Val's guide for keeping your cat off your christmas tree.

Step one:  Set up your Christmas tree. Admire it! oooooh, aaaaaaaah, it is delightful! it is pre lit! it is sitting nicely on your little side table, and makes your apartment look nice and Christmas-y.

Step two: go through your Christmas ornaments, and bypass anything that is breakable. (You will be glad about this later)

Step three: Plug in tree, watch cat eyeing lights with glee.

Step four: Admire your decorated tree.

Step five: spray cat who is gnawing on the branches of the tree with water bottle. Cat runs away.

Step six: spray cat who is gnawing on the branches of the tree with water bottle. Cat runs away.
Step seven: spray cat who is gnawing on the branches of the tree with water bottle. Cat runs away.

Step eight: You are about to leave the house! Yay! there is life outside your apartment! (that, or you are going to work)  Unplug the tree, as you do not want to come home to electrocuted cat.

Step nine: Return home.  Find tree on floor, mangled.  Pick up tree, fluff branches, and put ornaments back on.  Repeat every time you return to the house.

Step ten: spray cat who is gnawing on the branches of the tree with water bottle. Cat runs away.

Repeat until insanity is firmly set in.

Sometimes I do stupid things (Cinnamon Challenge Edition)

Many moons ago, I talked my cousin Potter into starting a blog. I had been blogging for awhile, and when he stared his, I was glad, because he's smart and funny, and talked about things that broadened my horizons. (We have very different tastes in music and movies) and when I was talking about doing Holidailies, I was telling him that he should do it, since he hadn't updated his blog in like a year (he corrected me, saying that it was six months).  I then gave him a (slightly adapted) pep talk from 30 Rock:

 Okay, here’s your pep talk. You’re not a blogger. You’re James Potter, all right? So quit whining, and NUT UP. You’re right. If you can’t do this, you ARE a failure.   This conversation was occurring through my cousin Kate (his wife) and she kept saying things like "you should tell him you won't cook him things unless he blogs every day!"  Which in turn, made Potter go into "You Can't Threaten Me Withholding Things, Make Me Something First and Then I'll Blog" mode.  Potter does not like to be threatened. So then I mentioned that I had cooked an entire dinner that he ate, including cocktails and appetizers, and ... lo! he updated his blog! *

So a thing that you may not know is that I am competitive.  I often do not win, but I like things that are a contest, and have a winner, and cheering for someone, and trash talking, and a general spirited competition. It's fun! I especially like the trash talking part. 

Before thanksgiving, Kate and Potter and I were talking about the Cinnamon Challenge, something that like the Saltine challenge, stupid people do. The basic premise of the challenge is that you put a teaspoon or a tablespoon of Cinnamon in your mouth at once, and try to swallow it. Somehow, through the trash talking (I... am pretty sure on Kate's part), there was a throwdown to do the cinnamon challenge.  And Kate "Volentold" Potter to do it to challenge me (not really, he wanted to do it anyway, he's just as competitive as I am). I made the caveat that I would do it, but not on Thanksgiving, because if I was going to do this, I did not want to get sick on Thanksgiving.

And so in the conversation about updating his blog, Potter mentioned that I hadn't done the cinnamon challenge.  So... here you go, Potter: 

YOUR TURN

* On the night I made dinner, the cocktails were Rum Punch, and I didn't get a chance to use my best threat: "update your blog or I'll Rum-Punch you in the face!"

Ten things Tuesday: Ten things that are making me happy right now

1) People who find my website by searching "something to make me happy right now"
I get some unusual search strings, and I've gotten some depressing search queries, but the ones that make me happiest are the ones that are people looking for something to make themselves happy. People! make a list of what makes you happy! You may be surprised at how many things are going your way. I know that the hardest lists that I make are when I'm feeling sad, or depressed, but it always makes me feel better to write out the things that are good that I have going on.


2) Top Chef is back!
I may have had some issues with last season (wanting to punch Angelo in the face was one of them) and I wasn't thrilled with Just Desserts, but this All Star Season looks like it's going to be goooooood.  I have my favorites that I'm cheering for, and I hope the ones who I dislike will be dispatched with quickly.  Plus: the challenges in the first episode, especially the elimination challenge, was AWESOME.


3) Glee
The last new episode of the fall before the winter hiatus is tonight, and I am really, really looking forward to it.  I love Christmas Episodes of things (I am also really looking forward to the Community Claymation episode)  and despite that they are singing one of my least favorite Christmas songs, (Baby, It's Cold Outside) I think that the video of the two of them is super cute, and it's awesome that they have two boys singing to each other on primetime tv.


4) Cannoli Donuts
My friends Lisa and Katie were in Rochester for Thanksgiving, and while they were there, they procured a dozen donuts filled with Cannoli insides.  They gave one to me last night, and I feel that it is safe to say, I will never be the same again. it was EPIC.  I want one right now. It is probably a really, really good thing that they are all the way up in Rochester. 


5) I re-arraigned the furniture in my living room, and it is much more cosy.
Initially it started because I wanted to put my Christmas tree up, and just ballooned from there  the result:  Pictures were hung,  (Including a sign that I have been meaning to hang FOREVER) and I am much happier with how my living room looks.

6) My grandmother's coming to visit!
Every year for Christmas, she makes the trek up to New Jersey to spend it with the family, and this year, as part of her trip, she's spending a weekend hanging out with me (and my sister) in Baltimore.  I am so glad she's coming- We're going to cook from the cookbook, hang out, and generally have a good time.

7) All the recipes I've made for the project lately have turned out really well.
And now, just saying that, I'm sure I've jinxed myself.

8) Staged Reading of Steel Magnolias!
My theater company is doing a staged reading of Steel Magnolias in February, as a fundraiser, and I am really excited!  I'm going to be Annelle. I am also glad that my friends are having a viewing party of the movie... because I've never seen it.  I am excited nonetheless (plus, I'm going to make a red velvet armadillo cake for the occasion)

9) My tragic clumsiness turns out to be delicious
So... I was at the farmer's market, and I picked up a container of chevre with cranberries on the bottom, and fumbled, and dropped it on the floor, causing the container to crack. I resigned myself to buying it, and my jaw dropped to the floor when the woman told me that it cost 13 dollars.  (I am not so accustomed to buying thirteen dollars worth of cheese... ever)  but once the cracked part was dispatched with, it is actually REALLY tasty.  I don't know that I would buy it again, but it was definitely a happy accident.

10) Christmas is coming.
This year I'm making edible gifts for most of my family, and I can't wait for them to try them. I will be spending my three day weekend next week putting together the stuff that's going to be in them.  Can't Wait!

Holidailies- Hello! I'm Val

I am going to try to push through the awkwardness that is an about me entry, and just hop in.

 

Hi! I'm Val. 

 

I am 29 years old, and I live in Baltimore, Maryland.  I love to cook, and am currently cooking my way through the Essential New York Times Cookbook, but that blog is seperate from this one, and you can find it here.  I am a member of the Iron Crow Theater company,  If you're in Baltimroe or the surrounding area (or like to travel!)  We have shows coming up in March and June of this year. I don't act very much (or very well) so I'm mostly behind the scenes, but it's a ton of fun. I like chiling out with my cat, hot chocolate on cold mornings, and listening to (roughly) the same 50 songs over and over again. 

 

I thought holidailies would be fun, because I'm not diciplined enough to do NaNoWriMo, I feel like I could definitely do this challenge.  Plus, I've never done it before, and I really liked reading the entrie II love my blog! It is awesome.  I feel like some of my real life blogging friends should do this too.   So: Tim, Katie, Brenda, Katie,.... who am I missing?  You guys should all do Holidailies with me.  Also: I need more friends in real life who blog. Friends: get on it.

 

Ok! I promise to try to be less boring than this entry would suggest.