Christmas Classics

One internet radio station that I particularly enjoy this time of year is the Old Time Radio Christmas Channel which is based out of Rochester, MN and plays programs from the Golden Age of Radio, featuring Jack Benny, Bob and Bing, Lucille Ball and a slew of others. And it's free! They also play old time radio commercials and I'm fascinated by them, especially when they mention prices for their products. When was the last time you spent $2 for a full head perm!?! And sometimes they will replay Presidential addresses, yesterday I listened to FDR's Christmas broadcast from 1941. (I also found some transcripts online of other speeches in case anyone's interested: 1939 and 1943t.) In yesterdays radio replay, FDR was asking the nation to join together and support the troops who were fighting to protect our country's freedom. So much of what he said resonated with the present day but what I found so incomprehensible was that back in those days the public's only access to what was going on in the world was through these radio announcements and newspapers. Families would gather together around the radio box and anxiously await the "Breaking News." I can't imagine what that would be like today. We can't go 20 minutes without some sort of news alert coming at us through TV, e-mail or text message. We have everything at our fingertips and voice commands yet technology still manages make advancements in the field. What more could we possibly want? A micro-chip installed in our brain that gives us the news when we THINK about it? It's boggles the mind to know that there will always be something else on the horizon ready to put our present day high-tech living to shame. Sometimes I just want to go back to simpler times.

Ok, so not the point of this post! I just wanted to pass along a great radio station that is fun for the whole family, especially during the holidays, and will take you back to a much simpler way of life. All you need is a 10gig processor, high speed internet access and blue tooth in order to download the channel.

Just kidding!

It's snowing!!

well sort of...the Santa Anas have really started to pick up this afternoon and leaves are blowing all over the place and it reminds me of snow! For once it's actually colder outside than it is in our house and with the winds blowing it's about 62 degrees right now. And tonight it's supposed to drop down to 41! That's crazy cold! We just may have to turn on the heat before we go to bed. So I'm sitting here at my desk (procrastinating yet again) as I'm watching the leaves blow around pretending it's snow. I really miss the first snow of the season. Especially once it starts to cover the ground and the sky turns a colorless gray as the flakes double, then triple in size and number and you can't see anything but a steady downpour of glistening white.

Oh well. For now, I guess these falling leaflets will have to do...



The camera wasn't really able to capture it as well as I could see it in person so if you can't see anything I'm sorry. I decided to step outside to the front porch and of course once I started filming the wind died down. But I'll post it on here anyway because I already uploaded it to youtube...


(update: I just watched both of these videos again and aside from the kid screaming in the second one, these have got to be the 2 most boring videos ever uploaded in the history of youtube. I really should remove this entire post but I won't because it's just too boring not to share. Does that make sense? I don't think so. I'm a little out of it today.)

Why I get NOTHING done at home...

Because I'm too busy taking pictures or video of my silly animals!

Here's Wrigley, showcasing his brand new Jingle Bell Collar...

And here's some video of both boys sportin' their festive holiday gear...

The day after...

Not sure what to do with all that left over turkey? I found a recipe for Turkey Devonshire Sandwiches that sounds delicious. I've not made this particular one, but just reading the ingredients makes my mouth water. And why am I already obsessing about food when it's not even 9:00am the day after Thanksgiving? No idea. All I know is that I overindulged in a bit too much food last night and was so completely stuffed that even my fingers swelled up like sausages that I couldn't take off my fancy costume jeweled ring! I had to sleep with it on and for the last hour and a half I've been trying various methods to remove it and nothing works. I've tried ice-cold water with soap, smearing Pond's cold cream on my finger (cuz it's slippery), and Trader Joe's cleaning spray and it's only making my knuckle more swollen and sore. So just a few moments ago I did a google search on how to get a stuck ring off your finger and found this. Who knew so many others are suffering and searching for the same thing!? Most of these people say to use Windex but we don't ever buy Windex due to it's high levels of toxicity so not sure what to do. My finger is now turning purple at the knuckle and throbbing and I'm about ready to break out Tom's dremel tool.

Ok back to the original reason for this post. The recipe. Enjoy!

FRANK BLANDI'S ORIGINAL DEVONSHIRE SANDWICH
Source: Post-Gazette

Cream Sauce:
3/4 stick butter, melted
1 cup flour
1/4 pound Cheddar cheese, grated
1 pint chicken broth
1 pint hot milk
1 teaspoon salt

Melt butter in deep pan and add flour, stirring constantly. Add chicken broth and then hot milk, stirring all the while. Add cheese and salt. Bring to boil, then cook slowly for 20 minutes, still stirring. Cool to lukewarm. Beat with wire whip until smooth before using. This makes enough sauce for 6 Devonshire sandwiches.

For each sandwich:
1 slice toast, crusts trimmed off
3 slices crisp bacon
5 thin slices cooked turkey breast
Cream Sauce, recipe above
Melted butter
Parmesan cheese and paprika

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In each flat, individual oven-proof casserole dish, place 1 slice of toast and top with 3 slices bacon. Add 5 thin slices of cooked turkey breast. Cover completely with cream sauce. Sprinkle with a little melted butter, then with the combined Parmesan cheese and paprika. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy your day with family, friends, or if you happen to be alone, know that someone's thinking of you and sending loving thoughts your way.

And if you're looking to watch a fun Thanksgiving movie that will keep you laughing along the way, then run out and rent Home for the Holidays. At the very least it'll make you realize you're not alone when it comes to kooky family get togethers.

"Gobble, gobble, wibble, wobble, do a noodle dance!"


(quote and book reference taken from ChiTown girl's blog yet again! Thanks my dear!)

day ??? of bathroom remodel

Still plugging along with the guest bath. The pipes are connected, and the vanity is in place. We still need to put up one more light fixture, then spackle and paint. And again, when I saw "we" I mean Tom. He had to do some final checking and tightening under the sink to ensure no leakage. Of course both animals had to be right there and see what all the fuss was about.

Chumley says to Wrigley, "Beat it kid. There's no reason for you to be here."

Tom says, "Come on Chum, he's ok. He just wants to see what's going on." Chum replies, "What about me? Pet me! Pet me! Hey, no fair! Pet me!"

Tom says, "Isn't this nice guys? Can't we all just get along?"

we need help

Wrigley HATES going outside. I mean he absolutely DESPISES being outside for more than 2 seconds. Not to be gross but poo has to be hanging from his rear before he decides to venture outside and snap it off in the yard. So Tom and I have to get creative in an effort to coax him outside to do his business. Tom usually stands by the door and shouts in a militant tone, "DO A POO!" My method is to go outside, stand on the patio and hop around alternating my feet in the air while flailing my arms wildly about my head making this crazy alien sounding "bhWhoop bhWhoop bhWhoop bhWhoop bhWhoop bhWhoop" noise. That usually gets Wrigley all excited so he comes running outside to hump me, then I ward him off and tell him to poo. Although it didn't work tonight, Wrigley wouldn't budge. But I'm certain my neighbors watching from their bedroom now have 100% confirmation that we are completely off our rockers.

Stuffing

I know the other day (yesterday? can't remember) I said I'd post this fantastic stuffing recipe but seeing it's almost 2pm on the west coast the day before Thanksgiving, I said stuff it, and figured all of you would already have your ingredients for your stuffing bought and ready to go. So I'll save this for Christmas. As a side note, can I just say I love the word Stuffing? Does anyone else love this word? I think it's one of my top 10 favorite words. It's right up there with the word Paw. I just LOVE that word. Ok I need to get something to eat, this is what happens when I don't eat lunch, I start to see spots (I am right now) and then share my inner most thoughts on my favorite words.

Feelin' the love...

What is it about the holidays that brings out the best and the worst in people? I just got back from the grocery store and don't have much time to blog but I had to share this story on here. And someone will probably comment on here and say, "Oh but you say you're a happy person, why do you always get so pissed off??" but I don't care. People manage to piss me off everyday, but I can still laugh about it.

So!

I had just got my car back from the shop and drove straight to the grocery store to make up for yesterday's lost time. That was mistake number one seeing it is the day before Thanksgiving and to quote from my dear friend ChiTown girl the parking lot at the store could only be summed up in 2 words...CLUSTER F*CK. The place was an absolute zoo, cars were double parked waiting for people to back out each one fighting for the next spot to open. I said, screw this and tried to make my way to the other end of the parking lot to search for an open spot. I was stuck in a jam between cars that weren't moving as well as a woman on her motorized scooter literally in between 2 cars who would not budge so I decided to bypass this lane and turn down another one even though it was one way, and I was going the wrong way. I found an open spot and my car has a pretty good turning radius so I thought I'd just sort of half u-turn my way in (I've done this a bunch of times just not on the busiest food shopping day of the year where there are a zillion other people around watching).

So I turn and the lady that would be parked to my right (after I maneuver my car into the spot) comes out of her Jeep and stands at the end of the spot I'm trying to turn into. I politely wave her on to go ahead and she stands there, GLARING at me and shouts, "You're going the wrong way!" I roll down my window and say, "I know but this parking lot is crazy!" I was still somewhat nice and was just trying to get this lady out of my way. She then says, "I don't want you to hit my car!" Now I'm like WHAT THE HELL?? I told her kinda half joking still, "I don't want to hit your car either but I might hit you if you don't get out of the way!" Well that pissed her off. She started ranting and raving saying that I was going the wrong way and if I try to make this turn I will hit her car. I said that hitting her car would also inflict damage to mine and I am not going to do that, especially since I've only had it less than 5 minutes! I mean come on! I just spent over $2000 on my car do you really think I'm not going to try and avoid hitting another car!?! But what makes this situation completely laughable is the fact that this woman looked like a sweet little librarian or even an ex-nun. She had on a white turtleneck with pumpkin patches sewn on the neck and navy colored docker type pants with pleats. And she drove a Green Jeep. It just didn't add up.

I asked her politely to please move out of the way because now there were a bunch of other cars (actually going the right way) that we were holding up. She huffed and puffed and finally moved away from my open spot but stood back watching as I carefully pulled into the spot and took my time making sure I wasn't parked all cock-eyed. Finally she turned around and stormed into the store and I seriously had visions of her and I on an episode of The People's Court, her screaming at me all red in the face wearing that pumpkin turtleneck. I always try to give people like this the benefit of the doubt, maybe she just lost someone she loved or she herself is seriously ill and just got back from a chemo appointment. Regardless I never want to retalitate with anger and have the situation escalate. We all know what can happen nowadays with parking lot road rage. So that being said, I hope this lady is surrounded by family and friends who can tolerate her psychotic behavior this holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving pumpkin necked lady.

still watching

Tom's still watching The Price is Right and the Yodeller Guy Game was just on and I yelled to him that I LOVE that game and he yelled back that it's one of his favorites too and then we both yodelled along with the guy. See? You can still learn something new about your spouse after 10 years of marriage.

Many of you know about Tom's appearance on the Price is Right a few years ago. OH GOOD LORD was that an experience. I must blog about that at some point.

he makes me laugh

Tom's waiting to take me to pick up my car so he's home for the morning and is sitting in the family room watching TV. I'm in the study but I can hear the TV and he changes the channel to The View. It's on for a few minutes and I'm laughing to myself because I find it funny that he would actually watch this and not flip to another channel right away. Then, he yells from the family room, "When did Star get back on The View?" I know he knows who Whoopi Goldberg is, so he's obviously referring to Sherri Shepherd. I say, "That's not Star." He says, "Are you sure?" I'm laughing again. He sits there and watches for a while longer and can hear me laughing. Then he changes the channel to the Price is Right.

In Tom's defense I don't think he's ever watched an episode of The View before so he really didn't get a good look at any of the co-hosts. And I can kind of see a resemblance between Sherri and Star (pre stomach stapling of course).

Chum & Wrigs

worse than my grasshopper

Ok I am done complaining about monster sized bugs in this house (or this era for that matter). If we roamed the earth a mere 400 million years ago we would have to contend with these guys. I'd like to know, what the hell would one do if they saw this thing crawling along their bedroom wall? Don't think a can of raid and a man's shoe would do you much good. And the article mentioned that these 8 foot scorpions were cannibals and would fight each other. Can you just stop for a second and visualize what that would be like?!? My mind can't quite get a grasp on this. Better than any Jurassic Park-like special effects Speilberg and his team could create.

And thank you Rebecca, for always brightening my morning with disgusting bug related e-mails. We have this thing about bugs and we always try to "out gross" one another. She stopped opening my emails for a while because I was on this disgusting cockroach, scorpion kick so I had to get creative and put "Cute Shoes" in the subject line and she'd open it up only to find a jumbo sized picture of this. And one time after visiting us she hid a fake cockroach in my coffee can and when I went to scoop out the coffee I swear to God, my heart stopped. I felt my body go numb and the blood surge that rushed to my head made me woozy so I sat right down on the kitchen floor to gather myself. But it's ok because shortly after that I hung fishing wire on the inside of her microwave and attached a giant hairy black nubbly spider which almost left her for dead. Oh and then there was a time she hid a cockroach in between sheets in my linen closet that I didn't find for months! I was making up the guest bed for out of town visitors and grabbed those sheets and when I flung them out to open out popped the shiny brown cockroach right onto the bed! I left the room screaming and in tears. I'm starting to feel all itchy now so I'm done posting about bugs for today.

getting into the spirit

Just returned from the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert and while they do put on a great show, there is no reason why any concert should last longer than 2.5 hours. Unless of course it's Enrique.



Good Night!

I survived the power outage of 11-20-07

Snap Doodle! The power's back on!!

The electricity went out at exactly 9:03am. I know that because I was looking right at the clock on the cable box and thought, "phew, it's after 9:00, maybe it won't go out this early after all." and then bam the numbers disappeared. Luckily I had just finished blow drying my hair otherwise I would have been freezing for the rest of the day. No power = no heat. And even though the forecast called for high 60's- low 70's that does not mean it stays warm in this house. Our bathroom temperature this morning was 58 degrees. Our house is ridiculously cold and stays this way as soon as the temp drops below 60. Those of you may recall from last year, that I usually wear a knit cap, scarf and gloves for the majority of the winter while inside the house. It's actually much warmer outside than it ever is in our house. I even knitted myself a nose cozy because my nose is always red and feels like an ice cube. I haven't busted it out yet this year, but it's only a matter of time. So today was pretty productive despite the lack of power (and transportation). I headed downstairs at 9:04 and figured I'd boil some water for coffee. I have instant so all I needed was hot water. Well I didn't realize our gas stove was affected by the power outage so no coffee for me (though Tom told me I could light a match under the stove which would ignite the flame but NO thanks.) Instead I did it like they do in The Waltons and walked up to the bagel shop and ordered a non-fat decaf latte and a bagel for breakfast. Then I came home and put on a fire because the house was freezing and I lit all sorts of pumpkin, cider and gingerbread candles and started wrapping and bow tying. I also had my trusty 1982 battery operated radio set to the Christmas station. Both animals were within striking distance, Chum on the kitchen table, attacking the bows and shiny ribbon and Wrigley laying under my feet occasionally popping up for a few swipes of Chumley's paw.

About two hours into wrapping I had to take a break because after hunching over for that long, I had a hard time straightening up. I stretched and twisted myself into a pretzel and felt much better. Listening to the Christmas station today inspired me, so I sat at the piano for a while and started to compose. My beast of a piano definitely needs a tune up and odds are it will take a few visits from the Piano Man before it's tuned in key, but until then it still manages to provide some moments of reflection and relaxation. And Chumley and Wrigley could not have been a better audience. Wrigs fell asleep on the couch while I played and Chum started to close his eyes on the staircase. What's that saying? Music tames the savage beast? Well it definitely holds true in this house. In fact, my playing often puts Tom to sleep too.

Living like the Waltons

In less than an hour I'll have no power for the day. The city is doing some work on our power grid so we will be without power from 9am to 4pm. Also, I have no car so I can't leave the house. My brakes went out on my car this weekend and it's in the shop with a $2100 estimate in repairs thus far. And just last month I had my car in the shop twice, totally $1000. I really love these unexpected financial surprises right before the holiday season.It's like an early Christmas present to me in a way. We about finished all our Christmas shopping so I had planned on taking the day to lug out the holiday gift wrap and bows and wrap and pack til my hands fall off. I also thought I could start addressing Christmas cards but that would entail me physically having the cards here to address, which I do not. Although there is a Hallmark in walking distance so I could venture out and see what they have. And I need to start making the Thanksgiving stuffing so I could also walk to the grocery store and get the fixin's for that. I have a fantastic stuffing recipe that I'll post on here later when I find it. Either way I'm sure I'll keep busy doing something that doesn't require the use of electricity.

What I'm playing (or attempting to play)

I love this song, it's the theme song from the movie "The Piano". I've mastered the song up until 1:04 then that's where it starts to sound like a rhesus monkey banging on the keys. But I am determined to finish this song at least before I die. So it's somewhat of a long term goal (I hope).

Why I can't watch Dancing with the Stars...

Because when the voice over guy says, "Will the judges please reveal their scores" and then shouts out..."CARRIE ANN INAHHBAHH" I seriously have an uncontrollable urge to rip his face off (even though I can't see it.) Who is this guy and why does he have to say her name like that?!?! Seriously, no joke - it makes me crazy.

Though I have to say that Helio Castroneves is fun to watch and if I had to guess I'd say he's going to Lambada his way into the winner's circle. I hope he wins, he's got cute dimples.

if animals blogged...

click on the pic to enlarge and read. Actually, a few of you may know this and may have already seen this, but Chumley's got a blog going. It's for kids so I'm not posting the link publicly but those of you who know my email address and want to see it, send me an e-mail and I'll add you to the list.

Beauty Bargain Buys of the week

The extreme dryness in the air has wreaked havoc on my hair the last few weeks so I've found some products that add softness and shine and are worth sharing on here. The first is John Frieda's Color Glaze. You use this in the shower as part of your daily (or bi-weekly) hair cleansing regimen. You can also apply this to dry hair once a week for an intense shine boost. I've used it a few times in the shower and I definitely notice more sheen on the surface of my hair. After my hair is dried and styled I then use Frederic Fekkai's Glossing Cream with Pure Olive Oil as a finishing touch. This is one product I cannot live without. It also smells great and leaves a silky smooth texture on your hands that keep them soft as well!