Grow Old With Me,The Best Is Yet To Be...

OK.. let's talk about my husband shall we? I mean you might be sick of hearing about him... but I can't help myself and with it being my blog... I guess you are stuck with us... um me... whatever. This as you might remember is our Christmas card photo for this year. I love, love, love this picture and was THRILLED with how our cards turned out. Just love them. Love the colors. Love the pose. Love the guy sitting next to me. Love that 22+ years (we will be married 23 years next June) later he wants to sit next to me.. what more could a girl ask right? Well since sending out this fabulous card.. I have had at least TWO people comment on the color of my husband's hair. Both were suggesting it was too gray or that he looks OLD... OK.. now excuse me if the hair on the back of my neck stands up when people start even approaching picking on my husband... If you are picking on him... you are totally picking on me. So I am using my good ol' blog here to let you all know MY opinion of my husband and his gray hair. I LOVE his gray hair... I mean look at him! What is not to love? In my humble opinion.... and yes... pretty stinkin' happy HE thinks MY opinion is the one that counts... each gray hair only makes him more handsome, more gorgeous and yes.... more sexy... Look away if you must... Can't help myself. I love this man and I do not see how one inch of him could get any better. Are you gagging yet? No? Let me continue. Not only do his gray hairs make him all the more attractive to me... I LOVE what they symbolize to me. What is that you ask? You did ask right? You didn't leave to browse over at Amazon did you? Good... cause this is my best point... well maybe the sexy thing was ... but this is good too... (yes.. I am a nice Christian girl but I LIKE my husband OK?... God just wired me that way) I love those gray hairs because I love that I have been a part of this amazing man's life long enough to see him get gray hairs. I love that we are "growing old together" as they say. I don't want the guy from 25 years ago who stood on my porch and kissed me goodnight like 52 times because neither of us really wanted to say goodbye and leave each other. I love how that guy has turned into this guy who loves me even more and has stood by me and supported me thru EVERYTHING. I love who we are now and who we have become together and those gray hairs show me that..... Are you getting me? So... in the future... should you feel the need to comment on my husband's gray hairs or his weight or anything else... please refrain... I wouldn't want to have to become all unhappy riled up Deanna on you because that just isn't a pretty sight... I mean I am the church secretary people and here I went and called my husband sexy on my blog in front of God and everyone... I'll probably like be fired now or something................

OK to further prove my point, do you know what he just did? I am out of my much loved DCVDP...(um Diet Cherry Vanilla DR Pepper.. you might want to take notes for next time...) Walmart is also out of DCVDP... Walmart is the only place (without driving more than 1/2 hour) that carries it. He bought me a bottle of Diet Cherry DR Pepper. We figured that would suffice for now. He just made me a glass and handed it to me along with the bottle of Vanilla and a teaspoon..... Need I say more? Just love him...

So currently we are moving the living room furniture. I got all the decorations down last night while Darrel was working. Yay me! He got them out to the attic tonight so we are rearranging. Well OK.. at the moment he is rearranging the TV, DVR... etc... and I am um blogging and on facebook waiting till there is something I can do again... See I really needed to get that gray hair thing off my chest! ha!! We decided to move the TV to the side our chairs were on and vise versa thinking it may be warmer. Our front room is COLD and where my chair was there was a direct path. I freeze all the time without any help... so perhaps this will be a good move? The dog is currently wandering around doing all he can to get my attention. He is jumping up on my knee. When that didn't work he backed up and started sitting up on his hind legs. Next he starts talking to me... What is his problem? I think he is out of sorts because the room is all messed up and Darrel and I are not where we usually are so therefore he doesn't know what to do with himself. This little guy is all about routine, things being where they are supposed to be and being with us. He just plopped himself down at my feet completely down on his belly, head down, legs out... this is known as the pouting position... as in "why is no one paying attention to me... " OR "I can't believe Darrel went to town without me." It works for both things...

I am now on VACATION people. SO happy about that!!! Technically I was on vacation for an hour before Darrel was because I thought he would like never finish this job he has been working on. But now.. we our officially on 11 days together. yay!!! He got home and we started off vacation with China Wok for dinner. YUM. Very good stuff. Soon as the room is together I plan to do some crocheting.. followed by some sleeping in. Sound like a good plan?





















Here are a couple more Christmas pictures for you. This is Lauryn. She drew this awesome picture and framed it as a gift for my parents. How cool is that? I feel awfully proud especially since I think I may have bought her some of her first drawing pencils and a sketchbook. I loved art in school and she seemed to enjoy my sketchbook so I have had fun getting her some of her own supplies over the years. But wow... she got really good when I wasn't looking. Impressive huh?





















This is Ethan. Can you guess what Ethan got for Christmas? I think Grandma picked out the biggest Nerf gun the store had. This thing has its own ammo belt. I am quite familiar with this gun. Why? Um our Youth Pastor has one... and on occasion I see the little Nerf bullets come flying out of his office at someone. Perhaps Ethan has some youth pastoring in his future? I could totally see that. :)

Well time to jump back in to furniture moving... Stay tuned for vacation adventures... hopefully I'll have something more to share than "today we sat on the couch and read a book..." although at the moment that does not sound all that unappealing! Ha! Blessings!

A Bit More Christmas...

So where were we? Oh yeah... Christmas.. jewelry boxes.. right? Well since the girls both had the same gift we had them open them together. I mean if you both have the same size box and one opens hers you usually get a pretty good idea of what yours is right? So here are Lauryn & Lindsay opening their gifts together. They loved them. It was Darrel's idea months and months ago to make these for the girls. He saw a picture in one of his woodworking magazines I think and he took it from there.














He asked me if I thought the girls would like them, which I did. We both thought they were old enough to appreciate his efforts plus Lauryn is sentimental like that and has always made me feel so good about anything I've made for her and Lindsay is quite fond of her Uncle Darrel so I figured he'd have a hit either way. Turns out we were right! I was hoping they would be kind of an heirloom or keepsake kind of thing. With that in mind, Darrel wrote on the bottom of each one saying who it was for and "love, Uncle Darrel" and then the date.














So glad he did this! I love, love the little trays! Darrel made those out of wood he salvaged from a pallet! He is good! Even though it got stressful at the end finding the time to get all of this done I think we both felt it was well worth it and it was nice to get to see him get to do a project he enjoyed so much.















We headed to Mom's right after church on Sunday. The plan was that Dad would arrive by 3 or so and then we would have dinner. We also had my 2nd cousin (I think... I always get confused on how that works) and her husband and baby coming. We had not seen her for years! They got there for dinner as well and we all ate together. Mom had lots of yummy stuff including ham, turkey breast and roast beef. YUM. My Dad gets these great spiral hams in Detroit. I am thinking I need him to bring us one again sometime soon!















My cousin Jessie is down near the end on the left in front of the fridge. She looks SO MUCH like her mother. Her baby is a total cutie too!














This is the baby, Brianna with my brother. We all had fun passing her around! I was holding her in front of the mirror in one of the bedrooms and got her to giggling and that got me to giggling.... why is it such an amazing thing to get a baby laughing like that? So glad we got to spend time with them!

After dinner we had our gift time. My sister had my name and she got me this great charm for my bracelet that I've been wanting! My Mom and Dad got me this one which was also on my wish list! Love it! My bracelet is looking pretty awesome and I love, love that dangling heart! They also gave me these Nike earphones for my ipod! No more ear buds falling out of my ears while I am walking. That ought to lower my stress level... the right one on my apple ear buds falls out constantly and drives me nuts! I had not even thought to put that on my wish list yet my Mom thought of it! Good job Mom! I have more Christmas pictures to share but I figured I's spread them out a bit so you don't get computer overload... ha!

This week I've pretty much been on my own at the office. You'd think this could possibly be a good thing because when its quiet you can get a lot done. However... by this afternoon 2 of my emails (that I wrote) consisted almost entirely of animated smiley faces... I was thinking perhaps this was not a good sign and that maybe too much alone time was getting to me! ha! I also decided though that having the office to one's self also means you can crank up the heat without cooking the Pastor! See... my office is the coldest and normally if we turn the heat up enough for me to be warm, well then Pastor Mark's office which is by far the warmest becomes rather sauna like... I do OK though because I have a little space heater under my desk and um lots of warm socks and shoes. It was so sweet.. a week or so ago when I got there the little heater was already on. I worried it had gotten left on but found out that Mark had thought to turn it on for me before I got there to start warming up my office! How sweet was that?

There are some great crops coming up this spring. Been starting to hear about dates. First there is the Crop for the Cure in Evansville on Feb 27th and again on March 13th. I went to the earlier one last year. I was sick that day which was a bummer, but we still had a good time. Been thinking of going again. I am wondering if any of my scrapping buddies are wanting to go? Lori? Kim? Heather? You guys going? Are the SISF girls going? I believe the Doodlebug girls will be there! After that there is the Crop for the Cure in Terre Haute on April 3rd. I liked this one last year too. It actually had a bigger area for the crop which made for a less cramped work space which I liked. You can never have enough cropping space right? Then the SISF girls are having their spring retreat April 16-18. Thinking about going for part of this... I have to figure out which things fit into the schedule and um the checkbook! Ha! If you are a blog reader and are attending any of these events please leave me a comment and let me know! I'm all about having lots of cropping buddies! :) Have you also heard about the Scrapbook Retreat at the French Lick Springs Hotel? Info is here. It is on Jan 15 & 16. I've thought about going to this but not sure we can swing the cash right after Christmas and we have vacation time right before then and not sure how that would work either. Anyway.. please leave that comment if you are attending anything! :)

As for that vacation... starts tomorrow at 5 pm! I am SO ready and SO looking forward to it. My husband is too. Life has been stressful and he especially has been working himself silly! We are really looking forward to some quiet time together. We aren't even sure what our plans are at this point, just happy to be off! Ha! The most pressing thing we are trying to figure out at the moment is what to do for New Years Eve? Do we stay home and get a yummy pizza or do we go out? We haven't been out on New Years Eve in years but the idea is somewhat appealing to me this year. We could go to the Big City or to our favorite La Caretta maybe? Not sure... isn't there some sort of Watermelon drop thing in Vincennes? Anyone?

Better head for bed so I can get that last work day wrapped up! Got almost all the Christmas Decs. down today so that is done! Plan to get them out of the house tomorrow and get furniture moved and we are done! Then... vacation begins! I am hoping to finish my DDA, work on some challenges that have started over at The Scrapping Spot, do some reading and yes.. even some crocheting! Um I am thinking lots of sleeping in and being completely lazy sounds good too.... Hope you have an awesome New Years Eve, Eve! :) Blessings!

On the fourth day of Christmas...

Oh wait.. we already had that didn't we? Well it felt like the 4th day of Christmas today with this long holiday weekend. We had spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with family, but did not actually have our Christmas dinner and open gifts until today when my Dad got home. I have lots of pictures to share and tell you about.















Especially these...These are what Darrel has been working so hard on. He made jewelry boxes for 2 of our nieces. I think he has plans in the future to do them one at a time for our other nieces too.... It was a lot of work but look how lovely they turned out. Each box has 3 removable trays which he also made. Very cool and more perfect work I am sure you could not find! They are beautiful. I think I need to get my name on the list for one huh? I have some other pics of the girls opening them and lots of other stuff but it is too late to post and share everything tonight. The picture up top was Darrel working this afternoon while we were waiting for dinner. He has some big deadlines this week so every minute counts. Isn't he cute while he is working?

I am determined and I do mean DETERMINED to get back on track eatingwise this week. This past week has been my worst week of eating in the past 21 months. I think I mentioned that. I mean I swear if one could have a food hangover... well then I had one by Friday night. I went to bed bloated and sick and nauseous... Did not like what the scale was telling me Sat. morning and spent a lot of the rest of the day kicking myself for being so stupid! I do NOT have the luxury of saying "oh, it's Christmas... I'll think about my eating tomorrow..." Telling myself things like that is a great way to put the pounds back on.... NOT take them off. It is SO HARD to get the pounds off and man SO EASY for them to come right back on. I wish I had made better choices. I could have still eaten what I wanted... it was the HOW MUCH I wanted that was the problem. I so hope I can remember this and do better next time. I spent 64 minutes on the treadmill Saturday trying to get back on my routine. I had to miss today but I WILL be right back on it tomorrow. I promise you, God and myself... I will do what it takes because I WILL go forward. I refuse to go back ... ever... I'd rather die first...

If that didn't make Saturday happy enough... there was a dream I had Friday night that is still hanging around bugging me. Do you usually remember your dreams? Well I don't. Normally when I wake up some sense of the dream might be there but very quickly the details vanish and I just cannot grasp them. This one was different. Can still see and remember details. As some of you might know Darrel and I are unable to have children. We've dealt with infertility for the past 20+ years. At this point in our lives we are OK with that. We have accepted it, we place it in God's hands and if it does or doesn't happen, that is up to God. We love each other, our marriage, our life together and we are very happy. Most days this subject no longer brings tears and sadness although there are moments, times like Mom's Day or baby dedications at church where we still have a weak moment. That ache although healed mostly and OK mostly may never completely go away. So back to the dream... I had a dream I/we had a baby. I only remember 1 other time, years ago, having a dream like this. This one was different though. I remember holding her. She had a name, Emma Grace. I remember in the dream thinking... "so this is what this is like, having a child..." I remember thinking in the dream "is this a dream? Please don't let this be a dream..." Only to wake up and find it was a dream. It was so real. I woke up hurting and sad. I told Darrel about it and cried about it and for all of yesterday and today I can hardly start talking about it without crying again. There was a new little one at church today. Her name is Emma... guessing that is where that came from in my dream huh? I couldn't go over and see her this morning. Feeling guilty about that. My cousin came today to have Christmas with us. She has a 6 month old, Brianna. I held her and played with her... but a couple times looking at her across the room and there were the tears again... Very hard... I found myself maybe even mad at God and questioning why he would allow me to have such a dream when all it does is hurt. But you know what? Either I trust Him and choose to live in faith or I don't. Maybe he is telling me about things to come. Maybe it was just a bunch of random thoughts from different events that came together and created that dream. Maybe He is telling me there is still pain there I need to deal with. I don't know. I do know I trust Him and He loves me and has good plans for me and I choose to trust Him, have to trust Him especially when its hard and doesn't make sense to me. It isn't always going to make sense to me because I am not God and I can't see the big picture like He can.

I plan to try and post tomorrow to share some more Christmas pics and details. We have 3 work days till vacation time! YAY!!!! Thinking I might try and get Christmas stuff put away before then? We will see what time permits. I want to set some goals and do some thinking about the new year and start off on a right and good foot!! Blessings!

Christmas Wrap Up

So... what was the last thing I posted? Oh yeah... Tuesday.. Santa's Surprise cookies... work... stress... I remember now. So Wednesday was a work day too. LOTS to get done to be ready for Christmas. I did well though and if memory serves I think I walked out of the building promptly at 5 PM. Darrel on the other hand... not so much. He worked till 5 (which is an hour OT) and then headed to a friend's house to borrow a router. The much worked on, much anticipated Christmas gifts require a router and Darrel's had broken mid project. Friend number 1 had lent him 2... and 1 of them wouldn't turn on and the other would not fit in his router table and it needed to. So friend #2 sent a 3rd router home with him which finally did the job. I was TIRED and not in the mood for doing a whole lot dinnerwise so Darrel brought home some yummy Chinese with him. That was a good idea. Afterwards, I had left 1 specific batch of cookies till last because Darrel had wanted to make them together. This was the only Christmas baking we got to do together, we usually do more. He had too much going on with work and the Christmas gift project. Here he is taking the first batch of sugar cookies off the sheet. So good! This recipe has 1 C. of oil and 1 C. of powdered sugar which give them this cool melt in your mouth quality.















After the cookies, I was still way tired but for some reason convinced myself I needed to make toffee... I love eating homemade toffee... Making it? Um not so much! It is stinkin' hard and LONG. Lot's of stirring and waiting for it to get to the right temp. and then a very short window to get the stuff spread out before it turns into a rock in your pan! I always get all my stuff ready in advance. One ingredient is slivered almonds which go in the toffee part... I was so intent on getting the mixture off the stove at 290 degrees... I got it all spread in the pan only to find out I FORGOT TO PUT THE ALMONDS IN. I was SO mad at myself. Can I just manage to make this one time and get it right? Well I went ahead and put the chocolate and pecans on top and after kicking myself for like an hour.... OK, maybe a day.... tasted it. Guess what? It was still good and the toffee itself ... perfect!




















Earlier on Wednesday my friend Lisa had stopped in at work to exchange gifts. Look what she made for me! How cool is that candle?! She put the image on the front. Isn't that neat? I asked her how she did it and am not remembering at the moment but it was something about printing your image... maybe on tissue paper? And then using your heat gun to transfer it to the candle. She also made this beautiful ornament. Love the old book paper and vintage seam binding.





















Wednesday night before bed I took this picture of our tree. I thought it was pretty and all glowy and I think all the gifts are still under there.
















Christmas Eve we headed over to my parent's to spend the day together. Darrel snapped this picture of us. I am bummed because its a bit blurry... but I still like it so I am going with it. I don't think photoshop will sharpen it that much will it? We spent the day visiting and enjoying the Christmas goodies.















Here was a 2nd try, but I liked our expressions better in the first one. Then of course he had to take one just of me. Actually I ended up liking it...





















We will just ignore the squinty eye... That drives me nuts. That eye is the one that had cataract surgery and as a result, there is some droopiness to that eyelid that they said was a possible side effect of the surgery. Grrr... It bugs me but I try to ignore it since the only fix is surgery we'd have to pay for.














It is a tradition for us to make homemade pizzas for dinner. Jim (my brother-in-law) and I usually end up sharing a pizza so we can add things like green pepper, onion and jalapeno. Everyone else is boring with just sausage and pepperoni or some combination of the two.





















Here is our nephew Cole modeling his school letter jacket! He is a freshman and there are either very very few or zero freshman that have lettered. Cool huh? Cole works with the football and basketball teams in a management type position.















After dinner Darrel and I got ready for Church which started at 10 PM. This was everyone sitting around the table playing some games Stacy brought. I think Darrel won? Maybe?















So glad we got to go to Christmas Eve service. We got to sing with choir, I did a solo and Darrel and I did the advent reading. OK... funny thing about the advent reading. First, Pastor Mark told everyone we were going to light the unity candle rather than the advent candle.. I told him we could do that too. Then, Darrel and I had it all worked out that he would read the first 1/2, I'd read the 2nd 1/2, I'd light the 5 candles and then he'd do the prayer. Well when I turned around to light the candles I immediately saw my dilemma. Um the middle unity candle was too tall... I got to giggling and said to Darrel (yes quietly) "um short people can't see the candle...." Since the candle hadn't been used before I figured the wick would be up top right? Um nope... wick was burned down in a bit so I couldn't see if I had the lighter anywhere near it. Darrel giggles and starts giving me like traffic directions to light the candle.... Somehow I managed to get the job done. Still makes me chuckle....














After church we headed home to do our gifts. Remember... I am a night person people. I enjoy gifts much more at um midnight then I do at anything AM.... We always start with our stockings. My husband is a Star Wars fan... OK a huge Star Wars fan so I decided he needed a light saber and that it would be funny to put one in his stocking. As you can see... he thought this was quite funny too... I told him when I was playing with it in the store I could not get the blue part out... My sister and I were laughing our heads off because I told her apparently I was not a Jedi.....




















OK, I am being very brave here and sharing one pic of me in my long johns and PJ's... Remember... long johns are my new best friend. I think I was opening this necklace Darrel gave me.
















Isn't it pretty! I love, love, love it and am currently wearing it! He also gave me a new charm for my bracelet. This one is my birthstone (ruby).
















Here is a picture of all that was in my stocking and my gifts... Santa was very nice to me.















My gifts were a Vera messenger bag, Designing Women Season 1 DVD's, an EK success border punch, my necklace, a charm for my bracelet and a Zutter corner rounder (it does chipboard!) In my stocking he had all kinds of good stuff like um GODIVA and a Vera Lanyard, nail files, pretty pink CHI nail polish, scrap stuff and Bath & Body stuff.















This is Darrel's gifts from me. Mostly tools and woodworking tools plus a GPS and a Leatherman Micra that he wanted. He got cashews and Dove peanut butter chocolates too.














This is our little dog Tanner trying to make sure he isn't missing any fun. We bought Tanner 8 years ago on Christmas Eve. I think that is the longest we have ever had a pet.

I loved all my gifts but am considering exchanging the messenger bag. I love it, but its bigger than I thought. I might see if I can get the new mail bag style instead. I LOVE the paprika pattern though. So pretty!!















Took this picture on Christmas Day on our way back to Mom & Dad's. Darrel was trying out his new GPS. Very fun. We had never used one before so it was cool to play with for the first time.

So now it's Sunday and we have been to church and are now at Mom & Dad's again. We are having our Christmas Day today since Dad just got home. He has been at work in Detroit. We left all of our family gifts till today and Mom has lots of yummy things cooking like Roast Beef, Ham and Turkey! Yum. It is also snowing outside! Wow. I need to go get a picture. We have a busy busy few days ahead, but after that we have some vacation time coming. Can't wait... I am needing a break... nearing that burn out point where I turn into a mean little old Deanna.... and um none of us want that. :) Blessings!

On the 22nd Day of Christmas....

We discovered perhaps the BEST cookie ever. OH MY GOODNESS are these good.... wow... Good thing I didn't make these first, they might all be gone by now... These are called Santa's Surprise. I got the recipe from this blog. Don't remember how I had arrived at that blog? Someone had linked it for the cookie recipe blog hop. So glad they did!! I've been going to make these for days but had not been getting home soon enough and remembering that I needed to do this first because the dough has to chill for 2-3 hours before you form the cookies.















After the chilling is done, you form little balls, flatten, and then wrap that around a mini snickers. I thought this might be hard and/or tedious but it actually worked quite well... Plus.. what on earth did I ever do without my pampered chef stainless steel scoops? I love those things. I have 3 sizes and I NEVER make cookies without them or without parchment paper. My 2 favorite things for perfect cookies. The parchment paper means cookies never stick, never have burned edges, just perfectly browned cookies. You end up with all these little balls and the recipe says not to mess with them much until they cool or all the inside yumminess tends to spill out..... So, I just slid the parchment paper, cookies and all off the pan and moved on to pan #2. Well pan #2 was after Darrel got back from the store because 1 bag of mini snickers was nowhere near enough. After tasting these little treasures we are both very glad we decided to make the trip to the store and did not just settle for the peanut butter part on the ones that were left!















Since I still have melting/dipping chocolate I decided to go ahead and drizzle the cooled cookies with that... um very good decision. Only adds to the yumminess... trust me.. While waiting for batch #2 to bake and batch #1 to cool I whipped up a cheese ball to take to my Mom's on Christmas Eve.














Really have had a taste for this lately. Why? Because we bought a cheese ball at the South Knox craft show a few weeks back and have been enjoying that plus a sweet lady at church brought a cheese ball for the staff yesterday and it has also been quite yummy. Hope mine turned out as good. Always worry I got too much or too little onions and garlic. I think it looks pretty in my antique bubble dish... love those dishes. Can a cheese ball be pretty?

Made decent progress at work today. Lots to do tomorrow but I think I will get done at a reasonable hour. Darrel on the other hand may have to like live at the office next week to meet his deadline. He is currently out working on his woodworking project making the last cuts before the final stages of gluing and adding the poly. Can't wait to show you what he made. It is SO cool and he is good... but of course we all already knew that right? I am going to go and see if I can fit in a little DDA time before bed as I am getting steadily more behind here.... Hope you are having a blessed Christmas week! Blessings! Let's close thinking about what Christmas is all about... Can't you just hear Linus reciting this? Love Charlie Brown Christmas!

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:8-11)

Dear Reeses People.... Otherwise Known as... On the 21st Day of Christmas

Dear Reeses people... What is wrong with this picture? It was bad enough when you stopped making your little box of Reeses miniatures which caused me to have to resort to buying the bag of mini's. Your bag is not as good. In the box, the little cups only had the paper liner to remove which was ideal when you needed the whole box for cookies. No foil liner to have to deal with... I liked the box. I miss the box... Sigh..... Time is of the essence you see when you need to quickly unwrap 40 cups to quickly place in 40 still warm cookies.... However... NOW not only do I have to deal with the bag and said foil wrappers... NOW I make my Peanut Butter Temptations Cookies only to find there are no longer enough mini's in a bag to put in the middle of 40 said cookies.. I have never had to buy 2 bags.... To further confuse me I turn over your bag and what do I see but the recipe for Peanut Butter Temptations... makes 40 cookies....which further leads me to believe 1 bag will do the trick! Hmmmm Is there a peanut butter cup conspiracy? See because now I have 6, count them SIX Peanut Butter Temptation cookies without the temptation part! What's fun about a peanut butter cup cookie with NO peanut butter cup? Since I am still paying the same price for my bag of mini's couldn't you please put back in the missing cups? This will make my life much easier next Christmas.... I've been in the kitchen for a few days now and um friend's are starting to worry about me when I go to facebook to rant about my missing cups... Stress is chasing after me quite enough on it's own thank you... I do not need stress from my cookies...

Sincerely, Cupless in Indiana......














OK.. I feel better now.. But, now you are probably all worried about me right? I may seriously be losing it. Today was NOT a good day. Well, OK, it has it's moments. Let's start with the good stuff. Today Pastor Mark took the staff to a "Staff Christmas Lunch" and it just happened to be at my favorite La Caretta! LIKED that. Also today I got 2 Christmas presents! I love presents... oh right, sorry, you knew that. See my friend Kay got me this!

How cool is that?! It is currently sitting on my desk. I love it. A pink cross. Kay was quite proud of herself I think for finding it... and rightfully so! She did good! Pastor Mark (besides lunch) also gave us one of those Microwave heating pad things. I love those and have almost bought myself one at Covered Bridge like 19 times. Not only that, mine has pink flowers on it and was picked out for me for that reason. I have great friends don't I? I just love them. Let's think of other good things... Darrel came home and hugged me and listened to me whine about the stressful stuff. I got another batch of cookies made! I rehearsed my song for the first time (and Um I sing on Thurs....) and it did not sound terrible... Although I was annoyed and mad when I came home... I still walked 46 min. on the treadmill and I felt better after too. I finished my book while on the treadmill too. Good book although it had a sad ending that I did NOT see coming...

Now.. the bad would be the stress Darrel is under at work and all he is trying to get done at home with 2 gifts that he is making. See that is bad because now I am also feeling stressed and we have an agreement that we can only be stressed one at a time! Ha!! Kidding.. but wouldn't life be easier if that were true? See right now is not my turn to be stressed. The last 2 hours at work were enough stress for the rest of the week. Trust me. My e-mail was not working correctly the whole darn day and kept refusing to send group emails and was driving me NUTS. Plus... all day long I was not liking my hair, my eye was bugging me... I was not liking my face... was not happy with the outfit I chose... just felt YUCK... then we took the picture for staff lunch and I looked at that and saw the girl from 87 lbs ago... NOT happy about that. Why can I look at one picture and see improvement and then next time feel like I'm looking at the old me again? I am thinking I still need some work on my head... um thinking... Then at home the dog is having serious ear issues. He cannot help it and I feel bad for the little guy.. however, this does not help when he is having a constant tizzy because his ear itches and he is having little fits rubbing his ear all over everything.. not good when my patience ran out sometime after lunch...

Then there was the eating today. TOO MUCH FOOD. Lunch obviously was much heavier than normal so I planned to do a light dinner. I did pretty good and just had a left over chicken breast sandwich... but then... there was the cheeseball calling my name from the fridge and um the cake balls... I might have eaten um 4..... Gee do we think I am a stress/comfort eater? Gee no... of course not... This is not mentioning the candy at the office, or the cookies someone brought in... I might have had a turtle or two and 1 cookie. Now my stomach is too full and I feel bloated and yucky and ANNOYED with myself... So... lets just get this straight right now... I REFUSE to gain weight over the holidays. I am going to remember how I am feeling right now and NOT do this again.... you believe me right? I am soooo NOT going up in weight. I'd rather eat no goodies. It's toooo stinkin hard to take it off to be going the other direction. I haven't even gone the other direction... I just know myself and know the potential so lets just put a stop to it right now OK?

So... how is that for a cheery Christmas post huh? So choosing a new attitude for the rest of the week. Darrel made good progress on his wood working project. Although work was stressful I made decent progress on the newsletter and tomorrow will be better. I am determined... Are you with me?

On the 20th Day of Christmas

What a good day! OK... seriously I am really tired and a little nauseous at this point... but it was still a really good day! We started off at church. I got to be on praise team today which I really enjoy and we sang "Offering" which is a favorite song so had some fun with that! We also had a Men's Choir today. They were awesome. See my sweet husband in there singing?

Here is the whole group. They sang O Holy Night and it was so good. Just makes me smile to see a group of men up front of church singing their hearts out to Jesus. LOVE that. Gives me chills and goosebumps!













OK... I have to brag on my friend Lori. Lori is awesome. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know and is so caring and generous and kind. She takes the time to really know people and care about them and she just blesses me so much. I do not say all of that because of the awesome gift she gave me. I say that because it is so true. She did however give me this amazing gift today. The attention she pays to detail amazes me. Not only is most of the gift pink.. the gift bag was pink, there was pink tissue paper, there was pink wrapping paper with little snowflakes and snowmen and kitties on it! How perfect is that? In the gift was this beautiful cross stitch that she did herself and look at the glass!!! She did that too!!! Then... look at the coaster. That is a crocheted wool coaster that she felted. You should see it in person. It is SO cool!! Then there is a pink cap to turn your pop can into a bottle and a little ornament scrapbooking person that has on a pink shirt and it has my name on it! She said it reminded her of us when we go to crops with all our stuff! So true!! There is a tin of mints. The tin is pink and has a little scrapbooker on it. There is DIET PEPSI lip gloss!!!! Um we all know I am a diet pepsi girl! Then last but not least there is a Lia Sophia necklace. Lori has a necklace like this that I love!! She has worn it to crops when we all have our pink shirts on and I comment on it every time. I love that necklace and now I have one! Not only did she think of the necklace, she thought of an extender which is perfect. Lori I am so touched and overwhelmed by your gift! You are so kind and you blessed me today and I thank you so so much.















Another gift I received today was from my friend Julia. Look at this pretty ornament. I love the red birds because it makes me think of Darrel's Mom and also because we have a pair of cardinals that live in our yard and I just love to watch them. The ornament also reminds me of a snowglobe which is something else we love!













After church we hit the favorite La Caretta. We got our favorite waiter too. The first thing he said to us after hello and how are you was 2 diet cokes, cheese sauce and jalapenos? Yep!! I love it that he knew what we wanted before we told him. Perhaps we can get a booth there with our name on it huh? Would you believe I get to go there tomorrow too? Pastor Mark is taking the staff there for Staff Christmas lunch! Yay!

When we got home I got back to baking and first off I made my cake balls. Oh my gosh! These are soooo good. I had never made them before and I had only tasted them once. YUM. They are the bottom right in the photo. I dipped 1/2 in white and 1/2 in chocolate and drizzled both colors over both kinds. Darrel had not had them before and he is now a huge fan! Ha!! He already told me we should be careful about taking too many anywhere because they will be gone. Ha ha ha ha... I also made cowboy cookies! I've not made these in a few years. They are actually a jar recipe where you put all the dry ingredients layered in a jar to give as a gift. Then the person just adds melted butter, eggs and vanilla, mix and bake! Viola! Here is the recipe. I doubled the batch today and used a larger scoop for some nice big chewy yummy cookies. Love the combo of the oats, pecans and chocolate chips. After getting that done, I cut up my fudge from yesterday to put together some gifts for the other staff at church.















The girls get the pink and green tins and the others are for the guys. They each get a tin full of Million Dollar Fudge (that is pretty much the recipe I use except mine has twice the chocolate chips) and then 2 cake balls are in a little bag on top. Hope they like it! They came out cute huh?

Santa Darrel has been here.... he finished wrapping my gifts yesterday. Do you remember last year when I told you there is always, always something peeking out the top or hanging off of my stocking? Well look! How cute is this little snowman! You should see Darrel come out of the bedroom where he was doing his wrapping carrying this..... huge grin on his face cause he can't wait to see me, see the stocking and he was quite proud of himself. He prides himself on stuffing it as full as possible... don't you just love him? PLUS.... see the 2 gold wrappers peeking out the top near the back? Those are GODIVA biscuits... That means Godiva shortbread cookies dipped in Godiva chocolate... YUM....

With that I am going to have to close. My eyes are currently having some sort of attack and seeing is um not so good.... I have chronic dry eye for which I have plugs in the tear ducts in both eyes... and sometimes it flares up and they get itchy and inflamed and I've got the whole deal happening here in like the last 1/2 hour. Not sure what is up with that? I am BEHIND on DDA. I've got my pics printed, but have not completed a page since last Wed. Now what do you think the chances are that I'll get all my office work done tomorrow, plus my walking, plus some baking, plus um dinner... plus work on DDA? Slim to none? Guess we shall see! Blessings & Merry Christmas!!

On the 18th & 19th Day of Christmas

This picture is from date night.... does that give you any indication of how date night was? We got all the way to the big city last night and had not even discussed where we wanted to eat. We had been talking about our day and then I had been reading and before we knew it... we had arrived. As we were talking about just going to Logan's again, I was thinking about how we seem to get in a rut and go to the same 2-3 places and never try anything new. It was about that time we passed Raffi's. We quickly decided to give it a try. It was a little pricey (think Red Lobster) but it was good. Nice atmosphere too although it was cold and I was wishing for a seat by the fireplace. I had my coat over my lap the whole time we were there so I didn't freeze! It is basically an Italian place but with steak and shrimp dishes also. I had the shrimp scampi and Darrel had Chicken Parmesan. Both things were offered with potatoes or veggies on the side OR you could get a side of pasta. We both got the pasta, angel hair, with meat sauce. It was good. As much as I liked the scampi, I am thinking I'd get just the pasta next time. You also got rolls and salad. Salad was like Olive Garden but better. Then there was dessert. Darrel had a Chocolate Torte. I had this... I have no memory of what it was called. It was really good chocolate and the outside there is like white/milk chocolate coating. Inside was like a cake and mousse mix. It was really creamy and good.

After that we headed for Woodcraft because Darrel 1) likes it there and 2) needed a few things for a gift he is working on. Next we headed to Hobby Lobby because I am making some fudge for a few gifts and wanted some Christmas containers to put it in. They had all that kind of stuff marked 1/2 price! Like that. Plus they had ribbon that said things like "Christ is Born" and "Happy Birthday Jesus!" LOVED that! We also got some of those white and chocolate melting chocolate wafers. Needed those for some holiday baking! YUM.




















Next it was on to the mall. Why? Just because. We are done with our shopping and it was fun just to walk around and browse. We hit bath and body and got a couple of hand soaps on sale. We try to get one new ornament every year and this year we decided on this Willow Tree Ornament. It made us think of Gracie! Plus, I will probably leave this sit out with my other figurines during the year. Isn't it sweet? It's called "with affection" which is perfect for our very affectionate and affection loving cat. I did see this pair of Ugg boots in a couple different stores. I am wondering if they would be as warm as they look. I am all about warm feet these days. Anyone have these? Pricey! Not sure I care to pay that much for them. Hoping maybe there will be a good after Christmas sale? We ended the evening at Schnucks to pick up some baking ingredients I needed for today. I love Schnucks! They have everything. We need one of those in Petersburg. Where do I put in my vote for that?














Today Darrel had to work again. He has some deadlines at the end of the year which are coming up quickly, especially with holiday's in the next two weeks. Between work and working on his gift project I have not been seeing too much of him and am missing him! We are however very thankful for the hours and are doing fine and making the best of it. While he was doing that I got my walking done first thing. It was pretty wet out so I decided to stay indoors since I still have this sinus, head cold thing going on just a bit. After that I had some fun mail to open! LOOK at my gift from the stocking swap at The Scrapping Spot! Cathy sent me awesome stuff! Pink prima swirls and bling! Pink Avon shower gel and lotion, and a punch set I've been wanting! Plus there are 2 mini books, some candy and a pretty snowflake ornament that I already have hanging in my kitchen window. The stocking itself was gorgeous too!















This came today also. It is recycled silk yarn. It is GORGEOUS. I found the web site somehow when I was browsing for crochet patterns a few months back. It is here. I got the mixed berry color. I know... you are shocked. I am thinking I'll make this scarf which is a free pattern on their site. I haven't decided for sure. I may do a different scarf if I find a pattern I like better. I have been itching to crochet something so now I am eager to get started! You should see this yarn in person. It's so unique and feels so different than the regular stuff does. It came all wrapped up in the purple tissue paper and that yellow paper is a handwritten note/card saying thank you for my purchase. I love details like that.















About this time Darrel arrived home and I got him to take a nap. No, he didn't like need a time out. Ha! The poor guy was like running on fumes. He has been going non stop for several weeks. While he slept I started some holiday cooking/baking. I made fudge, I baked a cake to use tomorrow to make cake balls and I made this yummy stuff...














It's called Tiger Butter and I got the recipe from Nora Griffin on her blog here. It's 2 bags of the white melting chocolate mixed with a cup of peanut butter. You pour that in a wax paper lined cookie sheet and then melt a cup and a 1/2 of chocolate chips. Pour that on top and then marble it using a butter knife. Oh my goodness.. .this stuff is GOOD... It may be Darrel's new favorite thing. He likes chocolate and peanut butter together so I yelled for him to come and check it out when I was pouring it in the pan (he had been wrapping my gifts at this point). I should have taken his picture.. I mean I thought he was just going to stick his face in the bowl so he didn't miss a drop. Very cute. Going to make the actual cake balls tomorrow and then work on a couple batches of cookies I think. I'd like to make toffee at some point too. Love my own homemade toffee... is that a bad thing? I don't look forward to making it though. It's tricky. One false move and you can ruin it and I hate when that happens.

So now it's about time to hit bed for church in the morning. I am looking forward to church! We have some special stuff going on since its the Sun. before Christmas. Plus I am going to wear my new brown and blue outfit I wore to the Christmas party and in our card photo... I am like such a girl right to be excited to wear a particular outfit? Even did my nails this evening in the matching polish I bought. Hope to have some time tomorrow to work on the DDA too. I need to finish this past Wed. and then do my entries for Thurs, Fri and today and well tomorrow by tomorrow ha! Can you believe it's Christmas week? I've got lots of work to get done at the office before Thursday rolls around. Should probably get started on some of that tomorrow too. We shall see. Need to work on my song for Thursday night too. I'll be singing "Breath of Heaven."

Been thinking about things I want to do and get involved in for the new year. The Scrapping Spot is going to have a "use your stash" challenge I am thinking I'll do. I was also looking at this gratitude project. Might do that. I'd like to do something to set some goals again for the year. That has worked pretty well for me the past 2 years. The end of Feb. will be 2 years since I started on the whole weight loss thing. I am at 87 lbs lost now. I am wondering if I could reach 100 by my 2 year mark? I guess that will be up to God and up to me staying motivated and focused and doing my part. Sure will be cool to hit that number. Still trying to figure out something I can do or buy to commemorate that goal! Any ideas? Something like jewelry or something you'd use and/or see often as a reminder. Something lasting.. I am not a tattoo or needles kind of girl....if I was.. something like that would be perfect. But trust me on the NOT a needles kind of girl...

Better head for bed here soon. Hope your weekend and your CHRISTmas has been going awesome and that you have a blessed and peaceful time with your loved ones.