arrgh in a non-pirate way

Arrgh, things are not so great right now, and I'm feeling pretty de-flicted (yes I'm using a made-up word on purpose, yay!). Grr! Grrr! I'm a messsssssssss...I don't see myself getting much sleep tonight. I also don't see myself working tomorrow because it's really hard to do that if I'm not doing too well on the sleep front. Yikes!

On a brighter note, we hung Christmas lights today, and dug out the boxes with all that holiday shwag. It was nice and warm outside for a change...and sunny too.

On a completely different note, can I just say that I hate LED lights?!? I first noticed them last year, but this year they're everywhere. In fact, it's kinda hard NOT to get them--about 50% of the lights on the shelves at the stores are LED lights. As much of a raging environmentalist as I am, you'd think I'd ADORE LED Christmas light, but sadly I am traumatized by their very existence. I hate them enough to not be excited by how much lower my electrical bill could be, how much energy I could be saving, etc, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love LED technology in some other forums...but not as Christmas lights, NO WAY! Why not? Because they're too damn bright, but in a way that's just disturbing and WRONG! I'm kind of relieved to know I'm not the only one out there that finds them to be eye torture. I can't even look at them, which kinda defeats the purpose of Christmas lights for me. I see them all over the neighborhood, and I just have to look away--it's like everything that's bad about fluorescent lights times 100. Seriously, I think they were created by the same evil twisted minds that invented plastic bags, and put perfume in everything. Grr.

It looks like the kids in the punkrawk house down the street must've moved out, or been evicted or something because there's a pile of stuff on the curb including a box of dirty clothes, a record player (cabinet), some canvases, and three non-matching chairs. The house is empty, quiet, and sterile.

Today I made some awesome sweet potato soup! Here's the recipe:

Totally Awesome Sweet! Potato Soup

2 medium sized sweet potatoes baked in the oven until very mushy
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 box of butternut squash soup
1 can coconut milk
half a leek, chopped
some garlic and some ginger
the crumbs in the bottom of the sweet potatoes chips bag

I chucked all of the above into a crock pot and cooked it for about 5 hours. It was heavenly. It also makes rad leftovers to take to work and be the talk of the lunchroom because people think you put so much effort into it and really it's just a little chopping and the crock pot does everything. (Crock pots are the salvation of harried and overworked people everywhere who still want home-cooked meals.)

I make a variation of this all the time in winter, ever since I lived at declerye. I swap a few things from time to time (sometimes it's butternut squash cubed with sweet potato soup base), or add a thing here and there (peppers, carrots, apple juice), but overall it's the same beast we used to eat. It's a good winter friend, especially when you don't have a woodstove or good lap cats. It reminds me of Sue, Casey, and Denny, and the time when it was basically just the four of of riding out the winter together...I just looked up and saw these kids dancing around on TV...I guess they're in Philly but really it could just as well be Memphis. People always said they were kinda similar places in a lot of ways. I've never been to Philly, so I wouldn't know.

Digging out all these old Christmas cards makes me feel nostalgic. I wonder where people are, and what they're up to. I haven't been good about keeping in touch with anyone. It got especially bad after I started grad school. Now most days, it's a function of being really tired after work. I know that for some of us, it's just the fatigue of our lives. Some people are busy raising younguns and don't have time or energy to do much else. Others have just drifted out of range or off the radar. But even if I don't know where people are, or what they're doing, I still wonder about them. There's a lot of people I haven't heard from awhile, and wouldn't mind hearing from...but this also means that I need to do my part too. sigh.