All right, a promise is a promise and I know you've been waiting for this...the number one country for beer consumption is.........

IRELAND.

Yes, it's true. According to Google, anyway.

I've been listening to Christmas music pretty much non-stop since November 28th, and it's been quite a life-changing experience. So far, my favorite moment was a few days ago, when either an 80's Christmas song or a Transiberian Orchestra Christmas song was on, and the little voice in my head said, "This is a very technological song. I can hear the synthelizer."

Awe. Some.

I read A Thousand Splendid Suns yesterday. Really a book for all women to read, if they get a chance. It's harrowing. We're so spoiled here. And in Sweden.

The little voice in my head is doing a genealogy project for school, and we had to look up interesting facts about the two most dominant countries in our ancestry. Tonight, I will focus on fun facts about Germany:

Germans are the second biggest beer consumers in the world (tomorrow night I will let you in on the biggest beer consumers - yes, they are my people...YES!).

Germany is the first country to adopt Daylight Savings Time in the year 1916.

The tallest church in the world called Ulmcathedral is in Germany. It is 530 feet high.

Germany is the most densely populated country in the world.

In East Germany, more than half of the children are born to unwed mothers. (This was one of her favorite fun facts!)

There is a selction of more than 500 kinds of mineral water in Germany.

Tonight, by the way, I made some kickASS homemade hot pockets. Breakfast style - sausage, egg, and cheese, and Pepperoni Pizza.

You know you want to HIT THAT.

Hot hot delicious soups. That's what I've been thinking about today. That, and breakfast foods. Yummy fried eggs, toast, breakfast potatoes, bacon, yum yum yum.

I'm debating having gallbladder surgery. It's hard to do with no one in the house to help me with the little voice in my head. Plus I shouldn't (read: can't) lose two to three days of pay.

Grr.

Season four of HIMYM has not found its way into my DVD player. I am watching Just Friends right now for something funny, but it's just not hitting the spot. I think I over-watched last year. Plus, "Dusty Lee" has the worst hair in the universe. So hard to look at.

Ryan Reynolds, however, is not.

I don't know if anyone has caught this yet, but the band that plays when Jason Segel sings his "Call Me If You Need Me" song includes the two musicians from the film Once. Their band is called The Swell Season (and from reading info about the movie, I believe they had the band before Once was filmed).

I woke up this morning thinking about that movie, as you can see.

I also woke up thinking about pumpkin muffins, of which I will be making aplenty this weekend. I've had some requests.

It's actually quite cold today, and I don't want to go outside at all - however, I left my phone charger at work and I haven't seen the SSLP in forevah, so I must get out of my house. I must, I must. Especially after the nest fest of last holiday weekend. I think the little voice and I shed our pajamas only twice for the sake of real clothes.

Please. Please. Please. See the movie Once. Then, after you watch it (or just listen to it - the story's mainly in the music, aside from the gentleman lead's face), look it up on IMDB.com, and in the trivia tab, find out what she really said. Please - do it in order. Don't cheat.

My younger sister and my mother traditionally shop together right around Thanksgiving and buy the little voice in my head some winter clothes. This year my mother almost didn't make it out alive, due to her true nature. What is her true nature, you ask? WHITE TRASH WHITE TRASH HOOCHIE MOOOOMMMMMAAAAAAAA1!!!

Now, you may think that's mean, but I'm not saying it to be evil or judgmental, it's just true. My mom has the fashion sense of Daisy Duke mixed with 80's flash. Seriously. When I was sixteen my mom was wearing bootie shorts that showed most of her bootie and begging me to wear belly shirts.

I have a always been a more conservative dresser, however, and as a young lass (and still today), I was very bookish looking. So flash and sass didn't suit me. My daughter looks similar, and so we do bling in different details of the outfit rather than the ENTIRE outfit. My sister nearly took down my mom because everything she chose was slinky, short, skintight and ruched (sp?). Also in very brassy colors. Little Sis won every fight but one - all the casual clothes are adorable, age-appropriate, and I can let my daughter wear them without fear that I will be arrested for child prostitution. The Christmas dress, though - let's just say this weekend we'll be making an "exchange." Because it didn't fit. AT ALL.

One of the items that I love best also freaks me out a little. It's this beautiful red-hooded swing with double-breasted black buttons and foof at the cuffs. She looks so cute in it I could lay down and roll around on the floor in rapture. But it also looks just like the coat from Don't Look Now, one of the freakiest movies ever made. I keep having David Lynch flashbacks every time I look at her in it because I watched that movie at a ridiculously young and innocent age.

Aside from the red riding hood jacket, there was something else I've been planning on writing about all day, and now that I'm sitting here in front of the laptop, I cannot remember what it is for my own sweet life. I hate it when I do that.

The little leaning Christmas tree is up, and I thought, what better way to ring in the season than to watch Signs? I've probably covered this before because from beginning to end it's one of my favorite movies due to its excellent storytelling and the relationship between the brothers. I love it when the younger brother tells the older brother he needs to swear and act crazy, and what the result of that advice sounds like. Also, the first scene when the younger brother jumps out of his bed because of a faint, far-off scream KILLS me. It reminds me of when the little voice in my head was just a wee mite without any words. She was a newborn and we were all laying about in the living room, and my younger sister was dead asleep on the floor. The baby silently threw up all over the place and before me or my mom could move or make a noise to imply something had happened, the younger sis was up and wiping up the mess. It was unbelievable.

I knew that she would be a great mom.

Anyhoodle, again, today, all I could think about was food. I've been looking up ham glazes and tasty side dishes. I found a twice-baked mashed potato recipe that deserves a chance. I've also been thinking about chicken fried rice again. I made some a month or so back and it was really tasty, but I think I can do better. It's one of those dishes I'm going to try and try again until I get it just right. (Sometimes I can cook something perfectly right off the bat, especially if I've watched someone else do it, but mostly it's try try again with me until it goes from good to magical.) And whenever I think about making a ham, I think about au gratin potatoes, which is another of my specialties.

Dude. I need help. INTERVENTION!!!!! (Wherever there is an intervention, there be snacks...)