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.