7 Random Things

1. I've got a great, crowd pleasing appetizer to share with you for the holidays. It's so simple to throw together for unexpected guests, too! We had it at a friend's house and then dreamed about it for a week until we could get the ingredients to make it at home.  You may already be eating this and thinking that I'm so "behind" the times, and you'd be right. ;)

Take a block of cream cheese and plop it on a plate.

 Next, take some jalapeno jam and plop it over the cream cheese. Then use your favorite flavor of Wheat Thins to scoop up the cheese and jam deliciousness. Ahhhhhh. Perfection on a cracker.

I found this jam at Safeway in my neck of the woods. It' delicious! 

P.S.- It's sweet, not really spicy. My kids even love it.

2. Here's what happens to every bag of trail mix in our home:

Yes, there are a few raisin haters around here. How could you tell?

3. I've been stitching together a few velvet pumpkins with real stems as demonstrations for this month's  4-H sewing class. I may or may not have started a small fire in the microwave while attempting to take a shortcut in the stem drying process, which may or may not have caused the house to smell like burnt  pumpkin stems.  

(baking for an hour at 175° works so much better. ) Wink, Wink.

4. We've added a new weapon in our arsenal against dry, cracked hands.  I still love my Bath and Body Works True Blue Spa Hand Lotion, and it's light citrus scent, but our dermatologist has recently got my husband hooked on a less greasy, but equally effective alternative that won't make your hands feel so slippery while doing chores. It's called O' Keeffe's Working Hands.

We get it in the paint department at Lowe's. They also carry it at Ace Hardware, or several places online.  My husband keeps one in his lunchbox while out working. His hands crack, chap, and peel so terribly without it.

5. We had our first decent sized snow of the season this weekend.  It was 19° F this morning which means that I couldn't wear my blingy cowhide flip flops.  The only bright spot to the whole thing is that I've been re-united with my blessed Sorrels. If you've read my blog for a while, then you know about my love affair with the most comfortable snow boots on earth.  Toasty toes = TrueLove4EVER

6. We've been listening to Christmas music for weeks now, and I'm not ashamed to say it.  I only wish God would give me my angel voice the same way Ariel got hers on The Little Mermaid so that I could sing O' Holy Night the way it was meant to be sung.

7. I've recently decided to take up coffee drinking.  Growing up in the hot, dry desert, coffee was something that only old people from Minnesota drank.  We drank Iced Tea. Straight. By the gallon. Who wants to drink something hot when it's 115° outside?   But since my husband moved me to the land of the frozen Tundra nearly 13 years ago, friends are always wanting to have me over for coffee.  At Sunday School, the only thing they have to drink is coffee. My husband drinks the stuff every morning without me. Everyone I know wants chat over a cup of coffee. It's coffee, coffee, coffee all the time. Well, I've finally decided to start drinking a cup every day until I'm in love with it. I want to sit and drink coffee while watching the sun rise in the morning. I want to share a thermos of it with my Love while we're driving to haul water to the cows in January. I want to share a pot of it at the kitchen table while talking to my fellow homeschooling moms.  After all, it's the social thing to drink around here...like tea in England, or beer in Ireland, or Saki in Japan.

My plan is to make it taste better with peppermint mocha creamer, or other "foo-foo" stuff (as my husband calls it) until I'm used to it. Then slowly, verrrrry slowly, I'll wean myself off the creamer until I can drink it black, the way my husband, and all other tough cowboys drink it.

Well, that's enough chatter for one day. I'm off to do something productive,

Nell