my brain has been swirling with thoughts that i keep thinking, “I should put that on my blog!”

So this might be a little scattered.

LET’S JUST GET THE POOP OUT OF THE WAY RIGHT OFF THE BAT

We have had many a day when we are lying in bed all groggy and half a wake Saturday morning and we hear Jocelyn’s little holler, “Moooooommmmy!!! I’m pooooooooopy! I took off my diiiiiiaaaaaaaaper!”

Nothing will get you out of bed like that sort of wake up call. We are still haunted, HAUNTED I SAY, by Ethan’s Excrement Extravaganza (we just refer to it as E cubed) when we walked into Ethan’s room and were accosted by the sight and smell of a poop-smeared room. Walls, carpet, bedding, even INSIDE THE DRESSER DRAWERS, people. It was awful beyond the imagination.

So while in the back of our mind, we know that REALLY, the worst is behind us, still those poopy words shore will spring you into action!

It wasn’t that bad. (I score “stripping the bed and tossing everything in the wash” as “not that bad.” you have to look at things comparatively, people.)

TUUUUUURKEY

We have had a succession of kind of laid back thanksgivings. Just us. Just our little family. Usually, I make way too much food and no one under age 30 eats anything except pie and bread, which can be exceedingly frustrating for the chef.

James handled the turkey this year, and while we had a little moment of fearing it was overdone, it was perfect, as usual. (Brining is the way to go, people. Let’s BRINE THE CHILDREN.)? I only made some dressing, and the thanksgiving must, Company Carrots.* Last year, I don’t remember what I made, but it was a hairy sort of day and I remember being sort of cross and tired all day. This year = much more laid back. Also, I’m over the dressing I usually make. It was just OK, and I didn’t even save any for leftovers. Next year it’ll be something new. Dessert didn’t consist of pie. It consisted of chocolate mousse torte cake. And it was gooooooood.

I had to work Friday, which wasn’t so bad. It was nice to sail down the highway to work with no traffic whatsoever. It was shocking to look at the mall and see the parking lot FULL at 8am. I stopped at McDonalds that was near the Microcenter, and it was stuffed full of people. I went to work and it was blissfully quiet and I got a ton of work done. I took a break and did some crappy blurry camera phone pictures of myself with my new haircut/dye job, so I’ll have to post those sometime.

HAIRCUT? DYE JOB? WHAT’S THIS?

So I decided to go blonde for the winter. I walked into the salon Wednesday night, sat down, and said, “I’d like to go blonde. I realize this is hard with red hair, but I really don’t want to walk out of here as a strawberry blonde.”

I walked out with strawberry blonde hair, and a haircut that I have to describe as Melissa would say, made me look like a mushroom.

I was quite happy with the color, actually, but the haircut I got fixed on Friday. It’s all a bit shorter than I would like, but really, I’m easy. It’s hair. It grows back. You don’t like it? Give it time, and try again. It may be a bit more strawberry than I’d like, but I can fix that in January.

I had a bit of a dilemma in the spring when I dyed it red. See, I have been dying my hair red since high school. Then through sheer force of will, I managed to NOT dye it for a while. Long enough that it grew out my natural color and there was no more red. So going back to red was a bit of a struggle in the amy brain, but as soon as I got back to the, “what the hell are you freaking out about, IT’S HAIR IT GROWS BACK JUST DO IT ALREADY” then i was fine. and i gotta say, i love the red hair, i just thought blonde would be fun for a while.

OH MY GOD LIKE WE REALLY DIDN’T WANT TO KNOW THAT MUCH ABOUT YOUR HAIR

Ok, then I’ll talk about Jocelyn’s! I sat down with her today and french braided her hair. Of course, I had to put Dora on in order for her to hold still long enough, but it was so much fun. Like having my own little barbie doll to play hair with. It was really too short to stay in, and so we took it out after 5 minutes before it just fell out, but it was such fun. She is such a sweetheart. She is doing and saying so many intolerably cute things every day. She just kills me with all the cute.

LET’S GET TO THE CHRISTMAS STUFF ALREADY

So Ethan has been anxiously counting down to the christmas holiday since before halloween. It seems like as SOON as Thanksgiving was over, he was like, “Next is Christmas, RIGHT???” We told him yes, and Saturday found us digging out our Christmas decorations, and going tree shopping. Yes, the tree has been purchased and it is up and decorated. Christmas stockings are hung. And taken down, and carried around and rehung, and pointed out, and described, and taken down and put on little feet, and then rehung again.

Now we just need to get all these boxes outta here. and the gourds. Sorry gourds, you are no longer seasonably appropriate. You must go. Plus, you were starting to get a little wrinkly, so into the compost bin you go. If you’ll fit.

I HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW

I actually had to work a bit this weekend too, but working from the comfort of your couch while watching Gilmore Girls off your Tivo and Season 1 Battlestar Galactica (we’re done now, and WOW, what a finale. Gotta get Season 2 SOON!) and getting up early and actually putting on CLOTHES and driving into the office… that will suck.

BUT AT LEAST THINGS WILL BE CLEAN WHEN I COME HOME

because we managed to get a lot of stuff cleaned up around here this weekend. half of our garage had been littered with bikes, wagons, … and other junk that i can’t picture now that it’s all cleaned up, which means MY CAR IS ACTUALLY HOUSED IN THE GARAGE! YAY ME! this is especially good because Friday has raine with a chance of SNOW SNOW SNOW! so it’ll be nice to park in the garage and not have to worry about frost/snow on the car.

We also cycled through quite a bit of laundry. I knew you wanted to know ALL about it.

I NEED TO BRAIN-VOMIT MORE OFTEN

Because if i get it all out more regularly, then I don’t make these ridiculously long posts with lots of nonsense in them. I’ll try to do better.

ONE LAST THING

Last week, I tried to get the sitter for the weekend (not this last weekend, but the week before) and the sitter left a message at the speed of light and I just took it to mean that she could not make it. So I called and told her I didn’t quite understand her message, but I was going to assume she was busy.

BUT SHE WASN’T! SHE WASN’T! SHE WAS AVAILABLE! And let me tell you, when you THINK you can’t go out, and then you CAN, it’s almost better than chocolate and peanut butter after lots of sex (almost).

We decided to hurry and try to finish up the christmas shopping before a movie. Then we were starving so we stopped at California Tortilla, got stuff to go, and snuck it into the new Bond movie (it was good, despite the blonde Bond. You wouldn’t think I would be prejudiced, having decided to go blonde myself, but sadly, I am, and it’s a hard one to get over, but it was still good). I still want to go see Stranger than Fiction. Afterward we went to Sweetwater Tavern and shared a flourless chocolate waffle while just wallowing in our kidlessness for just a FEW MINUTES LONGER.. Ahh. heaven.

OK THIS IS THE LAST THING

This friday: James’ company holiday party.

Next THURSDAY (can we say “cheap?”): my company holiday party.

All I can say is, better have open bar.

A new suit was purchased for James today, and I purchased some new duds last Friday (yes, I braved the crowds on my way home, and it wasn’t too bad). Note for next year: take some dance classes before the holiday parties, so we have something to do and won’t get bored and just wnat to go home and watch tv.

I hope they’ll be fun.

THE END.

– amy knows december isn’t til next week, but she put up the new banner anyway.

* When me and my siblings were little, company carrots was our very favorite dish at thanksgiving. My mom would tell us she would make however many carrots we would peel, and we would peel 2-3 5lb bags at least. I’m 32 now, and it’s still my favorite. Very simple, too. Yum.