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A tale of two turkeys

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Christmas is possible after all.

Following my melt-down yesterday, your fabulous support, my gorgeous family helping out, my lovely friend taking me out, and some successful Christmas shopping yesterday, I have recovered.

It was weird.  I haven’t felt like that before.  Completely overwhelmed I was.

But enough about that, you want to hear about the turkeys.

So Groover went food shopping yesterday and being as organised as I am went shopping for turkeys.

You see at one point we were going to get some free-range chickens because I love weber cooked chicken much better than turkey, but then as Christmas grew closer we kind of felt a bit nostalgic for that old Christmas turkey so we changed our minds.

Changing our minds meant we hadn’t ordered a turkey so Groover went out hunting and gathering with the masses.

He found a frozen turkey and bought it.
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It takes three days apparently to thaw a frozen turkey.

It was only two days until turkey time… so it was close.

He shopped for the stuffing ingredients and weber trays and heat beads and then found a fresh turkey.

So just in case, he bought it as well.

Great.  Now we have two turkeys, and we don’t even like it!

At least we’ll sleep well.

So your suggestions please for what to do with leftover turkey.  I suspect we might need a few ideas.

🙂
Happy Christmas Eve!

Introspection

Cheery Christmas

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Yesterday Santa came to work to wish me a merry Christmas.

I had been a VERY good girl indeed and was given a bottle of Amberley Shiraz.

I felt like drinking it straight-away but that isn’t the behaviour of a very good girl is it?

*warning… rant ahead.

This Christmas has been stressful.  I find myself crying on the way to work for no good reason.  Well apart from the obvious ones. 

You know, working full time while trying to get the house and garden in some kind of order for Christmas day and do my Christmas shopping.

It would have all been a lot less stressful if I was an organised person and did all that preparation stuff weeks ago.

Of course no one else cares what the house and garden looks like so why I bother trying to get anyone else to help is beyond me.

So here’s my day yesterday.

Got up early to start work early enough to enable me to leave early to do some Christmas shopping.

Left at 3 and went shopping for table decorations, crackers and the like.

Got home at 6, put on a load of laundry and had dinner (cooked by Groover).

Cleaned up after dinner.

Folded 5 loads of washing. (washed in part by Dippity)

Spent two hours trimming and weeding and sweeping the jungle next to the pool.
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Went to bed.

This morning I woke at six with a blinding headache.  Took two paracetomol.  Went to work.

And I’ve been crying all morning.

I can’t work out why.  I’m not normally this much of a mess.

And it’s pressure I am applying to myself. 

As I said, the rest of my family don’t care that the pool is a mess so why am I beating myself up about it.  Why add it to the impossibly long list of crap I have to do before Christmas?

Why not just cut myself a break?

I guess the fact is that I am not superhuman.  I can’t work full time and organise the house and dinner for 16 people, and go to our regular Christmas eve party and organise Christmas presents in three days.

It’s not like I’m even doing the cooking!  Groover is (apart from a salad) and we’re getting everyone to bring food.

So you know what?

I’m letting go trying to be perfect.  If presents aren’t bought, if there’s a big pile of clippings next to the pool, if the house is a tip, well… hey I’m human.

A normal, disorganised, but hopefully not teary person.

Merry Christmas.

PS:  Of course I won’t really let go.  I’ll beat myself up for being a bad mother, a lousy housekeeper, a lazy gardener, a stressed-out hostess and somehow, it will all come together.

Just book me in to the funny farm in January.

Blogging

Shhhh Secret Santa

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I received my Secret Santa gift from my secret Aussie Blogger pal last week.

Of course I know who it is, as they kindly signed the card, so not that secret but it was a lovely surprise to get the gift in the mail and my kids are completely jealous and that’s the main thing isn’t it?

Thank you!
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Apologies to my giftee – no you won’t know it’s me except that your gift will be late – I will get my derriere into gear forthwith!

Merry Christmas!

And anyway… what is the form guide when it comes to Secret Santa gifts – do you sign the card or not?

Jokes

The perfect Christmas card

4 Comments

Sent to me by a colleague who knows me too well.

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To go with maybe this tee-shirt as a present?

Connecticut

The ultimate slideshow

Aren’t you glad that slide nights are no longer all the rage?

My friends in Perth should be counting their lucky stars as I’ve just cleared my flashcard of 308 photos to my flickr account.

Feel free to look at all of them if you so desire but if not, and that my friends is PERFECTLY understandable, here are a few of my faves:

Compo Beach, Connecticut – Christmas Day

Compo Beach

View from our window in Goshen

Goshen

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My ski-bunny daughter at Mohawk Mountain just about to attempt a black run

skiing on mohawk mountain

Snow falls as we eat dinner in Litchfield

photo 279

Our Statue of Liberty inspired Snow-woman

photo 300

Connecticut

Caught in the act: Elves expose Santa!

See what happens when you leave your camera out on Christmas Eve. We reckon a naughty elf must have taken these photos, found on Christmas morning…

Caught in the act

Caught in the act
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Caught in the act

Caught in the act

Connecticut

The Curse of the Willy Willy – The Play

I performed in the second Christmas play last night. The Curse of the Willy Willy. “Written” by my niece and daughter this play revolved around an evil Willy Willy (Aboriginal word for whirlwind) played by Junior Poshi, who steals the three stones of Happiness, Easy Going and Lovability. Our hero – The Pink and Grey Galah (played by my niece – Bear) and her companion Mrs Pumpkinhead (yes I was Mrs Pumpkinhead) travel to the castle in the sky where the Wise Wanjina (played by my mum) lives.

The Wanjina tells us where to find the stones. The stone of Happiness was in the Cliffs of the Grey Fields and we found it by finding out where we felt happiest, the stone of Easy Going was in Deep River and we found it by “Going with the flow”, the stone of Lovability was in the Dragon’s cave (the Dragon and Narrator played by the Orchid Hunter) and is recovered by us telling the dragon we love him.

I say wrote because once the concept was down we kind of made it up as we went along.

The highlight for the audience was the face paint. Observe:

The Curse of the Willy Willy
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The Curse of the Willy Willy

The Curse of the Willy Willy

Well, our audience thought it was funny… 🙂

The Curse of the Willy Willy

Connecticut

Stew Lennards – the shopping experience

Stew Lennards

So we went to the shop with the singing banana.

Stew Lennards

And it was overwhelming in its American-ness! Apparently this is quite a famous store. The best thing IMHO was the Santa out the front with a REAL BEARD. Very impressive. The singing banana was okay too and the cow is called “Clover”.

Just in case you have any last minute shopping to do they keep the shops open til midnight. So last night at about nine my sister and I went shopping because – you guessed it – my Christmas shopping aint done yet – it’s okay – only the hard ones to get…

Mostly I went because I wanted to hang out with my sis. It’s a big ask having your whole family over to stay, over Christmas, when you’re in the middle of a very full on Montessori teaching course in another state.

Plus Americans take gift giving at Christmas – or at least my sister does – very seriously.
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All gifts need a card – not just a gift tag. These are for presents that don’t go straight under the tree. You give presents to just about anyone who you have anything to do with you over the year. Yes, that includes the drycleaner and the postman. And of course the extended family, and in this case the extended family’s cleaner! It makes for rather stressful shopping especially when you’ve been working hard at your course.

She travels to Baltimore every Sunday night. Goes to lectures from 8 until 3 every day, then does about 6 hours of homework every night. Comes home late Friday night or Saturday morning. Does the full-on family thing for two days. No wonder she does a lot of shopping on the internet!

My sis is pretty amazing.

The course thankfully is only 9 months long and at the end, she’ll be a qualified Montessori teacher. Her plan is to home-school her kids. As she already has a teaching degree, she will be the best qualified home school teacher you will find! Long-term, she wants to set up her own school I think based on the Montessori method.

As I said she is impressive.

I’m helping in my own little way by colouring in some of her many materials. When I’m not shopping. Or blogging. 🙂

Connecticut, Health, Hugamuga

Americans do food well

We went out to lunch yesterday at some restaurant whose name we can’t remember but was just outside Stamford mall – oh yes we went to a mall – and decided that Americans do do food well. Sure the portions are big but the service is great, the food is delicious and the restaurants cosy. On top of that it’s relatively cheap. Groover and I had meals yesterday that would have cost around $20 a plate in Perth for half that.

I can see weight gain could be an issue.

But as well as they do food well, the coffee is lousy.

Trying to explain to someone in Starbucks that what you want is a long expresso style coffee – impossible! Of course saying “a long black” which is what we call it in Australia is out of the question. I am missing my Saeco… 🙁

In the meantime we’ve experienced another aspect of American culture: The doctor’s surgery. My Orchid Hunter has a very nasty flu. Feverish, heavy cough, sleeping for nearly two days solid – he feels terrible and when you have a houseful of 12 people you want it sorted out quickly.

My sister has found this great doctor. Here’s how it works for her. He charges an annual fee of around US$1500 per child. For that fee you get a doctor who is prepared to see you anytime. This guy will come to their home. He will go with you to specialists. If your kid breaks his arm at school he’ll go to the school and sort it out. He only wants a maximum of 300 patients and that means he can really take care of your child when the child needs him.

For my sister, whose eldest daughter has had needed a lot of medical care, Dr Eric is their lifesaver. And the surgery is a delight! I wanted to be sick and a child again. Check out the photos of the different exam rooms filled with murals and fun lazer lights.
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Hugamuga sat on a hippo couch while Dr Eric spoke to him and explained what he was doing. He was so engaging. He did a test for strep throat and told us how it worked – like a pregnancy test – in simple terms that made us understand without making us feel thick. An excellent experience. Brilliant.

Having the whole family in one house is lovely. The house is big enough that we have our own space – indeed my sister – Aussie to the core – calls out “Cooee” to find her kids, and it is nice to have time to make Christmas together.

Christmas Play

The two girls and their Uncle – my bro – have already put on a Christmas play. My sister – must make up a name for her soon – has a little theatre in the basement, and as you can see in the photo below they went to some trouble with their costumes. Poshi Junior is Father Christmas, Bear – her cousin – is Rudolf and Uncle Banana is naughty Vixen.

The best bit was JP throwing her hands up and saying “Poof” whenever she wanted the scene to end. Hilarious. And “Poof” has become the new word of this Christmas.

Today we go to a foodstore where there are singing vegetables. You gotta love America!

Connecticut

I always take the Asian option

So here we are in Connecticut. Ensconsed.

There is snow on the ground and the kids have spent every second since we arrived sledding. I decided to hang inside for a while and talk to you dear internet but you may see me skidding on the ice soon. Yes it rained after the snow and the top layer is hard and slippery.

kids in the snow

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Thai Airways was surprisingly good. We went Perth-Bangkok-New York. That’s about 6 hours to Bangkok and then 17 to New York. The food was great. My rule for aeroplane food is to always take the Asian option and I wasn’t disappointed. Rogan Josh lamb curry, Hokkein noodles with stir-fry pork, Chicken something or other.

Bangkok Airport is one year old. Some long name starting with ‘S’ my plane spotter son told me. It has the largest single terminal in the world and it is impressive. Walking down the moving sidewalks to the shopping areas feels like a science fiction movie. But already the cracks are starting to show literally in the flooring. It may look new but it lacks soul.

Perhaps I’m expecting too much but even JFK had some interesting artwork on the walls and of course Vancouver Airport is lovely. It’s not often you can say that about an airport! What did Douglas Adams say?

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988)

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, ‘as pretty as an airport.’ Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort.

The other surprise, given that we bought the cheapest seats we could find, was the amount of leg room. Seriously good. The plane configuration was 2-4-2, and we managed to get window seats so we were “comfortable enough” down the back. We weren’t expecting much so we were happy.

And the 17 hour flight. Recommended. If there’s one thing I can’t stand is hanging around in airports and all that security checking they make you do these days. Sheesh.

Speaking of which, I don’t mind the putting your moisturiser in a plastic bag, the continual scanning of my handbag, the walking through metal detectors, even being patted down by a perfect stranger wearing a gun gives a little frisson to the journey… but what I really find irritating is this ban on water. Even water you’ve bought in an airport on the right side of security… take that to another airport and finished or not – in the bin it goes. The world has gone insane.

Back to the long flight, we had prepared. I asked my GP for some sleeping tablets so that we would definately sleep and they worked. Although Groover did manage to drop half of them. Note to self – next time get the bigger tablets. My sleep was a little fitful as I was terrified I’d needed to and had forgotton to get visas. What’s the worst that could happen – I thought to myself half-way to New York, trying to think positive – we could be turned around and sent right back! Luckily we didn’t need them – I’m sure the travel agent might have mentioned it if we had and after giving immigration our fingerprints and photo they let us through.

Driving to my sister’s house from JFK, Groover and I felt we were in a movie set. The images are so familiar. I half expected to see a high-speed car chase. They never show you the outcome of those chases do they? The mile long traffic jams caused by the wreckage left behind. Yes, we ended up in our first traffic jam.

We started a game of “numberplate bingo”. This is a lot more fun in the States where there are 50 states to get. So far we’ve sighted 13.

Today is a recovery day. We’re all determined to stay awake for as long as possible to try and force ourselves into this time zone. I’m feeling a bit dizzy as I type so I hope to last the distance. My brother and his girlfriend arrive late this afternoon and my sister and Mum and Dad will be here about 10pm. Christmas has begun.