All better now and some cookies!

THANK YOU!!!!  To everyone that gave me wishes to get well soon (and even if you didn't and just thought it) - a huge thank you!  After a way-too-long bout with a sinus infection or its close cousin, and some good meds, I am now healthy and ready to get back into the blogging world.  However, my mom is in the hospital and I'm tied up with that at the moment.  I'm just itching to go "blog hopping" and visit but those visits will be few and far between for now...until next week when I'm on vacation and can stay on the computer until my family starves or runs out of clean laundry, whichever comes first. 

I made these cookies last week and even if you're not a big fan of Halloween, these cookies are fun to make and would go great with a study of spiders.  I know you've all seen them in every magazine from here to China, but you probably didn't know how EASY they were to make.  I used store-bought everything and they were done in a flash. 

Spider Web Cookies (these would've been much cuter with little plastic spiders on them, but oh well)
1 package of sugar cookie dough (or make your own)
1 container of chocolate icing
1 large tube of white decorator icing (not the gel)

First thing you do is slice and bake your cookies:

Next, ice them all with chocolate icing:

Then start at the middle of the cookie and pipe a spiral all around until you get to the edges.  They don't have to be perfect (as I've so kindly illustrated) because they won't stay in a spiral:

Finally, beginning at the middle of the cookie again, take a toothpick and gently pull outward towards the edges, about 7 or 8 times.  VOILA, a spider web!  Have several toothpicks on hand because they get gooped after a while and you need to use a different one.  If there are no spies in your house, you're more than welcome to lick the icing off the toothpick each time, but it's cold and flu season so maybe you better not.  Enjoy!

Blog break

...or none of the above. 

I'm trying to fight off something and I don't like it.  I'll be back when I'm feeling a bit more perky.  Have a great week ~  ♥

Happy Birthday Meredith!

I think it was just the day before yesterday when this is what I woke up to...

and this...

Then all of a sudden it was prom night and she turned into this...

My daughter Meredith is the one on the left with her friend, Nicole. She was on the prom court that night and a few short weeks later she graduated high school and was on to college.

She’s back home now and come to think of it so is my son who went away to college. We’re really not that fun so I’m not sure what the appeal is to being here, but I digress, so I’m sorry.


Today Meredith turns 20 years old and I’m down to just one teenager in the house now. I love seeing her grow up, but as the saying goes, “They grow…then they go,” so that’s the tough part. Of course if you live in this house, you grow…then you go…then you come back home… and can’t make up your mind. But that’s OK ~ I’m old and still don’t know what I want to be! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEREDITH!!

I'm drowning! (oh, and a recipe)

When making out the grocery list today, I think I finally went bonkers.  I NEED HELP - or at least some good ideas.  I don't need ideas for meals or snacks or side dishes - my problem is I have too many ideas and nowhere to put them.  Like most women, I love getting new recipes and new ideas.  When I see a great recipe on a blog, I either print it from there (when possible) or copy it into a Word document and print it.  This is the result of doing that over and over again...

My question is...what is an easier way?  That brown thing is my recipe box and it's bursting at the seams like a fat man after Thanksgiving dinner!  When it comes time to try one of the new recipes, well let's just say I hope you have a good book and a cup of coffee ready while you wait for me to find it.  Is there a better way to do this??  There must be.  Plus I hate using a whole piece of paper for one recipe.  If you've found a good way to save great recipes that you find on a blog or online, please share. 

Just for your trouble, I'll share a great recipe that I got from I think a Taste of Home cookbook.   That's another thing I do, copy pages from cookbooks, hence adding to my pile.  If you've ever had spinach-artichoke dip at a restaurant or had it homemade, and you like it, then you're in for a treat!

Easy Cheesy Artichoke & Spinach Bread

1 14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

1 10 oz. pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1/2-3/4 cup mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip)

1 cup Parmesan cheese (just the stuff in the green canister)

1 clove garlic, finely chopped - or a teaspoon or two of the minced garlic in a jar

1 loaf of French or Italian bread, halved lengthwise

Preheat oven to 350º .  In small bowl, combine all ingredients except bread (duh); spread evenly on bread.  Bake about 12 minutes or until golden brown and heated through.  YUM!

Crazy for Goosebumps

We're heading back to our pre-digial camera days again for Friday Photo Flashback.  Thanks to Alicia at More Than Words for making us dig up some fun memories!  Back when my son was in about 2nd or 3rd grade (1996-97?), the Goosebumps books first became popular.   They're books about goofy made-up monsters or ooey, gooey something coming out of somewhere.  Boy stuff!  When the store by us came out with a new title, I think I got just as excited as he did to pick up a copy!  He never did get the whole set but he's still got what he does have all packed up in boxes in the basement. 

Then the following year my husband made him a Goosebumps book costume.  I'm telling you this thing looked just like a book - front and back cover.  He freehand painted the whole thing.  I think it had ropes going through it over his shoulders and his hands stuck out through holes in the front.  We were at the Ozarks that year for Halloween so they trick-or-treated at the outlet mall down there (for about a half hour until everybody got crabby and we just ended up going to the store and buying candy and going home and eating it).  He did get third place in a costume contest though so that's pretty cool! 

Block party!

"Good fences make good neighbors."
~ Robert Frost

Umm, yeah so our neighbors had a "block party" on Saturday night and we weren't able to go.  We were...busy.  I somehow have visions of a 2-year-old pumping a keg and random things being thrown in bonfires.  And yet, they're all pretty nice people in the daylight!  We're just nerds.

Some early Christmas fun...

Well, I feel bad for this, but I forgot to make cookies this week for 52 Cookies in a Year, sponsored by Joanna at This Southern Girl's Nest.   I have no excuse this time because I was off work yesterday.  If you want a great cookie though I'd hop on over there because I just checked out her blog and she's got some white chocolate pumpkin cookies that are calling my name and looking fabulous.  Plus it's something different!

I do want to tell you about one thing Joanna has going on that I'm taking part in and want to invite any of you that may be interested - it's an ornament swap.  I am the least picky person in the world when it comes to most things, but ornaments are another story.  If they don't have special meaning attached, I give them away or recycle them.  I used to belong to a bunco group and they'd want to have an ornament exchange every year and it was secret so you didn't know who would get your ornament or whose ornament you would get.  That made it pretty much impossible to personalize it in any way.  Some people went all out and others stopped at Walgreens on their way to the party that night.  Nuh uh.  I don't like to lie (not to mention I'm terrible at it) so I'd always say, "Ooooh, look at the little such & such ~ thank you so much ~ where did you find that?"  I could sufficiently fake it without lying.  And who knows, maybe it was cute!

What makes this ornament exchange fun is that she's going to send out a little questionnaire and then she'll pair us up and we'll get our partner's questions so we can pick out something special just for them.  Since this is my first year blogging, I already know this ornament will be special because it'll always remind me of when I started blogging.  If ornaments aren't your thing, no big deal, but if you do enjoy them, you may want to check it out. 

Paging Old MacDonald...

You know how even if you don't watch TV, you've probably at least seen pictures of Jon & Kate Gosselin and their litter and their dirty laundry spread all over the internet and every magazine in the world?  Yeah well, that's kind of how I learned about this new game (OK, honestly it may not even be new) called Farmville that's on Facebook. 

A friend at my work, we'll call her Gina (only 'cause that's her real name) started telling me about this one day and I was sort of nodding, thinking of the 20 other things I needed to get finished before I left.  She needed to get home and check on her crops and feed her animals.  HUH?  I said, "You live in a subdivision and have one dog."  "OH NO!", said she, "FARMVILLE!!!"  Plus her sister's internet is down and she's got to take care of her farm also!!  I think there's also Farmland or Farmtown or something, I don't know.  I'm like, "Don't you have real kids you need to feed?"  I know, not nearly as fun!

Gina and I both share a semi-fascination with the Amish and I thought maybe this was just her little outlet.  Next thing I know, two of the library customers start a Farmville conversation at the check-out computer, so I called Gina up front.  You would've thought they just discovered it was 2 for 1 day at the Dollar Store!  

I got home from work later that day and my son (who's 21) was sitting at the kitchen table and said, "Hey mom, want to come see my farm?"  Don't tell me...Farmville!  Yep.  As he's showing me his crops and animals (that include chickens, elephants, rice and banana trees - hello, where the heck is this farm anyway AFRICHINACA??), I see all the other people who also have farms...my sister-in-law, my husband's aunt, my nephew, his friends.  Now I have to tell you, this is a boy/man (a mancub we'll say) who is too busy to help with dinner or take the trash out.  Uh huh, wait until one of his pigs is on the kitchen table at suppertime - that might change his tune!  Hey...chicken and rice!

                                     

Did I mention if you don't take care of your animals or crops, they'll wither and die?  How fun and special!!  The whole thing reminds me of the big Tamagotchi craze from when my kids were little where you had a little keychain animal thing.  You had to play with it, feed it, clean up it's poop, give it treats, etc. or it'll die.  You know, teaching the child "responsibility" and all.  Yeah, my fanny. 

So anyway, I'm just saying...even though I'm not on Facebook (yet), this obsessive-compulsive game may just lead me there.  I've always wanted to live on a farm and did I mention you can "gift" things to your friends.  Gina invited my son to be her friend on Farmville (and he'd rather pull his fingernails off than hurt someone's feelings) and he said sure (nothing like being friends with your mom's friend, bless his heart), so now they're trading crops or animals or something.  I'm just sayin' it's easy to make fun of now when I'm not doing it, but IF I should get a farm, I will not allow cracks about me 'having too much time on my hands' or 'why don't I use my time to change the world'...OK?  I bet I start feeding my family from a trough though...I'm almost to that point right now.

I'm so thankful...

Since I haven't been posting awards on the blog, I never really knew what to do if I received one.  Well guess what, I'm still thankful that I got them and the people I received them from are so awesome that I wanted to at least give them a shout out and and send a huge "thank you" from me to you!!   

First I want to thank Rebecca at Chow & Chatter AND Ashley from Farmgirl at Home for the Kreative Blogger Award.   Rebecca is not only a dietician but her blog has amazing recipes with a worldly flare!  Seriously, that sounded like a commercial but I can't think of any other way to describe it.  Ashley I think is my youngest follower and I've found out is a fellow St. Louisan!  She's a great Christian girl who's got her head on straight and the ideas just flow out of it like nobody's business!!  ☺  Oh!  And she's holding her first giveaway so check it out...

For this award I'm supposed to tell 7 things about myself, so let's see...
1.  My real name is just Beth, not Elizabeth.
2.  I was a cheerleader in high school (captain my senior year).
3.  I can't believe I just told you #2.
4.  I have a degree in Psychology.
5.  I'm the only person in the universe not on Facebook.
6.  I love drinking coffee, but only with flavoring mixed in, not regular.  
7.  I absolutely love to cross-stitch and sew.

From Heather at Theta Mom, I received the One Lovely Blog award.  What I love about her blog is she GETS the whole motherhood thing!  She loves her children, but she takes care of herself and finds time to make herself a better person and a better mom.  And she's hilarious, I have to say! 

While I'm talking about her blog, I want to mention the giveaway she's got going on now.  You absolutely have to go see this baby quilt she had made from all of her daughter's "firsts" - ADORABLLLLLE (I just sang that if you couldn't hear me).  Her giveaway is for a $150 gift card to The Campus Quilt Company.  With my daughter being a senior, I would love to have a quilt made from all her T-shirts from different clubs or organizations that she's belonged to.   I know how to sew but I don't know how to quilt so I would love to have something like that made.   She's got all the info at this link.  Good luck!

Finally from Karrie at Stay at Home Mommy I received the Attitude of Gratitude Award.   What I first liked about Karrie is that in her profile she said she's a stay at home mom who is not a big fan of cleaning house or doing laundry.  Well, that sounded like a friendship to me!  I'm supposed to pass this on to 10 blogs, but I give it to all my blog friends.  I can't pick and choose - I was never good at that. 

                               

THANK YOU for these sweet little badges.  Even if I don't display them on the blog, I do hold them dear to my heart because you took the time to make me feel special.  Have a great Sunday, all!

Boys will be boys...

NOTE:  I have to comment about yesterday's picture of my dog Frosty being held by my husband because this is just TOO funny.  I got an e-mail from my friend saying she didn't want to comment on my blog about this, but was Scott wearing black fingernail polish?  Then my daughter's friend was over and I told her what MY friend said about my husband's fingernails.  She said, "Um, yeah, I noticed that but didn't want to say anything."  WHAT!!??  Soooo, just so you know I didn't marry some freakazoid man who wears black nail polish.   It's either hot pink or nothin'!! HA  If you click on the picture, you can enlarge it and see it's just the shadows.  It's enough that I let him use my eyeliner and mascara - I have to draw the line somewhere, am I right!?  OK, I feel sufficiently nauseous now.

Onto some manly things... for Friday Photo Flashback I'm posting this picture of my brother Bob with his Civil War Centennial set-up.  I guess if the Civil War was 1861-1865, this must be somewhere between 1961-1965.  Is that a happy kiddo or what!?  And what a stud in those jammies!  The whole army man thing...I don't get it.   I think the fun is all in the set-up and that thing has it all, doesn't it, right down to the plantation.  I bet Barbie would have a field day in that dream house!  We had six kids and he was second oldest, so I'd love to know how he kept all those little hands away from that.  I'm guessing there was a lot of yelling on his part before that smile!

Ready for winter...

"If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail."

Fran Lebowitz

Thin Mint Wannabes

OK, we all remember when Peter wanted to try and be a Sunflower Girl because Marcia wanted to join Greg's Frontier Scouts.  Come on, Marcia, if you want to date someone like Doug Simpson, the most popular boy on campus, you need to act like a lady and walk around with books on your head - not be the only girl in an all-boy organization!!  Can we not just let some things be??  Whew, I'm glad I got that out.

I've got my own imitation this week.  Thanks to Joanna at This Southern Girl's Nest for hosting this cookie baking extravaganza every Tuesday - and my family wants to thank her too!  This week I made the easiest cookies - seriously, start to finish it took maybe 15 minutes.  I can't remember how much Girl Scout Cookies cost anymore, maybe $3.25 a box, but now you can make this little imitation for a lot less and hide them in the freezer any time of year, not just March! 

For the ingredients, all you'll need is:

1 box of Ritz Crackers (or your favorite imitation - we're all about faking it this week)

1 bag of chocolate chips

8-10 drops of peppermint extract

A little bit of shortening to add to chocolate chips

Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler with some shortening.  The shortening helps make the chocolate chips very easy to work with.  Add mint to the melted chocolate.  A double boiler sounds complicated but all it is is melting something in a pan above a pan of boiling water.  A monkey could do it.

Dip the crackers into the melted chocolate and put on wax paper to dry.  THAT'S IT!  Package them and sell for $3.50 a box.  Oh, OK, not really.  For this batch, I only used one stack of crackers from the package and a 6 oz. bag of chocolate chips.  They were selling the small bags for $1 so we grabbed a few.  I put mine in the fridge and we're eating them cold - SOOO yumbo! 

                        

"The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant -- and let the air out of the tires."  ~ Dorothy Parker, American writer and poet

Last night was Homecoming at my daughter's school and times are a changin'!  Whatever happened to long dresses and a little more modesty and corsages??  I know that just made me sound so old.  It was their time to play dress-up for the night and it seems the theme was "zebra" - Sara had a zebra print in her dress (purple and black zebra, just as God had intended it of course) and a couple others had the regular ol' black and white zebra.  

My husband and I had to laugh because we knew the girls who either shopped without mom or never let her see them before they left the house ~ whoa!  They're a fun group of kids though and it sounds like they had a great time.  The first picture is Sara and her friend Jordyn from another school that went with them.  There were a few boy-girl "couples" but mostly they all just went as a group. 

In this next picture, Sara is second from the right (click to enlarge).  I have a HUGE problem with tanning beds, but she just insisted.  She'd drive herself and use her own money...sneaky.  Don't get me started on that one!! 

I'm still in denial that she's a senior.  All that's left is Prom and Graduation and then adios to high school.  I'm actually excited for her to move on - too much drama with all those girls.  Sheesh!

He shoots...he scores!

Thanks to Alicia at More Than Words for hosting this every Friday.  It's a chance for us to show photos from pre-digital camera days.  Remember that, we'd take pictures and then take the film to the store and then go back and keep our fingers crossed that they turned out?  Yeah, those days.  Hey, I'm not knockin' it - even some of those disposable cameras take really good pictures!

Well today is the official start of St. Louis Blues Hockey season!  My husband's dream-come-true (he already had me - HA HA, so funny) was when he got to do a Blues Hockey camp with a bunch of current and former players.  We'll save those pics for another day, but needless to say he's a pretty big hockey fan.  This was when our son, Adam (who's now 21), was not quite 2 and Scott was 27.   They got matching (sort of) Blues sweats for Christmas and were ready to sit back with some popcorn and a juice box and cheer for their favorite team!