I have been taking advantage of my three weeks off from school, and the kitchen doesn’t know what hit it. Apparently I have some latent cooking desires that are dormant when I have spare time, but build up when all my free time is restricted. So allow me to introduce my new bestest friend: the crockpot. My crockpots (I have my own, and then one I borrowed from my Mom but I don’t think she’s realized it yet) have saved my sanity. I’m obsessed with crockpot recipes, and have single-handedly destroyed Marmot’s GI system with the most fabulous cheeseburger soup you’ve ever had in your life. And- I’ve been using crockpot liner bags. They are the most amazing invention ever. {Marmot calls them crockpot condoms, but just try not to visualize that when you’re using them.}

I find all my crockpot recipes on Pinterest, which is second only to Farmville in best ways to procrastinate on homework. I have an entire board dedicated to bacon, and can quite honestly say with all the cooking I have done lately thanks to Pinterest inspiration, I am a domestic goddess.

My crockpots at work

Speaking of domestic goddess, I must admit that I may have set the bar quite low in that category. When I made crockpot chicken and dumplings, Marmot said it was the best meal he’d ever had. Mildly embarrassing that the hardest part of the best meal that Marmot ever had was opening the can of refrigerator biscuits. Mom, are you proud??

Best Crockpot Recipe of the Week AND Marmot’s Best Meal Ever – Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings

Put 4 chicken breasts in the bottom of the crockpot, and add 1 diced onion, 2 cans of cream of chicken soup (no water) and 1 can of chicken broth. Your choice of spices- I put thyme, a bay leaf, a clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Cook for 6-7 hours on low. Shred the chicken with a fork. Open 2 cans of refrigerator biscuit, cut into dumpling size pieces. Cover and continue to cook on low until dumplings are cooked, about 45 minutes. Voila!

Marmot got me a vacuum for Christmas. He’s such a dear.

In other (unrelated) news, the TV is acting up again.

Merry Christmas everyone!

July: I am going to do Christmas cards early this year. Yep, I’m going to mail them by the week after Thanksgiving. And we’re going to do an awesome blog Christmas card, and possibly a holiday blog makeover like Little Woman.

Fast Forward Four Months…

Week After Thanksgiving: Oh shit, I forgot to order the Christmas cards! I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.

First Week of December: Oh shit, I forgot to order the Christmas cards! I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.

Second Week of December: Oh shit, I forgot to order the Christmas cards! I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.

December 16th: Stand outside and freeze ass off with whining husband (who just loves living in the godforsaken Arctic tundra) while sister Apple tries to take a picture in which Marmot doesn’t look pissed and I look 40lbs thinner. Upload pictures in horror.

December 17th: Take the most pitiful picture (ever) of Queen B. and I standing by the garage, although mercifully the picture does not show her slippers. Its so f-ing cold that our scarves could pass for burqas. Blog Christmas card fail.

December 18th: Talk to blog design goddess and find out she’s booked out through January. Blog Christmas makeover fail.

December 19th: Buy $500 of pine cone stamps at the Post Office to ensure that you don’t have to fight that mob again until December 2015. Call Mom to brag, she informs me that the price stamps is going up in four weeks.

December 20th: Go to the site where we got cards last year. $102 for Christmas cards, thats highway robbery! Google cheap Christmas cards, get distracted by site with cheap calendars, then go upstairs to find 2012 calendar, decide to take a shower, and then get into bed and read. Laptop left on all night, sitting on coffee table.

December 21st: Get online to order the Christmas cards. If I overnight them, I can get them out by Christmas Eve right?

December 22nd:  Fuck it, they’re going to be New Year’s cards. I’ll order them first thing on Monday.

A Phone Call Transcript – December 17^th, 2011

Queen B:  Honey, really, if we are going to put a Christmas card on the blog we need to get it out soon – it’s the 17^th for crying out loud!

Honey: We need a picture to put in and of the twenty-six pictures I took of us last weekend, they’re all hideous! Why weren’t you looking at the camera?  Twenty six pictures and you are not looking at the camera once. Seriously Mom, what are the odds?

Queen B:  Were you taking pictures?  When was this, I don’t remember this?

Honey:  With my phone, remember I was taking pictures of us with my phone!  You know that pink and white thing that I was holding up in front of our faces??

Queen B: I thought you were texting. What’s wrong with them?

Honey:  Well other than the fact that I look like I have six chins, and you look like an gray haired nut case gazing off into la-la land? Absolutely nothing.

Queen B: Fine then, just post a Christmas post without a picture if you think they’re so bad.

Honey:  Mom, we have to do a picture. We are the faces of our blog, people want to see that we actually exist! I can just hear it… “Are these people real? This amount of idiocy has to be a joke, and they don’t even have a picture up…the Bunnies story? Give me a break.”

Queen B: You can hear it?  Literally, you can hear it?  What else are they saying, have they ever told you to do things, to hurt yourself or others?

Honey:  Mom, I’m almost to your house, and when I get there I’m going to hit you over the head with one of your prize fruitcakes. Just so you know.

Queen B:  Did the voices tell you to hit me with a fruitcake?

Honey:  I’m pulling into the driveway, put your coat on. Cold makes things constrict, we’ll look thinner if we take a picture outside.

Queen B:  It might be snowing! I’m not standing in snow in my new slippers, I don’t know where my snow-boots are. I’m only standing out there for 5 seconds. Are you wearing my scarf? Are you wearing boots? Where’s your camera?

Honey: Mom! We are taking a picture for the #*@- ing blog, and you better be looking at the #*@-ing camera this time!

*click*

Honey: Ta-da! The worst holiday photo ever!

Dear Honey, this is your Mother speaking.

Tit-for-Tat: The Christmas version?  Genius! You have learned well Grasshopper!  I think that we should crown each other Queen and Princess of “Tit-for-Tat World” (I will be the Queen).  Then we should take a sworn solemn oath that we will never use our frighteningly evil Tit-for-Tat skills on other members of Tit-for-Tat royalty.  We will need a new pact – the “Tit-for-Tat Royal Dispensation Pact”.  We could even have “Royalty” meetings, where we eat brownies and share Tit-for-Tat wisdom and plan future attacks.….. ?  Speaking of future attacks, I have the next one all ready to go.

Queen B:  “Babe, I think we have been robbed!”

Your Father:  “Huh..?”

Queen B:  “Really babe, I have been cashing my checks and putting the money in my underwear drawer for Christmas, and over half of it is gone!”

Your Father:  “Oh yea, I was, uh, going to tell you about that…….blah,blah,blah…..so I bought his one of a kind, Revolutionary war era, long barrel musket ….”

Queen B:  “You did what???????”

Your Father (the big jerk, who already owns a closet full of damn guns):  “He needed the money, he was out of work…. This can be my Christmas gift from the family. …. I can always use it to defend our home….”

Queen B: “Unless a full contingent of Civil War Reinactors march down our cul-de-sac in the next 5 seconds you only need to worry about defending yourself from me, your wife, one mad, mad Queen B!”

Your Father, the idiot:  Flailing his arms, “There’s a bee in here?!? Where?! Where?!?!”

Love from your Mother, Queen B.

My favorite time of the year. Its a holiday that truly shines in the godforsaken Arctic tundra, because of the snow. Last year we had a shit-ton of snow (a shit-ton is equal to four craploads) but there is nothing like Christmas lights twinkling through the drift of snow they are buried under.

Last year Marmot’s brother-in-law put icicle lights up along the roof line because Marmot and I are both scared of heights. Dumbest thing we ever did, because he didn’t have a return trip planned for the spring! Finally in June I sent Marmot up on the ladder (just hold tight babe, you’ll be fine) to take the lights down. We will NEVER be doing that again! Although this year we did put up the garlands and one strand of lights outside.

Taken from my vantage point inside, after I'd frozen my behind off! He has always said he wants to stay in the North...lol

And the Christmas tree- oh how I love the Christmas tree. Ours is always a little wonky looking though, due to no ornaments at Labrador-tail level or lower (the boys shattered a few last year). There is also a lack of Christmas presents because someone-who-shall-remain-nameless taught Brewer to unwrap his own presents last year- so now Brewer thinks all gifts hold chewy bones, and the presents are lovingly placed on the dining room table out of his reach.

Hope you’re having a wonderful start to the Christmas season!