41 and holding

I'm sorry it took me awhile to recover from the weekend. Yes, I can barely still fit in my clothes. Luckily my mom bought me a whole slew of new clothes when we were at the outlet mall. Friday night was great. The girls were toned down. Stac was recovering from a week long illness, her husband was babysitting skymiles 2 kids also, and Boston girl moves this week. SO...we did have fun anyway. After dinner we went to have drinks at The Capital Grille. My new favorite spot I guess. It was an early night. On Friday brother called to wish me a happy birthday and made some comment about how he wasn't sure if he and wifey could afford to hang with the big dogs at Atlanta most expensive restaurant. I had already heard his tirade over the Thanksgiving weekend several times. I got right on the phone with wifey and told her plans had changed I was keeping skymiles baby and I didn't know when she would get back and we weren't going out. I didn't even flinch and she bought it all. True, I was keeping skymiles baby for the afternoon and wasn't exactly sure what time she was coming home....but pretty much knew it would be before 8:30 which was the time of our reservation, she got home at 6:00. Wifey didn't even know what day my actual birthday was on. Go fugure. She wrote me a check...a nice check but still...whoa...thoughtful! Let me just say it was a MUCH more pleasent evening and a quieter evening....and FYI it was cheaper than the other night at Blue Ridge Grille...and a zillion times better. Sorry bro.
Monday with my work crew was one of the best times. It was a fun celebration as usual with this group. For some reason they think I am funny.

Great Birthday ~ even if I did have to get another year older.

Another year has gone by

This time last year I was busy, busy planning my 40th birthday party for 50 of my closest friends. Hard to believe I will be 41 in just a few short days. Obviously this year will not be quite the celebration. As Bossy was clear to point out..."You don't have parties for your 41st birthday." Damn her! Well, tomorrow night I am having dinner with my married couple friends I have not introduced here yet. They are very sweet to have me and a few other friends over. Plus she is an excellent cook. Then on Friday I am going to a Japanese place with my girls (my actual b-day), Bones with the family on Saturday night, and out with my best boy Mark on Sunday night. As one of my co-workers called it, on Monday my office will make our annual pilgrimage to the Old Hickory House. Funny thing is I don't even claim I like Bar-B-Que. Maybe because my bro works for a BBQ company. BUT...Old Hickory is one of my favorites...and yes I have BBQ. I guess it has something to do with my fond childhood memories. We used to go to OHH almost every Saturday. They used to have them all over Atlanta. now we only have 2 but luckily they are both easy to reach from my work or home.
As you may remember I am planning on taking my sis to Napa Valley for a little R & R to celebrate her 40th Birthday which is January 3. Yes, we are only 13 months apart. Last night I wrote a little poem and gave it to her at this little Christmas party we had. Well, it was my mom's little dinning group and their daughters out for dinner. Only 7 of us. The restaurant (Merlot) was pretty good but very casual and WAY, WAY out for my ITP roots. So, I gave her the little poem at dinner. For the last 24 hours she has done nothing but guess where we are going. I really had her thinking we were going to Boston. I've been dropping hint about going to NYC for weeks now. She probably has figured me out by now. She seems really excited and does not want to really know until Christmas. NOT ME! I told her not to ever do anything like this to me. I got the balloon ride all figured out and our reservation also for Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Gourmet Magazine rated it number 2 in the country. We have quite a bit planned.

I feel guilty

Most of you know I have a strict hard and fast rule about Christmas Music. While I love it I try to wait to begin the Holiday Season on Thanksgiving Day....or the following day, even better. I try not to do any shopping or play any holiday music until after Thanksgiving. This year I have already been out shopping (and from previous post you know I have already finished my shopping for my sister) TWICE. Well, last night I decided to get all my Christmas music I wanted downloaded to my ipod. I had to play a little snippet to make sure it was the correct song and now I cannot get this song out of my head. I keep singing the same line over and over because I can't remember any more of the song and I am going crazy wanting to know the whole song. I am very happy I just downloaded the songs to my computer and not actually on my ipod because I would have listened to them this morning. Yesterday Bossy sent me an e-mail with several Christmas Questions attached. One of them...What is your favorite Christmas Memory? Easy...here is what I said...

A few years ago we went to Williamsburg for Christmas.

On December 23 they had the "Lighting of the Holiday" or some such.

It was at night and it was 2 degrees outside...acting like it was going to snow.

All the Williamsburg actors were out along with the Fife and Drum (band)

lighting the gas lamps with big torches. They had a parade and Dickens

folks singing carols and it was just "CHRISTMAS". We left the parade and

walked down the street to the Bruton Parish Church for ginger cookies and cider.

The whole family was together and Mimi was also with us.

It never snowed but Washington had so much they called it a white out since

there was so much snow. It is only an hour away from Williamsburg.

The next year we went to Washington and still no snow.

So the next thing I did was download my songs and I couldn't help getting in the mood. It is almost a little sad for me because I am so ready for Thanksgiving to come and go...as you know I love Thanksgiving too....so I can put on my Christmas mood full swing. You can bet the first song I will listen to tomorrow is "You Make Me Feel Like Christmas" (Neil Diamond..chessy? yes..but that man can sing!) Happy Thanksgiving All!

I love my TIVO...most of the time

My best friend and favorite gift I ever gave myself has really made me angry tonight. I'm not even sure what the problem is but about every other commercial, which I don't watch because TIVO zips through them, the screen goes to blue. What the heck is going on?? TIVO I love you baby but you have got to work with me here. I almost missed the tell all of the Bachelor...HORRORS! Luckily, and I mean LUCKILY for him he was doing fine during Prison Break. Maybe I should take this as a sign to go on to bed a little early tonight...after all it is now 1:15 a.m....OK so 45 minutes and missing an episode I have already seen of Will and Grace will not kill me so I'll sign off. TIVO...you better be back to your old self tomorrow!

I am...That's Sew Sally!

People were calling me "Sew Sally" because of all the sewing I used to do. I have made a nice little bit of extra cash doing some monogramming and sewing. This past week a friend asked me if I would do somethings for her...but she wanted them for Thanksgiving. Since I also work almost full time I knew this weekend would be the only time to work on all of this. Well, from previous blogs you may know I put it all off until Sunday evening. YIKES! As you can see it all worked out pretty well. One thing I did conclude was my machine needs a good tune up. Since I haven't been sewing I hadn't noticed it until now. Thank goodness "Rosey" made it through these projects. I hope these outfits will make Monogram Momma proud. Sometimes my talents surprise me too. Isn't that refreshing!

Friday

So Mike and Kim got here EARLY. Some friends told them it was 13 hours from South Bend so they left before dawn I think. I was just messing around putting off gettin gin the shower when Sis called and said they were already here at their hotel waiting. Yikes! So we picked them up and took the to Capital Grill for drinks. The view of Buckhead is the best of anyplace and they loved it. We had a ball catching up and having some liquid refreshment. So after a tiny buzz we left there and went to...guess where?...Target...well, we do have I think the only 2 story Target. They took pictures of the cart escalator. We went to dinner and then quickly left to go meet some friends out. We took our photo albums from Hawaii and everyone who came by our table looked at the books. Well, you know how boring other folks travel pictures can be so I was pleased everyone wanted to see them. It was skymiles girls husbands birthday and he poured a beer on the cake to get the trick candles out. We all had a great evening and Mike and Kim have promised to come back again and stay longer next time. They have to get up by 7:00am so they can get to the South Florida for their cruise. Hopefully they'll come again soon!

Tomorrow night is Skymiles Girls baby's first birthday party...mostly adults and booze so it should be another fun evening.

I love Thanksgiving!

Even though turkey is not really my favorite I LOVE Thanksgiving. This year my mom is recovering from hip replacement and still in a rehab facility. We thought we'd make it easy on her and us and have t-giving at The Ritz or Four Seasons. We checked it all out, got the menus, wine list and of course all the dessert items. I love a buffet. Well, then my mom's friend, who we spend most holidays with, invited us and did not want to think about a restaurant. Hopefully my mom will be released from rehab on Wednesday. Usually we all make something to bring and the hostess will make the turkey. She is a pretty good cook so no worries there. I'm all set to make Martha's pearl onions and leeks. It looked very yummy when she made it.
So in addition to my brother and his wife, my sis, mom and dad there will be my mom's friends, we'll call the Baboo and Lala, what their grandkids used to call them when they couldn't say their "official names" and their daughter, my brothers age, her husband and their three kids. Now that they are a little older 12, 10 and 7...they have become a little quieter. Without a doubt it will be a lively holiday. This turkey is still on my fridge from last year at their house. Made by the family artist...at age 6. She only had to make 22 last year, 6 of us 15 of them plus one friend. This year will be different.

Friday morning mom, dad, sis and I head off for our annual day at the outlet mall/Target/Khols/Walmart. This year we used our hotel points to stay for free in the hotel in Dahlonega. Yea...I know, why use points in Dahlonega GA but they were Days Inn points, who knew I stayed at Days Inn so much?? They were actually left over from Eurpoe where Days Inn is really nice American Hotel there. Back to the adventure.....this way we get two days of shopping. Dinner at our favorite place in Dahlonega, Corkscrew. If you get a chance you should go here. It is about 30 minutes north of the outlet mall but the town is so cute and the restaurant so yummy, and cheap by my fancy Atlanta standards. Then on Saturday we are planning on spending some time at Wolf Mountain Vineyards, and Blackstock Winery which are both suprisingly very good. Getting us in the mood for Napa.