A few funny pictures

When Jerry vacated his favorite chair, Tom was quick to take advantage of the opportunity. He even got himself all situated with the blanket.


Rachel and a specially made "R" bizcochito.

A little Grinch

We were babysitting some friend's fish and as we were decorating the house with Nativities, Rachel felt that the fish wanted to look at a Nativity.

She also felt that the angel in this nativity wanted to nibble on the gingerbread house.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Yesterday I saw some of my friends that I made when I was teaching Elementary School. I saw one friend at her home and hung out as we exchanged Christmas gifts. She gave me that lovely red star box and those pink earrings she made. I gave her two pottery looking plaques with a Frida Kahlo painting on each. I actually found that at a thrift store last January and have been holding on to it ever since because I KNEW that Sarah would love it. Her house is amazing...full of colorful art, lots of Mexican artisan crafts. She also makes AMAZING jewelry and just opened her own Etsy shop. Check her out here.

Then I had dinner with my little DG gals group. We started this tradition, oh I don't know, back in 02 or 03. We also had another person who was a part of this group but that is a story for another day. We pick a place to eat dinner and exchange our gifts. We went to Slate Street Cafe. Very good food, a little pricey and very shi shi....for example they don't have mashed potatoes...they have SMASHED potatoes. See? I had the Asian salad and split an order of bruschetta with Les. Their bruschetta is divine. We chose the

tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil
bleu, spinach, balsamic
roasted red peppers, goat cheese

And then we had their gourmet cupcakes. Yum.

Referring to the top picture again (left to right): Anna gave us all the red mug full of candy, hot chocolate and snowman poop. I adore huge mugs like that for soups and herbal tea and stuff. So cozy! Les gave us all a chocolate bar, an aluminium water bottle (which I have been wanting to get) and some finger bling with that lovely ring. Gaby gave us tea (Gabs got me herbal..and caffeine free...just covering her bases :) and her incredible, divine, nectar-and-ambrosia-like homemade pesto! Hmmm good.

Now what did I get them? I was actually really excited about this because I knew they would love it.

I made them this! Well, a smaller frame and all but same concept. This is my earring holder on my bathroom wall. Super easy to make. Just look for sturdy wood frame from thrift stores and paint if you so desire. Get aluminium screening and cut to size and then staple gun it to the back. Pick ribbon and staple gun that and voila. I also learned how to make earrings so I made some earrings and put them on their holders. I've made about 10 pairs below. They are the center bottom ones.

It was a nice outing and it seemed like the presents picked were just perfect.

No. Thank you.

I was telling Jerry about a conversation with a friend who was telling me of a proposition he/she received from two other couples to "swing" (And here I was thinking those things only happened on TV....and on Maury).

Me: I mean, how would you respond to that?

Jerry: You'd start laughing.

Me: (thinking) You're right. But then I would smile and politely decline.

Richard's himself again....almost

Enough! I miss blogging. This year (well, after the cruise) I felt out of control with all the going ons in my life. With waiting to refinance and waiting to finalization T's adoption, with family and 4 kids living with us and moving aforesaid family twice, with another family and 4 kids living with us and lots of babysitting and fixing up their house to sell, I have felt not very in control. I've felt that to keep it all together, I had to cut some things and obviously blogging was one of them, among other things. Also certain events that I had wanted to blog about wasn't anything I could blog about due to the sensitive nature of family issues so that sort of muzzled my blogging inspiration as it were.

I have been rather reclusive as well. I have felt like I didn't have time to go out with friends as often or even go take T to storytime. I felt that exhausted that the thought of doing anything was too overwhelming

I have written many little notes about items I do want to blog about, so in the next few posts, I probably will be backtracking quite a bit because life is getting back to normal and I want to continue chronicling the minutiae of my life and putting my two cents in.

Thanks Britney

Oops I did it again.

I played with your heart

Got lost in facebook

Ooo Baby Baby

I'm not that innocent!

(Amazing that Britneypop applies to my lack of blogging. Although to be fair, I haven't been on facebook that much either. Note the new pictures on the sidebar)

As told to me by Jerry

Apparently during Sunday School, Tom was wandering around as he is apt to do. He was climbing up and down the stairs to the stand and he was trying to climb them like a real person, walking up and down. He tries to walk down from the top but ends up doing a flip down the stairs and a face plant. So he is on the floor on his stomach. Jerry is fully expecting him to cry. Tom lifts his head and realizes that a smartie must have detangled itself from somewhere in his clothes and is now lying within arm's reach.

Naturally his chubby hand shoots out to grab the smartie which he promptly consumes. He was much too preoccupied with the smartie to waste time crying.

Halloween Revisited

Here are some past costumes from past Halloween. I love dressing up.

1. For the longest time, I always wore some kind of 60's-70's getup with blue eyeshadow and fake eyelashes. It was my standard costume. No idea were these costumes have gone but when I look nowadays in thrift store, I find a preponderance of 80's clothes. I did score an awesome dress with a psychedic pattern and macarme dress but that's for next year I think. My friend Evan here is awesome as King Arthur, King of the Britons. I didn't vote for him.

2. Again, High School with the 60's outfit. It actually made quite a hit with High school teachers and various male jocks who didn't know. I got lots of compliments from this outfit. As I walked into class, one teacher chuckled as he said, " I look like my High school girlfriend."

3. Halloween in Japan. I went to a dance club with my roomie Lisa ( see center left picture) in Tokyo. My brilliant idea this year was to be dressed as a Kogyaru as I borrowed one of my students' uniform and made the neccesary changes. Missing, the gucci bag and fake tan. It was also a hit. While taking the subway into Tokyo, many various and sundry salarymen made comments and I quote "Ah! Kogyaru! Segoi!" Which translates into, "Ah! Kogyaru...Great, cool, amazing, awesome."