I won (again)! TNS was celebrating its fourth anniversary and Michelle offered a cookbook giveaway to her readers. Lo and behold, last night I see on Twitter that the winners were announced and I am one of them!  Woo-hoo!.

Now you may remember that I won another giveaway from TNS a couple of years ago, a gorgeous set of prints, and now check me out: winning again.

So now the hard part, choosing a cookbook.  Here’s the list I have to choose from: http://thursdaynightsmackdown.com/cookbooks/  I’m leaning toward Curry Cuisine since it’s been on my wishlist for two years or so and no one will buy it for me.  But then again there’s The Perfect Scoop, which I’ve always coveted, but I would really like a book of ethnic recipes, like The New Book of Middle Eastern Food… Oh I don’t know. This is a tough one.  Any opinions?  Which book should I choose?

And thanks again to Michelle at TNS, you’re the best. Happy blog birthday,  I can’t wait to visit Sweet Biscuit Barbecue in 2017!

(As a side note before I move on to the show-and-tell, do you have an Amazon wishlist yet? You should. My mom even has one now (hi Mom!) and she can attest to the success of having a wishlist as much as I can. They are awesome for the receiver—because you get the stuff you actually want—and also for the giver—because sometimes I have no freaking idea what to get you for Christmas.  The two awesome things below are gifts that were a direct result of my Amazon wishlist.)

This adorable thing is a BookBook iPhone case. On the outside it looks like a small, leather-bound book (everyone asks about my bible) but on the inside, it’s an iPhone case, ID holder, and it has a small slot where you can stash some cash. It’s been my little purse/wallet since I unwrapped it on Christmas. You can fold the cover over so you can still talk on it, like a phone, but since I put my phone in it I’ve realized that no one actually calls me anymore. I might have gotten three calls in the past almost two weeks. My one teeny tiny little complaint is that there’s no hole for the camera lens so I have to slide it up, out of the case to take a picture.  But otherwise, it’s $60 of pure awesome.

This random collection of images is illustrating the completely magical, amazing piece of technology called an Eye-Fi memory card. This bit of wonderment is a regular-looking SD card for your camera that will pick up the wi-fi signal in your home and automatically download the pictures from your camera to your computer. Seriously. Take a picture and within seconds a window on your computer opens to show that it’s downloading the picture. The setup was quick and easy and so far it’s working like a dream.  You need to be within your assigned wi-fi area to download pics, so if you’re away from home taking shots, just turn the camera back no once you get home, and BAM! The pictures upload automatically.  No cords, no clunky interface, just magic.  You cal also set your Eye-Fi card to automatically upload your pictures to Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr as you take them, but that seems a bit dangerous, so I’ve disabled that handy function for now.

I also asked for and got a food dehydrator, an ironing board cover, and WeatherTech Floor Liners for my car but I’ll spare you the excitement of talking about those things. So what sort of awesomeness did Santa bring you?

1. Make a terrarium.

Big, lofty goal, I know. I keep seeing these gorgeous terrariums (terraria?) online and I really want to give it a try.  I think I can even do it for almost nothing, using the jars and plants I already have around the house. I’m gonna do it.  2012: Year of the Terrarium!

2. Go to Canada.

I have somehow managed to make it nearly 36 years without ever setting foot into our maple-flavored, hockey-loving country to the north. I intend to fix that this year.  The only problem is that Canada is huge and daunting and I have no idea where to go or what to do.  Have you been there?  Please tell me what I absolutely must see and where I must go.

So that’s what I’ll be working on this year, (provided that world doesn’t end). How about you?  Any 2012 goals?

On Christmas Eve, before we left for dinner at my mother-in-laws, I thought it would be nice to have a family portrait in front of the tree.

I set up the tripod, tested the remote, then hopped in next to Luke for a picture.

Only Luke couldn’t get the remote to work for him, so our pictures came out like this.

OK, that’s better, but then the fluffy one was getting antsy.

Oh well… We hope you had a very Merry Christmas and a Christmas Eve as picturesque and ridiculous as this one.

I was doing so well there for a while, wasn’t I?  Let’s just hope that four days away from Christmas, everyone is too busy to even notice that I haven’t updated.

So far in December we’ve seen three birthday parties, one family Christmas party, last night’s Christmas drinks with awesome friends, and one nasty (but thankfully brief) Christmas cold. Up next we have the nonstop eating and present-exchanging fest that is this weekend.  So yes, it’s that time of year.  The time when we’re so incredibly busy that we’re neglecting our blogs, but we’re doing it for good reasons.  Friend-visiting and birthday-celebrating reasons.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of this busy week and a very Merry Christmas.  I might check in next week, but if not, have a Happy New Year, too.

Hey, would someone remind me next week to get started on my 2011 in pictures slideshow?

I have a question for you.  Are you a person who sends out photo Christmas cards of your family? Do you sign them? I’m just curious…

I managed to get the bulk of my Christmas shopping finished in October and November, leaving me some free time this month to finally tackle some projects that have been on my Make board for quite a while. One of them was an idea I had for a chandelier-type, mobile-like paper thing to hang over the dining room table.  I loved these colorful versions, but I wanted translucent white and I wanted it to be round.  Kind of like this one.

I had a giant stack of translucent vellum left from my days as a paper hoarder, so I got to work cutting out many, many circles.  I used two different sizes of circles, one I traced from a 1-ounce plastic container and the other I traced the lid to a sugar bowl. Fancy!  Then, with opalescent white thread, I ran the circles through the sewing machine in random patterns of five large and three small (to keep the length of the strings consistent).  I tied all of the finished those strings onto a brass hoop from Jo-Ann’s that I painted silver, and…voila!

I love it, and I can’t believe I finally made it after thinking about it for so long. Next up, I’m brainstorming ways to hang a solar light inside it so I can get it to glow without stringing lights in it.

(This is assuming that you’ve seen the movies at least once before. If you haven’t yet, please stop everything you’re doing and go watch them now, Miracle on 34th Street is even available on Netflix streaming so you have no excuse.)

OK, so Miracle on 34th Street… the basic premise is that a nice, old man named Kris Kringle believes he’s Santa Claus (because he IS!) and has to go to court to keep from being committed because of this belief. His friend and lawyer, Mr. Gailey is charged with defending Kris and proving that he isn’t insane, despite the fact that he believes himself to be Santa Claus.

Now here is my issue: Mr. Gailey admits to having no idea how to prove that Kris isn’t insane, yet when Mr. Sawyer, the psychologist who caused this hearing to be held in the first place, offers to drop all of the charges, let Kris go, and pretend it never happened, Mr. Gailey chooses to go on with the hearing anyhow. WHY? This makes no sense. Of course it makes for a great story, but still, I have an easier time believing that reindeer can fly than believing that a lawyer with no defense plan would choose to go to court rather than have his case dismissed.  The case he isn’t being paid for.

BAH HUMBUG!

And then we have It’s a Wonderful Life. I love this movie. I think I would have had a big crush on Jimmy Stewart if I’d been a teenager in the 40s. But there are a few things that gnaw at me every time I listen to the story. The basic premise of It’s a Wonderful Life is that a man named George Bailey is at his desperate wit’s end on Christmas Eve and decides that everyone’s lives would be better if he were dead. His guardian angel, Clarence, is sent to help him see that his life is worth living, which he does by showing George what everyone’s life would have been like if George had never been born.

So here’s my problem… in one scene George mentions how much money he makes at his job: $45 per week.  That equals $2,340 per year. Fine, so then in the scene where George has just gotten married and is heading away on his honeymoon, he and his new wife, Mary, have $2,000 in cash on them for their trip. Where did this come from?  This is nearly a year’s salary, it would be like a young couple taking off today with $25,000 in cash for their honeymoon. Does that really happen? Did I just invite the wrong guests to my wedding?

My other issue is with the book Tom Sawyer, which Clarence, the guardian angel, has in his pocket. Brace yourselves, this one involves some math.  Clarence tells George that he is 293 years old—I’m not sure if that is his living years plus his angel years, or just his years as an angel, but let’s say conservatively that it’s living plus angel years.  Maybe he died when he was 70, that means that he died 223 years before he met George.  I’m not certain of the exact year the movie was supposed to be set in, but it was released in 1947, so let’s go with that.  That would mean that Clarence died in 1724.  Tom Sawyer was published in 1876.  How would Clarence—in heaven—get a copy of Tom Sawyer?  Are there bookstores in heaven? I hope so. At one point he comments on how he’s sorry he isn’t wearing something more current, he’s wearing the clothes he died in. Following that logic, he must have carried in his pockets whatever he had on him when he died, right?

BAH HUMBUG!

I know I’m supposed to suspend logic when I watch movies, especially black and white movies from the 40s, but for some reason I can’t seem to let those little things go. Maybe I need a candy cane. Don’t worry, though.  It won’t ever stop me from loving them. Now you just wait for what I have to say about Frosty the Snowman…

I knew I’d like an iPhone but I didn’t realize how much I’d LOVE it.  I was jealous from the beginning that AT&T and then Verizon had the iPhone and I was a loyal Sprint customer left to carry around both a phone and an iPod while pining over all the pretty iPhones everyone else had. Until this past October, that is! That’s when the the iPhone came to Sprint and I got up early and waited in line like all of the other fools to get my little mitts on a beautiful iPhone 4S.

I was worried, at first, and I’m still not entirely comfortable with paying extra for the data plan.  That’s something I never had with my old phone, but the longer I use my iPhone and the more handy-dandy it proves itself to be, the easier it is to pay that bill.

When the world ended for that brief while in October (the SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011 and ensuing statewide power outage) my iPhone proved itself to be worth every penny as I checked in hourly on the CL&P site for restoration updates. I streamed podcasts through one of my new apps so I could listen to something other than my own frustrated breathing while the power was out. It allowed me to vent on Twitter and Facebook and play Words With Friends to take my mind off the cold.  It was my connection to the outside world and I would have paid a million dollars for it. (I just about did when my screwed-up-six-ways-to-Sunday bill came in for October, but we won’t talk about that.)

Love, pure love. And I haven’t even gotten to Siri. She’s is my personal assistant who responds to voice commands to send texts and add items to my calendar.  She looks up things online and tells me how many centimeters in an inch, if I ask.  She also scolds me when someone new learns about her and inevitably wants to sexually harass her. (Just so you know, if you tell her that you’re horny, she gives you a list of adult stores and strip joints nearby, but if you ask her what she’s wearing, she says “LISA, I think you have the wrong assistant.”)

The GPS gave us instant directions on the go one day when we were in the woods of Coventry trying to find a place to launch the boat. The camera is amazing—better than my actual point-and-shoot camera from only a couple of years ago. The sound is so incredible that you don’t even need speakers. I can’t say enough about it.

There is a problem when you love a delicate piece of technology as much as I love my iPhone, though.  I have repeated nightmares about losing it and having it stolen. Last weekend my heart skipped several beats when I missed the pocket of my purse and dropped it right onto the concrete floor (phone was fine, case broke, THANK GOODNESS). So a little iPhone anxiety for a whole lot of convenience and awesomeness. I’d say it’s totally worth it.

Source: Uploaded by user via Nikki on Pinterest