(Roughly) Circa 1978 (or maybe '79). Bridget was born right after I turned 6 and she isn't here, so that must mean I was 5. We always went to G'ma Helen's on Christmas Eve. She made us sit under the Christmas tree every year. (The last picture of all of us together and under the tree was when I was 18 and my brother and I were both home from Germany. Somewhere, I have that picture.)
It makes me sort of sad I was not a smiley child. I look serious in nearly every picture. What kind of kid looks sad while sitting under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve? Sigh...I don't believe I was sad. Just looked sad. And then I wonder...do sad kids know they are sad?
Blah...this is a post not going anywhere very good. Sorry.
The first cousins on my mom's side (I don't have any on my dad's side): Me, Carmen, Jeremiah (my brother) and Josh. Monica is the baby.
Was planning on making some other kind of cookie tonight, but these were sort of in progress when I came through the door. One kind of cookie per day is enough. It's actually strangely comforting to come home to discover cookies baking. No dinner...but cookies. Beggars can't be choosy, I guess.
Back in the day, before we had kids and when we had friends who had nothing to do but hang out with us every Monday night watching Monday Night Football, we had a spaghetti night tradition. I would come home and make a huge batch of spaghetti (with the flesh of dead animals in it) and cheesy-garlic bread. For a time, this was the highlight of my week. Somewhere along the line (We had kids and moved from Alaska-where Monday Night Football starts during the dinner hour due to the time zones to Maryland where it starts late-ish at night), Monday Spaghetti Night became less and less. Now, we eat "capelini" from Trader Joe's and leave out the animal carcasses. No cheesy bread. Sure, it's good...but it isn't really the highlight of my life anymore.
It was never really about the spaghetti. Just so you know. :-)
I was going to forego the picture, because you all don't really need to see a picture of the spaghetti called capelini, but here it is anyway. A boring plate of spaghetti. You should know I hide stuff in the sauce. I've always done it, so they don't really know any better than to eat it.
I'll end with something you just can't make up. The backstory: We were told at a staff meeting we have to limit our printing in the name of conserving the printers. They are old and breaking down and the ink is expensive, blah, blah, blah... There's more to this story and I could make you laugh in the telling of it, but I'd like to remain employed and since this is a public blog and all...
So today, there's this notice in my mailbox. Evidently, I've printed 793 prints in a 4 month timespan. Before you go off thinking I'm just being wasteful and frivelous with your tax paying dollars...I have 175 students and I'm also doing some of the printing for the sub in our dept. Honestly, I think 793 is pretty impressive. Considering I work in a school. Not that I was counting or even concerned with my printer useage, because...umm....who just prints for the sake of printing? I like to live in the world where I believe if someone printed something it is probably because they needed it. Do adults just sit around idly printing page after page of documents they don't even need? Something to chew on, I suppose.
The part I find ridiculously humorous is the fact that each person received one of these notices. So...probably 300 of them were printed? Which is almost half of what I've used in a 4 month timeframe. The irony of telling me I'm doing fine in the printer conservation efforts via a print-out. (Why is this so funny to me?) I also took notice the printer used for the job seems to be having some issues. I've been silently laughing to myself since I had it in hand. Ryan came home and howled over it. He was going to take it to work with him (because it's funny and, like I said, you couldn't make this stuff up), but we compromised and now it's hanging on the fridge where we both can get a good laugh every time we wander by.
