Hey! I'm here! And I can't help but notice that I have only read one (1) post written today, yet I KNOW some of you are lurking around, so I'm going to have to respectfully require that you all GET ON IT. Post about your gifts! The food you ate! The work you are avoiding out of bitterness! WHATEV!
I'll start. I am bummed today. I'm suffering from something which is common for me during holidays: grass-is-greener-itis. We didn't travel for the holidays this year, and while it was nice and relaxing to stay home, I can't help but wonder if we should have sucked it up and gone somewhere. The thing is, I ALWAYS DO THIS. When I am here, I am all "I miss my family and I want to go hoooome. Wahhh". But then, as soon as I get to Minnesota, I am all "I hate my family and this sucks and I want to go hoooome. Wahhh". SIGH. What is my problem?
I don't really hate my family. But you know what I mean. I have lived far away from home long enough that I feel a little out of place there. Some of my family reads this blog and right now they are thinking that this is my own, hermity fault. And THEY ARE RIGHT. Also, we are not really into FEELINGS and all that bullshit so instead of telling them I love and miss them and I don't live here to get away from any of them, but to live the best life Ican, our conversations are more like "So, who is fucking craziest this year? AGAIN? Cool, well have a cocktail for me! Later!"
I don't know. Maybe it would help if you told me about how you saw your family this year and it TOTALLY SUCKED.
Anyway, enough with the Sad Sack business! I got my food processor! I went with the Cuisinart due mostly to your comments.
I LURVE IT! So far I have made pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, and shredded cheese with it. It came with an INSTRUCTIONAL DVD, people! And I thought I would want more than two buttons, but it turns out I don't! I just trust the Cuisinart! The Cuisinart knows what to do! Let go and let the Cuisinart!
So, how was your holiday and what are your favorite food processor recipes? Don't forget to tell me how badly your family sucks!
28 comments:
My parents are impossible to please and since my ex had our daughter the afternoon of XMAS day, it was just me, my mom and my step-dad. it was uh, boring. And my mom was critical of the gifts I gave her. AGH!
My husband works for a major internet retailer, and occasionally they have employee sales. SO, besides snarfing up a set of Henkels knifes, I bought the "Knife Skills" DVD for 1.98. I haven't watched it yet though.
What did Santa bring AD?
oh right. my family doesn't suck, but we went there on saturday. it would have SUCKED if we'd gone on Christmas Eve. Traffic makes me homicidal.
And if I had to fly like you do, I would totally be in jail. I would lose my shit SO FAST it wouldn't be funny.
Farrell-YES! THANK YOU!
TLA-Knife Skills DVD! I need that! Let me know if it's total bullshit, or what.
I am bummed today too! I really wanted to stay home and watch SD play with all of her new toys! But, I did see family, well BG's family and the infamous SIL was a total B, I will have to tell you the stories. I haven't posted yet, but go check out our website for new pics, at least I got those up!
E-I did check out the pictures, looks like so much fun for the kids! I think part of my blahs have to do with the fact that it was pretty clear that AD was bored being home with us for 4 days (and 4 more to come this weekend!). So I feel bad about that. You have to post today! PLEASE! I am dying here! I didn't want to work today but I have nearly exhausted my internet possibilities!
I don’t think your feeling out of place has anything to do w/ geography. I feel the same way. There is a reason why none of our cousins live in MN. Although we did miss you, and Gavin was very sad to not see AD, you really didn’t miss anything. Grandma’s was awkward and uncomfortable as always and we couldn’t wait to leave. And every year I say I’m never going there again...
Yay Cuisinart!
If this cheers you up... in my family getting together means driving 2 hours through traffic, spending all frickin' day cooking a really intricate meal that someone else planned because if you had your say you'd just order out, arguing and griping about whose fault it is that the meal gets to the table 2 hours late then driving home exhausted. Oh yeah and the baby woke up twice (2= bad) during the night on Christmas.
But the presents were pretty awesome and plus everyone wants to play with the baby so at least you get a break for a couple hours, hours that you spend slaving in the kitchen. Sigh. Next year ...Hawaii.
The highlight of family Christmas time this year was me threatening to punch one of K's uncles if he marathoned burped in my ear one more time. I totally muttered it under my breath though and it wasn't because the family is awful - just because I am BITCHY. and I am very jealous of your cuisinart. I only have a little one and now I feel the need to go buy a big one. maybe I will do that to make me feel better about the fact that I am working and not at home eating cookies
I saw my family this year, and my dad made several TOTALLY UNCHARACTERISTIC crabby remarks (one of them about my blog, which seemed to refer to its poor quality but was difficult to interpret) in my direction, so now I will have to fret about What He Meant for YEARS. And my brother and sister-in-law were quiet, and I wondered If They Wished They Hadn't Come, and when I tried to draw them into conversation they didn't really respond to it. And then I was too loud and too interruptive and talked too much and felt like an idiot. And my mom kept saying things that were big exaggerations, sometimes attributed to ME. And then it was over and it felt like way too much effort for a day that's basically about everyone shopping for each other.
How's that?
On the family/Christmas subject, we're actually spending this coming weekend with family. And, um, I'm afraid. Because I know I'm going to get CRANKY. Because as much as I love them & they're great - they're also extremely passive-aggressive, with the HINTNG? And the SUGGESTIONS? I go nuts. My prediction for this coming weekend involves hints surrounding both our future child's name as well as whether or not we're going to give these family members All Access All the Time (I'm really fearful that, come March, they're going to move in with us - if not LITERALLY, then FIGURATIVELY at least). This rant = my gift to you.
My holidays were OK; nothing great, nothing horrible. Just blah. I always feel like I scramble around, driving from one place to another, trying to get in enough face time and conversation, and just end up feeling exhausted and not at all rested.
I posted just now, so you should go read it. Especially since it's all due to your request from a few days ago. Ahem.
Okay, I totally laughed like an idiot at "Let go and let the Cuisinart!" Hee!
I have a recipe for empanada dough that involves a food processor. That might be right up your fake Hispanic alley, so let me know if you want it. :)
Okay.
Melia couldn't sleep at all in the pack and play at my parents, so we were up all night. We were down in the living room at 3:30 in the morning trying to find cartoons and get her to stop crying. I think my family was drunk before noon, which led to pushy grandparent annoyingness. As we went outside to go sledding my parents got in a fight and didn't show up until Melia was melting down, screaming, cold, and ready to go back. I started carrying her back to their house(about a mile), and my mom chased after us and told me I needed to chill out. She then proceeded to try and take Melia from me and put her down in the snow to play.
Oh, and I got the Biggest Loser guidebook as a gift.
Ta Da!
Crystal-My god, and also AWESOME. The Biggest Loser Guidebook? That is just...YOU WIN.
I do the same thing with my family: miss them from afar. Sorry you're all blue.
Cuisenarts rock, congrats. Shredded cheese AND dough of some kind, I am impressed. I don't actually make anything with a food processor; I use it to cut up veggies when I make something big, or puree squash for soup.
i have the opposite. my family stays insulated for xmas - just me, my mom and dad, and my sister - and it's fantastic. i am still supposed to be there. HOWEVER, my *@&#$^@ work computer wouldn't work remotely, so i drove back to effing virginia this morning so i could go to work, missing the last 2 days home with my family, and HEY GUESS WHAT my computer won't work AT WORK either. so basically i'm missing 2 full days with my family to sit at work and not be able to work, which i could be doing in nj during the 2 weeks of the year that my sister is home. HAAAATE EVERYTHINGGGG RIGHT NOW.
ahem. merry xmas. or whatever.
Oh don't worry, my family totally sucks too. I just thank god my brother and SIL were there to suffer with me.
And a food processor?!?!?!?
WHEE!!!!
I got a food processor too- mine is Kitchen Aid. So far I've made squash puree to hide in stuff and make it healthier. :)
Let's see... sucky things... I put a cake in a pan that was too small for it and it overflowed and spilled all over my damn oven and burned. I mentioned I wasn't always so good with spatial stuff and MIL said "obviously!" in this bitchy voice.
Next time I'll puree her. Or maybe grate her up.
Okay, sucky things... and whether or not to use this as a post of my own or hijack your comments section for a WAY TOO LONG comment...
HIJACK!! I'm too lazy to write my own post, plus you never know when someone you don't want to see it will. So, my type A fussypants mother was here:
Things we do (or don't) that shock and/or HORRIFY my mom - (1) SOMETIMES I let my kids wear something new they receive BEFORE washing it. (Scary, no?), (2) I don't know which drawer my 13-year-old uses for her jeans (Why do I need to? She puts away her own laundry, and I really don't give a rat's ass where.), (3) I don't do, or have any desire to do, a big Christmas dinner (I bake and we buy hor's douvres - however the hell you spell it - and we eat off and on all day whenever the hell we feel like it), (4) APPARENTLY, I didn't greet her boyfriend with the proper ENTHUSIASM the last time he was here (so I was instructed in the proper greeting etiquette prior to his arrival - I should mention my anti-social and apathetic tendencies).
There are many other things, but I tend to block them out until they rear their ugly heads during a visit. This visit was actually less draining than usual, which I attribute to my becoming even MORE apathetic.
Also, my brother was supposed to come over with his girlfriend and her two sons who just moved in with him. I was really looking forward to meeting them, especially the little boys, but they all got the pukes and diarrhea on Christmas Eve. I think he somehow brought it on intentionally to avoid more time with my mother. He called and said he'd come by Thursday, when "Mom won't be there to control things." Yeah, thanks for coming over and taking your share of the crap, bro.
As we've already discussed, I don't have a food processor or really understand its point, so I don't have any food processor recipes to share with you. However, I will tell you that I had a great holiday (and I will post about it TOMORROW when I'm more coherent, so you'll just have to wait), and that I don't hate my family but god damn if they aren't difficult to deal with. One thing I've learned from living with two host families for extended periods of time is that god damn but everyone's family sucks. It's amazing to look around at all the supposedly normal people in your life and think that they are all parts of families and therefore, in their own way, suck.
Nicole is home, so my holiday was better than I thought it would be. I still use a knife for processing, but I bought my father's girlfriend a Hamilton Beach Big Mouth and she loves that she doesn't have to cut up anything for it to fit and that it holds 14 cups.
My parents have never been what you'd call warm (well, they're New Englanders) and they don't make much effort for us kids--for example, they haven't driven down to VA to visit me once in 17 years, so that means going there which my mother whinily demands, even though they're retired and I'm not. And they're eccentric and vague and don't mind things like, oh, the cat box being in the tiny kitchen and 20 stacks of mail on the table and really interesting black mold in the shower. And my mother, owing to a genuinely shitty childhood, becomes despressed and takes to her bed on Christmas day EVERY YEAR for a pout marathon while my sister and I try to rescue the crappy dinner that she starts (insists on starting) and then abandons. And she and my father, who are both a bit deaf, actually whisper loudly together in another room about me and my sister, which is easy to hear since the house is about 800 square feet. My sister and I will say "we can HEAR you! YOU'RE the deaf ones...not us!" And if we want to sightsee or go shopping, my mother HAS to go with us--we all have to go everywhere joined at the hip even though the constant togetherness gets on everyone's nerves--and the minute we get there, she makes us go home because she has to go to the bathroom and for whatever reason won't use the public restroom. The last time we were there, it started to snow wicked bad and we nearly got killed on our way to the airport and we were one of the last cars off the Cape before they closed the frigging bridges down, the airline had overbooked and one of us didn't have a seat after standing in a 500 person security line in our stocking feet for about 2 hours in godawful Providence and our flight was one of the last ones out of the airport before they shut down. We weren't sure up until the last minute whether we'd spend a couple days on the floor of T.F. Green, or whether we'd die in a crash from ice on the wings. Yeah, love Christmas with the family. This year we stayed home--heavenly--even though it did feel a bit...lonely. Go figure.
We had at least three major blow ups with hateful words and a lot of "you should go home" or "you shouldn't have come" going on. Luckily I was not involved in any of those festivities just my sister and my grandmother, but hearing it is enough to make you want to scratch your fingernails on a chalk board. I am choosing to remember the good times we had during dinner, presents and games.
Haven't spoken to my mother in four years which simplified life in many ways, including making holidays much, much merrier!
Well, commenting a bit late here, but I can't post about this in my own blog for fear of family, so here is an excerpt of my family Christmas: my sister and half sister getting into a tense, snappy argument about WHETHER OR NOT AFRICAN PEOPLE ARE LESS INTELLIGENT THAN THOSE OF EUROPEAN DESCENT!!! Yes, SERIOUSLY. My half sister has lived in the Deep South for several years, and has apparently sampled and then absorbed every stereotypical prejudice it has to offer. So they had this argument at my house, then we proceeded on to my mom's for gift exchange, and the two of them didn't speak the rest of the holiday. Yikes.
Then I found out in a casual aside from my cousin that another, very distant side of my family has SWING PARTIES. OH GOD.
I should clarify: Not swing dancing. THE OTHER KIND OF SWINGING.
If it helps: Nothing I ever do, EVER, is right as far as my Grams/Mom is concerned. She raised me, and she's always thinking she knows EVERYTHING about me and she never does, and she consistently does the eye-roll/sigh bit and it makes me want to yank on my hair and also eat cake. AND, my brother's wife brought her parents, who are completely CRAZY (in the absolute literal sense) slobby bastards. Ugh.
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