Cookies

I spent some time today reading the blogs of my friends at MHH .  One of the ladies Leann was quite busy baking all kinds of goodies.  She had made 19 different kinds of cookies and 4 kinds of homemade candies.  Everything looked so scrumptous.  I know the receivers of those sweet treats are very happy campers.  And I thought the 10 I did was an achievement.   My hat goes off to Ms. Leann.

Last weekend I spent time in the kitchen baking away. I love baking.  I've only been doing it for about 4 years or so.  I think I'm getting better every year.  I hope to one day try some real fancy baking, especially decorating.  I filled 3 large cookie tins, handed out two at the office and one to my neighbor and her son.  They were well received which made me very happy. 

I have several cookie recipe books I've collected from BHG over the years.  I think I will take a look through them for some ideas for next year.

6 Days to Christmas

For me I have 5 days until my little palace is filled with all of my loved ones.  Yes, the long awaited Christmas Eve Family Dinner will soon be here.  People have been calling me for weeks checking to see if I'm getting everything ready for the party.  My response is always a resounding YES! I think they are more excited than I am.

Today has been a day of pampering and relaxation.  For Rudy Day today I listened to my Christmas music then started watching Christmas movies.  Right now Home Alone is in the dvd.  I've been eating Hershey Kiss chocolates.  These are my favorite things to eat during the holidays.  I washed my hair and touched-up my eyebrows.  Had a cup of hot chocolate and leftover pizza from last night.  Just enjoying myself.

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Decorated the Office

Been gone for a minute.  Family matters, you know.

I wanted to tell you what I did to the office this year.  I decorated my office in a gingerbread theme:

Let The Baking Begin

As soon as I got home from work today, I chaned into something comfortable, then headed to the kitchen.  I have been trying to get my baking started for weeks but I was either too lazy or too sick.  Now that I'm feeling better and time is now of the essence, I needed to get started and this is the last week I can get them done. 

I am making several types of cookies:

1. Christmas tree shaped butter cookies
2. Chocolate gingerbread people cookies
3. Old-fashioned Snickerdoodle cookies (a recipe I got from a friend, Jessica at Organized Christmas)
4. Peanut butter cookies
5. Cocolate chip cookies
6. Oatmeal Raisin cookies
7. Eggnog Sparkle Cookies (another recipe from a friend, Snowangel00)
8. Santa's Thumbprint cookies
9. Pecan shortbread cookies
10. and finally, Candy cane sugar cookies

I'm only making up the dough.  I will bake everything this weekend. This weekend we are expecting snow.  Not a lot but enough to keep me in and to make the mood perfect for baking. As of tonight I have three kinds done (the first three listed above).  Tomorrow I will continue with the next group, and so on until they are all done. 

By the end of the weekend, everything will be baked, wrapped and ready to hand out as gifts. I always take treats to several of the departments on the job and give a tin full to my nice neighbor and her son who lives in my building.

Countdown Calendar

I don't know if you all remember this but last summer for CIJ I made a countdown calendar for my 11 year old niece.  This was year two and I stuffed it with lots of neat gifts.  Well she called me the other day to say that the dog got to it and you can guess what happened....

Here's what it looked like before the dog got to it.

  I can only imagine how it looks now.

Workout Saturday

What a day!  From 7:30 this morning until about 45 minutes ago, I have been going non-stop.  First I did some checking on my Christmas decorations, checking what I have and what I need.  Then I updated my holiday budget - staying on track with this (very good).  I also updated my gift and master shopping lists - checking off and crossing out people who are finished and items that have been purchased.  The lists are getting shorter and shorter.  My master shopping list is now down from three pages to half a page.  Whoohoo!  "I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it!" (singing and snapping my fingers)

Next, I held my own personal wrapping party. I put on some Christmas music, sat in the middle of the floor of the guest bedroom and wrapped gifts until I couldn't wrap anymore. I just finished grouping the gifts by families for easy tracking.  I still have a few more to wrap but that will wait until tomorrow. 

There are a few pajama sets I need to exchange.  I don't know what I was thinking when I bought them.  After taking a second look, I realized that they are way too big for the recipients.  So back they go Monday.  I hope I can find the right sizes. 

Tommorow, after wrapping the remaining gifts, I hope to get started on making the cookie doughs to freeze.  I would like to get that done so when I'm ready to bake all I will have to do is pull the dough from the freezer and into the oven.

Right now I am going to jump in the bath, put on some warm pj's as it has gotten very chilly after having such beautiful warm days since Thursday.  Pop a big bowl of popcorn, lie on the sofa and watch some Christmas movies.

Happy trails!!!!

Happy Wednesday

Today has been a really good day.  Quite honestly this week, so far, has been very productive.  I started gift shopping late in the game and now I have 3/4 of my list done.  I will still make my yearly deadline to be finished by the end of November. 

Today I picked up my Kmart layaway.   That's another three people crossed off my list.  Plus I got a pleasant surprise. The video game I bought my newphew a few weeks ago: Medal of Honor is on sale this week from $59.99 to $39.99.  So I showed them my receipt and got the difference back - $21.00 plus change.  Can you say, "You the woman."  LOL

My boss had these cool pencils with the Baltimore Ravens' logo on them.  He said he doesn't use pencils so he gave them to me.

One of the erasers even has the Raven on the helmet.  I have a little cousin who is a die-hard Ravens' fan.  This will go with the little gift I got for him.