturday's adventure was the Blizzard...and I was wondering what blizzard I was missing when everyone kept talking about it being only like, 5 years since the last huge snowstorm. And then someone mentioned it being on President's Day weekend in 2003 and it clicked - I didn't really register that snowstorm because that was the weekend Daddy died and I guess I kind of blocked it. I remember us joking about the blizzard...Daddy loved snowglobes, and we were imagining him Upstairs, just shaking the hell out of the one shaped like the East Coast. And then the one before that was the ice storm of 96, when I was in 8th grade, got to school (via daddy), and then as I walked in the front doors, all the administrators were telling us to turn around and get back on the buses. I didn't have a bus (or a housekey, for that matter), Dave was in class, Mom was at work, and this was pre-cellphones so I couldn't call my dad and ask him to turn around. I wasn't speaking to Jessica anymore so I couldn't just walk to her house and hide there...and I remember the Politowski twins taking me home with them and just futzing around until I was able to get ahold of my dad.

Saturday night, we went across the street to Bob and Robin's for their holiday shindig...out of the 50 some people they were expecting, all of 8 werein attendance (including Bob and Robin) because of the State of Emergency. (Bob's direct neighbors from either side were there too). Food, liquor, and a fantastic tour of his art and instrument collection were in store for us...and we really do have some neat neighbors here. He has a lot of signed artwork and original artwork and it's all just really...neat. He let us play on the pinball machine in his basement and he let me try his accordion. Bahahaha. I can now say that I can play the accordion...managed to eke some Christmas carols out of it.

Sunday's adventure...I was so productive today because I wanted to get to the 'wrap gifts' part of my to-do list....I didn't, but I got pretty much everything else done, which was nice. Rideout came and stole Scott again...he'd answered an ad on Craigslist to buy a snowblower from some bloke in MD who lives about 2 hours away. They left at 10am to go fetch it and Rideout said 'be back at 2 or 3'. Well...5:00 comes and goes and I start getting worried (it's getting dark, ice is starting to form, are they lost, are they in a ditch, etc.) Posted my worries on FB and a friend from college who's a police officer in MD offered to check the boards to see if there was an accident with his vehicle and stuff. Every time I tried to call Scott on his cell, it went straight to voicemail (he doesn't charge his phone every day), which meant it was dead and I didn't have Rideout's number (or Jen's number to ask her to call the guys and make sure they were OK). Just after 6, they come strolling in and I started on Scott to get him to memorize my number (because he knew I'd be getting worried). Scolded, fed, and then sent them out to gas my car up and fetch me more eggs and confectioner's sugar (which I'll need for the gingerbread icing and the buttercream truffles). All was forgiven at this point and I fed the hubby some more.

And now....onto the next adventure!

~*D*~

1:23

Corporal Stained-Glass has been restored thanks to the efforts of Sgt. Vanilla and is resting with Fudge in Frigidaire. It is time for your reporter to shower before the rest of the events of the day.

12:55

Sgt. Vanilla has been procured and has immediately gone to perform his duty! Hooray!!

12:38

Motivational speaker, Sgt. Vanilla, is MIA...and he is needed to restore Cpl. Stained Glass Cookies. Off to Acmeland to hunt for the Sergeant.

12:20pm -

The epic cookie battle of aught-nine has continued through to the next day. Much land was reclaimed in Frigidaire, much to the appreciation of the Fudge that needed rest away from the battlegrounds of Oven and Stovetop. Casualty report: Stained Glass Cookies did not fare well in battle and will need to regroup before heading into Oven.

More updates as events warrant.