Amusing Amy: It's the moooooost wonderful tiiiiime of the yeeeeaaar!!!!

Sing it with me, kids!!

Hello my loyal followers! I hope the 12 of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are as happy as I am that the "moooooost wonderful tiiiiime of the yeeeeaaar" is upon us. (Ok, I'll knock it off. Maybe)

Just to update you on a few things:

It takes 7 hours to lovingly wrap each branch of the unlit 9 ft tree. I did this without wine. It wasn't fun, but it looked nice when it was done and I knew that my work would not be in vain. I even took the time to tape the outlets together that wouldn't need to be unplugged when I disassembled the tree. I tied green ribbons on the outlets that were at the end of the line for that particular section of the tree. I thought of everything, y'all!!!! The tree stood in it's place for 2 weeks, anxiously awaiting decorations that would come AFTER we ate the bird and gave thanks.

My 30 day yeast detox (that still just sounds gross) came to an end and I was glad to be able to have bananas and wine again. Not together. That's gross. But I really missed my bananas. Dare I say I missed them more than I missed my wine? It was a good time to focus on the things that make my body wonky. I learned that oranges give me migraines. This really irked me because I love Cuties! Those little bastards landed me in bed for two days. Not so cute, you little orbs of pain. I've decided that I'll adopt the Paleo lifestyle. I know I sound like an infomercial, but it really does make me feel like a completely different person and if you order now, you'll get three Shake-weights and a Wax-Vac at no additional charge.

I am training for a marathon, and I had my longest run to date! I ran a 25K race (that's 15.5 miles for those who don't have the conversion calculator in front of you) with some friends. I loved it, except for the fact that I froze my ass off. This pretty much confirmed that I need winter running clothes. It took 4 hours and boiling myself in the shower before I could get warm. It was fun, though!

Here I am with my friend Wendy.

I really like the expressions on our faces.

We look like we could shank someone.

Thanksgiving was wonderful, as always. My sister-in-law and I grew up together, and I have her to thank for my amazingly hot husband. I met him when I sang in her wedding and we are now married to brothers. It's really fun! We decided 10 years ago that we would always spend Thanksgiving together. We cook, we eat, we laugh, we play Nerts, and we eat some more. We split the cooking duties amongst her, her mom, and me. My contributions were cranberry brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, wine (duh), and....get this....Chocolate Chip Cookie Pecan Pie Bars. It's like a marriage of my two most favorite things. Throw some bread pudding in there and I might just moan from the pleasure, but that's for a different kind of blog, y'all. Anyway, I knew this would be amazeballs and I couldn't wait to make it! It was gonna be glorious. The angels were gonna sing. Guess what? It was the opposite of amazeballs. Definitely not glorious. The angels all had laryngitis. Pinterest can kiss my arse. The edges were burned and the middle was runny goo. It was delicious runny goo, but runny nonetheless.

So, I did what any self-respecting cook would do. I scooped out some goo, put it on top of vanilla ice cream and threw away the pan. I had to throw the pan in the trash because the foil liner was permanently baked into the pan.

Remember that I'd been on the no-sugar thing for 30 days? This was my first taste of sugar. It also confirmed why I am a Paleo diet convert. I was ill, y'all. But it was worth it. Good thing Meg and crew stopped at Cracker Barrel on their way to town. They had a perfectly cooked Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie. Thanksgiving was saved!!!!

Traditional Iron Chef aprons from the first Iron Chef Thanksgiving.

Now, we don't still live in Midland and Denton, but does Iron Chef Italy live in Italy?

No, he doesn't.

We gave our thanks a day early to allow Meg and crew ample time to get back to Dallas. She's a nurse at Children's Medical Center and had to go make lives better for kidlets on Friday. Thursday morning we got up at the crack of dawn to dash with the Turkeys. I'm honored to be asked to sing the National Anthem at this annual event. I was even more honored to be able to actually run it this year!

WOO HOO!!!

Finally, the day was here! I could decorate my new tree and glitter the shit out of my house. I plugged in the 9 ft tree that I'd so lovingly spent 7 hours lighting two weeks prior expecting to be blinded by the 1400 lights. I was less than blinded. The damn thing was dark as night! ARE YOU KIDDING? I felt like Clark Griswold when the lights on his house didn't work. I cussed, I cried, and I may have done the worm. I don't remember. I was in complete disbelief and shock. I called my bff, Erin. She said, "Didn't you buy new lights and check them all?" It's a good thing she wasn't in front of me because I might have hurt her. But, like any good bff, she talked me down and coached me through this difficult life moment. The moral of the story? It takes 7 hours to lovingly wrap each branch. It takes 4 hours to untape the plugs, unwrap each branch, throw away the burned out strands and relight. Know what? It was worth it.