Category Archives: Life

The Merry, Crazy month of December!

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And so it begins…..the merry, crazy, chaotic, overscheduled month of December.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are positively my favorite holidays of the year.  Thanksgiving because the focus is on family, food, friends and taking a few seconds to appreciate how much we have to be grateful for.  And blessed we are.

(Ok, this picture is actually from last year because I took NO food pictures this year, possibly because I was truly enjoying the moment, however, the bounty was similarly traditional and full!)

Hubby was truly thankful to be enjoying non-institutional food with his favorite people on the planet (US!!).  My grandparents joined us last-minute due to car trouble while driving to SC to see my aunt and cousins.  I know she was sad to have missed the trip, but it all worked out and we had a great dinner. and somehow there just weren’t as many leftovers as I had thought….and it was all worth it!!

The remainder of the month will be filled with:

  • the town Christmas parade:   2 of 4 children participating
  • school programs:  band concert x 2
  • shopping:  any time I can fit it in…lunch time is UBER productive during December!
  • church programs:  2 of 4 children participating
  • cookie exchange:  an annual event by my old roommate, her mother in law and sisters in law and the focus is on fellowship, food, exchanging AMAZING cookies and Jesus.  Yes, I said His name, Jesus.  This IS Christmas people, notice the “Christ” at the beginning of the word?  The entire season is because it is a celebration of Jesus’ birth!!!  (had to clear that out….political correctness has no place here..)  It is a fabulous time!!
  • “Happy birthday, Jesus” party with my grandparents, an annual event which we ALL look forward to!
  • tree decorating, holiday baking
  • dinner with our Priest at our house
  • Walk through Bethlehem with one of the local churches
  • Hiding Finding our “Elf”, Friefel
  • West side story high school production (date with hubby)
  • Sending and receiving Christmas cards (of which we are ALL in this year!!)
  • Nutcracker with the girls.  It will be the first time for ALL of us and  a total surprise for them.
  • finish up with regular school, work, flag football and softball and it’s a crazy month.  And I bet YOUR month looks JUST the same!!

(these delicious Peanut butter Buckeye balls are the favorite of our family for holiday baking!)

Don’t forget, the Reason for the Season.  Christmas is a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus and the days leading up to that, Advent.  The waiting on the Lord.  The anticipation.  Enjoy every moment.  Every morsel.  May your Advent season and Christmas be as joyous and filled with thanks as ours!!!

The advent of Advent….

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‘Twas a busy weekend with our little family and with today following a 5 day Thanksgiving break for the kiddos the morning is set to be a lovely cacophony of tired wails, whines and sluggish morning movement…

But it’s all good.  We put up the outside Christmas lights (after hubby finished painting the FRONT of the house), brought all the decorations down from the attic, washed and put up all the Christmas dishes, 2 children finished up school projects (a weekend long affair fraught with anxiety, stress and whining….oh, wait that was me….), picked up a kayak to borrow for a while from a friend AND…….took the family Christmas Card picture AND….ordered it.

Perhaps I will look at the kiddos’ Christmas lists now….I’m starting to feel Advent-Y!

St. Augustine, me and my girl (and a ton of other fourth graders!)

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My favorite elementary school field trip:  St. Augustine, Florida.  Fourth graders, charter bus, and as much history (and a little shopping) as you can shove down their sweet little throats in five hours!  And I absolutely LOVE it and so do they.  Fortunately, we live close enough (kind of) that we’ve also been able to visit as a family a few times as well to enjoy it at our own pace without the constraints of a scheduled tour, tired classmates and stressed teachers doing constant head counts (for which I am grateful).

This was my third time chaperoning (and I get to do it again next year for the last time) and I let my daughter have the camera and get the sights from her perspective.  The results?  I will be handing her the camera more frequently….

She’s a mini-me:  (obviously she didn’t take this…I did…the rest are hers!)

She was fascinated by the Spanish settlement, how their faith (and ours) was EVERYwhere, seeing how they lived, growing their gardens, caring for livestock, cooking their meals, preparing their own leather goods and the sturdy carpentry skills.

She was able to try out her sweeping skills with the homemade brooms and quickly decided she was grateful for OUR broom!

 

Dinner looked and SMELLED phenomenal…our table didn’t look quite like this, but we did have beans and rice that night!

Vivid colors on the pottery.

Grapes in the garden, ripe on the vine.

Castillo de San Marcos.  Ah, a lovely sight to behold on such a beautiful day!

Cannons over the wall for protection.

The church in the fort.

 The altar of St. Mark.                                                                            Holy water font.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bell tower.

Rolling cannon.

The school bell and the orange tree at the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse.

 

The way to their heart…..

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I love this hutch.  It’s not super fancy, but it holds some of my favorite things:  my cookbooks.  Of course, if you look closely, you’ll see my apron (which I don’t always remember to wear, but I absolutely ADORE…thanks Brite!), our nod to our beloved FSU ‘Noles, a jar of lifesavers for the “I’m hungry, mom…but dinner is 5 minutes away moments”, pie tins ready to make something delish, baskets to deliver with, bug spray and Benadryl (mosquitos love us!), and a left-over mustache from Halloween.

I have a lot of cookbooks and at some point I’ve used them all.  I think.  But it seems I have my “old standbys” that I always go back to.  And maybe I should just remove some and de-clutter a bit, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

These three are my most solidly used books.  The folder is a collection of friend’s and family recipes over the years.  I had a separate one for desserts and sadly one Christmas shopping trip to Publix it was left in the cart with no one turning it in.  BOY, did they SCORE!!  The green and white book is a smaller collection of F&F recipes from when I started putting them on cards and they became too overwhelmed by the volume, however, I add all the Publix Apron meals cards in there.  And my Tallahassee, Junior League“Thymes Remembered” has some standard recipes and family faves that I practically know by heart.

My apron.  Still has some dough from last week’s Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls.  Still have some in the freezer.  Yum!  Soon to be sporting some Peanut butter from our holiday tradition of making “Buckeyes“  for my friend’s Annual Cookie Exchange.

I may not have a cooking blog site, or show on Food Network, however, I love cooking.  I love cooking for my family and my friends.  It brings our family together at dinner most nights of the week so we can share our day and our “Hi’s and Lo’s”.  It might keep me fluffier than I prefer, but I absolutely love trying new things and filling their tummies with love.  Baking is the best, but sadly just not enough nutrition to fully sustain us, so I try my best to keep it to a minimum, but ‘TIS THE SEASON, BABY, so watch out!!

One of the way to their hearts is through their stomachs and I am happy to oblige and love on my family!

Galations 6:7  A man reaps what he sows.

I hope I am sowing a loving and happy family with full tummies!

Learning to let go of perfect…

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Edwin Bliss has said, “The pursuit of excellence is gratifying and healthy. The pursuit of perfection is frustrating, neurotic, and a terrible waste of time.”

This past few days I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote.  In a busy world, with four active children, a husband and full-time jobs for both of us, we are blessed.  Like many of our friends, neighbors and acquaintances in this wildly busy life, we cram as much as we can pack down, shake a bit and pack some more into most days/weeks/months.  Unfortunately, we (hubby and I) both err a  little on the “perfectionist” side of things…one of us <ahem> more than the other, but we both want things done and we want them done well.  The danger in that is, that we (me) often lose sight of what is important.  I become more focused on doing it ALL and doing it ALL (seemingly) effortless and perfectly.  It’s exhausting.  (the kicker is, the end result is RARELY perfect)  And now I know why….I’ve lost focus on what in the heck I am doing.  I am more interested in executing perfection than finding gratification and excellence.  It IS frustrating and leads me to completing tasks “perfectly” and seldom gratified and often grumpy.

To change focus.  It’s going to take some practice to let go of “perfect” and settle for gratification.  I’m not sure if I can do that, but it’s got to be worth the effort.  Right?