Hey, it’s summer at Kelley’s house.  Shut up.

It started snowing an hour before the kids got out of school for break two weeks ago.  It almost hasn’t stopped at all since.  The piles of snow in front of our houses in my neighbourhood?  Taller than I am.  “It doesn’t snow in Vancouver” my fat white ass.  I meant to take pictures, I really did, but I wasn’t blogging and you know how that goes.  And now the gorgeous snow hills are the same shade of gray as death and just look less gorgeous and more dirty-icebergish.

So we spent the majority of Christmas break running out early to buy the winter pants and boots that Santa fully intended to bring a few days later, because damn him and his deadlines that have nothing to do with the actual weather outside, hanging out at home, playing outside, sledding and pelting each other with snowballs.  And shoveling, oh the shoveling.  Good thing I’m the only person here from Colorado; I smoked those bitches asses at shoveling the street.  That Dirty American isn’t so aggravating anymore, is she?

*ahem*

And then it was Jesus’ birthday, so we opened some presents on his behalf (which was fine with him; he hasn’t worn a kids’ size 12 coats in ages) and ate some food.  Okay, we ate all the food.  I cooked for five.  Thousand.  It was epic, and then it was New Years, and tomorrow the kids go back to school.

The rest are slowly being added to FlickR.

And tomorrow, I tell you what this picture is all about.

See all of Lotus’ Weekly Winners here.

In a year when people are getting trampled to death for cheap wrapping paper, when cities are under siege, when the stock market is wiping out 401K’s, when my husband is damn lucky to still have a job, when my kids are *this* close to outgrowing that magic twinkle in their eyes that only December can bring, I thought it was high time to shake up my holiday traditions.  This year, I’m channeling the ghosts of my Christmas past, present and future in order to rediscover what it’s all about, and I’m dedicating this whole week on my blog to just that.  Because, really, in the end, what we do and what we give can reflect what Christmas is about for you, and what it’s about, for me, is this:

It’s about putting a song in our heart

About what’s precious

About wishing on the brightest star

About supporting our friends

About laughing so hard we pee a little

About keeping the magic alive

About creating

About discovery

And about remembering why it all matters in the first place.

It’s not Saturday, and it won’t be Saturday all day today, but here I am posting a Super Saturday Supper recipe on top of a Weekly Winners post.  I have an excellent excuse…I re started a diet two weeks ago.

Do you know when you start that low-carb diet, how they tell you to lay off the booze for a while?  Do you know why?  It’s not because booze is packed with sugar, it’s because proteins do not absorb vodka as well as a bowl of pasta would, and if you decide to sit down with a good movie and a rather large glass full of your favorite cocktail, you probably won’t remember much between your third slurp, the bird’s eye view of your toilet, and your pillow.

However, being O+, I function much better in life if I drop the carbs.  Too bad I’d rather have mashed potatoes than oxygen.  Sucks to be me, yo.  But when I stepped on the scale two Sundays ago, a year and a half after rocking some very hot size 4 jeans and saw 160?  I decided to break up with Ding Dongs.

So, here I sit, down 10 pounds already, watching JFK on the tv (45 years already?  Dag) trying really hard to will myself out of a wicked hangover, and posting this a day late.  Maybe I should get to that already, huh?

Chicken Parmesan is my mostest favoritest dinner in the whole freaking world.  Not so totally compatible with a low carb diet, though, unless you tweak it a bit.  You dredge chicken breasts pounded thin (or sliced in half through the middle, I’m lazy) in eggs and flour.

Normally, you’d also dredge them through breadcrumbs, but I had to leave out the bread crumbs *sob* so I subbed them with grated parm (just the Kraft stuff), salt and pepper, and extra basil and oregano.

By the way, it’s really nice to hide yourself little messages in your kitchen that will totally crack you up when you stumble on them later.

You fry those chicken breasts in a pan with hot olive oil until they are JUST done, no more than that.  After that, you load the chicken breasts into a 9X13 glass pan, pile them up with marinara and cheese (I use that 4 cheese Italian pre-grated blend, also lazy)

and bake them until the cheese is really melted and a little brown on top, maybe 10 minutes?  Since I’m on that stupid diet, I didn’t make the pot of pasta I’d usually throw under the chicken before I served it, I just made green beans instead.  And you know what?

It kicked ASS.  See all Lotus’ Weekly Winners here, and all the Super Saturday Suppers recipes here.