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Showing posts from December, 2010

My iPod is like a box of chocolates...

A box of chocolates with both good and awful chocolates mixed together. Pat is always saying that you can't trust the "random" shuffle on my iPod because I have such awful songs on there. I always defend myself and am insulted by his comments since I pride myself on having somewhat of good taste in music. But today, I was listening to my iPod while unpacking from our Christmas travels and organizing my new kitchen pantry (more on that later) and the most bizarre songs were coming up on the random shuffle on my iPod. I had to admit to myself that he is right. I'm only admitting this to you and me, by the way. I am not ready to tell him that he is right and that I agree with him that it's time for an iPod intervention. Instead, I will slowly but surely (and secretly) delete songs from my iPod to try and improve the quality of the random shuffle. In the meantime, I would like to share with you the 10 songs that played in a row on my iPod's random shuffle toda

A very Merry Christmas!

We survived our four Christmases. More than just survived them, we really, really enjoyed them! We felt like we had enough time at each Christmas celebration to actually relax and enjoy ourselves and enjoy our great company, something we haven't really felt we had time to do in the previous five Christmases we've spent together. It was so great to have my step-dad, Mark, out of the hospital. It was hard to see him feeling so ill, but we were just so thankful he could be with us! My Uncle Mark surprised us with a visit from New York which was so nice to have him home! We got spoiled rotten with gifts and truly got more than we deserve. It almost makes you feel guilty. That being said, we will enjoy each and every one of them and remember to be thankful for having so many people who care about us! Okay, I'll quit dancing around the issue. You want to know, did I accomplish all of my lofty Christmas baking goals and the answer is a difficult one for me to swallow. No. No

Twas three days before Christmas...

T minus 3 days... And I'm still not finished with my shopping, wrapping, baking or crafting. Yikes. Let this blog at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday morning count as the blog I was supposed to write last night. Maybe I forgot to write it or maybe I purposely avoided it because I was embarrassed about how very unproductive I was yesterday. Unproductive, yet, I felt like I never relaxed for a second!  I let myself sleep in until 9, and it felt great (okay, so I guess I did do a little relaxing)! Then somehow I wasted time on the computer until 10:30 or so before I started to melt the chocolate to dip the oreo balls in (slaps hand on wrist). I don't have a double boiler and the two pots that I used last year as my own imitation of one, were two small to hold three times as much chocolate chips. So I decided to use a glass bowel inside of a pot instead.  It worked great, at first. But towards the end, the chocolate started to cook on the glass and got really chunky. I have no idea if this

Twas four days before Christmas...

T minus 4 days.... And I'm still not finished with my shopping, wrapping, baking or crafting. Yikes. But I'm happy to report, that I'm making progress on all fronts! I already got a head start on the baking. Grady was very intrigued with all the baking supplies I bought! On Saturday afternoon, I made the sugar cookie dough and on Sunday night Pat and I made the sugar cookies. Many of you saw my Facebook update explaining that while his contributions were very helpful, they went a little downhill - no pun intended, at the end of the night. Nonetheless, we were able to roll, cut and cook nearly 80 sugar cookies - minus the inappropriate one that Pat made and then ate. Tonight was my first time making frosting instead of buying it. Why would I buy the frosting and try to make things a little easier on myself? That wouldn't make sense! It was surprisingly easy to make and probably impossible to screw up! Pat and I got all the sugar cookies frosted and "sprinkl

My very first 20 Something Bloggers Blog Swap!

I recently joined up with 20 Something Bloggers and decided to participate in my very first Blog Swap! After the sign ups are over, 20 Something Bloggers randomly assigns the partners. I was paired up with Kelsey, a newlywed living in Grenada in the Caribbean with her husband who is in medical school. You can read her blog here (watch for my guest post on her blog later today). This is a milestone for my blog as it will be the VERY first time in all of my five years of blogging that anyone else has ever written in it! The topic of the blog swap is: “What will you do next year that you’ve been putting off for too long?” and here is what Kelsey wrote: ------ I'm a grasshopper. You know the story about the ants and the grasshopper? The ants work all summer long storing up food and preparing for winter, while the grasshoppers play and sing and enjoy the warm weather. Well when winter comes around the grasshoppers are starving and freezing to death and the ants are snug and

It's Christmas at the Robinsons!

It's been a few weeks in the making, but it's officially Christmas at the Robinson household! I have (almost) all of my handmade Christmas cards completed and mailed (I'm up to 50). Handmade Christmas Cards All of our Christmas decorations are out.   No, I do not know those people in the frame. Still need to print a picture for this... Again- I do not know those people. We have a tree that is lit and decorated One of the many benefits of having a tall husband I have wrapped all the gifts that have been purchased I color-coded the wrapping papers according to which of the four Christmases we'll be attending I made handmade tags to put on the gifts! Even Grady is getting into the Christmas spirit! I purchased a new Christmas CD this year to really step up my Christmas spirit: The Glee Christmas mix. I believe it was five days after Thanksgiving, and five days after I officially declared the start of Christmas celebrating in the Robinson household, w

Things that make you go "hmmm"

I think it's very interesting that my husband is constantly telling people how often I visit the website known as Facebook. While it is true that I spend a ridiculous amount of time cyber stalking, if you will, on Facebook, I feel that Pat spends an equal amount of time on an obsession of his own; sports. But I didn't have any way of proving it. Until now... After a recent update from Mozilla Firefox (or maybe it's always been there but I never noticed), I realized that there is now a link in the toolbar titled "Most Visited" sites. I clicked on it to view the sites most visited on our computer. Do you have any guesses what was number one on the list? I will give you a hint. It wasn't Facebook and it's only four letters long: espn.com. In second place was Cleveland.com which is all my husband, too. I have to give him credit. When he's done fueling his sports addiction, he does like to read the local news and keep up with the times. I NEVER read or

Twas the week before Christmas

I can't believe I don't have all of my Christmas shopping done yet. This is very unlike me. I got an early start with my Cyber Monday shopping and was half done after that day. I must have gotten cocky or something because I've done very little shopping since then and still remain with the "half done" status, nearly a month later. Normally at this time I would have all of my gifts bought and maybe half of them wrapped already! I plan on trying to wrap everything up (no pun intended) on Saturday. I think it's funny that I keep buying wrapping paper every time I go out but don't buy any gifts to wrap in it and don't use it to wrap any of the gifts I already have. But I have purchased no less than 5 new rolls of wrapping paper this year already. Maybe I think after I buy a certain amount of wrapping paper, the gifts will just start wrapping themselves. Or better yet, maybe I should just give wrapping paper as gifts. Now there's an idea... I'm

Grady, my own "Freaky Eater"

So I haven't blogged about Grady in a while and maybe you're thinking it's because he's growing up and growing out of his old "puppy" behaviors. I was hoping so, too. Unfortunately, it seems as though the only reason he was being good is because his owners were being extra careful about keeping things made of cotton and paper, out of his reach. Last week, we had a sock relapse. Pat was the first home from work to find a big, black Nike ankle sock in Grady's crate with him, that he had thrown up during the day (thank God he didn't re-eat it, because I'm confident he lacks the common sense to do something like that). Even though the sock clearly fit someone with size 13 feet, Pat, out of good measure, still questioned me on the phone to make sure that I didn't own any big, black, Nike ankle socks. Once I confirmed that I didn't, he stated that he was pretty confident that it was his brother Michael's (Pat's brother's, not Grady&

Keep your kitchen clean challenge

Today marks the fifth day of the Keep Your Kitchen Clean Challenge in the Robinson household and I am happy to report that I have not yet gone to bed this week with a dirty kitchen! We all know that I am a self-proclaimed, horrible housekeeper. Does this mean that I am a hoarder with 75 cats living in my house and so much garbage and clutter lying around that I don't know if the cats are alive or dead? No. It does mean, though, that I don't clean as often as I should and am really bad at picking up after myself. It also means that unexpected guests and visitors put me into a complete panic that could someday cause me to have an anxiety attack. For these reasons and the simple fact that I, too, would like to come home from work to a clean house where I can completely relax (yes, I am capable of relaxing). So, after speaking to many of the cleanest people I know, and asking about their habits and strategies, I learned that one of the best ways to keep your house clean and tidy

Emily the Elf

At first I was a little insulted when I was asked me to be an Elf for our Christmas on Campus event tomorrow at school. I felt like it was a little discriminatory and the decision was based only on my height. When I received the official uniform today, I have to admit, I got really excited and am starting to embrace the role. Elf, after all, is my favorite movie, so the chance to emulate him in even this minor roll in front of a group of first graders, is truly an honor. I am humbled by the opportunity. The gig is tomorrow from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. After I locate some green or red tights tonight to complete the ensemble, I plan on getting a good night's sleep so that I wake up feeling energized and elf-like. I've had several people tell me that I'm "perfect for this role." I am not exactly sure what this means and since they didn't choose to elaborate on this comment, I will take it to mean that I exemplify the true holiday spirit and am the perfect person t

Someone has a case of the Mondays

And that someone would be me. I don't mean a case of the Mondays like, "I'm so mad that the weekend is over and I just can't accept the fact that it's Monday" type of day. I mean that I'm having a "What else could possibly go wrong today" type of day. At first I was making great time this morning. It was looking like I was going to be leaving exactly at 7:20 a.m. as I had planned. Then, a few wardrobe and shoe changes later, it was 7:45 and I was just leaving my house. I was feeling confident about my outfit and shoe change, until I walked from my house to the garage and snow started getting in my shoe through the peep toes. Who would even think of wearing peep toe shoes in the snow? This girl. But they're so cute, I told myself. Plus, the peep toe is extremely small and I'm wearing hose underneath so it should be a non-issue. Well it wasn't and now my toes are wet. Oh well. I must move on. About 10 minutes after I leave my house,

My own big bang theory

I've never been one for conspiracy theories - I believe that all the planes did go down on 911, I don't believe it was an inside job and I have no reason to believe that more than one person shot JFK. That being said, I do have a conspiracy theory of my own that I would like you to consider... I believe that Verizon Wireless only sells phones that are guaranteed to last less than two years. Hear me out. Verizon has always promoted this "new every two" deal that says if you sign a new contract, you can get a phone either for free or really, really cheap, but only every two years. So, in order to make some money, they only sell phones that they know won't make it to the two year mark and then when yours breaks before two years, they try to make you pay full price for another one. Have you ever been in a situation where you were waiting for your two year Verizon contract to end so that you could get a new phone? Not because you were bored of your current phone or

Get in the Kitchen and make me some: Thanksgiving food!

Since I didn't host Thanksgiving or cook a turkey, I feel bad making the claim that I was a "Thanksgiving cooking machine," but I'm going to say it anyway. I was a Thanksgiving cooking machine! I surprisingly was off the day before Thanksgiving (didn't think I would be until Tuesday night) so I took full advantage of the day! I didn't sleep in (in my book, anyway, although it's all relative) and I didn't sit down all day long, not even to eat lunch because I forgot to eat lunch! I made several new recipes that day, hopefully you will consider it as a make-up for many weeks lost in the new recipe department. First I made... Iced Pumpkin Cookies I didn't miss lunch because I was eating these cookies as I made them. At first I thought they were delicious (because I was starving) and then, when I wasn't hungry anymore I became unsure about them. I planned to double the recipe but didn't because I