mamikaze

My friend Angie shared this with me last week. It was a huge hit at our house. It’s a winning combination of cake on top of pie.

• 1 – 15 oz can of pumpkin
• 1 – 14 oz can of evaporated milk (NOT condensed)
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup of sugar
• 4 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
• 1 yellow cake mix
• 3/4 cup butter (melted)
• 1 – 1 1/2 cups chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour a 13 x 9 x 2 pan.
Mix the first five ingredients together (pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, and sugar).
Pour this mixture into the greased pan.
Sprinkle the dry cake mix evenly over the pumpkin mixture.
Sprinkle the nuts evenly over the dry cake mix.
Bake for 1 hour, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.
(You can pull the cake out after baking 30 minutes to cover with aluminum foil, so that the nuts do not burn).

Long ago, in the year 2000, Mike and I made a pact. We would never celebrate Valentine’s Day with cards or flowers. This was difficult for my husband to swallow as he grew up in a family that relies on Hallmark for all communication of feelings. We each have faltered in our promise one year a piece. We were young and stupid.

If I could get away with it, I would forgo all holidays. Not because I am an aspiring Jehovah’s Witness. It’s simply because I am sickened by the historical inaccuracies. I wish the Western World could acknowledge the flaws in our celebratory customs.

History of Saint Valentine

• Priest of Rome
• Bishop of Interamna (wherever that is)
• Martyred in Africa

That’s it. The Roman Catholic Church has very little information about this person known as Valentinus. His name is in the church record with no details. There are numerous legends built up about how he urged soldiers to write love letters to their wives. We don’t even know which Valentinus to which the day refers. Several men of the same name were killed off by the Emperor around the same time in the same place. No one bothered to clarify who was who back then. It is all lost to time.

The association with Valentine’s Day and romantic love came about in the Middle Ages, about after Valentinus was beheaded by Emperor Claudius. This is one thousand years after his death, give or take a hundred or two. This is the time of Geoffrey Chaucer and other poets who wrote sappy love poems alluding to Greek and Roman god of love

Let’s not leave out the all important fact that the Roman Catholic Church went out of it’s way to stamp out Pagan rituals. It is no coincidence that Valentine’s Day is set on February 14th. This is the ancient Feast of Lupercalia. This is common among Christian holidays. I understand why they did it. By changing the association of holidays, you can integrate into a society without offending it’s people too much.

History aside, what I loathe is the commercialism. I am nonplussed by my husband bringing me a card and flowers because there are fifty kajillion advertisements about how I will not love him anymore if he forgets. Get this, I am a romantic at heart. Somewhere in a dark, cold, corner there is a part of me who love romantic gestures. I may cringe at public displays of affection, but I love for him to do stuff “just because.” It’s the thought that counts. It doesn’t qualify as a genuine thought if Hallmark is shoving it down your throat.

I’m feeling sappy as 2008 come to an end. My girls have grown so much :sniff: I have learned so many new things this year. Mostly, about myself and my kids. My circle of trust is very small. I need to work on that.

I have been reviewing milestones in my head. For some reason I can only think of a few. I am not sure if it’s because there are too many to remember or really only a few remarkable things for us this year. I’m hoping for the former.

I say that because I couldn’t even remember whether is was former or latter to use/ Seriously, I have to think of the Latter-Day Saints to clarify which is which. I rely heavily on mnemonics. And I’m becoming more ADD by the moment. Typing “mnemonics” made me think of that Keanu Reeves movie Johnny Mnemonic so I had to pull it up on IMDb. Then I was like “I haven’t seen Speed in a really long time. I watched that movie at least 40 times in high school.”

Just when I should be waxing poetic about Bear’s emerging speech, or about this year’s historic election, I have Keanu Reeves on my brain. And Speed. I have been wondering if I should ask my doctor for some speed, er, ritalin when I go in for my check-up. There are more people in my family on amphetamines in my family than not. I am the black sheep for not .

I am always complaining to myself about how I can’t focus. I have unfinished projects everywhere. As I sit here in the kitchen, I can see PTA posters I haven’t finished filling in so I can post them at school I see Fluffy’s December reading log I stopped writing on weeks ago. Yet, all I can think about is getting another cup of coffee.

My sister gave me a Senseo coffee pot that she isn’t using. I was all like “yeah! no more reheating cups of coffee all day!  I can make a fresh cup each time I desire one.” I went to make the first cup and it dribbled down the machine and all over the counter. I was all “WTF? Am I being punked? Because I llok like sh*t and I don’t have a bra on. I would look terrible on camera.” She forgot to include the spout thing in the paper sack she threw all of the parts into. Sweet. I called her to ask about this piece and she had no idea waht I was talking about. I had to speak slowly. The. Part. That. Gets. The. Coffee. Into. The. Cup.

So, I’m trying to finish this post, I get up to find my coffee cup. It’s not where I left it. Bear is pushing the buttons on her Fisher-Price Wonder Pets Portable Playsets and it sounds like WPWA, the newest Nick Jr rap duo. “chuck, chuck, we’re on our way, oh no!, baby beaver, will save you!”

My coffee cup isn’t in the living room, Mike has stolen it. He had the audacity to wash it and put it away. as if I were done. Pshaw. Never take the mama’s coffee cup. When she is done, it will appear in the sink for you to wash.

Wow, I am all about the quotation marks today. Now I need to shower and get out the door. Bear has therapy at 1 and I need to get to the bank before they close early.

Happy New Year!

1. peace on earth
2. goodwill toward men people
3. pay off Bear’s therapy bill
4. keep Fluffy in Tae Kwon Do as long as she wants to be in
5. my van runs for another year
6. a fancy new hair dryer to replace my dead one
7. some new clothes

I love facts. Here are some about my birthday:

• I was born on a Monday under the astrological sign Sagittarius.
• The moon’s phase on the day you were born was waning gibbous.
• Other holidays today:
  Feast of Sebastian the Martyr
  New Jersey Day
  Niger Republic Day
• December 18 is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 13 days remaining until the end of the year.
• Happened on December 18th:
  218 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia – Hannibal’s Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic.
  1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire “Yuan” (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
  1620 – The Mayflower lands in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts delivering 102 Pilgrims.
  1862 – American Civil War: In the Battle of Lexington, General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeats a Union force under Colonel Robert Ingersoll.
  1941 – Japan invades Hong Kong after British governor of Hong Kong, Mark Aitchison Young refuses to surrender to Japanese forces.
  1987 – Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.
  1997 – HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
• If I had a cake with candles; Those 30 candles produce 30 BTUs,
  or 7,560 calories of heat (that’s only 7.5600 food Calories); you can boil 3.43 US ounces of water with that many candles.
• I was born in the Chinese year of the Horse
• As of 12/18/2008 12:11:55 AM, I am
  30 years old; 360 months old;
  1,565 weeks old; 10,958 days old;
  262,992 hours old; 15,779,531 minutes old;
  946,771,915 seconds old.
• Celebrities who share your birthday:
  Katie Holmes (1978) we’re twinsies!
  Brad Pitt (1963)
  Steven Spielberg (1946)
  Ossie Davis (1917)
  Betty Grable (1916
  Ty Cobb (1886)
• Politics of 1978:
  President: Jimmy Carter; Vice President: Walter Mondale
  Population: 222,584,545
  Life expectancy: 73.5 years
  Nobel Peace Prize: Menachem Begin and Anwar el-Sadat
• Economics of 1978
  US GDP (1998 dollars): $2,291.40 billion
  Federal spending: $458.75 billion; Federal debt: $776.6 billion
  Median Household Income (current dollars): $15,064
  Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.13 ($0.15 as of 5/29/78)
• Sports:
  Super Bowl- Dallas d. Denver (27-10)
  World Series- NY Yankees d. LA Dodgers (4-2)
  NBA Championship- Washington Bullets d. Seattle (4-3)
  Stanley Cup- Montreal d. Boston (4-2)
  Kentucky Derby Champion- Affirmed
• Science:
  Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, is born at Oldham Hostpital in London.(July 25)
  Recombinant DNA techniques are used to produce human insulin.
  Balloon anigoplasty is developed to treat coronary artery disease.
• Entertainment:
  Academy Award, Best Picture: Annie Hall;
  Album of the Year:  Rumours, Fleetwood Mac
  Song of the Year:  “Love Theme From A Star Is Born”
  Best Selling Album: “Shadow Dancing” Andy Gibb

I sold my textbooks back to the college last week and used the money to buy our new Christmas tree. I thought I should share photos since it is hard to see in the video.

Target was having a sale. I was able to stretch forty bucks and get these snowman stocking hangers.

and the lighted garland. I love a sale. Never pay full price! I like colored lights. Decorating the interior is my part and the exterior is Mike’s part. We clash on our light preferences, so just ignore the each other and decorate the way we want.

Why am I posting so much about Christmas, you ask? I have no idea. I just am. And, no. You can’t prove this is my house. Then again, why would I post crappy pictures of someone elses’ house? You know I don’t have that kind of determination.

Two more, Fluffy and Mike putting up the Christmas lights before he left.

She hasn’t broken a bone so far -Knock on wood-