12.31.2011

It's almost HAPPY New Year, Everybody!

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And here!
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12.30.2011

Susan’s computer decided to work in one more F*ck you, Susan! before the end of the year.

OMG, Susan can’t wait till the husband gets paid and buys her a new laptop.

Can’t wait.

She’s going to throw that 1.5 year old m*therf*cker into the toilet then pee on it.

Until that magical time arrives, let Susan use an entirely different computer and catch you up on all she’s been doing through the holiday season.

Susan looked forward to watching each of her children perform in their school concert, although she had difficulty remembering which instrument her daughter played. Initially she told an interested party that it was the violin. Then she told a different interested party that it was the flute. However, the instrument that her daughter has been practicing and playing for two years is actually the clarinet.

It was much easier for Susan to remember that her son is in the chorus because she loves him more.

Twice that week Susan sat in the high school auditorium stuffed with wretchedly dressed parents. There were sweat pants, mens’ tee shirts, sweatshirts and ball caps a plenty…on the moms.
The women of Susan’s neighborhood now all dress as if they came directly from blacktopping the interstate.

On Christmas morning as is their custom, Susan’s family met at the local diner for breakfast with her little sister’s family, minus one brother in law. Susan lost count of the number of families who wore their pajamas out to eat eggs in public, including one college aged girl who wore fleece footie pajamas.

Alas, there is no longer a dress code in Susan’s neighborhood.

Later, Susan rolled out a twenty pound pan of butternut squash, carmelized onion and spinach lasagna using a recipe that she found in the November issue of Cooking Light. Her little sister and nieces, all good sports, excitedly exclaimed ‘I’ll try it!’

She sobbed real tears as she scraped the remaining 19.75 pounds into the garbage an hour later.

During Susan’s computer black-out period she also met a favorite girlfriend for dinner, smeared moldy chapstick on her lips, failed to reorganize her pantry, planted an amaryllis bulb and stayed home sick one day.

12.19.2011

12.13.2011

After Susan spent an hour on Sunday evening listening to the dreamy and wonderful Nigella, she fell asleep all warm and giddy imagining herself as one of Nigella's guests. Twinkly Christmas lights, bubbly prosecco & cranberry cocktails and impossibly rich gravy swirled through her head all night spinning her round and round until the alarm woke her up Monday morning.

Brrrr, it's cold in Susan's house.

She layed in bed long enough to put her behind schedule then resigned herself to the routine of her morning. She got ready for work, packed up the *brownies she made for the staff, and took her cup of coffee from the husband on the way out the door.

In the car she drove through the grey of her neighborhood, looking at the sky and the trees and the garbage cans and the kids waiting for the bus. She pressed all the buttons on the radio. She wasn't in the mood for music, she wanted to listen to people talking so she stopped at NPR.

At that precise moment Steve Inskeep was beginning an interview on Morning Edition and welcomed Nigella Lawson.
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*Susan made peanut butter and jelly brownies by swirling microwaved peanut butter and raspberry jelly through prepared brownie mix.

12.12.2011

Lest anyone forget, Susan would like to remind you that she is
SMITTEN 
with 
NIGELLA!

12.11.2011

Susan and her daughter enjoyed a lazy weekend by themselves. The daughter finished up her Advent calendar, folding and decoratively numbering 25 little construction paper boxes to be filled with candy. However, in the time it took her to complete this overdue Xmas craft the family had ransacked the candy leaving only a few dark chocolate kisses.

They made some pretty unspectacular gingerbread cookies causing Susan to reconsider going back to this recipe and just keep the lubricating ingredient a secret. Much better was Pam's big linzer cookie.  

Falafel dinner was provided by Kelly's blog. The daughter is now a falafel eater, even opting to use the yogurt sauce over ranch dressing while Susan was impressed with her own substitution of peanut butter for tahini.

Yes, it's obvious that there's nothing much going on at Susan's house, but she doesn't mind. She likes spending a weekend in her stretchy pants doing very little. She knows folks who are currently wrestling with terrible, awful losses, for whom the solace of a boring weekend is light years away.

Susan may even treat herself later on and bust out the ironing board.

12.04.2011

Susan was in the midst of deep cleaning the bathroom when she took a break to have a bowl of cereal.

During this time the son came home, headed for the bathroom and called out 'What's wrong with the bathroom? It's all messed up!'

Obviously Susan's family is so used to the filthy bathroom that they can't recognize when it's being cleaned.

12.02.2011

Susan grabbed this from Patti's blog, go over & say hello.

12.01.2011

HAPPY December, everybody!

Now that Susan's free of the constraints of NaBloPoMo she'd like to jump right in and tell you about the gurgling misery that has become her stomach.

A week of takeout punctuated by wedding food at one end, bridal shower food at the other and Thanksgiving in the middle along with two batches of homemade pumpkin seed candy really f*cked her up. Seeds and nuts are like plutonium to Susan's digestive ability.

Get her some vegetables stat.