Saturday, December 19

Birthday Bliss


Today is my birthday! Yaaaaay! I adore getting older. Really, I do. Growing up, I remember asking my parents if I could get silver highlights in my hair. They rejected my plea and told me to just wait until I got natural gray hairs instead. Finally, after a looooong time of waiting, I have my first gray hair. It is rather small and barely visible, but I am so proud. I part my hair specifically to show it off. How long must I wait for it to multiply though? Ha!

Anyway, I am unfortunate to have a December birthday. It's overshadowed by Christmas (insert other politically correct holiday festivities) celebrations. Most of the time, I have been in the company of family on the separate coast than my current residence. However, last year my girlfriends surprised me with a birthday party ON my actual day of birth. It's a novel concept. So much so, that I am going to plan another party this year ON my actual day of birth again. This will make the second time of my twenty-something years that this eclipse of an occurance has happened.

Let the festivities begin. Birthday party-going starts soon!!

Tuesday, December 1

Domestic Goddess


I tend to buy Christmas gifts according to theme. I don't recall when this trend started... perhaps back in the day when I would buy gifts for all of my co-workers in the office. We've since instilled a "Secret Santa" tradition so that people weren't pressured to buy everyone something. All that to say, my family and very close friends are now the recipients of my themed gift-giving. It's almost like I want them all to open their gifts from me at the same time. That way, they can see how their individual gift was personalized and chosen just for them.

This year, I was inspired by the movie "Julie & Julia" in my gift quest. I searched high and low for cookbooks galore that would cater to their many personalities, schedules, and tastes. Some examples: Man & a Can - Simple cookbook with 5 pantry ingrediants or less for my Daddy, Impress the PTL Ladies for Aunt AD, Year-Round Dinners for Two for my newlywed sister and husband, Smoothies & Virgin Cocktails for my health-conscious cousin, and an ESPN grilling cookbook for Papa Simonson.

They've raved their response so far. Let's hope they actually try out a recipe or two this year!

Personally, I relate most to this quote from the movie - Is there anything better than butter? Think it over, any time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining and you say 'what's in this?' the answer is always going to be butter. The day there is a meteorite rushing toward Earth and we have thirty days to live, I am going to spend it eating butter. Here is my final word on the subject, you can never have too much butter!