photos of me...ick, but whatever!

i was looking at my fall pictures and realize that its over and i didn't get to share enough fall STUFF during fall.  where'd it go?  i miss it. 

its my favorite and EXPECT to see a few fall blogs soon.

but right now i wanna talk about me.  more specificly, i wanna talk about photos of me.  i do not take good pictures.  i MEAN i REALLY DONT!  and i am not just being hard on myself. 

honestly i think i am a nice looking gal. but when it comes to pics.....see for yourself.

i have squinty eyes and i have a horrible fake smile. my real one is not good but my fake one is worse.

and here i look like a deranged gorilla.  granted i wasnt trying to look good but when i look bad....i look BAD to the bone.

in this self portrait i look fake, puffy and a little like eeeeyah, whats up doc?

o wait, here i look ok. why do we have to be so hard on ourselves? i ALWAYS tell my friends and family that we need to enjoy who we are right now because this may be as good as it gets. when i am 40 i know i will die to look like this in pictures.

after further review i did find a few pictures that make me feel silly and shallow for saying what i said up above.

check this out.....

and look here......not to bad even with the double chinny chin chin and belly!!

hmmm hmmmm.........this is ok too even with the poochy tummy

so anyway, i need to take some advise from my 5 year old.

"be who you are!"

she's right and i am gonna love who i am and embrace my pictures. good and bad!

i am healthy, happy and loved by God, my husband, my family and my friends.

i have a job, food, and a warm home.

i am thankful....even if i don't take good pictures. 

girls will be girls......

we can't have it all, but i do have more than i deserve.

brrrrrrrrr.......

well, well, well, i have been soooo busy with work and Christmas preperations that i have not had time to blog!

but now we are in a full on blizzard so i have lots of time to blog!

this happened today, in my courtyard!

and you can't see out half of our back door!

and the winds are amazing!!!!

and baby it's coooooooold out siiiiiiiiide!

i sing while i freeze tra la la! freeze tra la la! freeze tra la la!

la la!!

holiday shopping trip......gone so wrong!

Yesterday i bought a Christmas tree from Woodward's Furniture Store. Tonight, my mom, my friend and i went to their annual Christmas open house. I asked the owner for the price of a Christmas tree for my mom and made mention that i had bought the tree (a display tree that was for sale) and i LOVED it! She said she knew and that she "wanted to kick my A**!" She said it sorta joking, BUT SHE DOES NOT KNOW ME AND WHO SAYS THAT TO A CUSTOMER?  If she didn't want to sell it she should have told me it wasn't for sale until after the open house!!!  SO, we continued to shop and found that we had our hands full! I asked if there was a place we could sit our things and they said NO. My friend had her hands full with all her large items so when she added a LARGE piece of 8 dollar greenery..she stuck it in her $850 purse, but it was hanging out at least a foot! She made her $80 purchase (including the greenery) and was followed to my car and her things were searched. She came back into the store and told me what had happened. At that point, I made the decision NOT to purchase the things i had picked out. We pulled the owner outside (not to cause a scene) and asked him to give her a refund! He said he would have to ask his wife and then went inside and left us outside. We then took the box of stuff inside (it was 34 degrees) and asked what they were going to do. It seems it's store policy for no returns on open house night items?!? After some time they were thinking about a return when they began comparing her receipt to the things i had NOT bought and found that there was a discrepancy! Of course...her receipt did not match the things I WAS going to buy! Anyway, while they were thinking about giving a refund..two things happened!!! One.....my friend's name was drawn to win a table and two....another old man was accused of "stuffing his pockets full" and he had NOTHING! So, once I pointed out that the things they were looking at were not her box and her box of things were on the floor where the owner had placed them. At that point, they didn't know what to say! THEY DID NOT SAY SORRY FOR ACCUSING HER TWICE! So, I said, "forget it, just give us her things she PURCHASED and her FREE TABLE and we will leave if you don't want to do a return?!?  He said OK and we got back into the Honda Element we rode in on! Make your own decision where to shop but we will NOT be going back! I was going to buy a desk from Santa for my lil girl there....NOT NOW! The cop was embarrassed because he had to search two people who did NOTHING wrong! It would have been nice if they had let us sit our things somewhere or had offered a box for our things! I am sure it was a busy night for them but it was a horrible night for us!!!

my lovely friend. who is not a thief.......

and now that i think about it.....i think the owner was just mad at me for buying her display tree and took it out on my friend!!!!!

a picture says a thousand words..

i haven't blogged in a while because quite frankly i haven't felt like it.
i feel like this gal...

it's probably because i made 4 delicious Pecan Pies.

here's the recipe......

3 eggs

1cup sugar

3Tbs butter, melted

1/2 cup dark corn syrup

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1tsp. vanilla

1Tbs flour

1- 1/2 cup chopped (not fine) pecans

here's whatcha do.....

wisk 3 eggs

mix in sugar

mix in butter

mix in dark corn syrup

mix in light corn syrup

mix in vanilla

mix in flour

add nuts and mix with a blender on low for just a few seconds

pour into a pie shell

make our own or use a premade......

here's what you get.....

*note* you have to chop up your pecans (NOT FINE) so that when you cut the pie, it will cut better!  If you leave the pecans whole you CAN NOT cut a pretty piece of pie!

Dinner Club....

this week has been a crazy week.  the week of "Dinner Club" is always a crazy week and then you add on all the extra activities of our busy life and we've got ourselves a CRAZY WEEK.

extra activities of the week include:
rearranging my book shelves and redecorating the living room.
cleaning out closets. why?  nobody is going to look in the closets you say?  so...
work...early morning inservives.
cleaning up the yard.
cleaning out the garage.
Thanksgiving Dinner with My Girl at her school.
ordering My Man some well deserved custom Elephant Boots for his cute lil tootsies.
making dinner menu.
shopping.
cooking.
working.....oh yay, i do have a JOB!
and just plain "Gittin Ready" for a house full of hungry friends.

why all that work for dinner club?  what's dinner club?

well, for the last 7 years 7 fabulous couples have joined every other month to eat, socialize and knock back a few spirits! 14 wonderful people make up a group known as "The Tasteful Two's Dinner Club."

it's our turn, so on Saturday night we will feast on Grilled Pork Tenderloin, Holiday Stuffing, Mixed Green Salad with Cranberries, Carmelized Pecans and Asiago Cheese, Green Beans, Homemade Pecan and Apple Pie.....

a Thanksgiving Dinner with our friends whom we are so very THANKFUL to have in our life.

ps...i am also thankful that every 14 months we have a serious motivation to clean up, clean out, and redecorate.....even if it does make for one seriously CRAZY week.

carmel apples...

my girl has loved apples for as long as i can remember but NOT with the peel.

but a few weeks ago, when we went to the Pumpkin Patch, the school sent along a sack lunch for the kids.

it included:
a sandwich
carrot sticks
cheese doritos
one whole apple
chocolate milk

when it was time for the apple....

i bit into it and removed a large section of the apple peel so she could get to the "meat."

after she noticed her classmates eating the peels, she tried it and do you know what?

she liked it.

she's been eating lots of apples lately so when we were at the store we bought some carmel apples.

she calls carmel..."carnbull"

here's what the taste test looked like

i love the fall.  i love fall foods.  i love carnbull apples.

BUT My Girl doesn't like em!!  she doesn't like anything that makes her hands sticky. she gets that from her daddy.

o well, more for mommy!!!

book signing!

went to see PW at her book signing.  it was lots of fun.  Lainie and i got in line about 5:15 (even though we were in DESPERATE need of a glass of wine) because it started at 6:30 and there were lots of people already there and we weren't sure how many people would be there.  anyway we chose to just stand there and wait it out.  THANK GOD WE DIDN'T GET OUT OF THE LINE.  the line lasted 5 hours!!!!

in line we met a couple of gals (Lynette and Karen) and had fun visiting with them.  Lynette has a blog and you should check it out!  she too lives in the country and she homeschools her cute 8 1/2 year old son.  check out her blog here.  she was very sweet to take pictures and send them to me so that i could have pics for my blog.

we waited one hour for our turn but PW sat there for 5 hours and so graciously spoke to everyone for a bit and signed the cookbooks with a personal message.  i had 7!  she even asked who each person was and then she personalized each signature.  LUV HER!!

so, here's how my second meeting with PW went down:

Lainie and i walked up to the table.
i pushed Lainie in front of me and peeked around her!
then PW said, "hey, I know you!"
i died.
then i said something like, "well we have met before." and she said, "where?"  i told her that we had met her at the Range Round Up Rodeo.  she said she never forgets a face!!

**note.....i had my eye liner permanently done 2 hours before this picture and my hair was not dirty!

then Lainie asked all sorts of brilliant questions and i just smiled and bobbed my head all goofy like...again.

Lainie asked why MM took so long to call. he had a girlfriend.  he waited to call until after they broke up. she then asked PW when she was finishing their love story and she said...soon.  but we'll have to buy the book.  i'm buyin!

i told her that MY MAN is sure she has a crush on him and she said it was true.  she signed MY BOOK and it said, "To MY MAN, Thinking of you every day!"  then there were lots of hearts and her signature!  the good news is that later in the evening MM signed my book too.

right above the picture of his...tail in chaps!!  it say's. "the end."

the cookbook is fabulous!

so far i have had the Olive Cheese Bread, Rosemary Garlic Potatoes, and the Flat Apple Pie.  all yummy and last night i made the Potato - Leek Pizza!!

make it soooooon!  what?  you don't have the book yet...for shame!!

there will be another book signing on Tuesday, December 15th at the Barnes and Noble on May Ave.

sadly, i can't go BECAUSE she might call the law on me for stalking her since she already remembered me!  hmmmmmm......i wonder what i would look like as a brunette? 

just a thought!