You People Are No Fun

A summary of my most awesome weekend...

Friday was the last day of school for the kids. They have the next two weeks or so off of school for Winter Break. I'm so looking forward to not driving kids to and from school every day. Friday night, the Youngest child had a new friend spend the night at our house. She was an...interesting kid. We had a Christmas event planned for Friday night but with the nasty weather we had, we nixed that and went to iHop for dinner instead.

Saturday, both the girls managed to make plans to spend the night at friends' houses so the Mister and I had the night to ourselves. It's the first night we've had alone since our anniversary vacation back in May. Because the girls made these plans on the fly, we didn't have a chance to plan a special night so we just went out to dinner and then did some shopping. It was just nice knowing that we could do what we wanted to do without worrying about having to get home to the kids.

Today, we vegged. The Mister had two papers to finish up for his classes and the girls were both tired from their nights out. I think that I might be coming down with a cold (my throat is scratchy and I'm tired beyond all belief), so I took a pajama day and watched Netflix on the couch all day. I also played Tiny Tower on my phone too, heheh. My Bitizens are prosperous just in case you were wondering.

We did have a couple of hiccups in the weekend. Bailey peed on our brand new couch. I'm pretty sure this is a jealous reaction to the cat. She used to pee in our bed when she got mad but our bed is so high now that I can barely get into it, lol. Bailey won't even jump into the back of our SUV anymore. As for the couch, we got Lazy Boy's maintenance coverage or whatever they call it so all I have to do is schedule someone to come out and clean it. If they can't clean and remove the smell, they have to give us a new couch. Even so, the Mister and I were very upset by this behavior. Not to mention, the house smells like dog pee. Bailey has also taken to eating cat cookies if you know what I mean. Besides the fact that this is totally, completely, and utterly disgusting, and she's making a mess throughout the house with kitty litter, we have the clumping litter which could make her sick. I have what I hope is a solution to this problem but we haven't tried it out yet, so we'll see. Since Friday, I've vacuumed the house, upstairs and down, four times.

All in all, and in spite of the dog, we had a great weekend and I'm looking forward to the next couple weeks. Woot!

5 Question Friday

 

 

1. What's the best Christmas present you've ever received?

 

Gosh. I really don't know. Maybe the year that the Mister got me all the Harry Potter books (that had been written at that point) in hardcover. That was pretty cool. I also liked the Oscar de la Renta nightgown and robe the Mister got me last year while he was deployed. They're really pretty. He also got me a peridot pendant last year too which I love.

2. Worst/Funniest White Elephant gift ever received?  

I've never participated in a White Elephant gift exchange.

3. Is your Christmas tree plain and simple (white lights and matching ornaments) or is it wild and crazy (colored lights with lots of ornaments collected over the years)?

 

We usually try to do a theme with our tree when it comes to color. For instance, we've done purple and silver (which might sound odd but it was really pretty). This year we're doing red and silver. We twisted together silver and red garland, our bulb ornaments are silver and red, and the lights on the tree are LED silver and red bulbs. But our traditional ornaments are up there too. It's a pretty effect and we like it. One year, I would like to do a beach theme. It's the ultimate in Christmas tacky, but it would be fun.

4. "How" do you iron your clothes? The old fashioned iron/ironing board way, the shower, back in the dryer, etc.

 

For clothing items that have to be ironed (like if I'm going to a funeral or a job thing), I use an iron and ironing board. For things that are casual or will end up wrinkled five seconds after I put them on anyway, I toss them into the dryer with a damp washcloth. Sometimes when I'm feeling way lazy and just don't care too much, I'll attempt to "steam" the wrinkles out of something by hanging it in the bathroom while I shower. This never works, but I feel better at least making an attempt. ;)

5. How much baking do you do for Christmas and what are your "must make" items? (I'm looking for recipes here, peeps...)

 

I think we do a minimum amount of baking compared to most people. We make peanut butter blossoms (the cookies I mentioned in last week's 5QF. I finally found the name.) every year. I consider that a tradition. The Mister usually makes a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert after Christmas dinner but we're thinking of trying something new this year. I also make buckeyes every year. It's a must whether or not I feel like eating them but they don't require baking. We also used to make turtle brownies from scratch every year but Nestle stopped making the chips that we need to put in them (at least I haven't been able to find them the past couple years) so we stopped making those. This year, we're making traditional sugar cookies. We bought cookie cutters and we'll have the girls decorate them. I'd also like to try and make fudge because I LOVE fudge and I haven't had it in years but I don't know if I will or not. I have some other things that I've pinned on Pinterest that I'd like to try but again, I don't know if I will or not. 

I'll Race Ya

I firmly believe that we (Americans) have taken political correctness to a level where all it says is that we (Americans) take everything too personally. Even so, we walk around on our tiptoes half afraid to say anything out loud for fear of inadvertently saying something offensive. And by "we" I mean white Americans. There. I said it out loud. This is where I have some objections.

First of all, do you know the root of the word "Caucasian"? The word Caucasian derives from Caucasus which is 440,000 square kilometers of land separating the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Anthropologists classify 50 different races as Caucasian. (The word is beginning to lose all meaning to me and now looks weird because I've typed it and read it so much writing this, heheh.) Furthermore, Caucasian is related to the Atlantic slave trade where the white slave was known to be a woman, oftentimes even blonde, from Caucasus. I have oversimplified this, but I think it makes clear my point.

So, we, Caucasians, allow ourselves to be called such, and without complaint, even though the root of the word is steeped in the very thing that first caused race names and race classification to be born, slavery. We have African Americans, not blacks, and Native Americans, not Indians (unless you're referring to peoples from India), but we still have whites in this country and white people are lumped into the Caucasian group like a herd of indiscriminate cattle. This is very much a dramatic take on this topic and deliberately so because I believe that the constant worry to offend which has led to all these politically correct terms is overly dramatic.

A few months back I began researching my family's roots on Ancestry.com. I have been able to verify, with the help of my uncle and my dad, that at least one branch of my family tree has only been growing in the United States since 1889 or 1892 (I found conflicting "arrival documents" from Germany. A part of Germany, in case you're interested, that was Germany, then Poland, then Germany. Or something to that effect.) Either way, this branch of my family has only been in America for six generations with my children and their first cousins being the sixth generation. These immigrants weren't here when African slaves were being traded and they definitely weren't here when Native Americans were pushed off their lands. But white Americans are supposed to make reparations for these historical events. Hmm.

I realize that I still have three other branches to research but I am going to take the liberty to take a stand. I hereby declare myself as European American. Take that. Better start fixing all those bureaucratic forms. I'm going to start a trend. My next step will be to start a scholarship program for European Americans.