Update after the gripy whiny post

So yesterday after crying and moaning, I called the closest

and they had the

in stock! One left in the store! On the CLEARANCE rack!

Woo hoo!

They put it on hold at the customer service desk. Hubby went to the store after work, found it, bought it, and brought it home.

Now all I have to do to get my money back for the late shipping one (twice as much online as in the store), is to refuse the delivery when it arrives.

First, though, I will make sure the one from the store works.

Ah, relief! Christmas is saved!

(And no, my daughter has never tasted a margarita. She just wants to make colorful slushies.)

Gripe. Whine. Sigh.

My older daughter asked for this for Christmas from the man in the red suit:



Since I couldn't bring myself to buy my seven-year-old a margarita machine, I found this:



and ordered it from this website:

because they were the only ones that had it in stock.

The order was placed on 12/15/07. The order confirmation stated "Expected Delivery Date: 12/20/07."

HOWEVER, they did not ship until 12/19/07.


Today, the shipper:


tells me this:

"Tracking Detail

Your package is on time with a scheduled delivery date of 12/27/2007."

So I called:

And got off the phone with a headache after dealing with a complete be-otch who demanded to know what I expected her to do since the package was now in the hands of the shipper and they couldn't expedite shipping at this point.

@#$% ^$#%$!

Now, I have to go to:

in person to try to find it!

Sigh!

Thrifting, crafting and gifting

Today, my dear hubby took the kids to his parents' house and I stayed home to work on Christmas. This year, I am staying out of the mall and giving from the heart -- handmade gifts for most of the family.

I got up early this morning to meet my good friend Michelle at Goodwill for 1/2 price Saturday. I found some awesome stuff... including decent amounts of fabric for several projects and cute, sassy t-shirts for making tote bags (thanks to Marie for the inspiration). I came home with a big ol' blue IKEA bag full of stuff for only $22. Gotta LOVE it!

I spent my entire afternoon and evening at the sewing machine (just stopping long enough to eat). Put music on and sewed sewed sewed. The finished products? Six aprons finished aprons, plus cute matching gift bags that stitched up quickly from the scraps. Check 'em out.

Three aprons.

Detail of first three aprons. Three more aprons. Detail of three more aprons.

Finished gifts in their little bags.

Seven

I had to beg for a tag on this meme. I don't usually do these (the last one is still in my draft folder from months ago), but this one immediately made me crave writing a response. Here goes:

The Rules are as follows:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Doulala placated me with the tag, but I had to go to Brooke's blog to get the rules. Not that I mind, it's a great timewaster to discover new blogs by backtracking.

My 7 Random Things:

1. I was a debutante. Yes, I joined that ultra-snooty, coming-of-age ritual usually carefully limited to the country club set. My mom has always been good at denying hiding how poor we were. One of her ways was to socialize much higher than we could afford, yet somehow she managed to scrape together the entry fee, have my enormous white dress made, pay for the portraits and buy the tickets to the formal Debutante Ball where I was presented along with 21 other 18-year-old girls. I think that was my last act of giving in to my mother's wishes.


2. I went through a punk phase. My mom hated it. No wonder she was so eager to get me into the Debutante program. It was probably either that or finishing school.


3. I entered two beauty pageants. Won the "Miss Congeniality" award at both. The underlying meaning of that prize is "Here's something we can give to the one person who sucked at all the other pageant elements so that everyone goes home with a trophy." Can you tell my mom was desperate to live vicariously through me?

4. I had extreme stage fright until I was 25. So how in the heck did I manage to get through pageants and presentations? I really don't know how, but I do remember flubbing all of my speaking parts and not being able to see the audience because my eyes were watering from terror. I blew every oral report and speech class from elementary school through college. My knees would knock, my voice would fall to a whisper and I would cry. Every time, I would cry. Finally, I just decided I was over it. When my college roommate and I started a magazine after graduation, I got up to speak at a press conference, spoke clearly and confidently into a microphone for the first time, and haven't had a problem with public speaking since.

5. I identify myself as a 5 on the Enneagram Personality chart.

6. While I have always considered myself a very accepting person, I have very little patience or tolerance for anyone wallowing in self-pity. I seem to have lost my empathy for their emotional struggles. I tend to react with a "fix it and get over it" attitude, but I try not to let that show. I apologize if it did.

7. I have a terrible memory. Some things stick, some things don't. I have worked on it, improved it in some areas, found it getting worse in others, and am overall perplexed by how random my recall can be. If you ever remind me of something that you told me, please don't be offended if I have forgotten!

Now I tag Heather and Michelle B, because they are the only other two bloggers I know that I don't think have done this meme.

"Second breakfast? Elevenses?"

I must be a hobbit.

I would eat breakfast three times a day if I could. Then I would eat the rest of the regular meals, because I couldn't give up lunchdinnerbedtimesnack either.

I must realllllly be pregnant.

Now I don't have to cook breakfast all day long to enjoy it. I can just pull up this blog: http://www.simplybreakfast.blogspot.com/ . Wow, the pictures are so good that my cravings are practically satisfied, and with fewer calories too.

I actually made myself oatmeal twice this week, motivated just by seeing it on her table.

(Oh, and I watched Waitress today... now I want to bake some pies. Note to self: buy pumpkin.)

The Tooth Fairy Must Be Plotting Against Me

E. lost another tooth today.

Yes, another. And no, a new one did not magically appear in its place (one can hope, can't they?).

That makes three missing teeth, right in the front, two on top and a new vacant space on the bottom, with at least another one to go before the bottom pair can grow in. I have these horrifying thoughts that soon I will have to chew her food for her, like a mother wolf for her cub. I may resort to putting her dinner in the blender, or make her live off yogurt and bananas.

The dentist that examined her last week commented that he expects her bottom teeth to come in first, and later the top teeth, one of which has been missing since she was 16 months old. He was also shocked to see that her six-year molars have emerged. Already. She is 4 1/2. Just four-and-a-half.

E. also needs a major cavity repaired, which will require sedation and a stainless steel cap on a baby molar. I asked when that tooth would naturally fall out and be replaced. The dentist quickly replied, "Those molars come in at age 9." Then he thought for a moment, and said, "Although, on her, it could be as early as seven."

This kid's teeth are on overdrive, and now I find out that my husband went through a similar rush to get his permanent teeth. At least there is an explanation for it--genetics. I also have a feeling that there is an explanation for why all of a sudden she has four cavities, when earlier this year she had none. You see, she only just weaned a couple of months prior to the previous dental appointment. It is a little solace to me that maybe the amazing powers of mama-milk protected her teeth until then, and now without that protection her teeth are finally showing a similar vulnerability to nasty bacteria that the rest of us have.

At least she doesn't have the fear of dental work that her sister and I have. The tooth fairy must be sympathetic to her after all.

(Oh, and please don't ask her if she all she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth. She is so used to living without them she couldn't care less. All she wants for Christmas is a Care Bear.)

The Most Awesomest Pumpkin Pie!

Here's the recipe for my pumpkin pie that was soooo good, I made four of them in the last month, just because. Well, it was Thanksgiving, and we did celebrate with three, yes three, dinners, but I would make this pie any month of the year now. I just finished the last bite of the last pie last night, and I am already itching to make another one.

I follow the basic recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (my faaaaaaavorite cookbook, everything comes out good from that book). You know, classic pumpkin pie -- with pre-baked crust, eggs, milk, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, sugar. BUT, and this is the key here, I substituted Silk Pumpkin Spice Soy Milk for the milk ingredient. OH MY GOODNESS... delicious, moist, smooth pie that made me happy happy happy. I used a vegan frozen crust from Whole Foods, and voila! Finally a pumpkin pie that is dairy-free and easy on the tummy. I LOVE IT!

I must make another batch before the seasonal soy milk disappears from the shelves. I might just make ten pies and freeze them, one for each coming month of the year until the Silk is available again!

Procrastinating

I've had lots of thoughts on stuff to post on my blog... photos of craft items I've made recently, an update on the pregnancy, pictures from the ultrasound, the recipe for the most awesomest pumpkin pie I've ever made. But today I just have to put up a little ticker in the sidebar of my homepage. I saw it one someone else's blog and had to have it for mine. :)

More posts later. I promise.