December already. Another Tuesday. Grey has returned to the sky. Skiff of snow. Never-ending laundry. Blurry hold music, third phone call of the day. My wrist buzzing with notifications from a group chat I did not consent to join. I should be writing. What to make for dinner? A goat bleats in my brain. The persistent grey.
Let’s try to break through the grey and the goats with some bullets, shall we?
- Dinner is killing me lately. I have whined continuously for the duration of this blog/my marriage about the Sisyphean tedium of trying to figure out what to make for dinner, and lately it seems to have come to one of its periodic peaks whereby I cannot envision even one dinner or its components. My list of Reliably Delicious Dinners looks like gibberish. My husband is infected, too; last night I asked him for ideas and he listed several options, all of which were side dishes made solely of potatoes. The added pressure of cooking for visitors is not helping. I did, finally, come up with something for dinner tonight: one pot salmon with peas, alongside savory garlic farro. My visitors love salmon; my child enjoys salmon; I like salmon; my husband dislikes salmon but has bravely agreed to eat it for the sake of harmony and wifely sanity.
- I am gearing up to cancel a service and ask for it to be refunded. I don’t actually think I will get a refund, but I am kind of gleeful at the prospect of talking to someone about why I am cancelling this completely worthless service. The only problem is that I don’t do great with confrontation, so I’m trying to prepare in advance what I’m going to say. Perhaps then I can be very methodical in my explanation also prevent myself from going all shrill when I enter into confrontation without warning. I don’t want to yell or be mean to whoever I talk to; it isn’t her fault that her company sucks. But I do want to be very clear about why her company sucks and that I Am Done. It would also be nice if they listen instead of writing me off as a Karen or a crank.
- Speaking of companies that suck. I got a letter recently from a financial service that there is an error with how my name is spelled in their system, and that it does not match how the IRS spells the name, which of course is going to result in, I don’t know, my imminent execution or something. Fine, whatever, I can fill out a form with the correct spelling. But guess what the misspelling they have on file is? My correctly spelled first name, my correctly spelled last name, and an ampersand. Like… couldn’t the people at the financial services company just… remove the ampersand? Is it not obviously a typo?
- The above reminds me of an issue we had years ago with our health insurance. The health insurance company was rejecting a fully covered claim because the name that the hospital billed under was not exactly identical to what the insurance company called the hospital in their own system. I can’t remember the exact ridiculousness, but it was something like, the insurance company covered Polkadot Rainbows Hospital and the hospital sent bills to the insurance company under the name Unicorn College – Polkadot Rainbows Hospital. And then I was stuck calling both the hospital and the insurance company and trying to get them to understand this stupid, stupid discrepancy that should not affect the coverage of my claim in any way. I am still salty about it, nearly two decades later.
- Perhaps could I come up with a bullet that isn’t quite so grumpy? Hmm. Hmmmmm.
- Carla is in the most delightful holiday mood. I woke up on December first and thought, my goodness, it’s December, and I have done NOTHING to prepare for Christmas/Hanukkah, and was about to slide down a long dark hole of holiday despair… but then Carla came skipping into my bedroom wearing a Santa hat AND reindeer antlers with jingle bells on them and announced that she’d already started decorating. Then she played “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on repeat for the rest of the day. THAT is the kind of Christmas energy I want to slather on myself like body butter.
- Should we do a cookie swap? One thing I have been eagerly thinking about as December sneaked up behind me and shoved me headlong into the holiday season is what cookies am I going to make???? Since I love talking about cookies as much as I love baking and eating them, I wonder if anyone would be interested in doing a bloggy cookie swap? Like, we all make cookies and document the process and then blog about it? Is that dumb? Does that require more organization and planning that I can handle? Alongside some of my old standbys and Nicole’s gingersnaps, I think I am going to try making these cranberry lemon bars.
- Where are you in the Christmas prep process? So far I have: 1.) finally ordered holiday cards, which I kind of threw together at the last minute on Sunday, but that’s okay because they are ORDERED, 2.) purchased a few presents for Carla and for my husband but zero presents for the other eight family members for whom I usually buy presents, 3.) bought a last-minute Advent calendar for Carla only yesterday, 4.) grabbed a little bag of gelt for Hanukkah from Trader Joe’s, and 5.) thought extensively about cookies. Oh, and I also sent my friend a Christmas goat. In terms of decor, the decorating process stalled shortly after Carla came into our bedroom and announced that she was decorating, so we have stocking holders up on the mantel, two reindeer kissing on the sideboard, the Christmas countdown figurine sitting on the kitchen table and a bin of other decorations sitting on the floor of the living room. All the other bins of decorations AND the Christmas tree are still on shelves in the basement. December is only three days old and already I feel very behind.
That’s all I’ve got for today, Internet. I hope you are well. I miss you and I’m sorry for being such a crap blog friend lately.
I’m in a grumpy mood, too. A few holiday presents purchased (every year I can think of many gifts for one person, but nothing for others). I am not doing holiday cards again – I might print out a few pictures to send to a few old friends, but that’s it. I even have beautiful pictures from my daughter’s wedding event that I could use, but I’m just not feeling it.
The dinner burden is real!
Ahh, dinner. It’s a age-old problem. Today is Will/Taco’s birthday and we are going out to dinner since Phil will be at a work holiday thing. He is less keen on going out to dinner with the kids. When I told him about it last night he suggested I take them to McDonalds. I was like ABSOLUTELY NOT. (no shade against McD’s but I don’t think I can eat anything off their menu except a salad and who goes to McD’s for a salad). Then he suggested Chick Fil A and I was like – nope nope nope, I’m not entertaining any suggestions. He thought those would be more fun for Taco and I said I’m going to be selfish and take them somewhere with a menu I enjoy where I also will likely get a glass of wine because why not? There is a cute restaurant walking distance from our house so that is where we go because then I don’t have to deal with car seats and driving and parking and such. Anyways, given your level of frustration with making meals, I’m sure you totally understand the appeal of going out to eat for a change. We rarely do this so it’s very very exciting for the boys, too. And we’ve hit a stage where eating out is mostly fun. I will bring some crayons and such as a back up just in case, though.
Since Taco’s bday is so close to Christmas, I end up buying a bunch of things and then I figure out what to give for Christmas. And while I’m at it, we buy things for Paul, too, so we are done w/ their presents. We still need to get presents for the cousin gift exchange and I need presents for all the teachers and daycare providers and such (gift cards and cash for all). So overall I’m pretty ahead of the game – but I am traveling the next 2 weeks so I had to get my act together far in advance! AND I HAVE THE NEXT 3 DAYS OFF FROM WORK.
I love Carla’s spirit! That is such an endearing quality!!
Welcome back! I was getting concerned, but then I saw you commenting and I realize you were probably just purposefully not blogging because November sucked. And, I mean, it did.
We have about five recipes that we rotate for dinner. Five. That’s it. I am not ashamed of this fact. Neither of us needs variety, so we don’t get variety.
Last year you turned me on to the Spiced Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that now has become something of a trademark in my life. We’re doing a “Cookies & Cocoa” event at my job next Wednesday and I’m going to bring those, some buckeyes, and some regular old chocolate chip cookies and call it a day. I’m happy to document that on my blog, although I think all of those are mildly uninteresting recipes.
Our tree is up! Cards have been ordered! I have bought presents for the appropriate student workers! My Secret SANta gift has been purchased, although I need to package it and put it in the mail. I need to buy a present for my husband and for the three niblings we got in the draw, but I think that’s all the gifts I have left. I feel ready-ish for Christmas!
OMG ENGIE THE SPICED COOKIES!!! Add me to the list of people who are going to make those. I totally forgot about them!
Yay! You’re back!
We’ve done zero decorating, so far, and I have no clear plan for when it will begin, either. But I’m certain, at some point, it will happen!
Great to see a new post from you, Suzanne. I love Carla’s enthusiasm. The younger girls have been begging for me to play Christmas, since – I don’t know . . . August? It might be time to allow it. There are zero decorations up. My guess is that’ll happen this weekend. I took the girls to see Annie on Sunday in the city, so that was a day, or it felt like a day. I ordered my cards. I’m working on my Christmas poem, but reading blogs is my procrastination and I need to get the poem done. Soon? I put chicken tortilla soup in the crockpot this morning. Haven’t had that in ages, so there will be some celebrating. I once got a stomach bug the middle of the night after eating that and it’ll never have the same appeal, I fear. But, alas . . . dinner is done. I laughed that your husband suggested all potato dishes. I’m camp potatoes, so I could get on board with that.
YAY YOU’RE BACK YOU’RE BACK YOU’RE BACK!
I was so excited I almost typed YOUR back. I mean, how’s your back? Everything okay in the back department?
Wow that sounded so weird. Should I delete. Should I delete. No, you know me, I’m going to KEEP this weird ass comment.
HELL YES let’s do a cookie exchange! I have so far only made gingersnaps but I have others coming down the pipe. (okay everything sounds like a back-door joke to me today, things are wild).
Ahem. I plan to do gingerbread and also sugar cookies, probably some snowball cookies, and a lot of chocolate bark.
Where am I in the Christmas process? Well, Canada Post is still on strike so my cards are sitting here unmailed. Will everyone get Christmas cheer from me in July 2025? MAYBE. I have no idea how long this will last falalalalalalala
All of that is to say I have to figure out how to get my parents’ gifts to them – I guess fedex? Or something? And also my Secret Santa gift? I guess technically I could Amazon a gift for that but I have already shopped for it so…I guess I’ll fedex it? This is my most pressing festive question of the day. Also I need to wrap the gifts and you know me, that is the absolute worst. Maybe I’ll get Rob to do it. Or Rex, he’s probably better than I am.
DINNER EVERY DAMN DAY WHY WHY WHYYYYY. I am going to defrost some pasta sauce for dinner tonight and I have a cauliflower that I’m going to cut up and roast. I was so excited because we have a Christmas party to go to on Saturday – no making dinner! – but then realized it was potluck, so.
Suzanne! Happy to see you! Yay!
I, myself, have decided to lean HARD into the Christmas spirit, even though I am not nearly ready for the day yet (presents, ha!). Right before we were supposed to leave for Thanksgiving at my parents’, and unexpectedly, my 16yo decided we should put up the Christmas decorations. In one day. “So we can come home and it’ll already be done,” she said, which I agreed would be wonderful… but it required that my back was NOT happy with me on the day we did it all. Ooof. At any rate, coming home to it DID make me happy, and I am hanging onto that with all my might because at work I have all-day meetings, every day this week, plus the prep for lunches and dinners for those meetings. Super. Christmas spirit, it is! I think it’s the only way I will survive. I’m wearing festive earrings every day, drinking more than my share of Christmas coffee, lighting candles, enjoying the candy, whatever it takes.
Hang in there with dinner, ugghhhhhh. Same, same.
Nice to see you back! I have all my decorations up except the tree which gives me fits annually. John (boyfriend) has volunteered to help; I will be hysterical if I have to do any shims by myself. (bad, bad memories) My go-to cookies are Russian teacakes and frosted sugar cookies. My youngsters, then older grandson used to help with the decorations on the sugar cookies but this year, that daughter will probably do them at her house. Traditions do change and that’s OK. I do New Year cards so no pressure there. On the insurance front, my insurance once refused to pay for medical bills because someone, either at my school district (group plan) or the insurance company had transposed the digits on my day of birth. Neither place wanted to correct it, blaming the other party for the mistake. It was NUTS. Finally, after getting a bit terse with the insurance person, she grudgingly agreed to correct my birthdate.
I’m so happy you are back…I was afraid you gave up blogging. Jill
Oh yay! You’re back into the fray! You’ve been missed!
Absolutely, let’s do a cookie swap! But maybe do it round robin style? Where you line up a list of people, post a cookie recipe and then hand the baton to the next blogger and so on. Seems like that would be less of a burden.
Christmas progress…GAH! I’m in better shape than I initially thought but have next to no gift ideas for The Husband; so I need to get on that. I have the tree up and am vacillating on Christmas cards. Most of my cookie dough has been prepared and is frozen waiting for the time for me to pop them in the oven. I spent HOURS yesterday, sitting on the floor wrapping the gifts I’ve already purchased. And I think I’ve decided that this is the last year for sitting on the floor while wrapping (my poor back).
As for the name misspelling, I feel you. When we moved here, the DMV spelled The Huband’s first name wrong (his name can be spelled with one or two Ls; they spelled it with two and he spells it with one). When he pointed out the discrepancy to the fine folks at the DMV he was told it would be easier to just legally change his name at the courthouse than it would be to fix – as you can imagine this has led to many headaches over the years.
This is absolute poetry: “What to make for dinner? A goat bleats in my brain. The persistent grey.”
I am in the PANICKING stage of Christmas.
The internet doesn’t care if you do “NoBloPo” instead of “NaBloPo”, we’re just glad that you’re back!
Yay! A post from Suzanne! So glad to see you here. ALSO, it was extremely considerate of you to take November off when we were all stretched thin by NaBloPoMo, so Thank You for that.
Dinner. WHY? WHY DO PEOPLE INSIST ON EATING EVERY DAMN DAY? Not cool, people. Last night we had the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers, tonight is quesadillas and a bag salad. Tomorrow? Who knows. I have some sausage stuffing mix that I stuffed into mushrooms for Thanksgiving that I had better use up. I wonder if I could put it in a bell pepper and call it a day? My daughter won’t eat that, so I’ll have to get her a frozen pizza or something.
Those cranberry lemon bars look amazing. I don’t really have an outlet for holiday cookies, since I work from home, and no one else will eat them but me, so I doubt I will bake any cookies. I will make fudge for my friend, her husband LOVES it and says no one else makes it as well as I do, but it’s just the Carnation recipe. I’ve posted it before, so doubt I will do so again. HOWEVER, one never knows, and peer pressure may get to me.
First off, I have to thank you for reminding me to get Hanukkah gelt. I know there won’t be any to be had around here if I wait.
I am SOOOOO with you on the deciding what to make for dinner. This has been a plague on me for years. There are now only two of us in the household so it is not as horrible a problem but it still is, sometimes.
I, too, have been quite crabby lately. Just trying to keep my sanity intact, if possible. And if I have to be crabby to do that, so be it. I give everyone permission to be crabby.
I really like the idea of a bloggy cookie swap. With some prodding, I might do that.
Welcome back! I was worried about you but I wrote Nicole and she said you were fine, just busy.
About halfway through our drive home from a week at my mother-in-law’s on Sunday I realized we need to eat this week and that meant I had to plan meals and the depths of the despair I felt about this was probably disproportionate, which is to say I get it.
During the same trip we went out Christmas shopping twice and all I bought was some cat figurines for my niece, but that’s a start, right? We took pictures for our Christmas card and I wrote the text like a week ago but we are stalled because we can’t make a decision about the photo. (There’s one we’re not using but I kind of wish we were on my blog.)
Hello! I have been checking on you, but have not seen anything, and am so glad to see you back. Welcome. First of all, your ampersand story makes me feel annoyed for you. The bureaucracy of these institutions is so silly. I worked for a financial firm and the hardest part of my job was..not dealing with clients…nope…it was dealing with the various admin departments whose first answer is always no, and figuring out how to turn that no to a yes.
For your bullet point about canceling the service, I would do a few things. (1) Google it. Has someone else done this and had success? If so, do what they do. If you cannot find anything then (2) respectfully request that they provide you with a refund, and if they say no (3) respectfully request an exception (or the manager). I have done this with pretty good success. However, if possible I try to do it in writing first and then on the phone if that doesn’t work. I just canceled a credit card after the fee had already been charged and I asked them to remove the fee and it turns out that they will do it if you call within 40 days of the fee being charged, which I did not know! So there is probably a way to get what you want.
Suzanne! How lovely to see you after not that long a time at all.
As I have mentioned grumpily several times, my husband is away for the first two weeks of December, which is a bummer in a few different ways. We did get an artificial tree and it was set up by November 29th and it is lovely. Then yesterday I realized it was December 3rd and I didn’t really have anything ELSE out, so I put basically everything else out – possibly went a little bit overboard, but I’m ALONE, I NEED FUCKING FESTIVITY.
I also recently cancelled something and did get a refund and felt okay about how I handled it, although I hate this kind of thing as well.
YES DINNER WTF, HOW DO WE DINNER. I have given up and told my husband I am only eating takeout or prepared meals for these two weeks. Cooking for one makes as much of a mess as cooking for two, and then I have to clean it up TOO. I have had a really good panang curry and a frozen pizza this week so far. d
I would LOVE to do a virtual cookie exchange. I am up to about a million cookies, having taken on everyone else’s favourite recipes as well as our own, LET’S ADD A FEW MORE. Totally in.
I missed you <3
It is so wearisome to have to cook every. single. day. Sigh. And all the other work that goes with it. Groceries, prep, cleanup. I hear you.
I’m doing okay with Christmas prep? I feel like I’ve bought too many things and simultaneously am missing a lot but it will all come together. Or it won’t. Either way, things will be okay.
That said, I’m with Nicole. The Canada Post strike is really starting to bring me down. I LOVE getting/sending Christmas cards, so it’s one beloved part of Christmas I’m not getting to enjoy. I’m trying to tell myself it will just extend the season as I’ll get the cards eventually, right? RIGHT?????!!! But my brain isn’t buying it. It wants Christmas cards now!
I AM BAKING RIGHT NOW! Well, I am MAKING gingerbread dough for me and Minnie to bake and army later. Cookie idea is perfect!
We have bought one million gifts and are waiting for them to trickle in. My cards went out the other day. 2 real treas; 2 fake trees. 15-foot Snowman in the front yard. WE ARE READY
I once had to stand in line for hours at the county government office because somehow the government got it into their system that I had two birthdays. They were showing both of them. One was my correct birthday, June 2, and one was June 7th, which obviously happened when someone improperly transcribed a sloppily written 2. How did they even have room in the system for dual birthdays? I will never know. Obviously your ampersand came from the same Office of Ridiculous Mistakes That Are Somehow Your Problem.
Christmas is too soon after Thanksgiving this year and it is throwing off the vibes. It is Thanksgiving’s fault for being a week late and I’m still mad about it. I am way behind and I don’t like it.
I’m glad to see your post here – even if it is a little grumpy haha. I was wondering where you were. I feel you on the dinner fatigue. It is just so endless. And those silly frustrations (like the ampersand?!) don’t help. I am going to try that cranberry lemon bar- looks delicious. We are hosting 3 Christmas party/get-togethers starting tomorrow. So baking & decorating is done. Our kids & grandkids Christmas is next weekend so gifts must be completed by then! It will all be over by the 22nd. That may seem odd but we leave for the winter late December so it works.
Hooray! I’ve missed you! First things first. YES WE SHOULD DO A COOKIE SWAP!!! We could designate a certain week for it, OR just say, do your cookie post whenever you want between now and Christmas. And we could link it back to you. I’ll all for it.
I’m exactly where you are with dinners. My mind is a complete blank. I can’t even think about what a dinner is supposed to have in it. How did this get even HARDER???
One thing- I’m really mad. I got that Christmas goat for my secret Santa, and I can see that she read this post. Hopefully she just blurred over that paragraph and didn’t click the link because I want it to be a surprise. When I saw it in the store I was like, this is PERFECT for xxx!!! What a weird and quirky thing.
Oh how frustrating about the ampersand thing. Honestly. They should be able to fix that more easily.
Ahh…I am channeling Carla’s joy! I have cut back bit by bit – so I’m only buying 46 gifts this year (and a few to my friends but they are small and don’t count). But I made the decision in November to JUST BUY WHATEVER COMES TO MIND…because usually I think and think and then in the end it gets late and I have to just pick anything. So this year, I just picked something in November instead of late December. No one cares if it isn’t the perfect gift.
I’m ahead of the game this year, but *I* am retired, which means i have more time. We take care of a two year old grandson 5 days a week, so not totally retired, but once he leaves I can get online and shop.
Sending good thoughts for a wonderful (but not necessarily perfect) Christmas!
Ughhh, for some reason Animal Services has Lila’s name wrong in their system and every year, I get very intense letters in the mail that I will be FINED if I don’t get Lila’s shots up to date. Which they ARE! So every year, I have to send them the updated records and ask for her name to be corrected. Sighhhh.
I’m feeling good about where I’m at for Christmas. Although I ordered an ornament for my SIL that will probably not be here by Christmas, ugh. Good job procrastination on that, Steph!
I DID wonder where you were in November. Honestly, I assumed you were off enjoying a long vacation on a beautiful island near Fiji. No?
I also need Carla’s Christmas enthusiasm—-please send ASAP.