Just 2 more days!

Just two more days till Christmas? Are you ready? My shopping is done and the presents are in the process of being wrapped. I still have some baking to do. My office is a disaster with presents and paper all over the place so I'm writing my blog from the living room computer. I rarely use the desktop any more.

I got a Christmas card yesterday with this neat little tablet for my purse. I love it.

Have you been missing Edgar? He's been so busy flitting here and there making sure the presents were getting purchased and wrapped that he has been quietly resting under the tree in my office. The closer Christmas gets, the more worried he gets that he will miss Santa. So he has taken to camping out under one of the trees. 

He did take a break to help with some of the wrapping. We are going to finish the rest this afternoon.

Hubby had his work gift exchange this weekend. He got a really nice shirt and this coffee cup with coaster. It was barely out of the bag when Edgar laid claim to it for me to drink hot chocolate from on Christmas morning. He is such a sweet elf.

We are going to finish the baking tomorrow morning. I always get these aluminum pans to send goodies home with the kids. Edgar helped me pick out the recipes. They are getting so old and stained. I need to redo a lot of my recipes sometime soon before the writing fades away to where you can't read them. 

Edgar said to tell everybody Thank You that has been participating in commenting on how many times he has shown up. There were four people who commented on every time he showed up. So we placed their names in a sled and let Edgar draw the winner. 

And who won? 

Congratulations to Stephanie G! Stephanie enjoyed your antics Edgar and I know she will be pleased to find out she wins one of the new products in the spring Thirty-One catalog. She wins the new Keep-It Caddy. I hope she likes it. 

 Ms. Stephanie can select the pattern of her choice. She can choose the one above which is the new Pink Floral Brushstrokes pattern or she can choose any of the patterns below. As an added benefit, Ms. Stephanie can select her own personalization to complement her new bag. Congratulations again to Ms. Stephanie. I will get you a catalog so you can pick the pattern and personalization of your choice. 

We had some challenges through the contest and some of the posts went wacko with the comment section not keeping the comment, but thank you to those who emailed me their comments so they could stay in the race. The remaining three who tied with Stephanie G. were Rachel, Norma and Nonie (from Everything Sewing). Since they were all so wonderful to comment regular on Edgar's antics, they will each receive a new Key Fob in the pattern of their choice from the new catalog. I will contact you to find out which one you  each would like for your choice. Congratulations to all our winners and a special thank you to everyone who participated. 

Edgar wanted me to tell everybody he has had a blast visiting you and keeping you laughing at his antics. He said he needs to get some rest now. He plans to sleep until Christmas eve. When Santa drops off his goodies, Edgar is going to hop in the sleigh and head back to the North Pole to spend the next year with his Elf buddies. So he grabbed his Christmas pillow and afghan and has settled in to sleep till Santa gets here. He said to tell everybody Merry Christmas!

A crazy day

I had some computer issues on my laptop this morning. I finally said forget it. I will have to do some research and fix it tomorrow. I am exhausted tonight. I finished up my shopping today and got some great deals. 

It has been so cold all day and the wind just goes right through you. I have the heat kicked up and am getting ready to hit the couch with my warm blanket. 

All those weeks of going, going, going has finally caught up with me. I sit here trying to think of a blog for today and my head is nodding as my eyes droop.

I've decided it is time to take some ME time and have an early night.

Catch you tomorrow!

Baking has begun

Yesterday was a great day to start my Christmas baking. It was windy and cloudy and rained most of the day. I woke up and baked some Pillsbury cinnamon rolls to get the oven going and me motivated. 

I have never been good at making sugar cookies. I had to make a couple dozen for my grandson's school Christmas party today. He loves to volunteer me for baked goods. He wanted the green and red sprinkles so I just decorated them with the sprinkles. Nothing fancy but the kids will love them. 

Hubby has been wanting one of the applesauce cakes like his Mom always made. We have never made one and he doesn't eat a lot of it and I don't eat applesauce cake so we just never made it. This year, i am giving some goodies as gifts so we decided to make the cake in mini bundts and mini loaves. That way he can keep some and we can give some away. He said it tasted just like his Mom's so I was happy. 

And then of course, I had to bake the annual batch of Mom K's Orange Cream cookies. The recipe makes around 6 doz. This year we ended up with 78 cookies. Some as gifts, but most to keep. This is the one sweet that he does eat a lot of. Every year that I make them since she passed away, I have to ask him to check the consistency and flavor since there is no set amount on the juice from the orange. Every year, he will tell me how much to add to get it right. This year, when he taste tested the batter I had it perfect. When he tasted the icing, he said I nailed it. Then he gave me the ultimate compliment...."Mom would be proud." I love my mother-in-law and miss her very much. Baking "her" cookies every year is one way I honor her memory. She has been gone around 20 years and I still find myself wanting to call and tell her something. 

That is it for now. I'm going to make something else this weekend but not sure what yet. I have a couple more gifts to pick up on Saturday. I haven't even started my wrapping yet. I may try to do some this afternoon. 

I need to go see Santa.

Okay. That's it. I'm in love. First off, I switched from Internet Explorer 9 to Google Chrome for all my web needs about 8 or 9 months ago and I will never leave Chrome. I am a huge Google fan and think that it is the best thing for working on the web. Well, I caught the end of a commercial the other day so I had to go check it out. I "googled" it of course. 

It is called the Google Chrome Book and I want one...really, really, really bad. The only ones I found are Acer and Samsung right now. But oh, I'm in love. 

It has an Intel® Core™ Processor with 2 GB DDR3 RAM 320 GB Hard Drive - 5400 RPM. Weighs 3 lbs. and is just 11". It has built in ethernet and wi-fi. Three USB ports as well as an SD card reader slot. It has Google Chrome Operating System and is geared toward using applications that reside on the web instead of on the machine itself. It boots up in 20 seconds. Wow! And the best part is the cost is only $199.00! It even comes with its own carrying case. 

Then when I was at Target recently with a friend, I saw this little camera. It is smaller than a smart phone and only weighs 3 oz. I love it. It is on sell $80 off right now, making it $99. It is a 10mp with all kinds of neat settings. I am going to have to keep this in mind. It actually fits right in the palm of your hand. I lost my Canon and have been using my cell phone as a camera for months.

I also saw the perfect sewing machine for me. It is about 1/2 the size of a full size machine and said it was perfect for hemming, mending and crafting. Which is exactly what I want one for. And at $59.00 for a Singer, I think it is a good buy.

My vacuum cleaner is not working well. We have cleaned all the filters, checked all the settings and it still picks up, but not like it used to. We've had it about 16 years so I guess we are due a new one. I am thinking about a canister one, but not sure. Does anybody have any thoughts? I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on a vacuum cleaner.

But Hubby doesn't think appliances make good Christmas presents so I found him some ideas. I love this sweater. It would be perfect for those times when it is too cold to go without a coat but a coat is too bulky. I really like this neutral color as well. 

Don't laugh, but I love the gift sets everybody puts out at Christmas. And my favorite soap of all time is Dove. I need to tell Hubby about this. Things like this just thrill me at Christmas. I'm a simple person and very easy to please.

Do you remember how much I love nesting dolls? Target has a nesting salt and pepper shaker and a nesting measuring cup set. How cute are these?

Yes, I think I need to visit Santa...and maybe even Cupid and the Easter Bunny as backups. 

My motivator (or instigator)

Edgar has appointed himself as my personal motivator. Last night Mr. Bear and Edgar were reading Twas the Night Before Christmas.

When they got done, Edgar went investigating. He stood in disgust as he noticed there is not one single present wrapped and under the tree yet....which is so NOT the normal for me. 

Then he went snooping and found our stockings and wondered if I had done any shopping for Hubby's stocking. He thought he would get cute and try to put them on. Just a tad on the big side for him. 

So he went to see if I have any wrapping paper. As usual, he got side tracked. He was trying to use them for stilts. 

Next I thing I know, he is worried because we haven't started baking yet. He started snooping through the recipe cards to find the orange cookie recipe. (We'll share it later this week). 

Once he got it, he checked this fridge and realized I had bought the oranges yesterday. So he felt better because he knew I had a plan. 

He actually was very helpful when he accumulated all the ingredients into one place so I could grab everything with ease when I was ready to get started. 

Not leaving anything to chance, he decided to make me a list. You will notice that three of the five items revolve around cookies. I think he is getting excited. He has a thing for cookies. 

He was so busy he finally had to break into my Junior Mints and Orange Crush for a little Christmas snack. Thanks Edgar for all the help. You deserve your snack. 

Pyrex online

It is so easy to find those favorite Pyrex pieces on E-bay. And many times the price is unbelievably low....until you add the shipping. Here are some items I found that were at a great price, but the shipping made them more than I wanted to pay. I would rather keep my eyes open at our local antique store. Even though antique stores are higher than thrift shops, they are still more reasonable than e-Bay with shipping.

I am looking for one of these casseroles in any color, even though pink is my preference. But not at $36.50

This isn't a bad buy for four of them for $15.00. But they don't have lids. Since I want them to store stuff in, lids are a must.

Another set with no lids. This makes me sad because this is the pattern on my mixing bowls and at $13.00 total that just made them about $4 each. I wish people would keep their lids.  

I love these solids. But at $37.20 each, I would not pay it. 

This is a pattern I want really bad and $13.65 is a pretty reasonable price since it does include the shipping. However, I am wanting it in a mixing bowl, not a Cinderella bowl so I'll keep hunting.

This is a pretty baking dish. I have a casserole dish in this pattern. I just don't think I want it bad enough to pay $20.24.

A flamingo pink baking dish at $20.17. I would pass simply because I just don't like to pay that much for one piece.

You will recall I bought my Hamilton Beach Large white mixing bowl for $12.00 locally. The small one is $19.00 on eBay. As much as I want to complete my set, I am going to keep looking locally. 

This is one of my dream pieces that I would love to own. I just would not be able to look at it knowing it cost $39.99. I would cringe every time I would see it. 

This is a cute pattern and one I would like to find some pieces in. I am not sure about $16.00 for the price. It's not that bad, but again there is no lid. 

I bid on this one because this is actually a really good price since it includes shipping. Plus it is exactly one of the patterns I collect and it is the style I have been looking for $19.49.

Weekend Wrap Up

We had our community Christmas parade Saturday. It was a nice turnout and it went off without a hitch. We started right on time. 

A special thank you to my neighbors, The Claus's, for their participation. The kids loved them.

Shelby wrote with her cousin Brystan and their Papaw Kenny in his old Chevelle.

  

Caleb wrote with his Daddy in his Papaw's Kenny's old truck.

Santa and the Mrs. road on the church train. 

Sunday morning I went to church with my son and his family to see Alexis's Christmas program. Her and Colby came home with me. 

We spent the afternoon together then went back to their church last night for Garret's play. I wasn't able to get photos of either play but let me tell you they were both wonderful. There are some talented kids in that church and the adults really worked hard to make both programs a success.