Have the Happiest of Thanksgivings Y'all!

I hope and pray you all have a bountiful and blessed Thanksgiving spent with those you love! I will be spending the day with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, my sister and her brood and my oldest son and his family! Also my hubby and baby girl of course!

Sadly, my youngest son is in Mississippi and won't be with us but I hope he has a great day with his temporary "family". "See" you Friday!

Wonderful Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend! My honey is taking this whole week off for Thanksgiving so the whole family will be at home~I love it!

Anyway, we started it off right with a hearty homemade breakfast on Saturday. (Have I ever mentioned that we enjoy good food?!)

I started cooking the turkey bacon that Ari loves...

Then mixedup a little egg mixture for french toast...

Cut some thick slices of homemade bread, dunked 'em & threw 'em in the hot pan...

Mmm mmm good!

That gave me just the right amount of energy to head to the thrift store later on to see what treasures I could find. ;-)

and the dollar store

and W*M* (that's a dirty word around here. But that's another story.).

Stay tuned for my less than three dollar bathroom window treatment! Woo-hoo!!!

Chewy Sugar Cookie Recipe

I wish I could say I came up with the recipe because they are so darn good! Remember for my healthy version ;) just add 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour in place of 1/4 cup of the white flour. I don't roll them into balls either, I just scoop a measuring tablespoon full, scrape it across the edge of the bowl so that it's a flat, even tablespoon full (for uniformity) and then, with a butter knife scoop the dough from the tablespoon onto the cookie sheet. I dip the bottom of a juice glass in granulated sugar and then flatten the cookie dough with the bottom of the glass. They turn out round enough for me this way. (except when I put them too close together on the cookie sheet, then they sometimes take on a squarish shape from running into each other as they spread ) Anyway, secondofwett here's the recipe you requested. Enjoy!

Pomegranate Rooiboos Tea and Sugar Cookies or "Can Sugar Cookies be Healthy?"

Yesterday I made the sugar cookies. Realizing I was out of flour before the last 1/4 cup was added to the cookie mix I kinda panicked. Well, I have whole wheat flour, and it's only 1/4 of a cup. Do I dare? Will they notice?

Yes I dared. No they didn't notice. In fact, Ari said, "these cookies are amazing".

Am I implying that sugar cookies can be healthy? No. Healthier? Maybe. With a little whole wheat flour thrown in and sipping a cup of healthy pomegranate rooiboos tea along with them, they can't be all that bad for you. Tee hee.

Join Rachel Ann and The Company Girl Coffee that she hosts on Fridays. (link above) Guess what I'm serving? You guessed it. Pomegranate rooiboos tea and sugar cookies!

Agenda du Jour

"It's Thursday! That's almost as good as Friday!", I used to say on Thursdays while I was working outside the home. Well I still feel that way but in a different way. I enjoy the weekends for the opportunity they give me to spend time with my family. While I was working outside the home, the weekends were not only an opportunity to spend time with the fam, but also as a little taste of how I wished everyday to be (minus the "must catch up" mode that blanketed my mood). Now I'm working at home, doing things I love to do and working it around my family and home life, which feels very natural to me. But to keep things on track and remain productive, I have to meet each day with a plan.



My plans for today include:



1) laundry-delicates & bed linens

2) making important phone calls

3) working on knitting and sewing projects

4) baking sugar cookies for Ari (her favorite!)

5) figuring out what to have for dinner...hmmm?

6) tweaking my daily schedule

7) cleaning bathrooms

8) more cleaning in preparation for Thanksgiving guests

9) exercise-30 minutes :-]

10)doing my best to stay on track with my healthy eating plan :-/

11)various other things that are sure to sidetrack me and demand my attention!!!



What are your plans for today?

Our Thanksgiving Menu

Early preparations have begun for our Thanksgiving meal. This is the first time in several years that we have hosted the dinner at our house since we were without an oven for a while (can you imagine!?!?) Now we have two (to make up for lost time I guess). During the interim, we made do with counter top convection/rotisserie ovens and had Thanksgiving dinner at Cindy's house (thanks Cindy!).
Tonight we are going shopping for ingredients. So far, our menu looks a little something like this:

Appetizer
Hot spinach artichoke dip with assorted crackers/tortilla chips

Salad
Green Salad with assorted dressings

Meats
Ham
Turkey with cornbread stuffing
Rib Roast

Sides
Candied yams
green beans
mashed potatoes
pasta salad (yoo hoo...mom?)

Bread
homemade french bread/rolls

Desserts
Blueberry pie (Cindy)
pumpkin pie

Assorted beverages
and
whatever anyone else would like to bring.

What are YOU having for Thanksgiving dinner? Please share!

God's Been Good to Me

A Day Filled with Favorite Things

Yesterday was so enjoyable. The weather was cool and cloudy; my kinda weather! My day went a little something like this: after seeing Mike and Ari off to work and school, I had my usual breakfast with God. Then, homemade oatmeal cookies ( tried these, they were yummy and got rave reviews. Sadly, I didn't have a good standby oatmeal cookie recipe so I went on a search. Anyone have a great recipe?)....

carefully placed into their jar (I love this pumpkin shaped jar, it's huge!

Next I set about prepping dinner. A pot roast with carrots, potatoes, onion and celery into the crockpot and bread dough working in the breadmaker...

A little work on an apron (not this one in particular!)

Later in the afternoon, a visit from a handsome gentleman caller...

And just about the time I'm too tired to think anymore, a little work on a knitting project. [See the remote? I usually knit when the remote is in hubby's hand so I don't get too involved in the assortment of sports he watches (NOT!)]
Nighty-nite!

Our Coffee Shop

We like coffee...alot.



Recently, hubby bought us a nifty cool new coffeemaker after we went out of town for four days and came home to find our coffee pot had never turned off like it was supposed to and had been HOT for those four days. (I knew it had been making weird noises.)
So, we got a Keurig.








It cost a pretty penny, ahem several hundred pretty dollars to be specific but hey, we like coffee.








This is our coffee station. Notice the nifty coffee K cup holer he found this past weekend...it rotates so you can load cups on both sides. We have decaf on one side and an assortment of regular on the other.



In less than a minute, we can have a steaming, fragrant cup of coffee.




This is the K up close for your viewing pleasure ;-)...

Our coffee habit has now become a more expensive habit.

Oh Brother!

This past week, I spent a frustrating day trying to sew on a machine that just was not cooperating. So, I set out the next day to buy a simple machine to use until I could get the old one working for me. Why is nothing ever as simple as you think it will be?

Shop #1-My very smart hubby discouraged me from going to W**M*** to buy one so I went to a fabric store. They had one on sale that worked with the amount that had been OK'd by hubby. But it wasn't in stock. So, I asked where there was a shop nearby that they recommended.

Shop #2-I went to a privately owned shop where there was no machine that I wanted in my price range-more like 3 times my price range. Frustration continued to mount.

Shop #3-I quickly stopped in another shop. Same finding. I made the second frustrated call to hubby.

Back at home, without a new machine, I called another shop (soon to be known as Shop #5). The nice lady said they did have a machine in my price range. That evening, hubby & I went over the info that the lady at Shop #2 gave me regarding their machines. Hubby OK'd the more expensive machine. (I've been sooo blessed to have hubby!)

Next morning, as I was planning to go back to Shop #2 and purchase the machine, I made a quick call to my mom who makes a living sewing. Surely she would have an opinion an sewing machines and could offer a sound, unbiased opinion. She wasn't there but my dad told me what he knew and told me the shop that carried the brand she used (Shop #5). Off to Shop #5 I went, note pad with questions written down in tow.

Shop #5-Had the machines alright and again, the kind I wanted was well out of the (new) price range I had been ok'd to spend (again by 3 times the amount-can I drive to the mall in that model?!?!). So, to make a long story short, after four hours in that shop, I walked out with a brand new machine. Here it is in all it's glory...

The vintage model is in the cabinet that the new machine is sitting on...

I really want to figure out how to use the older model so I have a backup when necessary. I'm sure it's me and not the machine. Now excuse me please while I go sew...

Ushering in theTerrific Two's

Last weekend we finally celebrated baby Jesse's birthday after having to put it off for a month due to Hurricane Ike, our evacuation and all that ensued afterward. I made little cupcakes sprinkled with colorful sugar. We all enjoyed time together, watching Jesse play with his new toys and the balloons. He did not like the hat..."it hurts".

It only looks like he's blowing, he's saying "noooo"...

Test driving his new car...

"Our" baby is growing up. I guess I'll have to call him "big boy Jesse" from now on instead of "baby Jesse".

Nahhhh. Mothers (and grandmothers) know-no matter how big or old, they will always be our babies.

What a Revelation!

I have been studying the book of Revelation. No, I don't understand it all, anymore than I understand everything throughout the rest of the bible. But this time through, more is making sense because I, 1) have prayed for wisdom and 2) am actually taking the time to study it. It used to scare me, and parts of it don't sound too pleasant still, but this morning when I read the last two chapters...it brought tears to my eyes. I can only imagine...or most likely, in my human-ness, I can't begin to imagine.

Are you ready?