The Christmas Coup d'etat

So, I went yesterday and placed my pie orders. I also called a couple of key family members to tell them of my plans for a good old fashioned Christmas Coup! I've ordered the French Silk and Candy Cane pies as was my plan. I then called Bonnie (Nick's adorable aunt) and Kim (the cousin guilty of the original pie offense) and they are both going to publicly support the dessert plan, as is Nick if he wants to continue living indoors. ;) If she doesn't want dessert, fine. As for the rest of us, we are having dessert.

The plan is set. I've already been practicing what to say to Nick's grandma when she has a fit. I'm debating between a few different things. Some are nice, some are passive aggressive....we'll see how I'm feeling when it happens. Right now I'm leaning towards, saying in the sweetest voice possible, "Bringing pies on Christmas is a nice thing to do...it's not something to get mad over." The other option involved me telling her I wasn't going to tolerate being made to walk on eggshells every Christmas and she needs to check her nasty attitude at the door or I'm not doing this anymore.

Yesterday we got the beginnings of a nasty winter storm. It started raining and by morning it was pretty treacherous. I had to run a few errands, like go pick up a package at the post office at 7:00 am and run a friend to the airport at 9:00 am. The airport is about 30 miles away and the driving was really bad. I saw probably 25 cars in the ditch. Luckily my SUV (sorry Michael and Kevin--but I love it) has All-Wheel Drive and handles really well in the snow/ice. Of course I also have the good sense not to be driving 80mph during a blizzard either.

Then I came home and found a gift bag on my porch. My friend Melissa gave me all kinds of hair care products! Yay! I love products! I got Aveda Rosemary Mint conditioner and shampoo, and Be Curly shampoo and style cream. Handy since curly hair is a nightmare most of the time! I love Aveda products! Since Aveda doesn't test on animals, and their headquarters is here in Minneapolis, I used to be a product tester when I was in college. They would put strips of tape with cotton with products on them and I would wear it for a few days, and come in to have them see if I had a reaction to anything. For a 6 week trial I would get $150 gift certificate to use towards Aveda products. Oh yes, us "product whores" will always find a way to feed the addiction! How's that for going off on a tangent?

Anyway, I was tired yesterday afternoon, and decided to take a little nap. There is nothing more satisfying than a nice afternoon nap when the house is all quiet and you're all alone. I woke up at about 5:00 when Nick got home, and we turned on the tv to watch the news. Good thing we did, because there was a commercial for a store at a mall that I had volunteered to do gift wrapping for charity at. I saw the commercial about 40 minutes before my scheduled shift! I lurched up, asked Nick if I had "nap hair" and grabbed Sunshine (our greyhound) and headed out. The roads were really slick, much worse than earlier in the day. I gift wrapped from 6-10 last night, and generated a little money and interest in greyhounds as pets. It's cool that Barnes and Noble lets us bring our dogs into their store.

The winter storm is continuing today. It's really windy and cold, and the snow is blowing all over. Yuck.