Year: 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!

First Dates – I'm Cool

My blog friend Jill has this series she likes to refer to as “The Single Girl Flies.”  Some of her stories are GREAT!  I just thought I would share a couple short stories with her and you guys too, to show just how cool I can be too!  This is for you Jilly :).

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Do you remember that first date?  It can be the first one you ever went on, the first one you went on with your spouse, whatever you want… but do you remember that first date?

If you look at some of my first dates ever, you’d wonder how I even got a second date out of the deal.  Maybe they just felt sorry for me.  Maybe they enjoyed the “entertainment”.  Who knows!

My first date ever was actually pretty boring.  I didn’t really get a second date, but that’s because he lived in a completely different state 4 1/2 hours away.  My dad always told me that I couldn’t date until I was 30.  Ok so maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but he didn’t want me going on a date until I was at least 16, that way if I ever got into a bind, I could drive home, legally because heck I’ve been driving since I was four.  But I digress…

But before I could get my driver’s license I had to know how to check a vehicle for oil, change a tire, pump gas & drive both a standard transmission and an automatic.  See I’d never be stranded :).

So the summer of my 16th birthday I spent every other weekend with my aunt and uncle in Southern Oklahoma.  There was this boy who worked for them who was my age and my aunt thought we’d be perfect for each other.  I guess she never thought about the whole distance thing.  So anyway she basically set up a date for us in a round about way.  I was 1 month shy of 16 and I knew I shouldn’t be going, but I did… woops… LOL.  I truthfully think that will go down as the worst date in history.

The town they lived in had a population of 519 people.  There was one convenience store/gas station/diner in town; that’s where we went to eat.  He ordered Chicken Fried Steak and so did I.  I didn’t know what to say to him so I played with my straw wrapper the entire time.  The CFS was good, but I truthfully think I only ate about 4 bites and I was done, which if you knew me back then was definitely not a characteristic of me!

It was a lunch time thing, so after lunch was over and we were getting ready to head back to the ranch, we ran into my uncle.  He was headed somewhere and asked if I wanted to go.  I said you betcha and jumped in his truck and we headed off down the road.

Hmm… it’s no wonder why I never got a second date… but how about the blind date I got set up on in college?  We decided to meet at a local dance club.  I begged one of my dorm friends to go with me, I didn’t want to go alone, so she and I got dressed up and went to the club to meet this guy.  Oddly enough I picked him out right away.  He walked up to me and we started talking.  He was thirsty and going to the bar to get water and asked if I wanted some to.  I said sure, so when he brought me back the glass I barely took a sip and got the weirdest look on my face.  He looked at me and asked if everything was ok.  My response:
“Water.  It makes you pee.”

I did get a few more dates with him, but we were much better off friends than anything.

So moving on later in life, my {now} husband and I were friends in high school, but like most people drifted our own ways.  When we finally met back up 10 years later and started talking, one of the first things out of my mouth to him was, “I thought you dropped out of school and fell off the face of the earth.”  Smooth sailing right?  Oh yeah, I’m cool like that.

So we finally went on our first date about 2-3 weeks after we started talking again.  I volunteered to drive because I knew my way around the town we were going to and he had left his windows down the night before and his car was wet inside.  Now I’m sure you know I love to talk (probably get that through my writing).  Get this, I didn’t shut up.  Nope, not once.  Not the whole one hour drive.  And I’m sure I said some pretty classy things.  However, I must have made a good impression then because he went on to marry me.  Don’t worry, I think I even told him the water makes you pee story.  That is a classic after all.

I’m so glad though that I’m done with first dates.  They are usually the worst!  I’ve had my last first date (in fact I had it July 25, 2009)!

And I think this post needs a picture:

At Thanksgiving I was sending his sister text pics of everyone in the house (yes she was there too) and this is one shot I sent her… hahahaha!

Told you I was cool!

Day 407

Day 1-203 here
Day 204-406 here

Day 407 – We said I Do

Day 408 – We headed off to our Honeymoon in Chicago

Day 412 – First nights sleep in our new house

Day 422 – First weekend together as a family

Day 436 – Our Bear went missing

Day 448 – Audrey came into our family

Day 465 – Celebrated hubby’s birthday that was on Day 466

Day 477 – Spent the evening in the hospital to lose my grandpa on day 478

Day 503 – Came the big hair chop

Day 518 – We hosted our first Christmas in our new house

Day 534 – I bought a new Car

Day 536 – I paid off my Mustang that I traded in on day 534

Day 558 & 559 – We got snowed into our house by a Missouri Style Blizzard & 18+ inches of snow.

Day 589 – We hit the 6 month mark for our marriage.

Day 595 – Hubs had knee/leg sugery

Day 611 – Spent the day in the ER by Choice (checking out the whole nursing gig)

Day 625 – Started our Diet (where I lost 26 lbs & he lost 30)

Day 637 – Enrolled back in school for a second bachelor’s degree.

Day 652 – Attended the {step}daughter’s Mother’s Day Luncheon at school

Day 668 – Joplin was hit by the EF-5 Tornado

Day 679 – First time giving blood; only to get sick and have my first pop (err soda for those of you) since April 10.

Day 709 – Hosted the 2nd Annual 4th of July Party

Day 737 – Had to replace the pool liner on my 28th birthday

Day 742 – 1 Month count down to our 1 year anniversary

Day 761 – We both had to start attending classes.

Day 771 – Ate Year old Wedding Cake

Day 772 – We landed in Hawaii for our 2nd Honeymoon/1 year anniversary on Anniversary Eve.

Our Thanksgiving

Do you remember the days when Polaroids were awesome?  When I was 11 I can remember wanting one of those cameras so bad!  And I know this has nothing to do with the post, but that might explain the pictures :).

Our Thanksgiving was so nice and relaxed.  I think the most stressful part was…. um… I can’t really think of any time to be honest!  In fact my whole weekend was so laid back and relaxed.  It was very nice!  It was a little sad because I was missing some family but that’s neither here nor there.

We woke up first thing Thursday morning and headed to my parents house to get Tbug, then we headed down to my grandma’s to see her for a few minutes before heading in to my father in law’s house.

After we ate dinner (aka lunch) at my father in law’s house, we headed home to start working on Thanksgiving dinner (or supper whatever).

We started our turkey to brining Wednesday morning before work.  It has to brine for 16-24 hours.  I think we had it in for longer than that but still, it turned out nicely!

I had hubby lift the 17lb bird up and out of the brine so it could sit in a sink full of water for 20 minutes.  See it was a day of hurry to wait… LOL 🙂

After he hung out in his water bath, it was time to get in the pan so he could roast.

While the bird was roasting, I was teaching Tbug how to formally set the table.

Her table turned out quite nice… don’t you think?

Then she wanted to help with cooking so I showed her how to use the micro-plane so we could get orange zest for the butter that we rubbed All Over the bird.

Then came time to smear the bird.

My parents & my father in law came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner.  My FIL helped hubby carve up the bird.

Here was our dressing… We weren’t sure at first about it because of the apples but oh wow!

Now it’s time to eat!

I didn’t really do anything but plan everything in my head in advance.  I read through the recipes a couple times.  I’m not so sure that I could have timed it all better if I had tried!  When the bird came out to rest, the stuffing & potatoes went in.  The corn casserole cooked away in the toaster oven and was done at the same time.  It was perfect timing.  Maybe I should stop there and not try another one… I’m not sure I could do it again… LOL 🙂