December Wrap-up

December has been a busy month.  It's almost finished and I have yet to think about New Year's resolutions...other than the annual "I WILL lose weight".  Still have to pay my car registration fees as well.  I still have a day!

My son turned 21 this month.  I still think of myself as about 27 so how can I have a 21 year old kid?  We had all the birthday hoopla - he had more than us as it should be.  He celebrated for about 4 days between friends and family.

And someone who is ALWAYS underfoot in the kitchen got in the way during birthday cake decoration - or at least that's the story.  He did eventually manage to lick off all the frosting.

We dog-sat twice in December for my son's rambunctious puppy, much to the dismay and disgust of our 2 cats and the old-man Jake dog.  Puppy-ness is cute, but it sure takes a lot of energy out of everyone else!







 We had all of the usual Christmas activities.  I feel as though I spent the month listening to horrendous music in stores, shopping, cooking, washing dishes, planning, planning, planning, more cooking, more shopping and GADS!!!  More dishes!  I also managed to fit in my job.  I'm sure they were happy about that.  Why do retailers play the worst renditions of Christmas songs?  Do we REALLY need to listen to the latest singers trying to fit 15 warbles into each word of "The First Noel" or shall we say "The first ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir st No o o o o o o el el ele elelelelelelel".  My ears hurt.  And if I have to listen to Jingle Bell Rock one more time someone might get hurt.


We wrapped up the festivities on the 26th with a Chili Cookoff.  Chili chefs were myself, my daughter, and my brother.  The rest were either working all day or scared of the competition.  Some fierce competition...














This one was a chicken based chili.  Lots of cumin and jalapenos.

 

The others were a beef based one with toasted cumin - excellent flavor.   And I'm pleased to say that I had the winning chili... thanks to my room-mate's new cookbook.  But they were all worthy of winning!  I'll post the recipe separately so that it will print better.