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I am thankful for my husband, my lovely and hilarious daughter, and for the fact that we are all healthy, have [more than] enough to eat, a house to live in and stuff to do. I am thankful that we have elected a President I can believe in, and I hope he will help turn us back in a more positive direction. I am thankful for my parents, who are slowly losing their minds and have therefore become extremely entertaining in recent years. I am thankful for my friends, of both the Real and Imaginary Internet variety, for providing me with entertainment, solidarity, information, and unwavering support. I am thankful for so many things. Happy Thanksgiving!

I like to cook. Usually. I’m much more a fan of baking because although cooking and baking both tend to make a crazy mess and use up every pot and pan in the house, with baking, the results tend to stay around a bit longer.

I’ve been doing a lot of both lately, what with the holidays and cookie exchanges and whatnot coming up. It’s been a crazy time, but I’ve been remarkably organized to the point where I had to run out to the store for sugar and flour only twice. So far.

My baking will make you diabetic. This I can guarantee. I have a friend who is also doing some baking and she talks about hemp seed oil and ground flax seeds and stevia extract and organic this and natural that. Not me, baby. I’m alllllll about white flour and white sugar and butter. These are the things that make us happy. There is a reason why I love Paula Deen, you see. In fact, I am about 75% of the way through with my planned holiday baking and I just opened my 5th five-pound bag of white sugar. Awesome.

What have I made so far?

What’s next? Blondies, something called ‘dream bars,’ lemon bars, toffee squares, more snickerdoodles, more Mexican Wedding Cakes, more fudge, and Hard Rockin’ Candy experiements #6 (tutti fruity) and #7 (raspberry revisited).

Then, perhaps, a salad will be in order.

1. I am making cookies for my nearest and dearest for the holidays this year. To that end, I went to Costco today to get certain supplies in bulk. A 72-oz bag of chocolate chips is a very sexy thing. I have a list of about 15 different things I’m planning to make - we’ll see how many I get through before I am thoroughly sick of baking.

2. The sun seems to have gone on vacation. I am not amused.

3. WTF, HBO? You have the rights and releases to so many movies, yet you persist in showing the absolutely sub-par ones OVER AND OVER. Why not some mediocre movies once in a while? And what the hell is up with your On-Demand? It sucks almost as much as the regular channels do.

4. I am in the mood for sushi.

5. I have finally figured out knitting with double-pointed needles. Yeah, I know it’s not exactly a professional-level skill, but it was frustrating me to the point that I was perfectly happy making other stuff. Until I discovered mittens. Oh, the mittens. I am in love with knitting mittens. I am told they are the gateway project to socks, an addiction to which has affected many a knitter before me. I am reluctant to hit the socks, but… I do have some self-striping sock yarn in the stash, so maybe I’ll give them a try.

6. I need another bookcase. We rearranged the living room furniture when we re-acquired a second small bookcase, but now there is a giant pile of books that need a home and the remaining large bookcase just can’t hold them all. I suppose I could get rid of some books, but I did that when we moved and I just don’t think I can cull the herd any more.

7. I could really use a beer or seven.

8. Facebook cracks me up on a near-hourly basis. People from my past turn up in the most unexpected of places.

9. NaNoWriMo is a no-go again this year. Who picked November for this, anyway? The one month out of the year when I have crap to do - why not January when the weather is extra-shitty and nobody goes anywhere or does anything because they’re paying off their holiday debt (or not, as the case may be)?

10. Did you know that the producers of “The Brady Bunch” originally considered Gene Hackman for the role of Mr. Brady? Can you imagine what our world would be like if that had happened?

11. We haven’t talked about my boobs in awhile, have we? I had a whole post planned out about that very subject but I haven’t gotten around to writing it yet. It’s thrilling stuff, I tell you. But then again, it’s about my boobs, so why wouldn’t it be?

12. I have to start researching types of dogs since we’re thinking about getting one next spring.

Jillian peed in the potty!

We bought her a potty a few months ago in hopes that we could start potty training and get ourselves out of Diaper Hell. At first, she didn’t even want to be in the same room as the potty, which made me wonder if I was going to have to go with her to Harvard so I could change her diapers.

Eventually, we got her to sit on it. That was huge progress, and due in no small part to Elmo, who received extremely lavish and over-the-top praise for simply sitting on the potty.

After dinner, we have been having Naked Time, wherein The Child gets naked and runs around like a crazy person for about a half-hour before bed. I have had to wipe up two oopsies in the past week, so now, during Naked Time, I try to steer her toward the potty. She’ll sit on it, and demand a book, but until today, nothing happened.

Today, as usual, we were having Naked Time. Freddie and I were sitting on the floor on the other side of the coffee table from where the potty is located. Jillian was sitting on the potty, but then she decided she was done and started running around. She kept running back to the potty and then back to us with her hand in her mouth, going “mmmm!”

Um.

Yeah.

Freddie said “I hope there’s nothing in there!”

Um.
Yeeeeeeeahhhh….

I went over to investigate and sure enough, there was pee in there! My pride in her accomplishment totally cancels out any feeling of being grossed out by her maybe tasting her own pee. Sure, that’s gross. But… I’m a mom! NOTHING grosses me out anymore!

Now all we have to do is get her to realize that when she feels that urge, she needs to tell me or go over to the potty or something.

What a crazy week it’s been. Monday was just the longest day ever, watching all of the last-ditch efforts by both of the Presidential candidates and getting all keyed up and impatient to vote.

Tuesday dawned with uncertain sunlight. I had heard that it was supposed to rain and rain + expected long lines to vote = bad news, but the rain held off until early evening. Jillian and I voted around 10 AM. She kept saying “Mama. We vote? We vote for Obama! Mama vote! In the school!” When we stepped into the booth she saw all the buttons just begging to be pushed and nearly lost her mind. Luckily, I have amazing reflexes born out of Tetris championships so I was able to make my choices and hit the “Cast Vote” button without any mishaps.

After voting, we went to the grocery store, where Jillian proceeded to tell everyone “We vote! Vote for Obama!” Now, we are shiny blue dots in a VERY red town (even though our county and the rest of our state went blue… my town? Not so much), so she got some silly looks as well as a lot of high-fives and smiles.

Tuesday evening was spent flipping between CNN and that foxy Brian Williams on NBC, while refreshing CNN.com and chatting with my Girlz on the bulletin boards. Watching the initial returns come in was kind of unreal - it’s so hard to tell what’s happening early on, but once Ohio was called for Obama, I finally let myself think that it was happening. Ohio! My home state! Eh, oh, way to go, Ohio. I’m happy to say that my home county also went blue, probably due in large part to the work my Mama did on the phones. Good job, Mama.

At 11PM, NBC threw up a graphic that said “Barack Obama ELECTED 44th President of the United States.” Awesome.

McCain’s speech was excellent. If he had campaigned like that, who knows what would have happened? He spoke as himself, as a real person and not just some GOP mouthpiece, which is what he became after the GOP convention (and before). He seems like a genuine sort of guy who truly loves this country to which he gave so much, but his campaign didn’t reflect that at all.

Obama, on the other hand… wow. He’s got some flaws, sure, but he ran a hell of a campaign and it was mind-boggling to see the crowds in Grant Park (as opposed to the swanky invite-only party for McCain… see the difference??) and how they went INSANE when he stepped out on that stage. Seeing Jesse Jackson get all teary was such a great moment because although he can be a jackass sometimes, this is something he has worked for HIS ENTIRE LIFE. It’s got to be quite a feeling to see all of that blood, all of that sweat, all of those tears bring this kind of result.

So we’ve got a new President. He’s got a lot of crap to start cleaning up (thanks, George), but I think, I believe, I HOPE he can get it done.

Goggles!

Devilment!

I can’t believe you’re making me wear this.

Time for trick or treat!

Go vote! If you don’t vote, you should just kill yourself instead, because that’s how worthless you are. Go vote!