Goodbye 2013

I've noticed a lot of people doing Top 13 posts for 2013, but I don't think I'm qualified to follow as that would be half of my posts for the year. Yep, this was a pretty lean post year. This is going to be my 28th and last post of 2013, albeit a small one.

The picture above is of our yearly and appropriately gifted ornaments from the Barefoot Contessa and Alison. Each year they manage to outdo themselves.

Can you tell what event these ornaments were inspired by?

Nailed it. Right down to the race numbers. Alison found an Etsy seller that handmade these ornaments based on this picture. Love them.

I love Peanut Head's sunglasses too. They look like tinted swim goggles.

We had a quiet Christmas in the Scott house. I was unfortunate enough to catch a chest cold on the eve of Christmas Eve, and I spent Christmas day on the couch reading and napping. Although it wasn't fun, I was so thankful that I didn't have to be at work or write sub plans in order to rest and recover. If I'm going to be sick, this is the time to do it. Sadly.

I think this is my favorite Christmas present. It's from Stinkerbell.

Number 3 is a little odd, isn't it? Since when is a kiss a chore? Well, the Stink loathes lip kisses. Especially after the giver has slept or eaten, as indicated by the addendum next to the check box.

I wonder if she'd notice if I erased her addendum and added fifty more check boxes instead.

Probably she would and then as a consequence declare the entire coupon null and void.

However, because I'm not beneath trickery, I'm going to collect on that lip kiss, and then I'm going to print out another coupon on account of I scanned the original for this post. I shall then approach the Stingy Kisser and attempt to collect on another kiss with my counterfeit coupon. Aaaaaand, don't tell the Stink, but before I collect on that kiss I'm going to eat a gigantic bowl of mashed potatoes (her nemesis) upon awaking from a long winter's nap.

I simply cannot wait.

This is the first Christmas vacation since I went back to work that we've had a two week long break. It has been awesome. I don't feel like I'm running out of time, although on Sunday I'm sure I will, and I've had a lot of time to do the things I want to do and relax.

One of the things I've been doing is working on my digital album. I'm up to 70 pages completed, and I now need just 30 before I'll be ready to print my next book. 

The layouts above are a new album I just started for myself and my siblings. I'm working on an actual album for my mom, and I decided that I may as well scan the pictures as I go and create albums for myself and my brother and sister.

Of course that meant I needed to buy a new digital kit. Since I'm using Becky Higgins' Digital Project Life and the templates, and my pictures are older, I chose the Heritage Edition.

This is just a glimpse of that kit, but you can see it better by following the link above. If you want to check out the other Project Life Digital Kits, go here.

Not that I'm advertising or anything. Becky Higgins has no idea who I even am. I just love the concept and I'm all about getting things done simply.

On that note, Happy New Year!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I'm just going to pop in here and pretend like it hasn't been more than 40 days and 40 nights since I last blogged. After all, it doesn't seem like it's been that long, and perception is everything, isn't it?

Life is good in the Scott household.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving at home, and I had the entire week off. It was awesome.

My sister-in-law, Marcia, visited for the week, and we had our usual group of friends over for our yearly Orphan's Thanksgiving dinner. I say that because we're a group of people who don't have any family nearby to spend the holiday with, so we spend it together. In actuality, we've become a family.

Glitter Man brought his camera at my request. I'm always the one behind the camera, and when I'm cooking I forget to take pictures, so he took care of documenting the holiday for us. I'm super grateful because he takes amazing pictures.

When he arrived, Jo Jo promptly began making love to his camera case. I don't know why she was so attracted to it. It's not like he has animals at home that she can smell on his case. She does it to any bag that he brings over to our house too, so it's not like she's an out of work model trying to get someone to take her picture.

Eventually she got off the case in order to take advantage of a sunny spot on the back of the couch.

Gunny spent most of the day outside because turkey. Glitter Man tried to Photoshop all the chicken poop out of this picture, but it proved to be too great a task. It's okay, this is my life. Chicken poop.

Peanut Head and the girls spent much of the day setting up the lighted yard ornaments, and they did not enjoy themselves. You can get a sense of the atmosphere by observing the forced smiles and stiff body language. At one point the girls came in and asked Aunt Marcia "Why does Daddy have to be so grumpy?"

Aunt Marcia opened a can of Whoop A** on that child and admonished "All of y'all are being grouchy and unpleasant, and it's a vicious cycle! One of you is going to have to make the CHOICE to just BE HAPPY if you want it to get better. Now get out there and be pleasant!"

It was awesome because it wasn't me saying it. If I could have, I would have piped Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy" at full volume out into the front yard. We had a few grouchy garden gnomes setting up our display of holiday cheer.

Glitter Man snapped this very nice picture of Stinkerbell and Lucy Goosey. She looks so sweet, doesn't she?

Yes, I'm talking about the cat.

The Stink told me earlier this week that she got an e-mail from Santa informing her that she was on the Naughty List. Seriously. Who does that?

No really. I didn't sign up for that service and I'm a little disappointed that I don't get to take credit for it.

And if that isn't disturbing enough, Stinkerbell didn't seem the least bit concerned about it. Her attitude was all "Go ahead, Santa. Bring it. I don't need no stinkin' presents."

Glitter Man got this picture of me and I was happy to see that I only have two chins at this angle. 

He did also take some pictures of the Renaissance Woman, but the camera was not her friend that day. You know how it is? Your mouth is open and your eyes be lookin' a little crazy. It was like that.

Therefore, out of respect for her, I'm not going to post them.

Whatever. I'm afraid of her, and I have a two week vacation coming up that I do not want to miss.

Peanut Head and I just today started our Christmas treat production. We're getting a late start.

I'd like to say it's because we've been awesomely productive, but the truth is, we didn't wanna.

We got our first neighbor gift today and that freaked us out. Sort of lit a fire under our butts.

So much that I made five batches of Cranberry White Chocolate Bark.

We found a new source for our white chocolate this year because Baker's pulled a fast one and started boxing their white chocolate in 4 oz. boxes instead of 6 oz. boxes. They changed the box so that it's longer and skinnier to try to trick us. They're boxing a lot of air with the 4 oz. box of chocolate. The only reason we caught it is because we do math in this house, and we're armed with that spreadsheet for the freak show that is our holiday baking.

Anyway, Winco sells white chocolate in their bulk foods section. I think it started out as a gigondo fifty pound candy bar for the Jolly Green Giant, and then they cut it up like this and put it in a big barrel so it looks all rustic and pioneer like.

I went through eight pounds of it today.

That sad little stack on Peanut Head's Martha Stewart bench is the beginning of our holiday baking. The empty containers on the right are what we still need to fill.

I guess we know what we'll be doing this week.

Undead

Before you start thinking that this post is going to be about Zombies, which I love by the way, I'll just tell you right out that what I really mean is that I'm still alive. It's been almost four weeks since my last post, which is just crazy, and as much as I try not to, I feel guilty about staying away for so long.

Everything is good though. In fact, quite great. I'm having a good school year and I love my students. Not in a creepy way, I just think they're pretty awesome.

I've been buried since school started though, and I can't seem to catch up. I feel like the hamster in a wheel, except that I'm running the wrong direction and maybe it's really a gyroscope.

Whine whine, though. I didn't come here to be a buzz kill. Changing the subject to unicorns and rainbows.

Before I forget, this is my last chance to remind you to enter the giveaway for the Monster headphones, here. It ends this week. As a matter of fact, I have mine on right now. My noisy family is in the middle of watching a Grimm marathon, and I'm satisfied having watched most of them at least once peripherally. Much like second hand smoke, except it doesn't kill or maim.

In other news, I'm loving the beautiful fall weather. The tree in the picture above is in our front yard and it makes me happy every time I look at it. I gaze longingly at it when I pull in and out of my driveway on my way to and from school.

As many people experienced earlier this month, we were faced with Peanut Head going on furlough as a result of the government shut down. Although it was scary, we didn't really panic or lose sleep over it, because it's one of those things that you can't control and you just have to hunker down and deal. We've been poor before, so we tightened our belts for a couple weeks and I cancelled my nail appointment with tears in my eyes.

Thankfully, Peanut Head avoided furlough by the skin of his teeth, and I was able to reschedule.

Isn't my mummy Cee-UTE?

Not only was I able to keep my nail appointment, but I didn't have to cancel my already overdue hair appointment. My grays were getting very sproingy and in your face, and they needed some TLC.

I can't believe I'm talking about hair and nails. Geesh. Allow me to change the subject one more time.

I want to talk about some of the fun I've been having with my co-workers at school. We have this one teacher in particular who has the nickname "Peppy" because she's super ADHD like Tigger on Winnie the Pooh. In fact, she's so hyper that I've told her that she's like a hummingbird on crack. I'm totally not kidding.

We have conversations and I have to snap my fingers at her and say "Get to the point, Peppy!" It doesn't phase her a bit. You have to love her though. She keeps things interesting.

For example, we went to an iSTEM conference in June, and at lunch our Principal walked in with his iPad Mini tucked into the back of his pants. Like his pants were a holster or something. It was so funny. Then Peppy waits for him to sit down and get comfortable, and then she stands up and stuffs her iPad not-Mini into her size 0 trousers, stuffs a coke in the back pocket for good measure, and then walks up to our Principal's table and circles it three times. Like she's in a traffic circle and can't decide if she wants to exit because she's having so much fun.

Our sweet Principal, bless his sweet little heart, is completely oblivious to the whole show, in spite of our entire table laughing hysterically across the room. I was laughing so hard I dang near had an asthma attack and I did wet myself just the tinsiest little bit. No lie.

Peppy wasn't able to get his attention with her runway trick, so she saunters up to the treat table and puts together a little sampling of treats for him, and then she walks back and offers it to him.

Still no reaction.

I think I need to frame the picture above and give it to him for Christmas. I can feel an asthma attack coming on just thinking about her circling his table. It was seriously so funny.

I take great delight in hassling Peppy. She has this cute little stuffed monster that I covet, because I heart monsters, and I'm always stealing it and hiding it from her. One day he was in my filing cabinet with just an arm sticking out, waiting for her to rescue him.

It's gotten so bad that her students have taken to assisting me in my shifty dealings.

Last week one of her students tossed the monster to me across the hall and then I duct taped him to my door looking out.

I also torture Peppy by sending ransom notes over to be taped to her door. 

One day I tried all day to acquire Peppy's monster so I could stick one of his legs in the back of my pants and ask Peppy "Does this monster make my butt look big?" I never could get him though, because a pair of her students took him from her. She was accusing me of stealing him and I kept telling her that it wasn't me. Finally the two students relented and gave the monster back. The best part of that was that they escorted her over to my classroom to apologize for accusing me of stealing him. 

It's all very immature, I know, but this is middle school and I firmly believe that you have to be a little bit crazy and immature to work with this age group anyway. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.