I miss sweaty kids.

I miss being on the swing set.

(Don’t judge me, I like being on the swing set.)

And I miss letting my alpaca roam.

(Alright, I don’t have alpaca, but if I did this one would be my favorite.)

Remember when it was warm enough that you could

actually take your snake for a walk?

Yup, I miss green.

What do you miss?

It must really be horrible to be famous and have people wanting a chunk of you. I’ve always thought of David Copperfield as a well-groomed man of mystery. I also imagined that he would smell good when he wasn’t working. If he would smell good on the job you would be able to tell where he was going to be next and that would ruin the entire illusion. He would leave a fragrance trail that could expose the exact path he took to get from Point A to Point B.

I’ve got a really good sniffer myself. We’ve got a couple of cats and I can tell as soon as someone takes a leak in one of my VERY clean litter boxes. I am able to detect urine in a baby’s diaper within seconds after its appearance. Basically, if David Copperfield was incontinent I could totally destroy some of his phenomenal illusions.

So back to David Copperfield, which is one of those names where you always have to say the first and last names together every time he is referenced. He is not a David and he is not a Mr. Copperfield. But he is very much a David Copperfield, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, much like David Copperfield, I like stuff. I don’t have warehouses of stuff like he does, but because I don’t have a garage right now I do have a storage unit of stuff.

So the feds have been sifting through David Copperfield’s stuff because he is famous and somebody said something crappy about him. From what I have seen on CNN highlights, our international man of mystery has some way cool stuff. Much more cool than my stuff, but there is no way I would want the feds rifling through my stuff either! I would look suspicious for just about any crime they would want to pin on me. I would be a profiler’s easiest day at the office.

** Hmm, she’s got a decapitated Barbie doll. It appears to be one of the originals but why would she have a naked Barbie with chewed off fingers wrapped in one bag and the head wrapped in a totally separate bag?

** Hmm, here’s a monkey with it’s lips colored brighter red than the original lips were intended.

** Look at these baby dolls, they all have holes punched in the sides of their heads.

If a stranger looked at my stuff I would come across as a self-maiming baby-mutilator with mommy issues where in reality I am less colorful.

** Yeah, Barbie’s head is off. She’s almost fifty and her neck is shot.

** Sure, I tried to recolor my monkey’s mouth once its lips faded from me washing it’s little monkey face.

** Big deal, I tried to pierce my babies’ ears. Who hasn’t?

But peoples’ stuff in storage is private. If there is an investigation going on within David Copperfield’s warehouse I don’t think it is my business to be invited along in for the once over. If given the opportunity I would gawk and stare and tell my friends everything I saw, but I don’t think I should be given the opportunity in the first place. I love my friends dearly, but invite them into my storage unit for a look see? I don’t’ think so.

Stay strong, David Copperfield. I think it must really suck to be you right now. I’ve never been in the spotlight to the degree that you have been, in fact the closest I’ve ever come to a spotlight is the light that goes on when you open the refrigerator door. However, I have had my private life scattered around in a somewhat public manner and it is a miserable thing to have to go through and. I can appreciate the tremendous amount of stress that must be in your life right now. I have no words of wisdom to offer you except that this will pass. Perhaps once the authorities are done with your warehouse and you think there is faint urine odor where some chief of something may have whizzed on your biz, call me and I can help you determine the exact site of contamination.

Two years ago I picked up a set of three candle stick holder things at T.J. Maxx.Marked down after the holiday season, they were heavy metal with some greenery woven through, couple of frosted red berries, little bit of grapevine. I decorate largely in botanicals so I thought this would be a perfect fit with the rest of my holiday decorations.

My original plan was to use these along the fireplace mantel, which would be very unlike me.  I am a big fan of even numbers and symetrical settings so to plan on using three of these on my fireplace was a foreign thought, like a brain fart I guess.

And on a side note, brain farts are important. They must be released quickly. If allowed to build up the can cause shitty ideas.

Back to the story at hand. When I returned home with these Stellar Sale Price candle holders the bottom tripod was too wide to fit on the mantel, I hadn’t even thought of that little detail. I hadn’t imagine these suckers anywhere but above the fireplace.

I parked two of the candle holders on the dining room buffet. I’ll admit they looked unsteady on that tiled counter so I positioned a few metal birds in front for protection.

And I put the other three-legged candle holder in the dining room on the corner table.

Incidentally, the corner table serves no purpose other than to hold some fake fruit and the vintage sewing basket where we keep the rechargable batteries and battery rechargers.

At this point, I will let the pictures tell the story.

At some point, one of the resident idiots quickly and carelessly I went digging for a battery.

Never in my widest imagination did I anticipate a result like this:

What’s happening in your home ?

Fifty-one year old me: What? How do you know?

Six year old daughter: Actually, it was Monday afternoon.

She was right.

I did spill chocolate pudding.

On Monday afternoon.

Lead Reindeer

Reindeer in Training

Elf Eyeballing Cookies

Reindeer Games

1. In your Phriday personal post, include a phavorite photograph (like how I did that?) and a brief description of why it is your phave. Anything at all works for me … one picture, more pictures, a video … even if you participate it another blogger’s Friday event you can double up as long as you link back to me within your post.

2. My advice is that you jump on board now bephore everyone in the nation gets involved and there are no mega-giga-y2k-bytes lepht phor you!

3. As always, if you have any questions or just want to chat about cats or kids or what I am going to do with the ten spare hours I now have every Phriday, you can contact me at candidcarrie at gmail dot com!

5. Try to remember to link back to me, if you don’t know how or would like some help, I’ll gladly assist you!

Let the Phestivities begin!

About two hours later my husband returned to me. He was cold, out of breath and empty handed. “I can’t find anything in that attic.”

We have a decent sized attic, there is a chimney running up the middle and stuff piled in what I thought was a logical order. You’ve got your basics:

* Standard Holiday Region (including but not limited to Easter, Independence/Memorial Day, Halloween, Christmas)

* American Girl Molly and Bitty Baby Region

* The Barbie and Ken Bonanza (featuring full frontal nudity, male and female)

* The My Favorite Clothes That Are Too Small Region

* The My Favorite Clothes That Are Way Too Small Region

* The My Favorite Clothes From When I Was Blond and Sinfully Thin

* The My Favorite Clothes From High School Region

* Dishes That I Really Like But Will Never Use Because They Are Not A Complete Set

I think you get the general idea. I like my clutter, I like my stuff. I like things around me and I can’t get enough!

So, here’s the deal. I no longer do lights because, although I am old, I have been on this earth long enough to make the grown up decision that life it too short to NOT have a pre-lit tree. Therefore, my trees are pre-lit (as I should have been before I started this project) since the year after pre-lit trees were available to the general public. The first year they were too outrageously priced.

The coveted pre-lit tree makes its way through our attic, down the staircase, living room and finally plugged in the socket. Our forever-lit tree was not responding to the forever-running electrical current we had just generously provided.

Apparently, it is not a FOREVER-lit tree because that would be like making a promise to the consumer. It is just an EVER-lit tree because it will last until WHENEVER it decides to stop being lit. This was the year my tree quit being lit.

That’s alright, we’ll get another pre-lit tree and we can deal with this tree later. I have issues about throwing things away. I would rather save them until I find the perfect recipient.

Off to K-Mart we go, Martha’s calling and I can hear her loud and clear. David and I enter the tree area and I am somewhat disappointed by the choices provided by Ms. Stewart. I finally decide upon the Martha Stewart Everyday Holiday 4.5′ Berry Mountain pre-lit Tree.

As we gazed at this tree I realized what a freakin’ grandmother I have become. I am actually looking at a tabletop tree. How pathetic is that? What’s even worse, is that I don’t want a tall tree because the cats will go up into it! So now I am a freakin’ grandmother worrying about my cats climbing my tree. Wait, it gets worse.

It is a flocked tree, the signature tree of all grandmothers! It is the Mother Flocker of All Christmas Trees.

“Grab it, let’s go,” I whisper to my husband who hoists the mighty tree over his left shoulder and proceeds to the checkout. Wow, give the man an ax and a red-plaid shirt and he could be my personal lumberjack and for less than fifty bucks we are back in business.

And as for the cats? I take apart every single one of the gazillion red ornaments and reassembled them back on the tip of the branches without using any hooks. This way my cats wouldn’t be tempted to bat around the little glass bulbs and our tree will not be their playhouse.

Humorous yet necessary disclaimer: Although I wrote this post in a few years ago, I need to stress that I never received a tree from Martha Stewart. When I was doing a quick search for a picture to go with this article I found the actual tree that I had purchased a few years ago. Being the generous soul that I am and since it is the holidays, I threw Martha a bone by included the link within my recycled post.

And here’s a shot of my old wiener snuggling next to my newer wiener.

This is the very first time I’ve tacked one of her recipes. I should have known better but the details sounded heavenly and the picture was fabulous.  You can check it out by clicking here.  Scribbit’s cake looked beautiful. I had cake envy.

I had all the ingredients. I had the time. And even though we are in the middle of what was declared an “Indian Summer Saturday” by local weathermen I was in an Autumn kind of mood and Old Fashioned Caramel Cake certainly sounded like it would meet all of my needs.

I make all my cakes and cookies from scratch. We usually eat the cakes out of the 9×13 pan in which they’ve been baked. I tried to fancy it up a little bit by using a bundt pan instead of the two round pans Scribbit recommended.

My cake was not beautiful but the house smells really good.

I tried to use some old fashioned photography tricks to try to capture my subject (the cake) in the best way possible so that I could truly hide the flaws. Often used with aging starlets, the edges of your subject are blurred ever so slightly and as a result wrinkles and other faults of the aging process are eliminated. Often times, the photographer is so skilled that you may not even notice. I’ve included a few samples as an opportunity to point out the blurring process.

Now that you have familiarized yourself with the blurring process, I present to you my version of Scribbit’s cake.

And as I was reassured by my fifteen year old daughter, “Don’t worry, it will probably taste alright.”  Here’s hoping.

Everywhere I look I find
one more reason to smile.

However …

this is the very first time
my dirty dining room table
has ever smiled back at me.

1. In your Phriday personal post, include a phavorite photograph (like how I did that?) and a brief description of why it is your phave. Anything at all works for me … one picture, more pictures, a video … even if you participate it another blogger’s Friday event you can double up as long as you link back to me within your post.

2. My advice is that you jump on board now bephore everyone in the nation gets involved and there are no mega-giga-y2k-bytes lepht phor you!

3. As always, if you have any questions or just want to chat about cats or kids or what I am going to do with the ten spare hours I now have every Phriday, you can contact me at candidcarrie at gmail dot com!

5. Try to remember to link back to me, if you don’t know how or would like some help, I’ll gladly assist you!

Let the Phestivities begin!

As I walked closer to the sewer grate, I moved all the little leaf clusters to
keep an even stream flowing.

Wait! This is unexpected. What is this?

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