Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

'Tis that time of year my friends! December is tomorrow, and you know what that means! The countdown is ON! 25 days 'til Christmas, and 19 days 'til I leave for Utah :) Woot Woot!

As is the tradition chez McCombs, the tree goes up on the Monday after Thanksgiving...I was so excited, I put ours up yesterday. I thought maybe Garbanzo would be scared or fascinated by the tree, but he doesn't even seem to notice it.

You know what I'm most excited for this holiday season? SNOW! You heard me, SNOW! I hate snow, but I have a feeling Garbanzo is going to LOVE it! I can just see him now, digging, jumping, rolling in and kicking up snow! He's never going to want to leave Utah and her snow.

Bird instead of star...so much cuter than a star :)

Fiber Optic tree :)

Garbanzo and his best-lovebug Abbie posing in front of the tree. All smiles :D

Have a holly-jolly Christmas y'all! I hope you all bust out your Christmas music, movies, and sweaters this month! I know I will be.

Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving :)

I wanted to list what I'm thankful for like so many of you have already done on your own blogs, facebook, and twitter accounts. I am thankful for:

Greg, the love of my life
Garbanzo, the best dog in the world
Redji our tortoise
my education (and Greg's education, and his job)
my family (my family and Greg's family)
my friends, every single one of you!
and
for yummy food on turkey day!

I really am a very lucky lady to be blessed with so many friends and family that I love and love me back.

Some highlights from turkey day at the Nelson's house:

I made our traditional stuffing that has been passed down from multiple generations on Greg's side of the family:

Started by drying my own bread, just the way my mommy does it!

Finished product...oh so yummy-tasty!

I picked limes from right outside our apartment, straight off the tree, and made the freshest, most yummiest, lime pie I ever tasted! I used my mom's recipe :)

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup lime juice (freshly squeezed)

1 1/3 cup milk

4 heaping TBSP corn starch

3 unbeaten egg yolks

1 cup sour cream

Mix sugar and cornstarch, set aside. In pan melt butter, add lime juice, egg yolks, and milk~blend. Gradually add sugar and corn starch, cook over medium heat until thick. Mixture will be lumpy. Stir in sour cream. Pour into a pre-baked pie shell. (I used a pre-baked pie shell, but it is good with a graham cracker crust as well). Cool.

The turkey turned out perfectly :) It was so tender and moist.

I also made some of the other traditional items: like super yummy butter rolls, and Cranberry Apple Chutney, Brussel Sprouts & Leeks, and potatoes & gravy. YUMMY! The one thing I forgot: Sweet Potatoes...which I had all the ingredients for, I just forgot to make it~woops!

We had Nick and Maiko over. They were such fun guests. We played nintendo, Rage, Settlers of Catan, and went to see the newest version of A Christmas Carol in 3-D. I'm telling you, it was a good time!

One of the best parts of my day was taking Garbanzo for a 3 mile run. The moment I put on my running shoes he couldn't contain his excitement! I can't believe how great a running companion he is. I'm telling you people, Garbanzo is the best dog EVER! After the run he was soooooo pooped! check it out, this is how he spent most of the day:

Operation Save the Toys

Garbanzo really loves his toys, so much that he often destroys them! Within a couple days of buying him his frog toy he had ripped it open! I saved it just in time so that it's stuffing stayed intact. I finally got around to fixing it today! The chicken and monkey weren't so lucky :(

It Happened AGAIN!

So, today I was driving home from work around 2:30 pm, I was exiting from CA-85 to the US 101-N when it happened AGAIN!

What happened again? Well, check out this old blog post of mine because the exact same thing happened today as it did on September 20, 2008: http://kjerry.blogspot.com/2008/09/on-road.html. So weird! Why do cops on the 101 drive diagonally across the lanes so no one can pass causing a big traffic jam? I do not understand this behavior. There were no accidents, no cars stalled, no pedestrians in the roadway, nothing!

Well, referring back to my old post made me realize that I'd still like to go for a road trip across the country, maybe when I graduate in June I'll take that trip with my honey. What do you say honey?!

And as inspired by that blog post on September 20th, I picked up another of Jack Karouac's books Big Sur which featured another one of his roadtrips around the bay area. It was really fun to read since I live in this area, and love love love Big Sur!

Ta-Ta ya'll! You'll be hearing from me again soon and often since I'm done with school-work until January! Wahoo!

Passing on the CUTE

My blog was recently deemed "Super Cute" the other day by my bestest friend Missy :) on her Lovely Little Life Blog. Receiving this award put a big cheesy smile on my face :D What a great friend, right!?! Well she is. And now I get to pass on this swell award to 5 more cute blogs, whom I hope can pass it on to 5 more cute blogs, so that the cute just keeps on giving!

I officially award

Mabel at Obsessed With My Shih Tzu Dog

Melanie at pPod's Kitchen

Emily at Emily's Blog

Tara at bite the bedbugs

and

Elaine at El estante para libros

These blogs are not only very cute, but they are thoughtful and well-written :) Enjoy some good reads everyone and please remember to Pass on the CUTE!!!

My super cheesy smile :D

Lovebirds

Garbanzo and Abbie are in L-O-V-E

First comes love

Then comes marriage

Then comes puppy in the puppy carriage!

But not really, Garb got snipped :(

Kisses! (French kisses, ooh-la-la!)

Ahhhh, young love.

cutest picture of the day

I love me some Garby :)

Mini food and my sea-sick-green thumb

I have a sea-sick-green thumb :) Really I do. But, at least it is green right? In the past I attempted to grow herbs like basil and lavender out on my patio. They didn't grown past baby sprouts before dying, sadly. I had a Bonsai tree once, that despite my watchful care, died. I've tried growing flowers and failed. I had cala lily bulbs that kept trying to grow, but continually died. Despite my failed attempts, I still have this unrealistic hope that I'll be a plant connoisseur and have a thriving apartment-garden.

So this summer I planted tomato seeds :) I thought my tomatoes would never arrive, given how many times I forgot to water my plant, let it partly die, and attempted at breathing life into it again. For an entire week in September I was out of town. When I arrived home my plant had been blown over on the patio. The pot broken. The plant mostly dead. But somehow I seemed to rescue it. I never imagined after that that actual fruit could grow on it, but they finally did, just recently in fact. So on Wednesday I picked them and put them in my lunch salad. They were so cute! They were about the size of the tip of my pinky...so itsy-bitsy-adorable! I showed them off to all my coworkers, who happen to be fantastic real gardeners. I should have been embarrassed by the tomatoes' size, but I wasn't. I was so damn proud.


So after enjoying my home-grown tomatoes I was feeling pretty good about my food creating skills. So I cooked up a mini pumpkin squash for dinner. I decided that I would toast the pumpkin seeds (rather than throwing them out like usual). I've never even eaten pumpkin seeds. I was pleasantly surprised by how yummy mini-toasted pumpkin seeds are with a little salt...tastes like popcorn! Such a yummy-delicious snack! So great to eat while watching my favorite Curb Your Enthusiasm :) And so seasonal.

Life's little pleasures

I'm taking a break from writing a research paper right now. Here I am daydreaming about my weekend. Yesterday I hosted a brunch with a few friends. It was so enjoyable, just what I needed to forget all about work, school, and research papers! I was so happy with how the menu turned out. Here are some of the recipes: Pumpkin Waffles with Apple Cider Syrup, Spinach Quiche (which I adjusted significantly by adding a pie crust, 2 extra eggs, 1/2 cup milk, 1 TBSP flour, 1 clove garlic-minced, fresh spinach--heated just until wilted, and some garlic salt).

Later in the evening we went to Mabel's for a Halloween dinner and movie. So nice. I wish I was there right now. I can't wait to be done with school! June can't come fast enough!

To cope I just have to focus on life's little pleasures.

isn't this picture pretty!