Six Days To Christmas!

Waking up at 5AM when that's not your regularly scheduled time to rise and meet your day and discovering that a return to sleep -- after voiding your bladder and letting Hank the Wonder Pup out to do the same -- is darned near impossible?  That's a dilemma that presents a few possibilities, including the tried-and-half-true bag-of-tricks which sometimes lead the body back into a two-hour REM cycle.  Let's see . . . there's turning to my husband's side of the bed and cuddling up close to the human furnace.  If that doesn't do it within 5 minutes, tack on the prayer, moving down the list of names in need of healing, comfort, thanks, forgiveness, a new car (not us: a friend and mother on Facebook who's driving a jalopy held together by chewing gum and faith.)

These dogs have bladders the size of walnuts, I swear!

(Though this is woefully far off, I love this shot: the elder and the pup playfully duking it out!)

This petite dear-heart wakes up her young mistress rather early to eat, but not at 5AM!

(Am I wrong here, or do those eyes just reach into your heart?)

If quiet mental entreaties to the Lord, coupled with the gentle white noise of my hubby's breathing and the hum of the heater fan outside of the bedroom window, don't knock me out, there's always the book-of-the-month perched atop the headboard with my ear-mounted reading light at the ready.  Presently, I'm going for the non-thinking, fast-paced, character-driven entertainment, with a nod toward catching the movie to be released next year -- based on the Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich (Katherine Heigl, not sure about this casting choice, and Betty White, she'll nail it, are pegged for the flick.)  One of my Earth Diva gals turned me on to it.  A couple of weeks back, during a particularly emotionally stressful week, I took to the whirlpool bathtub and pruned up as I read the entire first book, not dropping it once into the slowly cooling waters.  Making my way through the second installment has been a much slower process because I'm perusing its pages at night, right before bed, IN my bed, which ensures a 95% rate of success for nodding off.

But this morning it seemed a better use of my time to just get up and visit Santa's Workshop/Jamison Place Branch (where my full-screen Mac sits, friendly, inviting, ever eager to do my bidding.  So, I donned my purple robe and attempted to quietly ease out of my bedroom (need to grease those hinges!) and float up to the second level of this sleeping household (fat chance with THESE grinding, snapping and popping knees!).  Ever since the arrival of Hank into our home, I'm less apt to spring up the stairs (yes, I still spring) to the study and write or cruise the 'net because the antsy pup can't stay still long enough to curl at my feet and nap, like his pack mate, Panda.  Instead, if he's outdoors, he'll paw and bark at the back door when he's ready to come in and, thus, interrupt what I'm doing up here.  If he's indoors, he may request a leave to the backyard OR whine at the baby gate where the kitchen meets the staircase.  Either way, it hardly seems worth all the effort.  I guess that's a sign that I'm not 20 anymore, eh?  What?  Didn't you know that?  Bless you if that came as news to you . . . see . . . I'm delusional when I wake too early.

Before I entered my own blog, I find it stimulating to visit a few of the blogs that I follow.  This morning, I scanned the gluten-free paradise that is The Spunky Coconut.  I was pleased to stumble across a drool-invoking recipe for a healthier non-dairy version of Nutella!  Somebody's gonna get that in their Christmas stocking come Sunday morning.  (Can you believe that? 6 days to Christmas?!)  Once I ingested the information, I moved on to The Pioneer Woman with Ree Drummond.  Her 'Confessions of a Pioneer Woman' are especially of interest to me -- and she's a first rate photographer to boot.  Anyhoo, SHE had posted a recipe for iced coffee which I simply HAD to have for my own collection (a small sturdy cardboard box stashed in the corner of my pantry, brimming with printed AND clipped-from-the-newspaper recipes organized in a series of labelled Ziploc bags that I've had for over 10 years).  Though my tummy yet grumbles, awaiting it's breakfast of steel-cut oats and flax meal laced with maple syrup and a dash of cinnamon, I can say I've already had my [virtual] coffee and sweet.  LOVE IT!

Ree's own photo of her own iced coffee: perfection!

On the subject of food: can I get an UGH?!  My gut has DE-volved this month, and it simply must stop.  But I'm almost helpless to fight the tide of cookies and cravings induced by PMS, stress and commercial images.  For the past week, the thought of beef -- whether a roast or steak or lunchmeat or burger -- has consumed my dietary thought process.  And I've tried to placate it as best I can given my busy schedule: a serving of roast beef at our annual Christmas Bunco dinner party; a 99-cent (can somebody please tell me why the dollar-sign is represented on the keyboard but NOT the cent?  do cents no longer matter?) Arby's junior sandwich; a purchased quarter-pound of Boar's Head shaved low-sodium roast beef for a sandwich some time this week; plans for my first EVER homemade chicken-wide-and-fried steak on Wednesday night (for my hubby, who loves the dish but never has seen it cross a plate at home, and better not get too used to that idea once it does happen); oh, and that 3/4 of an Arby's Reuben sandwich that I ordered yesterday during a short impromptu shopping outing with my man . . . BEFORE the Bronco's game (which no amount of Tebowing could keep them from a painful loss to New England).  Just the thought of beef, right now, at 6:44AM, with the pale rays of sun from the east pushing their way through the study window, has caused an upheaval of wish fulfillment in my empty tummy . . . but it will have to wait as chicken soup (ala Gayla Edwards, Earth Diva cooking extraordinaire) is on the menu for dinner this pre-Christmas Monday.

In a rare move, I was too busy consuming the chicken soup at Gayla's, and thus missed out on photographing my lovely handmade bowl of homemade soup!

But here's Gayla's husband, his very appetizing sandwich, and her dog!

He's also our pastor, not the dog but Gayla's husband.
We'll call him Rodney.  This isn't him pastoring, but he is hosting a church picnic here, and I thought I'd go for the beefcake shot!

And here's Gayla, in the stripes, with a trick of the camera causing her hands to appear abnormally large -- which they aren't!  She's surrounded by, from R. to L., Melissa (an Earth Diva), Megan (an EDIT, or 'Earth Diva In Training') and Valerie (an Earth Diva).

Before I sign off and head to the kitchen for breakfast- and lunch-making, followed by another round of gift-getting, a quick note about the Santa's Workshop reference of earlier in this entry.  In an effort to further incite the young natives of the house into further holiday excitement, I hung a flannel sheet across the hall leading into the study.  On this sheet, I pinned two pieces of paper, words computer-printed in a crayon-mimicking font of greens and browns to match the sheet, which stated that the area beyond was off limits to those not on official Santa business.  (The sheet itself is embossed with images of moose and deer, snow and trees, evoking images of "up North" -- which was as Christmas-oriented as I could get, given that there are no sheet sets in my linen closet with Baby Jesus, snowflakes, Santa, reindeer, etc. on them.  But I rather like the moose.  I'd much rather sit pondside, observing an enormous antlered grazer dunk it's head beneath the water, those fleshy nose-flaps closed against the onrush of pond contents, than fight the traffic, clock and crowds as we shoppers do our best to boost the economy!)  Oh, did I mention the colored lights dangling around the perimeter of the entrance to said workshop?  It did have the desired effect.  My college-girl squealed with delight, calling for Santa's elf to come out and play, when she laid eyes on my whimsy.  She called her siblings up to check out the fun.  From my position in the 'workshop,' hunched over a half-wrapped present on the floor, scissors in hand, I grinned and shouted back friendly warnings to heed the signs.  Good times, folks.

 2/3 of my kiddie crew a week before Christmas: can't you just feel the eagerness?!

 On sale now at stores near you!  Git to coverin' up them gifts!

 My pile of goodies looks more like a small car beneath these sheets!

 The inner sanctum: a pretty handy excuse for escaping, I might add . . . 

THERE'S the moose!

Good times.

Here's the obligatory holiday shot of me all gussied up.

We had a company holiday party to attend.

We always end up posing in awkward fashion smack dab in front of the pantry door!