What to do?

I've been racking my brain for awhile trying to figure out what to get Karson for Valentine's Day.  He's been needing a new wallet for awhile, but I realized a couple days ago, that his current wallet has a seperate ID holder thing that he keeps his military ID so that he can flash it. I'm sure that wouldn't be too hard to find, but I didn't like any of the wallets I was finding.

So then what?  For Christmas this year, my sister made me a no sew fleece blanket.  Karson really liked it when first saw it.  He'd never seen one before.  They weren't really all that popular when we were growing up, then he moved south for college, since then he's been living in warmer climates when not overseas. I started to wonder if it would disappear from my house. 
I decided a fleece blanket of his own would be a great gift.  So I set off in search off fabric.  Hoping that by some miracle I could find either of his two college teams of choice - Missouri or Arkansas.  Fat chance, here in the land of the Huskers. I managed to come across the Cyclones (yay) and the Hawkeyes (boo), even Texas A&M, Florida and Auburn, but that was about the extent of non-Husker related options. :(  Thankfully, he also has pro-teams.  I opted for the Chiefs over the Royals.  Edited to include the finished project.

All Because of a Dress

Last Sunday, (1/23), K called to tell me he'd made reservations for Valentine's Day on the 11th.  He'll be out of town for work from February 13-25 in Texas. Since he gets to fly out early on Sunday morning, Friday night seemed logical.  K was also sweet enough earlier that day to ask if there was anywhere in town that I'd been wanting to try.  We play the, "Places in Town to Check Out" game frequently - mostly because he's only lived here since late spring 2010.  I threw out the name of steak place that I've always wanted to try.  I didn't logically put it together that he'd make reservations there, I can be a bit clueless at times. 

So last night I went to try on the dress that I planned to wear in 11 days - it fits, but it doesn't exactly look superfabulous.  EEEK.  So I've got two options. Buy a new dress OR workout and lose a couple pounds/tone up a bit.  More so on the toning up.  At this time, I'm opting for the second option.  Obviously, the brownies that I made today will be a wonderful help toward the goal.  Bring on the 30 Day Shred!  I signed up for a trial of Jillian Michael's website too.

Thanksgiving

So I just looked at the calendar and realized that Thanksgiving is happening in a week! When did that happen? Did I mention the family is coming here? Here's a tale of Thanksgiving 2007, when I last hosted the event.

I need to preface this whole story by saying that my mom doesn't think that I can cook, which was half the reason that I wanted to host Thanksgiving - to prove that we wouldn't be dining on cereal and Lean Cuisines. We'd be eating real food, made by me.  Back in 2007, I was still living in an apartment.

As I was getting ready for the event, my friend, Amanda, told me that the one time she made a turkey, she'd bought one with a pop up timer, so if I'd just get one of those, I'd be golden. Sweet. Butterball Pop Up Timer Turkey on the list. I had a recipe for Yukon Gold mashed potatoes that I wanted to make from Real Simple, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, Stove Top stuffing (whatever, I'd never made stuffing), cranberry sauce, caramel rice krispie treats, and corn, probably other stuff too. My sister and mom were both bringing pies, and bread.  Lunch was slated to begin at noon, so I thought people would show up at 11ish or something. 

Sometime in the early morning, I pulled that gross stuff out of the inside of a turkey (YUCK!!) season it and put into the roaster into the oven. Around 9 a.m., I was doing a load of laundry when my parents arrived.  9 a.m. is nowhere close to noon in case you can't tell time.  It's completely different.  I needed trash bags and saran wrap or something like that, so I sent my dad to the grocery store.  My dad has never met a stranger - I figured he'd be gone for 45 minutes.  I needed to run downstairs and throw clothes into the dryer, my mom asked what she could do?  I suggested she start peeling potatoes.  My mom failed to mention that she is a champion potato peeler.  I was gone for about 2.2 minutes.  She had peeled half of a five pound bag if not more in my absence.  No joke.  I picked up a potato and started peeling and glanced over at my mom who was whirling away.  I said something about how she must have "the good potato peeler."  We switched.  The lightning fast peeling continued.

Elizabeth and her family arrived sometime close to 11, because that's normal and expected.  When Elizabeth arrived we kicked food prep into high gear. One problem - my apartment kitchen was small and not open at all.  Insanely small.  And then things start to get amusing, sort of...

My mom: "Rebekah, what do you want for Christmas?"
Before I can even say a word....
My sister, Elizabeth: "A bigger kitchen." 
The three of us in there was a tight squeeze. At some point my mom decided we should check on that turkey - not her first rodeo. 
She opens the oven door: "Rebekah, where's the pop up timer?"
Me: "On the turkey." And I was only trying to be halfway sarcastic.
My mom looked at me, and said: "Well, I don't see one here.  Where's your meat thermometer?"
Me: "Did you ever give me a meat therometer? I don't own one."

So yes, a 15 pound turkey in the oven for 8 - 9 people and no way to tell if it's done. Until my mom says that if we can twist the leg and it nearly comes off it's done. (My timer was almost up too FYI).  The leg thing worked and the turkey was great. I have since acquired a meat thermometer.  Thanksgiving got substantially less exciting from there - my sister brought this awesome French Silk Pie from a bakery that is now closed - it was so piled high that my knife disappeared.

When is it Over?

I'm lucky to live in a state where budgets have to be balanced every year - state, and local. What? What? That means that either services have to be cut or taxes have to be raised. This past year, both have happened in the Omaha metro. Full disclosure - I no longer live in the city, so many things don't actually impact me. Certain things, I honestly admit, I do not notice. I benefit from having a company car (yes, I can hear you telling me how much I suck). I am very thankful for this benefit, trust me. As a result, I don't pay to license my car, and when the county increased the wheel tax, I went, eh.   And when the city decided that they had to change their snow removal schedule to save some money - I thought, no big deal - I PAY for my snow removal every month, and many other things in my HOA dues. The city also decided to implement a tax for people that work in the city, but don't live there (Hi Council Bluffs commuters!). When I lived in Lansing they had something like this too, but I didn't actually work in the city - I found that I when I tried to sign up to pay this tax and payroll shot that idea down.

So what will impact me???  This thing called a "restaurant tax." I eat out a couple times a week.  And I'm okay with paying it, because it's 2.5%. I figure it's like a local option sales tax, which I grew up with.  Many people aren't happy with all of these changes - I'm not sure what exactly they'd like the solution to be other than no restaurant tax.  No snow removal?  Don't fix the potholes that were awful this year? Eliminate Fire and Rescue all together?   And therein is where the rub has happened of sorts - the current mayor inherited some problems that started before I even moved here, a little thing known as "pension spiking." Will it effect some people's dining out? Perhaps, but as a single person with no kids, the 20 extra cents that I was charged on my lunch today had no major consequence on me - I'm more likely to eat out less to save $8.67 not 20 cents.   It's tacked on after at the total, and before the sales tax. Typically, I see it listed as "occupancy tax" or "restaurant tax."  This made me chuckle. Here's what my receipt looked like from Brewburgers (Diners, Drive Ins and Dives and I agree - great place!!!)  "Mayor Fee"

There's a group that's working to recall the mayor, which is well within their rights. By Friday they have to gather 27,000 signatures, so they set up places to sign in parking lots, wave signs, use bullhorns, etc.  They aren't happy about all the spending, so they want the city to spend $900,000 on a special election to recall the mayor so that he could get kicked out shortly before his term is up. Yeah, I'm confused by that too, but it's a free country, do what you want. Doing all that wouldn't result in any MORE taxes ore services being cut by my logical thought process. W

My favorite part of this story just happened over the weekend. Since many of the people that have been hired to work for this "campaign" aren't from Omaha - they apparently don't know what they mayor looks like.  Yes, they did indeed ask the mayor to sign the petition to recall himself. He declined.  http://www.omaha.com/article/20101116/NEWS01/711169925

Mini-vacation

I took Monday and Tuesday of this week off for some mental health purposes. On Monday, I took my nephew, Ethan, to the Iowa State Fair. I figured after chasing after him all day, I'd need a day to rest and catch up.

We arrived at the fair just before 10 on Monday and got a funnel cake. It's vacation, right? There was a veterans parade, so we grabbed some curb and sat down to watch it. As the different troops went by we watched and cheered at different times. Eventually, a WWII replica jeep passed. I turned to Ethan and said, "That's the kind of jeep that your great-grandpas would have ridden in when they fought in WWII." (Keep in mind he has met neither of these men as my maternal grandpa died before I was born and my paternal grandpa died when I was nine). Ethan's response - blank stare basically communicating, I have no idea what WWII is and I don't know who the heck those people are either. I gave about two seconds of thought to explain WWII to Ethan and decided it was a concept for another day.

Posing on a lion, the kid loves playgrounds. I probably could have just taken him to one of those.

We took off for the midway as he wanted to ride some rides and play some games. These are things that I don't normally do at the fair, and I know he doesn't do either. Other than maybe the "Giant Slide" or "Sky Glider." He enjoyed some bumper cars, small roller coaster,I rode something that I thought was going to make me vomit from spinning, and we won some stuffed animals.

Time to find more food and free stuff. He loaded up on some free tatoos, and went to play in the spray fountain, and some nice older lady gave me some free ride tickets. Seriously, is the Midwest great or what?

Fair Squares - Being sold for $2, I opted for the with peanut butter, the plain ones, were also $2, but twice this size.

After a healthy lunch of food on a stick, we sat and watched a free kids show, checked out the butter cow and butter Dr. Suess. And then headed over to the "exotic" petting zoo. We were able to feed the animals here, most of which were goats, which are apparently exotic. Um, okay. After which Ethan and I had a discussion about needing to use the hand sanitizer. Which basically boiled down to because you need to as I didn't quite know how to explain hoof and mouth disease to him.

After almost 6 hours at the fair, we were both tired and decided to call it a day and headed back to the car. Here's what Ethan looked like when I got back to my sister's house....

Wiped out.

Sucked in...

I'm currently having some laptop problems, so until my keyboard is fixed posting is difficult.  In the meantime, know that I've been doing a LOT of reading and have knocked out most of the Sookie Stackhouse books. And one of these weeks I will take/get some curling pics.

cool idea

I like to dye eggs, who doesn't, but I think next year I want to try this idea: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/03/silk-dyed-eggs.html

How cool? I'm going to check the local goodwill.