Yes, I am blogging over at the Goddess Blogs today.  So drop on by and check it out.  And leave a comment or two . . . apparently goddesses really like comments.… Read more »

I really am a creature of habits and rituals. Take my morning writing routine. I wouldn’t even think of sitting down without my double shot latte, nonfat milk and two teaspoons of raw sugar. Not only a routine sort of person, but a high maintenance one at that. No other time in the year do I feel the pull of rituals and routine than I do in December. The holidays bring out the worst in me.

The “to-do” list becomes the “must-do” list. Must get the house decorated. Must bake enough cookies to give everyone a plateful. Must make the … Read more »

So for the second December in a row, Seattle got slammed with a storm that reminded all of us out here that while we might not get snow, or tornadoes, or hurricanes, Mother Nature doesn’t leave us out. Here are some photos from my poor neighborhood, which is slide prone to begin with–heck, we just got the main road in and out of our neighborhood opened a month ago after it had been closed for nearly two years, after a slide in 2005 closed it for nearly a year, and then last year, a week after it reopened, the wind … Read more »

Continuing my cinema themed posts this week, I saw this on a Myspace bulletin and thought it was interesting. Supposedly if you’ve seen over 85 movies, you have no life. I beg to differ because I love movies and think they add to life in ways books can’t sometimes. Still, I decided to take the survey and see how I fared. If you want to do it here are the rules:

1)There are 208 movies on this list.
2) Copy this list.
3) Then put an X next to the movies you’ve seen, and add them up.

Have fun!

Here … Read more »

Wrong. To me, December means head to the nearest multiplex because all the good movies are coming out. May/June/July and December are the best months for movie goers, so I always start scanning the holiday movie releases early to see what looks great. A few years back, the DH and I spent the week after Christmas doing nothing but hitting movies–I think we saw Walk the Line, King Kong and two others that I now can’t remember that week. It isn’t the holiday cookies that give me those extra 5-10 pounds we all gain at the holidays, but the … Read more »

On the news Sunday night was a clip about all the Thanksgiving shopping, and they were say that while the Friday after Thanksgiving is “Black Friday, ” the following Monday, this past Monday, is known as “Online Monday,” one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. They went on to explain that while this is a great boon to online retailers, the companies that all these online shoppers work for loose half a billion dollars in productivity. Yes, half a billion dollars is lost on Online Monday because everyone is busy hitting Amazon.com, Overstock.com, BlueNile.com (hint, hint, honey, … Read more »

Okay, I lied. I wasn’t planning a traditional, family laden Thanksgiving. All the while I was feeding you all recipes and encouraging a Martha Stewart marathon, I was packing my bags and cookware and getting the heck out of Dodge. And quite frankly, I don’t feel guilty. Not in the least. Because the four of us, instead of spending the Thanksgiving weekend working on cleaning and cooking and then cleaning again and resorting to Black Friday spent four days:

In Seaside, Oregon. Yes, this the northern Oregon coast in the late November. And it was a balmy 56 degrees. At … Read more »

This week always makes me ask myself what am I thankful for–which is probably something we should all be doing every day, but this is the week for blessings and here are mine:

1) My family. All of them. My husband and kids. My mom and dad. My brother and his family. My husband’s family–he’s got all these wonderful siblings and lots of nieces and nephews and they are all really great people. I am thankful I knew all my grandparents, even my great-grandmother, and will carry with me the stories and lessons they shared with me. To me, family … Read more »

So the real countdown happens now as I start making the dishes for Thanksgiving ahead of time. It really helps to get as many things “fixed” before hand so that the BIG day is relatively pain free. Here are two dishes I always make ahead of time, usually on Tuesday:

Fresh Cranberry Relish

2 bags of fresh cranberries
1 clean and blemish free seedless orange
1/2 – 1 cup of sugar
Food grinder

Rinse the cranberries and sort out the mushy ones and the ones that are really white. Grind the berries through the food grinder (I have a attachment … Read more »

Yes, the countdown to Thanksgiving has begun. If you read The Goddess Blogs, you might have seen my comments about disastrous Thanksgivings which the ever wonderful Kathryn Caskie wrote about, but usually around here, Thanksgiving in like my own personal Super Bowl. Tons of planning, working out hauling groceries into the house, and of course all the cooking that I get done ahead of time. Yes, ahead of time. So if you are cooking Thanksgiving this year, don’t make the rookie mistake of thinking that you have to cook the entire meal that day. Are you kidding? You’d … Read more »