HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to every one. May 2009 bring you good health, prosperity and much love.

Will I ever feel better?

I am sick. I've been sick for the past week. I'm tired of being sick.

The week before Christmas I thought I was coming down with a cold. I tried extra zinc and Air Born and I thought I had it licked. But I was wrong. By Sunday I felt like I had been hit by a car. So off I went to the doctor on Monday and he gave me an antibiotic. By Wednesday, I felt a little better, but I still had some swollen glands that hurt like anything. So back I went to the doctor - my cold was a combination of bacterial and viral and the glands were the viral part.

So here I am, over a week later and still hacking my brains out. So back to the doctor I will go, and hopefully I will get some relief from hacking my brains out.

Added 12/31 @11:00 PM - Saw the doctor again and I now have new drugs - stronger antibiotic and prescription cough medicine. Had a chest x-ray so I know it isn't pneumonia. Hopefully tonight I will get some sleep.

7 Random Christmas Things

Country Girl Kate was tagged for the 7 Random things meme and changed it to a 7 Random Things the Christmas version. So I thought I might give it a go since I am a pretty random person.

1) I love to decorate the Christmas trees. I hate to dismantle them.

2) My mom and dad and I make nut roll every year for Christmas. It's our family tradition to make them and give them as gifts.

3) For the past 6 years I have been helping to decorate my church for Christmas. It's a great way to get into the holy holiday spirit.

4) I am notorious for wrapping presents at the last minute, despite the fact that my shopping is usually done at least a week before Christmas.

5) I stopped believing in "the big guy in red" when I was in third grade and I heard my parents taking presents down stairs when I was supposed to be asleep. I was devastated.

6) Our traditional Christmas dinner is beef with potato filling - a PA Dutch favorite that is a lot like bread filling, but made from potatoes instead. We all fight over the crust on the top. Certain family members have been known to skim the top and leave the insides.

7) One of my favorite Christmas presents was a Flexible Flyer sled that I got in 5th grade. I still have it and I still use it when I get the chance. My son uses it too.

Feel free to play along if your would like to - especially SFO Mom, Fr. D, Michele and any other kind souls who actually read the drivel I post here! Mental Mama and TSAnnie will probably see this on Kate's site before mine. I hope you play along!

The Day After

It's the day after, and thanks to our wonderful friends Nurse Nancy and her husband Fly Boy, by the time we went to bed last night, the kitchen was cleaned up and the only thing that had to be put away was the big coffee pots and the wine glasses.

Our party was really nice with lots of friends stopping by who brought lots of donations for our St. Vincent de Paul Society. Tomorrow I will deliver several bags of groceries that will help others less fortunate.

If you are reading this, hi to our friends K and M and we are looking forward to going out to dinner with you next month.

Chaos

There's chaos in my house. This Saturday night is our annual Christmas Open House. So the past two weeks have been a flurry of cooking and baking and decorating so that we will be ready.

This is one event that I really look forward to each year. Our guests are a mixture of neighbors, friends from our parish, car club members and several others. This year I anticipate about 70 people or so, a few more that in prior years. Maybe it's because of fewer company Christmas parties or fewer people are having parties in their homes. Regardless of the reason, it will be great to see friends old and new.

On our menu, hot roast beef sandwiches, ham, meatballs with sweet and sour sauce, apricot glazed kielbasa, penne with vodka sauce (thanks to our fireman neighbor C who took me on the "c(r)ooks" tour of Trenton), potatoe (Dan Quayle spelling) salad, green beans, appetizers and some awesome desserts.

So I will revel in the chaos that is my home and start the holiday celebration with friends.

How I Spent my Anniversary

Our 21st wedding anniversary was Friday. We celebrated it by having our annual nut roll day - our designated day when my parents and I make 6 batches of nut roll for holiday eating and gifts.

Here we are mixing the dough and filling:



Here is the finished product:



Here are the tired cooks:



And finally, the next morning, we finish wrapping:



I guess it might not have been the most romantic anniversary, but we did spend some quality time chowing down on pizza.

Happy Anniversary to the most wonderful husband in the world! I love you.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day at our house was a quiet day with just the three of us an my parents here for dinner. With my two brothers living 800 and 1500 miles away, our holidays and my husband being one of eleven who live an hour and a half away, we tend to spend holidays at home - we did the traveling when our son was young (when my one brother lived near my parents).

Here's an after picture of our son - sleeping as usual: