Misadventures in shopping

It began innocently enough with my desire to change the light color on my Christmas tree this year.  Since my newest obsession is shades of purple, I thought I'd go with that.  I saw some purple lights at Target and plugged them in and compared them to the pink.  They definitely looked purple.  What better to go with the purple lights than some beautiful purple ribbon for a tree topper.  Made the big bows, put the purple lights on the trees and lo and behold, they didn't match at all.  Once those lights were on the tree, they looked pink and the ribbon looked terrible.

Searched high and low and found some purple LED strings at Target for $11.99 a string.  It killed me to spend that much, but I bought 4 strings and mixed them in on the tree.  They looked great.  The next day I see them in the Target ad for $9 a box.  Off I go with my receipt to get a price adjustment.  After the girl finally figured out to how adjust the price, instead of taking my $13 refund and going home, I thought what the heck ... might as well get some more lights while they are on sale.  I thought white would be nice.  So I pick myself up 4 boxes of white lights and decide to pick up something in the women's department.  Got what I wanted, hunted for my cart and get up to the line and discover all that is in the cart is the leggings I just picked out.  Back to the women's department and finally hunt down MY cart.  Get back in line (6 cashiers open out of 18!) and realize that I picked 2 different kind of white lights - 2 cool white, 2 warm white.  WTH?  Who would have thought that they would make the exact same lights in 2 different shades of white?  Screw it, I got them anyway.  I plan on telling Nick that I meant to get 2 different kinds!

I think the worst part, though, is they gave me a $5 off $50 coupon.  You know I'm going back, don't you?

An organized holiday

Every year during the hectic holiday season, I always say to myself ... "Self, next year you are going to have an organized and magical holiday season."  I clip out articles on how to have a stress free holiday.  I put notes on my Outlook calendar to remind me of things I might forget.  I say "next year I'm not going to make all these different cookies and just concentrate on a few favorites."  I have visions of sitting around the evenings before Christmas watching "Frosty" and "The Polar Express".  I think about what it will be like to drive around and look at the holiday lights, to finally see the lights in Delaware Park, to see Niagara Falls decorated for the holidays.

And every year I find myself knee deep in cooking ingredients, recipes everywhere.  Yards and yards of ribbon to change up the Christmas tree only to find that bows on Christmas trees are apparently out and no one bothered to tell me.

Here it is 3 days before Thanksgiving.  Nick is working so I'll be on my own to get everything prepared.  Pies have been ordered, food has been bought and I am still ripping out recipes from magazines for some glorious cranberry-orange relish, like as if anyone will eat that.  Why, oh why, can't I just be satisfied to slap a can of cranberry sauce in the banana boat dish reserved only for cranberry sauce and call it a day.

Yesterday I wanted to put up my little tree in the living room and spent all day looking for the box of lights and ornaments for it.  Do you think I could find them anywhere?  Nope, brought up boxes one by one filled with all kinds of decorations but the ones I was looking for.  So I thought, might as well put them up.  So, the inside of my house is pretty much decorated, but the bench we had to move from the front hall in the "Christmas tree shuffle" is still sitting in front of the door.  Oh, and I did find the ornaments and lights for my little tree - they were in a box marked material and chair cover pattern!

So, looks like once again I won't be going out on the biggest drinking night of the year (yeah, like that would happen anyway!) and I'll be home trying to get my house cleaned.

And if you happen to be coming to my house for Thanksgiving dinner, just ignore the fact that when you ring the doorbell that I will probably answer the door in my sweat suit with a dustrag thrown over my shoulder!

My least favorite holiday tradition ...

The cleaning of the fridge in anticipation of Thanksgiving leftovers.  Seriously, what the hell was I thinking?  A container with about 3 tablespoons of leftover spaghetti sauce and enough different blocks of cheese to harden our arteries for the rest of our lives.  Not to mention the last of the apples from apple season that I really thought I was going to make something with!

But, it is all done and filled with Thanksgiving goodies.  I can hardly wait to eat leftovers on Friday while watching a 12 hour marathon of Law & Order (or some other similar show) while putting up the tree.  I swear it's going to be decorated differently this year!  Now, all I need is some good ideas.  So, here is some inspiration taken at Dave's Christmas Tree Shop this morning.  (taken with my crummy phone)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes!

Saw this recipe on kevinandamanda.com and just had to try them.  Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough cupcakes  I did cheat, because I just happened to get the cookie dough from the band fundraiser that very same day so I used that and I also had a can of whipped frosting which I used too.  So, basically, all I did was make the recipe for the cupcakes.  Still, they were fabulous!

What do you get your 91 year old Mother for her birthday?

She never wants anything, doesn't need anything. yells if you get her something.  But how do you not get your mother a birthday gift?  So, as keeper of the old family photos, I came upon the idea of framing a picture of her siblings and her Mother.  Sadly, there are no pictures of my Grandfather where you can actually see what he looked like, so this is the best I could do.  What do you think?

Christmas card is done!

I am so far behind this year, think I crashed after all the reunion planning.  But, the card is finally finished and ordered.  I'm not sure if I am really crazy about it this year, but think I may have used up all my creativity for 2010!  There were way too many pictures of M&M to choose from, only a couple pictures of Nick and I, and there wasn't a single decent picture of Nick with M&M.  I always like to pick some out of the box pictures, so that's where the underwater came in.

What do you think?

Am I a total dork? (AKA - would you even consider this wallpaper border?)

My husband plans on finally re-doing the "rec" room in our basement.  (I know, I'm showing my age here!)  For the past 15 years it has been black on the bottom of the walls, white on the top with an animal print border going down the middle.

Well, when my darling daughter broke her ankle I noticed a beautiful color combination at the orthopedic surgeon's office.  A beautiful shade of turqoise with tan on the bottom of the walls..  So, in typical Ann fashion, I ran over to Lowe's and got myself a boatload of paint chips.  Imagine the look on my daughter's face when I pulled the whole fistful of paint chips out while she was getting her cast off and held them up against the wall there!  As I eliminatd them one by one, I decided on a beautiful shade of Valspar Paint called Turquoise Sea.  I'm still undecided on the tan.  Wasn't sure I could get Nick to jump on board until he took his father to the Neuroligist (sensing a theme here?) and saw a similar color combination and liked it.

My big question, however, is do I really want to put this wallpaper border up?  I absolutely love it and the room in the basement is just for fun.  So, I figure - what the heck? 

Is this one of the funnest things you ever saw?

Vintage Hankies ... a project finally finished!

Nothing is better than shopping in Mom's attic.  I just love to go there and mooch around through all the stuff that is banished to storage never to see the light of day in her house again.  But the old adage goes, what is old is new again, and I will be glad to relieve her of some of that "junk". 

So, one of my first blog posts was a display of framed vintage hankies that I saw in a cottage at Crystal Beach.  I knew I had to duplicate them.  Well, thanks to some bargain frames from the Christmas Tree Shops, some vintage hankies from Mom's and a few from the antique store next to my hairdresser ... Voila!

Aren't they beautiful above my bed?  I starched them and got them all in the frames on Sunday and had them all laid out on my family room floor.  I cut newspaper out and taped the layout above my bed, but couldn't drag Nick away from the football games to hang them up.  But, low and behold, I came home from work yesterday and there they were in all their glory!

Can you say Toronto Bills?

WTH?  Thurman Thomas, Jim, Kelly, Andre Reed & Reuben Brown are all at the game in Toronto.  And they just showed Ralph Wilson at the game.  Think it is only a matter of time. 

Buffalo ... where else would you rather be?

How's My Driving?

Don't you think this world would be a much better place if there was one of these stickers on the back of every car?  Of course, I might be afraid at how many times I get reported!  Although, think I might do worse with a How's My Parking sticker.

Guess I'm not as adaptable as I used to be.

Driving my husband's truck tonight (something I'm not used to doing), all I wanted to do was squirt the windshield while I was driving.  Well, I put my right turn signal on, flashed my high beams at someone and pressed the button to put it in towing mode!  Thought I was going to have to stop at a gas station to clean that windshield, but I finally figured it out.

Hard to believe I fix computers for a living but can't find the wipers button on the steering column.