Getting The Money Shot

One of the many joys of the Season is the annual taking of the the Christmas card picture. Some people leave this up to professionals. Some people use a nice shot of the family from when they were on vacation. Here in Weaselville we patiently wait for the stars to align in such a way that everybody is home and wearing clean clothes at the same time.

This astrological rarity coincidentally happened this past weekend. Actually, the right conditions were in place both Saturday and Sunday. Maybe I should check the calendar to see if it was a blue moon. Even with all the conditions coming together with a wide window of opportunity, things did not go easily.

When I mentioned taking the photo, Eldest insisted we take it in front of the Christmas tree, as we have often done in years past. The only catch, the tree had not yet been erected. Nor did I feel like pulling it out of the basement and setting it up. Eldest volunteered for this task and I gave her the nod.

Fast forward 12 hours. The tree is up and lit, but the branches have yet to be separated and fluffed in order to avoid the Charlie Brown look.

Fast forward 7 more hours and we are finally ready to take the picture while dinner is in the oven. The following is what happens when you take 5 hungry Weasels and 1 dog and try to take 1 Christmas Card picture.

These are Weasels:

In hopes that things would go a little smoother after everyone's blood sugar levels are back on track, this is the point at which we decided to take a break to eat dinner. You're welcome for me not posting all 374 pre - dinner pics.

These are Weasels on food:

Last but not least, the money shot that will appear on the Weasel Family Christmas card 2009:

Another Successful Year

Thanksgiving in Weaselville was busy, as expected. A day that started extremely early, even for Weasel standards and filled with hours spent in the kitchen -my favorite part of the day- and very little down time.

Eldest Weasel was running in a Turkey Trot with a friend first thing in the morning as Mr. Weasel smoked the bird of honor over indirect heat on the grill. I began chopping and prepping for all the various dishes of the day, including the feast of turkey parts that come stuffed and bagged inside the bird for Matilda The Hun.

All of the Weasels were disgusted and awed to watch the dog enjoy her special treats that they would dare not ever put into their mouths. Matilda then followed me around the kitchen for the rest of the day in hopes that I had some more tasty little morsels for her. Who says I can't make a feast fit for a dog?

Mr. Weasel fights a battle against the weather every year as he cooks the turkey outdoors, either by deep frying or smoking. The cold and the wind usually make it difficult to keep the temperatures high enough to cook the bird. This year however, he had trouble keeping the temperature from going too high, even though it was snowing when he started, and a cooking method that should have taken 12 hours for a 24 lb bird, was finished (overly so) in 5. The smokey taste however, was fantabulous and the dark meat - that I am not typically a fan of - was pure heaven. The white meat was a little on the dry side, was still delicious in flavor and there was plenty of gravy to go around. The stuffing was also smoked with the same result and once again the smoky flavor was outstanding, even if it was a little dry.

All the other dishes went off without a hitch and were tasty indeed, but the best part of the day was spending with our family and hearing all of the Weasels speak of what they are thankful for in their lives. The range of their gratitude extended from "my faith" to "the dog" and it was heart warming to hear them speak. We enjoyed sitting down to a wonderful meal without the spillage of a single drink! Miracles do happen!

After dinner and before pie, we turned to family movie night, as we are not a football kind of family, and shared the joy of Ferris Bueller's Day Off with the Weasels (edited for TV, of course), followed by the introduction of Home Alone to Smallest Weasel.

Weasels are now fully excited and ready to take on The Christmas season. Not only did Santa come to town at the end of the parade yesterday, but even better and more exciting to the Weasel's is that our dear friend Patsy is coming back to town on Saturday! They have been speaking of it constantly for weeks and asking "How many more days". It brings me such joy and pride that this is the focus of their hyper energy. That have such a love for this wonderful lady who is so special to me.

We have so much to be grateful for in Weaselville everyday. Mr. Weasel has a job this year. There is plenty of food on our table and dear friends in our lives. We are all healthy and happy and have the opportunity to share our blessings with others and be blessed by having others in our lives.

I wish you all the blessings of Christ and family this Christmas Season and want you to know that you were on my list of what I am thankful for. Especially, but not limited to Tom, NukeDad, Melisa, Momo Fali, Mrs.4444, PJ Mullen and I could go on, but would spend the rest of my day linking.

Thanksgiving Fun

*This was originally posted in November 2008*

Ahhh, Thanksgiving. A Time to come together with family and celebrate all of the blessings we have. A day to remember, appreciate and show gratitude for yet having survived another year. A day that more times than not is filled with landmines just waiting to be stepped on.

When spending the holiday with relatives, either by blood or marriage, there is always going to be sniper fire. Comments from Aunt Cookie, who still can't believe he married that little tramp, to the effect of "MMMMM, this tastes wonderful. It's not nearly as dry as it looks" and the inevitable small talk around the wine bottle about "little Susie's boobies are starting to bud". The conversation throughout the day will continually go downhill and you will soon get to hear all about Grandpa Dan's prostate in more detail than you can digest through.

You will hear all the play by play of cousin Lucy and her husband Jed's infertility issues, as Aunt Betsy is in the corner telling everyone that they can't conceive because Lucy was a tramp in college. Speculation and rumor of divorce will be whispered about Mike and Sara because they didn't accept the invitation to dinner. In reality, they were smart enough to avoid this whole scene in favor of 4 nights in the Bahamas.

Soon desert will be served. As Uncle Lou scoffs down his 3rd piece of homemade pie, Aunt Cookie asks "where did you buy the pie? I hope you didn't pay too much, it's a bit too sweet". You want to scream, but you have to play nice. You try to hide in the bathroom to take a few deep breaths only to find it occupied with Aunt Betsy and a colitis attack. Aunt Cookie blames the gravy.

In order to protect ourselves, here in Weaselville we start the day with bloody Mary's. They are just enough armour to deflect the scathing comments and numb the conversation. They take the edge off of an exhausting day. A huge debt of gratitude goes out to my sister-in-law for bringing this tradition to our family.

Here and now, I propose to you a new national holiday ~Grateful Friday~(to be celebrated on the 4th Friday of November) in order to appreciate and mock our relatives from a distance while enjoying a meal with friends. A day to show gratitude for the people we hang out with by choice, not just by birth or marriage. A day to celebrate and be grateful for having survived another Thanksgiving. We already have the day off of work. We already have dinner made, and the Bloody Mary's can be for fun and not just medicinal.

And a huge shout out to BadMomma who has a brilliantly funny Thanksgiving Survival Guide.

My 15 Seconds Of Fame

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the old saying is that we all get our 15 minutes sooner or later, I however will take what I can get.

Last night, after homework and before dinner, I took a few minutes to check my email, blog comments and twitter. Simultaneously, Greta Van Susteren send out a general tweet to effect of "Hey, I'm logged onto Skype, ping me now if you want to chat." (I can't find the exact tweet, but that was the gist of it.)

So I looked her up on Skype and hit that magic little call button. I didn't know the topic she wanted to discuss or the context of what the conversation would be and was nervous and very much second guessing my choice about making contact. It began to ring, and ring, and ring. I let it ring 7 or 8 times before giving up and figuring that 500 people were doing the same nervous sweaty under arm thing that I was.

In the mean time, my cell phone rang and it was none other than my dear blogging buddy, Mr. Man. We were chatting for just a minute or 2, when my Skype started ringing. "Mr. Man, I don't want to be rude, but I'm gonna have to call you back. Greta Van Susteren is calling me." Without missing a beat, Mr. Man responded "well, okay then." or something like that.


I answered the call and here is what ensued:
Greta promoted my blog and I saw a definite spike in the traffic last night. I woke up this morning to actual fan email in my inbox. I kid you not. I was pretty surprised to, and flattered, and a little creeped out. It was all very complimentary and ego boosting, but it was awfully strange and all very new for me.

I was sent well wishes from blogging and twitter friends and teased plenty in a jovial way from friends. Melisa wrote a fantabulously funny post about her delusions of how it all came to be on her blog. Coincidentally, I was already scheduled to have lunch with Melisa and Michelle of Honest and Truly.

When we were seated at our table we were already laughing and having fun as I played up my new celeb status as eyes were rolled and belly laughs abounded. The waitress came to greet us and immediately said "You look so familiar". I almost wet my pants trying to hold back the laughter. Of course she was talking about Michelle and Melisa's notoriety in the "Eating Cheesecake and calling it Lunch Hall of Fame" and how she remembered waiting on them in the past.

I'm enjoying my 15 minutes and just hope that it isn't up quite yet.

Some Times You Are The Windshield

Today I get to be the bug. What Now Dad has stealthily tagged me for a meme, and since I can't come up with anything original or amusing to write on my own He has bad teeth and his wife has confiscated meat from his diet while forcing him to eat tofu tacos I am a good sport, I am going to play along.

The Meme game is played as follows:
The person who is tagged goes to the first photo file on their computer and to the tenth photo in that file. The tagged person post the photo on their blog and tells the story behind it. Then the person tags a few people from the blogs that they read.

I am not nearly organized enough to keep my photos in folders, so I decided to blindly click on the first JPG file I saw and came out with this nugget of pure gold.
Why is this pic of such value as to be be compared with a rock that dwells deep under the dinosaur to family dog fertilized earth?

I knew you would ask that, and that is why I am prepared to tell you that this a rare pic is of me with my eyes open, a full smile and having a good hair day. A rare trifecta. and none other than Vodka Mom!

I had the privilege of meeting this fantastically funny and talented blogger at the BlogHer conference this past July. I knew that she would be attending and I shamelessly hunted through the crowds to spot her more aggressively than a wannabe tween groupie at Jonas Brothers concert. I even had the fabulous Melisa with 1 S, who does not share my affliction of being vertically challenged, use her hawk like vision to help me find this blogging hero of mine, and Melisa came through for me. She found Vodka Mom standing approximately 5 feet away from me at a party on the first night.

So what was I to do besides assault her faster than a teen boy rounding 3rd base and have a friend snap a picture before the poor lady even knew what had happened.

Ahhh, but my stalking and assaulting didn't stop there. Staying at the same hotel for 3 straight nights gave me loads of opportunity to provide cause for Vodka Mom to build a case for a restraining order to see, smile, wave and chat with this lovely and gracious lady.

I even happened to 'run into her' at 6am in the hotel coffee house. She was alone, drinking her morning coffee and working on her laptop. I did not let these facts stop me from sitting down to have a friendly conversation while she was cornered alone. While she was basically my hostage and I talked and had coffee, Vodka Mom stated that she needed an extra bag to lug home some of the weekends souvenirs and I quickly supplied her with one of mine reminiscent of girls throwing their panties to the Beetles on stage.

Stupid me. I got it all backwards. Elvis used to throw his sweaty scarves out to his fans as a keepsake. I just got to excited and erupted faster than Matthew Broderick in Biloxi Blues.

All joking aside, Vodka Mom is a warm, gracious and kind (not to mention funny) lady, who is even more vertically challenged than I, that I like to call, friend.

Oh and by the way, I am tagging

1. Melisa with 1 S ~ Because she's a sport and takes lots of pics.
2. NukeDad ~ Because I am convinced that he just forgot the password to get into the dashboard of his blog and this may inspire him to look through the NukeBeagles' droppings to find it. (Consider the gauntlet thrown.)
3. Tom of being Michael's Daddy ~ Because I know that he will have a good story to go with his picture.