December 11th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Morning! Happy 500th Blog Post. That’s insane. It feels like I just started the blog, and today is its 500th entry.

My Nemesis 

I started this morning off with another heart attack. Last Monday, I was not quite awake when I went outside to wait with Dani for her bus, and I opened the family room door, stepped into the garage, and then hit the garage door opener. When the door started to open, a bird in our garage flew into the house, where he remained for there 26 hour.

For the past week, in the mornings, I have been opening the family room door just enough to squeeze my arm through, reach out, and hit the garage door button, quickly retract my arm, and close our family room door to where I can peek out to watch the bird(s) fly out. It has been working well, that is until this morning. One of the little beasties, flew in through the less than two inch space, brushing my cheek as he passed. E.E.E.E.W.W.W.W.W!!!

On the prowl...

I kicked Colby out and closed the family room door. Then I started chasing my cats around so they wouldn’t have bird for breakfast. I grabbed Mikey and shoved him down the basement and slammed the door, then scooped up Sebastian and tossed him in the bathroom and slammed the door, all while this crazy bird is dive bombing us. I shut off all the lights in the house, opened the back door, flipped on the back porch light, and went out the garage to spend some quality time with Colby, praying the buzzard would leave on his own.

I wish I looked this cute
in the morning...

Mind you, I just woke up, my hair is standing on end, I’m in my nightgown with my coat thrown over it, and I haven’t had my coffee yet. I only lasted ten minutes in the garage – it’s cold out there. I THINK, the bird has vacated the premises, but I’m not 100% sure. The cats are still acting a little weird, but that may just be the aftereffects of having a bird flying around them earlier. Let’s hope. There should be an unwritten law that you’re not allowed to get traumatized before you’re fully awake.

So that’s how I started my morning, how about you? Have you started your holiday shopping yet? Hanukkah is less than a week away, and Christmas is in two weeks.

TWO WEEKS – Oh bother!

I don’t think I’ll be getting cards out this year, well at least not photo ones. I don’t know if I have enough time. I haven’t even begun to write the Christmas letter yet. I don’t have a single gift wrapped, I haven’t even sorted them out yet to see what I have and what I still need. I know I have at least seven more gifts to shop for, because I don’t have ANYTHING for those family members yet. The tree’s still not decorated, and now there’s a string of lights out on it, so the few ornaments that did get on the tree, need to come off again. The house does not have any decorations, inside or out. How did I get so far behind?

Crachunik on Left
Crutsanik on Right

What’s worse is, next week I leave early Tuesday morning, don’t get back until late Thursday night, and will probably be shot all day Friday after driving 1,100+ miles again. The week before Christmas is when I start all my baking, and the Crachunik and Crutsanik are all dependent on weather conditions. If it’s too cold or raining, the dough won’t rise, so I need to find the mildest sunny day, in the Northeast, a few days before December 25th, to make the traditional Slovak breads.

They looked sort of
like these

I really hope that day isn’t next Tuesday – Thursday, or I would have missed my window of opportunity. If that day is Friday, it just might kill me, but I’ll do it anyway. I am the only one who bothered chasing my Baba around the kitchen so I could learn how to make everything she made, well almost everything. She used to make these spareribs, only on Christmas, that were amazing. All I remember is she cooked them in a pot, and they came out dark brown, fall off the bone, garlicky and delicious. So if any of you out there come from Slovak, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian or Hungarian heritage, and someone you loved made these types of spareribs at Christmas, and you know how to make them, PLEASE contact me. I’d love to be able to make them again.

Okay, I’m off to do one more sweep of the house to make sure that dang bird is really gone. The last thing Dani needs, when she wakes up, is to get dive bombed by a bird. She’s home, sick in bed, and I have to go to work at ten, so I’ll probably be gone before she wakes up. Never a dull moment around this place, I swear.

I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge:

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