Christmas Sweaters

Ok, I know that I’m procrastinating and I promise this will be the last blog until I get some work done…

but wouldn’t it be HILARIOUS if you bought a whole bunch of Christmas sweaters… And then when everyone was over for a holiday party… you set up a camera, with a backdrop and lights and everything…and get everyone to look off camera…wide-eyed and bushy-tailed…with mouths agape and teeth sparkling?!

HILARIOUS, no?!

it would be the ultimate mocking of the christmas family photo…with Christmas sweaters…over-eager smiles…it’d be hilarious.

Ok, now I’m done.

Dish Rack

Ok, I am way too nerdy/domestic about this…but I got really, really, really excited in Home Outfitters last night when I saw that they had practically a whole section dedicated to simplehuman products.

And so of course, I put the dishrack on my registry.

Is so preeetty!

Walking to Work in the Snow

This is the first, bona fide winter storm of …the winter, although TECHNICALLY it’s still Fall.

I got BUNDLED. UP.

By which I mean, I wore the exact same thing I do every day, except today I made sure to wear my fur-lined hoodie and put on some longjohns.

BUT IT WAS NOT ENOUGH!

WHY?!

Because of the WIND, my friends… THE WIND….

That’s right, kids. The wind is all fine and dandy when it’s blowing behind you. Snow is falling, everything is beautiful, and your butt is cold…whatever. You move your legs, butt warms up. Or so.

But when the wind is coming AT you? GUH! NO LUCK! Those snowflakes HIT YOUR FACE AND THEN STAY THERE… FREEZING YOU ONE MILLIMETRE AT A TIME! And if you try to block the wind with your glove you realize just how quickly your face HURTS from those little snowflakes that make it oh-so-easily around those aerodynamic mittens of yours.

So then you try to warm your face with your scarf. Which requires readjustments, and you take the mittens off. MISTAKE! Your hands will never be warm again for the rest of the walk.

But you get the scarf to cover your nose, you tuck it under your glasses, and there’s room for air to escape so it doesn’t all get moist and breathy and fog up your glasses.

BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER. Your face is temporarily warmed by your now moist-from-breathing scarf…but then it COOLS TO THE AIR TEMPERATURE! AND NOW YOU HAVE SOMETHING FROZEN ATTACHED TO YOUR FACE! And what’s worse? Your glasses begin to fog up.

I’m going to buy a bellaclava.

Stand By Me

Today my friends over at the kirky blog posted this glorious thing:

It’s Stand By Me and the guy travelled the world getting different street performers to play it then he mixed it all together. Amazing, right?!

I teared up a bit, not gunna lie.

Best Board Games

I’m thinking of getting a good list of games together that would be GREAT for groups of people that want to socialize at a party.

I know that good food, and certainly drink, keep people engaged at a party, but it really is too easy to hand the entertainment over to the loudest personalities, or the TV.  I’m itching for something new, and so I’m looking for games that are inclusive. Since most board games/”parlour games” involve taking turns as a fundamental aspect of the game, the attention-seekers and the shy are able to participate. Yay! Fun for everyone! Oh, and sometimes, they even get you moving!

• Balderdash (making up definitions to words you’ve never heard before and then voting on whose definition is right).
• Taboo (get your team to say the word on the card without saying the top five words used-to-describe-this-word (also on the card))
• Similar to Taboo is Catchphrase.
• Scattegories (role the die for a letter, then fill in something that starts with that letter for then ten or so cattegories)
• Pictionary
• Charades
• Cranium
• Apples to Apples (though I never really fully grasped why everyone loves it so much).
• Whoonu looks like a great get-to-know-you game…(who knew?).
• Anyone ever played Zip Bong? That game is RIDICULOUS! Especially late at night ;)

Cranium’s website has a lot of party resources…I especially like the “statue” idea.

I also found some interesting stuff in the Wikipedia article for “party-games”

This one sounds like it could be fun if you had the right crowd :P

Squeak Piggy Squeak is a parlour game that is sometimes called Grunt Piggy Grunt.

To play the game, one player is chosen to be the ‘farmer’; the others are the piggies. The farmer is blindfolded. All other players sit in a circle surrounding the farmer. The farmer is spun around three times and then has to make his way to the piggies, and sit in the lap of one of them. The farmer then says ‘Squeak Piggy Squeak’. The chosen piggy then squeaks and the farmer has to guess the name of the player on whom he is sitting.

If the farmer guesses correctly, the piggy becomes the farmer in the next round. If the guess is incorrect, then the farmer remains for the next round.

And here’s one I’d actually like to play (I like writing stories?):

Consequences is an old parlour game in a similar vein to Mad Libs.

Each person takes a turn choosing a word for one of six questions, in this order.

1. Man’s name
2. Woman’s name
3. Place name
4. He said to her…
5. She said to him
6. The consequence was… (a description of what happened after)
7. An outcome

Then the story is read (for example): Scary Michael Jackson met voluptuous Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the Zoo. He said “You are delicious”, she said “Hit me baby one more time”. He gave her a red rose, she gave him cholera. The consequence was that they eloped to Mexico. The world said “the femme fatale will always win”.It is traditionally played by writing the words on paper and folding the paper to hide the previous words before passing it to the next player.

Anyway, this was probably another procrastination attempt by my brain…hrm… oh well. A productive one, at least. :P

What are your ideas, faithful blog readers?

Researches

Now maybe this is my brain looking for every and any way to procrastinate possible…

but I had this brainwave…that I could start researching what it takes to adopt now. If I’m not even married yet and I’m thinking about it, maybe I’d be better prepared for when we DO want children, for the adoption process, with all my papers/life/expectations in order.

Now, my first order of business would, of course, be to watch “jon & kate plus 8″ but…I’m still awaiting that on DVD. :)

This was always something I thought I’d figure out later, but there’s no harm in educating yourself about it now!

Especially since the idea of passing on my genes seems more and more cruel the longer I know my parents.

Is this racist?

Racist? Link

White Sauce Soup

3 Tablespoons of butter (or in my case, Becel)

Sautee mushrooms – like seven or eight medium big ones and a small chopped onion (in the future, I’d chop it FINELY, or, since it’d be the future, maybe I’d have a little magic bullet-type appliance).

Saute…then add flour. Three tablespoons worth. But since you added too many mushrooms (they were going bad so you had to chop them all! it probably worked out to half a lb. of mushrooms) you add another pat (tbs.) of butter.

Mmmm. Smells so good. Add the flour. Now that you added more butter, you need to keep the ratios the same. Add another tablespoon of flour. So 4 T. of Butter, 4 T. of Flour. Oh, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Smell for flavour. Mmmm. Good.

Now this looks like a MESS… it’s mushy chunky butter/flour in a hot pan… so add that 1 cup of milk (half cream, because you have some cream to use up). And then since you added an extra measure of butter and flour, add a 1/3 of a cup more liquid. Since one of the options to spice this recipe up is using chicken stock, make this extra 1/3 cup of chicken broth. Mmm. Flavour.

Stir…lots…cuz this thing is looking chunkier, and gooier. On the bright side, it’s beginning to resemble condensed mushroom soup, which is what you’re going for.

Add some nutmeg. Just a dash or two.

A couple shakes of worchestershire sauce, because Dad likes that stuff and he’ll be eating this soup.

A pinch of curry powder.

And we’re done!

Now scoop out of fry pan and into saucepan…you know, the one you usually use to make soup from a can. Add a can of water, except since we increased this recipe slightly…just go with 1 and a quarter cups of water.

And now you have, your very own, cream of mushroom soup.

Tadaaa!!

(I made this last night)

Christmas Movies!

In this order, I am interested in seeing:

Yes Man

Bolt

The Tale of Despereaux

Australia

Rachel Getting Married

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Milk

(Maybe) Seven Pounds

Sharing things only funny to me

Mother Goose & Grimm has been really good lately. I think I love this ralph character. Isn’t this the cutest thing ever?! He’s in love with a log.