Holidays

 Thanksgiving was nice. I cooked a super juicy, tender bird. YUM! Everything else was good too. Well, not everything. We are HUGE dessert fans, and ours sucked, big time. It was a new recipe. Carrot cake, one of my favorites and perfect for Thanksgiving. It called for grated carrots (duh), raisins, pineapple, walnuts, and coconut. That all sounded yummy to me, but the actual cake part worried me a bit, and rightfully so. It called for a butter cake mix, oil, AND pudding. I always add pudding to my cakes, but not pudding and oil. I baked. It smelled heavenly. I let it cool, iced it and covered it the day before. When we were finished eating and ready for cake I noticed a little pool of oil surrounding thee cake. Hmm, that's not supposed to be there. I tasted a bit from the top of the cake. Gag! Not good! At all. What a waste of ingredients. We were all disappointed. Oh well. Bronson enjoyed the holiday. He smacked down mashed potatoes, pumpkin casserole and then gummed on speckled Lima beans. I have one of these:

that I put them in so he only got the juice and flavor. I had to work that night  which bummed me a bit, but it wasn't too bad. My wonderful coworker helped me to score the steam mop I wanted online when the sales started. That pleased me and then when I got home in the morning my mom let me sleep! Fernando never did that. He'd let the girls be loud and come in my room to bug me or jump on the bed. I digress, If you keep up with my blog then you've read about my Christmas stress. I never explained why. I always pay cash for Christmas, so I panic about it. I am on a limited income though so it is very important to not charge anything that is not a dire emergency. I start buying Christmas early so I can get everything in time and it is entirely paid for. So, when Fernando finally gave me child support and I was able to buy most of their Christmas it was SUCH a relief. I say most because I THOUGHT I was finished. I WAS finished until this  past weekend. All the deals broke me! I was bad. I used bill money (I was going to pay something off) to buy more! I scored a swing set (not wooden, but it will do) for $99! I got Mylie a doll, which she didn't have. She adores dolls so when I realized I didn't get her one I felt bad. I was able to buy my mom jewelry. That is something I have always wanted to do but couldn't ever afford to. I got Bronson some super cute superman fleece pajamas, he is,  after all, my superman! Fernando was supposed to buy the kids a bike. He hasn't. They have them on sale and it is taking everything in me to not buy them. I want them to have bikes, but they specifically asked their dad for them. I am trying to be strong. I kept buying stuff because I wanted everything to be even. Then this morning it hit me.Rather than going broke evening everything out why not return some things to even it out. They won't know. Really, they don't NEED any of it. So that's what I am doing. They've got everything on their list and then some. Oh, and don't worry, I will still be able to pay off the bill, just not today. It will have to wait until Thursday. I am SO excited about Christmas this year!