Pop tarts..

Now in the name eating healthier I have vetoed (ok, negotiated against - I have no actual veto powers) most of the snacks that come in to the house. I've mentioned that I have little self-control so if junk food isn't in the premises, then I am not tempted.  Of course I am the "bad guy"when we are doing the shopping.  My husband, like a little kid, tries to slide in to the basket too many snacks when I am not looking, and I have to ditch them before we make it to the check-out.

Pop tarts are one of the snacks that my husband loves that don't make it in to the house too often, but because we have been on a good streak lately and he has been particularly good (didn't eat nearly half the holloween candy he did the year before or hasn't come home with multiple or extra large bags of chips) I thought I would suprise him. 

We are lucky to have little things to make us happy; and I like to make my honey happy.  

Time off - "staycation"

We have been working thru the year without much time off.  The honey took a few days to go camping with my father-in-law last month and (at the last minute) I was able to manage taking off most of this Thanksgiving holiday week. It has turned out that the few days we managed to take off have been sporadic and ended being "separate mini-vacations". What ever works I say; just recharge.

 Last night I stayed up finishing reading the last sci-fi novel my honey suggested for me and though I probably bothered him with my bedside lamp on thru the early hours of the morning I am grateful he let me indulge.  It is much nicer to read in bed next to my personal heater (the honey) keeping my usually cold feet warm.

It has been half a day so far of my "staycation", but I've already enjoyed myself more than I have these past couple of weekends.  Here is another pleasure I've indulged on; a guilty pleasure.

Holiday cleaning...

We are hosting Thanksgiving again this year.  I am excited about it. It is my favorite holiday. I like the cooking, though I hate the cleaning prior to hosting (anything). 

This weekend we had only one major task for ourselves: to steam clean the carpets.  We split the work.  The honey picked up and returned the rental, vacuumed, and moved the necessary furniture.  I ran the machine myself in order to not drive either one of us crazy.  Mainly by not fussing at my honey over not doing it right.  I am a pain about such things and rather do it myself instead of inflicting pain. 

It seems to work for us.  Get out of the way babe.  I'll call you when I Need you. So today I sit in my living room feeling very proud.  We tackled the carpets and the bathrooms ahead of our usual frantic leave it to the last minute "schedule". 

I know my in-laws could care less about how the house looks, but I was raised the old fashioned way.  Present a tidy house for company, especially for the parents!  This will be our 4th Thanksgiving in a row that we host and I am feeling pretty relaxed about it.  Especially because somehow I managed to schedule vacation and am working only one day this week. 

Things seem to be working out perfect!  I even found a great table cloth online to fit our extra large dinning table and it arrived a week ahead of schedule.  After the last three stressful months at work taking time off for the holiday, despite taking on cooking the extra large meal, will be extremely relaxing.

Special skills..

How do people acquire special skills that are actually useful in life for example; how to pick a lock?

As I sat out side my house this morning waiting to be rescued a million thoughts crossed my mind.  Funny thing is that the subject has come up often over the last year, the last time after watching yet again the movie "The Italian Job". 

I was in a hurry this morning (like always) running "on time" for a change but wanting to make sure to stay on schedule when I walked in to the kitchen and did a quick scan.  I spotted my keys hanging from a hook and my travel coffee mug right across them on the counter.  I reached for both paying closer attention to my coffee, it being hot!  I never thought I would grab the wrong key ring hanging off the wall.  Of course one could have easily bet that if I was going to grab the wrong keys it would be the least useful keys. 

There are at least two key rings we own with keys to who knows where that I just can't part with.  In them are probably copies of my mother's home which she's re keyed at least twice in the past years, a copy to my best friend's home which I stopped using after she remarried 10 years ago (again she is divorced may be I'll acquire another key), a copy to the karate studio I used to work out in  which has been closed for 5 years (being close friends with the head instructor/owner and living down the block from it earned me the emergency key), a copy to my old CLUB (remember those steering wheel bars?), and at least another half dozen keys that belong to my husband but does not remember either what they are for.

I opened the front door automatically locking the bottom lock before I pulled the door shut behind me.  When I turned around to lock the top lock I realized I was holding a strange set of keys! "Ahh man!!!" . Yep, that was my fortune this morning.

Anyways, I waited for about an hour and made myself useful after eating my breakfast which I usually eat on my commute.  I brought in the trash can after the garbage truck made it's pickups on our block.  I pulled weeds from the flower beds (I really need to spend some time gardening) and exchanged texts with my honey which could not get away from work to rescue me (a 45 minute drive one way). 

Perhaps this incident will push me in to looking in to learning those "special skills" I've always wanted to learn how to hot wire a car & knife throwing.  What else would be handy??  I should definitely consult my brother.  Perhaps he can help with the picking a lock and hot wiring (he's a cop), or may be my stand up comic/locksmith/handyman/shady "acquaintance".  If HE didn't live in San Antonio (45 miles away) I would have definitely called him for help.

I think my first priority should be to make an extra copy of my house key and acquire one of those "realtor" lock/safe for the next emergency.

Not to preach but, GO VOTE

Today is election day and I am sure you are sick and tired of all the advertising from the different candidates (presidential and other), bashing each other, falsely accusing, pretending they've never done wrong themselves or like my grandma would say "no tienen cola que le pisen". (Translates: "Pretending -They have no tail to be stepped on")

I know it can be disappointing, but the very least one can do is vote for the lesser of two evils. One unattainable wish I have is that a special group of people would just fall off the end of the earth! That group being the ones who love to bitch and moan about all that is wrong but never get off their collective asses and exercise their right to vote! 

If you want to comment positively or negatively after tonight's election results please take the time to cast your vote!  Polls close at 7 p.m.

So after tonight we can all go back to feuding over who is the better football/basketball/pick a sport team and act civilized! 

Celebrating Dia de los Muertos

The home life has been a bit hectic these past few weeks, and my intentions of writing a proper blog post for this holiday vanished before my eyes.  In a lame attempt to make up for my lack of time I offer a view of last year's post and a great site I found (a little late) answering a few questions on the history of Sugar Skulls and how to make them.