Christmas 2018

This Christmas was quite a blur. Between buying and remodeling a house and Abug being at preschool, this Christmas season was quite the blur. They say that time doesn’t slow down, it only gets faster as you get older. I believe that is true. But I sure wish it would slow down!

This year for name tags, I printed off Christmas pictures from years past. I tried to include the person who the present was to in the tag, but that’s not always an option (ahem, my mother). I also tried to put bows on the packages. They were just so darn pretty. Especially under the tree.

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She’s 16… Holy Cow

I’m not sure when or how this happened, but she decided to turn 16 on me. WHAT?!?! I feel old, trust me! She was 6 when she came into my life. I was 19 when she was born. She’s 16 now. HOLY CRAP! Yes, I just said that.

Last month I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. She said yellow cake with chocolate icing is her favorite. So… yellow cake with chocolate icing it is… But I had to add sprinkles. It would have been boring without the sprinkles.

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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…)

Holiday Home Tour… Wait, What??

Everyone is all talking about Christmas and Holiday Home Tours and I’m over here like wait, WHAT?!?! I want to do that. Oh, wait… I can’t. Why? Well, look above. Do you know what you’re looking at? If not, I’ll tell you… It’s my open concept bathroom/Kitchen. Why put a wall between when you can make them one and take a shower while stirring something on the stove, right?

I’m kidding… sort of… I’ll explain. Right here on the left side of the wall (look for the shovel leaning up against the wall on the right side…) you really are looking into the kitchen and bathroom. And there really is no wall separating the two. They always say be prepared if you plan on doing something like this because you don’t know what you’re going to find. Well, what we found was there was a leak for what appeared to be YEARS in the bathroom where the bathtub/shower combo was and the floor was rotted. In fact, the wall behind where the window is was rotted all the way through and you can actually see the back side of the siding through the house. That’s not normal. Nope, not normal at all. (more…)

Walking in a Winter Wonderland (in November…)

I woke up on November 12, 2018, wondering if I still lived in Southwest Missouri. Why do you ask? Because we got snow. Snow in November. That doesn’t typically happen in Southwest Missouri until late December or January if any at all. And it wasn’t just a light dusting… oh no… it was flat out snow. I think we got a few inches.

And of course, school was canceled. So we went out and played in the snow. (more…)

The Original PW Cookbook

Yesterday’s post got really long, really fast… so I thought I’d discuss the cookbook incident today. You know, in a separate post.

When the initial cookbook came out, it was back in 2010 (technically late 2009, but I went to the signing in 2010). I remember because I drove to Stillwater, Oklahoma to get it signed and meet her. My husband and I were due to get married that year. Oddly enough I had to tell her all about that. Like she cared. haha. But this, this is how I remember 2010. (more…)

The Mercantile – Pawhuska, OK

There’s a long-running joke at my house that I have an arranged marriage for Tbug. I’m going to marry her to Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman’s oldest son Bryce.

This joke started sometime last summer. Truthfully, he’s a cute boy. He’s a farmer/rancher. I always say farm boys are the best. Tbug wanted to own a horse ranch someday, or so she said when she was younger. If he sticks with the family business, they run Mustangs plus all the horses they use for everyday ranch work. Win-win…

Then for my own reasons… they go snow skiing in Colorado and I always wanted to go. They can just take me too (and my husband… of course). Hello, his mom is The Pioneer Woman. I mean come on. And finally, if Abug would have been a boy, she’d have been named Bryce. I’d finally get my Bryce. There are more reasons for the joke and it keeps getting added to, but those are some of the big ones.

The Mercantile

Ever since the Merc has opened I have wanted to go. Pawhuska is only about 2 1/2 hours from here so not to bad. But it seems like every plan I had made to go, didn’t happen. They all fell through. I was starting to think it would NEVER happen. FINALLY, it did. I guess patience is key and sometimes I don’t have that.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to my sister in law about wanting to go. She said we should make plans to go. I kind of scoffed in her face and said I refuse to make any more plans like that because they keep falling through. Then a couple weeks later I mentioned to my husband and said she would go. One thing led to another and they made plans for us to go. (more…)

Born in a Barn

Born in a Barn

Last night I was standing in the kitchen. The way our house was designed, you can see the back door from the kitchen. Everyone uses the back door. to enter and exit the house unless it’s pouring down rain or slicker than snot. Then usually we use the basement route. Otherwise, EVERYONE uses the back door.

So I was standing in the kitchen and Abug walked in the back door. She left the back door standing wide open. Bad thing to do at our house because the dogs will come in or right now it’s cool out so we let all the bought heat out, etc. (bought air = Sweet Home Alabama line.) I started to smart off, Close the door, were you born in a barn, but I stopped myself. Why would I stop myself… Well… because farm kids are a different breed.

I’ve truly said it before that farm kids are a different breed and they are. They get exposed to some interesting things early on in life. Between watching animals being born, maybe having to help pull a baby to save its life, to doing chores on a multiple time daily bases… whatever. (more…)

Icy Thoughts

Around these parts the last few years, we haven’t had snow. But this year, we’ve made up for that. Even at that, we’re still very dry! We’re kind of working on a drought which isn’t a good thing. Luckily yesterday and this morning early it rained. We were supposedly supposed to be 100% chance of rain today which would cause flooding, but it isn’t raining right now. I do hear we’re in for a good ice storm tonight maybe. Yuck! I hate ice. Reminds me of 2007.

What happened in 2007? well, we were without power for a week because of ice. It knocked out power for our entire area. Dropped a tree limb on the trunk of my car. Caused us to have to bucket water from the creek a mile away. We had ice in the bed of the truck a couple inches thick because it would slosh out of the buckets and into the bed of the truck. The night that the lights came back on I screamed for joy! We were pulling in my parent’s driveway with water and for some reason, I got out and was in the bed of the truck. My dad was looking back at me and heard me scream and I scared him. It was crazy to see the lights flip on in the dark like that. I definitely wouldn’t have made it in the 1800’s. Although truthfully I probably would have because I wouldn’t have known any different…. right? (more…)

Ads and the Weekend

Hello Monday! I’m sitting here, listening to my baby girl talk about packing up to go to the “hotel” for the 15th million time (no joke). She’s obsessed with hotels and staying at hotels and packing for hotels. I think she’s stayed at a hotel maybe 2 handfuls of times since she’s been alive. I’m not talking days, but different trips. But she’s totally OBSESSED with hotels.

Every time we pass a hotel she comments on the hotel. There’s one about 15 miles from here that every time we pass it she comments she wants to stay there. Every time. I’m not kidding. This is NOT an exaggeration. And we pass this hotel about once a week if not more.

In other news, I got sidetracked this morning looking at more recipes that I’m going to save but will probably never make. I want to write a cookbook so bad but I keep questioning it… whose to say that I would sell any. With the millions of cookbooks on the market, what makes a person actually think, I’ll buy this cookbook over that one. I mean have you been to a bookstore lately and seen the amounts of cookbooks on the shelf? Maybe not… cookbooks are becoming a thing of the past these days. It’s really sad.

But I bring all of this up because… I ran across a recipe this morning for Hot Chocolate Dip. As I scrolled through it looking at the ingredients and the words of the blogger, I got tickled by the ad that was in the middle of the page.

Do you see the irony there? It’s a recipe full of sugar with an ad in the middle for the 3Step Sugar Detox. I couldn’t help but laugh about that… seriously. Anyway… moving on…. (more…)