Happy New Year to all of you out there! Hope you are all having a good New Years Eve and will have a good New Years Day.
Here’s to a wonderful, healthy, happy and blessed 2007 for us all!
P.S. I hope to return to “normal” blogging on Tuesday. That, and menu planning, and cleaning and getting things back to normal 😀
P.S.S. The jigsaw puzzle pictured below is coming along really well… will try to post a picture when we’re through 😛
It’s a total wash-out here at our house today. It’s been raining since before we got up and really hasn’t stopped all day. The rain effectively ruled out Tim playing golf or hitting golf balls (his preferred thing to do with any spare time). He watched a golf DVD for a while and then read a golf book for a while… finally, we decided to turn on college bowl games and pulled this out:
So, yeah, we’re going to work on a jigsaw puzzle this weekend after all! 🙂 Or at least, I am! 
It’s a whopping 1000 pieces, so send some good jigsaw puzzle vibes our way!
I tried a new soup recipe yesterday, for a “Hambone Soup”. It’s really just a vegetable soup, but it does use a hambone to flavor it, hence the name. Since I still had the bone left from our Christmas Eve ham, I went looking for recipes to use with the bone. (The ham was delicious, by the way, and only the second ham I’ve ever made in my life. It was spiral sliced and I did a honey glaze on it and it was deee-licious!)
I looked online, and found a recipe on AllRecipes.com (one of my favorite places to search for new recipes, since I love reading all of the feedback and reviews that people leave). I made a ton of changes to the original recipe, so it is quite different from what is posted.
For those of you who don’t “get it” – I love, love, love that the soup is technically named “Hambone Soup”. It’s really just a flavorful vegetable soup, but I knew I had to make this because of the name. Get it, Hambone. Our main site is called Hambones.org and we’re sometimes called the Hambones. Get it??!! Funny, huh?! 🙄
Anyway, I’ll post the recipe, along with my numerous changes, in the extended section. Be sure to read all of my notes at the bottom. Here’s a couple of pictures of the soup, and also the bone cooling on the counter. Guess who eyeballed the bone for a long time, before he started barking at it?!! He’s going to get the bone later today… we saved it for a rainy day. It’s been raining here since before we got up this morning, and I’m afraid it may rain off and on all day. Beau won’t be able to go outside and play, so we thought the bone would make him happy! 😆
Click on the extended link for the recipe itself…
Read the rest of this entry »
Friday, December 29, 2006
Feast One Hundred & Twenty Four
Appetizer
How do you usually celebrate on New Year’s Eve? Well, we’re now officially “old married folks”, I guess after you pass 10 years, you get to call yourselves that, LOL! I’m not one for partying, and I really don’t like being out when half of the drivers are intoxicated, so I prefer to stay home. We stay in and watch TV or a movie and sometimes, if I’m lucky, I”ll get Tim to work on a jigsaw puzzle with me (something I used to do years ago with my sister at the holidays, that I still love to do!) The last couple of years, I am not sure we’ve even stayed up until midnight!
Soup
Name one thing unexpected that happened to you in 2006. Finally, after 3 years of waiting and begging, we got another dog. Beau the wonder dog is now part of our little family!
Salad
Where was your favorite place that you visited in 2006? We only went on one vacation, so I can only pick from that trip. I’d say Savannah and Tybee Island Georgia. It was beautiful there!
Main Course
What resolution is your top priority for 2007? I don’t make resolutions, but I am going to continue to do as much reading as I can. I love to read and love getting lost in a good book 🙂
Dessert
Using just three words, describe 2006. Another Year in Paradise 😆
Go here and enjoy the feast yourself!!!
Ok, part of my post Christmas decluttering is also to remove my cute little snowman look here. I’m going back to a theme I used last year, a red one I really liked. Please let me know if you see it, and mostly, if you have any trouble seeing or accessing anything. I really like this one and hope to keep it a while! 🙂
Thanks, and have a wonderful day!!!
Just a quick blurb… not a lot going on around here. We’re in the post-Christmas downward spiral … does anyone else experience that? I guess after all the weeks of shopping, decorating, wrapping, cooking and planning, it’s always a bit of a letdown after the “Big Day” is over. I usually really enjoy that time, but this week, not so much. Tim is off work all week, and looking forward to doing the things he loves – going to play golf and going to hunt. Me, I usually use this time to get the house back to normal, un-decorated, and everything put up and back in its place. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do much of that so far. I haven’t felt well, and so I haven’t had a lot of energy to do much yet. (That brings up the title of the post – if you work at home and you’re sick, are you on vacation or do you ask for sick leave or what?!!) I’m behind on my cleaning, since we’ve been gone so much and we’ve been so busy, but the dirt and dust are starting to get to me. 🙄 At least I’m about to catch up on the laundry – after the break with no workable washer and dryer, I’m glad to have a set in the house that works!
Anyway, I haven’t even made a menu for this week (blah!) and have no concrete plans of what we are going to do and what we are going to eat on any given day. I don’t operate well without some kind of plan; I’m not a “fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” kind of girl! Anyway, at this point, I don’t much feel like cooking and don’t much care. Isn’t that terrible? Guess that’s what happens when you get half sick and don’t feel like doing much besides laying on the couch and reading or watching TV!
Hope everyone is having a good day… and maybe starting to get back to normal. Looks like we’re going to have to postpone the “back to normal routine” here at our house until next week!
I hope everyone out there had a wonderful and joyous Christmas! We’ve been gone and I haven’t been able to blog. We went to see Tim’s family and then mine, and we also spent a little bit of time at home, just by ourselves, to celebrate the Christmas holiday. We had a great time everywhere we went, but I am pretty worn out now. I want to just rest for a day or so, and not even think about taking all of our Christmas stuff down! That will be quite a job, and I am going to put it off for a few days.
Tim and I had a good Christmas and got lots of wonderful things, both that we asked for and some surprises! I got a lot of books (3 cookbooks, 4 Beverly Lewis books I had requested, and the Nicholas Sparks book too). I also got a cute snowman, a DVD, some toys for Beau, two iTunes gift cards, a Starbucks gift card, and a cool silicone strainer that I think is a great gadget! Tim got a lot of golf stuff, which is all that he wanted 🙂 Everything I got him was golf-related (except for some pj pants and slippers, but those came from Beau!). Beau got a set of travel bowls for water and food from Santa, and Santa also brought him a lot of Nylabones and chewies (Greenies). Beau has been a good dog, and Santa must have known it! Tim got me a surprise – a heart-shaped diamond and ruby pendant and matching earrings. I was so surprised! He also got me some of my favorites – Godiva chocolates, a Yankee Candle (spiced cinnamon) and some Bath and Body Works (Japanese Cherry Blossom). A good Christmas all-around 😀 Oh, and we can’t forget about the “Jetson’s” washer and dryer that we got a couple of days before Christmas… not really a gift, but very needed and very much appreciated 🙂
Hope you all had a wonderful and joyous holiday, filled with family and friends, as we did. Merry Christmas, a day late, and Happy New Year!!!
I blogged the other day that my washing machine stopped working, so we went and ordered a new hE washer and dryer. They were delivered today – sort of. Sigh. Tim and I are not very happy with Sears right now.
We ordered an hE4/4t washer and dryer in graphite with matching pedestals. They only had to get the washer from a warehouse in another part of the state; the others were supposedly either in the warehouse here or floor models. When they arrived, the independent contractor who was delivering and installing them told Tim right away, you should look at the pedestals. They weren’t wrapped up in any way and they were all scratched up and banged up. Each of them had scratches on the side, one of them had a big scratch on the front of the drawer and the worst was that one of the drawers was all dented up, with a big dent in the front. Tim called and talked to the Sears people, who basically wouldn’t do anything, and he told the delivery guy to just put them back on the truck and not bring them in. We hate to pay full price for something new and get something all scratched and banged up. They got the washer and dryer installed and went on their merry way, while we tested it all out and started laundry. I’ve got several loads to do tonight, and I’m trying to learn the different modes and settings. We’re going to see how I like them without the pedestals, but right now, we’re both leaning toward just telling them to refund our money and we’ll do without them. There’s also the issue of how much clearance we need between the top of the appliances and the bottom of our cabinets. The saleslady didn’t mention anything, although we talked at length about height, how much space we had, and the different sizes of pedestals. Come to find out, when we were reading the book that came with the washer (the dryer showed up without a book!), the book says that they recommend at least 9″ of space in between the appliances and the cabinets. We won’t have that with the pedestals we ordered.
So, anyway, we’re going to give these a test drive, sans pedestals, for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. I just hope the washer and dryer are both ok, we really need those! I have laundry piled up in huge piles all over the house, waiting to be cleaned 🙂
Here they are, I guess they’re a big Christmas present for both of us, LOL!
I had posted here, way back in November, that I had completed the Fall Reading Challenge sponsored by Katrina over at Callapidder Days. I really enjoyed this, and look forward to finding more challenges like this one next year. Katrina mentioned she might be doing a Spring one, so I’ll look forward to that.
I referenced the “Mr. Linky” at Katrina’s site to my original post, then later realized that she had asked these questions of the challenge participants… I thought I would answer as best I could! Remember, I only read fiction books for the challenge, not any non-fiction ones:
The best book you read this Fall – I’d have to say that the second and third book in the Cedar Cove series by Debbie Macomber were my favorite. She’s a favorite author of mine, and I love the way she writes. It’s very simple, very heartwarming, very easy to read, and always leaves me feeling good. Typical “women’s fiction” for me, but it is my favorite genre to read.
The book you could have lived without – Easy Peasy. The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant. I loved her book “The Red Tent” and saw this one on the new release shelf at the library and picked it up without even reading the jacket cover. I did NOT like this book and struggled to finish it. If it hadn’t been for the challenge, I might not have finished it!
Whether or not you read more than you would have without the challenge – No, I read a lot, and I probably would have read the same amount of books. In fact, I picked books that I own and needed to read, as well as a couple of library books. All of mine were fiction, which *might* have been a bit of a cop-out 😳
The best thing about joining in the challenge – Easy – seeing what other people are reading, getting ideas for books and authors to check out, and even finding blogs of fellow readers that I like to read!
If you discovered (and enjoyed) a new book or author after reading someone else’s list – I have several new books and authors that I have added to my “check out at the library sometime” list, and I hope to get to them in 2007!
Any other insights, enjoyments, thoughts, or impressions! – I loved this, and so hope that there is a spring one, as Katrina indicated. I like having a goal and getting to meet it, and anything that relates to books or reading is always a ton of fun for me! I love reading, reading about books, finding new authors, getting good book recommendations, and finding blogs of other people who love to read 😀 Thanks again to Katrina for hosting this, and to all those who participated.
Mindless ramblings on books and movies… 🙂
I was out running errands the other day and I just couldn’t resist stopping at the library. I had been purposefully staying away, trying to read some books that I have here at home, but the lure of the library (and the bookstore) are sometimes just too strong for me to resist. I went with a purpose though, to try to find a short, light, Christmas type book to read here at the holidays. Last year I bought a paperback in Walmart by Debbie Macomber, one of my favorite “women’s” authors, and I enjoyed reading it during the holidays. I like having something Christmas-y to read this time of year. I looked under her name first at the library, and found two Christmas themed books, and grabbed both of them. I’ve already read one of them, a really short, small book called “Can This Be Christmas”, about a group of weary travelers stranded by a blizzard, stuck at a train depot in the Northeast on Christmas Eve. It was a really short book, but sweet and happy and had a good message about the real meaning of Christmas. I also picked up another one called “The Christmas Basket”, that I haven’t read yet. I’m still working on the second book in the Beverly Lewis Amish series, and I am really enjoying those books.
I also picked up a cookbook from the New books section at the front of my library. It’s called “Eating Well Serves Two” and I hope to get time to go through it and maybe copy out some recipes before it’s due back after the new year. Since I cook almost exclusively for two, and this one is a healthy type book, it seemed perfect for me. Can’t wait to go through it… I tend to read cookbooks like regular fiction books!
I went and got my hair cut yesterday and the girl that cuts my hair had a big bag of paperbacks that she was going to give away. All she asked was that if I read them, that I bring them back another time and leave for someone else to pick up and read. That kind of plan suits me just fine, and so I just quickly grabbed a couple of books from the bag. I saw Nora Roberts name and realized she had a trilogy, called the Circle Trilogy, and without reading the jacket, just said, I’ll take these and read them and get them back to you next year. Well. I have liked what few books I have read by Nora Roberts, but when I got home, I read the inside jacket and found out these are about vampires and witches and sorcerers, so not at all what I thought they were going to be! I’ll see after the holidays if I like them, they were free and I can give them a try. I sort of hate to take them back without reading them… I don’t want to appear ungracious, but I’m not sure these are the kinds of books I want to be reading! 🙄
As for movies, we’re still watching a lot of movies on our new digital cable and free HBO. They are not having a lot of good movies available “On Demand” right now, although we’ve watched a couple of mediocre, older movies lately. Last night, we thought about going to rent one, then decided to be lazy and finally enter the 21st century. Yes, we had never done a Pay-Per-View movie until last night. We went through the list and found 2 or 3 that are on my rental list, and Tim was being very sweet and offered to let me pick one (aka, a “girl” movie). I picked “The Lake House” with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. I liked it, it was sweet and sappy and predictable, but more than that, it was clean and had a happy ending. My kind of movie. I really liked it and enjoyed it. Except, that our company came in about 3/4 of the way through it and proceeded to heckle and make fun of my movie. Because of the time sliding aspect of the movie and the overall sappiness of it. I told them to please not make fun of my movie, I wanted to enjoy it. Which I did, but they got Tim going and then he proceeded to make fun of it. Anyway, Tim gets the next choice and he indicated that he wants to watch… sigh….why do guys like things like this… his choice is — Larry the Cable guy, or Inspector something or whatever that movie is. Big Sigh. I’m sure I won’t like it nearly as much as Tim, but then again, I’m sure I enjoyed “The Lake House” a lot more than he did too! 🙂
How about another Question of the Day: What was the last movie you rented that you really liked?
Well, it appears that Christmas has come early to our house!
We’ve had company for the last few days, and will for a few more days. Then, we’ll hit the road to visit both sides of our family over the 3 day Christmas weekend. We’ll open presents in three places, and visit with lots of family. We’re really looking forward to it.
Yesterday (Tuesday), I was going to wash the sheets on our guest bed, since Round 1 of our company was leaving, and Round 2 was headed in that evening. I tried 6 times to wash the sheets. Either the tub was full of sudsy water when it finished, or else when the cycle finished, the sheets were dirty. And I do mean dirty, with lint and gunk and grass and dirt. I’m not sure where all the gunk is coming from. Tim checked some stuff and opened up part of the washer trying to fix it. We decided it was time for a new set. After all, I bought this set after I got out of college and it is nineteen (yes, 19!) years old. I think that’s a decent life cycle, so we decided it was time to get a new set. Merry Christmas to me!:roll:
We went to Sears and got one of the new hE washer and dryer sets with the pedestals. They didn’t have them all in the warehouse locally, so they had to get them from another warehouse. So, I have to wait a couple of days for them to arrive. In the mean time, I already had 3 loads of clothes, sheets and towels waiting to be washed. By the time they get here on Friday, I’m sure that will double. And boy, I sure hope they get here on Friday like they promised. Otherwise, we’re going to run out of clean towels and underwear before Christmas is over! 😆
I’ll post a picture of them once they’re here… nothing more exciting that new appliances for Christmas! We’re also needing a dishwasher, and I actually thought I would get that for Christmas. I’ve been having trouble with our dishwasher for several months now. A couple of the tines have broken off, and the main problem is that the detergent doesn’t dispense half of the time. Ours has a little flip-open door on the door of the dishwasher and about half the time when it’s finished, that door has never popped open and the detergent is in there all gunked up. So, I have been thinking it’s time to get a new dishwasher. A quieter one is the main thing I’m after. Ours sounds like a jet engine taking off!
I told Tim the other day… 2007 is going to be the Year of the Appliance for us!
OK, how about a Question of the Day: Do you have a major appliance in your house that you want or need to buy, or replace? Something that is old and nearly worn out, or just something you’d like to get a newer version of? Leave me a comment and let me know!
Our out of town company (Round 1) is still here, and the guys went hunting yesterday. They didn’t get a deer, which doesn’t surprise me, since it’s so warm here. It’s not really hunting weather, not when it gets up to around 75º during the day 🙄 I think they had a good time though, and then we all watched Monday Night Football when they got back.
Before they got back, though, I had a chance to pop in a Christmas movie and have a little girl time. Believe it or not, I had never seen “White Christmas”. It’s my sister Gail‘s favorite Christmas movie, I think, so I thought I would buy it and watch it. Well. It was a good movie, but it really wasn’t very Christmas-y! I think that’s the case with a lot of the older Christmas movies that they might have come out at Christmas or maybe had one Christmas scene in them, but they aren’t really all that Christmas-y. Tim will never watch “White Christmas” with me, that’s for sure. Too much singing and dancing in it for him!
I also own “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Bishop’s Wife” on DVD and I must say, I think I like those movies better as Christmas movies. Those still are my two favorites. I also really like Holiday Inn (but I don’t own that one on DVD, maybe next year!) and I like to catch “Christmas in Connecticut” on TV when it comes on. We also saw “The Polar Express” on TV a week or so ago and it was good.
So, that’s today’s Question of the Day: Do you have a favorite Christmas movie? One that you watch every year? One that really says “Christmas” to you, for whatever reason. Leave me a comment and let me know!
Well, this week is totally up in the air! I have no idea what we will be doing half the days and no idea if we will be here to eat, if others will be eating with us, or we’ll be out running around and will eat out. Sigh. A feeble stab in the dark is all I can make this week at a menu plan! Hopefully, we’ll be back on track soon, after the holidays!
Here’s what I have so far…
Sunday – we ordered pizza for the Survivor finale. Yeah Yul, I’m so glad he won!
Monday – the guys are going hunting, so a free night for me. I’ll eat some leftover pasta or leftover pizza
Tuesday – Italian Sausage soup (that I didn’t get to last week!)
Wednesday – TBD or maybe breakfast for dinner – eggs, biscuits, bacon and grits or oatmeal
Thursday – TBD or Crockpot Creamy Italian Chicken, homemade bread
Friday – TBD or Date Night or maybe Tacos
Saturday – Out of town for Christmas at my in-laws. I’m taking meatballs and some other finger foods
Sunday – Christmas Eve… not completely sure, but probably the ham I didn’t bake last week
Merry Christmas everyone!
Quick and easy questions this week!!!
1. I get about 1-2 telemarketer phone calls on a daily basis.
2. I never call anyone after 10 PM at night.
3. I never call anyone before 9 AM in the morning.
4. I DO or DON’T screen my phone calls via caller ID.
5. I really should call my dad and Tim’s parents more often.
There’s no room at our Inn. We have an old friend from out of town who’s here for a visit. He and Tim are going to play golf and go hunting for the next couple of days, and we’ll all get to hang out and visit. We haven’t seen him in a while (he lives out of state), so we’re really looking forward to seeing him again. After he heads back home, our niece (who is also out of state, in graduate school) is going to come stay with us for a couple of days. Her boyfriend is here, and a bunch of friends, so we are glad to offer her a bed and a shower. We won’t see her much, but we’re still glad she’s coming to visit! After that, it will nearly be Christmas weekend.
This weekend has been busy. Yesterday morning (Saturday), Tim went shopping for a while. I thought that was very brave of him!!! He said it was “crazy out there” and the traffic was really bad. He usually puts off my Christmas shopping till really close to Christmas, so he was actually early this year, getting presents a full week before Christmas. 🙂 I stayed home and finished my wrapping, so YEAH, I’m done! I still have some mixes and baking to do, but at least the presents are all bought and wrapped.
After Tim finished his shopping for me, he called and offered to take me out to lunch. We went to a new favorite place of ours that opened recently just a couple of miles from our house, a sports place that has a “bar-type” menu (lots of appetizers, burgers, sandwiches and salads). It was really really good. We each got a burger (bacon cheeseburger for Tim, mushroom swiss for me, but at $9 a pop for the burger with fries… still, they really are good!) and had a nice lunch. We had put Beau out in the back yard (it’s fenced) for the whole 50 minutes that we were gone. When we got back, he had nearly dug out a huge hole under the fence, not to mention two other giant holes in two different flower beds. I think that I’ve lost a few shrubs and several of my perennial flowers now. He dug up a huge area where I have some purple verbena (perennial and I love it) and a big patch of my rudbeckias (sunflowers). Argh. I’m not happy about it. I hate to chain him since we have a fenced yard, but I guess we’re going to have to start doing that to protect what little is left of our backyard. Tim got a shovel and tried to scoop most of the dirt back in the holes and commented “he looked like he was digging all the way to China”, the holes were that deep! Like I told Tim, expect to help me at least one full day in the spring, going to buy new, BIGGER shrubs, and more perennials and reworking all of these flower beds he is tearing up. Argh.
We had a surprise birthday party for Tim’s grandmother late yesterday, which was out of town, that we went to. She thought she was coming to a scrapbook party, and I think she was surprised! It was a lot of fun – lots of family there and lots of good food too. I think I’m going to gain several more pounds before the holidays are over! 🙂
Hope everyone is having a great day!
