merry christmas

merry and blessed christmas to all my friends and family!

we have been eating and enjoying family and eating and watching movies and eating and playing the wii and eating. oh, and drinking tasty bevs. and did i mention eating? it's been a fabulous christmas so far!

we'll post pictures and share more stories at a later date.

happy birthday, hubby

i like this post that baldman's sister posted in honor of his birthday. so i'll just re-post it.

happy birthday, sweety. i love you.

christmas party

on saturday the hubby and i went to a costume christmas party. we had to dress up like our favorite christmas movie characters. baldman went as flick from a christmas story. he wore his coat and a scarf, gloves, and hat. and he constructed a big pole out of christmas wrapping paper empties*. and he pretended to get his tongue stuck on the pole. he was a hit of the party.

i got some amazing polyester pants, a yellow sweater and created a dickey out of a black turtleneck and went as cousin eddie from national lampoon's christmas vacation. i even went so far as to have a little "package" because of that hilarious scene when he and clark are grocery shopping and he's sticking out everywhere.

well, first of all, my costume didn't look exactly like what uncle eddie wore, and i didn't really know anyone at the party. so most people didn't know that i was in costume. so for, like, the first 1/2 hour - 45 minutes i was hanging out not only in costume, but also with a penis! and NO ONE said anything to me about it! not only that, but i could see people checking it out! i felt like such an ass, so i finally went to the bathroom and took it out.

after a while, people caught on to the fact that i was in costume. and eventually i brought up the subject of my "little christmas vacation package." turns out, most people noticed. but they didn't say anything about it! i made a lot of jokes about it and it ended up being a fun time.

there were also 2 other cousin eddies, one other flick, and someone dressed as the leg lamp from a christmas story. come to think of it, most of the people who were dressed up were either santa (sexy, lady santa of course) or from vacation or a christmas story. either we're unimaginative or people of our era all have the same favorite movies.

i stole these shots from someone's facebook page.





*wrapping paper empties are affectionately called "ha-ha's" in the reid family

gringo star plug

my talented cousins make up two of the four band members in gring star. they're amazing and you should check them out live if you've not done so previously. (or buy their album. whatever.)

gringo star was recently approached by tommy hilfiger asking them to put their song all y'all in an ad of theirs. the boys (as we in the family call them) were a little reluctant to "sell out" to advertisement, but when they realized that they could fund the recording of their next album with the profits, they went ahead with it.

check out the ad:


(thanks to my brother for making the copy of this video available.)

we're ready for christmas

i finished all my shopping and put the packages in the mail yesterday (100 bucks, thank you very much). our tree is up and most of the christmas cards have been mailed. soon we'll be setting sail to colder climates to celebrate with family. woot woot!

when we were home in nj for thanksgiving my (just turned) 8 year old niece made us a beautiful picture of a fireplace with stockings hung with care. so we added that to our cozy, christmas living room scene.



mmm, doesn't that just show the warmth of the holiday?

thanksgiving in nj

sorry for the delayed post on this. i finally uploaded pictures onto flickr from our thanksgiving trip to my mom's. we had a great time seeing everyone. we were fortunate to have my sister come down for thanksgiving and then my brother and his girls come down for the weekend. so we got a good visit in and enjoyed eating, running around downtown cape may, and resting.

you can see the pictures i took from our visit here.

week's end treat

this was a tough week in our household so last night the hubby and i decided to treat ourselves to dinner and a movie. unimaginably we'd lived in columbia for 6 1/2 years and had yet to have dinner together at gervais and vine.* i'd been bugging baldman for a while to go and last night was the night!

of course, it did not disappoint. we enjoyed garlic-parmesan fries with spicy aoioli, marinated manchego cheese with thyme and garlic, ensalada de la fresa balsamico (mixed greens with balsamic strawberries, candied almonds and gorgonzola), and the roman pizza (pesto, goat cheese, roasted red peppers and olives with marinara). my mouth is watering just typing this.

after dinner we retired to our couch to watch rudolph the red nosed reindeer online. i'd not seen that probably since i was in elementary school.

the only unfortunate part about the night was that sometime during the movie my throat started hurting and hasn't let up since. i've turned into a little sicky since last night. but at least we were able to enjoy our treat before this came along.

*in the interest of full disclosure, i had been there one time without the hubby for a slow food meeting. but that was still like 2 years ago!

my new favorite food

jerusalem artichokes.

smokey, yet subtle. just like i like my men.

?

seriously though, so good.

last week i made this. then i went to the market this weekend to buy more so i could make this. deeeeelish!

smitten kitchen never steers me wrong

i made this for dinner tonight and it is fantastic. i tweeked it a little based on what i had in the fridge and cut it in 1/3 because i didn't want to spend a gajillion dollars on gruyer and then not like it enough to feed myself 12 times. turns out i couldn't made the whole thing because i really like it!

lady's weekend

the hubby's out of town. i have a six pack of beer in the fridge and publix sushi for dinner. i'm psyched!* i'd be even more psyched if the library didn't close so dog-gone early on a friday night so i could've picked up my reserved dvd of sex in the city season four.** oh well, carrie, samantha, miranda, and charlotte. i'll have to do without you for one night. i'm sure there's something on hulu that i'll enjoy instead.


*by the way, i don't mean this to sound like i'm psyched that my husband is out of town. but in all honesty, as much as i love him and his company, it's just kind nice to have my own agenda for a few days. it'll make me appreciate him that much more when he comes home on sunday.


**i missed the library because i was out shopping. what else is a woman to do when her man's out of town, but shop? those who know me know that that comment was my attempt at sarcasm. i was actually christmas shopping, thank you very much.***


***full disclosure though, i did buy myself a dress at ross.

it's not finished, but...

it's getting closer.





we've still got to paint the trim and touch up the paint around the entire bathroom, hang the towel racks and curtains, and have the grout refilled. but it sure looks good.

and it's great to shower in one's own house. that's an understatement. it's fabulous!

though, let me just take a moment to say that one of the major bright sides of this whole ordeal was experiencing the generosity and kindness of our friends in this community. we had many doors (bathroom doors that is) opened to us and for that we are so so grateful!

maybe i won't get typhoid

it's nice to know that there's a boil water advisory for the area around my office and i was drinking tap water all day. ironically, i never drink the tap water from my office. but today i had to because our water is turned off at home* so i filled my water bottle at work instead. mmmm.


*the fun of home ownership is really thrown up in our faces on weekends like those that just past. not only is our bathroom still not finished but we discovered what we think is a broken water pipe in a wall in our kitchen. good times.

i'm not gonna say i told you so,

but in the last post when i said i didn't think he'd be done by wednesday? well, i was right. the tile still hasn't dried 100% yet, so he's not laid the grout. so we're still bathroomless.

this week in bathroom rennovations

they worked all day saturday and finished up the drywall. so all the sheet rock was in and at least mudded once.





they took the day off on sunday while the spackle dried and baldman and i trudged all over columbia in search of the perfect mirror. which we found here, by the way. but it was too big to fit in the space we needed. so we had to settle on one from home depot which is just okay. i think it'll look nice though.

today he sanded and put another layer of spackling on and laid the tile. we can't go in there because if we step on it the tile will set crooked. so we had to rig up this contraption to keep the cats out.



so you will have to settle for a complete surprise when we take more photos later in the week. he says he'll be done by wednesday. i'm thinking most of it will be done by then, but that it'll be more like thursday before all the little things are completed.

of course, whenever he is finished we'll still have to paint and add all the rest of the "fixin's," like the mirror, the towel bars, shelving, etc....

update to the bathroom rennovations update

i came home this afternoon and there is no more sheet rock on the walls than was there yesterday at this time. all that was done today was spackling and taping the sheet rock that was already up there. he also fixed what he broke on our old toilet so we can use it this weekend. so, that's great; we have a toilet. but i'd really like him to move forward with getting the new stuff in, not fixing the old stuff. i'm thinking he wanted to appease the old lady because he knew someone was not going to be a happy camper after seeing the little progress over the past 2 days. and he's right about that, by the way.

they come back tomorrow at 9 AM.

bathroom rennovations update

so i left you hanging a few weeks ago when i showed you what we'd done to our bathroom.

we managed without electricity in part of our bedroom and our bathroom for a few days. our handyman came and took a look, managed to fix the electricity in our bedroom at least, and gave us another estimate to fix the new mess.

he started this past monday and although we are happy with what he has done so far, it is going REEEEAALY SLOOOOWLYYYY. we're completing day 4 of total construction and loss of shower/sink and day 3 of loss of toilet. yea, that's good times. let's just say we're being creative about our use of facilities. we're holding it sometimes, going to friends' houses other times, staying later at work on a few occasions, using gas station restrooms when we can (and when they're clean), and being creative when we have to. yea, like i said, good times.

check out flickr here for the daily progress. as of tonight we have one full wall with sheet rock. the tub and surround are in. the outer walls have insulation (a first for this house!) and there is sheet rock around the door. we still have tile to be taken out and fully replaced, sheet rock to go around the top of the tub and the outer wall around the window, the toilet and sink to be put in, door and window frames, and sheet rock to be mudded and taped. hmmm, me thinks this week-long job is going to take a bit more than we though. d'ya think?

myrtle beach

myrtle beach this weekend was totally awesome! we got into mb in the late afternoon on friday and we had just enough time to check into the hotel, rest for a minute and then head out to medieval times.



we totally geeked it out big time for this one! and i loved it. the place was only about 1/3 full with spectators, so i think we got a little bit of extra treatment. i even got thrown a red carnation from the black and white night, who we were supposed to be cheering for (though he didn't win. loser.). and, by the way, our nights were totally ethnically diverse. is that usual? one was asian, one was latino, a couple were white and the "mean one" had an eastern european (?) accent of some sort. totally cool. the veggie meal was delicious, by the way; i totally suggest you try it when you go.





so we had an all around good time. totally worth the buy one-get one free price that we paid!

saturday we slept in a bit and then headed out to enjoy the beautiful weather. we started the day by stumbling upon a yummy bagel shop that had bagels which were almost as good as a nyc bagel. and the weather was so warm that if we wanted to, we really could've worn bathing suits and swam in the ocean. but we didn't prepare well enough, having left all that at the hotel. so i just rolled up my jeans and walked through the surf.



we walked along the beach, walked around in the town and looked in shops, and then headed out to brookgreen gardens for their fall harvest. we were totally tired by this point, but managed to walk through almost their entire botanical gardens and zoo. and then walk back from the zoo to the car because we waited for, like, ever for their tram which wasn't coming. in actuality, it probably would've been faster to wait for the tram because we ended up taking a wrong turn and walking a million miles longer than was necessary. but it sure was a beautiful place.





that night we rocked it out with mike ness and social distortion.



the concert was amazing! i've been to rough concerts before, where people are moshing and throwing themselves around. but this group was really beating the pulp out of each other. so we stayed up in the middle level where there was less chance of loosing a kidney. despite the roughness of the crowd, i was very intrigued to notice several children in attendance. there was even one couple who had two young boys (3 and 6 years old, maybe) and they both had mohawks. i loved that! there were 2 opening bands and then social d played for like 1 1/2 hours maybe. the time flew by and when they were done baldman and i were both like, wow that was fast. but when we looked at our watch we realized they'd really been on for a while.

sunday we were totally exhausted. cause we're old. and we can't stay up for rock concerts anymore. and we have trouble standing for 3 hours without getting all creaky and stuff. so we slept in until the absolute last minute and then quickly checked out and made it to church. after church we grabbed a quick bite to eat at a fabulous lebanese restaurant, recommended by a coworker of baldman's. if you're ever heading out of myrtle, check out habibi's, right off 501. they have a fantastic veggie plate and a lot of groceries too. we also picked up awesome feta and black olives which i've been enjoying all week!

thus ends our weekend away. we had to head back earlier on sunday to attend roller derby in columbia, but i'll write more about that at a later time.

you can view the whole flickr set of our vacation photos here. (though i mislabeled brookgreen gardens as brookfield gardens and i'm not changing it 'cause i'm tired.)

my brother's famous?

do you remember the littles? you know, the animated kids' show that used to come on saturday morning cartoons and was about, well, little people? well, my brother had a submission to one of the invention segments at the end of an episode. here's how the bro states it:

"Back in 1984, "The Littles" was a Saturday morning cartoon. The end of each episode featured a small craft, sent in by kids. As I was a genius, I submitted an idea, and they used it on the show! I was even paid $1 by ABC for my idea! Sadly, I never saw the episode when it aired. I had a soccer game that morning. We knew it would be on, and even took a small portable TV with us to the game so we could watch. But, it wasn't mean to be. The show was pre-empted by a news broadcast. Recently, The Littles has been released on DVD. Here's the excerpt from the episode in which my idea was used. My name appears at the end."

i swear that my brother told me one time that he stole that idea from an invention book. bu he denies that so perhaps i made that part up. my older brother and older sister often accuse me of making up some of my memories. but i'm not the one who always insists i remember seeing a horse in our neighbor's basement (but that's for another post someday).

anyways, i totally remember the soccer game where we took time to try to watch for my brother's invention at the end of the show. and i remember how disappointed we were when we didn't see it. i always felt like it was such an injustice. so finally, my friends, justice is served:

http://gallery.mac.com/applescriptguru#100781

roller derby!

Be a hero in the fight against sexual violence! Columbia Quad Squad has joined forces with Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands in the fight to stop sexual assault and abuse. But it takes more than a costume to stop rape. STSM needs YOUR SUPPORT. Columbia Quad Squad selected STSM as its agency of choice for the October 25th Bout with the Carolina Bootleggers. STSM will be there in style with superhero costumes. Roll on out for a great event and for a good cause!

For more information or to purchase tickets: www.columbiaquadsquad.com

more picts from furgiuele wedding

check out my brother's choice pictures from the weekend wedding i gave you a teaser about last monday. there are some really good shots so you should definitely check it out.

if you're really committed, you can check out all 493 pictures here.