Food and Teevee: my two passions!

What delicious food did your husband make for you this weekend? Mine made these:See the pieces of bacon nestled inside with the cheese? Genius. Everyone always makes grilled jalapenos wrapped with bacon but then the bacon gets black and yucky. Yep. Best. Husband. Ever.

For Christmas we got a fancy blu-ray player that can play streaming movies from Netflix and stuff. Goodbye any idea of doing productive things with my free time!! Right this minute I'm watching Exit Through the Giftshop. Loving it so far. It also contributes to my Oscar prep project, as it is nominated for best documentary. But you're probably not fooled. You know I'm usually not watching documentaries so I can be a well-informed at-home Oscar voter, I'm using this high tech device to watch my new favorite show, Meerkat Manor!
It has all the qualities I love in a show. Uncoolness, a serial plot, and the fact that the episodes I'm watching are at least five years old.

Don't worry, I also still enjoy watching shows in a tiny square on the computer. My latest pick in this genre is Downton Abbey. It's not quite five years old, but at least all of the episodes have aired before I decided to "discover" it. That way, I get to watch it in a tiny square instead of on my big fancy teevee.

Hey, it's February. Happy Black History Month y'all! Maybe I'll celebrate by seeing if Sanford and Son is on this newfangled machine...

It's the hap happiest season of all!

That's right. Girl Scout Cookie time, y'all! If you know me you know that I LOVE (love, love) GSC's. It's the most wonderful time of the year.

At the suggestion of my dear teenager, we bought a new flavor- the lemonades (far left). As the teenagers would have said a few years ago: OMG. These are spectacular. Hurry to just outside the door of your favorite grocery/drug store and pick some up right now. (Remember to bring a lot of cash, the Girls don't let these go for nothin')
Look how cute! It looks like a lemon, and tastes like a very chemically enhanced lemon. Yummy. Thanks for the tip, teenager!

Well y'all, once again it's been a long long time since I mustered the energy to mosey on over to C&D Ranch so there's a lot to catch everyone up on. Don't worry, I'll only remember 10-15% of what has happened in the past month or so, no danger of this being too long a post.

The best news for many of us these days has been the birth of a new band, Down Tube Shifter, featuring my sweet little husband, Richie Howell, Kevin Kelnar (of BDS and wedding accordion fame) and Hugh Bradley. They've played a few shows already and of course they rule!! I put some pics of them on the flickr-as well as some of NYE-and (gasp!) have been put in charge of their Facebook page. I know. Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place.

Speaking of imperfect, the knitting I've been trying to do lately is going very poorly so I put it away for a bit and knitted these socks to reignite my feelings of being a badass knitter.
Someone favorited them on Ravelry, which I know to y'all sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook but it made me very pleased. They are, I must say, quite awesome.

For the first time ever, I am very close to having seen all of the best picture Oscar nominees. For reasons I don't fully understand this makes me happy. The downside is in order to accomplish this task, I will have to see Toy Story 3. People tell me it's good, but I don't know if I can commit.

I would love to have an Oscar party, the kind where people throw in some money and the one who picks the most winners gets the money. BUT- the Oscars are happening the last week of February and we have to move (yuck) into a slightly larger crappy apartment. Have I already lived at the Grove for a whole year? Unbelievable. Seems like just yesterday I was telling y'all about the move. Time flies when you're Texan. Speaking of being Texan, I did something this month that further seals the deal: went to the shooting range!!!! I know, many of you are in the NW and are upset by the mention of guns, but I have to tell you that it was super super fun. Yes, the Seattleite in me was a little alarmed by how we could just roll up in the Sentra, walk in, check a box that said "NO" we had not committed any felonies or anything, put on the goggles and ear things and blast away! God Bless Texas.

I bought the new Decemberists record and it is great. And,-watch out y'all!- there's a new Bright Eyes record coming out in February. I might buy two records in two months, a personal best.

February is just around the corner and that means plenty of excitement is in store. The second month of the year kicks off with the celebration of the Hanukkah-esque miracle that is the second anniversary of the period between the Super Bowl party encounter and the future Starks' first date. (Feb. 1-15) Have you noticed my penchant for making up imaginary holidays? They are so much better than real ones. This year's events include the Howell's Super Bowl party of course and Rachel's "Bloody Valentine" costume party (celebrating "love and all of its entanglements") The Starks have a kick ass dress up idea that is both highly disturbing and hilarious. More details to come. Hopefully we will not repeat the sad photo-less Hall and Oates Halloween mistake. If you will be at this party take a picture of us please!!!

Ok y'all that's all I can do. This blogging thing is hard and I need a snack. Hope everyone's well.

Love your people

I guess some people pretend to like their in-laws. Suck it up, be polite for the holidays and family functions but secretly hate every minute of it. Probably some people don't even bother to pretend. I'm sure that sometimes the person you choose to marry doesn't come with an amazing new family that welcomes you as their own. Luckily, mine did. I couldn't be happier-for real-with all of the people that came as a bonus with my adorable new husband. They are fantastic, and I've gushed about them here before. (Again-not just because they are avid readers of the C&D. I actually love them.)

This holiday season my new family and I experienced the tragic loss of our aunt Debby, the person who performed our wedding ceremony. It is hard to put this kind of unimaginable sadness into words. It brings to mind a thousand cliches, but some of them are true. Tomorrow is promised to no one. Love your people (and your animals!) and try to remember what is really important.

Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!

What did you do last night? We did the Best. Thing. Ever. We went to a screening of Die Hard at the Alamo Ritz. They gave us cap guns to shoot at the screen, and they blew shit up right in the theater. Little scraps of paper even fell from the ceiling at appropriate times. If you're in Texas, you should go on the 14th, and if you're not-get to Texas!! Now!!Here's my gun. (Oh look, I put up the Christmas tree):
While I was watching, I thought this would be a great Halloween costume for me next year:
Or, could be an outfit to wear to Stark Party. Kidding! Kidding! I should watch myself during the annulment window.

You might think that Mr. Cumberdale would be the one to mess with the Christmas tree, but Lee Chat is the worst. He's always got his nose stuck in it.
Aw, but he's so cute, he can get away with anything.

Gotta go, I have to iron my husband's shirt for his interview tomorrow. What did I just type?!? I don't even know myself anymore.

I am thankful for animals in sweaters

My husband is moving into my apartment this week, so don't be surprised when you see us on one of the hoarder tv shows. No, it's not really that bad, silly (except for the bedroom) and we get a bonus piece of living room furniture. Not for the humans, though.
Instead of cleaning or sorting I thought it would be more fun to tell y'all about our Thanksgiving.

As you can imagine, it was Starktacular! I didn't take any pictures on actual Thanksgiving Day, as I was using both hands to stuff my face with delicious food. Eat, watch football, repeat. Since there was so much football to pretend to watch I got a lot of knitting done. In fact, I finished the other cupcake mitten! Check it out:
Very exciting. Maybe it will be cold again soon. It was super cold for the holiday and of course I forgot to bring a coat. Luckily my new MIL had a spare sweater and for some reason I did bring a hat.

What I did take pictures of was a fantastic art installation at the University of North Texas campus. You can read about it here, or here, and you can see my pics on the flickr. We wandered around for a bit before we found it but it was sooooo worth it. (Depending on who you ask) It was adorable.

Saturday we went for our traditional Thanksgiving (or any other time I'm in Denton) Pedis. Now I have sparkly pink toes.

Saturday night we were going to go to a rock and roll show, but it was cold outside and it was $12, so we stayed in and watched the director's cut of JFK. Mistake! It was brutal. Avoid!!

Maury's ready to give us the shocking results, must be time to leave for work.

Later!

Edited to add even more thanks to Frances

We have a new follower!! It's none other than my BFF!! She also mentioned to me that she likes the picture of John. I agree. It's perhaps my favorite pic of him ever. It's from the State Fair, and I love it because he looks like he canned all those fruits and veggies and man is he proud! I also love it because his hair is at what I call "circle of hair" level and it reminds me of this guy:

I am thankful for...

My little baby. Of course, part of me wishes she would have stayed about this age:
But I'm thankful that she has grown into this lovely young woman. (yep, that's the same octopus at the Seattle Aquarium)
Then there's this guy. He's adorable, patient, sweet, smart, fun and I love him so much that I often want to crush his head (in a good way). Maybe I should marry him. Oh yeah...

My brother and sister. They are super cool. I'm lucky we still get along well enough to get together and play Barbies every now and again.

My "most badass friends in the entire world" y'all!! There's my BFF (best friend Frances), the person who, for better or worse, knows me better than anyone. If you don't know her you should. She rules.
My ladies: Adriane and Rachel, aka "the good time girls". I love them more each time I am with them.
My mommy!! She is the best mommy ever. I'm so so thankful that she was able to be with us for our wedding. Otherwise we would have had ice cream cake from the DQ. She's had a rough year but look how beautiful and happy she is now!
My new in-laws. They are cute and smart and interesting and they have wholeheartedly welcomed K. and me into their family.
My FBF (furriest best friend), the amazing Lee Chat. I also have the urge to crush his head. He is always willing to snuggle and he never disappoints.
Oh, and Hubert Cumberdale is pretty great too. He takes care of Lee while I'm away. Thanks Hube!
Finally, a thankful shout-out to my out of state friends who I do not have pictures of: Ms. H and Mr. S.B. in WA. I love y'all-get your behinds down to TX pronto!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!