Month: December 2011

She took over my kitchen!

So the other weekend when Tbug was over at the house, I woke up every morning wanting a cookie.  I’m not really sure what my deal was, but by golly I wanted a cookie, and I wanted a cookie bad.  Sunday morning when I woke up and told hubby, he asked why I hadn’t said anything prior to then?  I dunno, I figured if we had them, I’d eat them :).

That morning we got out of bed, called his mom and asked if she’d come over and watch Tbug so we could run to town to get part of her Christmas present and then when we got home, Tbug made cookies.

Yes you read that right…

Don’t worry, I didn’t just completely turn her lose in the kitchen, I stood around and helped, I stayed one step ahead of her on the recipe, so if she got off I could have her go back and re-read it, I helped make sure ingredients were measured correctly, I took the cookies in and out of the oven & when she got tired of scooping them out, I helped there too.  BUT, I’ll have you know, she did most all the work!  Seriously.  I gave her the recipe and the ingredients and she went to town.  I have visual evidence too.

See, I told you.

We used my mother-in-law’s recipe.  And while the recipe listed below isn’t the recipe that we used, this is one of my all time favorite cookie recipes.

I actually received one of those emails with this recipe.  You know, the recipes where you verify it against snopes.com because it said that some lady wanted the recipe and had to pay $225 or something like that for the recipe.  Snopes says the email is false, but the cookies, oh they are good alright!

You’ll notice it says it makes 112 cookies.  Yes, it makes almost that.  I think one time I got like 100 and another time it was like 119.  It really depends on the size of your cookies.  At my aunt’s house, she has 2 ovens so it makes it extremely easy and fast to make that many cookies, but the recipe can be halved.  trust me, I’ve done it :).

One thing about it, everyone raves about these cookies & if you make the whole batch, you are set for your Christmas cookies.  Just sayin 🙂

Neiman-Marcus Cookies
Makes 112 cookies.  This recipe may be halved.

2 Cups butter
24 oz chocolate chips
4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
2 cups sugar
1-8oz Hershey Bar (grated)
5 cups blended oatmeal
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups chopped nuts (optional)

Measure oatmeal and blend to a fine powder in blender or food processor.

Cream the butter and both sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

Add chocolate chips, Hersey bar, and nuts.  Roll into balls and place 2″ apart on a cookie sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes @ 375 degrees.

I Like Smiling, Smilings my favorite {aka Life from their view part 2}

If you remember back on March 25, I posed a question, just to see if anyone would be interested.  It was about doing a passing of the camera… I buy a disposable camera, I send it to this person, they send it to the next and so on.  Once it was full it came back to me.  I was excited when I actually had takers.  It made me feel special… aka not like a loser :).  So on March 31st, I sent out 2 disposable cameras. 


I got the first one back and featured their pictures on July 12th.  Now I have the second camera back!  Thank you all so much for participating!  This camera started in Illinois, went to California (x2), then to Texas and finally ended up in Maryland before making its way back to Missouri.

First off we start out in Illinois (but she now lives in Kentucky!!) at Thickin and Thinnin at Goodwife Farm.  She is an amazing woman and the love she has for her husband rivals all others!  She’s a great role model!  Go check out the Goodwife, but only after you finish this post!

Her husband hard at work.

Champ, the great horse.

Piggy clan, Ed Earl & Lu Lu

Welcome

Then the camera made the trek over to the west coast stopping in San Francisco with the lovely Jacin from Lovely Little Details {blog}.  I wish I could tell you how I stumbled across Jacin’s blog, but it was back during her wedding planning adventures.  Oh how I would have loved to have her involved in my wedding planning!  She has such a great eye for detail!

View heading in to Napa, our favorite thing to do on the weekend (before we got a new puppy, that is!) During the summer it’s so green and lush and absolutely beautiful!

The Golden Gate Bridge – I live about 2 miles from it and we never get tired of the view (although this picture is a bit blurry haha)

The famous Lombard Street!  It is something we always take friends to go see when they come visit.  One night I was walking with my parents after a yummy feast in Fishermans Wharf, and we were standing at the top of Lombard watching these crazy kids skateboarding down it!  It sure made me feel old haha.

My mason jar chandelier that my dad made me for Christmas last year.  He took a bunch of my grandmother’s old mason jars and made it from scratch – I only wish I was that crafty.

Another blue mason – I keep it on our dining room table and get fresh flowers from the farmers market every week to fill it up.

Then the lovely camera stayed in the great state of California and trekked down south (and I could be wrong because I don’t know my California geography all that well… lol) and made a stop in with CA Girl, Lourie.  She’s as big of a Dancing with the Stars fan as I am, although silly school got in my way of watching this season.

This is my backyard.  That’s my palm tree.  These guys are everywhere out here.  They grow very fast and are homes for fun critters like rats.  Yay.  They are also a huge fire hazard.  Not sure what the real attraction is about them… LOL.

This is behind my house.  we back up to the greenbelt.  It is all natural down in there.  Talk about critters!  Frogs, bunnies, opossums, skunk, Yep.  Love that smell.  Not.  haha

This is in the neighboring city.  It’s a dried creek… but when it rains it fills up the very tip top… so it gets to be about 17-20 feet deep and it is wicked fast.

This is the entrance into Old Town Temecula.  It’s a fun little stretch of road with all kinds of old shops and restaurants.  Every weekend they have shows in the street.  It’s a neat little tourist trap.

Then the camera headed to Texas to go visit The Wife over at Gizzards & Calf Fries.  She is my role model when it comes to pictures!  I want to learn to take pictures like she does!  I’m just sayin :).
With the dog clan

Welcome to Crazy M

Unloading feed

Feeding time.

Then the camera made one last trek up to Maryland {before heading back to Missouri} to visit This Ordinary, Everyday Life.  She so graciously jumped in to take pictures when I had a person back out!  Make sure you go and check her out at This Ordinary, Everyday Life.

The Darlington Apple Festival, a Festival that happens every  year in my county. It takes place on the first Saturday in October.

The World War 2 Memorial in D.C.

The National Zoo in D.C.

My back yard in Maryland … and you can sort of see my dogs, they were not cooperating lol

Sorry no random pictures of me this time… the camera came back full 🙂 Yey!  Thank you all for participating!  Make sure you go check out these lovely, lovely ladies!

Have your Elf a Merry Little Christmas

One of the departments here at work that is right around the corner from us (and reports to the same big boss) really puts our department to shame.  They are so creative it isn’t even funny.  When Christmas hit, they decorated their doors.  Now there are only 5 plus our big boss, if I were tasked to decorate my department’s office doors like this I’d have a few more to have to decorate, plus the front of my um….. cubicle?  I don’t really sit in a cubicle, I’m not sure what you call it, anyway, they did do such a creative job decorating I thought I’d share their doors.

Now they are the Environmental department, so keep that in mind if you see a few of the doors 🙂

Big Boss’s Door.

Mr. Environmental (The depts boss)

The most creative in their group, she is their secretary and she rocks photoshop!

This is on her wall too.

Senior Environmentalist of the group.

Their newest addition.

My name twinky.  In fact before she was married her last name began with an R so we didn’t get to mixed up, but then her married last name begins with a J and my maiden name begins with a J, so we were constantly getting phone calls and emails for each other.  Similar names & similar departments.

On a side note, today is my momma’s birthday!!  Happy Birthday momma, I love you! 🙂

A Little Thyme

Husband:  I’m going to run to Lowes, do you want to go with me?
Me: Sure.
Husband: I’m ready to go, just waiting on you
{I’m running around the house in shorts and a t-shirt}
Me: You’ll have to give me some time and let me get dressed.
So I head into the bedroom and start brushing my teeth.  This is the next thing I see:
Husband: Here hunny…

It Looks Like a Christmas Tree

I have always been one of those that looks at Southern Living and Better Homes & Gardens and really any other magazine I could get my hands on that had Christmas decor and dreamed about how I’d love for my future house to be decorated up all pretty for Christmas.

So far, I’ve failed miserably :(.

But we got our Christmas tree up last weekend and it looks pretty!  I thought I might share with you a few of our ornaments, or all of them…. LOL 🙂

Our tree is very eclectic, there is no one theme, however there are a few small themes.  I love sheep so you’ll see that, of course we’ve started getting a family ornament a year, I’ve grown up showing horses and hubs & Tbug love horses too so you’ll see that theme, our girlfriends (remember the dogs get called that) have their own ornament.  So you’ll see many different ornaments that are all very precious to us on our tree.

Remember my mom and the redbird story?  Well, we put a redbird on our tree just because of that.  She just “loves” us for it too!  Hubs named the redbird Pete.

The Other Morning

His alarm went off as I was laying there in bed.  At first I thought it was mine so I slammed the night stand but when the noise didn’t stop and my cell phone hit the floor I realized it was his.  Oh come on hunny, make that damn thing shut up already, please!  I rolled over and kicked him in the leg hoping that would get him to budge or at least make the stupid alarm shut up.  I seriously wasn’t ready to get out of bed, but that dumb beep beep beep sound was slowly waking me up.  I knew if I got too awake that I’d never get back to sleep and I still had just over an hour left of good quality sleep before I had to start fighting my alarm.

Finally after the second nudge I felt him move and shut the alarm off.  He crawled out of bed, walking around the bed toward the bathroom, quickly stopping by my side of the bed to give me a “good morning, I love you” kiss.  Then he grabbed his clothes and headed out of the room to get dressed in the living room so not to wake me with lights and sound.

A few minutes later I thought I heard him talking to the pups as he let them out, then he closed the door behind him.  I heard the door lock.  That was it, he’d left for work.  I rolled over to snuggle up to his side of the bed so I could feel like I was closer to him and hopefully I could doze back off.

A few minutes later I thought I heard the stool flush.  It jolted me awake.  I laid there, frozen.  There shouldn’t be anyone in the house.  I know I just heard hubby leave.  I laid there frozen, scared to move.  If someone was in the house, what would I do?  I could grab my cell phone and call someone but we don’t get service at our house.  I couldn’t remember where I left the house phone last and it’s so dark in here I’m not sure I could find it without making noise.  Then I realized I was laying there without clothes on.  Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.  Last I remembered I had a pair of shorts on the bed post along with a t-shirt but silly me left most all my shoes by the front door.  There were some of hubbys in the closet, but if I put them on I couldn’t make a fast get away, I would trip over them because they are too big.

Then I heard voices talking.  Really?  Some guy named John or maybe they said Jason.  Heck I wasn’t sure, my heart was beating so loud that it felt like it was pounding in my ears and it was making it hard to hear. Dammit, dammit, dammit.  What am I going to do.  I didn’t have my glasses on so I couldn’t see the clock to even know what time it was.  What if my alarm went off, would they come after me?  Would they know I was here?

You know, I could get into my bathrobe faster that the shorts and then just sneak out the bedroom door that leads outside.  But I have to turn that dumb lock and the door makes a really loud sound when it opens.  What am I going to do?

Then I heard foot steps coming down the hallway.  Oh crap, I don’t have enough time.  Maybe if I jump into the bathroom and lock the door, then I could escape through the bathroom window?

Just as the person should been to our bedroom door I shuttered.  I shuttered so hard I jumped off the bed an inch and when I hit the mattress it jolted my eyes open.  I was breathing hard, shaking, listening.  I didn’t hear anything.  I looked around from under the covers; the covers that by this time I had pulled up to my eyes.  Nothing.

The deafening silence still had me shaking.  I crawled out of bed, grabbed my glasses and looked at the clock.  6:15a.m.  I found the house phone and punched in hubby’s cell number.  He answered and I started whispering.  He asked why I was whispering and I told him what had happened, then I asked him if he locked the front door.  He said yes.  So I told him I wanted him on the phone in case there was someone in the house, so at least he’d know.  I slowly walked down the hallway peering into every room. I was thanking God at this point we have a 1 story house.

Once I got to the front door I made sure it was locked, then I proceeded on to the office.  That door was locked too.  I was so tense ever muscle in my body ached.  I walked back to the bedroom and double checked that door, locked.  I opened the blinds, no one outside except the dogs who were sleeping in front of the door.

We finally decided I must have fallen back to sleep without realizing it and had that crazy dream.  Had someone been there the dogs wouldn’t be sleeping peacefully in front of the door.  A crazy dream, really?  That’s all I can figure out, but it was enough to jolt me awake.  In fact, I couldn’t go back to sleep by that time so I got up, turned on tv and started watching The Nanny before I had to get dressed and head to work.

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And yes, this is a true story.  This is how I was so abruptly woken up the other morning, I’m not going to lie, I was pretty freaked out.  I do have some pretty crazy weird dreams.  At least this one wasn’t about the aliens who were eating purple and green and yellow and orange brains!