Happy 100th post!

Happy Christmas, Happy Boxing Day, and happy 100th post.

Who knew when I started this little project last year that 100 posts later, I'd be a whole lot happier, stronger and have had some pretty neat adventures along the way?

Stay tuned for what promises to be an equally exciting 2010.

A list ...

In no particular order, this is a list I made on Friday of all of the things that I need to do before Christmas, or more properly, before my mom gets here ...

- clean the bathroom

- scrub the kitchen floor

- clean the oven

- finish (AND PUT AWAY) all of the laundry

- dust

- vacuum

- finish putting up the Christmas decorations

- finish Christmas shopping

- finish the cross-stitch that I 'gave' her for her birthday

- teach the dog to stop barking at *everything*

- buy cat food

- take back the two presents that I bought, not knowing that the gift recipient already had the item in question

- finish sorting out the gift for people at work

- bake something for the treat exchange at work

In no particular order, here's what I accomplished this weekend ...

- checked Facebook about a million times

- answered my work phone about two million times

- watched a ridiculous amount of cheesy television

- waded through a million feet of snow to take Hadley out, who was potentially even less excited about the snow than I was

- spent several hours trolling Realtor.com looking at houses (yay!)

- after buying groceries on Friday evening, managed to cook absolutely nothing except toast.

(Um, that's right ... in case you were keeping track, I did nothing from the list. Absolutely nothing, except for the one load of laundry that's currently in the washer. I did buy dog food, but neglected to buy cat food.)

Ugh. Lots to do this week, apparently.

Amazing.

I had a seriously, insanely, ridiculously, beautifully amazing day at work today. Shockingly amazing. Outstandingly amazing.

Yeah. Amazing.

Things like this don't happen to regular people, you know? Wow.

Cheers ...

A few cheers for things that have made me smile in the past few days:

- shopping with Robin. The shopping was questionable at best, but the visiting was terrific.

- clear skies (and roads) for my trip back from shopping; last year's trip was a harrowing three hours over horribly iced-over roads.

- sleeping in this morning until almost 11 a.m. Decadent! Unheard of!

- phone calls from people who are not

a) telemarketers,

b) debt collectors wishing to speak to 'Warren Saunders' (seriously, dude, get yourself together!),

c) debt collectors wishing to speak to 'Tina Bankston' (Tina, see previous), or

d) people who work for me calling at 0-dark-thirty in the morning, bothering me with nonsense.

- this fabulous blog post

- my dad's Christmas tree

- the fall finale of Glee, which was awesome

- my Christmas tree, which my angelic cat did not bother at all while left home alone for two days

Things that will hopefully make me happy in the next several days:

- my nail place being open tomorrow, as they were unexpectedly not open this afternoon, and being able to get myself all primped and polished before Wednesday

- the dress I ordered arriving *on time* tomorrow, and fitting perfectly

- finding a black leather clutch handbag somewhere tomorrow or Tuesday

- wearing said dress and carrying said bag to a fancy-schmancy dinner on Wednesday, and looking, if not stunning, at least clean and presentable

- finding espresso powder so that I can make this for Christmas Eve

- figuring out a *genius* gift for my brother. Feel free to send suggestions.

Christmas cuteness

I'm not feeling very Christmassy, and I'm hoping that's going to improve, but still ... it's just not happening so far.

However, I do have a Christmas tree, and it's a very pretty one (which I swear I'm going to put ornaments on. Tomorrow.), replete with lights and a lovely tree skirt. Before the lights, though, the cat had a good time checking it out.

Aw. Cats doing sort-of-bad thing are cute.

The Great Rice Crispy Adventure of 2009

Regular people make rice crispy bars for their family. Mildly crazy people make rice crispy bars for staff at 11 group homes, on three separate shifts ... and a couple extra pans for the admin buildings -- 36 batches in total, in case you were counting. Since this was such a wacky way to spend a Sunday, I've chronicled the experience ... just in case you thought you needed a rice crispy bar fix.

First, the shopping experience ...

I'd been warned that the supermarket might not take kindly to

my photographic exploits, so I was totally slick with my phone. No one cared.

For the record, my shopping cart does not typically have that many bags of marshmallows in it ...

The goods. At home. It looks dramatic -- 'cause it was.

Just so you have a reference of the exact height of the pile o' cereal, Mousse thought he'd help ...

Yeah. It's still a lot of cereal.

Okay, okay -- on to the fun part. When regular people make rice crispy bars, these are the necessary ingredients:

What? You don't use

a whole stick

of butter?

You're missing out. Seriously.

For a while, it got a little sticky. Pretty much everything stayed in the pot ... yay for enameled cast iron!

Okay -- there was actually some progression from one pot to 36 pans. But you get the idea ...

36 pans of rice crispy bars later. Cost for all this marshmallow-y goodness? $105, including the foil pans, cereal, butter and marshmallows.

36 pans of rice crispy bars, packaged for work on Monday?

Priceless.