Bleh...

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up for me right now. I have a raging headache. Am waiting for M and D to finish their gaming session so I can go home. I have like the worst headache, stupid migraines.

Christmas came and went. I hope ya'll had a super holiday. Mine was pretty nice and relaxed. Chilled with childless friends on Christmas eve and played Apples to Apples (one of my presents)... what a fun game that is! Slept in on the big day until noon!!! Isn't that sad?! Then went to some other friend's who were making their traditional Christmas day taco dinner. It was fun. I am just worn out.

On another note I will be starting work in 1 week. Yay for work! I am sure I will be back to blogging nearly everyday since I will have plenty of face time at a computer with not a ton to do and no WoW to play. Yes I am that bad. hehe

Hope everyone is ready to bring in the New Year of 2008. Make it safe, make it legal, but make it FUN!!!

-A

Ahhh the holidays....

The baking madness of the holidays has consumed me full on and kept me from blogging. Yet again I have come down with a case of the nasty cold... bleh!

So about 2 weeks ago M emails me and says that there is going to be a cookie contest at work. Well that gave me a little over a week to figure out just what I was oging to bake. After going through dozens of cookbooks, calls to my mother, and perusing the internet's various cooking sites I narrowed down the choices. We had to bake 1 of each of the following categories: butter, chocolate, and novelty. I decided to go with my grandmother's potato chip cookies which I fully remember from childhood as being these buttery salty goodness sweets. For chocolate i went with the infamous chocolate kiss wrapped in butter dough. Last but not least was the bourbon ball cookie for the novelty.

Starting 2 full days before the contest I made my first batch of the potato chip cookies. Somehow these were NOT the yummy goodies I remember. Hmmm, perhaps I didn't use the proper butter, or vanilla? Well, I decided to try the bourbon balls. Easy enough recipe, just turned my hands into a chocolaty mess. They didn't turn out half bad, as long as you like bourbon! :)

The following day (thursday) I resumed full on into baking mode. Waking up early and into the kitchen I went. Another batch of bourbon balls was finished, then I took a crack at buttery cutouts. Those didnt' turn out so good. Dang, I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I took another crack at potato chip cookies making a few modifications, this time they turned out a bit better but still nothing like I remember. Ahhh, that would have to suffice as it was the last batch of the night and it was about 10 pm.. I was pooped! I also made 2 batches of the kiss cookies, each with different types of kisses.

Oh, lest I forget that somewhere in between batch 4 & 5, my trip to the grocery store, and the 2nd load of dishes... the kitchen got flooded! OI! Yeah, one of the pipes under the sink fell off and flooded the kitchen. Ugh... I got that mess cleaned up and finished the cookies up.

M took the cookies to work for the contest the following morning. I had no hopes of actually winning as I thought most of my cookies turned out pretty fair if not bad. Someone made a chocolate chip bacon cookie that won, there was a devine butter cookie, and a double chocolate something or other. No big deal, it was fun just to make them. Oh, but wait... there is one more prize, the overall bestest cookie. Who do you think won that?! ME! My bourbon balls won! Woot! I can't believe that I actually won. I think that the only reason people liked them was due to the alcohol, but that is ok because I AM A WINNER!!!

May the holiday season find you with plenty of cookies!

A snow filled weekend

Saturday morning came all too early as I tried to force myself out of my warm bed and into the shower. M didn't get home until somewhere after 2:30, I knew he would just love getting up several short hours later to head into the wilderness to get our Christmas tree. We showered picked up Trev and headed to HR to meet up with the rest of the gang. The 5 car caravan headed up Highway 35 into the Mt. Hood National Forest. The further into the mountains we got the more snow there was.

We made it to the Little John Snow Park, piled out of our cars, made sure all mittens, gloves and hats were on, then head out on the path to find that perfect tree. With M leading the way, we plowed through feet of snow, making our way through the woods. Have you ever walked through real powdery snow? It is a lot like sand. OMG, it was nutso! Cold, snowing, and surrounded by snow. It was great!



If you aren't familiar with how this whole "going into the woods to cut down your own tree" works, it goes something like this: Anyone can do it. Just go to the Forest Service, pay $5 for a permit, get a map of the areas you can get the tree from.... that's it. Easy peasey... or so you would think. hehe

Walking through feet of snow in the freezing cold isn't all that easy. Then having to drag out a tree that is bigger than my entire living room. Ok, so maybe I only helped drag it like 100 feet 300 max... but that was tough. I am not saying I don't like the tree that I chose, it is just so frigging HUGE! Once we finally got it out to the parking lot, rather M & Trev, and up on the Jeep, I was never so happy to get in side the car and try to get warm. I did watch the guys and the girls go down the huge sled hill a couple of times. Then on our way down the mountain we came across a couple of guys who had gotten their car stuck after sliding off the road.

After a futile attempt to dig it out, pull it out, push it out, of that embankment we figured it was just not going to budge. The guys got a ride into town and we were once again on our way back home to get into warm, dry clothes.

I swear I didn't get warm until I went to bed saturday night. However, I am warm and dry now so it's all good. It's monday and I am still quite sleepy so this blog isn't quite as spicy as it could have been. Enjoy the pics and have a happy day!

-Peace