The holidays have come and gone...

and I am here just enjoying the time I have left. CR is playing with his presents (Destroy All Humans 2 - Xbox), Mom is here in the living room watching TV, Wyrm is on his computer playing World of Warcraft, and I am here on mine typing away the time. Christmas Eve was celebrated with my sis coming down and opening gifts. Took gave mom the cutest little frogs. They are so adorable. Mom also got some earrings and a gardening set (gloves, pottery, bulbs). Took got Victoria's Secrets gift cards from me and mom. She had already sifted through a catalog and picked out what she wanted. She was tickled. I received some cute pajamas (from mom), a beautiful ring (from CR), a silver bracelet (from mom), two figurines (from sis), and a nice sweater and shirt (from mom). CR was excited to finally open his gifts of two movies and a game. He also got a gaming chair. We've yet to experiment and see how it works. Wyrm will be feasting on his gift of summer sausage and cheeses for awhile.

For our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, we feasted on grilled hamburgers, hotdogs, and bratwurst. We also enjoyed ham that mom baked the day before and chili that she put on to simmer early Christmas Eve morning. Yum. No slaving in the kitchen at this home. We decided about a couple of years ago that mom would stop having the huge dinner of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and such. She said that she was getting tired of spending all of her time in the kitchen cooking and too tired to enjoy visiting with whoever was here. It's soup and sandwiches for us now and is totally fine by me. The food was still good.

Christmas Day began with gloomy clouds, heavy rains, and thunder. Thunder? Yep, I was waken to the sounds of rumbling overhead. Wyrm and I was supposed to visit his side of the family for breakfast. I knew though that it would be extremely difficult for us to get up that early. Sure enough when Wyrm found out that it was raining he came back to bed and we snoozed some more. His dad later called to see what had kept him from coming. Wyrm gave his apologies and explained how difficult it is to rise that early in the morning for us. Later on that night my friend, T, stopped by to give CR a Wal-Mart gift card. He was happy.

Later

Wishing You and Yours...

 

Merry Christmas

and

Happy New Year

Peppermint Fudge (Fantasy Fudge variation)

To make the peppermint variation substitute white chocolate for the baking chocolate and peppermint flavoring for the vanilla flavoring

Fantasy Fudge

Recipe Rating:

Prep Time: 10 min Total Time: 25 min Makes: 3 lb. or 40 servings, about two squares each

3 cups sugar

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter or margarine

1 small can (5 oz.) evaporated milk (about 2/3 cup)

1-1/2 pkg. (12 squares) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, chopped (or white chocolate)

1 jar (7 oz.) JET-PUFFED Marshmallow Creme

1 cup chopped PLANTERS Walnuts (optional)

1 tsp. vanilla (or peppermint)

Red food coloring for peppermint fudge (optional)

LINE 9-inch square pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan; set aside. Place sugar, butter and evaporated milk in large heavy saucepan. Bring to full rolling boil on medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil 4 min. or until candy thermometer reaches 234°F, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Remove from heat.

ADD chocolate and marshmallow creme; stir until completely melted. Add walnuts and vanilla; mix well.

POUR immediately into prepared pan; spread to form even layer in pan. Let stand at room temperature 4 hours or until completely cooled; cut into 1-inch squares. Store in tightly covered container at room temperature.

KRAFT KITCHENS TIPS

Size-Wise A serving of this sweet treat is two squares. You'll find that a small portion goes a long way on chocolate flavor. Variation - Classic Fantasy Fudge Prepare recipe as directed, using 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) margarine and substituting 1 pkg. (12 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips (or white chocolate chips for peppermint fudge) for the chopped BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate and a 13x9-inch baking pan for the 9-inch square pan.

It's been awhile...

hasn't it. My apologies. I would like to thank those that have asked about me and my cold. It actually went away for a few days but came back. I had a therapy session on Wednesday and decided to stop by Multicare to nip it in the bud so to speak. I had to wait for about an hour and a half. The waiting area was completely full. The doc said that there was a really bad upper respitory infection going around that leads into bronchitis if not taken care of quickly. She put me on some strong antibiotics and a really good decongestant. I'm starting to feel pretty good again.

Let's see. What all has been going on with me? Well, nothing much really. Surprisingly the wardens at work actually worked us only a half a shift, and now we are off till the 27th for the Christmas holidays. I am going to thoroughly enjoy myself. My sis is supposed to be coming down the 24th, and we will open presents then. I know my son will be thankful. He has been constantly asking me to open at least one and has his had in his stocking trying to feel what is in there.

Last weekend I actually got in the kitchen and made candy. It's actually pretty good if I do say so myself. I made peppermint bark and peppermint fudge. It is sooo good. I got the idea for the peppermint fudge from a lady at work. Her sister is selling fudge, cookies, and breads and this lady takes orders at work. I saw a listing for peppermint fudge and decided to try it. It was so good that I asked the lady if her sister would be willing to share the recipe. Do you know what her reply was? Her sister wouldn't give it out. That really irritated me. A few people that had tried had already said that it was similar to the Fantasy Fudge recipe that's on the back of Kraft marshmallow creme. I decided to experiment and try to make it myself. I succeeded. I will share the recipe with all of you tomorrow.

Wyrm has been spending the past few days playing Resident Evil 4, and I've been navigating for him. I read the game manual and tell him where to go and what to do next. As much as I love the Resident Evil series, I am disappointed in this installment of the series. The reason I love Resident Evil is the storyline and this game is lacking in that. Instead of the T virus this game deals with parasites and instead of zombies that are infected with the virus there are parasite infested characters. It looks to be a good game, but to me it just needed to be released with a different title other than the Resident Evil.

Speaking of games I do believe that is where I am heading right now. Hopefully I will do more posting this weekend since I have 4 days off.

Later

I have been absolutely terrible...

on keeping up with posting. That really bugs me especially when I'm closing in on having my blog for one whole year. Don't know if the newness has worn off or what has happened. I do know that this past weekend I wasn't up for much of anything. I took a cold and basically spent the whole weekend in bed. I didn't feel like trying to write anything so I spent the weekend watching some new movies: The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The DaVinci Code, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Superman Returns, and Pulse. They were all good movies.

With having this cold, I haven't really felt like blogwalking either. So I'm behind on some spaces/blogs. I will probably try to catch up this weekend. Right now it's really irritating trying to think to write this while with a stuffy nose. If my nose is stuffy, you can forget on me being able to function. I'm taking cold pills faithfully so hopefully I won't have this "bug" for very long.

Later

I'm in one of those...

funky moods again where I would love to just sit and write to my heart's content, but I just simply don't have a thing to write about. My brain is just screaming "I'm sleepy" for some reason, and I've done well this weekend to pay bills and balance my checkbook. Oops, I think I may have forgotten one bill. While shopping for groceries this weekend, I was looking for a calculator and spied one of those PDA's for a reasonable price and decided to pick it up. I think it's so nifty. I've already figured out to get two addresses programmed into it and will add my appointments a little later. I've been having fun trying to figure out what all it can do. I think I may be able to keep reminders of when we need to get the oil changed in the car. Cool or at least it's cool to me. I've been meaning for the past two weekends to get my butt outside and take photos of our front porch. It's decorated simple but nice. I'm also wanting to take pics. of mom's Christmas crafts here in the house. I'll eventually get around to it before the holiday is up. I am so bored right now. It's like I'm wanting to do something but just can't figure out what that something is. So enough of my rambling for now.

Later

Kiki tagged me the other day,...

and I'm just now getting around to posting so here it is.

6 Weird Things About Me

According to the rules each player of this game starts with the "6 Weird Things About Me" list. Then the people who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says "you are tagged" in their comments and tell them to read your blog!

1. For me a snack is dipping bread in French dressing. I prefer Wishbone brand.

2. I wear socks year round. I even sleep with socks on. For some strange reason I cannot stand my feet and don't like for them to touch anything.

3. Be it books or DVDs, if I own one that is part of a series or sequel then I must have the rest to add to my collection. I'm not as bad with my CDs.

4. I used to be very bad about having all of my CDs and books in alphabetical and chronological order. Thanks to my meds it doesn't bother me nearly as bad anymore if they are out of order. In fact they are out of order now.

5. It is extremely difficult for me to get rid of anything. I have clothes hanging in my closet right now that do not fit but am holding on to them thinking that someday I might lose weight and get back in them. Yeah, right! My backpack that I carry to work was filled with old papers that dated back to 2004, a snack bar that's been in there for about a year, and other junk. I cleaned that out the other day. I have check stubs, receipts, and papers dating back to the 90's in boxes that are poked everywhere. I still feel like I have a need for them when really I don't.

6. I love tomatoes but will not have them on any kind of sandwich or hamburger.

Now get ready cause I'm tagging Val, Rachel, Caffeinated Librarian, "the other" Liz, Ann, Shelly.

Yes, a couple of the people I tagged are on Windows Live Spaces. I'm directing you to some different places.

Well, we don't have any snow, but...

boy do we have the wind. There was all kinds of limbs down in the road on the way home. One limb was so big and had the whole road blocked that Wyrm had to stop the car, get out, and move it before we could go any further.

CR has been home sick a couple of days this week. Probably just a virus cause he's doing much better now and luckily he doesn't have very much makeup work to do.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to cut this short. They really worked me tonight and my arms are so sore right now. Anyhoo, there isn't really much going on.

Later