Happy Birthday!

I would just like to take a moment of your time to tell you that my brother, Dan, is 24 today. He's a great guy, and I'm lucky to have him as my brother. Oddly enough, we got along pretty well as kids. I think it's because dad's ridiculously huge van had captain's seats. We never had to do the whole "he's touching me!" bit, because we couldn't reach each other. My parents are incredibly smart.

Not only is he handsome, he's also available. Ladies??? Be warned, his older sister has high expectations and is a little protective.

After Thanksgiving Sales

In previous years, the Brown family had the whole crazy sale day worked out. You'd think we were international spies, with store floor plans, practicing parking situations, and detailed knowledge of which doors opened first to hand out the free goodies. Sadly, very few stores still do the "door buster" give-aways. So we've stopped being quite so intense. :)

Mom and I decided that we would brave the insanity for a few select items.
We also decided that we didn't need to get up ridiculously early, which I was thankful for. (I have a habit of staying up until 2am or so with my mom when we go to visit, and Matthew doesn't always sleep through the night quite yet.)

We left the house at a lesuirely 8:45, and had three stores done by 10:30. I was impressed. The crazy thing is that while my mom waited in line at Michael's craft store, I walked across the parking lot, found and paid for what I needed at Mervyn's, and walked back before mom had paid. She was next in line, but still.. damn holiday new-hires.

And let me just give a quick comment on that unfortunate woman who fell down, lost her wig, and was almost trampled. I wonder just how many times that was shown? As we all watched the footage and yelled at the tv, "Just get up and *then* put on the wig," I realized why she had to stay down... Star Jones couldn't be caught at Wal-Mart.

Gobble, Gobble, Gulp! Let the Gluttony Begin!

The Zitzelman clan drove down to Olympia to have fried turkey at my parent's house. (Word of caution: if you are contemplating buying a turkey fryer, please buy electric instead of gas. Much, much safer.)

She's choppin' broc-co-liiiiii...
I had my full years' supply of broccoli. I don't know what it is about the Thanksgiving broccoli, but it's good. Maybe because it's covered in cheese?

I also tried making a new recipe I found for pumpkin and pecan biscuits. They didn't get done on time, which was frustrating because timing is one thing that I think I do well in the kitchen. But they were tasty, and went well with leftovers.

I love long weekends. It usually means a visit either to, or from, my parents. Now that I live 1 1/2 hrs away, I don't see them as often as I would like to. But maybe we see them more than my husband would like. Oh well. He loves me anyway.

Did You Miss Me? Probably Not.

So I've been away for awhile. I haven't adjusted to having a blog yet, so I forget that I should pay attention to it. Poor, lonely blog. Especially since I'm only one of three people that even know it exists. I promise to *try* to be better. Here are the updates...

Baby Blues

No, I'm not depressed. But since having a baby boy, I have discovered there must be at least one hundred shades of blue in his closet alone! It's enough to make a mom crazy. One of the simple joys of having a baby is playing dress-up with a real baby doll! I absolutely *love* anything if it has a little matching hat. But all the fun can be sucked out when you can't find a pair of socks that work. Poor little Matthew, his socks don't match. Shh.. don't tell him.

Shingles... It's not just roofing material!

Lucky me, I developed a case of shingles. If you've never heard of it before, as I hadn't, it's kind of like adult chicken pox. And yes, you can get it if you had chicken pox as a kid. Not fun. I definately wouldn't recommend it.

I don't know what was worse.. having chicken pox in 2nd grade, and scratching yourself raw all of the time because you don't know better, or being an adult and knowing that you shouldn't and trying your hardest not to scratch. Ugh.

Did you know that they treat it with steroids? I was amazed at the long list of things that steroids can be used for, besides baseball. These are prescription, so I don't have any locker room with Jose Canseco stories. Sorry. (Although I was entertained by him on VH-1's 'Surreal Life.' Washed-up celebrities make me laugh.)

Anyway, I'm almost over it and am suffering the consequences of feeling blah for a week and doing nothing. Hence the lack of blog updates. But I'm on my last day of steroids and trying to take advantage of the hyped up energy. So back to work I go.

Look at me! I'm Hi-Tech!

So I've finally decided that I would try out this whole Blog thing.

Not that I have anything important to say, but now that I'm home with the new baby I have to find new ways to entertain myself and have some adult contact and conversation.

Please bear with me as I figure out how in the world this thing works. In the meantime, you can check out my friend Zak's blog. He's always ten steps in front of me on all things hi-tech and "gadgety."

Love,
M