I’ve got the ugly sweater Christmas luncheon wrapped up!
First day of winter and its 65 degrees, tomorrow they are calling for 70! I LOVE global warming! Pipe down Al Gore neophytes, we can rehash this conversation on the first day of spring when I’m in traction from shoveling snow and bitching about how nobody has any idea about driving on the white stuff around here. When Indiana weather becomes “predictable” head to your nearest underground bunker because the zombie apocalypse will have begun, don’t say I didn’t warn you!
I’ve given the loyal employees of Skipah’s Realm LLC time off the past week so therefore no blogging. The brain trust has been too busy setting up a satellite office in Madison, Indiana and I’ve left Hammy back in New Albany to run corporate. He was supposed to be lining up speaking engagements related to Colon Cancer Awareness, but a quick check of the corporate credit card is showing an abnormal amount of purchases from companies aptly named Smirnoff and Absolut! He did send me an email about the Bottoms Up Bash this spring and trying to line up a sponsor for it. I think before all is said and done he is the one that is going to end up with a sponsor. I’ll be back tomorrow to get the company back in order; in the meantime I’m overseeing the construction of the gargantuan cardboard/plywood suite that will soon become Skipah’s Realm southeastern Indiana branch location.
Evidently the local heroin dealers in Madison, Indiana have ran out of whatever poisons they “cut” their product with and have substituted it with powdered sugar. I don’t know if the Domino sales rep for the area got kidnapped by the Cuban sugar mafia or has been hitting the eggnog a little too hard, but Sunday you had a better chance of hitting the Powerball than finding this magic confectionary ingredient. I had three kids waiting on yours truly to find this elusive ingredient so they could finish icing their homemade sugar cookies with Miss Madison. Talk about pressure! I was finally able to secure some smaller quantities of it in town after getting a tip that China White Charlie was selling some out of the back of a hijacked semi behind Walmart, or I just grossly overpaid for the one pound boxes. If your local news starts showing drug busts of heroin addicts with big shit eating grins on their faces it’s not because they are under the effects of heroin, they are on a sugar high!
Isn’t brown sugar in just about every baking recipe? No shortage of it, drug dealers are getting creative!
Sloane is on Christmas break from school and week one is with good ole dad. We will have our new book out some time this summer entitled “Rewriting the rules of fun”, get ahold of me via email if you would like to preorder it. As of now we have no publisher, editor, distributor, or even a working draft, but that isn’t going to stop us! Since I’ve secured her from a remote region in Kentucky Friday evening it has been nonstop fun! As of this writing the following has occurred!
Friday night we shopped with a more “proper” crowd, i.e. #SayNoToWalmart, and had a grandiose time fighting the holiday traffic among other things. Once we arrived home it became clear that Skipah had elves visit his hacienda while he was gone and not one but two packages had arrived and were ready for a proper Skipah wrapping with assistance from his little protégé.
Well shit, and look at the guns on a younger Bruce Springsteen!
Quick tangent, guys if you can’t wrap presents you are frankly a moron. Giving your gifts to your mom (guilty in the past), girlfriend, wife, daughter, or any other female in your life just weak! Wrapping paper and tape isn’t exactly nuclear physics or solving a Rubik’s Cube, I know some wrapping jobs are tougher than others depending on the dimensions of the package, so simplify things. Put it in a freaking box, the right angles will help any amateur wrappers get the job done. Don’t have a box handy? Channel your inner marine and improvise! Go through the cupboard and empty that three year old box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and voila, you can now wrap little Susie’s doll clothing like a pro. As an added bonus guys, your significant other or child (post Santa years) will be uber appreciative and will think you worked on your packages for hours when in fact with a little planning and creativity (which I have very little) it will take 15 minutes tops! Thus endeth the rant, fellas take my advice and thank me later!
It’s not that hard guys! I wrapped a Victorian era artifact and puppy dog in less than 30 minutes!
Saturday the blonde bomber and I headed out the White Tail Deer Causeway just in time to arrive for the inaugural session of the Madison Art Academy seminar being taught by none other than Miss Madison. Sloane, Turtle Man, Miss Madison Jr., and a couple of other kids spent all afternoon making Christmas portraits and wearing paint. I on the other hand was off to make preparations for dinner that would be homemade pizza (including the dough, no cutting corner here) and working on what the Italians call “Sunday gravy” for the lasagna that I would be crafting on Sunday. My future Rembrandt had a blast and managed not to get any paint in her hair also!
Not pictured me slinging dough all over the kitchen trying to act like I know what the hell I’m doing spinning dough!
Yum! I channeled my inner Italian this weekend!
Sunday rolled along and Sloane and Miss Madison Jr. got to spend the afternoon with other area children caroling the local nursing homes while Miss Madison and I with an assist from the Turtle Man prepped cookie dough for the sugar cookie blowout extravaganza that would take place that evening after I was able to negotiate a deal on powdered sugar!
Kids are messy!
The troopers did just fine though.
Needless to say it’s been a blast since Friday with her and other than Christmas night this pattern should continue until Sunday. Miss Madison graciously is providing child care this week while I’m off doing my best Mr. Slate impersonation before I get my own little four day weekend starting Thursday. I think I’m getting replaced as her favorite adult because her time with Miss Madison is now known as her “girls club” it has the same rules as Fight Club evidently, but that’s o.k. seeing her smile ear to ear makes it all worthwhile.
The girls added their touch to the current table setting
About it for now, I’ve got to restrict access to the corporate accounts for Hammy. The Skipah’s Realm bank roll is always in the red, a few days of letting the Russian rodent run things and the bankers haven’t seen this dark a shade of red since True Blood went off the air!
Merry Christmas to everybody!
That was a fun time, and I’m still scratching my head as to where all the powdered sugar was that day!
No powdered sugar? Wow. That’s just wrong! Looks like it was the start of an amazing break. 🙂
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Christmas was a blast for sure, not sure why so many men struggle with gift wrapping. With all the feedback I’ve gotten maybe I should look into a men’s gift wrapping seminar!
Thankfully Miss Madison saved her money on that one!
I am terribly impressed with your gift wrapping - gold star. Could you give my husband some lessons… As for the cookies and food, I think I need to trade in my husband. 🙂 It looks like you had a wonderful Christmas.
Ugly sweater winner hands-down. I’ve heard of all-purpose flour but wow, talk about all-purpose sugar. Best advice ever for men to wrap gifts. Get. A. Box.
Life is good for me :), you are exactly right wrapping gifts isn’t like handling toxic waste. Happy New Years to you also pal!
A lot of fun going down in Skipahsville!
As I was wrapping most of the kids’ presents this year I was think about how it’s not really that hard and I didn’t understand all the fuss. Granted it isn’t a ton of fun but like you said it isn’t rocket science. Happy New year buddy!
I think I’ve added another pants size to my wardrobe the past week munching on the cookies! Thanks for all the well wishes on the upcoming year :).
Your post makes me smile! Glad to know all of you are having so much fun! You all deserve it! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, may this coming year hold lots of blessings for all of you and may there be enough powdered sugar to go around 🙂 The cookies look really good yummy by the way!
It had a T.V., mini wet bar, and and on call butler if he needed a change of sheets!
For the most part it is oodles of fun :)!
Merry Christmas to you also Terri I hope the holidays were a success for you!
I was very impressed by your wrapping skills, I must admit. Doing the puppy dog was particularly impressive, although I hope your remembered to put in a little TV linked to the Dog Channel and also poke some air holes in the paper or else it would just be cruel. 🙁
I have to say that your life seems like loads of fun! Thanks for sharing it.
Oh but I find a way to be a year round sugar nazi anyway! I’m happy, but others…no so much.
Merry Christmas! See you in mid-January!
Who knew powdered sugar was in such high demand! Fair game at the supermarket on dwindling supplies is what I say! Merry Christmas to you and yours also!
I didn’t need confectioner’s sugar this year because my girls baked the cookies at their own houses (yay!). I did, however, run into a shortage of peanut butter chips for the fudge that I make. Really, for years I’ve thought I was the only way using peanut butter chips, but when I went to the store, they were all gone! I finally found two small, somewhat crunched packages on the back of the shelf behind the chocolate chips. My apologies to whatever shopper put them there in hopes of coming back later to retrieve them ’cause they’re gone now.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
PS: We’re having lasagna, too. I make wonderful lasagna.
Thanks Jules!
So glad you’re so happy!
Merry Christmas!
Xoxo, cheers,
Jules
Difference between my home town 38,000 and her home town 11,000, plenty of options for me I’ve got four Krogers, two Meijers, and two Walmarts within 20 minutes of each other. Their it’s basically three options.
Miss Madison found that gem, I was like ummm……..I don’t think so! It’s the holidays man, you can’t be a sugar Nazi all year!
Merry Christmas to you also! It has been an enjoyable time so far.
I must say, I always buy confectionery and brown sugar earlier in the month. They just don’t stock enough of it!
Cookies look great, like a fun time 🙂
Try no sugar! Okay, that’s all I’ll say. Way to pick a good errrr bad sweater, it’s a winner! Have fun with Sloane during break
Looks like you had some great times! Awesome job on the wrapping, the food looks delish and the cookies look super festive for the holidays! And congrats on finding some powdered sugar! Merry Christmas to you too!
Finding a decent beignet in this city is next to impossible.
You are sure to win with that sweater! With no powdered sugar… what will we put on the beignets?!?