Christmas Party

Tonight is Steve’s annual Christmas Party for Platt’s. To me the best part is the Filet Minion that they serve. The have all you care to drink alcohol (don’t drink), Salmon appetizers (don’t eat Salmon), salad with Vinaigrette dressing (don’t do vinaigrettes), but love me some steak, good bread. Another great part is the dessert. They have a eatable chocolate box filled with chocolate mouse. Can anyone say yummo?!? It is at the fancy Augusta Country Club so we have to dress up. I bought several months ago this dark red/maroon velvet pants suit. The only problem is the top has one button at the top and is open the rest of the way. I have been meaning to go buy something to go under it, and just have never remembered. The black top that I am going to wear under is not very flattering around the waist, but I am going to be sitting most of the time and hopefully no one will notice. I will post a picture soon. Let me know what you think.

Christmas Tree

So we put up the Christmas Tree here at work. And although it helps bring a Christmas atmosphere here, I have to admit that it is kind of pathetic looking. The tree is very old...I am talking a couple of decades. The limbs are so far apart space wise you can see the "bones" of the tree. The decorations are also all pretty old. I am thinking that maybe it is time to update the tree a little. If I can get a picture I will add it in.

Storing Ground Beef in the Freezer

We bulk buy 10 lb tubes of hamberger at Sam's Club so portioning them out is key. We divide the tube up into equal increments and place them into quart size freezer bags. The key to storing them is to flatten the meat to the full width and length of the bag and to squeeze out any air. The meat defrosts quicker than if you store them as a chunk of meat. You can even toss it in a sink of water, or place directly into the pan. To see more kitchen tips go to Kitchen Tips Tuesday by Tammy

NaBloPoMo

Well it is coming to the end of the NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I have copied over postings from that site to this. I have found that:
#1 It is hard to try to manage two blogs
#2 I am definitley not a post everyday kind of girl (at least not at this time in my life) I could just stare at the computer with nothing to write about. I have never been a writer, I am more of a reader and I love reading other blogs.

Whew!!

Well we finally got through Thanksgiving. Now onto Christmas. We are pulling out all the decorations for a friend tonight and we will start putting the basics up tomorrow for our house. We are also going to get a couple of shelves from Lowes to help organize our household a little more. I can't wait til Christmas. I want to see what the kids think of the presents we got them.
Chow!

Thanksgiving Aftermath

Well, I am proud to say that I did not fall prey to previous habits and consume copious amounts of food. I still ate more than I should have but did not overdue it. Of course it helps that I went to someone's house for dinner and they had plenty of (I am sure quite delicous) vegetables that I just don't eat. They had a sweet potato soufflee that had an camalized nut topping. They had a mess of greens. (I am in the south)
What could have killed me was the desserts.....apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, pineapple upside down cake and strawberry cheesecake. I had a piece of the cheesecake and a sliver (and I do mean a sliver) of pumpkin. Now that isn't to say that I didn't take slices of the other stuff for leftovers.
All in all I am proud of myself. So how did you do???

Turkey Day

Although we will not be having Thankgiving at our house or Margaret's house this year I thought I would tell you what I would have made if I was cooking.
Turkey
Mashed Potaotes (real w/skins)
Gravey
My bil mother's stuffing (best I ever tasted)
green bean casserole
brocolli salad
peas or corn
yams with Marshmellows (not sure about this one, can't remember if we decided not to have this because no one cared or not last year)
cresent rolls (lots, and lots, and lots)
pumpkin pie w/ whipped cream
pistachio pudding
pumpkin cake
apple pie w/ ice cream
Sparkling Cider/Wine/Coke
I am so ready for tomorrow, I am already salivating. Best wishes on your T-day.

Mommy my hands are THICK!! (nablopomo.com 11/20)

So about a year ago or so Emilia started licking her hands in the morning and for several weeks Steve and I tried to stop her saying..."Emilia that's gross", "Ewww Yuck" and such. Finally growing frustrated, I asked her why in the world she was licking her hands. Her response was "My hands are thick!" I took me a little while, but I realized the problem was that she had dry skin and it was bothering her. So I told her htat she just needed to put lotion on. So now she has her own bottle of lotion to use....but still every once in a while I still catch her licking her hand and have to remind her to use lotion. Children contiunally provide a sense of entertainment.

Bread Machine (nablopomo.com 11/19)

So we have pulled out the bread machine, dusted it off and have started a loaf. I am going to try a few recipes over the next couple of days and play with my machine to see if we can set the timer to have hot fresh bread in the evenings for mealtime. I am trying a news simple recipe from allrecipes.com called the "Best Bread Machine Bread" it has alot of great reveiws so we will see. I also want to make dinner rolls, biscuits, waffles and other baked good to put in the freezer so we can have them on hand. I will let you know how it goes.

Tired (from nablopomo.com 11/15)

I am so tired....I am going home and going to bed. Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed. Well...I guess technically it does since I have to get out of bed to go to work...but you know what I mean. Here at the Newspaper we are heading into early deadlines because of the coming holiday. Hopefully all will run smoothly. The Thanksgiving day paper is our biggest paper of the year, it even beats out Masters (I think)
Night all...

Canning

I can remember over the years canning with my mother. We have made grape jelly, apricots, and I can clearly remember a case of exploding pumpkins. I have a sudden yearn to take up canning for my own little family. I have no supplies, but that will not deter me. I think I am going to start looking around for the necessities so I can be prepared for the next harvesting season that starts in May. Wish me luck.

A Great Joke

Saw this great joke online in the Rant's and Rave's Section of The Augusta Chronicle and had to share it...

The other day I went up to a local Christian bookstore and saw a "Honk If You Love Jesus" bumper sticker. I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance, so I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper. Boy, I'm glad I did! What an uplifting experience followed! I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good He is. I didn't notice that the light had changed. It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn't honked, I'd never have noticed! I found that LOTS of people love Jesus! While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like crazy, and then he leaned out of his window and screamed, "For the love of GOD! GO! GO! GO!" What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus! Everyone started honking! I just leaned out of my window and started waving and smiling at all these loving people. I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love! There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a "sunny beach". I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only one finger stuck up in the air. I asked my teenage grandson who was in the car with me what that meant, he said that it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something. Well, I've never met anyone from Hawaii, so I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign back. A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me. I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed. So, I waved to all my sisters and brothers grinning, and drove on through the intersection. I noticed I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and I felt kind of sad that had to leave them after all the love we had shared, so I slowed the car down, leaned out of the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away. Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!

Last Picture

This is the last complete picture of Steve's immediate family, unfortunately just a few months after this picture was taken his mother passed away. She was a really great lady who accepted my children right off the bat and loved playing Grandma to them. I will miss her dearly.

Here are some pictures of the kids from the first day of school. Nicholas is obviously starting 2nd grade and Emilia is starting 1st Grade. You never know what kind of smile you are going to get with these two.

Christmas Decorations

We have a news store that opened up out here called "Final Markdown", it is such a great store. It has greeting cards for $.39 and decorations/gifts for a really low cost. I will add some pics later, but I was able to expand my holiday theme (snowflake, snowman, blue, white, silver) between this store and the dollar store. I was also able to purchase some really pretty ornaments for the exchange party they have at the church each year. My goal is to get some that people fight over. Steve and I are already pulling out the decorations, since we will be going somewhere for Thanksgiving, I wanted to get an early start.

So what is your opinion - is it okay to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving. (even if we don't light up the tree??)

Budgeting

I have been reading alot of blogs/websites from women doing amazing things...Things like a weekly grocery budget of $35, Yikes. I found this website thefamilyhomestead.com about how to make your own laundry soap that cost approx. 1 cent a load. Just around $.70 for a two gallons of laundry detergent vs the $5-$10 that it usually cost. It had alot of other great ideas. While I could do some...like the laundry soap, there were so many other ideas that I unfortunatly would not have the time to do. I am still researching ways to provide income so that I might one day be able to be a stay-at-home mom, but only time will tell. I am looking for ways to improve so that by August 2010 when Emilia starts the third grade, maybe I will be able to be home.

Too many trees.....

Well, my husband and I have had it with Comcast. We bundled our services with them about a year ago and have had quite a few problems with them. The phone has gone out 4 times in the last few weeks, and considering how important the phone is to Steve's work - this was not tolerable. So we decided to go with a Bell South and Direct TV(??) bundle. However when they came out to the house today it seems that we have too many trees for their dish to work properly...so he is talking with Dish Network about getting the cable through them and then we would get the phone/internet through Bell South. I wish we could afford to get rid of the trees now, but we are hoping to get rid of them come March with the Tax Returns. If I was brave (or stupid) enough I would hack down the trees myself, but since I don't know what I am doing and I live in the burbs instead of the country I am sure my neighbors would appreciate me hiring a professional to do the job.

Modesty

Why is it that almost every dress has no sleeves? I went to a Department store that is having a moving sale today and 99.9% of the dresses had no sleeves or even worse were halter top type dresses. Shorts are only one inch from the inseam....yikes what messages are we sending our children. My little one is only 6 years old and we are already battling over what clothes are appropriate. It gives me heart palpatations just thinking of when she gets to be a teenager. Boys are so much easier - long shorts and tees.

Behavior

Emilia is getting very unpredictable in her behavior. Thursday she pulled only one card. Unfortunately Friday, neither Steve nor I remembered to put a patch on her and by 11:30 I recieved a call from the school office that she had pulled 6 cards already. They are keeping her there for now, but if she continues to misbehave then someone is going to have to go get her. I feel so bad, because I know that we help contribue to the problems, but I still stressed to her that she was in charge of making good choices and she was not doing a good job. She sounded so distraught over the phone. She told me "I tried to pull no cards, but I pulled 6" I am going to post a big ole sign by the door so that we see it every time we go out to help us remember her medication.
Got Patch??

Halloween

Halloween was fun, the kids got a kick out of dressing up and going trick-or-treating. However, I noticed that each year the lite porch lights are less and less. Maybe people are going to parties with there kids, or maybe they just don't want the hassle anymore. We have always gone over to my sister's house and gone trick-or-treating in her neighborhood. Last year I remember that and the end of going up and down her street we had to off-load the kids because their pumpkins had become too heavy. That was not the case this year. I think next year, since it is on a Friday that Steve and I might just invite people over to the house for a Halloween party, bring the kids, have some fun, maybe have an adult party later in the evening. It has been almost a decade since I dressed up for Halloween, it might be fun.

Unconsious Gestures

It is amazing to me that with all we teach our children ABC and 123 and such that they seem to learn more by observing and repeating. They absorb our speach patterns our unconsious gestures, our habits. Yesterday Emilia (my six year old) and I were driving to my sister's house for Halloween. I had a glass of ice water and Emilia asked for some. We were at a stop light so I turned and gave it to her waiting for her to be done so that I could take it back. She took it, swallowed some and rolled her eyes with pleasure from the cold water. It was hilarious. No one taught her that. I am positive that I have done it when trying to get them to eat something at the dinner table. Mmmmmm! these vegtables are so good (eyes rolling heavenward). This is just one of many example of my daughter "learning" without being taught.

NaBloPoMo

That stand for "National Blog Posting Month" a challenge to blogger to post everyday for the month of October. If you want to check it out go to NaBloPoMo. I will be copying and posting my blogs from there to here to keep this blog up to date. Wish me luck.