Weekly extended update~

So you are probably wondering what I have been up to since I have not been posting...well nothing really.  I've just had several meeting I have had to attend and there was that whole blizzard thing.  Plus I have just been really lazy the past two weeks.  Yeah I know, I know, shame on me! 

Okay so with a recap let me tell you what I have actually been doing while away!  First of all I survived 24 hours of this which amounted to 16 inches of snow or 20 it really just depended on where you stood.

This picture was taken form my bay window looking out onto the street that passes by the side of our house.

This was looking out our back door at the neighbors house.

Whew I need to clean that door!  This was at our back door not long after it started.  There is usually about a five inch step from our back porch to the sidewalk below but I was pushing snow with the door when I opened it.  Notice my cute purple stripped socks...so warm and cozy!!

Tanner running over to get the mail in snow that almost came to his needs granted I think he was standing in a snow bank.

SO...with that Tanner didn't go to school all week and Ryan and I missed two days because well we couldn't leave town.  It was a mess but with the city workers, state workers and local farmers all pitching in the city is in great shape now.

With all that behind us I decided to spend some time with little P (my niece) on Friday, sorry no pictures of that I forgot to take my camera with me but she was a pistol.  She yelled at my dad for trying to steal her pacifier, yelled at me for not paying attention to her, yelled at Tanner to come get her and just randomly poo-ed her pants which we graciously let grandma change.  Who knew someone so little could be so full of poo?

Saturday Tanner and I went grocery shopping in a small local town and let me tell you we will not be doing that again any time soon.  That experience just rubbed me the wrong way and their sale items were more expensive than normal priced items at our local Gerbes (which I consider one of the more expensive stores).  Ryan did some more work on the car and trying to figure out where the oil leak is coming from.  We think we now have that under control.  With all that done we decided to cook ourselves silly since the Superbowl was the next day and we wanted no problems or complications to arise.  We made the famous "Mama's Chili" and man did it turn out good.  I put everything in there but the kitchen sink...it goes in sweet and goes down hot.  YUM, YUM, YUM!!

After the chili was consumed we settled on making a dip we affectionately refer to as the "Chicken dip".  Now I am sure it has an actual name somewhere but when I found this recipe years ago I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would have caught on so well with my friends and family.  It seems now that every family function I go to the "Chicken dip" is requested and if I show up without it man do I hear about it.  Oh and let me tell you the recipe is so freaking hard that apparently no one can follow it.  Are you ready...equal amounts of cream cheese and canned chicken then onion to taste.  YEAH I KNOW, super hard!  Since I have to make it in massive quantities around my house and we love onion I have come to realize that I can use four bars of cream cheese, four cans of chicken and one onion and everything comes out great.  See now where is that caveman when you need him?  Serve with Ritz and you are all good.

We didn't stop there we decided to go ahead and make some pre-packaged peanut butter cookies and shove some PB cups in them!  Yes I know I am a terrible person *pre-packaged* what was a I thinking.  Well they were bought on the terrible shopping trip and I was thinking man I am lazy let's take a short cut here!  Oddly enough it worked out nicely.  The cookies were a big hit with the PB King that lives in my house and he kept stealing the warm ones...little or should I say big thief :) 

Moving on then.  I only managed to get half of this weeks task completed and it was DAH DAH DAH..DAH!!  COASTERS!!  I did them in a bunch of random colors and plan on making some photo ones although I ordered my pictures through Shutterly and have not received them yet.  So basically with these they are just off white four inch tiles that a woman graciously gave me...AN ENTIRE BOX OF THEM, because she had no need for them she had ordered to many.  Then I used scrap booking paper and or stationary and just cut it to size.  I glued it on with my hand dandy glue and matte Mod Pogged over it.  I still need to coat them with a sealant to keep the paper protected from water damage and then I need to adhere the felt to the back.   All in due time.  Today was mostly about the Superbowl since both teams playing today were Tanners teams it was a day of conflict.  It didn't really matter who won but it was still fun to watch and after all that cooking the food was YUM YUM!! :)

Tanner even got his own special coaster since he is our musical prodigy and lives for ice cold anything!

Be thankful~

Okay so this weekend was run, run, run and be sick, sick , sick.  Fun times, fun times!!  We managed to wind our way through a Winter National Monster Truck Rally which was more winter and less rally than we expected.  We made the most of it though and had a good time spending the day with my husbands mother, sister and nephew.  Upon getting home the allergy monster set in for my husband which we kind of expected given all the fumes and dust at the rally but I felt so sorry for him.  We doped him up good and sent him to bed.

Today we have a Rainbow Vacuum guy in our house and let me just tell you...these things are fricking AMAZING.  Personally I would love to have one I think they are amazing and would help us out in several ways.  HOWEVER I can not justify, at this point purchasing one.  We have one house for sale and another not even started yet, new furniture we are saving for and a mini-vacation we would like to take this summer.  We were quoted a price of $2,300.00 for this machine which would probably last us the rest of our lives but seriously when or if I am ever between houses it would just sit in storage and what good would that do me.  I think though after seeing everything they can do today my husband is almost convinced to purchase one of these and fore go the central-vac in the new house.  I say whatever I am really indifferent but I will say - that freaking 2 hour demonstration really made me want to clean my house again...THAT THING WAS AWESOME!!

So anyway onto the real reason your here---the PROJECT!!
Between all the running and neither Ryan or I feeling the best this weekend I only worked part time on a couple of projects.  I did manage to finish one project that I had about half complete though, so that is what you are getting to see.  I know it's not Christmas themed and you'll probably see about 5 other project over the course of this year that aren't Christmas related either but none the less it is still a project.  I already had the letter printed out so I just cut for the ribbon and then fed it through and took a pic.  I like the way it turned out and plan on getting some Autumn foliage to go with it next fall.  I have more projects lined up and one that I am very excited about, I get to pull out the sewing machine for this one!!  I need to however get my butt to the Goodwill and get some old sweaters.  I am taking my mom that way tomorrow so we will see what happens!!

Big Lovin for Pirate Prep~

Okay so I know I said I would post every day but yesterday in the mail I got FIVE episodes of Big Love.  Okay seriously I am totally addicted to this show!  We got rid of our cable almost a year ago but I have all the season on netflix and I started over from the begining so I would make sure to not miss anything.  So that was my night last night I sat down and watched a WHOLE LOTA - Big Love!

I was lucky enough tonight to go watch the local boys and girls play basketball which was not my main reason for going but it was a thrilling three games I must say.  They won all three and I am very proud of them.  My main reason for going was to see my little drummer boy shaking his tail feathers in the pep band!  We was so excited to go and be a part of everything that was going on.  I was NEVER that excited about band growing up as a matter of fact I hated it.  My art teacher once told me that only truely gifted people get into both music and art most people just choose one or the other.  My son is super lucky because he has an artsy, fartsy, crafty mother and a music genious of a dad.  We had a lot of fun though!  Watched the game, watched Tanner, talked to people we hadn't seen in a while and ate lots of popcorn.  Fun was had by all!

I'll be back tomorrow with pictures and projects I swear and will soon be posting my project for the week which I need to have done by Sunday.  Yeah I procrastinate a LOT :)

First five steps~

Okay so I was reading one of my favorite blogs today and Lisa was talking about organization and how as with anything you need to just start small.  She suggested that before this week is over you go through your house and find just five things that you have that are doing nothing but taking up space and get rid of them.  I am calling it the Lisa challenge and I WILL COMPLETE THIS TASK. 

I started thinking about all the STUFF I have in my house, I mean seriously stuff everywhere.  I have a hope chest full of "Tanner" stuff and he's only 13!!  I have a wardrobe full of stuff for the new house and we haven't even sold this one yet!  I have a closet full of craft stuff.....yeah okay I actually use that stuff but not as much as I should apparently.  I also have this old pie safe!?!  Hmmm!!  I had to take a picture and show you guys because this is where my Lisa challenge is going to come into play.  I have stuff I collect, stuff that was given to me, stuff that I decorate with, stuff that I haven't actually used in god knows how long.  However I must tell you I have issues.  I am not a hoarder per say, and I'm not a freak but I become very attached to items I own.  The cake stand, never used it but it was a wedding gift.  The two pixie lights, antiques and my very first purchases on ebay like what 10 years ago.  The shoe box, full of cups for the antique square punch bowl I bought several years ago and have never used.  The plates a small collection I would like to make bigger because I LOVE the color orange...love, love, love.  Okay do you see my problem here.  I might need to hit the closet with all the craft stuff to find my five items yet.