So, people inside the computer box, did you all have a nice holiday season? Were Santa and/or the Hanukkah armadillo good to you? Did you have a grand old time ringing in 2012?

I had a very lovely Christmas. This year I went over to my brother’s house and spent Christmas Eve with them. So I got to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn on Christmas morning to see all the presents that Santa done brought! Actually, I was lucky enough to have been woken up twice by Noah, once at midnight and once at 3 AM, with his excitement over ALL! THE! PRESENTS!

Let me tell you, even though it was early, it was really nice to wake up on Christmas morning with people that were not the cats. Not that I ever minded waking up alone and sleeping in, but it kind of took any magicalness out of Christmas. Spending it with family, especially kiddos, was really nice. I think I have a new tradition!

We then celebrated with the rest of the family and I got my Soda Stream that I asked for. And let me tell you, it is AMAZING! I love it so much! The first full day I had it, I drank three liters of water. Which is 1) a lot and 2) a lot for me, especially when that water is not flavored with Kool-Aid, which was the previous way you could get me to drink that much water. Either that or with barley and hops.

(I wasn’t intending to have this be a recap post. But I’ve got nothing else to talk about, apparently.)

I have spent most of my time off around these holidays in pajamas and watching TV. I’m almost done with Six Feet Under (10 more episodes!) and while I wait for those DVDs in the mail, I am usually watching 100s of episodes of Intervention. I’m really excited that new shows are coming back on regular television. I mean, I’m starting to prefer one rehab facility over another, making a note of it in my mind in case I ever go to rehab.

This is where I should talk all about resolutions, but let’s be honest, I never keep them. This year I’m taking the KISS method and keeping it simple. Nothing has to start Jan. 1, especially since we didn’t go back to work until the third. But here are a few things I would like to accomplish this year. Most are really better habits.

• Start washing my face every night
• Don’t hit the snooze button 11 times every morning
• On that note, get up at a consistent time and get back to my old work schedule
• Lose weight
• Eat better
• Start working out
• Run a race (5k, 8k, whatever, something)
• Post more on my blog

And that’s about it. To date, I have accomplished none of these things. But tomorrow is a new day, right?

How about you, friends? Any resolutions?

See, I went to my mom’s for Thanksgiving. And since I started the new tradition of mimosas on Thanksgiving, I brought the champagne and orange juice. And since my mom needed help, I got there before noon and started drinking then. No one else arrived until close to three. So I drank a lot by myself. (We went through four bottles easily, so everyone enjoyed them!)

Then there was dinner and wine with dinner and more wine and then some beer and then I just passed out on the couch at my mom’s, without posting anything. (I actually tried the WordPress app, but it wouldn’t work. And at that point it wouldn’t have been more than jibberish after all that hooch.)

I just gave up then. There wasn’t any reason to post on Friday or Saturday then, since no one reads on the weekends.

I’m disappointed, but I had a lot of fun on Turkey Day, so I am not too sad. I posted every day for 23 days, and that’s nothing to shake a stick at. And I think I’m back in the habit of posting regularly, so mission accomplished.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about how after just posting THIS, my dentist called me a wuss! GAH!

But I figured I would take some time and remind myself what this holiday is about and what I am thankful for this year. In no particular order:

• My family
• My amazing friends who check up on me after I have oral surgery and are there for me whenever I need them, and I for them
• My cats and their unconditional love
• An awesome job that I love
• A job with health and dental insurance so I can take care of myself and go through oral surgery, you know, for fun
• A roof above my head that I bought, all by myself
• Thanksgiving mimosas
• My TV and DVR
• More pain killers from the dentist (I went today and boy oh boy, do I have a good blog post about it)
• All of you reading this site right now!

I just looked through my archives and I’m sure I’ve posted something very similar to this the past few years. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. And sometimes, it takes holidays like this to remind us how lucky we all are. It’s nice to sit and think about all the good things we have, instead of focusing on the bad, and remember that life is good.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving (or Thursday outside the US)!

I read somewhere on Twitter that there is a ban on fireworks in some states (Texas, Arizona, maybe others?) because it is so dry. And people are SHOCKED that they are still hearing fireworks. Um, fireworks are ILLEGAL in the state of Illinois. Completely illegal. Nothing besides sparklers and those smoke bomb things. Nothing that sounds like a gun shot. That’s all that you are allowed to have, in Illinois, when it comes to fireworks.

We’ve even had bans on fireworks in our drought years. I remember one such year when my Uncle was shooting off something into an open field of dry grass and we started a small fire and the cops came.

This stops no one, clearly as I sit on my couch wondering if those are firecrackers or gun shots outside. Because fireworks are legal in all the surrounding states, so we have billboards, in Illinois, telling you exactly where you can buy those illegal fireworks.

(I don’t actually hate fireworks. I like the ones that are legal. The ones that are done by cities and towns or baseball teams. Ones that are done legally and pretty in the sky. Trust me, I worked for a minor league baseball team for two summers, we did fireworks every Saturday home game. If I didn’t like fireworks then, I was forced to like them after that job.) (I still hate the smell of stale beer mixed with peanut shells, though. That is one thing I sadly can never forget from that job.)

Anyway, I promised you photos, so here are some photos from a few weeks ago from my niece Madeline’s first birthday party. Can you believe she’s already one? I can’t!

Birthday girl in her birthday dress.

CAKE!

In my family, we have this tradition where, on your first birthday, we set three items out in front of you – a shot glass, a rosary and a dollar bill. Whatever you pick first, that tells you what kind of life you’ll lead. The shot glass, you’ll be a drunk; the rosary, you’ll be holy; and the dollar bill, you’ll be rich.

Our Madeline Jane picked…

The rosary! (Probably because it was easiest to get in her mouth.)

I’ll give you one guess what her Auntie went for on her first birthday. Come on, just guess!

So, THANKS!

The side-by-side photo was an afterthought. I wrote the post not planning to put a photo in. But because I was a little discouraged and knew I had the “before” photo from the Biggest Blogging Loser contest, I figured it would help me to see the change, right in front of my face. And between seeing that, and you all commenting that you saw it too, it was awesome and made me remember all the progress I have made, even if I’m still in the same size pants. And made me put down the burrito the size of my head.

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So did everyone have a lovely holiday weekend? I’m just going to leave it at that, since that covers Easter and Passover. Which, speaking of, I celebrated both!

These past two weekends were two busy weekend and ones I was fretting just a bit.

Last weekend was The Weekend of Bridal Showers, with my friend Jayme’s on Saturday (which led to too much drinking and me missing the bachelorette party because I thought I could take a 10 minute “cat nap” after 7 hours of drinking and actually get up), and my cousin Jaime’s on Sunday. It was a long weekend, but I was glad I could help both ladies celebrate their upcoming nuptials.

This past weekend was The Weekend of Religious Things and Lots of Driving. It started when I drove up Friday evening to Milwaukee to visit my second family, the Martells. I had a small window available to go visit them while they were in Wisconsin for Passover, so I made sure to fit them in. And it was worth every single second. I hadn’t seen them since I was up to Toronto in October and man, I really miss all of them so, so much. I pretty much vowed that I can’t go that many months in between seeing them anymore.

I spent the night and then on Saturday afternoon, I drove down to my sister’s house, because my oldest nephew, Tommy, was getting baptized and making his First Communion at the Easter Vigil mass on Saturday night. And I’m lucky enough to be his Godmother. (It’s interesting that people keep making me the Godmother to their children when I never go to church and when I do, I end up talking to Skyler about stinky feet and making Shrek jokes whenever someone says Donkey.) (No, really.)

The mass was loooooong and it involved eight different readings and standing at the front of the church through the longest church song ever while Tommy was getting ready to be baptized. But then Tommy was dunked in a tub of water, and the priest made sure to give him the full treatment and he was soaked. So that was kind of worth it.

Sunday was Easter. I actually got to sleep in a bit, since because I went to a three-hour mass on Saturday night (getting home at midnight), I didn’t have to go to church on Sunday. I had two dishes to make to bring to my aunt’s house, and they were easy peasy, so it was a relaxing morning.

My Easter time with my family was short, because I had to leave early because this girl offered me a ticket to Game 6 of the NHL Playoffs between the Blackhawks and Canucks! WOO HOO!!

And let me tell you, Jesus is a Hawks fan, clearly, since on his big day, he let me witness one of the most exciting hockey games ever! And I got to see it all in person, and this was my view!

This was the first time I had been to a playoff game, in the stands, for one of my teams. I’ve never been to a Cubs playoff game. I’ve never been to a Bulls playoff game. I worked one of the Bears playoff games a few years ago, but was underneath the stadium, so it didn’t count. I’ve been to playoff games for baseball and football before, but never for MY teams. I obviously always watch the games on TV, in a bar or wherever. And last year I was in a bar with 100 other Hawks fans (and then subsequently out on the street celebrating with thousands more) when they won the Stanley Cup. That was pretty damn exciting. But Sunday night’s game was by far the most exciting sporting event I’ve ever witnessed in person, in the stands!

It was a nail-biter for sure. Or, towel biter if you’re me:

But the game-winning goal in overtime, with just a few minutes left to play, in the net right in front of us, was AMAZING! It was so fucking exciting! I think I picked DJ up and tossed her in the air like confetti! I was this close to hugging the guy next to me! And I don’t think he would have minded! IT WAS JUST THAT AWESOME!!!

So not only did I get home later than expected, I was completely wired and unable to go to sleep. I finally forced myself into bed after midnight. It was a long, long weekend.

But I wouldn’t have changed any single thing about it. This kind of tired is the BEST kind of tired.

I started a new tradition at Thanksgiving this year – MIMOSAS!

I going to go ahead and say this was the best idea I’ve ever had. I even tricked my Gram into having one, which probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done since she’s wobbly stone cold sober.

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The following was a conversation that happened on Thanksgiving. I’m still kind of amazed by the awkwardness.

My Mom: I got a new alarm clock! It tells time! It was $17.99! And has TWO alarms! It’s fancy! $17.99! $17.99! $17.99!!!

Me: Was it made it 1799 or something?

(roars of laughter through the crowd)

Person X: Ha, that’s funny. Did you just think of that off the top of your head?

Me: *blinks* *blink* *blink* *blinks*

Me: Um, yes.

So, did this person think I was George Costanza and just had a litany of jokes in my head? Like I was just waiting for someone to make a comment about 1799? DON’T HATE BECAUSE I’M WITTIER THAN YOU!

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I made a pie. It was delicious.

The filling is peanut butter, cream cheese and whipped cream. It was so good I could have eaten just that.

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The best part about Thanksgiving, after the booze and the stuffing? This girl!

Clearly taking after her Auntie already. Can you believe she’s almost 6 months old already? Where does the time go?

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Overall, it was a great holiday and a nice relaxing weekend. How was your long weekend internet?

So today is Thanksgiving. This is one of my favorite holidays. I’m sure I’ve said it before on here, because this is the fifth time I’ve written a Thanksgiving post on my blog. (Weird that I can’t even post once a week but I’ve managed to post every Thanksgiving for 5 years. Go figure.)

Anyway, I do like this holiday because it is all about food. And drinking. And it isn’t about gifts and isn’t as chaotic as Christmas. Plus, leftovers.

My mom usually hosts Thanksgiving. I prefer my mom hosting because that means I can drink. I usually drive my mom and Gram to whomever’s house we’re celebrating at, so when my mom hosts, it’s a damn free-for-all for me. (See Christmas last year when I was so drunk and ended up drinking vodka and Capri Sun. By choice.)

I also prefer my mom hosting because I can bully her into new traditions. I can make different food, bring new desserts and the piece de resistance, I can convince her that we need to start a new tradition that means mimosas before dinner!

Which is probably why I found myself in the grocery store on Monday after work with some items for Thanksgiving, and 5 bottles of wine. As soon as I unloaded the cart, I noticed someone was in the lane behind me. It was a NUN, in full habit, buying instant coffee and The Nativity movie on DVD. I swear, she snickered. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

I should say all the things I’m thankful, like you, my friends and my family and booze. Or about how I’m thankful for online conversations that start off with “these people getting pissed about the TSA patdowns are pissing me off” and end with “MY TAMPON IS A BOMB, MOTHERFUCKERS!”

I’m thankful for good food, a roof over my head, good friends, good times and good memories and many more to come. And I’m thankful that when I need to bitch about something, or report on the weather or what I had for lunch, I always have access to Twitter and Facebook.

Most of all, I’m thankful for inventions like this:

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your friends and family!

So my Lensolution didn’t go as well as planned. But I did blog more than 20 days. And Lent is like 40 days, so that’s not half bad. I think it was better than what I had been doing before Lent started, so I consider it a big WIN! And had I not gotten the Death Plague, I would have posted even more.

Did everyone have a nice Easter holiday? Or Sunday, for those of the non-Christians out there?

Mine was very nice. I went to church with my mom and Grandma and then we went to my aunt’s house for the day. It was a nice day. I got to hang out with my sister, yelling into her belly to make the baby learn to love me. “HELLO BABY!” I wanted her to move or kick for me because I’ve never felt a baby kick. Baby did not oblige. She may not like me so much now for yelling, but as soon as she makes an appearance, she will be thankful that she has me as an Auntie because I’m going to spoil her rotten!

I went to church. You did read that right up above. I go on Christmas and Easter because it makes my grandma happy. She’s a strict Catholic and goes to church every week. She feels better when I’m there because at least she gets to show me off to her friends and try to find me a husband. (She wanted me to talk to an attractive young man because he was tall. She didn’t really get that he was like maybe 21, so that is almost illegal.)

Church and me, is not really a good mix. I know I should sit there and really listen and feel the power of Jesus sweeping over me or whatever it is that people feel when they are in church. But I’m so cynical. And also a people watcher. So I kind of tune everything out and just watch the people for an hour. For instance today I witnessed:

• A snotty church lady who takes her ushering duties very seriously. She was probably over 70 years old and wearing a short skirt and purple, suede, knee-high boots.
• She asked us to move to the middle of the pews and we just looked at her and didn’t move.
• A pony-tailed man who saw that his pew neighbors were Hispanic so he assumed he needed to speak to them in Spanish.
• A family of three in front of me, a mom, a daughter and a son. The daughter was very unfortunate looking. She was really, really skinny. Like she had to be anorexic. But she had the worst the haircut I’ve ever seen. Like it was really unattractive. So if the goal was to distract people from your skinny body with awful hair, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
• (I should burn in hell for making fun of people in church but Easter mass is LONG!)
• When the priest was talking about the meaning of Easter, and how Jesus rose from the dead, the power went out for a second in the church. Not ONE person said anything! No one yelled out “HE IS RISEN!” or “HE IS WITH US!” or “PRAISE JESUS!” Not one person!
• Well, I may have whispered it to my mom.
• There was a guy wearing a hat in church. Apparently this is disrespectful. Because when he walked past us to get in line for Communion, both my mom and my grandma snickered and said “He’s wearing a HAT? IN CHURCH?” And then the woman in front of us turned around and looked at my mom and said “he has cancer.”
• So I said “it’s OK mom. You’re already in church. You can get instant forgiveness!”

I might have to start going regularly just for the people watching and blog material. I don’t think Jesus cares, right? Just as long as I go?

Since having Ali (and Metalia) come into my life, I am much more knowledgeable about the Jewish faith. In fact, sometimes I’m pretty sure I know more about Judaism than Catholicism. I have experienced the Sabbath and Rosh Hashanah. Last year I was in Atlanta for Yom Kippur, but decided to head out of town that day since that involves fasting and really, the best part about Jewish holidays is the food!

Up until a few weeks ago, all I knew about Passover was that you couldn’t eat bread or anything with grains. You’re only allowed to eat unleavened bread. Just the idea of no bread made me want to pass over celebrating this holiday. (Pass over, get it?) But then I realized I love Ali and her kids and I was like “I’m not going to let a crumby cracker stand in my way of hanging out with the Martells!”

So Passover is kind of  a big deal. (I know this because of Twitter, of course.) Knowing this and seeing so many people tweet and post about it, it got me a little nervous. I’m not good when it comes to religious things and I have this huge fear that I’m just going to do something like touch the sacred cup and give the entire house full of people bad luck for the year just because I had unleavened bread stuck in my throat and needed to wash it down! (Clearly I think too much and have insane worries.)

So I spent a better part of the last week on Wikipedia figuring out what exactly was going to go on. I learned after my first experience at Ali’s mom’s house, when I walked in loud and yelling in jeans and flip flops during the blessing during the Shabbat lunch, that it is best to come prepared, lest I make an ass out of myself and get shunned. Mostly I was researching on Wikipedia because this tweet from Ali’s husband kind of freaked me out.

But then I found out that Passover involves having to drink wine. YOU HAVE TO! And not just one glass, but FOUR GLASSES! This is a celebration I can get behind! Pass the Matzo!

Ali’s stepdad (who is the Mayor, BTW) was very good at explaining things. And the books they were reading from were in both English and Hebrew so I could follow along. Of course spending the whole time flipping to the pages that told me when the wine drinking was going to happen.

The one thing I like about Judaism, where it differs so greatly from Catholicism, is that questioning things is encouraged. As a Catholic, you’re supposed to take everything as it is said and obey it. No ifs, ands or buts. But in Judaism you’re not only allowed to question things, you’re encouraged to. In fact, a lot of the Passover “event” is doing just that. Which I only encourage to a certain point because LET’S EAT ALREADY!

Yeah, because we didn’t eat until about 10 PM. The fact that everything was SO good (minus the parsley that I ate before I was supposed to and the horseradish root) helped make up for my growling stomach. And the wine. The wine helped. (Yes, I ate the REAL horseradish and it cleared out my sinus. Because Ali and Gabe told me I had to and I didn’t want to get sent to Jewish jail/hell or something.) (Again, irrational fears.)

I really enjoyed myself. It was fun, as always, to hang out with Ali, Gabe and the kids. I got to play SPIT with Emily (and totally kicked her ass too), laughed at Josh when he got hit in the face multiple times with a ball and told him to learn how to catch better and had Bella show me how to decorate a cookie on the iPhone. And I’m planning to go up and bother them again on Saturday, whether they like it or not. Because I AM A MARTELL STALKER!

I’ll admit, I did not enjoy driving home at midnight. Because it is construction season in the Midwest, which means I had to take detours, including one through the streets of Milwaukee. Thank GOD the detour signs were well placed and I didn’t get lost. I also did not enjoy getting home at 2 AM and not getting enough sleep. But it was totally worth it!

So now I know for next year to take the day off afterward. Oh yes, I did just already invite myself to next year’s Seder!

Anyway, did you all have a nice Christmas holiday? Or for those of you who don’t celebrate, did you have a nice Friday? I had quite a busy weekend. On top of getting a nasty ice/sleet storm on Wednesday, I also spent the entire day on Christmas Eve baking. And I’m not talking about slice and bake cookies. I’m talking I made bread. HOME. MADE. BREAD. That you have to let rise and knead and roll and braid! And it was fantastic, if I do say so myself. (Even if braiding is one skill I NEVER GOT.)

CHALLAH!

Since most of you reading weren’t at our Christmas celebration, I’ll basically fill you in on the gist of it (and I’m sure my mom and aunt will back me up) – I got there early because my sister was only stopping by and I wanted to see her. So I started drinking way earlier than most people. I got wasted, told everyone how wasted I was, talked REALLY LOUD, patted myself on the back repeatedly for my awesome challah (HOLLA!) and then kept telling everyone how drunk I was. IT WAS THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!

Seriously, though, it was actually really nice. There was no drama, the food was awesome (CHALLAH!) and the booze was plentiful. So it was a really nice day. Even better since I didn’t have to drive my mom and grandma anywhere (it was at their house) so I could afford to get wasted and just stay over night. That doesn’t usually happen.

I spent the rest of the weekend with my brother and his family, helping Noah and Skyler break in all their new toys. Since Auntie was too drunk to play with them on Christmas. I got to see all their new toys, their stocking stuffers and have Skyler pretty me up by putting hair glitter gel in my hair. Which I promptly forgot about until I was going to bed and wondered why my hair was crusty.

And we played plenty of Band Hero. Check out the video below. I think my niece is going to be a star! She already knows so many of the words to songs and she’s only four! Takes after her Auntie!

Here is Skyler singing some of the words to Taylor Swift’s Love Story, with my brother rocking out on drums. (And the dog barking like a crazy person in the background. Because she probably saw a piece of fuzz on the carpet.)

So tell me, fair readers, what have you been up to? How was your long weekend? What have I missed in your exciting lives? Since clearly NOTHING has been going on in mine.