Merry Christmas to me!!

So I got my last Christmas present in the mail the other day.....


Only two days late but well worth the wait.










notice there is no "made in mexico" stamp on the headstock. This one is all American, don't ask me what I paid. (I suppose you could if you really want to)


Oh and this has nothing to do with Christmas, but I passed this guy on 417 yesterday. That's a Ferrari 360 Modena, for those of you who don't keep up on high-end vehicles. You probably don't want to ask him what he paid for it either, because that will totally make you sick, but I can say that your house was probably cheaper. And I passed him in my Nissan ($4k woohoo!!) On a side note I would like you all to know that I am in no way claiming that I raced and beat this guy, if he wasn't poking along at 30 mph, trying to dodge potholes so as not to bend up his rims he would have eaten me alive. His car did cost him six figures after all.

~ the XY (putting the testosterone back into blogging)

Overheard:

prologue:
Most of you know that (in my mind) wrapping gifts is to be avoided. I will do most anything to have someone else do the "honors". For years Emily has known everything she was getting, having picked out the wrapping method and wrapping each gift herself. Junk food has even been offered as a bribe (hot chocolate, what in the world else would I be offering?). This year I thought that I might have Nora hooked, but that fell through, so I utilized my senior (year) citizens. Enter: Tim and YeonJun.
Overheard, Asian to American, on Christmas Eve 2006:
"But, Asians can't (w)rap!"*
epilogue:
It was the most calm Christmas ever. (Nate used the word "pathetic" but I can't imagine he meant it). Calm, even the 6 hours of cleaning house on Christmas morning. Oh, yes, fun was had by all.

*get it? This is why he got 11/12 on his SAT writing despite English being his second language - he not only speaks well, he makes jokes (knowledge of the american absurd) and makes puns. For those of you who don't know, YeonJun put up with us last year and is in the dorm this year. He visited us at Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. But he didn't wrap our gift to him. I know where to draw the line.

I'm dreaming of a wet Christmas...

The proverbial "Christmas Letter"

I don't have to send one because I update y'all about every little nitty gritty detail of our lives (complete with pictures) at least once a week as is.

so there.

anyone want to validate me before I feel a twinge of guilt?

I suppose I should feel badly for those who don't have our blog as their homepage or in their list of bookmarked sites...but whose fault is that? maybe I'll send a Christmas email with a link to the blog.

and does everyone realize that Christmas is next Monday?? I certainly did not, until the pastor mentioned it at church...oops...

5 months (click on pics to enlarge)

I unofficially weighed the boy at my appointment yesterday (sat him on the "big people" scale) and as long as I wasn't inadvertently supporting some of his weight, he's a whopping 18#. That's probably pretty accurate since a couple of days ago, he started doing this all by himself (yeah, that's me behind him, but I'm not touching him, I swear!):


















rolling over is great, as long as there is a new (to us)toy to look at...














he LOVES to flip over backwards, so this is my view if we're both at the computer:














Showing the changing table love while modeling the WNY diaper and booties,














and naps are one of our favorite times of day(his or mine, I'll let you decide).


















and a comparison shot:

5 days old





5 months old (notice the outfit is too small...oops)

Whoops!

So I have realized that we never posted anything from our Catania trip in September. Well, here you go.



This is Piazza Duomo, the central square in Catania. Also this is where the bus dumped us.








This is one of the many fountains in Catania. There is one in every square.





This is the amphitheater in the middle of town. It's old, and interesting to think about what might have happened there. And no I don't know what that says on the wall.






More amphitheater.










This is Russel Crowe the cat. In case you don't watch as many movies as I do Russel Crowe was in "Gladiator" and this cat lives in the amphitheater. It's a cute joke, trust me.




Half way up Via Etenea (it's obvious why this street is named such when you walk up it. Perfect view of the mountain) is this garden park. It's cool.

(ps from xx: what is it with back views of me when i look fat?? mom took one very similar in NO (when of course I had an excuse to look fat))




The crazy thing is that someone has to replant all this crap every day.







The clock works, in case you were wondering.









Here is the famed "fish market." Recently I drove by this place at night and save for the smell you would never know that is what went on during the day. There seems to be quite the theme of doing a lot of work every day to function.



Oysters...yuck!















A guy shucking oysters for people to eat raw. Grody. I had a picture of one of the guys on our trip eating a raw oyster, but someone, who will remain nameless but is the only other person in this house who knows how the camera works, deleted that one because "it looked weird." That was the point. He was eating a raw oyster and grimacing, it wasn't supposed to look normal. Oh well.

I know someone who will appreciate this one, having chickens/roosters of their own.

Can't say it wasn't warned though.



That's about all for now, next time we go somewhere interesting I will be sure to take the camera.
~Ciao xy

baby blues

as we speak, the puppy is playing outside. alone. The baby is sleeping (as is his father), the floor is swept, and the dishes and laundry are (mostly) done. I am fed, dressed, and have gone to the bathroom in the recent past. There is a hot cup of french roasted coffee in my hand. Savor the moment.*

earlier today: trying to get a self portrait

































practicing running away, and collapsing on the couch (ps: check out how huge EP is!)
































*'cus it's only going to last 7.5 minutes...

Oh look, they're bonding.

Sorry, it was too cute; I had to.

Oh and as a disclaimer this picture was in no way "posed."

The pup is here!

Here she is checking out her new surroundings.

















An hour later she's passed out in her crate/bed.













I'm sure we'll come up with more later.
xy

out of the box

for the past several days I've been attempting to read the current blogs of Posie, a crafter, as well as browse her collection of quilts. At first, I was simply looking at the pictures, and then the words caught my attention. "I think she thinks like us," I told my mother. And then I read the quote below, and knew it was true. This is not me all of the time, but just enough of the time that I can laugh and nod simultaneously:

"Turns out, predictably yet still much to my dismay, I am very much an inside-the-box thinker. Darn it! I wanted to come out so bad! But I like the box. I like the safe little box. I tried so hard to peek my little bunny nose, quivering nervously, out of the box, but only two seconds out and I hopped back into the box. I couldn't get out of the box. I couldn't imagine how to get out of the box and still follow the rules. I'm also a rule-follower. You tell me the rules and I'll follow them, and if you break the rules I'll completely freak out and start twitching and look at you as if the Rule-Setting People are right on the other side of the box, ready to pop out and throw you in jail. And they will!!! I think they will. They do that."

is it snowing in NY?

I have two suggestions for you:

one, take some pictures of the snow for me. I miss it. Or, you could just send me some.

two, wrap your presents with fabric this year. Here's how, straight from Japan:

But only do this with the presents for people who will truly appreciate and re-use the fabric. Too bad they're probably the same people who would reuse the wrapping paper (people still do that? ah yes. It was always a personal challenge to myself when wrapping presents for my mother on a "voluntold" basis*^ to only use paper that had been used the year before and carefully flattened and folded back up. There was one piece of paper that lasted years...I just kept using it for smaller and smaller presents and cutting off the parts that were only held together by last year's tape. I always cringe when people just rip the new paper off a huge present (don't believe me? ask mr. waaz, who is definitely a ripper) when they could just carefully unstick each piece of tape, hand the intact paper to me, and THEN get all excited about their new present. makes sense to me!)

Why are you rolling your eyes? stop that! I am perfectly normal. Someone once told me so, and it wasn't even a complete stranger.




*well...she did let me stay up late christmas eve AND drink hot chocolate if I'd wrap everything for her. And yes, this sometimes included presents for myself. No, losing the element of surprise didn't ruin it for me, it merely added a further element of anticipation.

^navy term. never heard it before? it's how waaz ended up in Cuba, for starters.

wooly nativity

this is one of my EP's christmas presents from his granny boo. Each piece is handmade by a lady who lives near GB with wool from her own sheep. We especially like the little drummer boy who is, in fact, the fuzzy version of EP. We may not keep it out this Christmas, however, due to the imminent arrival of Putz Puzza, a.k.a. Santa Anastasia.

ps: mom-does Mrs. H have a pic of the complete set? would she like one? you may tell her I love it :)

Happy Thanksgiving

mmm-mmm!!












The boy gets his first solids (E would like you to know that since the boy cannot yet sit up on his own that she will have nothing to do with feeding him anything but milk. I, on the other hand, embrace change and growth and therefore let him eat it if he likes it, which he did)










xy

loving me some firefox

ps: trying out a new idea and typing my side thoughts (since we all know I love me some tangents, kind of like I love me some firefox) in italics and perhaps a font size smaller, if I think of it. let me know if it drives you crazy.

So, I saw something somewhere on the www how's that for ambiguous that prompted me to check out the newest version of firefox, and I may have found a new love (sorry, mr. waaz. you've been replaced by an inaminate series of 1's and 0's). I downloaded the newest version (2.0), and it's spectacular. Automatic spell check (I spell perfectly 99% of the time how do you like them apples?, but my typing is not so great now that I'm not writing pages upon pages every night for college), and many many add-ons*.

I browsed their list of favorites, and decided on the ad blocker, the cooliris thingy that lets me preview pages without actually clicking on them or having to open a new window as well as copy bits and pieces of websites or links so I can send them on to other people (my mother and I are link happy), and jajah, which reduces my international phone bill from $0.06 a minute to $0.02 a minute. I haven't tried it yet, but if it works well, you should definitely check it out so you can call ME anytime you want :)

All this so that during the 10 minutes at a time or so that I'm in front of the computer, I can have a more perfect experience while typing or scrolling with one hand and nursing a babe with the other. Ah, the lengths to which we go.

*since so many people love firefox and its companion email program Thunderbird, those lovers who are also computer-savvy have spent many hours coming up with special ways to customize the internet experience, and then made those customizations downloadable. As of today, there are approximately 2563 add-ons available. Which is why I only looked at their "recommended" list.

To Market, To Market, (to buy a fat pig)*

I finally remembered to visit the market in housing yesterday. So, after leaving a note for waaz, changing the boy's diaper and strapping him onto my back with my modified airplane blanket (you'd be amazed at the looks and comments I get with him back there), and set off from my house at the top of the hill to the street at the bottom of the hill where all the vendors from the local town of Mineo gather to show off their wares to us "stupid americans." My sources were right, it's pretty small, but worthwhile nonetheless. I raided our euro jar, and was only able to return 51 cents of the 15 or so euro I started out with, but check out what I got:

this is the market bag I stashed it all in, hand knitted by my wonderful mother:
I asked for mezzo (half) of one of the bags of mandarin oranges that were being offered, but I think the man was pretty generous with both these and the tomatoes. The mandarines--I asked como se dice in italian: mandarin. figures-- must have been picked just minutes before he got to the market, because the leaves didn't even start curling till several hours after I got back to the house.
There was another man there selling olive oil that said there was a tour of his property next week, so we could see the olive go from vine to jar and enjoy a "typical sicilian" lunch with a complimentary bottle of olive oil...alas, waaz will be sleeping and I don't really feel like spending 18 euro to take the boy on a day long outing by ourselves, at least not until he's old enough to remember. I did buy some rose-infused olive oil (for massages) from him that smells divine.
The olive oil guy's buddy at the next stand had...um...sort of like grape juice, only a bit more...um...mature--get it?--from this year's grapes for 2.50 euro for 1.5 liters (a little over 48oz). I asked if it was good (kind of jokingly), and the olive oil guy practically guffawed. The consensus was that the grape guy could vouch for the red which was from his own vines, but the white was from his neighbor so if it was bad I was to remember not to blame the red guy. I think next time I'll try the white, because it turns out I'm not a fan of new red wine.
There was also a stand with rotisserie cornish hens, pork, kabobs, and...get this...hot dogs, along with other things I don't remember that smelled REALLY good, but I had no more euro and no spare hands by the time I got to him. A representative from Mario's Iron Works (custom cast iron and volcanic ceramic) was there, so of course I drooled over the selection and picked up a brochure for the live nativity that takes place in Mineo the town as opposed to mineo the housing so that hopefully we can go since I *think* waaz will be on days by then. There was homemade chocolate things and a huge selection of breads, but of course I bake my own bread, and forgot to save enough euro for chocolate, so once again I fought to beat out the boy in the contest of drool and had to walk on boy (albeit slowly).

I think that's it? no pics of the market itself since I forgot to bring the camera, but there's always next time.

~xx (again, as opposed to xy)

*If you've never seen this book, you're definitely missing out.