24 days of normalness

I will be thinking of you for the next 24 days, while you check gifts off your lists, decorate your homes, freeze while hanging Christmas lights outside, write, address and mail your christmas cards, stress out of getting all your baking done...etc...

I am done my Christmas cards, all addressed and sitting on the table ready to be mailed (I think I'll do that next week or the week after so I'm not too super early). My shopping is done. The majority of my baking is done, I have shortbread cookies to do and thats it. My deorations are up -mind you I leave my outside xmas lights up year round, and my indoor decorations are easy peasy too. I have a few craft gifts left to assemble and get get to mail out to friends.

This year even though I work a half a day on Christmas Eve, I'm going to have the family over dinner and after church games and drinks. I'm going to stick with a releatively simple menu of French Onion Soup and Brushetta for appetizers, slow cooker Roast Beef, Mashed Potatoes (maybe infused with garlic and herbs), Corn and gravy possibly Yorkshire Pudding since it is Christmas. Then for dessert Key Lime Cheese Cake. I think we may have to start eating at 4pm to make it to church for 7pm. After church festivities is going to be filled with board games, and mom mom is going to make up a minute to win it game, snacks will include shrimp, holiday treats I've baked, and slow cooker hot chocolate with the option of having it spiked with candy cane vodka, which is homemade and currently stewing on the counter. Hopefully the next 24 days will fly by I'm hungry for xmas eve dinner!!!

This year isn't even over and I'm already planning next years gifts and xmas eve. My brilliant idea is a version of the ugly xmas sweater parties. I think it would be hilarious and fun to give everyone ugly sweaters for xmas next year, and make them wear them either xmas eve (including to church) or just xmas day, though xmas eve would be much more fun. Kind of like a surprise ugly sweater party. LOL good times. I may even have to include a few friends whom I send gifts to, they shouldn't miss out on the fun just cuz they don't live near by.

Recycled Christmas

There are no young children in our family at the moment, and after last year's Christmas I've done alot of thinking and soul searching. Having younger children around can make Christmas extra fun with the hopes of what St. Nick may bring, and then playing with all the bounty after gifts are open, but as a "older" family the holidays have shifted, become for lack of a better word boring. Not to mention the difficulty of accepting outsiders (mainly the sister in law) into our family's traditions and having her belittle them or getting the vibe of not appreciating them. In a way for me it would almost be better if they just did things with her family, I'm not looking forward to when they have kids.

In the past I've usually tried to be creative and unique with my gift giving. I feel disapointed when others don't put the same effort into gift giving. This year I've decided I'm not buying anyone anything. I am making all the gifts, with the help of Pintrest. Mom and Dad, Nick and Jess are getting care packages -mini pumpkin tarts, mini lemon tarts, mini cupcakes, bread, lasagna, and shortbread cookies. Kelsie is getting a smaller version of the care package along with some other knick knacks I've found around the house that she may have a use for. Kelly & Larry, Rose, Liz, Jodie & Erik are getting a variety of Pintrest projects.

Today as I tried to cross things off my to do list, that didn't quite worked out as planned since I had  wood stove and water pump issues at the same time!! I seriously need to save my change and figure out a new solution for the water pump. So laundry not done, dishes, not done, floors washed not done...I did manage to bake te dog cookies for a client for their xmas gift from myself and my mom. (I still have to bake a bunch more to hand out to clients at the store for the month of December) oh I forgot to mention my sexy stove I got for my birthday broke too :( the over handle broke last week so dad and I patched it up but it broke again today...digging out the receipt is on my list of things to do. But between baking the batches of cookies I did some xmas decorating inspired by Pinterest. Here are photos of my window treatments (I'll also be doing this at work since it was simple and looks nice). I even found a use some of the music boxes I've collected over the years. Why not put them on display for everyone to see instead of having them on a shelf in my room or in the spare room.

(On a side note the musice box in the middle of the window on this picture is a mouse house all ready for xmas, theres a woman mouse on this side, in the hosue with an xmas tree and on the other side on the outside of the house is the male mouse with a larger xmas tree by their front door, I've had this music box for over 20 years! I'm not entirely sure when I got it, as I can always remember having it, and what makes it extra special is that its homemade, my mom made it.)

 

 

I got my eye on you!

When you meet people what's the first thing you notice about them? Their clothes? Eyes? Nose? Hair? Smile? Teeth? The list could be endless. For me I notice peoples eyes and their smile/teeth. I'm not entirely sure why I notice these things first I just do. Now I remember as a tween/teen I desperately wanted both braces and glasses. Took a while to convince my parents on the teeth front about getting braces, but eventually I did...twice! I ended up being a guinea pig for the local dentist when he did his training to do orthodonics work. The second time I got braces was because after the first time my teeth moved...they still moved, but I'm sure my teeth are in better condition than what they would have been if I never would have gotten braces. Now as for glasses, I eventually got those when I was 18, since then people have suggested I get contacts, but no...I really like wearing glasses! Call me weird.

In this day and age we are flooded with images on what "society" thinks we should all look like and they try to say who and what is hot or not. So for some fun I made up a list of my top ten male celebrities with gorgeous eyes. (Not to leave any of the female celebrities out but I just had too many people on my list with nice eyes so I opted to concentrate on the opposite sex). Here are the pictures of just their eyes, try and guess who there are....

#1

#2

 

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

 

SO who are these handsome fellas with the pretty eyes???

 

 

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#10 -Bradley Cooper

 

#9 -George Clooney

 

#8 -Harrison Ford

 

#7 -Johnny Depp

 

#6 -Zac Efron

 

 

#5 -Daniel Radcliff

 

#4 -Daniel Craig

 

#3 -Hugh Laurie

 

And now my two top I could stare into your eyes and be memorized.....

 

#2 -Jessie Williams

 

#1 -Ian Somerhalder

 

 

Revel in the Glory

Last night while at the Breaking Dawn part 2 movie, I over heard some info that was probably best if I didnt know. However now that I do know it, I want to rub it in the face of those it concerns that I was right and that they should have listened to me.

I won‘t. Well not right away, I‘ll give said people time to adjust and get to a place of peace with their decisions. But one day I will bring it up that I was the voice of reason. I‘ll bring it up once and drive my point home again. And hopefully they‘ll remember that next time what I have to say should be taken into serious consideration.

How many times have you thought you‘ve known whats best and then for whatever reason your advice or ideas were ignored? For me I‘ve felt this on more than one occasion. Its almost like its a gift that others fail to take into consideration. I do know that everyone has to make their own choices and desicions and that we must learn from those that dont go as well as we hoped. Its a painful lesson to make the wrong choices before the good ones. Growing up is hard to do, and unfortunately we never stop growing.

Sister-in-laws (should be outlawed) (plus a hidden pintry)

It's not a secret that I'm not a fan of my sister-in-law. When my brother first started bringing her around to family things, I tried to get to know her and be friendly, and for a couple years sure she had her flaws, we all do, but we got along quite well. Then slowly true colours emerged. The engagement happened, bridezilla reared, I stood my ground, big fight, ugly words, hurt feeling ensued. An (empty) appology was issued, with "plans" to try and ammend things. I've struggled and sorted my feelings and I'm working on trying to be civil with her, its a work in progress. (and this is going to be another place where I can vent).

My latest baffleness when it comes to her and my brother is the following:

Sunday was remembrance day. In school I used to go to the ceremoy either with girl guides, scouts, or with the class, after high school and college, I sort of developed a tradition of going to the rememberance day services with my dad. So on Friday I informed him I'll be out for breakfast on Sunday then we can go to the services, he agreed, said mom might even come too since there's no stairs (mom's having knee issues with arthritis and something about her miniscus). So I show up Sunday morning, and I'm not sure why I was surprised but mom had invited brother and sister-in-law out too, ok fine whatever. We have breakfast homemade egg McMuffins (and the eggs were cooked in a muffin tin via the oven -something I saw on pinterest and passed on to my mom as an easy way to cook eggs so they're all ready at the same time for xmas morning....dad was cooking and over cooked the eggs slightly making them dry but otherwise that Pinterest pin was a success and will be tried again xmas morning). Over breakfast, I heard that my brother traded his wifes perfectly good snowsuit for a plow for his quad. WTF!? Really?!? Then in the next breath tells my dad he's got a job to do now, go open up the driveway BEFORE my dad goes to work, so people can drop their kids off at sister-in-laws half assed day care, then go back after his bus run and finish cleaning the yard. My dad said he'd go after his run but not before. Now in my head, I'm thinking WTF why can't sister-in-law be useful and open up the drive way before her 'clients' get there. Is she so helpless and lazy?!? I wish I could pull that crap and get my dad to come clean my driveway everytime it snowed -I even have a quad with a plow for him. And if she can't use the quad, use a f-ing shovel!!! They live in town -my driveway is easily 2 if not 3 times the size of theirs. Oh and heres another idea -they could get this free-loading basment dwelling "friend" to keep the yard clean. (that is another story in itself which I will get to one day -its a whole other ball game and emotional mess I'm trying to sort out). So apparently I'm some kind of mutant independant woman of this day and age to look after myself and clean my own yard...who does that these days??? Next she has the balls to ask who all is going to be at the remembrance day services...um does it matter? You go to show your support for the vetrans and those currently fighting. Go to support your husbands family history of great uncles and grandparents that fought during WWII, who cares who else is going to be there. Needless to say she didn't come, which to me is very disheartening, selfish and a few other things too. I was pleasantly surprised that my brother came and didn't cave to what the wife wants (this time).

Rant over...for now...she irks me in the worst possible way and most of the time I feel like no one else see it and that I'm the crazy one that is making this crap up, but then there are those one of two folks that see what I see- Thank goodness for them or I very well could be in the loonie bin.

Pin-tries

I have 2 pinterest reviews to talk about today, plus I also have a couple other topics I hope to get caught up on blogging about. But right now while I wait for my dad to go to work so I can sneak off to the parents place for a little mission of mine, its about the pin-tries.

#1- Super cute mini cupcakes. Sounds simple and it is. Use your favorite cake/cupcake recipe and instead of using muffin tins for the cupcakes you us those tiny condiment cups you get at fast food restuarants to put your ketchup in -or in my case the tiny little paper cups generally used for jello shots. And now that I'm thinking about it I actually tried a 3rd thing I saw on Pinterest that went along with the cupcakes. So put cake batter into cups, fill about half way (I did mine 2/3 to 3/4 and some over flowed while baking), and bake as per usual, though do keep an eye on them after 15 mins. The pin I saw recomended spraying the cups with Pam to help with the removal/eating ease, I did NOT do this, and I can eat them just fine. And a little trick with the paper cups is that if you pull along the ridge of the cup the paper folds come apart, do this all around the cup and cupcake is removed easy peasy! The other pin I tried along with this project was colouing/marbling the cake batter. Instead of adding the food colouring to the batter in the bowl, or many bowls depending on how many colours your going for; you add the food colouring to each cupcake and swirl with a toothpick until desired effect is acheived.

Both these Pins worked for me and I'll probably do them again.

#2- The second project was to use Sharpie markers and decorate ceramic dinnerware. You draw whatever on the outside, bake it in the oven, and it's suposed to stay on the dinnerware. I tries it on an soup bowl and sandwich platter thing, I dont really use. Application of the marker was fun and uneventful, as was the baking part. However the test wash did not go well. Some, not all the colours came off when I washed the dishes. I'm not quite ready to give up on this one yet, I'm going to try some different types of ceramic dishes to decorate. I'll update if I find success and my method that lead me to succeeding.

Pin-try

The problem...tangled up ear bud headphones.

The concept...make the wires a bit thicker and less pliable to reduce or elimanate a big tangled mess. to do this the pin on Pinterest took embordering thread -like you would use in your tween years to make friendship bracelets, and tie/knot the thread around the wires of the earbud headphones.

My attempt started with a trip to moms to scrounge up some thread, after a thorough search I finally found some. That night I started the project. First off as a tween I did make a few friendship bracelets so I knew the knot used in this process but let me say the 6 or so inches you need to make a bracelet with is nothing compared to the seemingly endless length of the wires on the earbuds. It took me roughly 3-4 hours in front of the tv to cover the wires. A long process, but so far no tangles!!!

(I'll try and remember to post a pic of the finished project.)

Pin-tries

I‘m not a full fledge addict yet but it is a good site to waste time and for this full time procrastinator anything that helps my cause is worth a shout out. The website i‘m talking about is Pinterest.

There are hundreds and thousands of things on the website, food, decorating ideas, quotes, crafts, everything!

I‘ve found a couple things on the site that i‘m going to try. My mom said she heard about this one person who tries things from Pinterest then blogs about it. I thought it was a cool idea soo as I attempt my Pinterest projects I‘ll blog about results and call them Pin-tries.

This weekend i hope to have two successful Pin-tries to report on.