Barking Mad

Food Poisoning

Blows!   

Quite literally. 

I'm only just now able to sit upright without either dry heaving or....well you get the picture. 

I will never eat celery again. 

That is all.

Quote of the Day

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event.  You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?"  ~J.B. Priestley

....Patiently waiting for the first snowfall of the year....and then dreading the rest.

Quote of the Day

"Philosophy consists very largely of
        One philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses.
        He usually proves it,
        And I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself"

H.L. Mencken

More Video from This Weekend

I love to listen to Katie's husband Anthony speak.  His Italian accent is to die for, second only to my own European husband's beautiful English accent.   At times though it can be hilarious to hear some of the things that come out of Anthony's mouth.  Case in point....they spent Thursday night here (Katie and Anthony and a bunch of friends from the high school took Zack and a few others to all the midnight sales that kick off Black Friday down at the mall in South Portland, and they got back around 4AM...quite the non-slumber party we had going on!) and Friday morning after a lazy brunch we all sat around upstairs and Anthony read some of Gaby's books to her.  The funniest had to be a Sandra Boynton book called "Doggies".

****WARNING: content is definitely not suitable for small children!  Unless you want your little pitchers with big ears repeating this, then DO NOT let them listen/watch!****

There, you've been warned!

Now, I will just preface this next video by saying that it's my fault Gaby picked up this choice phrase. I had dropped a 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes on my foot the other day and who was standing right there to hear what came out of my mouth?  Yep, the Little Imp.   I know it's not a nice phrase.  I know its probably pretty foul.  And I know exactly which of you sitting there watching this are saying; "Audrey, I don't think that's funny at all!"  Well, you are probably right...however it's how Gaby says it.   The phrase is "mother f*cker" but she doesn't quite get "mother" out and it ends up being, well here, you listen for yourselves...or for those of you not so inclined to think this sort of things is amusing, then don't play the video.  Anyhow, you can even catch Gaby (listen very closely) tell her daddy that it's "a bad word daddy!"....

Photographs from Thanksgiving

Wow, imagine that, I'm actually posting pictures within a few days of them being taken.  Will wonders never cease?

First of all, ignore the utter chaos and mess that is my house.  It's the holidays, enough said.

We had Katie and Anthony and Tyler over for Thanksgiving (Katie and Anthony are without any family in Maine, all of Katie's are in Alabama/Georgia and Anthony's family is in Italy, and Tyler's family did their huge Thanksgiving feast last night, so he was able to share ours here with us) and beforehand everyone went downstairs into the family room for some appetizers and tree trimming.  Well that actually ended up being appetizers and football!  Go figure.

Our new furniture for the family room should be here in the next two weeks.  It will be nice to not have to squish together on the futon down there.  Of course, now Meg and Zack are bickering over whose room the futon should go in.  Newsflash!  It's going on the other side of the family room.  *lol*

I had a dickens of a time trying to find my turkey baster.  Oh there it is!

Meg offered to make the mashed potatoes this year, and I gladly took her up on her offer as I can't handle potatoes at all as it exacerbates my eczema on my hands.   And let me tell ya, her mashed taters are the bomb!  Yummmmm!

Gareth carving his first American Thanksgiving turkey.  I did the honors last year even though he was actually in the states for once, because I didn't want to risk carrying the bird to the table and dropping it.  I have to say, he did a great job!

So, we sat around the table and each one of us talked about the things we were thankful for this past year...which I did get on video but probably won't share the vid because we all ended up in tears at one point or another.  It was sweet though, and I'm glad Katie, Anthony and Tyler were able to join us this year.

We ate and ate and then ate some more.  I think this pretty much sums up how we were all feeling after dinner....

Once we got comfy Tyler graced us with a few songs, we sang carols and even Gaby decided to try her hand at the keyboard. 

I love this picture!

Random pics throughout the evening....

Anthony

Zack decided he was still hungry...being that we'd used every last dish in the house I made him use paper plates!

Meg and Katie...

Then we all trampled back downstairs and started trimming the tree.   Of course the evening would not have been complete without three or four wardrobe changes from Meg...oh to be a teenager again.  Well, on second thought, maybe not!   *lol*

Griffy was just dying to get into one of the boxes we had stored Christmas decorations in.  We could not figure out why. 

Once I got into the box I discovered exactly what he was after.  A bunch of mice (courtesy of the uninsulated garage back in Cape Elizabeth!) had gotten into one of the boxes and ate through an entire string of lights, several bows and a huge box of ancient chocolate Christmas balls that had been stored in a hard plastic container!  There was a nice little hole in the side they'd gnawed through.  I hope they choked on it all!  Anyhow there were the leavings of mice all over everything and one well preserved mouse carcass!  Thank God they only got into the one box.  I'd have had a coronary had there been any more. 

As an (sort of) amusing aside....whilst Gareth and I were packing and going through things, this past summer in the garage back in Cape Elizabeth, we discovered just exactly where the chipmunks had been storing all the nuts they'd been filching from the bird feeders.  I had stored three large plastic milk crates full of shoes, NICE SHOES and BOOTS no less in those milk crates thinking I'd wear them again once we moved and the weather warmed up.  Well as I was sitting there going through the shoes I noticed tons of sunflower seed shells, peanut shells and other assorted nuts and nut casings inside about 25 pairs of shoes.   Not only that, but several well preserved baby chipmunks met there demise inside the toes of my shoes, in particular, my boots!!!!! Uhg!  I swear it looked like about 30 or so chipmunks must have made homes out of my shoes.  I was NOT happy.   Needless to say all of those shoes went straight to the dump!  I'm still fuming over that.

Thank gosh our garage here is fully insulated and finished!  I'm really hoping to not have to deal with chipmunk carcasses next spring.

Anyhow, just some random pictures from the tree.  Yes, Griffy has already decided (look closely) that Santa had better make other arrangements for where to leave presents because he's already claimed that prized spot...

...under the tree!

When he wasn't cozing up under the tree he was playing with odds and ends from one of the boxes of Christmas decorations...

And that dear friends and family concludes today's session of photos.  Just be glad you got to see them relatively close to when they were taken and not months from now as is the norm with me.  *lol*