I've eaten turkey 4 times already and it's not even Thanksgiving yet

I attended not one but two Thanksgiving parties today. I dined with the sticky fingered preschool set first and then jogged across the school to eat more turkey with my favorite first grader.

Earlier this week my passive aggressive colleagues and I dined on upgraded turkey at my office Thanksgiving spread. I then served office Thanksgiving spread leftovers to my family for dinner. Free leftovers being the only perk of being in charge of organizing an office Thanksgiving spread. The downsides being annoying stuffing versus dressing debates and people asking the day afterward when the Christmas spread will be. Nothing sparks more discussion in my office than food. Hold a shindig with no cake and you'll never hear the end of it. My team won a free pizza party recently and the discussion about when it would be and where to order the pizza from took 10 minutes. It included a sidebar about the correct toppings to order. I'm not joking. It's a miracle we manage to get any work done.

But I digress.

So I brought home the leftovers from the passive aggressive upgraded Thanksgiving lunch spread. Not so much because it was free but because I felt bad letting it go to waste. I've been serving cheese and cracker appetizers to the kids every night since while I make dinner. I also try to serve leftover stuffing with everything. You'd be surprised what a tough sell it is when you're serving spaghetti for dinner.

For anyone keeping score at home, that's 4 times I've eaten turkey and the fixings with Thanksgiving still six days away. That has significantly reduced the chances of anyone sitting down to a turkey dinner at our funky mismatched table this year.

In fact, just thinking about turkey makes me feel full. That makes me wish the smell of turkey could be spritzed on like perfume and worn all day to keep the munchies at bay. Just imagine how many crumpled one dollar bills I'd save if I didn't feel the need to trek to the vending machine in the break room to see if they have animal crackers. Imagine the bowls full of Kit Kats I'd be able to walk past without grazing on. I might smell like turkey but I'd be richer and thinner. It's an idea.

25 and counting

Some people knock out their list of 100 things in one shot. They probably also order t-shirts from Threadless. I've successfully taken over two years to finally get to 20 and I'm too tragically uncool to ever think to order Threadless t-shirts despite the fact that I often think the designs are very clever. But none of that has anything to do with the following 10 things about me:

16. I hate perfume. I can take a whiff and think something smells good but then I'm done.
17. When we were dating, my husband once gave me a bottle of fancy perfume.
18. I'm very sensitive to smell in general. I'm convinced an annoyingly strong smelling dandruff shampoo once gave me a headache. Which is odd since washing my hair typically cures my headaches. Go figure.
19. I hate when my husband puts dryer sheets in the dryer with my T-shirts because I end up I smelling the dryer sheet all day when I wear those shirts. My husband jokes that I'd be happier if the the world was devoid of any scent at all.
20. I absolutely would not be happier if the world was devoid of scent. For example, how would I know when it's time to pour the end of the milk down the drain? I also happen to love the smell of many, many things. Movie theater popcorn, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and my babies fresh out of the bathtub being the first three that come to mind. I also love the smell of clean sheets. And the bathroom after someone showers when the faint smell of their shampoo lingers in the room.
21. I once had a candle made by the Herbal Essences shampoo people that smelled like my favorite lightly scented pink Herbal Essences shampoo. I kept it in my bathroom for years and it always smelled like someone had just washed their hair in there. I was sad when the candle died and I discovered that Herbal Essences wasn't making candles anymore.
22. Most jewelry makes me feel claustrophobic.
23. I can't stand anyone pushing me underwater in a swimming pool. I blame this entirely on my older brother who used to entertain himself by holding me under the water when we were kids. And because my brother is nothing if not smart, he'd hold me under until the exact last second before I'd open my mouth and suck in water. To this day, being shoved under makes me panic and flail.
24. I also don't like being held down with a pillow on my face. Same problem. Same brother to blame for it. Aren't siblings fun?
25. My husband and I once bought 3000 square feet of saran wrap at Sam's Club. We'd taken to buying things in bulk and I let my husband convince me that buying the restaurant sized package was a good fiscal move. Five years later we've still got 2700 square feet of it. I'm pretty sure we'll never buy saran wrap again. I wish I'd started photographing my children next to the saran wrap to document the progress of both over the years. Although there's really no time like the present. So here's my six year old holding 2700 square feet of saran wrap:

I look forward to shoving that same roll of saran wrap into her arms on her wedding day.

Other installments of my slow creep towards 100 things:
9-15
1-8

How I made my headache go away

Kids in bed, hot shower, wine cooler and the season finale of America's Next Top Model coming up next. Holla.

P.S. Laura may be the world's most genuinely sweet girl but she doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning. Nicole could shave her head and start hitting people with an umbrella right there on the runway and I still think she'd win.

Stop skipping holidays

While driving to work yesterday, I noticed that Sirius satellite radio has already started playing Christmas carols. On two different channels no less. And it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

Dude.

What the hell. Is waiting another week and a half so much to ask? Would it kill them to let us celebrate holidays in the correct sequence without randomly skipping over the ones that fail to produce carols?

Trying to get in the Thanksgiving spirit while listening to Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is the equivalent of attempting to remember how one song goes while listening to another song. You know, where the wheels in your head are turning and it's right there on the tip of your tongue but it never quite computes because the melody for the song that's playing just keeps throwing you off. And for a second while the wheels in my head were pointlessly spinning, I actually got sucked in and started thinking Christmas-y thoughts pondering when to bake cute Rudolph cookies using red M&Ms for noses and pretzels for antlers like I saw in some magazine recently and promptly decided my life wouldn't be complete until I'd made and delivered to one of my kids' classes.

Except it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Stop skipping holidays. The decorations on sale at Target before Halloween were bad enough.

A 15 minute debate and I still don't know the difference

Tonight I made 96 crescent rolls and a giant vat of corn. Both are in preparation for a thanksgiving spread at work tomorrow. Which is odd because rather than potluck we typically do, we opted to collect money and have lunch catered. If I've been collecting $7 a person to avoid cooking, how'd I end up baking? These are the sort of questions my husband often asks. This time I think maybe he's onto something.

The problem started when we found a place to cater for $7 a person. Just when we're locked and loaded ready to order, the backseat drivers come out of the woodwork. There's nothing quite like listening to people offer endless critiques without offering constructive suggestions or even offering to help. The list of complaints included the quality of the food we were getting, who would be participating and whether there would be enough food for everyone. My personal favorite was the 15 minute discussion debating stuffing versus dressing. I didn't realize there was a difference so I certainly never realized so many people have so many strong opinions on which is better. Kill me now. Seriously.

I ended the debate by announcing that we'd be upgrading our order to be sure everyone's happy with it and that someone else will need to be in charge of the Christmas spread. And then I made 96 crescent rolls and a giant vat of corn to supplement our order to be sure tomorrow's spread meets everyone's standards. I'd like to think it's because I enjoy a good shindig. But part of me knows it's to be sure I prove the backseat drivers wrong. I figure that's what they get for subjecting me to the stuffing versus dressing debate.

Finding the only band aid in a fifty foot radius for the world's tiniest scratch

The newest first grader's class took two field trips last week. Having promised her long ago that she'd have a blood relative accompanying her on all her class field trips I marked my calendar and planned accordingly.

Everyone at my work wanted to know when her class isn't taking a field trip because two in one week seemed a bit much. I explained that one was a rescheduled trip that got rained out earlier in the year and what's it their business how I spend my day off anyway so just shut the hell up.

Ok. So maybe I didn't say shut the hell up. And, for that matter, I probably didn't even think it. Mostly because I'm exactly the sort of person that would tease a coworker claiming to be going on two field trips with their kid in one week. So it's only fair to take it on the chin when it's your turn. But this was legitimately two field trips in one week.

On our first excursion, we learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin. By the time we left, I was ready to move to the country and raise pumpkins for a living despite the fact that I'm allergic to yard work.

The second field trip was an urban nature hike. Beautiful day outside and the kids were really into it. I'm not sure why we needed to travel across town and pay $7 a person but I guess I'll defer to the educational experts I've entrusted my kid to.

Although, for the record, a kid in the class scratched her ankle during the field trip and my kid's first grade teacher didn't have a band aid when I brought it to her attention. Is it wrong to think that's odd? Because I think maybe I did. But I think maybe that makes me a big fat hypocrite because I didn't have a band aid in my purse either. So who am I to judge? Except no one was paying me to be there.

She probably doesn't need to carry band aids though seeing as how she's always got several mothers around and one's bound to have some. Sure enough, another mother came through with one and I think we all know she wins the uber mother of the year trophy. I aspire to be all things uber so I bought a tiny travel pack at Target today and have tucked it away in my purse for next time. To up the ante, I also threw in some Handiwipes and hand sanitizer.

Next time some kid decides to pick at a tiny scab on her ankle and it supposedly produces a drop of blood so minuscule it's invisible to the naked eye, I'm on it.

The Saturday night debate

Twilight versus college football.

College football is currently winning. Mostly because my husband is holding the remote. But it can't last. He drank a lot of water with dinner. He'll have to go to the bathroom sometime. And I'm pretty sure he hasn't selected his fantasy football lineup for tomorrow yet.

Yep. It's only a matter of time.