Dec 29 2008
a blog for sarah
yeesh, you're so demanding. and no my family did not eat us. ok, speedy holiday recap: the friday before christmas we went to the annual white elephant/dirty santa/whatever else you may call it party with our friends, which was also a wine & cheese yumfest. twas fun, we took a giant cocktail shaker that dan ended up with, and a huge stuffed pink unicorn with a sparkly silver horn and purple mane and tale. poor heath, the unfortunate victim, er recipient of our horrible gitft from last year (a spectacular piece of "art" we found at kroger featuring a lovely 3-D tree that looked like poop) got it, but eventually keith took pity on him and stole it for sophia, who apparently loves it. we got this game thingy with $15 inside and some dust mop slippers that we later stuffed in my dad's stocking. and heath brought the poop art back as his gift this year. buy now i'm sure chuck has burned it. so anyway, we left earlyish because we were leaving saturday morning to drive forever to the parentses house and we had not yet packed.
sunday night we went to the "candlelight communion" service with my parents, which was - and i can't emphasize this point enough - THE WORST Christmas service EVER. keys and pitches had no place, singing skills were clearly foreign, and oh my, i must not forget the stellar french horn. it was so very hard for us not to bust out laughing on several occasions. i know you're reading this and thinking i sound mean and horrible and am going to hell, but no - no, no, no. okay, so i might be going to hell, but seriously, words cannot express to you the horrors.
movin on. the rest of the week we cooked and cleaned and stuff because my dad's family came to my parents' house Christmas day. ben & i took out our inner 5-year-olds and convinced mama and daddy to open presents on monday night, which ended in the sterotypical boys-playing-with-their toys in the midst of boxes and wrapping paper. ma sent ben & i money to shop for each other, so he got a couple of old video cameras n stuff i found on ebay, and we got my dad an angle grinder and a cordless screwdriver. they were very cute.
so christmas day was fun and food-filled and good lord do i not need to eat sugar for the rest of my life. we'd find ourselves hungry around 10 pm, willing to give a limb for something salty and finding nothing but sugar in the kitchen. oh look, a cookie...
the day after Christmas is mom's birthday and she wanted to go to this giant seafood buffet place that has all sorts of seafoody stuff, then to see a movie. she & my dad went to see marley & me, ben and i to see the spirit, which was kind of a letdown. we also made mom a deeelightful birthday cake, something called surprise carrot cake. it's a carrot cake recipe, but half the batter goes in a bundt pan, then a tasty cream cheese, sugar, and egg mix goes in, then the rest of the batter. then you cook it and wait for it to cool and eat at least two pieces cuz it's YUM. also, a word of advice: if someone's birthday cake is dusted with powdered sugar, it's best not to hold the cake whilst the candles are blown out, especially if you are wearing a just-washed dark-colored shirt.
saturday we had my mom's family's christmas at my aunt's apartment in greenville, minus my (other) aunt and her two kids. many more cookies were acquired. then sunday (yesterday) we embarked on our return trip to nashville, since we both had to work today. we got about an hour and a half down the road then got to sit on the interstate with the car off for 45 minutes while a wreck was cleared. argh. we got moving again and had almost made it halfway when ben decided i should drive so he could sleep in the passenger seat, not the driver's. he pulled off at an exit he thought had a gas station or somewhere i could pee, but it didn't. as we got off the interstate and turned around to get back on, the car explained to us somewhat violently that it didn't like shifting gears. hmm. we go to the next exit or so which has plenty of stopping options and again, as we're slowing down the car is really not wanting to shift. it gets more and more violent and the check engine light pops on. oh goody. we pull into a gas station, and learn there's no transmission fluid in the car, which is odd, since it wasn't leaking and we had it checked out the week before we left. we have roadside assistance through our insurance, so we called them to get us a tow truck. at 4:30 on a sunday, we figured we wouldn't find anything open. but, in proof that God doesn't completely hate us, the car crapped out in hickory, where my best good friend since i was 9 or something lives. i called her to ask where to have the car taken and see if we could perhaps stay with her and also see how long it would be before she was back in town, as she was driving back from good ol' gates county, too. she informs us we're about 5 minutes from her house. so after about an hour or so, the tow truck comes and takes us to the garage, through erin i learn we can walk to a panera, so there we go and sit for another hour until erin & sister sara come to claim us, those sweet, beautiful, delightful ladies. then they took us to the local brewery where we had glorious beers and some fish n chips. this morning we learned that we need a whole new transmission and the garage is towing our car to the honda dealer. luckily the transmissions in 2001 accords have been problematic so they extended the warranty and we don't have to pay for it. there's also a broken and a cracked motor mount which we will have to pay for, but since they have to pull all that stuff out to replace the transmission, the labor won't be quite as astronomical. anyway, we've had a nice lazy day with the erin and ate some fan-freaking-tastic thai food and shall hopefully be headed back to nashville sometime tomorrow afternoon. one our brief "driving tour" of the big city of hickory today, i spotted our lunch place for tomorrow: this lil organic sammich and coffee shop erin hears is great but hasn't been too. we figured that buying her lunches is the best way we can pay our hotel bill here. so anyway, that is the reader's digest version of the last week. real life and probably blogging to resume sort of soon.