Now that Christmas is over...

My friend Michele surprised me with this gift. I put it on the breakfast bar with my Christmas cactus and Callie the cat thinks this is where she's to lay.

This is my favorite gift of all!LOL If you would have told me I would have been excited over a tool kit I would have told you - you are crazy. My dad got this for me and I have used it like crazy this week. I called him once and said, "Guess what I'm doing?" and when I told him I was using the tool box he just laughed and laughed. I have had a hammer and a screwdriver since April when I moved in - so I really could have used the tools!
This is my bedroom with it's new paint. Yes since Wednesday, I have been painting this room. My parents and my brother gave me gift cards to Lowe's and they were spent in paint. I found the bedding at Walmart the day after Christmas and bought if for $68. It's a quilted coverlet oversized with the bedskirt and the shams. I just love this. I had blue in the room but I just didn't like it - it wasn't me. These are warm colors and so much more like me. The wall behind the bed - that color will be painted in my bathroom when I get a couple of walls patched up.
This is the wall between my kitchen and living room. The bar is attached to it. It's just been sitting there waiting for me to do something with it. I've had the shelf but hadn't hung it yet. There was a telephone jack in the wall that I had taken down but was needing to repair the hole. I found the stars at Walmart the day after Christmas and knew they would be perfect for that wall - and they were 50% off. So two for the price of one. Yes, poor mister fish is back in the tank. We had the Jesse tree here and so the betta had been moved into Erynn's bathroom in a little tank until after Christmas. He's staying at the bottom of the tank - I hope he's ok - we will probably be shopping for a new fish soon.

Christmas was a great this year. Different but great. It rained here in Ar and we all hoped that it would get cold enough to turn to snow but it didn't. No white stuff here in Central AR. Christmas eve my family came over and we exchanged gifts and snacked and played a few card games. Christmas morning Erynn and I opened gifts and she got me a lovely orange bowl for the living room and a beautiful book that I will cherish always. She hooked up her playstation 2 and played until we went to my mom's at noon. We ate lunch there and then we went to visit a couple of my mom's six sisters. It was different but a good day.

Erynn and I had planned on being up at 5 am and hitting the stores the day after Christmas. Erynn wanted lights for outside. The alarm went off and she asked if we could just go later and we slept in. We went later and got some white lights and have decided that if it stays still next year it will have lights on it!

Hope everyone else has had a great holiday and a great week. I have the week off until the 3rd of January and I'm telling you the days are going too fast. I've been counting how many I have left each day - not enough time off.

Here comes Christmas!

Here are some rum balls that I made last night. I packaged up these for a co-worker that was nice enough to bring me some rum to make them. I thought I would share my recipe with you:

Rum Balls
60 Nilla wafers, finely crushed
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup pecans, finely chopped
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 T light corn syrup
2 T unsweetened cocoa
1 t instant coffee
1/4 cup rum
1 cup chocolate sprinkles

Mix wafer crumbs, sugar, pecans, butter, corn syrup and cocoa in large bowl. Add coffee granules to rum; stir until coffee granules are dissolved. Add to crumb mixture. Shape mixture into 1" balls; roll in sprinkles. Place in air tight container with sheet of wax paper between layers. Store at room temperature.

Christmas Eve will be at my house this year. Erynn and I are so excited about that. We are having appetizers with Jezbel Meatballs, deviled eggs, cheese dip, hot homemade salsa, cheese ball and lots of cookies and candies. We have a few games that we might play like "Pass the pig" and "Chicken Foot" if we have enough dominoes for that. There are always card games too. Erynn loves to play Rummy with me or uno.

I'm applying for a scholarship for single parents that are going back to school. Please keep good thoughts for me. My work pays for 80% but I could really use some help with the 20% and would love to be able to take a few on-line classes too. I have 13 classes left until my associates is finished and then it's working towards my bachelors for a Business/Accounting degree.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year.

Happy Birthday Erynn!

First I want to wish my darling daughter a very Happy 13th Birthday. We celebrated with a couple of her friends and her nana and papa yesterday.
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As you can tell her papa was trying to take her birthday money from her. This is my dad and he has aggrevated her from the day she was born. He used to call her Nicki when she was little (her middle name is Nicole) and she would get so mad at him and tell him what her name was.



Erynn also worked on her gingerbread house last night. Let me tell you my patience just wasn't that great last night. My hand mixer broke on making the royal icing for the house and we had to finish mixing what we could by hand. I think the only time I sat down yesterday was at church. It was a great day for Erynn and she thanked me for a great day. The last photo is a picture of the gift album that I'm giving Erynn tonight. Each year she gets an album from me either on her birthday or Christmas that's been made especially of her. This year it's her cross country running. Last year it was an album that fit in a large 64 count crayola box and it was of her first 6 yrs of school. The year before that was a quarter album for all the state quarters that we add to each year.

Monday Menu
Sunday: Vegetable soup with family - the potatoes weren't done and the corn casserole I tried to make wouldn't finish cooking either - but hey we had cake and ice cream.

Monday: Red Lobster for Erynn's Birthday

Tuesday: Chicken strips with roasted potatoes

Wednesday: Church

Thursday: Chili Dogs

Friday: Homemade Pizza

Saturday: Cheeseburger Soup

Sunday: Appetizers - we are just going to snack all day

For more menus check out Laura's blog.

Monday Menu December 11, 2006

Well, I have been bad this past week and have not been to blog land much this past week. And honestly, I can say we haven't eaten very good meals for us either. I past my college history class and I have a break until the 8Thu of January so I have no excuse not to cook each night. Joy!LOL

Sunday: Roast, potatoes, carrots in the crock pot with bisquick biscuits and gravy

Monday: Quick Chicken thing - this is one of my favorite quick recipes.
Take however many boneless chicken breast you need to feed your house and season the chicken with salt, lemon pepper and cavendars.In a pan large enough to put your chicken in add 1/2 a stick to a 1 stick of butter(depending on how much chicken you are cooking) and a package of fresh mushrooms with some fresh minced garlic. Place your chicken on top of this and bake in the oven covered at 350 for about 20-30 minutes until your chicken is done. Then take out of the oven and put shredded Monterrey jack cheese over the chicken and pour a can of durkee onions over the top of the cheese. Put back in the oven uncovered for about 5 min or until cheese is melted.

Tuesday: Spaghetti, green beans

Wednesday: Church

Thursday: Mac n cheese

Friday: Homemade pizza

Saturday: Singles group's Christmas get together at church

If you crochet or knit please check out http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/reports/kit11.pdf on how we can help. It's unbelievable that by just taking an hour of my time could save the life of another less fortunate. Hope everyone has a great week! Check out Laura's blog for more menus.