Dec9

Oh snap!

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(exclamatory phrase) a playful indication of surprise, misfortune, or insult

That’s me describing me there-especially when I almost poked myself in the eye with the end of the dust mop today. I didn’t realize how much work this decorating stuff is now. It’s like I have to rearrange everything! ; )

I’m getting packages everyday now-yahoo! I need to do a little shopping (for church gifts) and mailing a few things soon too.
No baking yet. I don’t freeze cookies-they all go in tins. Not to say I won’t ever not consider it. Maybe to save some for Sean to take back to school.

Come Monday-for BooMama’s tour of homes tour-things should be tidied up enough so I don’t embarrass myself-that’s if I don’t break anything or show certain areas of a room.

In the meantime-still doing a little photoshopping:

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Stop by and say hello if you haven’t lately.

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Take my poll too!

Dec8

Now where is that?

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I spent way too much time looking for things today. I had a rebate offer to complete and looked everywhere except the most obvious place, a little receipt basket I use before the receipts go in to storage. Please don’t ask about the receipts that I was going through last week-ok-well…I gave it up for a while. I’m halfway done though and need a container for the ones I have rubber banded and separated.

I don’t know what I did with the handmade calendar for December that I made last year. I remember taking it down and folding it up-that’s it. And my only Santa cross stitch pieces are MIA. Gotta look harder.

Mom continues to improve, though her eye hurts. She is bummed as she hasn’t done any shopping. I told her to get out some catalogs and shop that way! She seems to need the tactile sensation of handling the merchandise. Once a shopper, always a shopper. I helped Bri to set up a Amazon account and he did pick out things off my wishlist. I already got my new car coat today-a pretty lavender with a chartreuse lining. I tried it outside in our cold weather today and it felt good.

Slowly decorating….hope to get the tree up over the weekend.

I had a little mishap Friday- I tried to climb on a child’s chair I have at a old-fashioned desk to adjust Christmas lights in the front window, slipped and made a 4″ bruise on my right leg and have a groin pull-lucky me. It bothers me enough to make me feel grouchy. I will hang in there.

Bri’s car is in the shop-it needs a major tune-up! So I won’t have a car tomorrow either. He could have taken it for a tune-up months earlier, but had to ‘wait’ until it had a hard time starting. Bummer.

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Dec8

Seeing clearly

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Around 10:30 pm last night the phone rang. I jumped a bit as I was settled on the sofa doing some stitching and watching ‘Brothers and Sisters’. It was my mom and she said she is starting to see better and wanted me to know so I could rest soundly. I think she wanted to just ‘tell’ someone and she thought of me her night owl child. I was so pleased to hear this, beyond happy! She’s  had a rough time with that eye, and I am angry it took her going to another eye doctor to fix the problem so quickly. The doctor who did the implant called her yesterday on Sunday. Is he feeling guilty? I don’t know, but I read that less than 1% of people who get the new lens get an infection. What the heck happened there? And she isn’t seeing floaters anymore either. Just the thing I needed to hear and I wanted to share.

I was playing with my photo editing programs. I added a background of tulle (thanks to a Flickr contact for that) and tweaked the little flower girl from the wedding last week in PSP and Adobe.  tulle6

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Dec7

I Recommend-#6

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Welcome to the sixth edition of ‘I recommend’. As the name implies, this is a share to recommend just about anything you like or have tried. It can be a book, drink, food, movie, music CD-anything. Mister Linky will open to another page (that’s how it works on WordPress). Please add your link there and don’t forget to leave me a comment here.

Bloggers-this is a meme kind of post to help you think of things to add to your blog. So if you comment here, don’t forget to post about your favorite Christmas music (or whatever) on your blog. It doesn’t have to involve an entire blog post, just a small part of it. Thanks. : )

Short and sweet-what are your favorite Christmas CDs? I think the yearly offerings from Hallmark are pretty good. James Taylor did one a few years back and it’s excellent.
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Michael McDonald was the next year or so-love his soulful voice. I’d like to get Sheryl Crowe’s Hallmark CD-new this year.

Love Sarah McLachlan’s too:

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Other favs- Nat King Cole, The Carpenters, Jewel, Mariah Carey and Josh Groban.

My favorite radio station starts playing Christmas music 24/7 before Thanksgiving now. Although I enjoy hearing some favorites, I want to pull my hair out by the 18th of December I’m so sick of the music.

I do enjoy Handel’s Messiah. When I went to community college, I signed up briefly for the choir there and we were going to perform it. Not an easy piece of music to learn, especially for sopranos. I ended up leaving the choir, but later was in our church choir for a number of years. I told Bri I may join again next year.

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It’s your turn:

Dec6

Another reunion?

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Dianne and Kim, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I recently got an email from Scott, our reunion guy who said if any of us ’77ers wanted to meet up in my hometown they had some tables for us. We stopped to see my mom (and brought her dinner) and then headed up to the little restaurant. I think about 20 people showed up! I haven’t seen the lady here (Kim) for 31 yrs. It was nice seeing the old gang. So sweet to see the ladies who are BFF still hanging out.

Dec5

Scrappy Jessi’s Cookie Swap

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Jessi is hosting a cookie swap today!

♥♥♥♥Happy Birthday Jessi!!!!♥♥♥♥    (Dec.8th)

This will surely brighten my spirit as I love to bake cookies! I didn’t have a cool oven like Jessi did, but I did have an Easy Bake Oven

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I got to use about 1 time before brother #2 shorted it out. (He bought me a new one as a grown-up!). I really started to bake a lot in junior high when I had Home Ec class and learned not to be afraid of baking. I did have the Betty Crocker cookbook for Boys and Girls that really lead the whole thing off!

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Anyway, here are my ‘must bake’ cookies, every year now. Enjoy!

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My array of cookies from a few years back

My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe:
Crisco Butter Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie
Preparation time: 30 to 35 minutes
Baking time: 8 to 13 minutes/baking sheet
About 3 dozen cookies

1-1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup Butter Flavor CRISCO all-vegetable shortening
or 3/4 Butter Flavor Crisco stick
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (6-ounce package) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup pecan pieces (optional)*

Heat oven to 375ºF. Combine brown sugar, Butter Flavor
Crisco Shortening, milk and vanilla in large bowl.
Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Beat egg into creamed mixture.
Combine flour, salt and baking soda.
Mix into creamed mixture until just blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts, if used.
Drop rounded measuring tablespoonfuls of dough 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet.
Bake one baking sheet at a time at 375ºF for
8 to 10 minutes for chewy cookies
(they will look light and moist), or 11 to 13 minutes for crisp cookies.
DO NOT OVERBAKE. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet on a cooling rack;
remove cookies to rack to cool completely.

* If nuts are omitted, add an additional 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

My son Sean’s favorite bar cookies:

SEVEN LAYER COOKIES

1 stick butter
1 1/2 cups graham crackers
1 can Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup butterscotch chips (can be omitted)

Melt butter in a cake pan. Sprinkle crumbs over butter and pour
Eagle brand condensed milk over the crumbs.
Top with remaining ingredients in the order given and press down firmly.
Bake 25 minutes or until lightly brown at 350 degrees.

Bri’s aunt makes these every year-yummy!

Russian tea cakes
Ingredients:

* 1 cup butter
* 1/2 cup powdered sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2 1/2 cups flour
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 cup finely chopped pecans
* Powdered Sugar

Preparation:
Preheat oven 400°. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with 1/2 cup powdered sugar and vanilla.
Stir in flour and salt and pecans. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Bake for about 9 minutes. Roll warm tea cakes in sifted powdered sugar. Makes 4 dozen tea cakes.

I also make candy too-Microwave Peanut Brittle and Fudge of all kinds.

Update-Dear Readers-Could you keep my mom Jeanne in your thoughts and prayers as her eye doctors want her to have her surgery late this afternoon. They must think her vision is in jeopardy. She asked her neighbor to take her and she is counting on one of my brothers (who live about 4 miles from the hospital) to come get her. I guess I’m on standby for the picking up part. Brian’s car is acting up and he’s going to get it checked out on Monday if it will start up to get it to the station. He’ll have to take my van back to work this afternoon. I’ve shed some sad tears, believe me. Poor mom. She looks so frail and she said she was shaking badly when the doctor’s office called her this morning.

Dec4

My mom

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Just a short post to let you know that my mom still has a bad infection in her right eye, which was the worst one when she had cataract surgery a few months ago. Yesterday she had to go to the eye doctor and now later this afternoon, I have to take her to a retinal specialist. I’m hoping he just puts her on antibiotics. The infection is playing havoc with her glaucoma too. We only have to go to the end of her town to the newer doctor. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as she’s had a rough 3 weeks and is scared.
I worked on my Christmas cards yesterday-got them printed at the copy shop and did a little cutting and gluing on them. I’ll be sending them off in the next few days. I’ll show you how they turned out soon.
~Update~
This was a really long day of sitting and waiting. My mom saw the new eye doctor and does have to have surgery to remove the infected jelly like substance called vitreous humor fill the space between lens and retina behind her lens implant. She also needs a stitch in a tear in the corner of her cornea. He wouldn’t give us a clear answer how she got an infection there. He’ll also inject the area with antibiotics. This will probably happen next Wednesday. I’m praying she’ll be able to see out of that eye again as it’s just a blur right now.


Dec2

Getting ready

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Even though the night before I had a strange time with my ache caused either from indigestion or strain, I managed to take down most of my autumn decor yesterday and to make tuna noodle casserole from scratch (I had no ‘cream of’ anything soup, so I had to make a roux). I am good today, but Bri left a note that said he was awake at 4:30 feeling jumpy and not himself. Maybe we had a little bug? This time of the year, you never know.
I opened up a can of worms the other evening (Sunday) when I decided to sort through the ‘paper chase’ bag. I have a huge plastic quilt bag of receipts, bill stubs, etc.that was just plopped in my bedroom. I would pay the monthly bills and stick the papers in the bag. You can imagine why I had to take on this task-the bag was going to burst at the seams! I think I am half way through it-yeah! When I should be decorating, I am sorting through papers. It’s just something I needed to do-I am a neat freak when the mood strikes. If we need to take a look at a year’s worth of Sean’s student loan stubs-they are all together now. Makes sense to me.
Today, I’ll probably go to the store. Tomorrow I want to get my Christmas cards started. I made one last year and will take the new to the copy center. As a hint, I used a really old family photo (one of my favorites) as the card’s design.
I’m going to do a little cyber shopping now. Here’s a photo of Shirley Temple I found to put you in the holiday mood.

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