The Christmas Sicko...er...should that be Psycho?

Well folks, if anyone could be sick over Christmas, I should have figured it would be me. I don't know what I've got (it's undoubtedly some kind of sinus crud), but it's kicking my fanny quite thoroughly at the moment. I'm better today, however, than I was last night, which means that I can at least get up and move around a little. All I keep thinking is that THANK GOODNESS I got done with the six gi-normous batches of cookies that are our family's Christmas presents!

Now, I'm the kind of person that HATES going to the doctor, especially for something like this that the doctor probably can't do jack about anyway. So I'm doing "Jack" about it. :) Now, please understand before I launch into this that I'm not a whiskey drinker. However, I'll share with you the recipe that's been handed down to me. In a cup/mug, mix Jack Daniel's whiskey, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, and honey--it doesn't quite make a half-mugful all together. Heat briefly, then drink. I'll warn you right now, this stuff is NASTY!!!! I can't reiterate the "nasty" part enough. BLEUGH! But the benefits are worth the nastiness. I did that twice last night, with a couple of hours between doses. Of course, it's not really prudent to be running around the home during the day taking shots of Jack, so this morning I started drinking big glasses of water mixed with the apple cider vinegar and a shot of lemon juice. This stuff is right up there on the nasty-meter with the other, quite honestly, but I think it's all helping. And at this point, to me there's nothing worse than being sick right now.

Anyway, to anyone who happens to be reading this, I wish you a very Merry Christmas! May God's blessings be upon you and yours!

Scented Rocks

Here's the recipe I have for scented rocks. I'd love to give credit for it, but I'm not sure where it came from. As I said before, it's similar to some recipes I've seen for playdough.

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup salt
1/4 tsp. cornstarch
2/3 cups boiling water
1 Tbls. fragrance oil
Food coloring or other colorant of choice

Mix all dry ingredients. Heat water in a Pyrex cup in the microwave or on the stove. Add the oil and the color to the water. Stir water mixture into flour mixture. Mix as best you can and then knead the dough with your hands. It should resemble cookie dough. Roll it out about to about a quarter of an inch thick. Cut into shapes or use cookie cutters, or roll and flatten into "rock" shapes. Let the dough stones dry.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure how long it takes for these jokers to dry, but I figure it's at least a couple of days. I got a bit of a surprise last night after we got home from my family's get-together. Apparently, one of our nosy cats jumped up onto the table where they were drying and, for some reason absolutely unbeknownst to me, decided to WALK ON MY ROCKS. I worked so hard to get pretty, smooth rocks, and now they have PAW PRINTS in them. Oh well....I guess it gives them...um, character? Yeah! That's it! Character. *snort* The color hasn't really changed since I made the dough. Well, they're maybe more of a dark gray today than they were yesterday. Hubby said they look like river rocks. With cat prints in them. Great. The scent, however, has dissipated quite a bit. You can smell rose-lavender when you sniff the rocks, but my kitchen as a whole no longer smells like a botanical garden on crack. Yay! I'm really not sure if I'm going to wind up giving these as gifts or not. I dunno know...if nothing else, maybe I can sew them into little pouches that hide the ugly. lol I'll figure it out.

Well folks, that's my crafty contribution for the day. I hope that everyone is having a great weekend!

Where has the week gone?

I just started my blog, and already I'm missing days! Yikes! I think I picked a bad time of year to try to get this up and going. I should have known better, but since I seem to bite off more than I can chew anyway, I dove right in. :) I promise to do the best I can!

Thursday night we went to my step-daughter's school for her 3rd grade Christmas play. Unlike some of the other plays she's been in, this one was cute and SHORT--the BEST kind when you have a small child with a small bladder. Last night, hubby and I went shopping. Honestly, it was nowhere near as bad as what I was expecting. People were actually halfway friendly, and we stuck well within our budget, which made for a happy night. Tonight we're off to my aunt and uncle's house for dinner and Christmas Karaoke...THIS ought to be interesting, lol.

So, today I tried my hand at my very first homemade gift--scented rocks. I'll post the recipe on here when I have more than 5 minutes to write, and, IF my dial-up will cooperate, I'll even put a picture of them on here. They're basically made from a recipe of kids' playdough plus scented oil. I decided to try my hand at a lavender-rose scented mixture. My first attempt at making these was just kind of....meh. I TOTALLY messed up the coloration--I was going for a nice pinky-purple and got...well, pretty much black. I also added the amount of oil as given in my recipe. Mistake. Seven hours later, my kitchen STILL smells like I just mixed these things up. Surely the scent will fade. I think Hubby is beginning to tire of the "girly" smell. Heh heh heh. Oh well...it beats the scent of stinky bean-funk any day.

I will do my best to post again before New Year's...lol...The next several days will be filled with wrapping presents, baking presents, and heading off to see family. So please bear with me!!

What is WRONG with people these days???

*WARNING* Rant alert ahead!

Wednesdays around here have a tendency to get hectic. It's library day. Getting out the door fully dressed with just *one* child and remembering to bring the library books with us can be a challenge for someone as scatterbrained as I am. Wednesdays at our local library are also Story Day for the preschool aged kids, and MD has gotten to where he really enjoys the activities and getting to see Ms. Betsy, the WONDERFUL children's librarian. What I didn't realize is that today was the day that Santa pays his annual visit to all the good little girls and boys for the library's storytime activity. The turnout for storytime was larger than usual due to this event, and lots of little kids were just waiting for their chance to see Santa. When Santa made his arrival, mass pandemonium ensued--not surprising, since most little kids are thrilled to see Santa and to sit on his lap and give him their Christmas wants.

What I wasn't expecting was the **horribly** bad manners. Granted, small children's newly-learned manners are going to suffer some when they get really excited, but what I saw today went past all that. MD had taken his place near the front of the group and was slowly making his way forward. FINALLY, he was at the front...but each time he'd take a step forward for his turn, some other kid would push him out of the way to climb upon the Man In Red's lap. Now, please understand, I'm not talking about 2-3 year old kids doing this--I'm talking about 4 and 5 year olds that are knocking my smaller-than-average sized child out of their path. "Where are the parents?" you may wonder. Good question! I saw a few standing around with their cameras yelling "Smile for Mommy!", but most were engrossed in their own Mommy Conversations and paying absolutely no heed to what their children were doing. This seems to be the norm each time I've visited for storytime. These women's kids are yelling, screaming, and beating each other senseless, and the mommies are so busy socializing that they're oblivious to their children's actions. ARGH! Do they give their kids no instruction on how to behave at all? I would be absolutely MORTIFIED if MD walked up to some other kid and shoved him around as I've seen some of the others do. I've been trying so hard to make my little boy understand that waiting your turn in line and being nice to others is how we should act toward those around us. Why do so many others think that this kindness is not necessary? It REALLY makes me wonder how this new generation will be as they grow older. I realize that the only thing I can do is instill good manners in my own child and teach him that, no matter what others say and do, he should always do the right thing...even when the right thing way not always be the "easy" thing to do.

*Whew* I'm done, I think. I need to be, as I need to get supper preps underway. It's red beans and rice and cornbread for us tonight. The funky smell that follows will be provided by my Hubby later on. :)

From There to Here

Gee-whillikers--it's COLD today! We were lucky enough here to escape the biggest part of the ice and sleet that fell last night, but the local schools still dismissed for the day because of the weather. The roads aren't horribly slick, but there's just enough ice out there for some good ole' boy in his big 4x4 to say to his passenger "Hey, watch this!" Heh heh heh. Another good thing--MD is showing now more symptoms of his stomach virus! YAY! He's back to his bouncy self and is singing his ABCs again.

As some may have gathered from my general information, I do consider myself as "Christian." I'd like to share some background on my past religious history, just so you can know where I came from, where I've been, and where I am now.

The very first church I can ever remember attending was an Assemblies of God congregation in a neighboring city. (Yes, that's Sarah Palin's denominational affiliation.) From a young age, I heard the fire-and-brimstone preaching, I heard the speaking in tongues, and I basically thought that every church everywhere did the same kind of things in their services. Independent Bible study was strongly encouraged, so I did get a good general working knowledge of scripture from my years spent in this church. Because of a bad experience with a pastor in the church involving the embezzlement of LARGE sums of money, my family became rather disillusioned with the denomination as a whole (NOTE: I know that not all pastors behave as such. It was a personal family decision at the time). From there, I think my parents put a whole bunch of possible church home choices in a hat and picked one out, because our next church home was at our local Methodist church. Pretty big jump in more ways than one! We went from rumpo-jumpo to calm and orderly in one fell swoop. So now I was learning another church doctrine--one that was a bit more liberal and forgiving than that of the Assemblies of God. During our time at the Methodist church, my mom and dad divorced, which came as a hard blow to me, as I was about 15 at the time...but that's another story for another time. After the split, my dad and I stayed at the Methodist church. My mom, on the other hand, converted to Catholicism afterwards, and she still holds her Catholic beliefs today. For several years, through my college years, actually, my dad and I were content at the Methodist church. However, little by little, we started noticing that our church was too middle-of-the-road on many issues. Our little church was starting to fizzle out spiritually, and we were both looking for...something more in the spiritual sense. It just so happened that we were invited to the town's Church of Christ by the lady that my dad was dating (and later married). The church's no-nonsense, Bible-based beliefs clicked with us, and we each felt like we'd found what we were needing spiritually. I was very happy for a couple of years. My growth and learning as a Christian during this time was phenomenal, and I was living my life as a Christian should. I'm not going into all the events that led me away from that particular church, nor will I get into the whole mess that my life became for several years...just suffice it to say that I fell away from Christ for a while. The important thing is that I have found my way back. I'm still looking for a place to call my church home, though I seek God's knowledge every chance I get through Bible reading, prayer, and devotions...and through discussion with like-minded people, of course. I guess what I'm trying to say through all of this is that I've had a varied denominational past, but each set of experiences has built upon the other to bring me to where I am now. I prefer to think of myself as a "Christian" rather than as a member of any particular denomination. I'm still learning, but hey, who isn't?? This isn't exactly an area where you can say "Ok, I think I've learned enough about God."

That's all I shall ramble on about at this particular time. It's much-needed nap time for Mr. MD, and I have to get a heads-up on tonight's supper. Have a good day!

What's for supper??

You know, I used to ask myself this question every single night. At 5pm. When supper was already supposed to be on the table, and husband and child are cranky from hunger. I would read about menu planning and kind of snicker. "That'll never work around here," I told myself. I'm so glad I've seen the light! I tried it for one week...you know, just to see...and I was amazed at the difference it made--not only in my newly-found ease of getting a good supper on the table, but also in the money I'd save during my weekly grocery trips! I'll go into a little more detail of my menu planning in a later post, but for now, I thought I'd share what's hitting the table tonight.

Pork chops in mushroom sauce
Mashed potatoes (homemade, which is an accomplishment for me)
Butter beans (Southerners don't like saying "lima beans" lol)
Homemade yeast rolls

Dessert is rather iffy, as MD likes to "help" me when I'm baking, and we don't need Stomach Bug Sugar Cookies tonight!

Off to a Rip-Roaring Start

I've had it in my mind for the past couple of weeks that I'd like to start my own blog. I'm not really sure why, as I don't know how much usefulness I can actually contribute (blame it in part on my SLOW dial-up). But anyway, here I am. :)

The morning, however, didn't get off to such a smooth start. When I went into Mr. MD's room (my almost-3 yr old son), I caught a whiff of a much-less-than-pleasant aroma. At some point during the wee hours of the morning, MD had apparently thrown up his toenails...all over his bed. I thought we'd be lucky to escape the 24 hour stomach virus that's been going around. BLEH! Naturally, being a good, responsible mommy, I immediately stripped the bed and carried the offending bedclothes to the washer. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered (after his clothes were already in the washer, mind you) that our dryer wasn't heating. At all. We've had problems with this dryer on and off for the past few months (it's older than I am, for crying out loud, if that says anything), and my wonderful Hubby has managed to keep it limping along. Hopefully it has just a little more "limp" (lol) left in it yet. I'm pretty sure the day will start getting better at some point....*waiting*

Anyway...I don't know how much deep, intellectual reading material I'll be able to offer you. I feel that there are many others on the web that are far more qualified than I to do this. I can, however, offer you my personal experiences and thoughts on a variety of subjects. I can tell you about how I (try to) make my household run the best and most efficient way that's possible. Exciting, eh?? Here...let me offer you a little more information about me, and you can decide for yourself. I'm in my mid-30s, I've been married for almost 4 years now, and I have a son that will be 3 in January. I also have two step-kids that occasionally spend time with us. We currently have a german shepherd, a blue heeler, and some kind of wondermutt mix (very obviously Weimaraner with something else we're not 100% sure about) living with us...OUTSIDE, of course, 'cause they ain't no little dogs. We also have three cats--Remington (a.k.a. Remi-kitty), who is 2, Ernie (my first experience with a longhaired kitten), who's about 4 months old, and Thomas the Cat (MD named him after Thomas the Train, lol), who's a little younger than Ernie. Pet numbers are subject to change at any time, given the fact that I'm a cat-magnet and Hubby is a dog-magnet. I'm a homekeeper, plain and simple. I do everything I can to make my home a pleasant place to live. This didn't come easy for me. I was in my early 30s when I met my husband, and we made the decision that I would stay home to raise my son. Prior to this, I had been on my own for almost 10 years; I had had no other responsibilities, I had worked in office setting jobs since high school and through college, and I DEFINITELY didn't have any homekeeper skills to speak of. I guess that part of what inspired me to start my blog was, in great part, my inexperience and my searching to learn how to become a good example of what a Christian, homekeeping woman should be. So bear with me. I'm still a work-in-progress.

So, for now, I'm off to prepare for the nasty weather that's coming--we're under a winter storm warning, yay, rah. Just keep your fingers crossed that it will wait for Hubby to get home before it starts!