The longest drive home.

Wednesday morning we were organized enough to be on the road by 5 a.m. We were making really good time until we hit traffic in DC. Somewhere between DC and Fredericksburg, my alternator decided it had had enough. About 5 minutes away from Donald's grandparents' house, my battery decided that it was also exhausted, and kicked the bucket. So we waited for a tow, went to the mechanic that the Willis family uses, got the alternator and the battery replaced, and were on our merry way about 4 hours later. So we get back on the highway and 3 exits down, the new alternator decides it doesn't like my car and, you guessed it, no power in the car. Again. So we (barely) made it to the end of the exit ramp and sat and waited for a tow again. Donald's grandfather came to the rescue and gave us a ride and a place to stay, and made sure the car was seen to first thing the next morning. You'll be glad to know that the third time was, in fact, the charm, and we left Thursday morning and made it all the way back to Charlotte. Adventures galore!

While we were back in CT, we visited my lovely friend Lexi, who lives in Winsted. For those of you who don't know about Winsted, it's one of those places where you don't want to drink the water. We pulled up outside her apartment building and parked behind a car that had the following bumper sticker:

Nothing says "Welcome to Connecticut" like a little knowledge from Hitler.  Can you hear the banjos?

This time we drove 95 to 85. The split happens in Richmond, VA. Here's a peek at some quality signage.

What this sign is telling me is that if you continue down 95 for a short while, after you pass Rocky Mount, NC, you'll hit Miami. While you will eventually hit Miami, I can think of about 10 other major cities they could have listed on that sign. How misleading.

This I just had to take a picture of because really, ew.

Again, ew. Not sure what else I can say here.

Once we got home we decided it was time to really organize and put crap away that has just been sitting in boxes. The first step was to hang up clothes and organize our closet. I got all my dresses and nice clothes hung up, and all my dresser drawers arranged. Then came the beast.

How I ended up with so many pairs of shoes, I honestly can't say. But finding room for all of them was a real challenge, let me tell you. This picture also doesn't include my two pairs of sneakers or any of my flip flops. Hi, my name is Rose and I have a problem...

Merry Christmas :)

Wednesday we made the drive back up to CT for Christmas. The traffic wasn't bad, we made it in about 12 hours and passed out when we got in. Thursday my mom and I started our crazy baking marathon. We made 13 kinds of cookies: cinnamon-ginger brownies, chocolate mint squares, peppermint bark, candy cane cookies, meatball cookies, pepparkakor, fennel tea cookies, toffee caramel bars, lemon ginger cookies, peanut brittle, and eggnog logs. Don't you wish you came over for dessert? We had three mixers going at the same time. It was pretty serious. Thursday night we had some friends over, Saturday night was the Christmas Eve party with the family, today has been pretty relaxing, tomorrow we'll be visiting with friends, Tuesday we're going to see Kathryn and Aaron, and then at night we're going to my dad's for dinner. Then we start the long drive back down to Charlotte. Here are some pictures from the visit so far.

Mixers one, two, and three.

Getting all our recipes organized for the madness to follow.

I like to call these guys "devil cookies" because they were evil to make. They tasted pretty good though.

Master chefs in our aprons :)

Meatball cookies, my favorite new recipe we tried this year.

Peppermint bark

We had cookie crap EVERYWHERE for like 3 days.

We had one failure of a recipe that had to go in the trash. They were super gross.

Family time :)

The tree and the mantle

Best. Christmas socks. Ever. Thanks, Santa!!

I hope you're all enjoying your holidays.

It's been a roller-coaster of a day.

Football has been stressful. Awful start in the game against the Pats, then the Skins almost came back, then they threw it away. And I think I'm going to become a Broncos fan. Tebow Time is better than Redskins football. Unless they draft RGIII, there's really no reason to stay.
Anywho. Not a whole lot to report here. The weather is sort of confusing. It gets very cold at night and in the mornings, but it has still been in the 60's and 70's during the day. So I leave the house with a Northface and my Perry the Platypus or Oscar the Grouch hat and by noon, I feel totally overdressed. It's weird that it's two-ish weeks from Christmas and I'm still wearing shorts inside the house. I can't have fuzzy winter legs when that's the case. Geez man!
I saw this on the road the other day.

You are pimp'n in your garbage truck sir. Yes you are.

So maybe I don't hate them ALL the time. Sometimes they're cute and I actually don't want to kill them. But don't tell them that, they might get some funny ideas.

Snowman courtesy of my grandma :) holiday cards from my dad and Zoie. We don't have a tree but we are definitely feeling Christmas-y.

As I type, Tebow just RAN OVER some defenders, left one guy laid out on the field. Redskins better step it up, because it's Tebow time in this house.

The most annoying thing

I have decided what the most annoying thing about living in Charlotte is (besides my always hated neighbors). The worst thing is that when we're out and about or having something done in our house, people always talk to Donald, even if I'm the one making a purchase or something like that. A few examples.
I got new glasses from Lenscrafters the other day, and there was a problem with my original order. So I was sitting down with the manager, and clearly I was the one placing the order because it was my prescription, I was asking all the questions and doing all the talking, and I was sitting in the chair. But the manager felt the need to answer my questions by speaking to Donald, and was explaining to him what the issue was even though he clearly wasn't the customer. 'Sup with that?
And then today, we had someone fixing something here. I was sitting on the sofa reading an excellent book called "The Submission," while Donald was sitting at the counter holding the leashes of both dogs. The dude needed either one of our signatures, but even though I was closer and clearly not busy, he passed the clipboard and pen over my head to Donald, who was obviously not really in a position to make a legible signature.
They may call me "ma'am" everywhere we go, but they don't really seem to respect me. Oh the south...

Thanksgiving

I wasn't as organized as I wanted to be over the holiday. I meant to take a bunch of pictures, but I didn't. I also forgot Nathan's video game and a picture for my dad. Those two I can blame on 4 a.m. brain, but the pictures were just pure laziness.
The drive was pretty quick, only about 5 hours which now feels like nothing. The dogs were kenneled for a few days which made us a little nervous, but they seemed fine when we picked them up. Enzo's bark was a little hoarse, I'm sure he drove everyone crazy while we were gone. The trip was a nice little break. The food was good, the company was good, overall a success. We'll probably plan to split Thanksgiving and Christmas this way as long as we're down here. I promise that over Christmas (and hopefully before then) I'll take good pictures. It's been a while since I posted any.

Twisters?

A new natural disaster that we need to be on the lookout for is tornadoes. We were on a tornado watch last night and apparently a few of them touched down not too far from us in Rock Hill, SC and other northern South Carolina counties. We're fine, but it's one more thing to get used to. The fun never ends!!

'Tis the season

For delicious cookies! I have spent most of the day today looking for new recipes for baked treats for Thanksgiving and Christmas. If anyone has any requests or suggestions, I'd be happy to take them into consideration. Just send me an email or a comment and I'll see what I can do.
We're getting REAL football games today because the Panthers are on a bye-week. I wish they were on bye all the time. Right now we're watching the Jets/Bills, which isn't pretty but it's better than what we usually get. I was supposed to get the Redskins game, but they changed it to the Saints at the last minute. I was hoping to get a look at Nathan on TV, preferably doing something stupid that I could laugh at him about. Oh well!