The Cooking Rut

Cooking - the thing you're supposed to do each night after work to fill that empty void in your stomach.

Cookbook - a book filled with yummy and delicious recipes that have already been tried and given a "thumbs up".

Accordian File Folder - what is sitting under my desk at home, categorized with cute little tabs for all kinds of different foods, and FILLED with untried recipes that I have been cutting out of magazines and newspapers for YEARS!

So why can't I just reach in that file folder and grab a brand new recipe to try at least ONCE a week and if it's good, copy it into my personal recipe book so I have something new to cook? Just can't do it - I'm in a rut - I look through my own cookbook night after night and cook the same old recipes night after night! I'm tired of them - I'm sure when my kids come down for the weekend that THEY are tired of them - and my poor hubby is probably even MORE tired of them!

It's not that I hate to cook - it's certainly not my passion but if I have all the ingredients on hand, I don't mind whipping up a meal! What I really despise is going to the grocery store and buying all the items, loading them into my car, unloading them into the house and FINALLY putting them away! Way too much work!

But wait - even though I have made the same chile recipe for as many years as I have been cooking (yes, it's a boring recipe), I DID ask daughter Jessi for her recipe and DID buy all the ingredients today so I can make it for Super Bowl Sunday!! Gosh, is that a start?

And I DID buy the ingredients for a crunchy coleslaw salad that I've never made before (again from Jessi) and plan to make for Sunday! And I can't forget the "Cereal Bars" that I'm going to make also that Jill emailed me the recipe for! Maybe I've talked myself right out of this rut - I'll keep you posted!!

Sweet Retreat!

This last weekend was our annual "Sweet Retreat" held at the Embassy Suites! I look forward to this weekend all year long and ALWAYS have a great time, no matter who I go with!

Sweet Retreat is a 2 nights stay where you scrapbook the entire weekend!! It's a blast! Half the fun is packing up all your scrapbooking supplies, leaving work early that day and meeting your roommates at 4:00 check-in time!


Jaime and Jill were my roommates this year - we sure wished Jessi could have joined us too but with a new baby, it just wasn't possible!! And speaking of babies, check out Jill's tummy!! She is starting to show now - how fun!




I've always loved the Embassy Suites - it's just a neat concept with all the rooms "inside"!! And some of my favorite features are:
1) Happy Hour - and it's FREE!!
2) A cooked breakfast - and it's FREE!
3) A wonderful place to walk - you can go round and round and round and round to get your exercise - of course I did this many, many times (not!)
4) Swimming pool and hot tub are available
5) Since there's a frig and a microwave in your suite, you can bring all your own snacks and drinks!


I'm not sure how many scrapbookers were actually there this year but there were a lot of familiar faces! Our consultant, Stacey, always has fun goodie bags for us when we arrive, stickers for every 5 pages you do and a drawing most every hour until every person wins "something". Jaime was first to win followed by Jill and unfortunately I was second to the last to win my prize but it was beautiful stickers for the 4 seasons so just perfect for me!! AND, I won the runner-up big prize of the weekend - a neat ceramic memory box with little pages to write your memories on!


We gobbled down chips and salsa with our drinks (Shirley Temples for Jill!) on Friday night and Jill brought a microwavable spinach dip for Sat. night! YUMMY!

It was a great weekend to be with the girls - not many mothers have the chance to spend a weekend with their daughters who LOVE doing the same thing you do! And we all accomplished so much - I ended up scrapbooking 31 sides!! A record for me!

I'm already looking forward to next year -hoping that Jessi will be able to join us (and wondering if Jill will be there, having a new 6 month old!!) Only time will tell......................

Just A Glimpse

A lot of times when we vacation, we won't stay at the "normal" type of hotel that most people do - we opt for the unusual - a cabana on the beach, a house that is open to the elements (only partial walls and no windows) or a rental home! And I find that 1/2 the fun is finding these places on the internet! I'm a whiz when it comes to finding the "exotic and unusual".

I probably should have become a realtor since I enjoy looking at homes so much - so I quench my thirst in this area by watching "House Hunters" on HGTV. Which home will the buyer pick - house #1, house #2 or house #3 - I do have to say that the majority of the time, I choose the right one!

I discovered "International House Hunters" last fall and in the last 3 weeks, have become totally addicted to this show! Since we have DVR, I tape all the shows and almost every evening that I'm home will find me watching at least 1 episode! Gosh, I get to pretend that I'm travelling to Puerta Vallarta, Paris, London, Canada, St. Marten Island, Aruba, Jamacia - and the best part is I get to glimpse into the homes that the buyers are looking at!

The program usually shows the type of house the buyers are currently living in and what type of house they are looking for - and of course the fun begins when they go to their new location in the world and start looking! It's cheap fun - and soon I should be an expert in this field! Maybe I'll start a new career - the "travelling realtor"!!

My 100th Post!!

I just realized that my LAST post was my 100th post!! WHOOPPEE!! I FINALLY joined the "Elite 100" Club, whatever that is! I'll have to celebrate! Does anybody want to join me?

Another sunny day in Denver!

Saturday afternoon was spent at Jessi's - they live close to a park too so we put Mckenzie in her stroller and headed to the park! Evan LOVES to push his grocery cart so along it went too! There was still some snow there so Papa and Evan built a snowman!

Then it was back to Jessi's place so I could hold Mckenzie - she is now smiling - not just a little bit but a LOT!! But trying to capture that on a camera is always difficult! She is sure a cutie and was a joy to take with us on Sat. night when we took Jessi and Gary out for dinner for their long awaited anniversary gift!

Evan and I love to dance to his alphabet song - aren't we cute? I do a darn good dance sitting on the floor!

All too soon our weekend was over and it was time to head home and prepare for the week ahead! But we took our memories home with us......................

Was it REALLY 60 degrees out????

You bet it was! And this is JANUARY!! What a perfect weekend to be in Denver seeing the grandkids!

I decided instead of having all 4 kids over at Jaime's, that Papa and I would go to EACH place and spend some quality time instead of wild, chaotic, loud experiences! It worked WELL!

Saturday while Glenn and Brad went fishing (no, they didn't catch anything), Rayna, Kylan and I headed to the park. I pulled Kylan in the wagon and we took the rice krispies bars that I had made that morning-it was warm enough out that Rayna even took her coat off!

While Jaime worked, we had a fun time in the park! And it worked out well to spend some special time with each grandchild!

The Lonesome Bird Feeder

A couple of weeks ago when we were carrying Glenn's "junk" up to the new garage, I found my bird-feeder! It wasn't lost - it just wasn't where I could find it!

We had problems with this bird feeder at our other house - the bird seed came out WAY too fast and would be almost gone in a day, the deer got into it, the coons got into it, and the bear got into it! The final solution was to hang it from a rope in a tree with one side of the rope looped around a low branch so I could actually lower the feeder when it was time to refill it! It DID work!

I made a trip to Walmart to get some bird seed and Glenn fixed it so the seed didn't come out so fast and it's now sitting on a wooden post of the deck, right where I can see it! The only problem is I haven't seen a bird eat out of it yet! Glenn says to be patient - birds aren't usually out eating at 6:30 in the morning when it's this cold!

I'm impatient! I WANT to see birds at my feeder!

A Typical Colorado Winter Day

It's Monday - and it's snowing out like crazy! No, it wasn't a fun drive into work this morning but the snow is pretty - and it's winter so what do we expect?

I left our house this morning feeling really good about our accomplishements this weekend! It was "Christmas Take-Down" weekend which is MAJOR at our house! SO I not only take down all the Christmas decorations and put them away, but I clean and then re-decorate the entire house! Many, many hours are involved but I don't mind it and it's such a great feeling of accomplishment when it's all done!

Glenn also worked on the house this weekend, putting up our closet door in the bedroom (hooray - I've been waiting SO long for this!) and putting the new door on our bathroom! He has a few more trim boards to cut before I'll tackle the varnishing of this last project! And he also cut a huge pickup load of wood to burn!

So with all of that out of the way, now it's time to concentrate on more "fun"things in life! Vacation is coming up in February - time to make those packing lists, tan a few times and ATTEMPT to lose a few pounds before the swim suit comes on! It's Monday and I'm smiling - how cool is that???

My DREAM Bathroom

Most bathrooms are NOT very exciting - ours is probably no exception! But when you've been waiting OVER a year for it to be finished, it gets VERY exciting in my book!!

Glenn has been working on one project or another ever since we moved into the house in Nov. of 2007! I'm proud to say he has crossed off line after line of the "list" that has been hanging on the frig! In fact, the only major thing he had left to do was to finish our master bath and put a door on the closet upstairs!

The last couple of days Glenn has tackled the bathroom! There really wasn't a lot left to do except to finish some tiling on the shower, do some more texturing on the walls (messy, messy) and of course PAINT the bathroom - now painting a bathroom doesn't seem like a big project to most people but most people haven't seen our bathroom - one of the walls goes up to the roofline of the house!

I was anxious to get home after work yesterday to see what had been accomplished and boy was I surprised!! All tiling was complete, all texturing was complete and ALL painting was complete!! THANK YOU GLENN - it looks wonderful!!

Glenn is also creative - we have sheetrock that had to be cut around LOTS of logs in the house - as you can imagine, this wasn't easy to do and we have a lot of jagged looking places around the logs that of course need to be covered with some type of trim but how do you cut wood trim to fit around a round log???? Glenn had the perfect solution - he put heavy dark brown rope around the logs in the bathroom and in between them! (See the first pic) It looks GREAT and goes well with my palm tree theme!! In fact, I like the rope so well that I've told him he can do it all over the house!

It was FINALLY time to decorate the bathroom and put up the palm tree shower curtain! Decorations are my speciality and I spent the evening doing just that!

I LOVE my completed (except for the new door that has to be put on and wood trim on the floor) bathroom and it was a JOY to get ready this morning!!

We're Easy To Find..........

Check out our new sign that we just put up at the bottom of the driveway! Although our place isn't hard to find, now it's easier than ever! A big thank you to Glenn for this great Christmas gift that he made me!

2009

Is it already the 3rd of January??? Why haven't I posted my New Year's resolutions??

Probably because I'm still trying to think of them! I thought and thought about them the entire day and have come up with only ONE resolution so that's what I'm going with!

SO here goes: My New Year's Resolution is to take ONE weekend each month and do something special! Sounds like a tough one, doesn't it?

I decided to make this resolution because even though it was a GREAT 2008, Glenn and I spent many, many weekends working on the house, garage and the outside! And since we're ALMOST done with it all, this year we're going to take it easier and enjoy our weekends just a little bit more!

I'm pretty easy when it comes to "fun"! Take me to dinner or a movie and I'm happy! Take me on a camping trip! Take me on a hike! The whole point of my resolution is to JUST plan something and do it, instead of working weekend after weekend!

My January weekend is already planned (sorry Glenn, you'll have to figure out something ELSE to do without me!) as I'm doing Suite Retreat with Jaime and Jill (scrapbooking weekend at the Embassy Suites in Colorado Springs). And February is planned too as it's our "Gran" vacation to Cabo, Mexico!

I have a feeling it won't be too hard to plan a "special" weekend each month! Maybe Glenn and I can take turns deciding what to do and where to go!

Happy New Year!