What Am I Thankful For? Let Me Count the Ways

For my Lord and Savior for without Him I would have no life.

My dear husband RALPH. He has brought me so much happiness over the past 20 years. I get reminders all of the time of why I love him so much. Each time I look up and say "thank you", not everyone is as lucky as I am.

Thankful for my two boys Wes and Ryan is an understatement. The are my joy (most of the time), the beautiful miracles that my husband and I created. They will grow up to be fine men, loving, kind but rough and tumble too. Just like their dad.

We have family and friends near and far who have blessed our lives. We love you and for those who we have been reconnected with we are lucky to get to know you again. There is always something to be thankful for, just reach inside you'll find it.

Cheers,
Michelle

Being Together

I think the thing I like most about the holidays is just simply being together. I didn't grow up getting a massive mound of presents from my parents. We got some and then usually a few from aunts and uncles, but what I looked forward to the most was going to my Aunt Cheryl's to eat and be with everyone the whole day. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas at her house. My dad will come over and have dinner with us on Thursday and then we will head out as a family to the movies. Sounds weird maybe, but since we aren't around a ton of family we made a tradition of going to the movies. It's open and there usually isn't a lot of people there. This year we are going to see New Moon. There are so many movies we want to see but we need to space them out a bit. We are taking Ryan and a friend to dinner and a movie for his birthday, so we are saving Old Guys or A Christmas Carol for that day. I got my pie crust made and in the fridge, I baked my pumpkin for pumpkin pies last night. The turkey is defrosting, all in all we are ready to rock and roll. It's time to get your bake on, I'm a dork I know. Cheers.

Applesauce & Apple Pie

I have a bag of Gala apples and a bowl full of Granny Smiths that I really need to get cooked up before they spoil. I'm going to make an applesauce that I found here at Lady Dunbar's blog and try my hand at another apple pie recipe. I haven't found one yet that I love and adore. I'll also be making my Glazed Apple Bars for the PTA teacher lunch at Ryan's school. I'm going to meet my friend Stephanie for lunch on Saturday to celebrate her birthday. She took me for margaritas and nachos so I of course have to return the favor. What good friend wouldn't? I'll be working on my recycled goodie cans this weekend to. The more I do them the better they are evolving. It will be fun when Wes and I go around to deliver the goodies to our friends houses. I prayed and asked the Lord to bless our friends and bless the time we can spend with them this Christmas. Here's to a fabulous weekend, time to get all of the last minute Thanksgiving stuff. Thankfully I have almost everything I need. Christmas is on it's way. Yipppeeeee! Cheers.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

I know it's November and Thanksgiving is upon us, but I can't help it. Christmas is definately my favorite holiday. I love it ALL, the tree, decorations, music, wrapping paper, cookies, you name it. We are almost done with the boys gifts, only some stocking stuffers to go. For a couple of years now we have scaled way down on the amount that we give them. I think on some level they appreciate what they receive more than in the past. I start talking to them months before about what they may truly "want". It provokes thought on their part. I'm gathering my recipes together for homemade goodies to give out and for our 2nd Annual Cookie Exchange. I'm making the Ragamuffin Garland featured on Edie's blog found here. Mine is made from Christmas colored scraps of fabric that I already have and that my dear friend Sandy is donating to me. I'll post pics as soon as it's done. I've also been recycling my old Christmas cards by cutting off the front of the card and gluing it to the front of a brown paper gift bag. I have some lunch bags that I'm going to do this too to pack up my homemade goodies. I promise pics will come. Enjoy the day, think of the fabulous Christmas things that are coming. In my heart I believe people cherish homemade gifts (edible or not) more than anything you could buy at a store. Cheers.

Happy Halloween

Dressed up in orange and black at work today, orange shirt, black sweater, blue jeans, orange socks, black Mary Jane shoes, orange MAC lipstick (thanks Jen), black dangle earrings and ta-da a Halloween outfit it is. We opted not to dress up in costume today because the actual holiday is tomorrow. Sooo much fun, my lipstick is so bright I would never wear it otherwise, but today it's alright. We finally got an internet service to work at our house. We have Verizon Wireless for our cell phones and just found out about their air cards. Since we only have laptops it works out great. Enjoy the parties and festivities you may be attending this weekend. I am going to try and enjoy the weather and falling of the leaves. It's windy today but I like it. I'm starting to post my recipes on my new recipe blog myrecipemadness.blogspot.com If you are on my email list you will still get them there, but just in case you delete and email or forget this will be an option. I'll be working this week to get all of them on there, right now there are only two. Enjoy and savor the weekend. Cheers

GLAMOUR

So, on Monday night a group of girls from work converged at Kelly's house to have our own official "makeup" lesson from Jen. Jen is a freelance makeup artist who is amazing and we are glad she works with us now and not for MAC anymore. Kelly cooked us a yummy simple meal of chicken tenders, tossed greens and jalapeno dip w/ bread. We learned so much from Jen, she let us ask questions even the ones we thought were stupid. And yes she was right, she turned us onto MAC cosmetics. I would guess that most don't use 3/4 of the makeup we own. We should have taken some up close pics but at least we remembered to take this "after" one. What a fun time to hang out with the girls from work. Enjoy the day. Cheers.

What Fun I Will Have

It started last Friday when I got to scrapbook at my friend Sandy's. Then on Saturday I went with her to watch her daughter's band competition. It rained most of the time but we saw some incredible talent and ended the day with a great meal including milkshake. Yummm. Tonight I'm going to a co-workers house and another co-worker of ours who is a make up artist is doing a class for us. Tomorrow is my normal knitting night, I'm not sure if I can stand this much creativity in one week. Who am I kidding, of course I can. I'm trying to decide on a date for the Christmas wrapping paper swap that I'm hosting at my little house. I always say I want to do some many "things" and finally am setting time and actually doing it. Forever I have wanted to have a home where people would just drop in or have folks over for dinner. But yet I would never invite anyone over. See the irony? So I'm taking baby steps. I had to start letting go that my house wasn't the biggest, fanciest or best for entertaining. I love the line from the Toby Mac song "when love is in the house, the house is packed". That's my house, we may be small but we'll pack it full of love. Cheers.