Happy New Year Everyone...

To my family, friends, loyal readers, and random visitors--
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!!

For whatever reason, 2008 has been a challenging year for many people, and I know that I'm not the only one who is ready for a fresh start.

I hope you all have a great evening tonight--whether you're going out or staying in--and that 2009 is a wonderful year of happiness. Happy New Year!

Movie Review: The Duchess

After cleaning up from today's company, resting a bit, and running a quick errand, it was time to veg a little. Netflix delivered The Duchess today, which I've wanted to see since it was in the theaters. It did not disappoint...

Admittedly, I love period pieces. There is something fascinating about being transmitted to another time and place with these movies and The Duchess was no different. The fact that it is also a true story added to its allure.

It is about Georgiana Spencer, also known as the Duchess of Devonshire, also known as an ancestor to a certain Lady Diana Spencer. The parallels in their lives are striking, but the duchess also had to contend with the fact that, while unhappy in her marriage, she was also living at a time when women had no rights. None. And if they wanted to leave their marriage they had to also leave their children behind.

Keira Knightley was magnetic as Georgiana, and Ralph Fiennes has mastered the art of being the creepy arse that he portrays here. Ooh...you really hate him more and more throughout the film.

It was opulent and detailed and the story was riveting. The double standard among what men could get away with and what women had to sacrifice is amazing. And, while it is no secret that women have often had to suffer in silence throughout history, this film really makes you feel the gravity of that suffering.

It isn't a film I would need to see again or add to my DVD library, but I would still highly recommend it. A very high quality piece of filmmaking and an unforgettable story.

Hosting is fun...

Anyone who knows me knows how much I adore my house and, while on the smaller side, it has a great layout for hosting company.

Today we did our annual get together with my paternal grandma--now my only grandma--and my dad's wife. So it was me, my mom, my brother, my sister-in-law, nephew Alexander, grandma, and dad's wife. Yes, it is a little surreal having my mom and my dad's wife together, but we're all adults and we have made it work over the years.

We did our gift exchange and oohed and aahed over every little thing that Alexander did, as usual. It sure feels good as an auntie to have him crawl over to me and want to be held or to crawl all the way into the kitchen looking for me when I'm getting things to put on the table. And he looked so adorable today. I was too busy to take pictures, but my mom did, as usual.

We got to use our pretty Lenox Christmas dishes. I made this great and easy chicken casserole and my mom made a peach pie--both out of my "Busy Woman's Cookbook." This cookbook is so great, so simple, and it has never let me down in all the years I've had it. My mom's pie was excellent. She said it was so easy it was almost embarrassing! Jonathan made the Caeser salad. It was an excellent meal and we had a lot of fun. All topped off with some Martinelli's Sparkling Cider.

After everyone left my mom and cleared the table and did the dishes. Then we called some of our friends from our first school where we both taught and set up a little luncheon for this Friday. Again, at my house. I think we're going to do a repeat of today's meal.

And since I don't have pictures to share, I'll share the recipes. You can order that cookbook at busywomanscookbook.com: (it is the last one on the list, with only 3-4 ingredients per meal)

EVERYONE'S FAVORITE CHICKEN CASSEROLE

• 2 1/2 or 3 pounds of chicken, cooked
• 2 (6 oz) boxes stuffing mix (I use Stovetop)
• 1 1/2 (10 3/4 oz) cans cream of chicken soup
• 1 1/2 cups carton plain yogurt

Boil chicken until done. Pull apart from the bone and set aside. Fix stuffing according to directions on box. Spread half of stuffing in 9x13 baking dish. Cover stuffing with chicken. Mix soup and yogurt together and spread it evenly over the chicken. Sprinkle the rest of the stuffing on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Makes 6 servings.

EASY PEACH PIE

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 (29 oz) can sliced peaches, drained (my mom used peaches from a jar--don't forget to drain them)
• 2 (9 in) pie crusts, unbaked

Put 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon flour in bottom of 9-inch unbaked pie crust. Place peaches on top of flour and sugar. Put the other 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of flour on top of the peaches; use the other pie crust for the top crust. Seal, cut slits on top. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

I would love to know if anyone actually tries these. Trust me, you won't regret it! They are both fabulous and super duper easy. The casserole is a little time-consuming, but still very simple. The above pictures were taken off the web, but they are pretty darn close to how everything is suppose to look...

Christmas Brunch Table

The table is all set for tomorrow's Christmas brunch. Like I said, my new thing is setting an elegant table. At the last Macy's trip we bought some chargers for the table at an incredible discount. I know, I didn't know what a charger was either, but they are the gold decorative faux plates under the actual plates. They really add a nice touch.

One thing I learned from Tita, my mom's mom who recently passed away, was always set the table the day before when you're having company...

(notice Bailey trying to be inconspicuous in the background...)

Maybe it is a little fancy, but it has been a heck of a year, and I think we all deserve a little bit o' fancy.

Post Holiday Busies...

Yesterday my sister-in-law asked me why I haven't added any new blogs lately and I replied that I only wanted to write if there was something interesting to write about. "What about Christmas?" she asked?

She's right. It has been eventful, but I have been putting off writing about it because I've been battling this cold for 9 days now. But, here goes:

This was a momentous Christmas in many ways, mainly because it is the family's first Christmas without our grandparents, the last Christmas Eve at their house, and the first Christmas with baby Alexander. What a bittersweet, full year this has been.

My mom gets the credit for most of the work at the grandparents' house, which was quite an undertaking. She and Carmen, (the family cleaning lady who has worked for 5 different relatives, including me,) set up a tree, outdoor lights, set the tables, indoor Christmas decorations, spent 5 hours making bunuelos, and my mom did the turkey and stuffing.

We had a very nice time, especially because everyone was there, including cousins Robby, Monica, and her husband, Mike--all in the military. The importance of the evening wasn't lost on anyone, as we tried to absorb the atmosphere as much as possible. The idea that it would be our last Christmas Eve at my grandparents' house is unfathomable. It is what all of us have known our entire lives and a tradition that I've looked forward to as long as I can remember.

The dinner was potluck, the seating was pretty much the way it has always been, with the kids and inlaws in the dining room and the grandkids and their spouses in the living room. We ate and ate and laughed. You could tell everyone was taking a mental picture of the house, because this is it. Today my mom and her 3 siblings are sitting down to discuss the process of dismantling the house. And, although certain things have been promised to everyone (and we don't foresee problems,) no one wants to be the first person to take something off of a wall or remove it from a room. This is a new reality that we, as a family, have to deal with.

After dinner we did the gift exchange, then dessert, then clean up, which is hard in a house without a host. I felt like I was helping, but I probably didn't help as much as I could have. My cold was at its full intensity and I felt lousy by the end of the night.

I dragged myself home around 11pm and went straight to bed. Christmas morning my mom and I were supposed to go and see the Benjamin Button movie and then my brother and family were going to be over around 3pm, but it didn't work out that way. My mom and I both slept in much later than expected, I spent a lot of time getting the table ready, and it was just a day to move very slowly. When Jonathan, Quyen, and Alexander did come over, we had a really nice time and it was just us, some holiday music, and a fire (at my house) for the next 4 hours.

This is certainly not the age where one is into the gifts at Christmas, but I did receive some great stuff, thanks to our wish lists. A year's supply of car washes and a wax, several gift certificates for mani/pedis, and a Roku player from my mom. (I'll explain that one in a sec) The Unsolved Mysteries collection from Jonathan and Quyen, and some great stuff from Monica, my "Secret Santa" for the family gift exchange the night before.

My mom's big gift was an 8gb red Zune player from Jonathan and me, which I helped her learn about yesterday. We downloaded several of her CDs, bought a case online, and found some other essential accessories at Best Buy. She's getting the hang of it!

So, what's a Roku player? I'll show you. A Roku player is for people who have Netflix, the service where you rent movies online. There is an "instant viewing" feature on the site where you can watch certain things right on your computer. The Roku player transfers your "instant viewing" queue and puts it on the TV, so that you can watch the things on the TV instead of on the computer. IT IS AWESOME, especially for some like me who doesn't have or want cable.

Here's how it works:

1. At the Netflix site, the movies with the blue buttons are the ones available for instant viewing. Usually they are older movies, but there are still 1000's of choices and, if you dig, you can find some great things.
2. You have 2 queues. One for the movies that will be sent to your house and one for instant viewing. I went through several lists, and I put anything that looked remotely interesting into my instant viewing queue just to increase my choices:
3. Then you've got the Roku player, which hooks into the TV and the ethernet cord OR, if you have a wireless network like me, it hooks up just to the TV (and plugs into an outlet.) Setup is super easy. I hooked up the cords with no problems and followed the instructions that appeared on the TV screen. It gave me an activation code to input on the Netflix site and that was it. I also like that the Roku is nice and small.
The handy little remote that comes with it makes all the magic happen:
4. After the easy setup, your Netflix instant viewing queue appears on the screen. You navigate with the arrows to select the movie you want to see.
5. You select it, and it shows you a little synopsis, the length, and gives you the play option. If it is a TV show, it gives you the option to select a certain episode:
6. When you select "play," it retrieves it from the Netflix site, which takes a few seconds:
7. Then the movie begins! You can pause, rewind, and fast-forward at will. Sometimes when you move around within the movie it will have to retrieve again from the site, but it only takes a few seconds.
I LOVE IT! I even put some movies into the queue that I own, because it is nice to have them so accessible if I'm drifting off to sleep and don't want to dig out the DVD.

So that was my nicest and biggest surprise this Christmas.

The day after Christmas turned out to be busy. We mustered up our courage and went to the mall, only to discover that my local Eddie Bauer store is closing sometime in January. We're still holding onto the hopes that it is just going to relocate to the new section that is being built at our local mall, but only time will tell.

Our new favorite store, though, is the Macy's on Lake Avenue in Pasadena. That is where I found my dress for my cousin's wedding, and my mom and I have been building up our collection of Lenox Christmas dishes. We also got some beautiful winter coats there on Friday night: $240 coats for $95! Wool, warm and really lovely. Black for me, gray for my mom. Robby's wedding on Saturday was going to be far and outdoors.

So that is what we did Saturday. My mom and I dressed up and picked up my brother and the baby. My sister-in-law had to work. We dropped off Alexander at his other grandparents' house and drove 85 miles out to Hemet. It was a small wedding, family only, but really nice considering the size. Robby's my first cousin who recently graduated from the Air Force Academy in May. He's currently in pilot's training in Mississippi and his fiancee (now wife) is in the Air Force in Arizona. It stinks, but they are going to be separated for months after just a few days of marriage. Such is life in the military.

Like I said, it was really lovely. It took place at Robby's now-sister-in-law's home in the back yard under a trellis. The decorations were perfect and we had a little lunch afterwards. The 2 main obstacles were the very long drive (180 miles round trip) and the cold. Boy, was it cold!

I'll post pictures later when I get them off my mom's camera.

Yesterday we got to spend a few minutes with Jonathan and Alexander in the morning and then I helped my mom with her new Zune player for a few hours. We also made plans for tomorrow to meet with my dad's mom and wife, who is spending her first Christmas since my stepsister passed away in October. Seriously, what a year. So we're having a little gift exchange at my house and a little brunch. I want to set the table very pretty. That's been my new thing lately--setting a lovely table.

Today is all about prep for tomorrow--setting the table and buying a few little gifts. I think my cold is finally, finally on its way out. Thank goodness.

There! Now no one can say I haven't brought this blog up to date. I hope everyone's Christmas was very merry! Let's face it, we all have so much.

Xander is walking...

Tonight I had a fun evening with my cousins who are in from out of town. But before I drove out to see them, I stopped by my mom's house, where my brother and nephew were visiting. In those short few moments I had the thrill of seeing Alexander walk! He pulled himself up and walked 3 steps to see his proud auntie!

We'll get a video soon, but what a thrill! 10 months and 10 days old! He's a determined little guy!

Finally joining the world...

What a "vacation!" I've been sick in bed with this nasty cold for 2 whole days. Yesterday I sneezed anytime I was out of bed. Today I wasn't sneezing, but very, very dragged out. Clearly, my body was sending the massage to rest. Of course, I probably would've rested anyway because all of the Christmas stuff is done, but the cold forced me to do it.

By this evening I was feeling a little better and really getting cabin fever. I hadn't been out of the house since Friday afternoon when I came home from work. I needed to get out for sanity's sake.

I was craving sushi--I'm always craving sushi--and a good hearty (but not heavy) meal, since I've eaten so badly the last 2 days. My mom and I went to our favorite sushi place, Zono, on Lake Avenue in Pasadena.

Then we noticed that the beautiful Macy's store was open. It has been closed for months for renovations. I needed to be around people and the store was open until midnight, so we went in. I also wanted to look for a dress for my cousin's upcoming wedding this Saturday. I wanted something wintery, modest but youthful, and not black.

This is a very nice Macy's, and their dress department had a lot of choices. But my favorite one on the hanger is also the favorite one on me. A teal shirtdress by Jones New York that fit me so well it is like it was made for me. I loved it.

I tried to find a picture of it online, but could only find the red one, which is still very nice. I love this dress! It reminds me of a style from the 1950's. Yay!

Some Holiday Tunes and Other Things to Share...

I'm still trying to convince myself that I get 16 days off work. What a great feeling!

Last night I did some picking up in my neglected house and then settled back and watched 2 movies using my school's LCD projector. It is like having my own personal movie theater, which is great for "big" movies that are really meant to be seen on the big screen, like Phantom of the Opera, which I hadn't watched in a while. I felt it was appropriate since I just purchased some tickets to see it at the Pantages in February. I also watched Infamous, the movie about Truman Capote, which made a little less noise than Capote at the theaters, but is still very good. I find that story about the evolution of Capote's In Cold Blood extremely interesting.

This morning is turning out to be the morning of washing linens, and other things that are easily delayed when I'm working. Some Christmas tunes in the background have kept me going, and I wanted to share some of my favorites--most of which are not extremely well-known. Enjoy!











I really like Celine Dion's version of this famous John Lennon song:


And this one always makes me happy and want to do a jig. Merry Christmas to all! Beware--this one gets stuck in your head for hours...

My Awesome Co-Workers...

This has been a very normal week--a goal I had to try and make it go nice and quick so we could move right into the Christmas break. So, aside from one student's unbelievably lame attempt to write a note pretending to be his mother in order to be excused from doing homework, there isn't much else to write about.

Instead, I'll share a couple of pictures from last Friday's outing to Claim Jumper with my school peeps. I am very lucky in that way. No matter how frustrating things get with students and the district, I have the peace of mind that my co-workers are really great. Last Friday we went out and spent some time with our recent retiree, Kay. We ate and laughed and drank and laughed. (Me--coke, them--other stuff.) It was a very good time. It was great to be together outside of the school setting.

There were 9 of us all together, and we had a lot of fun.

me, Jose, Silvia

Ramona, Kay, me

The Ingredients of a Great December Day...

Yesterday I had such a great day. It was the perfect blend of productivity, getting ahead on a few things, relaxing, and spending time with family.

Although I never did get presents wrapped--which I absolutely have to start today--I did get lights up outside the house. My house doesn't have hooks to hang lights, so I just went crazy with little white twinkle lights all around the bushes. Since my mom has been cleaning out her garage, she has found bags and bags of twinkle lights that were bought over the years, packed away, and eventually swallowed into the abyss. But now they have been rediscovered and put to good use, because I used about twice as many twinkle lights this year as I have in years past.

Bailey went to the groomer first thing in the morning and was returned to me looking very clean and handsome, and my Auntie Nene (Mom's sister), cousin Laura, and cousin Cassidy came out in this direction so my mom and aunt could photograph my grandparents' house. We will be dismantling it very soon and they wanted to always remember how it looks on the inside.

We had a big ol' In 'n Out picnic in the family room, turned on some Christmas music and took pictures and reminisced. Then, with an hour before they closed, we went over to the cemetery to visit the grandparents.

Back at the house we said our goodbyes. We'll have one last Christmas Eve there this year and then it will be time to divide up many of the items in the house. I don't foresee any problems except the inevitable guilt from taking their things out of their house. It's been quite a year.

I came home, plugged in my Zune player and took Bailey for a half-hour walk listening to Christmas music and enjoying the decorations around the neighborhood. Then I came home and recorded 4 more songs over on MySpace Karaoke. Such a fun site. Such a great day.

I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY

BLUE CHRISTMAS

SILVER BELLS

THE FIRST NOEL

And a few more...

Yay! The weekend! Only 5 more working days until a much-needed 2-week break. This afternoon 8 of us from school went to Claim Jumper and ate and drank and laughed--a lot. We had a very fun time.

I came home all wound up and recorded a few more songs. Now I'm wiped out!

DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?

HAPPY CHRISTMAS (WAR IS OVER)

AWAY IN A MANGER

MARY'S LITTLE BOY CHILD

Santa Baby..

It's been a pretty quiet week here--which is just how I like things. The only things worth sharing right now are a couple more pictures of Xander--all dressed up and ready to take on his first Christmas. I know I'm biased, but, man, he's cute!

Look at him go...

Alexander is getting REALLY mobile. He's crawling around like a little freight train and pulls himself up to stand whenever he gets the chance. He's also experimenting with taking steps while holding onto something for support.

Yesterday I got to babysit him for about an hour. Since my house is not baby-proofed at all, I had to keep a close eye on him as he zipped from room to room. I had a bunch of things for him to play with in the family room, but scooting around the house and touching the breakable stuff is much more fun! He's so cute! (And, no, he didn't break anything.)

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas...

Now that I have my laptop back, I can share the fruits of my labors in decorating the house. I got a new pre-lit tree (Walmart) because the one from the past 2 years had a whole section that stayed lit only 50% of the time.

Since I don't have hooks on the outside of the house, I go a little crazy with lights on the inside. It took several attempts to get decent pictures with no flash, but they look a lot better with the natural lighting.

I know that there are some adults who, as they get older, have a hard time embracing the Christmas spirit, but I am not one of them. No matter what else is happening, I really do love this time of year. (click each picture to see it full-sized)

Xander and the Clauses

Today was a good day at school. I felt SO much better when I woke up this morning.

As soon as the bell rang I rushed home (safely) and my mom and I took my nephew to the Huntington Library (which is more like a museum with botanical gardens) so that Xander could take his first picture with Santa Claus.


We waited in line for an hour and he did remarkably well as he watched the older, more mobile, kids running around on a big patch of grass in the middle of the line. A dad behind us said, "It reminds me of a dog park..." That was pretty funny.

Inside the building, each family got some quick, personal time with Santa. You had to bring your own camera and the window of opportunity to get a good picture was very small, but it was still fun to chronicle Xander's first Santa experience.

Earlier today and a couple of days ago, my mom got some really good pictures of him. I love the first one! We adore this little boy. He is such a joy to spend time with. (Click on each picture to see them full-sized.)

The Earliest Bird...

Clearly, I am having an off week.

Yesterday I woke up at 4am, extremely worn out from decorating for Christmas the previous afternoon. I ached and my stomach felt weird. With the way I was feeling, I thought it best to call in sick. I never like using my sick days, but I always seem to use them all plus 1 or 2 more by the end of the school year. I wrote out lesson plans and emailed them to the school at 5am. Then I went back to bed, not feeling well, and not sleepy enough to sleep.

By 9am, my nephew had been dropped at my mom's house. I went over there for about an hour, but I still didn't feel well and came home. I sat in my chair in the sunroom and fell asleep. The sunshine really helped.

Two hours later, I decided to shower. I was feeling better. As soon as I was done I got a call from Best Buy, my laptop was ready to be picked up. I had dropped it off 10 days before with a corrupted hard drive. The good news is that I got $130 back because it was a hardware problem, not the result of something I had installed. More good news is that they were able to back up all of my data on my external hard drive, so, technically, nothing has been lost. The bad news is that I needed a new hard drive.

So, essentially, the laptop was returned to me in the condition as if I had just bought it, with nothing on it. It is like moving into a new house. I made some progress on it last night, but I haven't even touched the stuff on the external hard drive yet, and I don't even want to think about what this is going to do to my Zune player. I am going to have to put everything that was on it back into the Zune software exactly as it is on my player, otherwise the synchronization will get all messed up.

And then the kicker...

I fell asleep at 8:30 (thrilled that I would get a good night's sleep to return to work today refreshed...)

Then I woke up at 11:45 and I've been up since then. I tried and tried to fall back asleep and could not. I read, got very sleepy, and turned the light off 3 times, then would rouse awake and start the cycle again.

I really did try. By 3:30am it was getting pointless and I could feel myself getting more and more anxious as the minutes ticked by. That certainly wasn't going to help me sleep, and it was too late to take a sleeping pill. I reluctantly called in another sick day and emailed plans for today's sub. It is a mad, helpless feeling. I would be useless on 3 hours sleep and yet I hate the thought of having to use another sick day. I try so hard space them out throughout the year and this year has not worked out that way.

So, here it is, 5:21am, and I've been at various stages of being awake since 11:45 last night. I guess I'll go and read again and see if I can fall asleep now...

It's Not the Same, Is It?

I know, my blog has taken kind of a dive in the last few days, hasn't it?

It is mostly attributed to the fact that I have now been without my own laptop for 8 days. Feels like an eternity! The little Mac I'm using from school is so basic and small that I just use it for the necessities.

Our Thanksgiving dinner (on Saturday) at my house went off without a hitch. The food everyone contributed was great, the house was very festive, and we all enjoyed each other's company a lot. I'll post pictures when I get my laptop back.

The only casualty of the evening was a salad dish that I broke during the washing process. The set is 70-80 years old, so replacing it will be near impossible. I'm mad at my own carelessness.

Yesterday I spent another 2 hours cleaning up and getting the house back in order after the family gathering. A small price to pay for being the hostess, which I really enjoy. By the time the house was back to normal, I was exhausted, and it was only 10:30am! The rest of the day I spent vegging in front of the TV, alternating between old Friends episodes and finishing up the day with a Thorn Birds marathon. That'll keep you in your seat. What a great mini-series.

I had high hopes for today, but my kids were really out of sorts and it led to a very discouraging day--I'm putting it mildly. Actually it was a stinker of a day.

I'm hoping that tomorrow we'll be back on track, the kids ready to work and behave, and that we can move swiftly through the month before Winter Break.