Key Lime Pie

A "Healthy" winter treat:

2 cartons of key lime low fat yogurt

1 3 oz pgk of no sugar lime jello dissolved in 1/4 cup hot water

1 tub low fat cool whip.

Mix all together and put in a graham cracker crust. Refigerate.

Easy Peasy japaneasy and hardly any calories! This is what I'm switching to for our New Year's eve bash! Along with the pulled pork sandwiches. Recipe for that takes a bit longer (like 2 days) but boy is it worth the effort!

Video blogging

Well thanks to other blogging friends I've figured out how to do the video! Aren't you all going to be glad. I have 3 of them done. Though I added music I haven't figured out how to up load all that onto the blog it does go onto a CD anyway! So friends and family have lots to look forward to! What with a new camera and blogging I should be a great bore to everyone else but it will keep this old lady out of trouble anyway. I would be curious as to the quality that everyone else sees.

New Year's Resolutions

We got a membership to the wellness center today. The weather forecast is for lousy walking weather in the next few days so I gave up and in and decided walking indoors might be ok. So we tried it out tonight. Wow do they have a ton of machines to try out there. And even your own personal tv. Cool. There are ellipitical machines, treadmills, bikes, weight machines galore, balls, free weights and enough to keep me occupied for more than the hour that I was there. So, I will have no excuse for not losing the 10 extra pounds that I'm carrying around before it turns into 20 or 30 extra pounds. I have my buddy to keep prodding me to go. I have the exercise habit firmly ingrained. Next I will actually have to stop with the bad eating habits that have quickly developed in the last few months! So watch for me to keep you bored with my weight loss monitoring. If I don't mention anything-I'm not doing so well.

Putting it all away:

The Christmas things hide in every nook and cranny and rediscovering them is sometimes an interesting challenge. Usually, the 26th is the day that I take it all down and pack it all back up and return it to the basement storage. Today was just too busy, so there will be one more day of Christmas at our house. Then the Christmas village gets put up. All the ornaments will be repacked. I will have to find every hidden poinsetta, santa, tree, light, window hanging, wreath and pick and get them back in the tub neatly! The manager scenes come down. The tree gets packed up and put away. The leftover tubes of wrapping paper get bundled off to hibernation until next year. (I've had some paper for as long as three years!) It used to be we had cardboard boxes for all the Christmas items. Yellowed newspaper to wrap everything in. But we've switched to the sturdy plastic tub. Much nicer. And then it will feel like January. The mirthless, long, dark month. It was good to have this bright hope of Christmas shining in our lives if even for such a short while. It will carry us through the rest of the darkness.

Family Christmas

What has massive amounts of loud, disorganization, disarray, and craziness? A family under one roof that contains...3 grown kids, their spouses, two grandkids under 2, two dogs, one onery cat, and parents whose house isn't as big as it feels when there's just the two of them! There was a ton of prep work first: as in cooking cleaning stuff; There was massive amounts of eating--cookies, candy, pies, sweet rolls, almond pastries, chips, leftovers of all sorts; Lots of sitting around watching old movies on tv, (and let me say here, that I did plan ahead and had several new release DVDs on hand but then our DVD player decided NOT to work) plenty of reading (good thing there was no technical glitch with the books we had!) lots of picture taking, a few walks, church, more eating, napping, game playing, arguing, laughing, remembering, hugging and loves. Another minor glitch came when the cat bit our oldest on the arm and he had to make a run to the emergency room on Christmas Day; and there were too many people at the shooting range for the 'boys' to get to do their annual trap shooting event. No snow. But it was a perfect Christmas for us and I wouldn't trade it in for anything. Enjoy some pictures of our day!

Frankincense and Myrrh and Gold

The tree is trimmed, the stockings hung,

the stories read, the carols sung,

I've placed the gifts beneath the tree

The stockings bulge with mystery.

The scene is set for Christmas Eve,

But then before I turn to leave

There in the stable small and brown

I lay the Baby Jesus down

Soft gently in his manger bed,

Wisps of straw to pillow his head.

"Welcome, welcome, little one,

Child of Mary, God's own Son."

Somehow I feel the hours spent

In making Christmas evident-

the wrappings sparkling green and red,

The sugar cakes and gingerbread,

Beribboned wreaths and candleshine-

All these are proferrred gifts of mine

Made up of thoughts and love and time,

Just simple gestures, not sublime,

But offered in His name today,

My efforts seem in some small way

Much like the Magi's gits of old-

My frankincense and myrrh and gold.

-by Ethel Dietrich-

May your Christmas day be full of the all the Hope that was promised that first Christmas.