Year in Review: TV (2012)

2012 will be known as "the year I started watching great tv". And some of the shows on this list are so bad they are great so they still qualify, okay? My list, my rules.

1. Homeland
I have converted 4 people to the awesomeness of Homeland. And I'm only getting started on that.

2. Breaking Bad
So freaking artsy. And so freaking good.

3. Pretty Little Liars
Guilty pleasure, but nothing beats my excitement for some PLL on Tuesdays with friends.

4. Friday Night LightsThis show melted my cold heart and made me cry more times than I can count. I now have like a Pavlovian response to cry when I hear anyone say "I'm proud of you".

5. Parks and Recreation
Took a while to get its footing, but what an amazing group of characters that you want to hang out with. Great mix of humor and heart.

6. Mad Men
Well-made show that I like to deconstruct while watching, but doesn't bring the same excitement as the other shows.

7. Once Upon a Time
Only watched this recently so it is still sinking in. Love the parallels between fairytale land and reality. Love the twists on characters and stories that you know. Dislike Emma Swan the "savior" and the "precocious" kid is more annoying than cute. Also an incredibly cheesy show. But I can like cheese so.

8. Cougar Town
I've only watched one season of it and it definitely grew on me. I'm only placing it here because I've watched nearly all of the episodes of all the other shows so I like I couldn't justify a higher ranking. But I aspire to be like the cul-de-sac crew. Day drinking and playing penny can like nothing else in the world matters.

I thought this list would be longer. I mean, 8 new shows in 2012? Then I did a count of how many seasons that adds up to and realized I watched at least 24.5 seasons of television on top of shows I watch on a regular basis. Seems more accurate then.

Year in Review: CDs purchased in 2012

As 2012 comes to a close, I plan on reflecting on what new things

I chose to look at albums I purchased in 2012 rather than all songs added during the year or only the albums released in 2012. This narrowed it down to 11 albums. To simplify it, I excluded Vitamin String Quartet Pefroms Adele and Big Christmas Box due to the length of each album.

1. Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons

2.The Best of Mandy Moore by Mandy Moore

3.My Head is an Animal by Of Monsters and Men

4.Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga by Spoon

5.Channel ORANGE by Frank Ocean

6.Veronica Mars Soundtrack by Various Artists

7.Pitch Perfect Soundtrack by Various Artists

8.Babel by Mumford & Sons

9.Halcyon by Ellie Goulding

Holidays: Merry Christmas!

Each year my family celebrates Christmas on the night of December 24th. The tradition first started when my aunts and mother were still young. At the time, my grandfather was a milkman and had to leave early Christmas morning to deliver milk on his route.

The night starts out with a special dinner: fondue bourguignonne. It is only served twice a year - on Christmas and on Easter. After dinner is all cleaned up, we take what feels like a million photos of every possible combination of family members. Just grandchildren. Now grandchildren with grandmother. Okay, now just girls. Well, just another photo. Stop making funny faces. You can do that in the next photo. Now just the aunts. Add grandma to this one.

Once that is all over, we all entrench ourselves in our spots, building a fort of the presents that are being passed out. It is just madness as we pass presents and try to throw wrapping paper away and yell our "thank yous" across the room. By 11pm everything settles down and we clean up. Some already have presents open and are playing with new toys.

Then we have our traditional dessert of chocolate pudding and pears. Of course, there are some Christmas cookies on the table for snacking. A little after midnight Christmas day we're finally making our way to bed.

We have breakfast together on Christmas morning. Then we spend the rest of the day relaxing and testing out our new presents. All in all, I wouldn't have Christmas any other way.

Crafting: Hello Winter papercutting

I finally framed my Hello Winter papercutting. Here I have it on display at work along with my penguin piggy bank, snowman snow globe, and a fuzzy Christmas tree my mother crocheted. T'is the season! Only one week left until Christmas!

Holidays: Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday dear Liz
Happy Birthday to meeeeee!

Baking: Christmas Cookies 2012

Christmas cookie baking is serious business in my family. Since 1957, we get together the weekend after Thanksgiving to bake hundreds of cookies as gifts to family friends. At its peak, cookie baking would yield 140lbs and 25 types of cookies. Things have scaled down recently given my grandmother's age, but it is still more than what some believe to be normal cookie baking. At one point, I was dipping 240 of one type of cookie into chocolate.

Although this is one of my family's longest running traditions, it was only my third year as a helper. School schedules and distance kept me away for 21 years, but now that I'm a grown-up, this never has to happen again! I took Friday off to get an early start on the weekend. And boy, I was put to work almost immediately after walking through the door. Here are some photos of various points of the cookie process: baking, dipping, jellying, and reusing leftover chocolate.



In the end, it is definitely worth it. The cookies are delicious, even the ones that don't meet the "standards". We had some leftover chocolate this year so we made chocolate pops as well. As if we didn't have enough sweets.