Happy New Year!

Blogging's been light, since the holidays have been so rushed.  But...

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

Hopefully some holiday updates in the next few weeks....

AMW

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone who reads my blog!  If Christmas isn't your holiday, then HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

AMW

Progressive Dinner Update

Last week I mentioned that we had a Progressive dinner coming up.  Well, it was last Saturday, and it was a ton of fun.  We started out at R&E's house.  They have a new kitchen/sunroom combo.  They live in an older home, and their previous kitchen was slightly larger than a closet.  It was small.  They had kind of a closed in back porch as well.  They combined the porch and kitchen and created an awesome space.  So nice to see it all done, and to have appetizers there.  

M&M handled dinner, and it was nice because it was right next door to R&E.  There are two kittens that are just about a month old that have their own private room upstairs with their mommy, so we just had to head up there and visit.  Good food and good conversation ensued there...

K&L hosted dessert.  Awesome, because they are our NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS.  So we got to park at home, walk over, and spend a worry-free evening.  Many yummy desserts to drool over, but the hit of the night was the Rock Band game.  Set up with a guitar, drums, and vocals, we set about playing this game on the playstation (or was it an XBOX, not sure).  Lots of laughs, plenty of groans, and some out of tune singing made for a fun night...

Can't wait until next year for this fun event.  We may even be hosting part of it again.  Who knows....

AMW

Holiday Baking

I like to bake.  And I like to cook, although I'm not overly skilled at it.  I certainly can't do *fancy* dishes, but I can make a good dinner.  But I really like to bake, and make goodies during the holidays.  For about the last 10 years or so, I made home-made caramels at Christmas time.  Everyone really enjoyed these as they were "melt-in-your-mouth" good.  But I found over the last few years, that I really didn't enjoy making these, and it became more of a chore.  Mostly because they were expected.  Not that they weren't appreciated, because they were.  But folks liked them so much, that they just knew they were going to get some each year.  Yet each year, I wanted to do them less and less.  

I almost didn't do them last year, but was too worried about the fallout to not do them.  This year, I just decided not to do them.  I decided to try some new things instead.

One of the things I decided to try this year was Chocolate Covered Cherries.  The first test batch is done and they are very SWEET.  Yummy, but sweet.  I'm not sure if these will make the final cut or not.  We'll see.  On the list to try this year also, is home-made peanut butter cups.  

We were smart, and made batches of cookie dough that we can just pull out and bake cookies as we need them or want them.  I think that will help.  

Also on the list this year is:

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Chocolate Covered Ritz Peanut-Butter Sandwiches

Vanilla Covered Pretzels (for DAD!)

Oatmeal Cinnamon Raison Cookies

Chocolate Chip M&M's Cookies

Rum Balls

Truffles

Whew, that's a lot.  We'll see what we have to skip....  Especially since Christmas is only 2 WEEKS AWAY!  UGH!

AMW

Random updates

Been a while since I just updated about what's going on.  Probably because nothing major has been happening.  

We got a new sofa.  A dual reclining sofa from La-Z-Boy.  It's green microfiber, and is VERY comfortable.  

We went shopping on Black Friday.  Actually, we got up at 3:00 am on Friday and were at JCPenney at 4:00 am.  Yep, 4:00 am.  For what?  Waffle irons.  The best time spent in the morning was at Lowe's.  Lots of good deals there.  We hit five stores, a mall, and had breakfast, and were home by 11:00 am.  Good thing we had a new reclining sofa to take a nap in!

We got all 17 Christmas totes and the new fake tree out of the attic to start decorating the house.  It's not done, but it's all out.  I think we're gonna skip the outside lights this year, just because its such a short season.  So the Porch Blog won't get the light effects.  There's always next year.  

We've got a super fun Saturday night planned with some gals from the neighborhood.  Each year, one of them organizes a "Progressive Dinner".  Appetizers at one house, dinner at another, and dessert at yet another.  The appetizer and dessert location changes each year with people volunteering (or being asked by the organizer) to be a host location.  Last year, we hosted appetizers.  This year, we aren't hosting anything, but dessert ends up at our next door neighbor's, so that's a bonus for us!  Right next door to home...  Will try to remember to do an updated post next week about it.  

That's about it for now...

AMW

Bowling

We were off last week from bowling due to Thanksgiving, so, no scores.  This week I'll just call it average...  (Speaking of, my average is now 109)

1st game - 82

2nd game - 109

3rd game - 141

For those of you keeping track, that's a nightly average of 111.  My league average when we started in September was 103.  It then jumped up to 113 for a bit, and now is back to 109.  So 111 for the night was just about average.

AMW