Hi All. How did your week go? I’ve been busier than a one armed paper hanger. I’ve been cleaning, wrapping, making lists and checking them twice. We have one of our family gatherings this Saturday and I think I’m ALMOST ready. My brother will be here tonight and the rest of the company will be here early afternoon on Saturday. I’m excited.
We have more snow coming but it’s the pretty kind. I don’t even think plowing will be involved.
How’s the weather in your neck of the woods? Are you ready for Christmas? Do you have everything wrapped? Do you have visions of sugar plums dancing in your head?? Do tell.
Us Girls..Our Views 
It has been a long week! After feeling crappy last weekend, I was glad to start Monday off feeling better, but worked an extra day this week so I was a little tired today. We’ve had bball practice 4 nights this week to get ready for our first tournament on Saturday. It’s actually for my 5th grade daughter, but since I help coach I can say we! LOL! Our first game is at 11am then again at 2pm and the last one is at 4pm. Joy will be happy to know that we are skipping the 3rd game so we can make it for some of Christmas with the family 🙂 We aren’t the only ones not going to be there so I don’t feel so bad. Trinity is very much looking forward to seeing her Great G&G so I wanted to be there.
I can’t believe Christmas is almost here! My kids are getting way too much stuff, but like grandma said, it’s only Christmas once a year and when I saw the latest thing, I just HAD to get it! Have you ever seen something that looks perfect for someone and even though you may be done buying for them you just can’t resist b/c it’s sooooo darn cute?! Yeah, I had a breakdown at the mall today, but it’s worth it 🙂
I think that’s about it for now. I should try and get to bed early, but we all know how that goes! Ta ta!
Well, I’ve been leaving little notes on the “what’s up” thread because I just feel like I have to vent from time to time. Nothing really news-worthy. I have had a cold or something for most of this week, and today I am feeling better, but still not great. I had a lot of work to do and I got some done, but some is still behind. It was so hard to do anything challenging with my brain full of snot. Blah.
As far as Christmas goes – I’m starting to feel a vague sense of panic. I can’t remember what I bought for some of the people on my list (if anything) and I don’t have much more time to shop. The online shopping window is closed. My kids are totally not cooperating as far as getting a nice photo for the Christmas cards. So last night I did some cropping and put together a couple of collage prints (2 cropped photos per 4×6 collage). I ordered them from Walgreens and picked them up this morning. I’m not too excited. I will try to come up with something better tonight.
This week I haven’t really done anything with my evenings, other than vision therapy on Monday. I’ve just felt too crappy, and the weather has been crappy also. I am too lazy to even fix dinner for the kids, so I’ve just taken them to different restaurants and then back home to watch Christmas videos.
So this weekend is the last weekend before Christmas. I have so many things I want to do. I hope I have lots of energy to get things accomplished.
I hope everyone else is feeling festive and ready for Christmas!
Here’s my dilemma: right before going to bed last night, I discovered a rash on the fleshy part of my right forearm. I didn’t think much of it, except to wonder, what the heck?? I was going to bed early (9:00) because I was just dragging from the day (up at 5 am to blow the snow off of our long, steep driveway, only to have the road grader come by and dump a WALL at the end! Seriously, he could TOTALLY see that the driveway was clear, would it have killed him to lift that outside plow? The guy we had last year did it all the time. We’d still have a speed-bump at the end of the driveway, but it was negotiable. This one was at least two feet tall, and thick!! It took me as long to clear that wall he put up as it did to clear the rest of the driveway, the porch, the balcony, and two staircases! And THIS, on top of two days ago, when he came by, and wrecked my mailbox. The county is generously reimbursing me $15… for my $50 mailbox)
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. The rash. I went to bed with it on my forearm, and woke up with it on BOTH arms!! Worse on the forearms, but it goes all the way up the undersides of both arms, and kind of around on the forearms. Just weird. I’m covered in Benadryl Cream.
On the To Do List today: wrap gifts, get cards and a couple of gifts into the mail, pick up Josh’s sled from school (his class had a sledding party yesterday as a reward for good behavior), wrap, make cookie dough because the dough I made Monday has petrified, wrap, deal with the rash, wrap. I think I might have a few more online things to buy, but fortunately, I took advantage of the free trial of Amazon Prime, so 2-day shipping is $4. I’ll ship stuff to my in-laws now. I’ll still have wrapping to do, but not much. I also have to make a green bean casserole for Christmas Dinner. I’ll make it here and freeze it, and bring it with. It’s a wicked good casserole (not the old Campbell’s Soup one that everyone makes and I’m tired of), so I’m excited to make it.
Um. I think that’s about it. The place still isn’t completely decorated, but I think I’ve pretty much decided that we’re not going to go all-out this year, since we’re not staying here. The tree is up, the Train Blow-up Doll is up, the Wreath is up, the cards are hung, and Twinkle has been here since Dec. 1. That’s good for now. We’ll be bringing our stockings to chicago with us.
I’m sure there’s other stuff, but I’ve rambled enough for now. Besides, I have to go SCRATCH.
Okay, hand over the green bean casserole recipe NOW before someone gets hurt!
Yes’m…
2 Tbs butter
2 tbs flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp gran. sugar
1/4 c. onion, diced
1 c. sour cream
1 (14.5 oz) cans French-style green beans, drained
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 c. crumbled Ritz Crackers
1 tbs butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350.
Melt 2 tbs. butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in flour until smooth, and cook for one minute. Stir in salt, sugar, onion and sour cream. Add green beans and stir to coat.
Transfer the mixture to a 2.5 quart casserole dish. Spread shredded cheese over the top. In a small bowl, toss together the cracker crumbs and remaining butter. Sprinkle over the cheese.
Bake 30 minutes in preheated oven, or until the top is golden and cheese is bubbly.
Oh, yeah… it’s called “Grandma’s Green Bean Casserole”, and my nephew found it at Allrecipes.com
Im making this..sounds yum!
I thought the Amazon Prime was free shipping. Maybe I should look at my final bill a little better. $4 is still a great deal. I took advantage of that too. I did already go in and take the auto upgrade off, after my stuff was shipped. I knew I’d forget and then that $79 would have been taken out of our account, Jason wouldn’t have liked that too much.
Today is a busy day, well the morning will be normal but the afternoon-ish will be nothing but running. Have I mentioned how much I hate running around? I know I’m only 30 but that crap tires me out! I have to get Bailey from school around 2:50 and head over to his appointment to read the MRI results. I called them yesterday to see just by chance if they did that sort of thing over the phone. Especially if everything was okay. I hate for him to miss more school, even though it’s later int the day. But nope, they need us to come in. Fine, I tried! Then he needs a hair cut, then we have to do some shopping for tomorrow’s Xmas get together. I am making a chocolate peanut butter gooey cake, and pickle roll-ups. Yum!!! I also need 2 gifts for the game we play.
So that leads me to what we’ll be doing Saturday. And Sunday, well I’d like to not talk about Sunday. Oh, I am having a dinner date with a good friend at the Mexican place we always go to. I’m thinking no matter how Sunday ends up, I’m going to need that margarita!
I love the picture you used today, Joy, so much I am stealing it!!!! 🙂
You know what’s mine is yours 🙂
I used it as my FB pic!!
I know!! I saw it there. It’s darling used like that.
It’s $3.99 shipping on qualified items. You have to pay close attention to what’s “qualified” and what isn’t – although it looks like pretty much anything that Amazon sells is ‘qualified’, and anything you get from an Amazon Seller/second party isn’t qualified. Got a video game that way – had to pay shipping.
Be careful that you aren’t too stressed when you’re doing your baking… you don’t want to end up with Chocolate Pickle Gooey Cake and Peanut Butter Roll-ups… all though the roll ups might not be bad…
The Vikings play Monday…duh!!
Vicki here…
I am pretty much ready for Christmas, everything is wrapped but there is a week left before the day and im sure i’ll find some more stuff. When christmas arrives is when i can say I’m done!! Sean has to work this weekend so I don’t think i’ll be doing too much..cleaning house blah blah..lol I can say this forsure though i am TOTALLY tired of snow now, enough already. Ive spent many hours in the tractor snow blowing.
I can’t wait for christmas! 🙂
When Sean goes to work come on over tomorrow for a strawberry daiquiri.
mmmm sounds good, i may take you up on that 🙂
Good. I hope you do.
Still scratching. This is no longer fun.
But I got my cards mailed, and some gifts off in the mail. And some grocery shopping done, and three more gifts bought. As soon as I finish my lunch (which is the only reason I’m allowing myself to be online – to play while I eat), I’m going to become a wrapping fool. Fortunately, I’ve got the “fool” part down…
Joy,so glad you get to spend christmas with your dad 🙂 AWESOMENESS and fun I bet to be had by all.Give him a hug for me ❤
I have had gifts bought since sept.I did finish wrapping last gifts last week.I also mailed cards out a long time ago :)I just wanna make the brown sygar candy this weekend.And I hope my son makes more popcorn balls for christmas.
MERRY CHRISTMAS Joy to you and yours 🙂
We’re pretty much ready for Christmas. Maybe have a few things left to pick up. Just got home from work, my mom watched Hunter and he’s still in his pj’s at 1:00 lol 🙂 Talk about being lazy.
So I’m gonna rant a little bit about this client of mine. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a massage therapist. So I see this client all yr long, except winter time cause he goes to AZ for the winter. He comes pretty much every single Friday for 90 minutes!! I get so annoyed seeing him week after week for that amount of time. Its great money, but I feel like I waste my time. He falls alseep every single time. He also has a “man issue” all the time… not going into that one…. The client doesn’t pay, its an OLD work comp case. I have no idea how old it is, but I’ve been there almost 7 yrs now and its way longer than that. I just feel like he comes for a good nap, doesn’t appreciate what I do, doesn’t tip… Let me say I don’t care about tips, but seeing him for 90 min. every week I should get something!! I love when winter time comes when he goes away. But he comes back for Christmas. Which is why I’m annoyed now!! I had to get that off my chest.
Well everyone have a good weekend 😉 LOL
LOL, we all have those annoying clients! It seems I get one or two assholes on every financing project I work on. Some you get used to; others, you just pray the damn project closes fast, or even that it falls through, so you can stop having to deal with that person! Then a month later, along comes a new project and a new asshole . . . .
That’s what I love about my job! All my patients are usually asleep!