Hello, half day! I love you!

Because I worked such long days earlier this week, I got out early today! I'm going to spend my afternoon napping, catching up on 30 Rock, and baking brownies and making guacamole. I'm pretty freaking excited about this plan.

Because it's not fair for me to leave you hanging, here's some other shit going on around the internets:

• Juniper Moon Farm is giving away a miniature donkey. It's part of a fundraiser for Pete Johnson, an organic CSA farmer in Vermont whose barn was destroyed by fire three weeks ago. (Y'all, the barn stored all his farm's produce and equipment and was under-insured. Check out what you can do to help, if you feel like it.)
• Do you read The It List? It's a weekly roundup of interesting stuff from various blogs, put together by Jill over at Good Life for Less.
• The Pioneer Woman has made your life easier by creating a "Superbowl" holiday category. I'll be making my ridiculously good guacamole, and Andy's making his Buffalo chicken dip, and I'm baking the aforementioned brownies. 
• I have been spending hours of my life staring at Pinterest. I love seeing what other people pin. I requested an invite a week ago, and it came today! I can't wait to get out there and start pinning things. One thing, though: I WISH PEOPLE WOULD STOP FUCKING PINNING ITEMS WITH MISSPELLINGS. It seriously isn't that hard to run spell-check. This goes double for mis-attributed quotes/sayings, especially well-known ones. I saw one that was the Mary Oliver line "Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?" attributed to some shmoe. So join Pinterest, and pin pretty things, but do it right, okay?
• Thinking about trying this spicy hot chocolate recipe from Alton Brown to keep in my desk at work. 

What are you up to this lovely afternoon? Are you on Pinterest? Do share!

Taking advantage of the quiet

Image via

My sister and brother-in-law are off surprising his family for the evening, so I'm at home, watching The Santa Clause and starting my Christmas cards. Our dogs (Andy and I have one, and Nikki and Brian have one) are hanging out seeing who can be the first to lose a tooth by chomping too hard on a bone. It's a cozy little picture. I think it's funny to send out weird, sentimental, sappy cards that would be appropriate coming from your maiden aunt, so this year I scored a giant box of weird ones from Dollar General. I pretty much write all the cards, because Andy doesn't care even a little if we don't send them. I think it's fair that if I care if we send them, I get to do the work.

As soon as Andy gets home I'm going to have some Italian lemon cookies for dessert. That's the same general idea pictured above, but putting sprinkles on them is some bullshit for sure and we always tinted our frosting red and green. Man, are they good. We've had these every single year since I was a kid, despite being 0% Italian on either side, and I nicked a whole bunch when we were at my mom's house last night. They are especially good with a cup of tea. Do yourself a favor and try that recipe. And don't put any sprinkles on.

What's your favorite childhood Christmas cookie? What's a lovely more recent find?