Celebrating the season!

Saturday, December 13, 2014
Sunday, December 14, 2014


12/13/14
WhooHoo, all you number nerds!  The last numerical day this century!  There isn't a 13 month, so it won't happen again...

Anyway, on to my day -
I woke up around 8:30, which was even before Ron got up, and then let myself read and play on the tablet before getting up at 10, which is when I had the alarm set for.  I got up, and got things ready in the kitchen, then made my Christmas Cake and got it into the oven.  When the timer went off, I turned the oven off, then got dressed and made the trip down to Amelia.  I had to go to Walgreen's to pick up prescriptions, as usual, and I made this trip by myself, so it wasn't a whole lot of fun, but it had to be done.
When I got home, I went to pull the cake out of the oven, so I could make the brownies, and I discovered that the cake wasn't done in the center!  Yikes!  So I had to turn the oven back on and bake the cake a little longer and throw my schedule all off-kilter.  We took advantage of this time to make our lunches - the guys had eggs, and I had a can of my chicken salad while playing on the pute.  When the timer went off, I checked the cake once again, and this time it was done, so now things are rolling again.

I made the brownies - the Surprise Strawberry Brownies, or Strawberry Surprise Brownies (I call them both) - which is a chocolate chip cookie under the strawberry brownie in a 9x13 pan.  When it's done, while it's still hot, you cover it with glaze.  Oh, man, did it look - and smell - good!  Next time, though, I think I will make a double batch of brownie, just to make it a bit thicker, and make half as much glaze.  The brownie and cookie were sweet enough, it just didn't need that much glaze.  Just a little shimmer on the top will be sufficient, I think.
Along in through here sometime, they showed up to pick Corgan up, so he didn't get to help me with the icing and glazing and all.  That was a bummer, but...doing things with his family is pretty important, too, so I couldn't complain too much.  He'll have the memory of the Rice Krispie trees, and I'm okay with that.

After the brownies were done, it was time to put the icing/glaze on the Christmas Cake.  I cheated doing this - instead of making the glaze from powdered sugar, I took the rest of the open can of icing (from where we did the 'garland' on the RK trees) and used that.  I divided it 3 ways and made red and green, and left the rest white.  I added a few drops of milk, then zapped it for a few seconds to make the glaze, then poured it over the cake.  First the red, then the green, then the white.  Since the cake was made in a Bundt pan, it made very pretty designs!  Only part I don't like, is that it makes very pretty puddles on the cake plate, too.  But....

Then we went to our Christmas Party.  We had such fun, as we do every year.  My goodies were a big hit - especially the RK trees (they all like RK treats a lot, which is why I made them) - and I only brought home half of the cake and a small corner of the brownie.  Made me feel good, let me tell you!
Spending a fun evening with wonderful friends does the soul good, and getting cool gifts to bring home, and having the gifts you took get a good reception is a bonus!  Have I mentioned that I L*O*V*E this time of year??
We came home late, and I went straight to bed, which needs written down somewhere, because I don't do that often!


12/14

Sunday.  Church, lunch, football.  Yep, a normal Sunday.  After the hustle and bustle of the last couple of days, I relished the "relaxness" of today.

After church, we went to Country Inn in Georgetown for lunch.  I got the big breakfast, and Ron got the chicken livers - he wanted something different.  Then, home for football!  I made it home in time to see kickoff, and then almost missed it because I had the TV all set on ch 12 (CBS), which is where our games almost always are, and then the game didn't come on!  Our game was on ch 19 (FOX) today, and that threw me off!  But, I found us quickly, and saw kickoff, and the whole rest of the game, where we totally kicked butt!  If only we could play like this all the time...sigh.

Ron and I just had soup for our supper, because, of course, we had munched on goodies all day and weren't really hungry.
Tomorrow I get to take my sister downtown for her big tooth-removal appointment.  It's not gonna be a lot of fun, but in the end, it's gonna be so worth it for her.  She won't hurt any more, and that's a good thing.  She's gonna look r.e.a.l. good for our Christmas pictures, though!