A Little Christmas Tip

I can't stress enough how much Wish Lists rock. I know there are people out there who believe they take the mystery and spontaneity out of gift giving. This is true, but consider that sometimes perusing someones gift list can at least tell you what kinds of things someone is interested in, and possibly help with sizes, even if you don't actually buy directly from the list.

Personally I love the Amazon Wish List feature. Not only does Amazon have a great selection of so many things, but if you can make your list accessible to anyone who knows your email address, and even send people the link to it if you feel they could really use some guidance. You can also make wish lists for your kids if you have them, avoiding that annual ritual of having to read the letter he/she/they wrote to Santa to every aunt and cousin in the lower 48.

In addition to putting things on the list that you can get from Amazon, you can also download a button to your computer that will add an item from any website from which you happen to find something you want. It's called the Universal Wish List and you can get it here.

So, please: If you are the slightest bit difficult to buy for, and there are tons of things you or your kids want, or there's any chance I'll get you in a Secret Santa pool: Make a wish list!!

My Sushi

...is very pretty tonight. Just wanted to share.

Conversations With My Son

Me: Please don't blow spit bubbles.

Him: Why not?

Me: It's gross.

Him: But I only blow spit bubbles because I can't blow booger bubbles.

Me: (gags)

A New Era Dawns...

A lot has happened for me over the last few months. A lot will hopefully be happening over the next few. And if you're reading this, I'll be sharing it with you from wherever I go! That's all I can say for now... Meanwhile, please enjoy this picture of my cat playing in our hamster aquarium. Yeah, I know...

My Lost Party - Let Me Show You It

As soon as the date was announced for the premiere episode for Lost Season 5 I began planning my Lost Party. My original plan was to have people over for the actual airing, but my wise friend Gerry suggested we should watch that in our own homes, undistracted and uninterrupted. Then we could get together to rewatch it after having time to stew on all the theories that arose. It was a great idea! The conversation, debates and laughs were in abundance and we all had a great time. What follows are pictures of what I did. Any of these pictures can be enlarged if you click on it, if you'd like to see more detail.

The Party Decorations:

Of course, the obligatory palm trees...

But this one has a little Hurley hanging out underneath, as drawn by my 5 yr old son.

I put a generic tropical themed tablecloth on the table and thought it would be cute to add a little extra Lost touch...

...that led to an idea to add Lost quotes all over the plain white area in the middle of the tablecloth. I wish I had thought of this earlier; then it would have been completely filled. More on the jars you see there in the food section.

The Party Food:

This is the sign I made to hang over the "Hurley Buffet." The drawing of Hurley in the van was drawn by James Boudreaux II and I found it at his site, The Lost Boys Project, where he has lots of great comics based on the Lost characters.

Hurley's Island Buffet:
"Where if you eat more comfort food,
You won't go around shooting people!"

Here's a closer look at the jars from earlier. For some unknown reason I did not get a shot of the jar of Dharma Ranch Dip and the veggie platter. Rest assured, it looked awesome.

The table had two platters on it. The top has mangoes and papayas, for obvious reasons and the bottom has pepperoni and cheese in homage to Cheech's sandwich in "The Lie". Too bad my budget didn't allow for caviar or we so would have had those sandwiches, even if I had to guilt my guests into trying a bite.

Tower of Goodies!

What's on it?

Ho-Ho's (watch out for dead rock stars!), Dharmalars,
Chocolate Cream Cookies

Next to the Tower of Goodies was a crock pot full of Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack Breaded Baked Chicken Wings with homemade blue cheese dressing. They were awesome, dude.

The Frozen Donkey Wheel:

A lime margarita-style blender drink. The lime is cut to look like it has spokes coming out of it. And it was all kinds of yummy. Notice the Connect 4 pieces surrounding the drink. Somehow I also forgot to get a picture of the game as well.

Party Favors:

I made Dharma Fish Biscuits... really just sugar cookies with cookie icing.

After I wrote "DHARMA" on them and put them in bags they looked like this. I also gave lil' Dharma polar bears. How cute are they?

I had a lot of fun doing this and hope to do it again after the season finale. Off to find a recipe idea for a Flaming Frogurt...

Happy Lost Day!!

This is the story of Dave, who has never seen Lost. His friend Matt watches the show, and assures him that not only is it the best show ever, but that he will not be able to just start watching it. Dave decides to catch up on all 4 seasons by watching them straight through, no breaks. Most major WTF moments are mentioned so consider this a SPOILER zone.



From AnimosityPierre.com

Kinda Sorta Live Blogging My Jury Duty Pt. 7

The rest of the evening was nothing to thrilling. My husband and I enjoyed some time alone in town together, some beers and a half dozen raw oysters each. We came home and relieved my sister-in-law from her duty and had dinner at home, even though she said we could stay out and have dinner in a big persons restaurant for a change if we wanted to. But it had been a long day for both of us and we were eager to be home.

So that was my day. I hope it wasn’t too boring. Since I posted it as if I had really been live blogging it will appear backwards, but I don't know how to fix that. All I can suggest is scrolling down to the first post and reading up. And yeah, I know that technically speaking, because the posts did not go up as the events happened this is not live blogging, it’s journaling. Also, I know it’s way too wordy to be live blogging. I’m considering it practice for another time. And it was fun.

The day after: My son does in fact have conjunctivitis. He is home today and possibly tomorrow, which kind of sucks because he’s not sick, he’s full of energy but he’s still contagious so he can’t go to school. And he left his boots at school so we’re stuck inside. I won’t be live blogging this, as you can probably guess why.