3 or 4 Days of Christmas

12 days of Christmas. At first that sounds like a great idea-- 12 days of celebrating, feasting, opening gifts, and enjoying the fun and relaxation that comes when that holiday finally arrives!

But then you quickly realize that it also means 12 days of bloated stomachs after overeating, cleaning up mounds of gift wrap, and defusing arguments which inevitably ensue when families get together for an extended period of time.

So here is my solution: how about 3 or 4 days of Christmas, depending on how much fa-la-la-la-ing you can handle?

You see, last night I spent about 45 minutes dropping extremely heavy (we're talking mercury-density here) hints that I wanted to be allowed to open 1 gift in celebration of Christmas. I was immediately joined by my siblings on this crusade  mission, and was immediately shut down by my parents. However, after 45 minutes of logical reasoning, quippy jokes, and blatant begging we finally broke 'em! We were allowed to open 1 gift. And it was absolutely wonderful. The entire ordeal (if we include the badgering persuading) took about 1 hour, and cleanup was over in about 3 minutes. We all talked about our gifts and spent some time together in the living room, then went our separate ways for the rest of the night. It was very fun and very stress-free. Hence, day 1 of Christmas.

I'm looking forward to the next 3 or 4 days of Christmas.

Day 2: Eric gets in to Dallas tonight and will, at some point during his visit, open his gift from my parents and they'll open their gift from him. I'm making a big dinner tomorrow night (spicy shredded pork, scotch potatoes, and macaroni and cheese) and we'll have a great time! So little muss, so little fuss. Thus we have day 2.

Days 3 and 4 are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve my brother and sister and I will open our stockings, and Annie will open the pets' stockings (yes, we're those people). We'll take pictures and get all the wrappings cleaned up and spend the rest of the night hanging out together. Finally on Christmas Day we'll spend the morning having a family breakfast, opening all the gifts and lounging around the house. Then we'll head over to my aunt's house and have Christmas with our family and enjoy a traditional Cuban Christmas meal! We'll open gifts with the cousins and grandparents and eat way too much. When we finally make it home we'll probably just end up collapsing on the nearest flat surface, but it will be a merry collapse.

Days 1-4 look to be full of food and gifts and family, without all the bloating and the fighting and the drowning in gift wrap. With a 2-month build up to Christmas, it's hard to just celebrate for one day. 3 or 4 days is a nice term limit. After all, everything is better in moderation.

Websites I'd Marry For The Money

If I could marry a website, I definitely wouldn't. If I could marry a website that was easy money, I definitely would!

"Crazy lady, what are you talking about???"

Well, my dear anonymous voice, I'm talking about my favorite websites I use to earn a little extra dough! It's all legal, of course. I've been a member at each for at least a year, and if I had to estimate, I'd say that in one year, I've earned about $150 in gift cards and rewards. That's $150 of extra dinners out, magazine subscriptions, and groceries. Every single site is free, and you can unsubscribe at any time. I wouldn't steer you wrong!

 Here is my list:

1. PollingPoint.com
This is a survey site. Once you sign up you can elect to receive surveys up to every day, or as rarely as once a month. Each completed survey is worth a certain number of points, which can be saved up and then redeemed for prizes such as gift cards, movie tickets, or even cash. These surveys are pretty unique, in that the formatting and type is very user-friendly and it varies enough to keep the surveys from being monotonous. I just earned an Olive Garden/Red Lobster gift card from this site.

2. E-Rewards.com
This survey site has a lot of different rewards, including magazine subscriptions, gift cards, and airline miles. The cool thing about this site is that they provide you with partial credit even if you don't qualify to complete an entire survey. They also have quick surveys that only take 1 minute. You earn "e-rewards cash" which can be traded in for rewards. The email containing the link to the survey also tells you the topic and the estimated time, so that you can choose to accept or decline, depending on how much time you've got.

3. MyPoints.com
This is my favorite. MyPoints gives you 10 points for every survey you start but don't qualify for, and between 50-250 points for every completed survey. They also send you emails with offers from companies. When you "click thru" to the companies' websites, you get 5 points--just for clicking. And you don't have to buy or commit to anything just because you clicked. To be honest, I click through and immediately close the new tab, and I still get points. It's called Bonus Mail. MyPoints also offers Video Rewards, in which you watch an advertisement, enter some information to prove you watched the whole thing, and you get points. Lastly, you can do all your online shopping through MyPoints. They have coupon codes and links to pretty much every retailer's website, and by clicking the link on the MyPoints website, your purchase gives you a certain number of points for every dollar you spend. So not only do you get coupon codes and your online purchase, but you get extra points, just for doing the shopping you were already doing. The points can be traded in for all kinds of gift cards and even donations.

There you have it! These are my favorite websites for earning a little extra. Check them out!

I Got A Bit Camera-Happy This Time...

Tonight I tried a new recipe, one that is inevitably associated with comfort food, old-fashioned dinners, and Boston Market. Tonight I made chicken potpie.

Eric has mentioned several times that he likes potpies, and in my most recent search for new recipes, I stumbled upon a few variations of this dish. I settled on 2 recipes to try. At first I was pretty intimidated by the idea of the pastry topping, but I decided to make my own topping. After a very messy and complicated blender incident, I was able to assemble my pastry dough for this dish, but keep in mind that store-bought pastry dough is just as good and will most likely be less messy and stressful if you're just beginning to explore this area of cooking.

For this chicken potpie (makes 4) recipe you'll need:

1 tbsp olive oil

½ medium onion, chopped

4 ounces cremini mushrooms, quartered

2 medium carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

1 celery stalk, thinly sliced

salt and pepper

¼ cup all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups chicken stock

2 chicken breasts

3 tbsp heavy cream or whole milk

enough pastry dough to cover 4 6-inch ramekins

flour for the surface

1 egg lightly beaten for egg wash

First heat up your olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onion and cook until it's softened and translucent, about 8 minutes. Add the mushrooms, carrots, and celery and cook another 8-10 minutes until soft. Add some more olive oil if you find that the veggies are cooking too quickly. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the flour.

Next, add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook until the whole thing has thickened, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken and the cream/milk and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, another 5 minutes or so.

Divide the filling among 4 ramekins (you can also use 2 regular oven-safe bowls).

Preheat the oven to 375. Roll out your pastry dough to ¼-inch thickness on a floured surface. Cut out 4 circles which are an inch larger than your ramekins (or bowls). Place them on the ramekins and crimp the edges to seal. Brush the dough with egg wash (this will help the crust get golden and flaky, so be generous!) and freeze for 20 minutes.

Bake until the toppings are golden and fillings are bubbling, about 40 minutes.

Brag and enjoy! (It's what I always do...)

Where I Come From

Recently I've been doing a lot of thinking about the places I've come from. I'm not dying or anything, but apparently Chicago has been a more significant change than I imagined, and with that change, I've been doing a lot of thinking about who I have become, and how different I am from who I used to be.

Of course, in my earliest years I was really shaped by my parents and my teachers. It wasn't until I was in middle school that I really started to discover me. And that was a very messy process that, pretty often, led to difficult friendships which dissolved. I had a lot of really close friends in middle school. I was lucky to go to a school that had a class of about 80 students, if it was that many. It was hard not to know everyone and it was hard not to at least try to get along with a lot of people. I made a lot of friends that I thought I'd keep my whole life. There's really only 1 or 2 that I still talk to today. But even the ones that didn't stick, I haven't forgotten. I wonder how they turned out, what they're doing, who they've become. Most of the time, I expect that they've gone on to be just as amazing as they seemed back then.


High school was a big shift. Again, it was a messy time. I had my heart broken a couple of times, by boyfriends and by friends that I've lost touch with. But I also had some of the best times of my life with those people. I used to think that I wouldn't make it through my junior year of high school with all the social drama and the academic demands. Now, I would love to go back in time and tell myself how easy I really had it. It's funny how that usually only becomes apparent a few years later. I lost my grandfather in high school, which was an experience that deeply changed me. Contrary to what I thought would happen, I actually became more comfortable with the idea of religion, and his death also built a bridge between me and my family when I needed it the most. In high school I started to get a little more comfortable with being myself even when my decisions weren't popular or well-liked. I'm glad I learned to do that.

It took me until my senior year of college to finally get to the point where I was no longer afraid of disappointing other people, at least not in the monumental ways I imagined. My parents know where I stand on many things, and I'm much more aware of which friends I will have for the rest of my life, and which weren't really friends at all. And I'm starting to learn how to be okay with that.

It took 10 years for me to really start to figure out who I am. I imagine I won't really know who I am until I'm 90 years old, and even then, I'm sure there will be a few more things for me to learn. But knowing how far I've come, and where I've come from, I can start to see the woman I am, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm okay with who that is.

Snickerdoodles!!!

Tonight Eric and I made snickerdoodle cookies. They are really delicious and super easy to make. And they are horrible for your health, so enjoy with the knowledge that you'll probably keel over in 3 years just from eating a few of these. You're welcome.

What you'll need:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. ground cinnamon

First, sift together your flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. In a larger bowl, cream the softened butter until it's a little fluffy, then add the 1/4 cup white sugar and brown sugar until it's mixed well. Add the sifted dry ingredients and mix it up well.

Now, you can do either of these steps, depending on whether you want just circular cookies, or if you want to use cookie cutters. For circles, divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Roll into logs 2 inches in diameter and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours. (These logs can be frozen up to 6 weeks). For shapes, wrap the whole ball of dough and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours.

Once you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 F. Mix the 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon on a flat plate. For circular cookies, unwrap your dough logs and roll in the cinnamon mixture. Slice into 1/4 inch slices and place one side in the cinnamon mixture again. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

For shapes, press dough 1/4-inch flat and cut out the shapes. Place in the cinnamon mixture, coating one side. Place dough on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake your cookies 10-12 minutes. Remove them and let them cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet. (Cookies can be kept in an airtight container up to 2 weeks.) Enjoy!

50 degress and Rainy

Today is a cold, rainy day.

Today is a day for:

Fuzzy socks

Warm vegetable soup

Hot chocolate

Sewing and mending

It's been a good day.

Mac 'n' Cheese on the Fly

I make really good macaroni and cheese. I'm not bragging or anything, but it's just the truth. I got the recipe from my Grandma Jeanie and then modified it a little to include mashed squash (so I'll feel less guilty wolfing it down). However, that recipe takes a good chunk of time and attention.

Tonight I needed to make delicious macaroni and cheese quick-- on the fly! So here is what I did:

I started by cooking 2 cups of elbow macaroni (dry).
In another small saucepan, I heated 2 tbsp. butter over medium heat. Once it started bubbling, I added a small spoonful of flour and mixed well. Next I poured in about 2/3 cup milk and stirred it all up. I let this heat for a few minutes.
Now I cut 3 1-inch slices of Velveeta, and cut those again into smaller chunks. I mixed them into the milk to melt and had Eric stir this cheesy mixture constantly to prevent sticking. At this point the macaroni was almost done cooking.
The next step was to add about 1 tsp Cajun seasoning and 1 tsp Chili powder. While I drained the pasta, Eric kept stirring constantly so that the cheese would get really thick and the spices would mix well. I put the pasta back in its pot and poured the cheese over it and mixed it all up together.

Voila!! Super-duper macaroni and cheese on the fly!