Fa la la la la, la la la la

After a holiday week eating and, let’s be honest here, drinking too much I returned to work worse for the wear. To top things off I have a lot of catching up to do. Why do I do this myself? I blame my family. That and the free time. The wine is aplenty. I pulled a Bekah two nights and found myself asleep on the couch. I now understand how it claims here so often. It is comfortable. Maybe she isn’t narcoleptic? No, no. She most certainly is. I keep sending her text messages to the website morethantired.com but she refuses to entertain the thought that maybe she does have a sleep disorder. I have them! What so wrong with that? Some people.

It’s finally that time of year. Get out the Christmas decorations and put up some lights. We realized we have a LOT more fall décor than Christmas. The house looks empty without the pumpkins. Speaking of which, I painted my pumpkins to look like Christmas ornaments. I think they look great, if I must say so myself. I need to get ambitious and put up some lights outside. I always have in the past. Heck, I decorated our house and my parents. Ever Friday after Thanksgiving I’d climb up on their roof and attach lights to the shingles. After their house was aglow, I’d go home and do our porch. For now it’s just my snowman shinning on the porch and a discounted fake tree I got last year in our front window. I suppose that’s a start.

The campus is now fully on board with the holiday. Office trees are up & you can feel the spirit everywhere you go. Well, almost. Our office is severely lacking. No Crone. All our decorations went with her. I should buy myself a little USB tree to hook to my computer. Give me a little office cheer. But this week I spent very little time in my own office so all the decorated ones across campus gave me cheer.

The annual Christmas tree lighting. I meandered my way up the road from my house to meet some campus friends for the event. Jamie, the expert on campus life, & 2 others who had never been to the ceremony. Virgins to the tree lighting. This was my second year. We sat and chatted, waiting for the clock to get a little closer to 6:30 before we all made our way to the crowd. And boy was there a crowd. It was spread out more this year and that’s good because I swear more people showed up. They had blow up slides, ornament decorating, synthetic ice skating (what is that anyway?) & all sorts of things for the kids. We were there for the lighting. If I hadn’t know the location of the tree it would have been hard to spot in the dark oak grove. We made ourselves through the many bodies to the tree. About 15 min to go and all would be illuminated. Lurking in the shadows was a very belly sick electrician. It was his duty to flip the switch. It was his wiring that everyone was counting on. What would happen if all remained dark? That was his worry. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1!!!! LIGHTS ON!!! The grove was a spectacle of Christmas lights. Satisfied with what we came for, we all departed to the sound of Christmas carols. Till next year.

Bekah and I kept putting off getting a tree. House isn’t truly Christmas without the tree. I surprised Bekah by getting one during my lunch break in the middle of the week. We couldn’t keep pushing it off. One of our favorite things to do together is put up all the ornaments. So that night I started some kind of stir-fry and we had drinks and decorated our tree. I think it looks great. It was a special time. It was the night before our 11 year anniversary.

December 5^th it’s been 11 years since we first started dating. What an amazing time spent with the woman I love. It’s hard to believe over a decade has passed since we first met. They say time flies when you are having fun and we have had fun. In that time lots has changed in our world. We graduated college. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. We briefly broke up. I pulled my head out of my a** and committed. We moved in together. We got engaged & 2 years later got married. Lots of vacations. Became homeowners. Lost loved ones. Found our fur babies. It’s been a wild ride. And it wasn’t always without a few bumps in the road. No two people are ever going to be on board for the same thing all the time. They say marriage isn’t easy, but for the most part ours has been. We forgive each other and realize whatever it was that came between us at that moment was usually something of little importance. We are bound together by our strengths. What might be my weakness she is strong at & vice versa. We have fun together every day. I thank the lord that she puts up with me. I can’t imagine a life without Bekah in it. I don’t want to. She is the moon of my life.

We went out for a drink. A drink became a few. People got word that we had been with each other for 11 years and started buying. Unexpected. Wonder how that happened. Facebook, maybe? Anyway, it was a fun time. Then we went home for dinner. A little carry out and a main dish by Bekah. Those drinks that were bought for us went right to her head. The narcolepsy kicked in around 8:30. It was a fun evening though.

It’s also the day my father went on to heaven. How I miss that man. But I know he is in a better place and I will see him again eventually. We will laugh and smile. It will be a great reunion. I had myself a little bit of his label of scotch & put on some Neil Young. Neil Young reminds me of my father. For a while the emotions were to strong and I had trouble listening to him. Now his albums bring a warmth to me. So I jammed out in the kitchen. Cheers to you, dad!

I have an extremely long vacation from work approaching. I have no plans whatsoever. 16 days off. What kind of person will I be when I finally do return to work? Will I be more rested and ready to go? Unlikely. What is likely is I will return in worse shape than I was before I left. Have you seen the movie “The ‘Burbs”? Tom Hanks character takes a week-long vacation from work only to stay home and become a shell of the man he was before? That an unjust description of the movie. It’s a comedy with horror elements. He has too much time on his hands and begins to suspect that his neighbors are up to foul play. Neighborhood watch gone bonkers. Really quite the hoot. I grew up with this film and it holds a special place in my heart. One of my favorites, you really should check it out if you have not. Anyway, before I digress, I need something to do with my time or I will sleep in, stay up late, eat badly, and probably drink too much. I will come back to work in a piss poor state if I let that happen… Kind of like I did this this last Monday.

Jalapeño!

Jody, my friend on campus, made us some spicy tamales. I was pretty impressed with the flavors that were to be found. Just the right amount of heat for Bekah. Do you really want your tamales to be biting you back? No, I don’t think that you do. I know you are probably reading this, friend, so I want you to know that all my praise is genuine. Despite of what you see in the picture, I did eat one alone without topping in order to get a proper taste. As for the toppings. I had one with queso, another with green sauce I made, and a third with ketchup. Some people find that third topping appalling. To each their own, right? What do you all like to place on your tamales? Should also mention my mother-n-laws beans. Delicious.

Cincinnati chili. Leftover from a few weeks ago. Frozen and ready to thaw. You just add spaghetti sauce and WHAM! A new meal. Does it sound gross to you? Think about it. Spaghetti and chili are very similar in construct. You just change some of the spices up. Why would noodles in chili be bad? Do you like chili mac? Kind of the same concept. Don’t knock it until you try it. And it’s a great way to keep leftover chili interesting.

Let’s just throw whatever we have together and call it a meal. Green bean chicken stir-fry? Sure!! Add peppers & onion? Why not. It was pretty tasty and fairly effortless. What more can you want. Sometimes just let the meal cook itself. Besides, we had ornaments to put up.

Originally for our anniversary we had planned on going out to dinner. We changed the plans. Now that we have a venison hook up Bekah can make her famous chicken fried. Thank you, Jamie. We might need more. It was pretty f***ing delicious. No joke! I’m serious! I’m not a big fan of deer meat. I admit that with no shame. There are much better options out there so why would I eat deer? I will eat this meal again. It was tender as f***. This is as country a meal as you get. Corn and mashed potatoes (made correctly without KFC substitute!!!). But we still were missing something. What we eat every 5^th of December, The Wharfs cream of jalapeño soup & jalapeno bottle caps. I went & picked up a to-go order. I know it does not pair well with the main course but it would not be our dating anniversary without that. We snacked on the caps while Bekah made the meal. The soup was served next. Delightful. I witnessed some truly disgusting behavior in the kitchen this night. Better left unsaid. And my house did stink the following day. Thank you again, Jamie.

HEB stuffed salmon with some cheesy broccoli. Pop that sucker in the oven on a Friday night that I don’t feel like cooking. Simple easy meal. You’ve probably seen this on my blog before. Sriracha goes well with it. Which is strange because the thought of eating that with salmon just doesn’t sound appetizing. Sounds like a craving a pregnant women would have. Sriracha and salmon…..