Follow the Light

On Thursday, I had to drive to a part of the city where I'd never been to pick up Jimmy's Christmas present. When I left the embassy, it was blue skies, which was a blessing because the traffic would've been an even worse pre-Christmas nightmare had it been raining.

My euphoria was short-lived because the clouds rolled in very quickly.

But there was always a window of light straight in front of me. Sort of a subliminal Christmas message to follow the Light.

I hope no matter where you're celebrating this most joyous of holiday seasons, it is merry and bright!

Baking Gingerbread

Mac really wanted to bake gingerbread cookies this Christmas season.

You know how I feel about baking.

Especially at this altitude.

But we baked gingerbread cookies - not gingerbread people because I don't have people cookie cutters - Sunday afternoon and they are quite possibly the best gingerbread cookies.  Ever.

Yeah, you heard me.  These cookies are that good.  If we do say so ourselves.

The decorating on the other hand will win no awards. The icing was too loose and drippy, so they're a  bit messy and nondescript.  jimmy thought the wreath cookies were scallops. But did I mention how good they taste???  From top to bottom, we have Jimmy's batch (notice the smiley face scallop), my amazing and artistic cookies, and Mac's colorful explosion cookies.

random musings

1.  Christmas is two weeks from today.  I can't believe how quickly it's coming.  I have finished all my shopping, which is a minor Christmas miracle in and of itself.

2.  Vacation starts in 18 days and this cannot come a moment too soon.  Hawaii, here we come.

3.  Mac got his first term report card and he did really well.  Super-proud of that boy.

4.  Key Stage 2 at Mac's school (grades 3-6) had their sports day last week and Mac scored big.  He came home with a trophy that looks like something they'd give to the Heisman Trophy winner.  Serious blingage.  The events were all track and field, which I think is definitely Mac's strength.

5.  Mac got sunburned at sports day and is now peeling.  Oh, to be peeling in December.  Unfortunately, the florescent lights in my office do not give me a peel-worthy sunburn.

6.  We tried to do a Christmas light tour last weekend around Bogota, but apparently the other 8,000,000 people in Bogota had the same idea.  It was a bit of a bust.

7.  I enjoyed great fellowship with my Bible Study gals at a pre-Christmas lunch on Saturday.  These ladies inspire me so much (and they're great cooks).

8.  We attended the embassy's Christmas party on Saturday morning.  Mac had a great time.  He didn't participate in any of the Christmas activities (except being coerced into taking a Santa photo), but instead rolled down the large hill in the yard repeatedly for about 1.5 hours.  Here he is with a tickling Santa and his very good buddy John.

9.  We went to Mac's Christmas concert at school a couple weeks ago.  He takes "Stomp", where they beat on the floor and cans and drums and make rhythmic noise.  They did a great job.  (Mac is on the far right, closest to the front of the stage.)

10.  The most illuminating part of the Christmas concert was when I went to the girls' bathroom and saw all of this on the back of the door.

Mac is in the 4th grade and Jimmy and I were in the 5th grade when he gave me flowers, so we're not that far removed from Mac potentially meeting his bride, aka my daughter-in-law. Y.I.K.E.S.  

the toe

Despite antibiotics and more attention than any big toe deserves, the consensus at the doctor's office this morning was that my toe was not better.  So a betadine soak and 2 anesthetic shots in the toe later (ouch!), I got a sliver of my toenail extracted.  I wish I'd thought to take a photo of what came out so you could see my fine pedicurist abilities.  NOT.  There was a perfectly straight cut down one side where the doctor cut through the nail and on the other side was a little jaggedy bit sticking out.  That would be my handiwork.  And that was the part that was burrowing into the side of my nail bed, where the infection was.

Because I believe in sharing my misery with you, I give you the photographic evidence of the toe, some 7 hours post-procedure.

After removing the gauze, this is what I found stuck to my toe.
The doctor did ask me if I took aspirin because the blood was flowing so fast.

The little gauze square finally came off after Epsom Salt soaking.

A fuzzy photo (intentionally fuzzy for your benefit).  The red is the missing toenail.  It's an attractive look, right?
I can't wait to go to Hawaii for our R&R with that good-looking toe.  Nice.

I have learned my lesson.

no more home pedicures

One of the great benefits of living overseas in a place like Colombia is inexpensive in-home manicures and pedicures.  For awhile, I had our lady come regularly to give us all manis and pedis.  These appointments kept everybody's hands and feet looking nice.

And then I got off-schedule because Mac had a Friday afternoon birthday party when I had our appointments scheduled so I had to cancel.

And then I didn't reschedule because we were in the Halloween/Marine Ball rush and I was at the salon every weekend and could get my fingernails done.

But I neglected my toes.

So last week I wore heels and my ingrown toenail started hurting from the downward pressure in skinny toed-shoes, so I decided to take care of business.  Taking care of business meant basically ripping out the cuticle on one side of my big toe.  The toe hurt like crazy all week and then on the weekend, I noticed it was getting redder and the red was expanding.  I soaked in Epsom Salt all weekend and coated it in Neosporin, all with little to no effect.  So today I took myself to the health unit and I am now taking antibiotics for the infection that has taken up residence in my toe.  I will never give up my day job to become a manicurist.

I go back to the doctor in two days and we shall hope it's much improved.  If it's not, I've been promised we're moving to Plan B, which is to remove part of the toenail.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story...

one more post-Thanksgiving musing

Jimmy and I are rice people.  Our people do not eat mashed potatoes and gravy for Thanksgiving or Christmas or almost any other occasion.  We eat rice and gravy.

We have learned that we are in the minority.

Most of the world are mashed potatoes and gravy sort of folks.  This is not negotiable at the holidays for most of the world.

We learned this the hard way when we hosted our first real Thanksgiving 9 years ago and we cooked about 30 cups of rice (to accommodate the rice-eating capacity of "our" people) and only we and the one Puerto Rican in the crowd ate rice.  The rest of the people were looking under pot lids for the non-existent mashed potatoes.

Now we cook mashed potatoes for these important holidays and just dream that the potatoes are rice.

The Pioneer Woman came through for me this year. She blogged last week about make-ahead mashed potatoes. Who ever heard of such a thing??  Making mashed potatoes a day or two before the event is a game changer, people.

So I made the potatoes on Wednesday night, put them in the fridge to wait, and heated them in the oven on Thursday.  Oh.My.Gosh.  These were the best mashed potatoes ever.  I will be making these early and often.  If you need to make mashed potatoes, but would like to avoid the stress of last-minute mashing and then keeping them hot until serving, check out the Pioneer Woman's blog.  You will not be disappointed!