buttercup

I almost forgot! Sara Blakely, the founder of the company that irritated the crap out of me this summer, is on FOX's Rebel Billionaire. I wasn't watching the show much to begin with, but now that I know she's on it, every time I pass it and see her I hiss at the screen. It's fun and has the added bonus of being interactive!

What would the world be like without 12-hour-long car trips? We make them at least four times a year (that's FOUR COMPLETE DAYS spent driving, for those of you who don't feel sufficiently sorry for us yet, with an infant, no less). We've survived another one, I guess.

Florida was not too bad. The in-laws are always great hosts, letting us stay at their house instead of in a hotel, and feeding us til we explode.

This trip, they watched Rabbit while Ben and I went skulking around Orlando; on Friday we went down to International Drive (mostly the tourist trap stores Ben likes), and that night we went over to Downtown Disney to eat at Rainforest Café. We skipped the inside because the wait was about two hours and sat out on the deck instead (only a fifteen-minute wait). I know the atmosphere inside the restaurant is supposed to be the draw, but we kind of wanted to sit outside and enjoy the warm weather. The deck is beside a lake, so ducks and everything swam close to us. Highlight: a heron stood on the little ledge next to our table. A girl at the table next to us was proclaiming its cuteness, but then it swooped down, grabbed a fish out of the lake, and gulped it down all in one smooth motion, and the kid decided it was a mean bird. Inspiring story, huh?

Back to the food: the crabcakes were the best seafood thing I've ever eaten. In my life. No, I mean it. They weren't like the ones that come in a box in the frozen food section. They were big lumps of crabmeat held together . . . in some delicious manner. Damn, they were good. I also had the shrimp platter, mostly because I wanted to try the shrimp embrochette, since I'd never heard that word before. They ended up being shrimp wrapped in bacon and stuffed with crabmeat. Pretty good. The meal was expensive; luckily, Ben's parents were nice enough to give us money for dinner. (Told you they were awesome.)

So I had a good Thanksgiving, even if I wasn't with my normal Thanksgiving Day crowd. The Thanksgiving feast was splendid -- my favorite part was the sweet potatoes cut in half and topped with brown sugar and marshmallows, then baked in the skin.

I did miss getting to put up the tree on Friday, but we should probably worry about moving, like, a bed into the house first. This weekend is Ben's fancy-fancy company party, and then I can finally concentrate on making the xmas presents I need to make. The holidays are going by hella fast this year.

Who knew banana pudding and nilla wafers was a Thanksgiving dessert? What the hell? Apparently the pilgrims really liked them some nilla wafers.

I was going to make banana bread (to take to FL) from a recipe in Real Simple (it's not online, but this is close), but all the banana pudding mix was GONE. I expressed my wonder at this when I got home. It was met with a duh look from Dad. Apparently this is a Thanksgiving Thing. How was I supposed to know? We've always just had pies and haystack cookies.

Curses. So I had to make bread from a box (and it has a hideous crater on the bottom because it stuck to the pan) and brownies from a box (I'm low on ingredients due to the move) to make up for it.

Since I'm going to Florida for Thansgiving, I suppose I should take a giant horse tranquilizer, since everyone knows all those horrible conservatives down in the deep South make anyone with a drop of liberal blood coursing through their veins go apeshit.

I dropped this subject over on getcrafty, because it was going nowhere. Oh, my delicate Southern feelings, and my poor virgin Southern ears. Hee.

I was watching Michael Chiarello's show (Easy Entertaining, that is -- apparently he has more than one show) yesterday, and I effing love the idea for Leftover Pumpkin Pie Brulee. Dude, you don't even have to look at the recipe, honestly. Ramekin + leftover pumpkin pie filling + tbsp of sugar + FIRE! = brulee. Now all I have to do is make a pie so that we have leftovers.

I watched a few of Food Network's Thanksgiving episodes yesterday (getting my fill 'cause we won't have cable after next week), and now I'm wishing we were staying home instead of going to Florida so that I could cook up a fabulous feast. Maybe we can have a post-Thanksgiving feast next weekend (never mind, forgot about the party, guess it'll wait till Christmas). I want to make some mashed potatoes gratin and sweet potatoes and cranberry citrus dressing. Mmm, carby goodness. Yes, I'm aware those are all recipes from Chiarello's show -- what can I say, I remember more from his show because I think he's hot. Even if the pic on his Food Network page looks a little sleazy. I'm sorry, but I am weak, and boys with dark hair who can pronounce Italian words and know their way around a kitchen are dreamy.

Even though I am committed to making a metric ton of stuff for Christmas this year (see my crafty blog, unless you're someone I give presents too, of course), I still have some shopping to do.

Here are some of the places I'm virtually going:

* bunni*goods. Angela has a new site up and it's so sweet-looking! The doggie biscuits were what drew me there, but the kitty stationery was so cute I had to buy it or die.

* Plain Mabel. I always try to do some of my holiday/bday shopping at Plain Mabel, because I like it that much. Can't say what I bought because I don't want ruined surprises, but all of it's adorable.

* Flying Fish Design. Haven't bought them yet, but am planning on buying some notecards.

* 77 Industries!. I'm keeping an eye out for some new buttons -- if there aren't any in the next week or so, I'm going to check out Meomi instead. I really need to get some pretty buttons for Mom, but I can't find exactly what I'm looking for. The ones by Rose and Sadie are close, but not quite it.

* Looking Glass Girl. Stocking stuffers!

* Becca Lights. Bought a few candles last month. They smell so damn good. And the scent samples are very well-priced.

* Uncommon Goods. Not DIY (I prefer to buy anything I can DIY), but I can't find the little love tokens anywhere else.

* A lot of people are getting little stocking stuffers from my Sampler, too. Awesome goodies! The only thing I'm keeping for myself is the ring from glamscience (because it's effing delightful) and the Shermans cd, because I am in desperate need of small-ish trinkets for people. Luckily I've accumulated a lot of extra stuff over the last few years. Regifting isn't so bad when you're giving away stuff (some still in the package) that's fabulous and unused.

For those perhaps-well-intentioned people who think I'm doing my child eternal damage by going back to work full-time before she's in preschool: if you would like to pay off our (as of right now) $20,000 in hospital bills, I would be happy to stay at home with my child seven days a week until she hits the age of five. Any takers?

p.s. Helicopters are apparently expensive. If Rabbit ever needs to be flown anywhere again, I will hire a trained eagle to carry her on its back.

(link via Mimi Smartypants)

Sorry about the title. Slightly punchdrunk over the possibility of going to the doctor's for the third time in a month and a half! Yay for kidney infections! At least I have a little variety in my illnesses, I guess, although I'm getting tired of "guess your illness" game shows being held IN MY BODY.

So I haven't updated a lot here. I'm only really online at work and on occasional nights now, since I have no computer of my own, and once we move (after the holiday weekend!), I'm not going to have a (land-based) phone line for a few months.

However, I update my getcrafty blog a little bit more (not saying much, I know). And I'm even planning on putting a few pictures up later tonight, woot!, etc. All very exciting.

And I finally got my glitterati webring approval, thanks to go-fish! (Yeah, that's probably the main reason I updated at all here.)

Since I probly won't update before the holiday, I'll say it now: Happy Thanksgiving!