God Bless Us Everyone

My social calendar has been full this December!  

December 15th was the company party. Although i didn't win a raffle prize I was able to snag the table decor of gorgeous white roses atop a crystal draped stand. The best gift of all was seeing my younger sis Erin who also works for the company. It made the bus ride up and back from Tacoma bearable.

Last Friday met up with the Blue Jacket Divas for lunch at Mill City Grill. As a surprise, our old boss from the lab and his wife joined us. Never enough time to catch up with everyone!

This weekend dropped off gifts for Jimmy, Lexii, and baby Hazely, who is now walking.  Such a cutie!  Also gave a gift to the boy's long-time friend Christian.

Gifted Sam's girlfriend a Wizard of Oz picture painted on We're Off to See the Wizard sheet music. She really wanted the first pic I made but that one I gifted to Erin.

Love having small lights in the house so set up lots of battery operated tea lights in various glass insulators and candle holders. Glowing lights are fab although switching 15 tealight knobs off at night is a pain!

Crafting has continued! Painted 12 small canvas for my team members and was happy to see they loved them.

Purchased a set of Christmas birds and their sturdy packing  box inspired me to make a shelf. Decoupaged with vintage Ladies Home Journal paper and it turned out lovely.

Now that the weekend of Christmas is upon us, began baking, including two loaves of cardamon quick bread, chocolate peanut butter truffles, pumpkin no-bake cheesecake, and pumpkin bread. Stumbled across a Walmart sale of turkeys at fifty cents a pound so picked up a 20 pound bird for $10!  Cooked that sucker today and there's plenty to share!

The tree is lit the presents are wrapped, and I can't wait for the boys to celebrate Christmas tomorrow morning when they arrive for breakfast.

To top it all off, in memory of my Mom spent this Christmas Eve evening watching Wizard of Oz and now I'm on to Meet Me in St. Louis. Yes, like everyone I'm sure to cry when Margaret O'Brian tears up while Judy Garland sings Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas but it's tradition!

Here's wishing everyone a magical and memorable Christmas!! ❤️

Tis the Season!

Twenty-one days til Christmas!

Family

Started the holiday season by spending Thanksgiving with Jordan, Candy, her son Jeffrey and his wife Tina. Highlight of the day was playing a mean game of Monopoly!  I remember being a kid playing the game with my siblings. Once I started losing, I'd pitch a fit and quit the game!  Yes, a bit of a sore loser!

Fun

Received two free tickets from work so invited my friend Janel to attend the Junior League Festival of Trees dinner.  Broke out the velvet leggings and sequin jacket to e joy the festivities.  My friends Stan and Susan were there dressed in twenties attire. The tickets were spendy - $150 for two. At that price the expectation for dinner was steak, salmon, or other high end item. And what did they serve? Pasta!  For dessert the table had to place a bid - the higher the amount, the greater chance you had of getting a yummy finish to the dinner. We would up getting cookies if that gives you any hint about how stingy was our table!

The event included a silent auction of tabletop trees, wreaths, and gift baskets; there was also a live auction of full-size trees decorated to the nines.  One even had a life-size robotic Santa!  The trees, diamond earrings, vacations, and entertainment packages cost from $800 on up.  The highlight of the evening was watching two bidders go back and forth on a Barbie tree, with the winning  price of $4,900!   

The best part of the evening was catching up with my friends and laughing!

Crafting

Recently discovered The Rusty Flea, a vintage store in Rose Valley.  Picked up various odds and ends for crafting, including old door knobs, alphabet blocks, fake foliage, thread spools, and holiday items.  Also visited an estate sale within walking distance from home.  There was an abundance of holiday items, glassware, lights, grapevine wreaths, tools, china, and so on.  Below are some creative creations made from the store and estate sale items.

Current project is vintage screwdrivers painted as snowmen. Oh the ideas one finds on Pinterest is neverending!

Decided to paint a small canvas Christmas picture for each of my teammates. Tried so hard to paint a caffienated squirrel - in the end, it looked like a cross between a sloth and a wood chuck so painted it black and swapped it out for a gingerbread man.

Upcoming Events

Looking forward to the company party in Tacoma on the 15th then meeting up with the Blue Jacket Divas for a holiday lunch on the 22nd.  It's going to be a packed month!!

Pup, Plates, and Puffs

Stopped by Rite Aid and ran into this precious animated pup. Squeeze its paw, music plays, and the little fella bounces around and shakes his head. Half-off so couldn't resist picking one up for little Hazley.

Here's Hazley in all her glory at 14 months. Isn't she sweet?

Christmas is coming so started some holiday crafting:

Air dry clay snowman.

Gnomes.

Picked a couple of Santa vases for a quarter each at a garage sale this past summer. Snagged some Christmas plates and made a couple of treat plates.

Picked this up from Goodwill but for the life of me can't figure out a scene for it.  Glued a candle stick to the bottom and hoping inspiration will hit.

Bought three glass transformers and added battery tealights to them. They needed a little height so snagged Dollar Tree candleholders, painted them gold, and they work perfectly. 

Have some Tim Holtz vintage looking black and white paper people to use. 

Decided to make a painted air clay moon then embellished the vintage girl to sit on it. Added lights and done.

Decided to funkify a pair of my beat up jeans. Cut up silver metallic fabric and used E-6000 to glue them behind the holes. Happy with the result.

This weekend had the baking urge, probably due to the fact I was binging the Great British Baking Show. I decided to make cream puffs which didn't seem so hard. I last made pate a choux decades ago but figured they were like a bike - once you made them before, you were golden. 

Well not exactly. I made the dough, beating in five eggs by hand until it reached the smooth, letter V dropping consistency.  Filled the piping bag then squeezed them on the tray. Quarter of the way through, nozzle slipped out of bag and it was a mess. Ended up plopping the dough into attempted circles and let them cook.

They looked done, although a few had baked into each other. Marked a hole in the bottom of each to let out the steam. Turned to make the frosting, looked back and my pate a choux had turned into flat mini-pancakes! Plowed ahead and attempted to fill a few of the puffs. It was a disaster!  Saw the writing on the wall so dumped the whole batch into the garbage can and bid adieu. Merde!!

Thankfully, dinner of fish and copy cat KFC coleslaw turned out much better (and edible) than the demon puffs!!

Weekend over and Monday will soon be here!  Thankfully, it's only a 3-day week due to Thanksgiving.

Enjoy the holiday everyone and stay away from the cream puffs!

Flat Tires, Gray Skies, and Birds

These gray skies and rainy days are not good for my disposition!  

After getting a cold while I was on vacation in September, ended up getting another worse one last week! Congestion, coughing, headache - even had to take a sick day from work for it. Super bummed that my cold prevented me from participating in the Halloween shenanigans!!

On top of that, got a flat tire on I-5 as I drove Sam to the Castle Rock park-n-ride in the early morning for work. Put on two new front tires in May and now the time had come to put two new ones on the back. Thankfully my insurance includes roadside assistance; however, the service truck (coming from Kelso, a 10-minute drive to Castle Rock) was going to take 90 to 120 minutes!! WTH?!  Sam would of changed it but the spare was jerryrigged stuck in the back and there was no jack. Thankfully he stayed with me, the service rig finally arrived and we were back on the road. Had two new tires installed a couple of days later.

Despite the rainy weather, we've continued to feed our birds and squirrels. My pigeon friend Mildred let's me pet her on the regular and has even let me pick ?

her up a few times. Couple kf the blue jays have landed on my knee to day hello and even a little bird flew over and landed on my elbow as my arms were crossed just to say hello.  Pretty darn cute!

Even though my cold has kept me sweaty and stuffy, I've pulled through for a few crafts.

November is here so Happy Birthday to both Mom and bestie Lynn in Heaven. 

Let's all hang in there this week and try to adjust to the time change. And can somebody grab me the bottle of Nyquil???