Wondering

I haven't posted lately. I can't really explain why. I do think a lot about this blog and why I'm not writing in it, or why I even have it to begin with. My own family doesn't read it, since only my husband even knows I have one. I don't think he's read it either, but then again, this is someone who finds Facebook a little stalkerish and creepy, so I'd just as soon keep my ramblings off the radar. I know a few close friends who read it...not that there's been anything to read in a few months.

So what's been going on? Where do I start?

Well, once my last post was posted, I almost immediately embarked on a cumulative 3.5 weeks of work travel. Though this was split up into three whole weeks away interspersed with time home, plus a couple other days and nights away here and there, it was a lot to happen in an 8-week stretch. Actually, it was a lot no matter how you slice it.

Then we had Thanksgiving away too. The holidays came racing toward us. They were exhausting to prepare for, since I spent the week before Christmas away too, but once Christmas arrived, all was groovy. A few years ago, we decided we'd alternate Christmases at home with Christmases away at my parents' house, but after last Christmas here at home and how much we enjoyed it, we decided that we will not travel for Christmas any more. So this was our second Christmas at home in a row, which is a first. (does this make sense?)

Our family Christmas traditions and routines are finally beginning to take form. After a few years of free-form Christmases as we learned to celebrate Christmas as parents, this is a relief. We are repeating things we did last year and enjoyed, and testing some new ideas as well. We're still working on fitting other commitments around our attendance at church for a late afternoon Christmas Eve service. We're pretty much the only ones among our local family and friends who actually go to church Christmas Eve, and seemingly everyone else we know and love wants to eat, drink, and be merry instead of going to church. So we have to balance our desire to be with those we love against our desire to experience the wonder and joy of Christmas Eve lessons and carols. We're seeing what works, and what needs more work, but I think we can find a way eventually to get to church and still get together with friends and family...without going completely insane in the process.

More soon...I hope. Gotta work on a retrospective of the decade, since seemingly every news outlet is doing that right now.

Must-have gifts

1. EZCombs. Do you like updos? Do you want to look like Sarah Palin? Of course - we all do! Take a gander at the TopsyTail for the new millennium!

2. Glass bat fan pull. I don't know about you, but the idea of a sleeping bat dangling from my overhead ceiling fan doesn't make ME squeamish at all! Just in case you like cohabitating with bats, and really need one hanging over your bed, this item is handblown and only $45!

3. Is there a science buff on your list? How about some giant microbes?

4. Do you want to decrease productivity? Then you need a book on how to procrastinate! Only $9.95. But if you really wanted to procrastinate, would you even get around to reading a book?

5. Speaking of productivity, these will inspire even the laziest employees toward new levels of "success."

6. Just in time for Chanukah - instant conversion! You can order now and probably receive one of these before the menorah is fully lit. Make a mockery out of Judaism for the low, low price of $5.99.

7. Tired of all those annoying people trying to get store credit? Get yourself one of these! The grammatical error is sadly typical of handwritten notices in business establishments nowadays, giving this the perfect authentic touch at only $3.95. Your welcome.

8. While this unique hands-free book light is appealing to me since my Itty Bitty Book Light is always in the way of my page turns, I cannot help but wonder whether this is like a nicotine patch equivalent for people addicted to their Bluetooth hands-free headsets.

9. Can someone explain to me why the world needs pet strollers? Do cats want or need to be perambulated? And what happened to actually walking your dog? But this place has so many models, I'm getting all caught up in trying to pick my favorite!

10. If you weren't already annoyed by forced holiday frivolity, stop by your Hallmark Gold Crown Store and pick up the 2008 version of Irritating Animated Hallmark Holiday Object From Hell. $14.95 with your purchase of 3 Hallmark cards (none of which "sing," I hope).

Bonus! For further entertainment, here are five more gift ideas that will make everyone love you. Everyone!!

The non-wearin' of the green

So I've been neglecting the ol’ blog again. I’ve been in an intense writing cycle at work, which leaves little energy to write anything coherent in my off-hours. Also, the inspiration for blog posts only seems to hit me when I’m in a time or place when I can’t post. Like when I’m driving, or in the shower. Or sitting in my office facing a really ugly report assignment that should have been done three weeks ago and cannot wait any longer. I thought of a great one this morning driving to work, but it evaporated as soon as I got out of the car.

St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone. I didn’t wear green. Didn't eat cabbage or soda bread or green bagels. Didn’t drink any Guinness (not that I didn't want to. I could have used one by 10AM, and a few more that evening). But I did eat a big fat baked potato for dinner!

I'm sure people may be wondering why I have a blog name that references both potatoes and soup. Oddly, while I love potatoes, and I love soup, I don't particularly like potato soup (with or without leeks, bacon, cheese, sour cream, chives, etc.). Too grainy, not enough protein or fiber, often made with Potato Buds, usually kind of tasteless and disappointing in my experience.

So where did the name come from? Well...Spudd is actually an inside joke/nickname with certain close friends (hence the two Ds--truly I'm not trying to be the next Dan Quayle here), and soup seemed an appropriate analogy for the mixture of random odds and ends that characterize my normal thought process. And I even found a template that shows lots of vegetable-colored dots floating in space!

I keep thinking about inserting a little section on the blog page with a soup of the week or something. But then people might want recipes, and I'm not going down that foodie-blog road right now. Maybe I should just list my top ten favorite soups and potato dishes. Not that anyone really wants to know! But maybe it would come in handy for entertainment if I haven't posted anything new in awhile.

Here we are now! Entertain us!

Today was one of those days where everything just teeters out of control. We woke up to rain pounding on the sleet and snow we got last night. School was open (we called to check) so I got everyone ready, husband and kids set off and I soon jumped in the shower for what would be pretty much my only relaxing moment of the day. Just as I was finishing up, Melrose ran into the bathroom yelling something about school being canceled. Seems the teachers arrived to find a pipe had broken and flooded a couple of the classrooms, so a decision was made to close for repairs. I took on kid duty all morning so Chip could work, then headed to the office at lunchtime. In the meantime, all sorts of random old projects were popping up left and right (my inbox was like a Whack-A-Mole game) and it seems I am now needed to meet with clients offsite all day tomorrow, even though I really need to be here at my desk writing a report or proofreading several others. And a church prayer series I was planning to attend tonight got canceled due to the weather, so it'll be a long evening here trying to get stuff done. All of which feels like too little, too late. I've promised my time to too many people this week.

I've been reasonably good about Lent so far--I made it to church on Ash Wednesday and this past Sunday, and have been (mostly) doing my readings at night, staying caught up, and not falling asleep during them. But I'm also feeling broken, low, and tired this time of year, and wondering what kind of miracle it will take to get myself back together. I feel like I spend so much time and energy on things that ultimately don't matter much, and not enough time on things that do. How do I change my life to match my priorities? Where do I even begin?

Well, enought thought about that for now. I need to try and actually accomplish something of value to my superiors tonight, then go home and write up, like, 50 valentines for the kids' classmates and teachers tomorrow. I'm sure some of the moms will go all out again and have an entire goody bag to go with each valentine. There's always at least a few who do that. Not me!

Things that make you go hmmmm: Holiday Edition

There are many things in life that I just don't get:

1. Why anyone would stand in line outside a (fill-in-the-big-box-store) in the freezing cold at 4:15AM on Black Friday so they could spend 20 minutes shopping amidst hordes of other bargain-hunters, then stand in line for over 2 hours to check out, all to save a few bucks on holiday gifts. Nothing against Kohl's, but is there truly anything there worth getting up at 3AM to buy? Why not just buy less stuff, or spend less money, get some sleep, and shop at a sane time? Same expenditure, much more sanity.

2. Why anyone would run out the day after Thanksgiving to buy a cut Christmas tree from one of the multitude of roadside stands that's popped up in many a parking lot in the past week. First of all, the tree sellers aren't going anywhere for at least another month. Secondly, They. Never. Run. Out. Of. Trees. Believe me. There will be just as many trees there on Christmas Eve as there are right now. Thirdly, what's the big rush? You have a whole month to go! You're not going to save any money or win any awards for being the first to put up your tree! Do you just like dry crumbly trees and a carpet of needles on your floor for Santa to slip on Christmas morning?

3. Parents going through insane rituals of aggravation, sleep deprivation, and even hand-to-hand combat to get their kids some must-have toy or other item for the holidays. I personally will not EVER be one of those people camping out in line overnight, ready to rush a big-box store for some new video gaming system or the latest Whatever-Me Elmo. My parents did not do these things (not even for Cabbage Patch Kids!), and yet I still felt loved and cherished. It would be one thing if the item was lifesaving sustenance or medicine for my child. But it's not. My children's lives will not be irreparably ruined because their friends got Nintendo the first day it came out and they didn't get it until (horrors!) a few weeks or a month later. I am not giving up sleep to shop as a competitive sport and give my kids instant gratification. Also, see #1 above.

4. Why our modern-day lives have gotten so hectic and overwhelming that people who can afford it feel they need one of these. And why, despite my sad and regretful head-shaking over how hectic and overwhelming life has become, I'm still completely and insanely jealous of those who can afford it.

5. How my dog can possibly be comfortable sleeping like this (see above). Yes, his head is on his butt. He conks out in this pose quite often. He also can fall asleep with his front half on someone's lap and his back legs standing on the floor. Apparently he is a German shorthaired pointing contortionist.

6. Why seemingly every '80s compilation out there has either the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This" or Blondie's "Call Me" on it? Those of us who love the '80s enough to buy compilations are sick of these two songs. They are overplayed as it is.

7. Why anyone likes that creepy Frank Sinatra-David Bowie "Do You Hear What I Hear" duet. Or that lame-ass song about the Christmas shoes. I'll take the entire Chipmunks Christmas album over either of those songs, any day.

8. Will Ferrell. He's just not funny to me. Ever. I try and I try to appreciate the guy, and every movie, every skit, seems to start out with some promise of hopefully being funny and ends up just being (IMHO) stupid and annoying. I wonder whether the current generation of teens and young adults finds him and the current SNL crop as funny as we did back in the days of oh, Dana Carvey and Mike Myers and Kevin Nealon. Of course, they're probably all too busy with MySpace, YouTube, and their iPods to pay attention to network TV comedy, unless it involves Justin Timberlake singing about a dick in a box. Sigh....

9. Rabid drunken sports fans. This story just made me ill. I don't know who I'm more ashamed of, the males or the females.

So call me The Grinch. I can live with that.

Run turkey, run turkey, run far away

Well, we're now on Day 2 of Kate's Thanksgiving Misadventures. Misadventure #1 is dealing with my first turkey, which I didn't actually buy because my brother-in-law got one free as part of a supermarket promotion and donated it to our cause. I didn't realize it takes a day to refrigerator-thaw for every 6 pounds (per The Joy of Cooking), so pulling our 21-pounder out of the freezer last night was done with intense panic as to whether it would really thaw in 36 hours. Fortunately The Today Show came to the rescue this morning with a segment on thawing your turkey in cold water, which apparently works much faster than thawing it in the fridge. Thanks, Today Show! I'm sure my in-laws will be equally thankful if I get the thing completely thawed and safely and well cooked by noon tomorrow. And thanks to my sister for the giant bright blue tin washtub she gave us as part of a housewarming gift 3 years ago--it's a perfect thawing tank for the turkey, having already come in handy as a beer-and-ice container at a couple of parties. My remaining panic is whether our lovely bird will fit in 1. our roasting pan, and 2. our 1980s wall oven, which is on the small side.

Turkey panic aside, I started cooking and getting ready last night. The meat thermometer has been located, silver serving dishes are polished, the extra leaf is in the table, and the taters are all ready to go (both mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole). Tonight comes making the stuffing, and the table-setting. The goal is to have tomorrow morning free to deal solely with the mysterious turkey stuffing and roasting situation, while maybe taking a pre-emptive run and keeping the kids from completely trashing the house before everyone arrives.

My big fear is that the turkey won't cook well, or enough, or on time. I'm not a fan of the midday Thanksgiving dinner; late afternoon is more my family tradition, but we seem to be subject to local relatives' customs, and custody arrangements, the years when we're here. Also, the timing allows the kiddos to conveniently go down for a nap right afterward. But still, it makes the morning really hectic, and then after all that eating at midday, what do you do for the rest of the day after everyone goes home? It just seems kind of anticlimactic. At least when dinner is at normal dinnertime, you have all day to anticipate, prepare, inhale the yummy cooking aromas, drool, and afterward you only have a few hours of feeling disgustingly overstuffed and bloated before you can indulge the tryptophan effect and crash for the night.

On a more serious note, it's that time of the year when we freely express our thanks for what we have. So here are the things I might mention tomorrow, if I were at my parents' house and indulging in our annual tradition of going around the table and saying what we're thankful for during grace:

• for being healthy, employed, housed, clothed, literate, educated, and lucky enough to live in this beautiful part of the world;
• for being married and the parents of two healthy children;
• for our families, friends, and everyone's doggies;
• for the good choices we've made in life, and the ability to make them;
• for the church, schools, and organizations we're part of; and
• for our free country, even if we don't like what's going on right now.

Of course, if we were at my parents' house, continued annual tradition dictates that the dinner conversation would then rapidly degenerate into tasteless humor, stupid impersonations (think Tommy Boy and the "Ding! Fries are Done!" guy), and stories involving bodily functions that leave most of us either snarfing our drinks or paralyzed with laughter. And even while some of us mildly protest sullying the occasion with such crudeness, deep down we're thankful for our shared sick sense of humor.

UPDATE:

The turkey was still hard as a rock by late afternoon Wednesday despite the soaking treatment. So we stuck it back in the freezer and bought another, smaller turkey that wasn't frozen. And by some miracle it came out perfectly and right on time, even with me in charge. Luckily I remembered the sad story of my M-I-L's first attempt to cook a turkey and removed all the yicky parts stowed inside before rinsing, stuffing and roasting mine. B-I-L, despite enjoying his perfectly high-heat-roasted drumstick, seemed a tad offended that we'd not used his freebie turkey, and proceeded to take it with him when he left. Maybe we'll see it again at Christmastime.