From tree, to wreckage to calm.

 From the beauty of a tree that took me 12 hours to decorate.

 To cards that came in the mail.

To legs of the man I married, pulling boxes down from the attic with K.

To the wreckage taking shape.

To the remaining gifts yet to be distributed.  Those are going out today.

To the old late 1800's trunk I have to contain most it all.  Well, the ornaments that is.

To my baby who said, "Mom, is it okay for me to write out my thank you's?"  Um, yes!  I love that I didn't have to ask or even remind.  :)

Stripped of the ornaments.

 All the while watching a Gilmore Girls marathon.

Picks from the tree and birthday gifts.

A thankful child all while we're keeping it real with the mess she is working around.

Tucked in tight for another year.

The man in action of de-lighting the tree.

Who says that a fake tree doesn't shed?  Hubs insists that it is because I put so much stuff on it.  I think it is that and that the tree has had it's 16th year of use.

Ah, calm restored.

 And the kitty in the window, just as it should be.

Christmas 2014

The week started out a bit rough.  K came down with a nasty cold the day after her birthday.  We were to go to church on Sunday, but before Hubs left for work, he came to tell me that K was feeling a bit funky.

I looked at the child and knew.

We stayed home and by the time we would have been getting out of church, she started running a fever.  Glad we skipped sharing that with the masses.

She was in bed for 2 1/2 days, drinking unlimited amounts of 7-Up, since no food sounded good and at least something was going in.  Hubs stayed with her as I went to work.  Thank goodness for remaining vacation days.

We were going to go Monday to celebrate Happy Home Day, but K was still far too ill.  We moved it to Tuesday.  Santa gave me a little jingle to tell me that Buddy, our Elf on the Shelf, could make the car trip.  We've never gone on a field trip with Buddy, but he was so concerned about K and her illness that Santa decided that a trip would be fine.  Hubs strapped him in with the elfin' car seat that K made.  I mean, how fun is it to see lights and not be able to see them?  She didn't touch Buddy, but he did get a box and boxes to keep him right where he needed to be.

We drove past a house with 2 million lights.  Y'all, that was more lights than I've ever seen.  Ever.  You'd think it would be tacky, but they were all standard lights, not varying sizes, no blow-ups or anything like that.  Everything was of a similar light theme and their displays were concentrated together in theme with ground lights (Christmas lights creating defined areas) bringing it all together. If ever you are out that way, it was in Salem, Ohio on Quaker Lane.  11 acres.  2 million lights.  A must-see.

I only worked until 3 PM on Christmas Eve, so I ran out to the pharmacy real quick on my way home.  Forgot to do it sooner and I was so thankful that they were still opened.  K had to get her science fair project started, so our plan was to bust that out before we left for the evening.  (She's growing green bean seeds in different growing mediums/lights to see what does better.)  Science Fair is January 24 and we would have had this started earlier, but her teacher didn't give them the information until right before break and K's cold/flu/virus held our plans off for a few days.  We got it handled, cole slaw made and we were all out the door by 5:45 PM to get to my parent's house for Christmas Eve dinner.

I lost the Chia pet in the White Elephant.  Drat it all.  It got snitched a few times.  We did get the gloves and earrings for K, along with a bag of holiday wearables.  The Chia pet was Uncle Si and since I've never watched DD, I could care less.  I've secretly dreamed of growing a Chia pet since I was a kid.  Perhaps I should just bite the bullet and Chia in the garden window . . .

Hubs didn't sleep Christmas Eve.  I woke up at 6 with him walking up and down the hall.  He decided to move Leia's stocking off the hook and with he rest of them, but didn't realize that there was an ornament on her hook and it came crashing down.  I got up.  "What did you just break?"  It was a metal elf ornament, so all was well.  He told me later that he was "being very quiet."  Um, no.  He had his slippers on and they were so loud.  We have the 7 AM rule on Christmas and Easter and somehow Hubs didn't wake her up with all of the racket, but he decided to come lay down at 6:45 AM with just 15 minutes to rest.  Nice.

My tree is not leaning.  I think I may have been leaning when I took the photo.

K enjoyed her things.  As a reminder, we subscribe to the 3 gifts from Santa rule.  Santa brought her a reading lamp (he told me he paid $15 for it), a set of Dork Diary books (he went to the Scholastic Book Fair and put in some sweat equity hours in trade) and the Our Generation RV.  I bought K a soft and smooshy gray leopard robe and some lovely raccoon slippers.  Hubs bought K a remote control truck.  The cat loves it.

Hubs gave me an Ice-T list of things he wanted.  I was able to tackle most of the list.  He told me to go through Half.com and Amazon.  He said that he didn't care if it was new or used.  (Neither one of us care, actually.)  I only ran into one shipping problem with Half.com, but I contacted the individual after 2 previous attempts.  I had to threaten negative feedback and filing a claim.  Surprisingly, she got back to me within the 24 hour period I gave, she gave a refund, sent the item out priority mail and apologized profusely.  Since that happened, I had more money I could spend, so I was able to buy him another item on his list.  He loved his stack o' loot and was thrilled that I bought him something that he didn't know even existed.

As for me, my people spoiled me.  K bought me a beautiful purple scarf and the Mother Love Bone Record Store Day vinyl release of Hold Your Head Up.

Hubs bought me Into the Wild and the soundtrack, along with Water on the Road.  The second package I opened, because we all do the three item rule, I opened the Ten vinyl reissue box set. (It was a resale item, but had absolutely all of the extras in the box.)  It was at that point that I figured that package number three had to be A TURNTABLE! (It was an open box score.  Turns out that the people couldn't get it to turn and all they needed to do was to read the instructions and attach the belt. Hubs got it for half off because of it and that is GREAT!)

Hubs even built a shelf for it yesterday.  We don't have an entertainment center and I'm not a big fan of getting one anyhow.  Our TV is old and 180 pounds, so what we have it sitting on is about all that will hold it.

We had a nice holiday.  Yesterday was spent at home, hanging out together.  Because my brother's dog ate his Christmas cookies, I did run the extras to him and some thumbprints to my mom (missed an entire pan of cookies when I was putting them together.)  We sat together and watched Into the Wild together.

Hubs is back to work today and I have the smell of brownies filling the house, as I've prepared to go visit with a friend this afternoon.

I hope that this holiday season finds you well and able to spend some time together with family and friends.

We don't know why . . .

K fell asleep with her head inside of the Our Generation RV that Santa brought her.  We do know that she is enjoying it. 

The cat wasn't bothered by it. 

She decided that K looked like a comfortable place to stop and take a rest.  After all, isn't that what cats labeled as "wild/feral" do?  :S

Perhaps I'll just be like my human and take a nap. Christmas is exhausting, you know.  :)

A Merry Christmas to all of you!

Since I work holiday retail, I always sit on Christmas Eve as a pile of tired.  This year, there is a family thing going on and it seems to have sucked the life out of all of us.  Compound the new family funk added on top of existing family strife.  That has made this holiday even tougher.

It's sad.  I'm a peace loving middle child, after all.

Despite all of that, we have celebrated K's 11th birthday Friday and Saturday.  (One day wasn't enough!)  She had a great time on Friday with her cousins and a couple of friends, we went to the planetarium show on Sunday (her request) and were able to spend a nice day together.  Sunday morning was to be a church day, but K woke up feeling a might funky.  She had one of THE virus' running around and it laid her flat in bed for 2 1/2 days.  She got better in time for Christmas Eve!  So, her illness probably hasn't helped my slump this evening.

Buddy the Elf has gone back to the North Pole this evening.  When we left for family Christmas Eve, he left K a letter and a snow globe, then away he went.  She's left cookies and tea for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer.

Christmas Eve brought my cousin giving me a copy of the cook book that she created from recipes from her mom.  Her mama was my Godmother.  My Aunt Carol died 5 years ago from brain cancer and I was very close to her.  When the recipe book came up in the White Elephant and they were reading from it, I sat there in tears.  Oh, how I miss Aunt Carol.

This year we don't have my sister's Happy Birthday Jesus cake, though.  That makes my heart sad.  :(

My kiddo is on the mend.

My gifts are wrapped and some of those have been delivered by either USPS or by hand.

Cookies have been distributed.

We have a home and family and heat, water and essentials that so many others don't.

We have so many things to be thankful for.  Though my holidays seem to be awash of bad decisions made by people who know better and are bumming me out, I have so many other wonderful things to be thankful for.  I don't want the bad choices of a few to override the joy of many.

We celebrate Christ's birthday.  That is far more important than any peripheral garbage going on in my life.

We might not have a Jesus' birthday cake, but we have Jesus and that is far more important than a piece of cake any day.

Merry Christmas to all.

A day fit for wrapping and folding.

I decided that after all of the continual running I've been doing, we deserved a day at home to wrap up some details of Christmas.

Last Saturday, we had Santa Shop.  Now, I ended up helping with Santa Shop purchasing/set-up until about 11:15 PM last Friday night.  K and I had to be back up to the school on Saturday morning to start the coffee, get the hot dogs cooking (yes, we sell hot dogs right from the start) and to get the 5th grade concessions all set.  We were there until 2:15 PM.

This is where I should add a photo of my child's Lego contest submission, but I failed to get one.  I will tell you that it had Santa's sleigh with a motorized propeller with a "push here" button, Lego peeps all dressed up in Hershey Kiss wrapper dresses and some lovely Christmas trees.  Baby girl won!  Hooray!  Mama should have taken a photo.

We had the family house cleaning session that evening.  Yes, our house is cleaned and picked up, but when you are having 12 people over to your house, you make sure the corners are free of cobwebs and that you've wiped all of the hand prints off of the light switches, walls, doors and woodwork that you normally don't see.  We worked together and got things all set.

I might add that at this point I was beat and Hubs even asked why I over schedule myself.

The tea was lovely and the desserts were delicious.  (I ask my guests to bring a dessert to share since I'm cooking everything else.)  The variety was wonderful!

I had enough soup leftover to give Julia some for her birthday on Monday and Matt enjoyed it for lunch for his birthday on Tuesday.  (Coworkers.)  I had it Sun-Tues.  It was delightful, but I could not finish the rest.  Too much soup.

What kind of soup was it? It was Butter Bean, Bacon and Button Mushroom soup.  (My coworker made it for us to have for dinner on a late decorating night.)  It was broth based with Worcester sauce and brown sugar in the broth and that was it.  For the crowd I had, the soup recipe I made was:

Toni's Butter Bean, Bacon and Button Mushroom Soup

3 x 6 oz packages of little button mushrooms
7 cans butter beans WITH the bean water
1 pound sliced, cooked & cooled bacon (I drained it twice and blotted it twice.)
About 10 shakes of Worcester Sauce
About 1/2 cup brown sugar

Clean your mushrooms.  Cook up your bacon.  Put those into a crock-pot along with all beans WITH bean water. Throw in some Worcester Sauce (to taste) and brown sugar.  Cook on low until done.  My coworker said NOT to add more water, but I did a little.  I also added some shredded carrots for color.

Delicious!

K played in her first harp "recital" the other day.  She was upset that she missed a few notes.  She told me that the camera flashes distracted her.  I told her that it was her first experience ever in doing such a thing and that I thought she did a fantastic job.  I might add that I didn't even notice the missing few notes.

The harp students then joined the rest of the 5th grade for a recorder concert.  It sounds pretty cheesy, but the kiddos did a good job!  They are working hard to learn songs to play with the symphony at a local theater here in the spring.

So it brings me to today.  This past week was busy, as usual and I needed to stop and take care of some Christmas things.  We've been wrapping and taking inventory.  I had to make sure I had everything for everyone.  I have one giant bag packed for my mom's house.  (Christmas for 4 families and Christmas Eve.)  I also have make-up birthday gifts in there for any birthdays that may not have been celebrated in mass this year.

Whew.

I also picked up a few extra names for the Christmas Eve exchange at my mom's house.  Thankfully, the shelf extras I had filled those in nicely.

I  have clothes.  They are clean.  They are on deck for folding after the extravaganza of wrapping is complete.  My folding this week kind of flew out the door.  My people have been hunter-gatherer in clean laundry baskets for the last two days.  I really must fix that.

I suppose that I should probably figure out what will be for dinner.  A nice slow roasted chicken might be in order.  I can tell you, though-- I'm not leaving the house.  We'll work with what we have here.  The one of two times of year I wear sweat pants happens to be today along with a holiday fleece sweatshirt.  I'm toasty, but I look like I fell off of the back of a pumpkin truck.  My hair is wound up into a ball on the back of my head and I have no make-up on.  I'm not going forth to share this look with anyone.

My husband kind of hates my Christmas list.

We do Christmas lists in my house.  Actually, M and I do them but K often skips.  She tells me that whatever Santa brings she's good with.  Raised right, that kiddo.  Well, at least in that respect.

So M handed me his list.  It will be a very Ice T Christmas.  It was a simple list to work from and his suggestion was that I work from Amazon and Half.com.  I only had one order refunded due to lack of inventory and I was able to go through AmazonSmile to benefit the Vitalogy Foundation, so it's a win-win!  I was able to order the refunded CD from someone else, I ordered something NOT on his list (shutter at the thought) and his shopping was done from the convenience of home and this here silly silver box in about an hour.

Now then, M said that he had to resort to hopping off the "list" for me because, well, I put some things on there that don't actually exist.  I told him that I was looking towards the future!

Amy’s wish list – Many pinned on Pinterest board “Music that takes me where I need to go.”  (Just for your reference.) Used is great and somewhat preferred on all.

Pearl Jam

·      Water on the Road- Eddie Vedder DVD of his 2008 solo tour.

·      Knowlden- I can pretty much tell you that you won’t find it.  It was released by PJ as a limited run back in the spring, maybe.  I’m not even certain if it is vinyl only.  Obviously, we don’t spin the black circle.

·      Into the Wild soundtrack and movie.  I’ve seen the movie for $5 at the Exchange. I’ve never bothered to look for the CD.

·      Imports.  Singles are all a fuzzy area. You know the rules.

·      PJ Christmas singles.  They will be vinyl, but they are limited so that is my only reason for asking.  You can buy some new online for $10.  Only buy if you can get a really good deal.

·      è Please do not buy any UNAUTHORIZED books or videos.  There are some crappy people who wrote books about them (Kim Neeley being one) and I don’t want to own any of that. They put out enough for us to buy on the resale market or directly from them.

·      No Code and Yield re-issue box set.  No, it doesn’t exist yet, but since they did both albums live & in full this fall, we know that it is just a matter of time.

Soundgarden

·      Echo of Miles: Scattered Tracks Across the Path (Coming out 11/24)  A B-sides recording.  Hold and find it used.

·      Superunknown was released as a box set back in June.  Hold on for a while.  USED! 

·      Chris Cornell- Songbook (CD)

Mother Love Bone

·      Apple

·      Shine (EP)

·      Mother Love Bone (A compliation)

·      Mother Love Bone:  A Love Bone Earth Affair – now this one is tricky and probably fairly unattainable. It was released in 1993 and not officially released onto DVD.  VHS only. 

·      There is supposed to be a release coming.  I know that it is a previously unreleased single. 

Misfits- Glen Danzig ONLY.  No other recordings, please.  Just these.  J

·      Static Age

·      Walk Among Us

Pixies

·      Doolittle

·      Wave of Mutilation

The Talking Heads

·      Talking Heads: 77

·      More Songs About Buildings and Food

·      I don’t own any of them at all and would like them, so it is a free-for-all. 

Gee, I just don't see what he's talking about!  ;)  In all seriousness, he knows that I just don't require a list.  He's the picky one.  Other than the Kindle that he bought me that wasn't quite the right one (he bought the Paper White when what I wanted was the new Kindle Fire.  Oops.  He didn't take the obvious hints that well.)

So, do you exchange with your spouse/significant other?  Is it a list required thing?  When we got married, M specified that we were to give impractical items only for Christmas.  That is why you won't see clothes, socks or underwear on any of our lists.  Those things are illegal for gifting here at the House of Bailey's Leaf-- by royal decree of Hubs.  And yes, we do have a double digit limit for each person that includes items for the stocking and for under the tree.  

Another reason as to why my husband should be sainted and other tales of Christmas.

I've shared with you in the past that I do not have good CD etiquette.  It has been a forever syndrome.  It drives my husband absolutely batty because he is the exact, extreme opposite.

It should be noted that I'm not intentionally uncaring about the CDs.  I don't put them on the dashboard to slide back and forth.  I do, however, have them in all of the wrong cases.  Sometimes they are not in cases, but in a stack.  Sometimes the stack is really tall.  Sometimes that stack gets referred to as the "leaning tower."

For Christmas, my husband did some rather lovely things for me.  It was very Pearl Jam themed, which is my love.  He bought me a stack of CDs from his favorite resale CD store including PJ Twenty (documentary and soundtrack), PJ Live on 2 Legs, PJ Live at the Garden, PJ Lightning Bolt (new for that one), Fugazi (The Argument),  the Lumineers, The Raconteurs (Broken Boy Soldier), Rush (Retrospective), Linkin Park (Minutes to Midnight and yes-- a guilty pleasure), but the very best thing-- he spent two days cataloging all of my CDs into binders.

I had stacks in the bedroom.

I had stacks in the studio in the three CD organizing racks he has purchased for me and on the top of my long glass organizing bin.

I had them on the movie shelf in the living room.

I had them in a variety of places in my car including in the door pockets, the front of the center console, under my seat (in a binder!) with another binder tucked into a back seat pocket.

He said that he has reacquainted himself with my full library (rather extensive, but not nearly as bad as his) and there were practically no savable jewel cases from any of them.  Some CDs come in the paperboard books like all of PJ except for Vs. and Ten, Cake and NIN.  All others that he could, he included the interior paper "guts" to the accompanying CD pocket.  He said that he now knows absolutely everything that I own in CDs.  Since he is a bit of a Rain Man about it, I don't doubt that he knows it even better than me.

K said, "MOM!  The entire bed was covered in CDs!"  I don't doubt it.

He even included his copy of Temple of the Dog in my collection for me to have.  That right there is a gift in itself.  He doesn't share his CDs with anyone, much less his wife who has had a sad history of CD abuse.  I've promised to keep up his organizational system.  I still haven't lived down the Faith No More cassette incident of 1994.  :(

I should also note that though we set a budget every Christmas, Hubs never stays within the budget because he says that I don't buy myself anything throughout the year.  (He doesn't count general clothing, underwear, socks and shoes as frivolous.)  He tried to be reasonable.  Our budget was $50 each and though we didn't exactly stick to that, Santa and I were at about $65 each for K and for Hubs.  I think Hubs topped out about about $100, thanks to sticking with mostly used CDs.  My love for music produced by independent labels does hike the cost up a bit, but I'd rather feed the little guy.

As for the little guy, I bought Hubs' wish list from Nuclear Blast, an independent heavy-metal label.  I even managed to find a Blu-Ray Stallone movie that he didn't own.  (I earned extra credit for that.)

K's gifts supported the not-so-little guy.  She received a sewing basket (a prettier print than this, though and a super Black Friday sale with extra off with a super early shopper coupon) and an AG sewing kit.  Santa left a balloon bending kit and extra balloons.  Her big gift was purchased by my in-law's (and K has promised to never tell Grandma and Santa the same gift again), but Santa was able to triumph with the entire movie collection of Harry Potter on Blu-Ray.  (Black Friday sale.)  Santa left some delightful items in her stocking, including a bin to gather up those blasted little rubber bands for the Rainbow Loom, yoga socks, an Angry Birds notebook that she longed for a while ago, more of the blasted rubber bands for the Rainbow Loom, sniffy erasers, puffy puppy stickers and letter stencils.

I made my in-law's a poster photo collage frame with a rubbing that we made when we visited the National Policeman's memorial. Uncle John's name is below with a collage of photos I took of Hubs, his sister and the girls.  My BIL and I kind of hung back, but I did have one photo of each of us that I included.  It was kind of a family project, with everyone hanging out and putting up with me as I turn into the tourist with a camera.  (They know this by now and just press on as if I'm not there.)

My mom gave me a list of kitcheny kind of things she needed and I granted her wish.  Sink mats, a set of "cheap" plastic bowls (I didn't buy cheap ones) and a silverware organizer is what she requested.  Hubs bought a suet feeder and some energy cakes for it for my dad, as well as a jar of this corn salsa stuff that he loves that we get at Bass Pro.

We gave more games and craft kits to nieces, nephews and cousins.  It was a great Christmas Eve with my cousins and their kids.  The White Elephant netted us a farting butt bank and a big pack of AA batteries and a bag of "chocolate" coal.  The White Elephant is as it is and unfortunately, my people thought that the bank was the greatest thing.  I banished it to basement to exist for the rest of eternity in my house.  It is to live on my husband's work bench.  It was on my kitchen table and I gave a giant veto to that.

We're spending a quiet day at home.  We didn't get out of our pajamas until noon.  K, thanks to a bit of loss of self-control, lost screen time today.  She is, however, having a grand time making a Barbie village in the basement.  I'm all for that.

To a quiet day in the neighborhood.  Ahh.  We all needed it.

Have a great day!

A very Merry Christmas to all!

The friends and family Christmas Tea

Today K and I hosted our Friends and Family Christmas tea.  This past week has been a whirlwind of way too much stuff.  I had a realization, confirmed by a best friend and my husband, that I had grossly overbooked myself.  

Never fear, my peeps were here. My husband and K kicked in and helped. 

The whirlwind started Thanksgiving week.  My sister and I entered the bowels of holiday retail on Black Friday (12 midnight, so it was FRIDAY) and came out victorious.  That lead to home, a nap and onward to the tree.  I admit that I was a wee swidge tuckered and since Hubs was still playing with lights hours later, K and I decided that Saturday would be a better day.  We spent all day Saturday decorating.  With a tree as full as mine, you can't bust it out in an hour and breaks are most definitely NOT an option.  We chipped away at it all day, as well as Thanksgiving leftovers and we had the house complete by the end of the day.  Sunday took us on a road trip to Frankenmuth, MI to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland.  We also stopped by Bass Pro in Toledo and Cabela's in Dundee, Michigan.  I worked M-W.  I also had a PTA board meeting on Wednesday morning and one on Thursday morning.  I had a date with my book fair chair/best friend to go to the Scholastic Warehouse sale to purchase books for the Birthday Book Club at school.  We had 66 books or so to purchase and they all needed to be hardbound.  We were able to bust that out and rock our way back to school.  I was at school for the day, because -- well, it just worked out that way.  Friday started with me and my weekly cleaning, but a bit more pressed to do so because of the tea.  I worked the Scholastic Warehouse sale breakdown, and was paid in a sweet pile of books.  Never mind that I rolled one of the big ole fat case carts over the inside of my book.  :S  I went back to school and helped set up Santa Shop until 8 PM.  I ended up back at school Saturday morning at 7:30 AM and was there for Winter Wonderland/Santa Shop until 2 PM.  I ran home, baked Sea Salt Caramel Brownies for Hubs' work Christmas party, cooked up the meat for the soup, got ready and hauled out for said party.  We got back and I started setting up for the tea, but decided that curling up on the couch with my cell alarm set for early was a better option over pressing on.  On came this morning.  Hubs was kind enough to bring my giant haul of Christmas dishes up from the basement and we readied for the tea until it was time to get ready for church.  We were the Advent readers this morning, we listened to the Cantata and skipped Sunday School in order to come home and continue with preparations.  

My people are so kind to help me do this.  Truly kind.  

I realize that I had the option of ironing the table cloths, but had no time.  Ignore that, please.  

The table that my sister and I sit at.  My niece gave me a cookie jar last year and the poinsettia looked so good next to it, that I decided that putting it into it wasn't such a bad idea. 

The kid table.  I found them wonderful foam craft house kits last year at Michael's for 90% off.  K has enjoyed putting hers together tonight.

The mama table.  The boys across the street loaned some table linens to me and I thought this one was a delightful touch.  My dessert stand was waiting for the other desserts to arrive.  You see, I make a soup and a giant salad, while the guests bring a small dessert.  Believe me when I tell you that we had more than enough dessert.  

Everyone had a delightful time.  We ate.  We talked.  We all sat and relaxed.  

After the tea K took my MIL to see her hamster and he had become a dearly departed.  While yes, her fundraiser prize hamster had taken his last breath some time before.  She asked that I call Hubs to let him know.  (He was at his parent's house watching football with his dad.)  "Do you want me to come home?"  "Yes, we need you."  We had a proper burial for him in the backyard.  He's in now what has become our pet cemetery.  :(  He was a good little hamster and again real soon, we'll have another.  

Holiday Cookie Baking: A lost lid, oven flames and 5 pounds of baking soda.

I have a rather minuscule home.  I don't mind it.  I really don't.  I do have to store some baking pans in the oven.  In there I have my Pampered Chef stones.  I pulled the baking pans out, pulled the stones out, turned the oven on and went about my business.  I came back in a few minutes later, K working on getting baking things ready and I see flames-- flames in my oven.

Crap.

Hubs is behind me yelling something.  K is starting to panic.

"I've got this.  No big deal."

Hubs kept yelling to put water on it.

"This isn't an electrical fire, but it is small and enclosed in the oven.  You don't want to put water on it.  I have baking soda.  It's all good." Y'all-- it took 5 lbs of baking soda to put it out.  I swear to you.  Hubs did make me put one glass of water on it.  By the way, it did nothing.

So what went aflame in the oven?  It was a 13 x 9" cake pan lid.  A plastic lid.  Stinky.

Once I got the fire out (and I do mean flames) I carted the oven rack outside and doused it with water to be extra certain I wasn't going to light any of the wet leaves on fire.  :S  It was easy to get out since when I was busy trying to put the fire out and calming K at the same time, Hubs was running around opening every window and door he could find.  The back door was propped open, the smoke detector screaming, K crying, Hubs insisting I use water and all the while, I stand there with the Rapunzel plastic drinking cup and a 13 1/2 pound bag of baking soda, flinging cupfuls of baking soda at the flames.

Good times.

We only lost the cake pan lid.  (K was rather distressed.  I told her it was better than burning the house down.  A lid is a lot easier to replace.  That's what Black Friday is for!)  I scraped the pounds of baking soda back out of the oven, Hubs swept it out with the shop vac and I wiped it all down.  We fired it back up as high as she could go with the oven door open so that we could burn the remaining plastic off of the element while the the winds would carry the evil plastic smell out.

I'm happy to announce that the cookies are baking just fine with no plastic smell lingering.  Well, that is until I place the involved rack back into the oven and rock it out in heat as high as I can make her roll.  Hubs saved it.  He pulled all of the plastic off that he could and scoured the rest with Scotch Brite.

I was that mom who used this as a teachable lesson to K.  "What do we do if there is a fire?"  "Don't panic and if it is small enough, the fire extinguisher or Mom's giant bag of baking soda may take you where you need to go.  If not, exit the house, call the fire department and let them take care of business."

For those of you wondering a few things-- I clean with baking soda, which is why I have such a large bag.  I also had the bag on my kitchen table from dough day yesterday.  You can purchase the Arm & Hammer 13.5 pound size at your local Sam's for around $4.00.  It's handy to have around!

Holiday Cookie Baking: Dough Day!

I looked deeply into my calendar and had a realization.  If I did not do holiday baking this weekend, there would be no solid string of days between now and December 26th to do it.

I'm not really about giving holiday cookies after the holidays.

We went to Amish Country last weekend to wrangle up the supplies.  I went to the store yesterday, then returned after signing K up for Archery league because I forgot a major ingredient.

Today is officially Dough Day.  What is Dough Day?  Well, I like to do one day of just making dough.  That way, I get all of the measurement and whatnot out of the way.  I'm able to concentrate on what the recipes call for instead of skipping between mixing, baking and cooling.  Tiredness made me goof once, so I'd like to avoid that.  It wasn't inedible.  I mistook mint extract for the vanilla extract and put that in chocolate/chocolate chip cookies.  Actually, it came out rather delightful.  Still, this method works for me.  One day dough.  One day bake.  Generally, I have a remaining day of packaging.  We'll see how that goes.

And yes, we have a chest freezer in the basement.

K has a test on Wednesday on measurement.  Today has been a test of measurement and a test in patience.  Neither one of us corner the market in the area of patience, so we've made two doughs and took a break.  Gone back, made two more doughs and took a break.

It should be said that our ginger dough needs to sit for 24 hours, so that is kind of where the true inspiration of dough day came from.

We've also made peanut butter dough, apple oatmeal craisin cinnamon chip dough, and thumbprint dough.  We have red hot sugar cookie dough to make, then onward to chocolate/chocolate chip (minus the mint this time.)  The Almost Candy Bars are not a sit-and-get-happy kind of dough, so we'll make those up tomorrow.

What we make this weekend is what we'll have.  I'm okay with that.  I didn't want to rush cookie baking, which is why it is getting done now.  Next up?  Addressing Christmas cards and making a little label for the backs of the cards.  I mail them out the day before Thanksgiving, so I have a week and a half yet to go.  I don't want to rush those, either.

I hear the Kitchenaid calling.  K is hovering so that she can get onto Webkinz while I do a bit of wreckage removal.  I mean, the child is laughing and staring the big greens right into my big brown eyeballs.

She is nearly sitting in my lap.  Pardon me.  I'm getting kicked out.

ETA:  Some of my recipes are here.

Christmas shopping can make me laugh.

It is the season where we have to purchase items for Christmas.  The store that I work in has a combination of handcrafted and commercially crafted items.  I'm the Christmas Decorating Goddess at the store that I work at, so they've been taking me along for some input.  They took me last year for the big buying trip down south, took me this year for a day longer, had me in for a rep the other day and are having me join the buying team in a couple of weeks for a day trip.

Lovely!

At any rate, occasionally, my kicky side gets the better of me.  (Also known as, the ADD runs away with my better judgement and sometimes my true thoughts come out.)  I had to share a few with you:

1.  I have an issue with any "head" of anything without a body.  I mean, decapitation doesn't spell Christmas joy.  My coworkers know this and now avoid all floating heads.

2.  The rep was really trying hard to sell us a Santa bowl the other day.  It was Santa from his waist belt down to his feet.  The top of him wasn't there.  My coworkers were going for it until my mouth opened wide and said, "Oh look!  Snacking from the bowels of SANTA!"  We didn't buy the bowl and the rep told me that she'd never think of that bowl in the same way ever again.

3.  There were 4 of us involved in buying the other day.  There was one ornament that 2 people wanted and my boss and I did not.  I couldn't figure out why it was bothering me so much.  "I don't know, L-, I think it looks kind of like an eye."  "To me, it looks like a submarine helmet from a deep sea diver."  "THAT'S IT!"  It looked like an undersea, old time helmet.  No, we didn't buy it though the others were very disappointed.

4.  I'm laughing that my boss is now saying, "Amy, you can make that!  You just need to do another demo!"  It looks like I'll be having tree demo day again.  It was a success the last time I did it.

We're on spring break.  K- has kicked back and slept in today.  I did some cleaning, but am getting on with the rest of my cleaning so that we can have some science fun.

Pardon me.  Spring Break is calling!

Have a great day!

Merry Christmas!

Having a wonderful day with family and hoping the same for all of you!

One more thing ticked off of the list.

The annual Christmas card is usually ordered and posted by now.  I like to drop them off on the day before Thanksgiving so that they can hit mailboxes on Black Friday.

Not so this year.

We have a different computer configuration since the infamous crash of early fall, so I haven't been able to get tutoring on transferring photos.  The photos are locked into the external hard drive, but tonight's e-mail had me motivated enough to do some investigation on my own.  I figured that the worse I could do was to get a funky screen that would call for my neighbor to come bail me out.

Shutterfly was having a sale, y'all!  There was an extension of Cyber Monday, I had a coupon code that came in K's photo package from school and I had free shipping since my order was over $30.  I cashed in on a savings of $97.00!

You see, I plugged the camera in and touched the computer and told her how pretty she was.  I wasn't brave enough to work with the external hard drive.  I know nothing about it anyhow.

Then photos started popping up.

And it kept going.

It was a program that I wasn't familiar with, but I was lucky enough to have it be pretty easy to navigate.  I was able to transfer all of the photos, they have arranged it in order of date and I transferred the photos that I needed over to Shutterfly.  A photo that would work for our hodge lodge popped up lickety split and I was able to get all arranged and ordered in about an hour and 15 minutes.  (I was being picky, so it wasn't any problem.  I also wanted to check out card options.)

I'm so excited!  I was having a tough time with my cards not being ordered or out.  I'll be able to get them addressed quickly and out in the mail when they arrive.

Hooray!

A wonderful day!

To each and everyone, 

A very Merry Christmas!

Love,

The Bailey's Leaf Family

Can we have a Christmas without a check list?

Is it possible?  Can we have a Christmas season without checking things off of the ever-growing list of things?  Probably not.

Baking.

Shopping.

Shopping again for the ones that crop up.

Christmas cards.

Holiday parties.

Donations.

School functions.

Birthday parties.  (For those of us with holiday babies.)

Cleaning.

Miscellaneous medical appointments.  (For those of us who have a bee sting that won't go away.)

Wrapping.

Trimming the tree and decorating the house.

Church. 

Church.  Should it be on a checklist?  Uh, no.  Just like we should give the first fruits monetarily, we shouldn't give church/God our leftovers, either.  I think about last week.  We're still extremely new to the church that we are attending, though falling in quite nicely.  They had a church Christmas dinner.  A few in our Sunday School class brought it up to us, but in the end, we just didn't go.  I still don't know quite enough people (I know, I know-- that is a way to get to know people) and I was eyeball deep in cookie dough.  I felt guilty, as I felt that I chose checking things off my list over spending time of fellowship with the members of the new church.  Actually, "feeling" that I was choosing was more so "choosing" cookie dough and baking over them.  Had I known earlier than just that morning, we'd be in a different boat. 

Still, I sit here on a quiet Sunday thinking about what I'm going to cook in the pressure cooker.  (Chicken.)  There is a hum of the computer.  K- is in her bedroom taking a "Mommy Math Practice Test" and Hubs is downstairs working on putting things together for our bird feeding area outside. 

My baking is done.

My shopping list is complete.

The surprise pop-up's of gift needs are handled.

Christmas cards were mailed the day after Thanksgiving.

Holiday parties have been attended or are planned.  In fact, I had to step away from writing this to assemble the craft kits for K-'s party.  Eeek!

Donations have been given, but there's room for more should the need arise.

School functions have been attended or attended to.

Birthday parties. (For those of us with holiday babies.)  One was yesterday and one will be Tuesday.  There will be one on Wednesday for school.  That girl can't say that we didn't properly recognize her holiday season birthday!

Cleaning.  Well, that runs on the rinse and repeat, but it's done-- for now.

Miscellaneous medical appointments. (For those of us who have a bee sting that won't go away.)  I'm thankful for doctors who you can get in to see right away, most of the time.

Wrapping.  Just a few minor incidentals left.

Trimming the tree and decorating the house.  Day after Thanksgiving thankyouverymuch.

Church.  Each week and Christmas falling on a Sunday isn't even enough to scare us away.

I want this week to be check list free.  I don't see that it can completely happen, but I've done everything that I can to ensure a fairly low-stress check list of a week.  It's not how it always goes. 

We can always hope.

Have a great day!

". . . And a cartridge in a pear tree."

"Babe, it's partridge."

"Mom, it's cartridge.  Like DS!" 

So I sit here on Sunday night, tuckered out and somewhat accomplished.  Laundry is twirling and swooshing in machines, the kitchen counters have been found, cookies are mounded and awaiting tomorrow evenings divvying up, we've eaten, we've played and we've accomplished much.

Friday was dough day.  I was able to make up all the cookie doughs that I needed for cookie baking this year.  What did I make?  Well, let me make you a list:

Cherry Thumbprints
Oatmeal Craisin Cinnamon Chip
Lemon Chip
Peanut Butter
Ginger Kisses
Chocolate Chippety Chunk
Red Hot Sugar Cookies
Butter Crisp
Triple Chocolate Fudge Bars

Being in the rather chilly environment that we're in, I kept the doughs in the back of my car, as it was too much to fit in the fridge.  It was freezing out there and I had to leave the dough out for a while to make it pliable enough to even work with.  If it's cold, embrace it.  What else can you do?

K- and Hubs got onto cleaning K-'s play area in the basement.  We were trying to encourage her to donate items, but the child is rather sentimental about everything-- major awards, rocks from the driveway, paper dots she's punched from homework . . .  I remembered that Goodyear was having a Toys for Tots toy drive at the blimp hangar a bit down the road.  I told her that we would make the trek to the hangar and that she could donate her new items that she never played with to the Marines that were there.  That put a spring in her step, especially after I explained to her that her donations may be the only things a child receives for Christmas this year.  The hangar closed at 6 PM, but I left more than enough time for travel and any type of line.  I had travel time right.  What I didn't have right was the time the line would take.  Last year we went, and we drove right on in.  This year the wait was an hour and 45 minutes. 

No kidding.

Hubs wanted to bag on the trip, but I was determined to allow K- donate the toys that she gathered-- tonight.  I figured that her step to thinking of others would lose steam and possibly have her reconsider her donations.  We waited, listed to K- read, listened to the radio and finally, it was our time to go in.  I had K- keep the donations in the back seat with her and she was able to pass them onto the Marine through her window.  When we left, she asked, "Mom, did I do the right thing?"  "Yes, baby.  You did."  "You know at first, it was hard.  I didn't want to give that doll away.  I put more things into the bag and it became easier."  She had received two dolls from my aunt last year that were very similar.  She had opened one, but one she never got to.  Over the years, she had amassed so many craft kits that she just didn't get to all of them.  K- didn't complain about the line we sat in, but occasionally I'd hear her in the back seat say, "Dude!  Pay attention and move up!"  Gee, where does her back seat driverism come from? 

The unexpected hours that we logged away from the house completely put me behind on the remainder of the baking.  I left the thumbprints for last, because K- told me about how her thumb was the perfect size for holes.  By the time we ate the pizza that we picked up (dinner on the fly because of the line), we bathed and only had enough time to have her help me with two sheets of thumbprints before she went to bed.  She was good with it, though. 

We did Lowe's this weekend.  She built her coal car and next week will be the third part to her three part train.  We'll be taking her friend, Rebecca, along with us.  Rebecca doesn't get to go to K-'s girl birthday party because of a family Christmas celebration that came up, but we were more than happy to party with her early.  K- and Rebecca went to preschool together and Rebecca's mom, Kay, is one of my best friends.  Kay would have done the same thing for K-. 

:yawn:

Hubs' Christmas party was Saturday night.  Talk about a snoozer.  I was able to check out the miniature golf course that Hubs and his coworkers have been crafting this past year.  That was cool.  The rest of it was rather lame.  There was dinner, which was a lovely turkey and ham, but the rest was boxed sides and the most disgusting stuffing I've ever eaten in my entire life.  They had a dinner mystery theater theme to the evening.  After dinner, Hubs scooted me out so that I could jet back home to retrieve K- from the sitter.  He said that he knew that I was hitting my limit of actors milling around and yelling at us while we ate.  He said that the evening got no better. 

Church this morning was absolutely delightful.  Pastor Karen did a visualization with us about love.  It brings shivers to me just thinking about it.  One of the teachers at K-'s school busted down out of the choir and tracked us down to fill me in a bit more on Sunday School.  (I left her a note in her mailbox at school pleading for some guidance.)  We cruised on down, had 17 in Sunday School and our topic today was what gift we would give Christ for his birthday.  It is a current issue class, which is right up our alley, but we were feeling a little wonky about it.  Today, we had different people recognize us, make us feel at home and even Pastor Karen caught us at the top of the steps and said, "The L- family!"  She double checked on K-'s name pronunciation (often mispronounced, misspelled, never remembered and just generally butchered in a number of other ways that I may not have listed) to which Hubs replied, "You are one of the few people to get it right!"  (It's not a weird name, just a really old name that isn't very popular in the states.)  I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart to have people really reaching out to us today.  I had been struggling this last week.  I just hadn't felt at home with the grove of Sunday School and this past week made a complete turn.  Even Mrs. McC-, the one who dashed down from choir, told me at school this week that she looked to see if we were there at the choir cantata last week.  (I had the tea and explained that is why we didn't get to go.)  Hubs and I are feeling more and more at home at this new church.  It really warms my heart to be able to say that. 

Now if you'll pardon me, I do believe that I have an evening of slumber and some cartridges in a pear tree to dream about.

Have a wonderful day!