Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 21

Because my honey-man understands that knowing the reasons WHY something did or did not happen is almost more important than the situation itself, especially the knowing 'why' before one reacts to a situation. More often than not, there's always a good explanation.

Time to Catch Up

I was talking to a friend last night, who asked me if I now had the time I need to catch up... The short answer is no. And the long of it? I'll spare you, really.

However, here's the very best indicator I can offer as to how I am sooo NOT catching up just yet: Our darling Christmas tree is still up (oh, yes!), as is every other winter holiday decoration we have, all of it still out, and I am at NO point along the whole put-it-away process. I haven't even begun.

This morning, another friend asked if I was excited to have this next weekend to recoup from all our holiday hub-bub and our recent Keystone trip...

My step-mum will be in town, arriving tonight to help my sister move into a new place, and I expect we'll be helping out with that. I also have a federal grant proposal to draft by tomorrow, and to complete in final form by Monday, and I've got two chapters of reading for a new course I'm taking this semester, ANNND my honey-man and I, we have a date planned for Saturday night! PLUS an early morning hike at Red Rock for Sunday. Oh yeah, and I've got a date with some girlfriends that Sunday afternoon too, to go see 27 Dresses.

It is all really good stuff, yes, but I have this feeling our Christmas tree will soon be ringing in the month of February!

Kin'I Come Too?

How appropos is this lil' post of mine in light of recent events posted HERE, regarding a lil' Florida kitty named Gracie Mae?

My honey-man and I, we both believe that whenever we're about to go somewhere, the kitties know that sumthin's up - - they'll follow us around the house from room to room, they'll meow a lot in lil' questioning tones... they know we're gunna be leaving. This wouldn't be the first time this has happened, but Owen, before this trip, decided he was going to come along and placed himself in my suitcase... he stayed there for nearly 2 hours. I actually packed around him!

See Those Slopes?

We're in Keystone right now with my immediate family - - my honey-man and I flew in to Denver, CO, early yesterday morning with my sister. We were at the Vegas airport by 4:45 am! Because our Keystone trip dates were pushed forward this year by two weeks, unlike previous years at Keystone, skiing over New Years, the angel boy-O isn't with us because he's gotta be in school... Honestly, it feels downright wrong being here without him. All day yesterday, any time we saw a lil' snow bunny kid or any of the kids playing in the heated pools, or any children in general, we'd look at one another and our bottom lips would slip outward, our heads down, feeling sad.

But it is what it is and we're here and we should make the very best of it, right? We've tried to promise one another that we'll not let this arrangement, sans the angel boy-O, ruin an awesome opportunity. It's just hard though, as this trip is the ONLY family vacation we ever have from year to year with my family...the angel boy-O should be here. Next year, unless the dates coincide with the boy-O's holiday time, I don't think we'll do this again.

Lucky for us, as long as we work to keep our inner conflict in check, the set up here is INCREDIBLE! Our condo is the best ever! I'll write details later... we're all about to literally walk out the front door, and onto the slopes!

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 20

Because when I told him last night that I want to go back to graduate school and why (and not at all using so few words, geesh), he totally surprised me and told me to go for it, with his full support. I don't know what else I was expecting. He wuvs me.

Gimme Some Cake!

Here are my birthday cakes... The taller of the two was made from an angel food cake box mix, and the shorty was our from-scratch effort. We made TWO angel cakes for 2 reasons: #1) In order to compare the box mix to the one made from scratch, and #2) we needed 2 cakes to have enough for 19 people (was kind of an impromptu birthday party), not counting any babies [and #3, we needed the box mix as our back-up, in case we royally screwed up the first!].

And the winner?

First let me explain that the reason the homemade angel cake is smaller than the box mix version is we had issues with my tube cake pan, which we didn't figure out until after we'd filled it with our batter.... as the pan leaked, we lost about 1/6 of the batter! So, we took it out of the oven and gently dumped the batter back into the mixing bowl, and while my honey-man ran off to Kmart to buy us a new tube pan (my hero), the batter began to liquefy during the wait... BUHT, in the final taste test, it won over the box mix, hands down! We had 7 people try both ( 4 of which, didn't know which was which) and it was unanimous.

What's Your Favorite Kind of Cake?

This may be a bit of copyright infringement... but it's such an awesome card though, and I must share! I soooo love it. It's puurrrfectly hysterical (especially when I hadn't realized it included a 'special poster' until 5 minutes or so later)... [The Angel Food Cake reference is quite apropos, oui?]

Makin' me some Angel Food Cake

Later tonight, my friend Ryan and my little Grams (she stands under 5 feet), who's in town from Bear Lake, are both coming over to make me an Angel Food Cake from scratch! It is only upon Ryan's insistence (which I do appreciate) that we're trying to make one from scratch (although we do have a boxed mix as our back-up just in case we blow it)!

And why make an angel food cake, let alone any cake at all? Well, because I'm so angelic, of course! and I like cake!? - Not exactly, although I do love cake!

First of all, angel cake is my favorite kind of cake, hands down. Okay, but why make a cake? ~ we makin' a cake cuz it's mah birfdee tomorrah! That's why! YAY! We're even going to try making the 7-Minute frosting for it, just like my mum used to make... In fact, we'll be makin' LIGHT PINK 7-Minute frosting, no less... Wish us luck!

A little Background Info: I am making a valiant, concerted effort to avoid anything remotely similar to sulking behavior on my birthday this year, from now on, and forever more!

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 19

On New Year's day, we went to see the new Sweeney Todd movie... and I was completely unfamiliar with the story, only knowing it involved a demonic, murdering barber...

When my honey-man found out I new nothing about the play, he challenged me with amused disbelief, and when I explained I only knew it was a musical (and I really didn't know it was a musical) about a demonic, murdering barber, he again challenged me, that if I new that much, I just had to be familiar with the story... When I insisted I knew nothing, he asked how I knew Sweeney Todd was a murdering barber...

And then I said, to my honey-man, who never watches TV nor YouTube or anything in terms of popular media, who even avoids movie trailers, so as not to spoil the stories,

"It's not too hard to guess when all the promotional media features a deranged looking man, brandishing a bloodied barber's straight razor, standing near a barber's chair."

His 'oh yeah, duh' chuckle is the very best. I just love him for it.

Happy Spankin' New Year, 2008!

From out on our bedroom balcony, we just watched the Las Vegas Strip's New Year fireworks - - 12 minutes of fireworks going off the tops of seven of the Strip's main casinos (at least from what we could see and count)...

The angel boy-O called us from Utah, and my honey-man's father called us from Montreal...

Here's to hoping 2008 brings major change to our world, for good.