The Season has Begun!

**Book Giveaway! I have 2 copies of a really great book to giveaway this Friday. This series of books is eyeopening and a wonderful resource if you have tweens or teens or even small children that will one day fit that category, which we all know if you keep feeding them, they will. For a review and to leave your comment so you can be entered, go here.


What a crazy weekend. I think I'm still in recovery mode but forced to be out of recovery mode, if you know what I mean. There was so much running around this weekend. Between haircuts, dropping kids off and picking kids up, grocery shopping, decorating and church it was busy enough. But then I had promised Tia to take her to the mall for a little Christmas shopping. What was I thinking? It was insane in there. I hereby officially declare, I am not going into the mall on the weekends. I'll force myself to go a night, if I have to.

Does anyone else get exhausted from the weekend of decorating? I used to do this without a second thought. It seems every year, I need more hot chocolate and egg nog breaks than I did the year before. And the boxes seem to hang around the livingroom longer, too. They just don't seem to find their way back to the storage room on their own anymore. But the reward of the house looking Christmasy is so worth it. I love the look, though mine is not professional decorated look by any means. It is my family's very own corner of Christmas nostalgia.

Looking at the house decked out in Christmas makes me smile. We did have an issue with the tree again. Every year it's been the lights. I finally convinced hubby to take that job over last year. What was a 2 1/2 hour job for me, which included some very ugly moments and usually ended in tears, he now does in 20 minutes and it looks great. And even if it doesn't, I'm shutting my mouth because I do NOT want that job back. But really, hubby does a wonderful job with it. I just don't get light stringing. My beautiful plaid ribbon, that I absolutely loved, has finally started to fray to badly on the ends, so last year I purchased new ribbon from Costco. Thought I'd try something different in color this year, so I went with a cream with gold trees printed onto it. Beautiful ribbon, but I miss my splash of red running around the tree. Think I'll go back to the red next year. The ribbon was cheap enough at Costco. My old ribbon I needed 3 stranded of it, so I bought 2 big rolls at Costco, hoping it would be enough. I fleetingly looked at where it said "50 yards", but didn't really think about it. Did you catch the word "yards"? I think my head registered 50 feet. So anyway, my little 6 ft. tree barely dented one roll. I probably have enough to ribbon every tree in the neighborhood. Guess I'll be doing great big bows on packages this year!

I also went through my recipes to decide what I'm making. The word "easy" and/or simple is imperitive when it comes to baking. I love to cook but baking really stretches my abilities. So low frustration level is imperitive. That is why you won't find any cookies that require rolling on my list. Much to my kid's dismay they are sheer frustration for me. So here's my list for this year. I've provided links to recipes where I can. And maybe, just maybe, I might post recipes and pictures for the others.

-Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies (these are awesome and soooo easy!)

-Swirled Mint Cookies (a new one to try)

-White-Chocolate Cherry Shortbread(another new one but who can resist this combo)

-Gulley's Toffee(Big Mama posted this luscious recipe but I'm not sure when)

-Walnut or pecan snowballs

-UFO's (a favorite)

-Cheese Shortbread

-Scotch Shortbread

-Almond Roca Cookies

Sheesh, after looking at this list I think I better not be too hasty about putting the treadmill into the classifieds. Bear in mind, I probably won't accomplish all these. Unfortunately, I'm not Barb or Beck. But I'm trying, girls, I'm really trying.