This post contains an important life lesson

I went to bed last night at 2:30am after spending waaay too much time on Google Reader and Blackberry Messenger, and my alarm was set for 9am.  I was awakened by a call at 8:52 from my mom saying “I’m on my way home!”  which made me shoot up in bed, confused and paranoid, thinking I had slept the whole day and it was suddenly early afternoon. She clocks in at 8am and essentially got to work, did a couple of things, and was told she could have the rest of the day off.  Awesome!!  We had LOTS to do though, so it wasn’t a day for goofing off.  We had errands to run and gifts to buy.  And salads to eat!

This was a Basil Parmesan Chicken salad from McAlister’s Deli and it was pretty good (I ate one crouton, and the olives tasted like baby poo, not that I know what that tastes like).  Not the best I’ve ever had, but not bad overall.  They’re well-known for their giant servings of sweet tea, so it pained me greatly to get unsweetened and Splenda the hell out of it.  It actually turned out pretty well, though!  I think I’ve been scarred by my unsweet + Equal attempts of yesteryear.  We were out for 6-7 hours (wow, really?) and got a lot accomplished.  I’m almost done shopping for friends and my Secret Santa recipient!  Just a couple handmade goodies to go, and I’ll have non-family members all crossed off my list!

Dude, check out this beer I saw at World Market:

Isn’t that AMAZING?!?!  (Lofton, are you reading this????)  I also got a few fun holiday beers I’ll be imbibing with good friends next weekend - yep, against my diet, but I’ll have a gameplan and will try to blog ad nauseum to make myself accountable.  I’ve done amazingly well with challenges this far (surprising myself, actually), so I can do it this weekend (family Christmas) and next weekend (friend birthdays/Christmas) just as well.

For dinner, I tried a new product I’ve been looking forward to for awhile – chicken sausage.  Actually, I’ll admit I wanted to try the apple variety even when I was a veg-head.  It’s got too much sugar for me to try it now, but I might have to get one package before I go back to being meat-free.

I sautéed a load of onions, peppers, mushrooms, and garlic in EVOO…

…then added cut-up sausage to heat up in the pan (it’s already cooked, you just have to warm it up).

I had mine in a bowl with a smidgen of cheese. 

Overall, it was pretty good.  I keep forgetting I’m not a huge fan of fennel seeds which are  a hallmark ingredient of Italian sausage.  I just let my excitement get the best of me when I get the opportunity to try new things. 

So, onto that “important life lesson” I mentioned up there.  When a family member says, “give me some ideas for you for Christmas,” you’d better jump on that invitation, and quick.  Don’t put it off, because that family member might want to jump the gun and send your present two weeks early.  And if you haven’t given hints about what you’d like, that family member will go ahead and guess.

I can’t wait until Dad goes back to working the night shift so I can sneak into Mom’s bedroom and slip that bad boy next to her under the covers. 

After all the fun and excitement of opening our Christmas present and Thursday night NBC and taking out the trash, I made Mom and myself a nightcap of cocoa.  She had a new mix we got at World Market today and said it was really good (I had a sip and must concur).

Mine was my hot mocha shake (woo.) but I gussied it up with my own World Market purchase:

Eff. Yes.

Any bad gift stories out there?