Christmas Vacation

This is how I spent our Christmas vacation…

Friday – Spent the entire morning into the afternoon in bed watching TV and surfing online. Did absolutely nothing productive and didn’t feel too guilty about it (maybe just a little).

Saturday – Made a big breakfast, watched TV, went to Dominick’s to see what was left on the shelves (since they are closing all their stores at the end of the year) and purchased 3 cartons of lactose free milk, among other things, for under $1.50 each, got a delicious Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza (as well as a $100 gift card to fund 2014’s pizza cravings since a free $25 gift certificate came with it), rented Red 2 from Redbox (ok, but not as good as the first one), and watched the first three episodes of Firefly (we borrowed the complete series from the library).

Sunday – Watched more episodes of Firefly and in the evening, with hot chocolate in hand, toured the neighborhood looking at Christmas decorations, like the house pictured below.

Decorated House

Monday – Attended my company’s Christmas luncheon at a local steakhouse and had a nice time (four hours just flew by). Said goodbye to Winston. Watched more Firefly.

Tuesday (Christmas Eve) – Baked an awesome chocolate pecan pie and made Oreo cookie balls, both of which were taken to my parents’ house to celebrate Christmas Eve. E was with us and we did our annual Crazy BINGO even though it was more like Crazy UNO. Joe ended up winning the “big” prize of $20. Also, one of my gag gifts, a gingerbread picture frame ornament containing a photo of poop was a big hit with Brother # 1. He ended up buying it off E for $3. We also surprised my parents with a new large widescreen monitor for their computer so they can read their emails better. We stayed until just after 11 pm and finally got home and to bed after 1 am.

Today (Christmas) – Decided to go see a movie instead of sitting around the house and feeling let down about the holiday since we had exchanged gifts on Tuesday. We chose Anchorman 2. We chose poorly. It was one of the worst movies we’ve seen in a very long time. There was hardly any funny scenes and it was just a major disappointment. I cannot believe it has a 75% positive rating online. It should have never been made. Came home, ate Chinese food for lunch, which we ordered and picked up yesterday since, despite everyone’s belief that Chinese restaurants are open on Christmas, none of the ones in the area I called yesterday were planning on being open. Finished watching Firefly. A few friends are in love with this series, and while I did enjoy it, I didn’t think it was all that. It was rather weird how other than the whole spaceship stuff it was mostly like a western. That being said, I do plan on getting my hands on the follow-up movie, Serenity, soon.

Presents – This year we gave each other a budget of $100 for gifts. I got Joe some running gloves and a hat, socks (albeit the wrong kind because I’m a moron), some coffee syrup, weights, a guitar tab book, and Rocksmith 2014 for the PS3. He gave me some Cuddl Duds (long underwear), a collapsible multi-disc light reflector, a wireless bluetooth speaker (the sound is quite impressive), and some nail polish I’ve been wanting. We also bought each other candy stocking stuffers like we do every year.

I feel conflicted about going back to work tomorrow. On one hand I’m getting rather bored being at home, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I enjoy working. At least it’s only two days this week. I normally have Fridays off but figured I’d go in so I’ll get paid for four days but only have to work two.

R.I.P. Winston

Winston passed away on December 23rd. He had been feeling sick again and I was giving him medicine, but it didn’t help this time around. I’m glad we spent some quality time together in the days leading up to his death, but I feel so guilty because that morning he kept wanting to climb onto my shoulder and I couldn’t allow him as I was getting ready to leave for my employer’s Christmas luncheon. Four hours later when I returned home he was gone. :(

We only had Winston for six months but he brought a lot of love with him. He got along with everyone, including Bella, and everyone loved him.

I leave you with two videos I took of him back in July.

Winston Cleaning My Thumb
He always loved to clean humans and canines alike. He’d lick us more than he would Hershey!

Winston Getting a Head Rub
He also loved sitting on my lap and getting a head massage.

You will be forever missed, Winston.

Blackhawks

Hubby and I had the opportunity to attend a Blackhawks game this past Sunday in a penthouse suite thanks to my employer, and boy was it sweet! I absolutely loved the view and actually got really into following the game. It’s too bad regular seats/tv doesn’t give you the same birds-eye view of all the action because it’s seriously awesome. If I had one of those suites I’d probably become a hardcore hockey fan.

Blackhawks Game

Plus the food in the suite was delicious. I had some sort of chicken with fancy cheese (brie I think) sandwich that was out of this world. And look at this brownie. LOOK AT IT! Seriously, it was 3 inches thick, moist, rich, and covered in the best caramel (which I usually do not care for). Between the two of us we could barely finish it. Best brownie EVER!

Monster Brownie

It got me thinking about how the United Center is home to both the Bulls (basketball) and the Blackhawks and how they have to switch the flooring regularly to accommodate both teams. Pretty cool stuff!

Unfortunately the night flew by and I am now forever spoiled by the penthouse suite experience.

Thanksgiving Part Deux

Saturday we had our Thanksgiving with E, my SIL, and Brother # 2. I cooked an actual turkey this year instead of a turkey breast like past years. It came out… a bit dry. But it was my first time and it wasn’t so dry that it wasn’t edible (good enough that I made two turkey sandwiches for lunch yesterday, oh yea)!

Friday I made the green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, and mac and cheese so that I wouldn’t have to figure out how to get those done while the oven was busy cooking the turkey. Oh, and we used a nice roasting pan we got at IKEA last weekend for only $12.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Earlier on Saturday I was using my food processor to make hash browns (I did actually use it to chop pecans for the sweet potato casserole but right now it’s mainly used to shred potatoes) and I cut the tip of my middle finger on the shredding blade while extracting it from the protective cardboard I’ve been keeping it in to prevent getting cut. Irony, I love thee.

After dinner on Saturday we decided to nix our original plans of going out to see Christmas lights since it’s been so cold lately and played Phase 10 instead. At some point the cards kept rubbing against my cut and unbeknownst to me it started to bleed. E pointed out there was something red on some of his cards, so I put a band-aid on. As the game went on and on we got sillier and sillier and I ended up drawing a face on my band-aid and flipping people the bird, or, depending on your interpretation, the cat or fox since that’s what it ended up looking like after I kept adding onto the face.

Finger Band-aid

Speaking of foxes, I think Joe and I were probably the last people on Earth to see the What Does The Fox Say video that’s been making its rounds online. My family introduced it to us on the real Thanksgiving. As we watched we were getting frustrated because we know we hadn’t seen it before but the melody sounded so infuriatingly familiar. It wasn’t until two days later that it came to Joe why – we had seen a parody of the video on SNL a few weeks ago not knowing it was mocking a real video. I’m not sure about you, but I prefer the SNL version, What Does My Girl Say.

Target Addict

Since I’m not tired even after having slept poorly last night, I might as well write about my recent shopping deals.

I rarely go out in the evenings after work but I had to take advantage of two deals at Target tonight. The 1st one was for the movie Epic on DVD. We don’t buy movies anymore, but with Target’s price matching, a $5 off coupon, and a rebate, the movie will end up being free. I just hope it’s good! The 2nd deal was for two 19 oz bags of M&Ms that were less than $1 each after coupons and Target’s Cartwheel discount. Oh, and I also snagged some fun $1 items to be used in our annual crazy BINGO game on Christmas Eve. My mom usually takes care of the gifts but she wasn’t in the mood and I didn’t want us to forgo the fun tradition I look forward to every year.

I finally bought one Christmas gift for Joe. I know, only one, but I feel less stressed now. I had it in mind for awhile but missed the good price for it on Black Friday and Cyber Monday was a bust. Then today it was priced lower than either day so that was nice. He’s so hard to buy for especially since in addition to Battlefield 4, he got Battlefield 3 today because it was only $15. I told him to stop buying stuff for himself right before the holiday.

Oh, and I just have to say I really do not understand why my E’s mom would tell him what she got him for Christmas. I noticed the past few years that he knows most of what he’s getting ahead of time. Kinda takes the fun out of it if you ask me. But who asked, right?

Ok, hopefully the melatonin I took will kick in shortly so I can get some rest. Goodnight.