Holy Shit and Merry Christmas!

So I think I should have gone into another line of business. i.e. the business of being crafty. I could have been one of those quirky ladies at the local "art fair" with comfortable shoes, and an unnecessarily long braid. Oh and I'd use that crystal deodorant and eat lots of hummus to fit in with the other craft ladies...

Here is my tree topper. It really doesn't look anything like the one from Anthropologie. But in fairness, that thing is really freaking complicated, and made from NASA materials. This is my ode to that one. It cost about $30 in materials. So... there's that too. I'm actually not sure I want to put it on top of the tree, because it's so freaking sparkly and pretty, that I kind of want to hang it on our front door to alert the neighbors that someone REALLY fancy lives here. All the more incentive for them to rob us.

In other news, I spent the whole day cooking stuff from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Family Style Cookbook. Poor Sadie, her husband Tom is from Vancouver and his 78 year old father fell and broke his hip while visiting Butte Montana this week. He had supplemental insurance that every Canadian purchases before entering the U.S. It covered his surgery, but won't cover his rehabilitation here in the states. Sadie and Tom can't buy him insurance here, so that he can get well close by, because he has a "pre existing condition". Yay America! So Tom flew up there to get him and his motor home back to Canada two days ago. She and Hattie are flying solo for the foreseeable future. So I thought I'd make some chicken and biscuit stew, and homemade mac and cheese (with gruyere) to tide them over for a day or two. Oh, and did I mention Sadie and Hattie have a terrible cold? Of course they do, because life is HARD people!!!

Ok, I have to go watch the Roomba that Sadie lent me clean my kitchen floor. Jack likes to shout "Go Roomba GO!" when it's cleaning. He's such a supportive child.

oh, so Barack Obama DID make it. I see. I stand corrected.

I went to Michael's in the Burbank today. I ate an In&Out burger in my car, in the parking lot. Which pretty much made me the biggest loser in the world. Call off the search, we've found the worlds lamest person. I was in between auditions, and had to eat, and I had to start my search for the elements to make up my awesome Anthropologie rip off tree topper.

Ok, so after spending AN HOUR in there, with Oprah's entire studio audience, I think I know why the tree topper costs nearly $400. I also saw what I would look like if I didn't stop eating In&Out burgers in my car. The tree topper consists of no less than 42,000 different things that cost $7.99 a stem, plus some kind of unidentifiable silver thread or floss or wire, that doesn't exist. They made it up. I had a thought that maybe I should order the stupid thing and take pictures of it, and then return it to the store. But that thought made me feel like I was on the slippery slope to becoming Sarah Palin or Joseph Goebbels or something. Not cool dudes, not cool.

Ok, so here are the contents of my basket. Please note the ten tons of leftover Halloween candy in the background. We only had 4 trick or treaters this year, which was thoroughly depressing. At least this year they were kids. Last year we had several groups of teenage cholas and their babies. The babies were all inevitably dressed as lil' devils and their child mothers were all dressed as sexy something or other. Sexy nurse, sexy fireman, sexy teenage mother. I'm getting old. I'm too ashamed to say how much it all cost. My plan is to use what I need and return the rest. I had a hard time narrowing down what I'd need in the store. Plus I was afraid one of those ladies was going to ask me what I was making if I hovered in any one spot too long, and I would have had to say "Something beautiful and expensive and nothing like the monstrosity you are here to construct!!! I'm different from you!!!!!!"

The dining room table is covered in glitter and faux teeny tiny ice cubes, and Nipper Knapp is pacing back and forth trying to remember the plot to arsenic and old lace, and his chances of acquittal.