Yay Friday!  Boy, this week went so fast. I got a lot of stuff done, though. It’s amazing when you don’t juggle multiple jobs how much you can accomplish  😀

It’s a slower time of year, so I spent a good chunk of time reorganizing our work area (basically the entire basement). It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and it feels good to actually get it finished — or somewhat finished anyway…

I did get a call from my old job wanting help with something. I knew that would happen since they waited so long to get replacements. They were asking me something about the software and setting it up for an initial user. I did that over a year ago, so I can’t remember what happened now. They called me twice to try to “jog my memory”  since I can no longer access the software and I finally said to call the manufacturer. Hello? They have the answers, not me.  Go away.

I tried a new yogurt this week. Noosa.  Have any of you tried it?

Normally I get plain Fage, so this was really sweet to me. I thought it was weird that the yogurt part was sweetened when it has a swirl of caramel. It didn’t need it.  It was a fun change, but I like my Fage and all it’s protein.

The temps have been all over the place this week, but I have been getting out for walks. Today was really cold, so I bundled up to walk:

This is my handknit scarf from Ireland, BTW. Very snuggly.

We got a dusting of snow last night and you could see perfect animal tracks everywhere. Birds are so light they usually don’t leave clear prints, but check these out!

Isn’t that cool? Like reptile feet.

I know some snow and icy weather is going to hit you southerners – so stay safe!

Have a safe and happy New Years!! Here’s hoping 2017 will be a great year. See you on the flip side!

I’ve decided that I like when Christmas and the eve fall on the weekend. The nice thing is that we can host our Christmas Eve dinner earlier in the day since no one is working.

This year we put a tablecloth on the table. And a real one at that, not a plastic one LOL!  I got these for doing my shows and thought they would look good for our dinner.  Set up with my great grandmother’s dishes.

This year was the turducken. Our local grocery store had these in the meat department.  I got a 3 pound roast, which ended up being about the perfect amount as it was all polished off.  It kind of fell apart while cutting it.

John made a cheese souffle. This is Alton Brown’s recipe and we made it once before.  He actually made 1-1/2 times the recipe and did a smaller dish on the side in case we needed more.  Check out how it came out!

The souffle was done before everyone got here, even though we planned for people being late, so it was a little deflated by the time we ate.

My plate:

Everyone seemed to like the turducken and every bit was eaten. Me? It was okay, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get it again.  I’m so used to brining turkey that I felt it was a little on the dry side. I would have brined it if there wasn’t stuffing already tucked inside.  The souffle was delicious!

We did our interfamily gift giving and a little music playing. Then it was time for dessert and games. This spread. Seriously.

The famous Cake is in the middle. My sister made it this year. We don’t go overboard or anything… We did make sure we got in a lot of exercise this weekend. Some cookies were also taken to the neighbors.

Game of choice this time? Telestrations!  If you don’t have this game, you need to get it.

One of my drawings:

It’s not too bad, I think. And if you guessed thumb tack – congratulations!  It didn’t travel well to others, though.  The next drawing:

Which was somehow interpreted as this:

She was thinking it was a wall picture and a candle. Of course, the next person had no idea it was supposed to be a thumb tack and drew the word.

I think the last guess was Holy Candy or something like that.  There were many that either weren’t drawn well or guessed well LOL!

We were laughing before it even started and then laughed so much during that my stomach hurt and my face hurt from laughing!

Christmas morning was quiet time for John and I with present opening. Here is Pixie’s little stocking:

She was fairly interested in her presents and batted them around, but seemed to love jumping around in the paper most of all.

She was kind of hyper LOL!

Later on, we all headed down to my sister’s house for games and dessert.

Game this time?  Ticket to Ride!

This is a fun strategy game.

It seems we cram a lot into a couple of days, that’s for sure.  The Broncos played Christmas night and I was hoping for another gift, but they lost and pretty much are done for the season. Oh well.

Now looking back at all that food, I have an urge to get on the treadmill again tonight…

How was your weekend?

It’s festive time! Or Festivus time, right?  😀

On those days I have insomnia and am up too early, I like to put the tree lights on.

It’s so pretty. We have always had multicolored lights, but when we got this tree last year, we went with the all white and I really like it.

Last night we were out to dinner. John finally won a week for football picks and chose Sushi Aroydee.  It’s pretty close to our house, so we can walk there.  Good food, but they need proofreading on the menu:

I tried the panaeng curry with scallops.

Delicious! The broth is a coconut milk based broth with a nice bit of heat to it. The cool thing is that as we were leaving, we got to pick a numbered ball out of a basket and we won a $10 gift certificate!  Yay!  Early Christmas!

It’s definitely going to be a white Christmas this year.  More snow fell yesterday.  We bought some solar candy cane lights for outside and it looks like it’s wearing a little hat.

These are really cute, too. Picked them up at Home Depot.

The sun came out today and I took advantage to go walking. Most of the walks were clear, but some people were kind of lame about shoveling.  Here is our downtown park.

Pretty!

We got some cookie baking done today in between working and walking.  I tried my hand at some rugelach this year.

They came out pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.  I used this recipe, only I omitted the raisins and replaced half the white sugar with brown.

Saturday is the dinner at our house. Need to get cleaning LOL!

Ms Pixie is taking the night off.

Animals are so cute when they are sleeping.

Have a merry Christmas everyone and safe travels wherever you go!  

It’s almost Christmas!  As per usual, we are hosting dinner on the eve.  John is making cheese souffle for the vegetarian dish and I decided to try something I’ve always been curious about:

Turducken!  I wanted to make something that would fit in a roaster since the souffle will be in the oven and we won’t be opening and closing the oven during the cooking, so this fits the bill.  I hope it’s good. If not, at least Denny’s is open 😀

We grocery shop once a week. If we run out of something, we make do until the next weekend (unless it’s milk). This helps keep the grocery budget down because there is no impulse buying. Now that I just said that, I went out to pick up the turducken and a couple other things for baking and I couldn’t resist a gift for Pixie’s stocking:

She is  in my lap as I type this. I can talk and write all I want about her gift because she can’t read! LOL  Of course, she will likely want to play more with the ties that hold these to the package than the actual balls.  I’m a sucker.

Projects are happening finally. Painting the cabinets for my parents’ kitchen:

I decided to bring all the doors home with me so that I can paint them as I can rather than going over there multiple times for multiple coats. The paint is Valspar enamel for cupboards, so hopefully it will hold up.  Do you like my sophisticated numbering system ( 8 ). Scraps of post-it notes just so I can keep track of which door goes where.

I also fiddled with my new desk. The woman I bought it from said the drawers needed to be adjusted. A good look at it showed it’s not the drawers, but loose joints in the frame. Refastening and glue drying:

Now the drawers fit much better. You can see the veneer chips along the bottom better in this picture. I wonder if I can actually put veneer on this.  I probably won’t do much else with this for a while since my parents’ kitchen is the priority now. At least the desk is functional and I can use it.

Lots of stuff to cram into the next couple of days, that’s for sure!

As we wrap up 2016, I had to get in that last health expense with another root canal. That was on Thursday.

I cannot say enough about my dentist. It was a totally painless procedure. The only part that stung was getting the numbing shots.  Then I took pictures in the room while they left me to my own devices for the anesthesia to take effect 😀    The procedure is just long, though. It took about an hour.  I am glad I had this done. My tooth was feeling pretty good after the antibiotics and I was rethinking wanting to get it done; however when he drilled into the tooth, I could smell the necrotic tissue from the root. Ick. (sorry, TMI).  So, best to get that taken care of.

Now I can’t chew on that side for a couple days and then only soft food for a few days. In a week it should be good. I have to keep reminding myself not to chew on that side. If I forget, it really hurts!  I won’t get the crown until late January. The dentist is backed up because of breaking his ankle and the holidays.  That’s okay, though. I don’t mind putting off the $800 crown.   I will have spent over $3000 on my teeth in the span of 1 year. That hurts more than the actual root canal 🙁

We are part of that arctic blast coming through. It was bitterly cold and so windy yesterday!  And even colder last night.  This was at about 6:30 this morning

It’s funny because the temperature actually dropped a little more after that.  Definitely an indoor exercise day.

It was slower at work today, so I went over and started the work on my parents’ kitchen. The cabinets are going to get painted first, so I took the doors down on the uppers. I hope to get there next week to start painting.  After that – I met John for a latte. He was downtown donating blood.

Yay!  That’s soft food, right??

Soft food for dinner:

Eggs and toast.  It’s tasty, but now that I can’t have crunchy stuff, that’s what I want!

We are in for the night and most of the day tomorrow. More winter weather coming in — another 4-6 inches of snow.  At least we will have a white Christmas this year!