Party's over

Well, I have successfully frittered away my 5-day weekend. It seems like only yesterday I was still deep in pre-holiday stressing and now it's all over but the dead tree removal.

Having Christmas Eve day off really saved my heiny. I still had a few gifts to buy so I headed out to the mall early. WTH?!?! So did everyone and their cousin. It took me 10 minutes just to nab a parking place. I heard on the news that people were shopping late this year which really irritates me. That is MY time! All you organized people are supposed to be well out of my way by December 24th! You cannot just randomly decide to take over our procrastinators' shopping time.

I had everything purchased and wrapped by noon. Yay me! Can I just say that one good thing about this recession is that Christmas seemed much simpler this year. There wasn't all that crazy buy-a-gift-for-your-dog's-pedicurist mentality. I mean, I'm all about the spirit of giving but I just don't need another bag of candied fruit slices. Especially when there are people out there who don't even have breakfast.

The afternoon was set aside for lefse making. For those of you whose last name doesn't end in -son, lefse is basically a Norwegian potato tortilla. You butter it up, sprinkle it with sugar, roll it like you're gonna smoke it and yum! It's good but it's also a lot of work and goes better with a helper. Omega agreed to do the cooking if I rolled it out. This lasted all of three very browned pieces... because she was paying more attention to texting her friends than watching her work. I got a little um... testy and soon it was just me doing everything since Alpha was off snowboarding with some totally hunky guy and Homer was... oh, just STARTING his shopping. Anyway, it turned out quite well.

We had lasagna for dinner on Christmas Eve and then we opened out presents! This is the way both Homer and I grew up and still seems to be the norm back in the 'Otas but it is NOT the way of You-tah. People here couldn't be more shocked by our actions if we pantsed Santa in the food court but it's worked for generations of Jane-people, which are easily identified in a crowd by their lack of Christmas morning eye bags. We get to sleep in because all that's left for Christmas morning is stocking stuffers and noon church. We used to do midnight mass, which is actually at 11pm, but who can stay up THAT late any more?

Christmas Day we had our traditional ham and potato dumplings... and lefse... and a little squash for color. This totally defies the family green bean casserole custom but my mother ruined that for me by using canned green beans. I can't even talk about it without throwing up a little.

And, well, that pretty much sums up our Christmas... except for the laundry. Did anyone else do laundry on Christmas Day? I just couldn't help myself. It's that Siren washer... she calls to me.

I spent the rest of the weekend doing odds and ends and rearranging the family room for the new BIG tv that Santa brought. We just need to hang it on the wall... when Homer gets the mount... right after the second coming.
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A p.s. on the morning dog pee story: I never realize how freaky I sound until I expose some little habit of mine to all of blogdom, and once again feel the need to explain myself. You don't even have to pretend you care. This is about my needs.

Pepperann doesn't wake me up to go out. My Sweet Pepper not only stays in bed as long as I do, but she does her best to defend me from the moocherous cats that try to wake me with paw slaps to the nose and insistent mah-rowing that means it is time for morning kibbles. True,
sometimes her 'defense' is more rousting than the cats, but her intentions are good.

Back when PA was new to our home, I used to take her out first thing in the morning and I would tell her to pee and then wait for her to perform. This serves two purposes: one is that it's
very helpful to have a dog trained to pee on command if you are traveling for instance and two, I then know that she is drained and has not fallen victim to some distraction like a blade of grass or say... the air. It only takes a minute and then we return to the kitchen and put the feedbags on.

A year to the day, after PepperAnn moved in, I got distracted by Alpha's birthday breakfast and I FORGOT to take PA out. She peed right next to Alpha's bed. That was her first accident in almost year so I blame only myself for breaking our routine. I should also mention that she does have a dog door and she takes care of all the rest of her daily business ALL by herself, when she doesn't have visions of breakfast clouding her focus. She also takes care of herself when I am
not around, which is good because she would probably shatter her bladder waiting for anyone else in this family to arise.And now you know the sunrise story.

Uh, no, I didn't think to take my camera with me... but I did happen to know, for once, right where it was. Sometimes that happens.