Tuesday, February 19, 2013

What do shallots and the coast have in common?

I'm crying because I'm cooking shallots and it turns out shallots are jerks. Fun fact: My girls are big fans of caramelized shallots. Well, butter, you know.

I've told Eric (several times) that I'm over cooking (several times), but he's not really listening to me. He graciously announced last night that he's got dinners taken care of this week (stir fry last night, hamburgers tonight, spaghetti tomorrow, who cares, I don't have to deal with it), and then he's all, so maybe you could make some potatoes? And I was all, I don't think you're quite understanding what I'm saying here.

And anyway, we don't own potatoes, but then my conscience got the best of me, and while we don't own potatoes, we do own green beans and shallots. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Um, that is not what I wanted to write about at all.

So this weekend we went to Lincoln City for our annual Christmas House extravaganza with Eric's entire family. We're up to 24 now, except two of those are babies, and next year we'll be 25, because there's another baby on the way. So that's exciting.

The Christmas House started about 15 years ago, around Christmastime (der), when Eric's side decided that instead of exchanging gifts, we'd all just pool our money and rent a house. This? Is genius. The girls get uninterrupted cousin time, plus we've got built in babysitters all over the place! Oh, and also we get to hang out with everyone, which is a lot of fun.

Just stirred the shallots. So far, so good.

As the kids have gotten older--we have nieces and nephews in their mid and late twenties--coordinating schedules has become more of a challenge. Which is why we've had the I Have a Dream House* and the Presidential House*, except we keep calling it the Christmas House anyway because that's what it is.

So we went:
Hot tubbing
Outlet mall (I was a very good little minimalist, no worries)
Walk around the neighborhood
Beach (well, Abby anyway)
Mass (where Johanna rocked her fedora and got lots of compliments)

And we also:
Played with babies (I'm pretty sure Kayden misses me terribly right now)
Celebrated my brother-in-law Greg's 50th birthday at a casino buffet
And that's when we learned Keshia and Brian are expecting baby #2
Watched movies (except not me)
Played cards (also not me)
Watched SNL (YEARS since that's happened)
Stayed up way too late
Played games (again, not me)
Read (me!!!)
Spent a stupid amount of time online (also me)
Drank ungodly amounts of coffee
Ate a red velvet Christmas cake (definitely not me, red food coloring, yo)

...Which probably explains why I've spent all morning doing laundry and trying to clean the house in a general sort of way. Um, how does a house get thrashed when you're not even in it?

Shallots done, beans boiling. Multitasking!

*MLK weekend and Presidents weekend, just in case it didn't translate. We require four days and three nights.

No comments: