2007 in a Nutshell

This year has flown by! Once again I have managed to avoid hospitals this year. We have all done really well in the health department actually. We have not had to make significant donations to our docs!

My Kat became a legal adult. OMGee! She graduated from high school and started college. The latter is slowly putting us in debt!

Kari got her learner’s permit but has had zero time behind the wheel. She is so not interested in driving. Period. Came out just like her mommy! She would rather be driven around!

Danny & I knocked 2 things off from my “Things to do before I die” list.

First, we went to a taping of The Price is Right. Before Bob retired. I’ve been wanting to do that since I was about 7!

We also went to Hawaii! We had an amazing trip! And it was soooo worth going to the poor houseevery penny.

I’ve made more “cyber” friends, than “real life” friends. It’s all good!

I finally got a car that I really like! Call it my mid-life crisis car, I don’t care!

Resolutions for 2008? I think not. 2007’s were broken by February as predicted!

I hope you all have a happy & healthy 2008!

Egg Donor

I wasn't going to post about this because I was afraid that it would be read by someone that it shouldn't. But quite frankly, right now, I could care less.

I played Santa this year for the first time in many years. Yeah, my girls get presents. But we haven't actually had a believer in the house in a long time. My nephew stayed with us this Christmas because a) my brother had to work and b) because his mother had better things to do than to spend the holidys with her child! Let me stress that this woman has never spent a holiday with him. She has never taken him trick or treating. Never taken him on vacation. Oh, and the tooth fairy does not go to her house. He is simply a tax benefit to her.

My brother is a flight attendant and got stuck working from the 22nd - the 25th. He picked my nephew up when he arrived from a trip on the 19th. Then dropped him off at my house on the 21st. Why am I telling you this? Well, today is the 28th and his mother egg donor has yet to call him! Or call anyone to see if he's ok. Almost 10 freakin' days! The worst part is that he called her today to see if she was going to pick him up. She told him no. Because her car is not workin! Huh? My brother has to go back to work on Sunday. Guess who the child is spending New Years with? Yeah, my bother could easily drop him off at her house, but we worry that she will leave him home alone so that she can go out and party! He spends 95% of the year with either my brother, my mom or me. Yet she has primary custody because she is the mom, and I use that word loosely!

She has missed all the milestones in his life. She has been blessed with a beautiful & loving little boy and she takes him for granted. Yet there are many out there who yearn for what she has and can't have.

Ok, I'll step down from my soapbox now!

No Longer a Granny!!!

I am a big girl now! I can bowl! With one hand! I don't have to do it granny style anymore. I don't have to worry about my fingers tearing off my hand when I let go of the ball. Oh, and I don't have to wear funny looking shoes that have bee worn by a gazillion strangers. I can even bowl barefoot. Wii rocks!

Feels like I have been on my feet for 5 days straight. My body is killing me! We had Christmas Eve dinner at my sister- in-law's house. Then Christmas was spent with family & friends here a our house. Yummy ham & lots & lots of sweet! Yeah, my brief aversion to sweets is over! Thing is that between my Bakingpalooza, the stuff I had to make for the 24th, then getting ready for our little shindig, and of course cleaning up after.. my body feels like it was run over by a mack truck! Even today. I finished cleaning up yesterday, then vegged for the rest of the day. Plan on doing a little of the same today!


We got a Wii, so that's going to be fun. I'm not a gamer, but some of the games are quite fun! Plus some of them give you quite a work out.


I got my mom & my uncle a photo book from MyPublisher.com. It was a big hit. I used photos from my grandfather's scrapbook ( I guess that's who I get it from) which someone recently brought back from Cuba. These photos range from about 1920 or so til about 1950 or so. The quality of the pictures is not the best. Time does that unfortunately. But the book turned out beautifully! I highly recommend My Publisher. It's super easy to work with and the service is quick!


I also have been keeping up with sweet Julian. I am so happy that he was able to enjoy Christmas. My heart breaks for him & his family. He is such a brave, sweet little boy. An inspiration to all of us. Please pray for him and his family. I am so happy that they got their Christmas Miracle. Mimi shared a sweet video of her king! If the link does not work, his care page is JuliansWorld.

Scrap Goodies!

Ok Ladies, here is a contest that is for stuff that I will actually use! Check out Jody's, (Iowa Geek), fabulous giveaway! I love scrap goodies! Head on over, check it out & tell her I sent you! Good luck!

Never again!

That is what I say every year after BakingPalooza! My body hurts, my feet are swollen and my love of sweets is forever gone. I spent the ENTIRE freakin' day in the kitchen! Six different types of cookies, brownies, rum cakes, merengues, & Chocolate Pretzels. PLUS 4 batches of Creme de Vie. The recipe is below. this is not your typical egg nog! The calories are quadrupled I'm sure! Then I pour into these little frapp bottles (which look waaaay cuter in peron) to include with the treat plates. All this in an effort to make my friends fatties like me!

Creme de Vie

1 can condensed milk

1 can evaporated milk

6 egg yolks

2 cups sugar

1 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup rum

I make a simple syrup with the water and sugar but I add a cinnamon stick and lemon rind as well. Beat the yolks till creamy and then add the condensed milk. Then add the evaporated milk little by little. Once the syrup is cool add to the egg & milk mixture. Add vanilla & rum.

Keep in fridge. Serve in tiny cordial glasses A little goes a long way!

You can always add mmore rum if you like. I just don't like an over powering rum taste.

WW: Baby Powder Edition

Victim

Culprit

For more WW participants, stop by the official WW Hub or 5 Minutes for Mom

Stuff Collector

I have admitted in the past that I am somewhat of a hoarder. To an extent. I LOVE me a good bargain and sometimes when Target has their 90% off, although I may not need something at the moment, I will probably need it eventually. So in my cart it goes. Then it's time to find a place to store the stuff. Beacause unlike typical hoarders, I can't stand messiness.

I also hoard scrapbook suff. Tons of stuff that I have not created anything with in ages! Especially since I have discovered a new love. One that I will share with ou after the holidays.

So, aside from my hoarding. I actually collect stuff. Stuff that is actually not considered part of my hoarding crap.

I collect decorative eggs. I've been collecting eggs since around 1997 or so. I get a new one at least once a year. I tried to get Danny to buy this one for me, but he refused. Cheapo! Here is my curio with my eggs. Cleaning it is a pain in the a$$ chore, but it has to be done. I took a picture from the side so I would not come out in the pic.

I also collect magnets from the places we trave to. This is the refrigerator in the garage.

I have also started collecting 2 other items wthin the last 2 years or so.

Small boxes & perfume bottles.

Even Danny collects something. He always picks up a shot glass or 2 when we travel.

He just does not have a place to display them yet.

So, what do you collect???

Welcome to Our Home!

This year I cut back a bit on our decorating a bit. We are having the exterior of our home painted, so the exterior is not decorated. And at this late date, it definitely will not get done. If we go through all that trouble, dagnabit, it will be up for at least a month! They have been painting for the past 2 weeks and they still are not finished! I'm not upset... really. We also usually put up two 3ft pre lit trees in the family room, but the stupid lights burned out on one completely and the other is 1/2 & 1/2 so I didn't want to deal with fixin' that.

So, without further ado...

This is our big fat fakey tree. I just noticed an empty hole on it and it is really annoying me! Can't see it by just looking at it but is very obvious in the picture. As soon as I am done here, I'm gonna go fix that!

These next pictures are of my foyer area. I didn't decorate my door this year either. This has been a very slow year for Christmas cards. Must be the increased cost to mail. Notice my fakey poinsettias. Hey, at least I can't kill those! Plus when I first got them, Danny asked if I had watered them! So they must look somewhat real.

Here is my staircase. I'm using my little camera, so the pics are not that great. I'll try to take new ones later. We don't have a mantle, so our stockings are hung on the staircase with care.

And finally, some of my tabletop stuff. Actually just 2. I also have a really cute fiber optics village thingy, that was one of my great Target deals at 90% off, but I can't get a good picture of it. The nativity scene is a musical snow globe and the other is on my coffee table, those candles have never been lit!

Thanks for stopping by!

And I hope you have a very

Happy & Healthy Holiday!

Let the baking begin!

It's time for Bakingpalooza here in my house. The actual baking wll not get done till Wednesday of next week. But the headache preparing starts today. First stop, the grocery store then another stop at the baking supply store because my grocery store sucks! Then over the weekend I start making a huge mess in my kitchen and get all my cookie doughs ready & in the fridge. I also make about 5 gallons of egg nog. Actually it's the cuban version of egg nog, with a french name (creme de vie) & gazillion calories. Then I will make about 1000 french meringues, just because I need something to do with all the left over egg whites.

Finally, on Wednesday, I will get everything baked, wrapped & distributed on Thursday! Oh, I also have to try everything to make sure tht they are not poisoned. :) And when I finally get my kitchen back in order, it's time to start all over again because we are having people over on Christmas day! Here is a picture of 1/2 of last years Bakingpalooza, click on it to zoom.

Perfect Fitting Jeans?

The ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom are holding another contest. This time, it's for something that I not only want but I also totally need! If you read my post about having to always alter my pants, you know what I mean! Plus, since I am currently at a size that I have never been, it would totally rock if I could win this. If only for the simple reason that I don't have to try on jeans at a store and cry in the fitting room.

So what is the prize you ask? Well, they are giving away $200 to spend at True Jeans. The jeans - and the jean fitting experts - come to us! We simply enter our measurements, and the computer lines up all the best jeans for us. True Jeans carries all the hottest denim designers and each pair is listed with a rating for how well they will fit us. All we have to do is pick. So head on over to 5 Minutes for Mom and enter!

My eyes hurt!

I may be blinded for life! It always amazes me what some women wear in public. If, and I stress IF, they can pull it off, fine. If they are young & fit, they can get away with it. Then you have what I see all too often. I'm talking about the "more mature" set. And I mean "more mature" than me. Lets put it this way, my grandma "mature". They go out in their daisy dukes, with their saggy bellies hanging out over the waist band, donning their high heels & bright red lipstick in the middle of the afternoon. Oh, and you can't forget the belly ring hence the reason for the belly hanging out for all to see.

I'm all for feeling younger than you actually are, but puleeze!!

Since I am evil and I am going to rot in hell for my evilness, and since I carry around my camera anyway, I thought that I would share with you my friends.

There are days that I wish that my purse camera had better zoom, and today is one of those days. You probably can't really appreciate the total effect but it's the best I could do. You can't see all the belly dimples and since it's from the front, you can't see the thong stickin' out from behind. By the way, Danny was with me and he was cheering me on in my evilness. So we will at least burn in hell together!

And just for fun, here is one from the fair earlier this year:

In my next life...

I sometimes find myself saying "In my next life, I will..." Not that I am unhappy with my life as it is but there is always something that you wish you could change. No one is perfect. At least I don't think so. Although, I believe we all strive towards perfection.

I will share some of my "In my next life..." hopes.

I would love to be just a couple of inches taller. Not because I do not like being a munchkin barely 5 feet tall, but I hate spending soooo much money to hem my pants & skirts! But, if I can't be a bit taller at least I would like to know how to sew.

In my next life I hope to come back with less of a sweet tooth. I LOVE sweets. It was ok when I was younger and could live on cake & cookies, yet still weigh under 100 lbs when I got married. Not anymore. One cookie goes straight to the hips. And the thighs. And....

I would also like to not be such a pansy! I would love to be able to do so many things, but I am just too chicken . I just got on a plane for the first time ever only 2 years ago. I have missed out on ALOT. In my next life I want to be a brave adventurous soul!

Finally, in my next life, I hope to have the same family that I do now. The same reat husband & wonderful kids. A little bit healthier wouldn't hurt. And I definitely do not want to go through a loss like this EVER again. Yeah, what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. But those things practically did kill me.

So, is there anything that you would like to change about yourself? Just for fun of course, not going against any religious beliefs.

A day late...

Yesterday was Danny's birthday. He spent it at work. So today we went out for his birthday dinner. Instead of going to one of our tried and true, we decided to try some place new. New to us anyway. So we tried it. Next time we will go to one of our old faithfuls. We went to Buca di Beppo. It wasn't bad but we have had waaaay better. For good Italian nothing beats the mom & pop places. These chain restaurants just don't cut it! The place is super kitschy and the pope room is pretty scary. But while there, we realized that we had just found our hurricane bunker. The place has no windows!

Anyhoo, Happy forty freakin' first Danny! We are old farts!

Oh, and it's time for my annual warning public service announcement!

So behind!

In the past, I would be done with my holiday shopping by October. I have progressively gotten worse at getting this done as the years have gone by. I have been doing most of my shopping online lately. Mainly because I HATE going to the mall this time of year. For some reason the holidays bring out the grinch in people. It all starts the minute you pull into the parking lot and that first idiot cuts in front of you to steal your parking spot. It gets better when they decide to ram their shopping cart into the back of your ankles. And the icing on the cake comes when you are waiting to pay and you have to watch the person in front of you cursing out the poor cashier simply because the poor girl did not have larger bags.

So yeah, the point is, I'm way behind. Probably because we don't have to play Santa anymore. I decided to at least try to get my Holiday cards out by tomorrow and ship the gifts that need to be shipped. Finish buying the few gifts that I have yet to buy. Send out my holiday check to St. Judes. And get ready for my eatingpalooza bakingpalooza in 2 weeks.

Another Edition of: In Search Of...

It is time once again to look into what brings people to this blog. In Search Of... Part I, really had me wondering about the type of people that reach my blog. Even by accident. Pretty scary! Especially the person that googled "How to get rid of Lissete"!

I get alot of people looking for information about "Frog Poop"& "Submarine Races". I would just like to say that I am not an expert on those subjects. And for the person who asked f frog poop is good for you, did you try it? Has it improved your health? I have also been getting tons of people looking to "Fix a bad perm". Honey, if you find a fix, PLEASE let me know!

So without further ado...

"I hate polaroids!"
Ok, thank you for letting me know. I'll be sure not to use a polaroid camera next time I take your picture.

"tapping right foot sexual passes"
I just don't know what to think of this one. Maybe it's some sort of new pick up technique?? Is tapping the left foot not attractive?

"men are like parking slots the good ones are usually taken"
Yes, I agree. I have a great parking slot though!

"im feeling sick 2x"
That's not so bad. Let me know when it's 3x

"car damaged in home depot parking lot"
Hey! Mine too! I feel your pain! Unless you're the one who hit my car and took off, then get off my blog!


"i just vegged"
I do that all the time! Probably why you were led to my blog huh?

"the jetsons makeup machine"
I want one too! Have you found one? How much??


"Why am I soooo hot?"
Now, do you mean hot? or HOT? If it's just hot try dressing more comfortably. Or maybe, if you're my age it can me hot flashes. But if you actually mean HOT as in smokin' hot and you need to google an answer to your conceitedness, then it's probably just your imagination! Get a new mirror. Or on the other hand, let me borrow yours.

And finally, another one that I don't understand...

"images of girls bladders exploding"

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