Author: Tanie

So as I posted (and whiningly tweeted), Mini Christmas didn’t really go as I’d hoped, which really upset me. I made a nice dinner (which I rarely do on Wednesdays) and after we were supposed to open presents, take a family picture in our new pajamas and then watch Elf. What ACTUALLY happened was Sym acted like a whiny, uncooperative brat, and Taylor couldn’t find the piece to attach his camera to the tripod mount and had a rage fit about it. I may or may not have started crying that night in the toothpaste aisle of the drugstore, because they were out of my favorite toothpaste and it was just the LAST STRAW. Anyway. I had big talks with both Taylor and Sym about how their actions made me feel blah blah blah and got everything worked out.

Taylor and I spent Christmas in Kelowna with his moms. I’ll be honest, I really don’t like Kelowna, but I wanted to try my hardest to be positive and cheerful, partially to show Taylor up for his performance at Mini Christmas, but mostly because I wanted to have a nice Christmas myself & not ruin anyone else’s. I think I succeeded? It was easier than last time we were there for Christmas because there was way less snow, and I didn’t have to try to keep Sym entertained or run interference with Dougal. We opened our presents on Christmas Eve, and then spent the rest of our days bumming around. We took Georgie and Kichou for long walks, watched some real gems of movies (four words: JENNIFER LOPEZ ROMANTIC COMEDY) and just pretty much relaxed. It was nice! We also visited with Taylor’s sister Jaime and her boyfriend Shawn on Monday (they’d gone to see Shawn’s family for Christmas).

Taylor’s grandmother came over for dinner on Christmas Day, which was interesting and also awkward- she started feeding our dogs giant chunks of ham and I ended up like, slow-motion lunging across the table yelling “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” like I was taking a bullet for someone, and after that she was very snotty with me- she didn’t even say goodbye to me when she left until I stepped right in her path to say it to her. So that was kind of :/ but oh well. Better than cleaning hammy dog vomit off the carpet!

Taylor really wanted to make it up to me for ruining my Mini Christmas, so he went ALL OUT for our NYE. Since it was a Friday night, we had Sym, so we didn’t go out or anything. Instead, we made an ENORMOUS feast- Taylor put himself in charge of buying food and he went completely overboard! We had mini cheeseburgers, perogies with pepper and bacon, chicken strips AND popcorn chicken, fries, sweet & sour pork, a huge platter of veggies, salsa con queso & chips, gold & silver cupcakes, two kinds of Cadbury’s mini eggs (popping & regular) and a box of Ferrero Rochers (of which I think Sym ate half). We also had root beer for Sym and wine and champagne for Taylor and I. It was basically enough for to feed a family of 100, but I swear we ate almost everything! It was pretty gross.

After we ate, we played a round of Apples to Apples, which is always fun with Sym. She laughs her face off at everything and is like, an Apples to Apples savant or something- even if she doesn’t understand the word or doesn’t know the people or activities on her cards, she always manages to put down something totally, hilariously apt. She ended up winning, and then Taylor had the brilliant idea of pushing the couch back and playing Dance Central on the Xbox. It was basically the funnest time ever! Once we were all sweaty and gross, we put the furniture back and curled up on the couch to watch our traditional NYE movie, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. I don’t remember why we always watch it, but they’ve done studies, and sixty percent of the time, it works every time.

Because we started watching it so late we were right in the middle at midnight, so we paused and had a little toast. I let Sym try a tiny thimble of champagne and she was not impressed- she didn’t actually even sip it, just dipped her finger in, licked it, and made a horrible face. I guess I don’t have to worry about her turning into a preteen lush! Once the movie was over I put her to bed, and then Taylor and I stayed up drunkenly watching the same Jem & the Holograms episodes I watched by myself the other week. I don’t even know.

So that was my holiday season, sorry about the lack of real posts but vacation is almost over and life will be back to normal, so hopefully I’ll be back to my regular blogging schedule! I hope everyone had a nice holiday season, and so do my dogs 🙂

Since Christmas is over I thought I’d give my blog a quick layout refresh, featuring what I think might just be my worst header ever. If you’re too lazy to go view this post at the actual page, here’s a peek:

CHARMING. You really should check it out though, it’s has the traditional animated rainbow text. I do want to give credit for the unicorn cupcake picture I used in the creation of this monstrosity though.

I first saw it on tumblr with no source, but with some quick internet research I traced it back to Zanda Panda. If someone wants to buy me their unicorn mold I wouldn’t be mad- remember, I DO have a birthday coming up!

You might remember (or not) that way back in the summer I spraypainted my patio furniture and bought a huge rainbow golf umbrella to make into a patio umbrella for my mini-patio. I cut the handle of the umbrella off with my Dremel (which was really nerve-wracking and I’m still surprised I didn’t like, sever my femoral artery or something) but I was never able to figure out a way to turn it into patio umbrella with a stand.

UNTIL NOW.

While we were in Kelowna we visited Taylor’s sister Jaime, and he had mentioned that we needed some speaker stands for the living room now that we’ve rearranged the furniture. As it turned out Jaime has some old speaker stands she’d been given by their mom, but she didn’t need them so she gave them to us.

Unfortunately, they won’t work with our speakers, so Taylor left them outside on the patio. I happened to look at them when we came back from our dog walk and INSPIRATION!

I took the bracket off the top of the stand- the screw was loose so I didn’t even have to dig out my screwdriver. In a burst of cleansing synchronicity the speaker stand is EXACTLY the right size to fit inside the umbrella!

It’s not quite done yet- the umbrella slides down so far onto the stand that it’s hard to work the little thingermer that you depress to raise & lower the umbrella, but I think if add some sort of washer array to make the umbrella sit higher I can make it work.

Still, I think this turned out pretty perfectly amazing! Now I just need it to not be the middle of winter anymore, haha.

special, I-haven’t-been-posting-books-so-there’s-eight edition

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, 84/104; Under the Dome, 85/104; The Cuter Book, 86/104; Zombie Felties, 87/104;

Chronic City, 88/104; Harriet the Spy, 89/104; Cute Pups, 90/104; The Long Secret, 91/104

So as you can see, I’m not going to make it to 104 books by the end of the year, unless I can miraculously read 13 books in the next 36 hours (which seems unlikely). Maybe 104 books is just too many to read in one year? In the last few months I’ve actually felt BURNED OUT from reading, and it didn’t help that a couple of the books I chose (Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives, Under the Dome and Chronic City in particular) dragged on interminably and took me much longer to read than they should have. I have read more books this year than last year (87), and I’m going to keep adding to my 104 books page until I’ve reached the goal- hopefully by my birthday!

a full list of all this year’s books can always be found here

When I was in the car on Friday I downloaded a wordpress app for my new phone so I could easily post while I was away and then I just… didn’t. Oops! I don’t really want to do a big Christmas recap right now because I’m tired and greasy feeling (six hours in the car will do that) but here are a few things. These are all Taylor’s pictures- I took my camera with me but never even took it out of my bag, although I did take pictures with my phone, which you’d know if you follow my twitter.

The dogs and I at the traditional stop at the former site of the Coquihalla Highway toll booths.

We ended up doing “Swedish Christmas” and opened all our presents on Christmas Eve. I got so many wonderful gifts, including this beautiful ring from Specimental Design, I love it so much! Thanks, husband!!

I tied these decorative berries & ribbon onto Georgie to make her more festive, but she chewed some of them up and pooped out golden glittery poops all the next day. Story of my life, basically.

Anyway I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas, or if you don’t celebrate Christmas, then a fantastic regular weekend 🙂

Last night we celebrated a mini Christmas, since Sym won’t be with us for the holidays this year. I was going to do a real post about it but to be honest I’m in a foul mood because of certain Christmas ruiners so it was coming out really bitchy. I’m going to put it off until I don’t want to strangle everyone.

Luckily the Christmas Elf returned last night so hopefully if I stuff my face with jellybeans I’ll feel better.

You know that thing where two different people post thing on tumblr and they show up one on top of the other with hilarious or clever results That’s basically my favorite thing on tumblr. Here are some I’ve saved (warning: one is NSFW).

Whenever I see these I screencap & post them on my tumblr, which also has pictures of dogs & wild animals, rants, Sailor Moon and Deal with It gifs, and reblogs of cheesy or idiotic things with my own special commentary/more rants. Feel free to follow, or link me to your tumblr, or share your own serendipitous screencaps!

(To learn about the tradition of the Christmas Elf please visit my post from last year)

a couple of choclate coins (classic); red, white and green M&Ms; a mini-book of fairy glitter stickers; a small toy fawn; green apple, pomegranate and cream soda Jelly Bellies; and a note which reads:

dear Symphony,
good job on your room! can you please ask your mom to do a better job on hers?
the Christmas Elf

That note is SO humiliating, but I guess that’s what I get for not keeping my room clean. I think that if I tidy up and Sym keeps up her good work the Christmas Elf just might make a return visit. Also, can we talk about how Symphony, upon waking up to find her shoes full of a bounty of toys and candy, LEFT IT THERE until I woke up and told her she could have some? How is one kid so well behaved???

Today is such a good day! The sun is shining, I only have one kid here AND she’s getting picked up early! This morning she and I went out and walked the dogs and went to the park and just had so much fun. Tonight we’re going for dinner with Taylor’s dad and his partner, which means I don’t have to cook, which is ALWAYS a bonus.

Other good stuff:

Last night was Symphony’s school’s holiday concert, which was pretty weird, funny. I thought we got there early but idk, all the other parents must be huge keeners because the gymnasium was already PACKED! We had to sit near the back so I couldn’t really get any good pictures during the show, but here she is beforehand.

idk why she can’t just make a normal face, like, EVER. Also appreciate Claire in this shot, it’s similar to this one of me. As you can also tell I had to move the Christmas presents out from under the tree after a chewing incident involving a puppy who shall not be named.

After the concert Taylor and I went shopping so I could get a NEW PHONE HOORAY!

You may recall I was having intense screen issues with my old one, and it had gotten to the point where it had been dis- and re-assembled so many times that every time I tried to slide it open the faceplate and buttons fell off! Not good. I used this old HTC Dream for a while but it was pretty bunged up and the battery was totally crapped out. I bought myself a new HTC Desire Z and I love it (in spite of some deranged tweets about all my facebook friends being added to the phonebook you might have seen). I also have a new phone number so if you had my old number you should ask me for my new one!

Anyway I have a bunch of cleaning and chores to do while it’s naptime for my lone charge today, so I’ll leave you all with an alert puppins.

Happy Friday!