Bullets

• I remember reading an Albert Schweitzer quote once, "Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."  I am actually lucky to have good health so Albert, I'm half way there.  Except for a few pockets of life when I was getting the stomach flu all the time, my immune system could beat up your immune system.  Then last night while sitting in the family room chatting up my siblings that are home for Christmas, I could feel the aches coming on.  5 minutes after they left I was bundled up on the couch with a blanket pulled up to my chin, shivering.  The flu whacked me on the head and it's still throbbing.  I never appreciate how healthy I am until I'm not.  Just for added fun, Jude got a skin infection called Folliculitis.  Please don't google image-es it, it's gross and Jude's version is not that bad.  But he is on a couple of antibiotics and for this Jeff and I are sad.  Jeff is starting to feel poorly (because how could he escape at this point?), so maybe DayQuil will be seeing us through this Christmas.
• This is why Newt would not get my vote:

Just as Huckabee, look-alike of devious President Logan on 24, did not make the cut, Newt/Mr. Henry F. Potter, "the richest, meanest man in the county" will not either.  Am I the only one seeing this resemblance?

• My mom's Christmas Caramels are legend.  Everyone wants them, no one can make them successfully except her.  Once Jeff and I even made them WITH her standing right there, and they were a crap batch.  Tonight I had her over to really show me how it's done.  To guide me and my silicone scraper, give me all her tricks and bounties of caramel knowledge.  I still don't know how to do it.  Like the English language, there was no consistency with the rules.  The varying temperature, the whisking, the dripping of the cream/condensed milk blend, it's all coded into her wrist and doesn't translate.
• I'm so out of the music scene I didn't even listen to one second of a new Coldplay song until a few days ago.  I used to be so obsessed with them I could tell you how many days remained until their next album released.  I pre-ordered X&Y and waited up until midnight to begin the download.  My how things have changed.
• Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!