Happy New Year!!! 2010

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!! see you next year...

Jack Bauer nipping at your nose...

Well we did it. As you may know Maddie was in Mexico for Christmas, so we conveniently moved Christmas in this house to the 27th of December... so what did we do on the 25th?? We started watching season 7 of 24, and finally finished it minutes ago!! WOW what a whirlwind, twisted, turn of events that season had! I can't imagine having to wait a week in between episodes.


We found this youtube VERY amusing and had to add it to the blog.

Maddie is home all snuggled under the tree, waiting for Santa to deliver her stocking. We'd best get to bed, tomorrow is "Christmas" don't ya know :-)

Greetings from Mexico

Maddie called this morning from Neuvo Vallarta, Mexico to wish us Merry Christmas, she went Whale watching yesterday, and says her hair is blonde from all the sun. Having fun but can't wait to come home for Christmas! I sent her snow in her suitcase, but the real thing will be better. We can't wait to see her, and hear all her stories... Merry Christmas everyone!!

The Art Of Coffee

One of the biggest life changes I made this year is that I gave up drinking coffee. I replaced it with the much healthier green tea. But there are some things that green tea just can't do. Check out these cool pics that my parents sent to me this week apparently from Australia:

Popcorn

Maddie decorated herself first, then the tree....

Stringin' popcorn for Maddie's tree....

P.S. when you poke your finger holding a salty item, you FEEL it!

Maddie put a few crowns in her tree :-)

Maddie's tree all it up

Fake tree?? no good...

Well we tried, I have always been one to have a real tree. When I was a kid I always wanted one and it took years to convince my mom. I have had a real tree ever since. But we have this problem in our living room... the ceiling is vaulted so of course I want the tree to be that tall. It's hard to find 9 foot trees... we settled last year on 7 feet and it just wasn't right. Then we have the issue of the carpet, it's a weirdly thick pile and things disappear in it only to reappear months later and stab you, in this case the stabbing would be done by pine needles! So I had a thot'... maybe.... we could buy a fake tree and then all problems would be solved. Except one... it's a fake tree!

Maddie saw the tree and said, "it's nice... but it looks fake..." so to get the best of both worlds, ( stab free feet ) we got a second tree, a real tree.. and put it up in the lower room by the kitchen. Maddie was so happy to see (and smell) the tree!! She slept in front of it that night. The next day we went to get her some ornaments, she got to pick them all, and when we got home she happily decorated her tree. So, problem solved, I get my giant tree to the ceiling... and Maddie gets a real tree to sleep under!

Maddie's tree

giant, needless tree...

Everything leads to Columbo.

It is interesting where a picture on the internet will lead. The above photo was taken by Julius Shulman in 1960. Shulman died last week. The photo is called "Case Study House #22. Stahl Residence at 1635 Woods Drive. Los Angeles. Architect: Peter Koenig."

Selena asked "What was a Case Study House?" Good question. So we Binged it. Wikipedia said that this house was as part of a 1945 program sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine that challenged the leading architects of the day to design and build inexpensive houses to deal with the housing boom caused by the end of World War 2.

Anyway, we also found out the house above was prominently featured in the very first episode of Columbo in 1968. Cool!

under every tree

I have a feeling this item will be under every tree this year. Awhile back Maddie had mentioned that this would be kewl to own, she eats lots of veggies as you would guess, salads, stirfrys, all things that include items to chopped small. So we checked them out at the "new mall" ( which will probably called the New Mall til the end of time ) in Balzac, and they had a wall of them, the commercial running, people milling around telling their loved ones what they would chop in it... but we left and forgot about it for awhile. Then we were reminded with the technology of TV, even fast forwarding the PVR, we still got a glimpse of it. So we head to the "New Mall" again... and the wall of slap chops is gone! sitting alone is one broken box on it's side.... we scooped it up quickly, looked over our shoulder to make sure we weren't going to be attacked from approaching shoppers, and made our way to the till. We checked everything, and all items were accounted for. We got home and made nachos (tip: don't try and do cheese! ) but the jalapenos were chopped in a second with no burning hands!! So I must admit this little device works as good as they say, made stew last night..... chop, chop, chop!! So, if your planning on getting one, get it quick, they seem to be selling like hotcakes!!

What the...???

Things you notice when you turn out the lights to go to bed. So it's 1:30 am we start to head to bed and we notice lights outside, so we look and there is a cop car at the corner, ok not odd so far, but then they turn off their headlights and back up into the position you see here, then stop the car. They sit like that for about 10 minutes, then an ambulance comes and turns down the street past them, a few minutes later the cops turn around and head down the street after them??? No lights, no siren.... what the heck is goin' on in the hood??? I have no answers, just question marks above my head.... if we here any news, we'll update you, in the meantime, good night from the Twilight Zone......

They Used To Do What?

This pic was stolen from this blog - A nice family Christmas from 1910. Look closely at the Christmas tree on the left - notice anything?

Yeah! Those are CANDLES. Wow, I guess burning the house down wasn't a big worry in 1910. A simpler time I guess.

Scrapbookers Christmas Party

Our Christmas party for Scrapbookers Paradise was last night. Thank you Shari for offering your house for the party! It was nice to have space this year :-) last time it was in the store and a little cramped! But this year we were in Christmas town Shari style. Her decorating was beautifully done. You just couldn't see everything in one visit! She had 3 Christmas trees decorated too!


tree 1...

tree 2....

tree 3....

adding goodies to the bags of mystery... this is one of the coolest things to do for a Christmas party, 13 of us each made, bought, or gathered 13 items and placed one in each bag, in the end you got 13 random, cool little gifts .

as always the food is AMAZING!!

Linda L made the cutest cookies I've ever seen!

Now the games begin, we bring a secret Santa gift and each person is given a card. The lowest number picks a gift from under the tree and opens it, the next person can either pick a new gift from under the tree or STEAL someone else's.... my card was #2, very low on the totem pole, the gift I picked was a blanket with gloves and a scarf. I really wanted the blanket, but "some" people were out to take it from me... here is Kate seeing how soft it is... she wouldn't believe me when I said it was scritchy and rough......

Dianne moving in for the steal, trying out the goods to see if that's what she'll steal

Gloria trying to hide her goods so they won't get stolen....

Gayle checking out my blanket.... ahem.... get your paws off.....

Kate had the Golden touch tonight, every gift she opened was stolen from her.....on the bright side, she got to open allot!

Megan and Jeanne sitting pretty by the fireplace, they were really plotting.... especially Jeanne since she had the 2nd best card!

what will Jeanne steal? At some point during the night, Dianne stole my blanket, so I stole Kate's snowman, once again Kate lost her gift, so Jeanne stole the snowman from me, and in a quick turn of events I was able to steal the blanket back from Dianne!!! Sometimes even getting the low cards can come in handy!

This is Dianne crying after she had to give up the blanket...back to it's rightful owner might I add.....lol

but she got a really cool journal instead.

Carolyn was the lucky one tonight and had her pick of the gifts, since the blanket was bought by her, my blanket was safe!

Gloria passed out our Christmas cards and everyone sighed that we could keep our gifts now, you just can't get too attached to anything until the last person has picked!!

Afterwards we went into the dining room and shared stamps, and colored. Since I don't own any of the cool markers that everyone at the store has, I had to use Shari's, which means even after everyone had left, I kept Shari up til my page was done!

Another successful party from the scrapbook gals :-)

Snow Day

Well, we got a bit of snow! On Friday Maddie and Dean stayed home to stay off the roads. It would've taken Maddie 3 hours to get to school!! I had to run out early morn but was back before it got too ugly. One of my stops was the dollar store to get Maddie a 6 dollar suit......

the snow was starting to pile up at the door!! Yipes could this be a snow day turned into a snow Inn??

seemed like a good day to make cookies, there is Maddies 6 dollar suit..lol

whenever we make cookies we have a hard time judging, so they always end being a big pancake that we have to break apart.... they always taste good tho'

time to clear the doorway before it turns to ice!

looks like this guy got stuck at some point in the night and abandoned his car, now it's buried!!!

Well hope everybody had a safe snow day.... we did :-)

If You Fly There, They Will Phone.

Something really strange happened at work today.

I work with dental offices maintaining their computers and software. My business partner, Cameron, developed some software that allows patients to confirm their dental appointments over email rather than over the phone. It is called (what else?) ConfirmByEmail - http://www.confirmbyemail.com/

Cameron is out of the office today as he is helping a friend import a car from the US. This morning Cameron flew to Dallas. This same morning we received a call from Advanced Family Dental asking about ConfirmByEmail. Can you guess where this dental office is located? In fact, the dental office is a mere 13 kilometeres from where Cameron landed today. This close:
(click to enlarge)

What is the mathematical probability of getting a call from a dental office in the same city where Cameron just happens to be today? The mind boggles.