Michael Makes Pie

i've been humming tunes from sweeney todd all week. ever since michael told me he wanted to make mincemeat pies for thanksgiving, i can't get "worst pies in london" out of my head (mincemeat really is the WORST kind of pie).

michael had never eaten mincemeat pie before he attempted making it. i am sure if he had, he wouldn't have tried. my first encounter with mincemeat (at age 10) had me running for the washroom as faster than you can say "seconds". indeed so disgusted was i with the idea of mincemeat that the very mention of it made my stomach turn for years.

michael was not to be deterred by the prospect of me loosing my cookies over his creation. he slaved away on his mincemeat for the better part of a week, tasting, tweeking, heating and reheating until he got just what he was looking for.

so in the spirit of sweeny todd:

Ladies and gentlemen
May I have your attention, perlease?
Are your nostrils aquiver and tingling as well
At that delicate, luscious ambrosial smell?
Yes they are, I can tell

michael carey's meat pies.....


and they are pretty good!

what kind of pie did you eat for thanksgiving?

Poker Face

i'm not sure how we got the idea, but last night michael and i ended up playing online poker (at the nickel and dime tables) until 2 am. we were up. we were down. in the end we lost all of our money, all five dollars of it.

how we figured we could beat the odds and win big last night is beyond me. maybe it was the fact that real salt lake beat the LA galaxy in the major league soccer championships in a shootout.
(utah guy in red. gross hair right?!?)
or maybe it was the fact that our favorite chef won the next iron chef competition.
(we are food network junkies. i like chef garces because he is ecuadorian)good things are supposed to come in threes right?

we were destined to win....

evidently, just not last night.

we are a good poker pair. i am prone to addiction and michael seems immune. i have a good hunches and he knows how to do the math. we may end up in a debtors prison as we dig ourselves into a whole, five dollars at a time....

or who knows, maybe we'll win big and go pro.

good things do come in threes after all.

wish us luck in our quest for easy money.

(who else plays....we should have a game night online...alan benson i'm talking to you!).

SuperNanny

michael and i used to joke that we weren't going to have kids until we could afford to pay someone else to take care of them (at the rate we are going, we'll be ready that financial obligation about the time i hit menopause). i have always anticipated working outside the home and raising a family, but i wonder sometimes about what it would be like to raise children full-time.

this week i did a trial run when i babysat my niece stella.* stella is the perfect baby: she doesn't cry, she doesn't fuss, and to top it all off, if there were such a thing as america's next top model baby edition, i'm pretty sure she'd would clean up.

so there i was, with the perfect baby. the only problem is that i was bored out of my tree.

don't tell her mom this, but i probably let her nap longer than she should, just because i didn't know what to do with her when she woke up. what do you do with a one year old?

according to my mom, you should read books to one year olds to help develop their language skills. i looked through stella's books and decided that i'd let her nap a little longer because i'd rather read my book of short stories by anton chekhov than her book of stories about a little pony (ponies freak me out).

if stella has delayed language skills, i accept partial responsibility. the idiots who write books for babies (that make adults want to chew glass) are also culpable.

my adventures in babysitting tell me a couple of things about myself:

1. i might not be up for the riggers of full-time motherhood.
2. i might not really be a baby person.
3. i am selfish as all get out

people say it is different when they are your own kids. it might be, but it might not, which is why we diligently put money into a nanny fund every month.

i have all the time in the world for women who stay home and raise their children....but are there people like me out there? people who maybe just aren't that into babies, or who don't want to look after their kids full time, or who think ponies are weird?!? tell me i'm not alone!

*oh and in the interest of full disclosure, i only watched her for four hours. it was enough.

Let's Play Balderdash!

excuses for failing to post:

1. in the last week i have consumed appropriately 75 cookies and subsequently gained 30 pounds rendering me completely immobile. my newly acquired canadian tire and relief society arms make it impossible for me to reach for my computer (not to mention get up).

(in my defense they were vegan cookies!)

2. i had h1n1. i had a fever of 106F. i was certain that if i put my laptop on my lap, the heat from my body would fry my precious apple.

(what makes me so mad about all of this is the fact that i spent 60 bucks on the nasty flu mist! 60 bucks goes a long way in utah, were milk only costs like 3 dollars! boston and nyc have totally wharped my perception of how much things should cost).

3. i've spent every spare moment during the last few days playing world of warcraft. yes, mercedes white plays world of warcraft (and she likes it). i have a level 60 warlock named bloodcurdle. be jealous.

4. i don' have a good excuse.

so friends, what is it that has been keeping my from my blogity blog?