Oh Socks…

Here we are, the last day of 2018. I’ve tried typing 2019 a few times and my fingers always slip up and I wind up typing 2018. Oy! I’ll wish you luck with that new task just as you should wish me luck!!

So being the last day of the year, I’ll leave you with a weird/funny story. I really should recap Christmas but I haven’t edited all the photos yet. I guess that’s what happens when you get busy remodeling a house

Once upon a time, I think I told you the socks story but… My grandma used to always give me socks for Christmas. Then she passed away in 2007. Hubby and I didn’t start dating until 2009, but I swear I didn’t make this comment until I was dating him, but I questioned who would get me socks for Christmas now. So silly and stupid I know… But I did say that.  (more…)

Christmas Tree 2018 (And a Surprise)

Finally, the tree went up at our house over the weekend. I’ve been pretty much chomping at the bit (horse term) to get that tree up. I would like to say it went up without any hitches, but it didn’t… NOT. AT. ALL. In fact, I think the term hitches is a nice way of saying how things went on Saturday when we put the tree up. Sad day! Part of me wants to jot those memories down and part of me wants to forget it ever happened. No use in dwelling on the past, right? Let’s just say, Christmas is my favorite holiday (followed so close by Thanksgiving and all of the rest of the holidays) and I used the phrase, I Hate Christmas. Sadly, I try to teach Abug not to say hate. It’s something I try to instill in Abug, don’t hate. Yet I was so frustrated I kept saying HATE. Hypocrite! (that was directed at me, not you :))

The Tree

A few years ago we bought this tree at Lowe’s on sale after Christmas. Best purchase we’ve ever made when it comes to Christmas trees. It goes together so nicely and yeah, I love this tree. Plus, I’m a white light girl and hubby is a colored light guy… This tree flashes back and forth between white lights and colored lights. Best of both worlds!

My friend Harriett told me I needed to make a tree skirt for my tree, but it was too late to start it when she suggested that… so next year. I’m holding you to that Harriett! So Abug decided she was going to put the tree skirt on the tree… (more…)

Tiramisu Birthday Cake with Chocolate Tiramisu Truffles

When my husband and I started dating, he was living in Kentucky or was it Tennessee? It was right on the border and he called it Tuckasee. Technically he lived in Clarksville, Kentucky. He was working at the army base Ft. Campbell.

Not long after we started dating, just a couple months, he decided to move home. If you’ve been around these parts you’ll know we went to high school together. I actually fall in that 18% of people who marry someone from their graduating class. So here we were, he moved home in October. My mom and I found tickets to see Dracula at the Ballet and we bought them. Turns out, we bought them for November 1st that year. Does anyone know what November 1st is? It’s my husband’s birthday. Yup, I missed my husband’s first birthday together.

Hey, he wasn’t here for mine… haha. Mine was in the middle of the week and he was back in Kentucky. My mom offered him her ticket but he refused. And now he hasn’t let me live down missing that birthday since. But this year he was traveling for work on his birthday. I’m here to tell you though… I didn’t forget his birthday. I made him a Tiramisu Birthday Cake with Homemade Tiramisu Truffles. THEN, I took it to dive club meeting and we all ate it and celebrated without him. I wasn’t going to get accused of forgetting his birthday, again.

 Tiramisu Cake with Homemade Chocolate Tiramisu Truffles

Chocolate Tiramisu Truffles

Here while back, we bought my little helper a hammer of her own. She has rules that it has to stay in mommy’s tool bag until she is told she can pull it out. Unfortunately, we got her the hammer and she hasn’t had a chance to use it… Bummer! It’s almost like giving a kid candy and saying don’t eat it. (more…)

My Mother’s Day 2018

Happy Mother’s Day! Mother’s Day is an interesting day, truly. Some people even choose not to celebrate it thinking that it is a Hallmark Holiday, however, those same people are willing to celebrate International Women’s Day. Just a thought. haha. I choose to celebrate Mother’s Day. It might be a Hallmark Holiday but you know… I like Hallmark movies. haha. I wonder if Hallmark tv channel and Hallmark Cards are one in the same… Google… I’ll be for you in a minute.

Now… I was a step-mother long before I was a mother. In fact, 6 years. There is a lot of debate if I got included in that celebration. There’s sometimes a debate if any step-mother’s are included. My husband included me although I didn’t feel like I should. But that’s neither here nor there. I am now a mom too. I guess I do get to celebrate Mother’s Day. Although I should clarify, earlier when I said I celebrated, don’t worry, I celebrated my own mother and my grandmothers.

Anyway, this year I invited my grandma, my mother in law, and of course my mother (after all right now we live in her house) for Mother’s Day dinner. The week leading up, I had no idea what I would make. I like to cook after all! But I was still at a loss for what to make. (more…)

Let Her Tell You About Her Mommy

Today is Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day. This goes to ALL mothers! Mother’s who have given birth, mothers who have taken other’s kids to raise or help raise, those who have lost, those who have never been able to have their own. Have a great day!

I’m going to end this with a cute little questionnaire from my sweetheart! I’d ask my 15-year-old, but she’d probably get all the answers right, so I’ll stick with the 3-year-old.

My mom is 4 Years old

She likes to Clean and eat too

The best thing she cooks is Pancakes (more…)

It’s Still True

I’m sitting here listening to my husband snore at 6something in the morning. Now… 1) this isn’t an unusual occurrence. 2) If you really knew me, you know I’d be kicking him and telling him to quit snoring. 3) I’m not doing 2 which is odd.

The other day this hit my timehop app. I giggled when I read it, then decided I needed to post it again and share it once more.

I commented, Still True so I hear…

But that’s just the thing. I posted that a year ago when my husband was on a trip to Branson for work. Every year they take off for work for a couple days to have some big conference. And during those couple days, I am “single” again. Now here’s a weird thing about me… I’ve always liked sharing a bed with someone and been a snuggler. Kind of weird when that someone is your best friend and you’re in junior high… Whoops. It wasn’t that I was trying weird things… I just have always liked sharing a bed with someone. Wow, that still sounds weird.

As a kid staying at my grandparent’s house, I never liked to sleep alone. I usually tried to convince one of my grandma’s to sleep with me. Now, at my Grandma J’s, I usually just slept on the couch which was in the next room and that was okay. You can’t share a couch with anyone anyway.

Okay, the more I type on this… the weirder I sound. I guess I am weird so I should just own up to it… NEVER! haha. (more…)

This Cold Stuff is For the Birds!

I think I’ve mentioned a time or two that I hate cold weather… yes? no? I know the other day I said it was pretty but I’ve since changed my mind. Why do you ask? Well, my morning started off in the 5 am hour. My husband called to say that his truck gelled over. Now if you don’t know much about diesel trucks… their fuel can do what they call gel.

Basically, it goes from a liquid usable form to a gel-like substance that won’t work. So the way a diesel is made, it has a paraffin type stuff present. At 32˚F it is in liquid form but as the temps start dropping it starts hardening. Once this happens it can clog the tank and the fuel filters. aka, no fuel for the truck.

He was like 2-3 miles from the house and luckily went back roads versus being stranded out on the interstate.

My dad worked on finding a tow rope so we could hopefully tow the truck home, but I decided it was taking way too long so I jumped in my truck and headed off to get him some heat. I’m not sure if you know this or not, but no truck work, no heat. As I was driving over there I looked at the dash and my truck said it was -15˚F. Holy Hades!

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Christmas 2017

After we came back from Ft. Worth, I swear we all came down with the plague that everyone I know is fighting.  Ugh! In fact, here I am, still fighting it. It’s awful! But enough about that….

Three days before Christmas Abug and I decided we needed to work on Santa cookies. Santa was coming and with his long flight across country and the world, he needed some good sustenance, so we went with making Red Velvet Peppermint Kiss Cookies. We figured he’d get Chocolate chip everywhere else so we’d give him something a little different. That’s the way we roll in this house.

And might I mention, my kid is a country kid, but she’s worse than her mommy about having dirty hands. Making the Red Velvet part of the cookies, the food coloring along with some of the oil transferred to her hands (and mine) and she hated that! WOW!

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Army Quilt – Finished

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that it was my husband’s birthday. Guys, his birthday present was friggin awesome, in my opinion anyway. Although, he was pretty keen on it too!

It seems like a million years ago I did that 101 in 1001 project. In fact, I did this sometime in the first years we were married. One of the goals I had was to make him a quilt out of his old army uniforms. And I slowly worked on it. Read that as I worked on it 1-2 days and then piled it away for another day.

Jump forward 5 years to about the beginning of October…. okay, back up to earlier this year first. When we were working on Abug’s quilt, I took hubby’s army uniforms to my grandma’s and told her we needed to make hubby’s quilt also. We used a couple pieces in Abug’s quilt and then it sat all spring/summer in grandma’s sewing room. So now we’re at the beginning of October and I went to grandma’s to can my fall green beans. I looked at her and said, OH CRAP, we were going to make hubby’s quilt and his birthday is in 4 weeks (or whatever the actual time frame was).

I knew that I was going to be busy the week of October 16th due to the Newton County Christmas for Kids Chili Cookoff and that I would be out of town the week of hubby’s birthday. So I told Grandma, if you can help, we’ll get this done for his birthday. She was ecstatic to help. Grandma’s are cool like that.

Choosing the Quilt Pattern

The first day we went to work, we had to decide what pattern to make. Grandma has a HUGE stack of pattern magazines and books. When I say huge, I’m not exaggerating and imagine HUGE! We debated this one and that one and tossed around ideas. Then I ran across this in the back of one of the magazines. The thing is… it wasn’t a pattern but more of an advertisement.

Celebrating Abe advertisement for quilt

The more I got to looking at it, the more I realized we had done this type of star in Abug’s quilt, so I pulled that pattern out. I sat there and did calculations (yes, everyone trusted my mathematical skills…. scary I know) and away we went to making this quilt.

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7 Marriage Advice Tips

In 7 days it will be 7 years. And, that lighting makes me look like I have a mustache? I mustache why… ha!

Almost 7 years. Do I have it all figured out? Do you want marriage advice? Yeah… I’m not sure I could give you any…

Why? Well obviously because

  1. Marriage is hard.
  2. Every marriage is different.
  3. It’s only been almost 7 years… I don’t have all the answers.
  4. Yeah….

I heard either just before I was planning my wedding, or maybe while I was planning my wedding to pay attention to the planning process. It would be an indication of how the marriage would go. What?

Planning our wedding was easy for the most part. We had a few hiccups. But most of that time, from the time he proposed to the actual wedding day, we felt like we were sitting around twiddling our thumbs wondering what we were forgetting.

  • Flowers… check
  • Photographer… check
  • Dress… check
  • Tuxes… check
  • Wedding hall…. check
  • House to live in… check

What were we forgetting? Seriously, what were we forgetting? Turns out, we had all our t’s dotted and our i’s crossed… or something like that.

So here’s the advice I can give you….

Nicole’s Marriage Advice

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