Takin’ It Down

I am OCD. We all know this, we’ve accepted it, and moved on. To me, as soon as Christmas the day is over, I’m done with the holiday. No more movies, no more music, I’m done celebrating it. I’m no Grinch about it, I won’t begrudge others the opportunity to celebrate it, but for me, I’m good. So today, this first Sunday after Christmas, I decided during church that I was going to take down the Christmas stuff when I got home today. So, I came home and got to work, and it all came down much quicker than I thought, and fit into my boxes more neatly than I thought they would. I was PSYCHED about it all. And as I was moving ornaments from my old crappy boxes to my new, clear, fancy (not fancy) boxes, there was a silver ornament in the blue ornament box. So, in my thinking, I tossed the ornament to the other box. As soon as it left my hand, I realized, it’s GLASS! And where did it land? Oh, on the cement bricks of the fireplace, of course.

Dang it! It was such a pretty one, too. Naturally, we got it cleaned up, and everything, but now I have avowed to not throw ornaments anymore. I think that’s a good life goal.

A Caddy!

For Christmas yesterday, I got a shower caddy. Not only a caddy, but a stainless steel one. If you don’t know why this excites me so, you must not have need of such an item. The shower in our house is just that -  a shower. There’s no tub, so there’s nothing to set anything on in there, there’s barely enough room to stand in there. So we purchased a shower caddy, and after it’s been in there for a while, it started to rust. And since it’s been in there for a year+ now, the thing was rusting to heck. All of my research tells me that a stainless steel one will never rust, so I want one of those. I’ve been wanting to get a stainless steel one for a little while now, but just haven’t gotten around to it. Luckily, Santa brought us one, yay!

As soon as I got home, and put everything away, I got to work setting it up. I needed some help with it naturally, but finally got it going.

This is me, setting it up. I was so psyched about it. It had one less shelf than the previous caddy, but I solved that problem by not having as many shampoos in there as I usually do. And when it was done, I almost shed a tear of happiness.

Ta-daaaa! I am so happy for this. And I hope it never rusts.

Merry Happy!

Merry Christmas everyone! On Christmas Eve, at the in-laws house, they usually find a person in the neighborhood that could use a bit of a hand-up. (Is that a phrase? Probably not.) So we spend some of the evening putting together said thing, and then deliver it under the guise of night. This year, we were looking for a way to make sort of a money Christmas tree, and found a Styrofoam wreath. The wheels started to churn in my head, I realized we could pin the money that we (they) were giving around the wreath. So, after finding some pins, I got to work. I pinned a row of money, then another row, and finished up with a row of 1-dollar bills, to hide the money underneath. I hung some money using some ribbon, then finished it with a bow.

Snazzy, eh? I was proud of my work. We wrote a poem to go with the money, so they’d make sure to dig a little to find it all, and of course, I wanted to get a pic with it.

We piled into the car, and off we went. We took a back road to the house, and the driver waited in the getaway vehicle. We crept up, and off Husband went to put the wreath on the door, and ring the bell. He dressed up as Santa for this, beard and all. I was dying laughing. After we rang the bell, we hid behind a fence, to make sure they got it. After we waited a minute, Husband said he wasn’t sure if the bell rang, so he went to retrieve it, and put it on the other door.

As soon as he turned the corner to the door, the first one opened! I panicked, and got behind the fence, praying he wouldn’t come out here. I started to casually walk away, like I hadn’t been involved in this, when suddenly, Husband appeared behind me. We waited at the fence for a second, then both of us peeked around it, to see the progress.

Busted!

The guy had poked his head out of the door right at that moment and saw us, and we were exposed. In his best Santa voice, Husband wished them a Merry Christmas, and told them we’d left them a present on the other door. Then, we turned and ran down the icy sidewalk, laughing all the way back to the car.

It was a fun experience, even with the hiccups. I love doing this sort of thing, I was so glad to be involved! I hope you all had Merry days as well!

Christmas Shopping

Today is Christmas Eve, friends! Naturally, I worked for a little while this morning, and after work, Chelle and I went and did a little Christmas shopping. I found these pajama pants that were really cute, but sadly, they were all out of my size. As we passed a mannequin wearing the same pants, Chelle tells me to check the size of them. Usually, all the mannequins wear smalls or extra smalls, so I wasn't holding my breath, but then lo and behold! It was wearing a medium! I immediately flagged down a sales person, and asked if I could just take the pants off the mannequin. She asked someone else, and then, ta-da! They did it! I laughed at the whole scenario as they took the pants off, and of course took a pic:

A naked person! In a store! I bought the pants after they removed them (as they were taking them off, the girl asked "Now, you're going to buy these, right?" Like I would have them go through the whole trouble of taking them off, just to be like, nope! Change my mind!) The pants were only 7, so that was a nice present to myself.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Lights! Camera!

Tonight, we went up to Temple Square to see the lights. It was me, Husband, Rory, and Casey. We drove up at about 5, but with how early it gets dark these days, it was perfect. I took this pic as soon as we got there:

Then I just kept taking pics, and not all of them are great, but whatever, I like them. Here are some more:

I just love everything up there. It’s just so gorgeous. It was cold, but I think I dressed warmly enough that only my face was having chilly issues, and that’s not that big of a deal. I’m really glad I got to see it before Christmas.

And now that I’ve seen the lights, I’ve wrapped all my presents, I’ve decorated, and I’m ready. Christmas is in 2 days, and I’m ready for it.

A FAMILY Christmas

Now that Christmas is over, I can blog about this! For my presents this year, I decided to give crafts to my siblings. I never know what to get people, but I feel like a craft is something people like and appreciate. It's nice for the home, it's pleasing to the eye, and it makes you feel like the person cares for you, because they spent time on your gift. This year, I chose the same word for everyone, and just changed colors for each family, mostly in the color I think represents the family. So here, without further ado, is the gift, all of them:

Ta-daaaa! I’ll never really know if my siblings hated these, or liked them, but in my head, I’ll imagine that they loved them, and set them up in their houses.

Foto Friday

The other day, we were watching The Avengers on TV, and my stomach hurt a little, so I laid on my side, and continued to watch the movie. After a little, (it was a little late) I fell asleep. When I woke up, I found that PJ had braided my hair in my sleep.

Looks pretty good, eh? I thought so too. Of course, I’m sleepy here, but whatever. The braids came out really easy, since they weren’t tied or anything. I shook out the braids, and because of my nap, was naturally WIDE awake at like, midnight. Oops!

Gingerbread Bites

I have my department Christmas lunch today, and as usual, I will be bringing a dessert. I found this recipe on Pinterest, and was excited to try it out. I’ll give you the recipe first:
Gingerbread Cheesecake Bites
1 package of gingerbread cookie mix, made according to package directions, with 3/4 cup extra flour mixed in.
4 oz cream cheese
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Roll two teaspoons of cookie dough into a ball for each cookie. Place balls of dough into paper lines mini cupcake/muffin pan.
Make a well/indentation into each ball of dough with a flour dipped mini rolling pin or the back of a measurement teaspoon. (I don’t think my indentations are big enough, btw.

Beat room temperature cream cheese with powdered sugar. Stir in vanilla. Place filling into a piping bag, cut off edge of bag. Place one teaspoon of filling into each cookie dough.

Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes or until cookie tested with tooth pick comes out almost clean.
Don't over fill the cookies or filling as they will rise when baked.
Let cool before removing from cupcake pan.
I did an…ok job with these. They looked really good going in, I thought, but then, when I pulled them out, they looked…bad.

But they tasted pretty delish, and that’s all that matters! I would recommend making the hole bigger, for sure. That’s all I would do differently.

Miscellaneous Monday

Things have been a little hectic. I can’t believe how busy things are, but it always seems to happen like this around the holidays. One of the things making me a little busier than usual is that for my Christmas gift to siblings this year, I’ve decided to do a craft for them. I wish I could add a pic, but because I’m not sure if any of them read this, I don’t want to include a pic and ruin the surprise for them. I’m excited to give these out, and I hope that not only do they love it, but that they appreciate all the hard work I’ve put in.

After my skiing adventure, I am sore. My body just HURTS. It hurts to move my neck, it hurts to move my body, and I just want to lie down and do nothing. Maybe I should have stretched when I got home, or something. I did try to take a warm bath, in the hopes that it would help soothe the muscles, but to be honest, I’m really not sure if I did anything at all. I can never tell what to do when I’m sore. Usually it’s just my legs, so I just stretch them, but when it’s weird parts like, necks, backs, etc, I just panic and do nothing, usually. I’m sure it’ll feel better in a few days, like most things do.

Today when I got to work, I found this on my desk:

I thought this was nice, and a nice surprise to start the morning with. I’m not sure who gave it to me (I know they hid their identity on purpose, I just want to know!) but I do thank them for the nice gift. It helps to make a Monday a little better!

Skiing Saturday

Yesterday, I’d done something I’ve never done before – skiing. I’d never really felt a desire, to be honest. I don’t understand the fun behind strapping 2 very large pieces of wood/plastic to my feet and careening down a mountain in the freezing cold snow. But Husband loves to snowboard, so after many moons, I had finally agreed to give it a go.

We went to Sundance, signed me up for an instructor, and off I went. Husband went off on his own when my lesson started, leaving me with another first-timer Jose, and our instructor, Casey. I did get this pic before he left though:

The thing I enjoyed about the ski boots is I didn’t have to hold myself up, they just sort of made me stand up, so I leaned forward here, and the boots kept me up. Then, the lesson got started. He told us basic things like, how to go, how to stop, how to do things, blah blah blah. I seemed to have a mental handicap regarding stopping – I just couldn’t do it. Even when I finally got the “wedge” going, my skis were like, haha, we’re never stopping! And I didn’t care for that. I fell every 5 minutes. I fell while standing there, I fell while trying to turn, I fell while trying to stop. After we’d been learning for about 2 hours, Casey took us to the top of the mountain, to work our way down.

Welllll…that didn’t work out at all. I panicked like crazy, since skiing TERRIFIES me, so the way I went down the mountain is, I had to go down, and I held my ski poles parallel to the ground (he told us both to go like this) and Casey skied down backwards, holding onto my poles. I wish I had a pic to show this better than I’m explaining, and still, I didn’t like this at all. Finally, we got to the bottom, where I picked up a lot of speed, and Casey just let me go down. Of course, Husband was there at this point, and caught it on camera. Here am I, coming down, and smashing into Casey:

And then, this is me, after having fallen a BILLION times, and feeling tired and frustrated, and just ready to be done.

Luckily, when we got to the bottom, the lesson was done, and I could go home. Naturally, Jose only fell about once this whole time, went down the mountain by himself, so basically, I felt like a retard who couldn’t do anything. But at least I did it one time, and while right now I don’t think I’ll ever go again, maybe ask me in a year, and my answer might be different. Today, however, with the soreness my body has, and the pain I have when I try to move certain muscles… it seems like a long time before I’ll ever go back.

JINGLE!

Tonight was our monthly craft club and it went well. We were a smaller group than normal, but our numbers don’t determine our fun. We laid everything out (after a dinner of pizza) and got going.

It didn’t take that long, which is always nice. And we used a different modge-podge technique tonight, we did it matte instead of shiny. After we painted, attached papers, and added ribbons, this is what I had:

Cute! And of course as soon as I got home, I put it up.

I wish the letters were a little bigger, so that you could see it more, but I still love it. I think these turned out awesome!

Stampin’ Cards

This week, we had Stamp & Chat again, and these cards are just awesome.

See? Come on! Luckily they weren’t toooo tooo hard this time, which I enjoy. I do like making the hard cards, and learning new things, etc, but when they’re too hard, I feel dumb, because usually I can’t figure them out. But these were good for my skill level, and they ended up so cute. Time to hoard them!

Brownie Peppermint Cookies

I had to make a treat to bring to Stamp & Chat this week, we were all tasked with bringing a treat, and we’d all share. So I picked this recipe, and I thought it looked easy and delicious.Sadly, it didn’t look as good as where I got the recipe, but that’s ok. I made Brownie Peppermint Cookies – yum!

1 18.3 oz pkg brownie mix
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp peppermint extract
1 recipe vanilla cream frosting, (recipe to follow)
1/2 cup crushed peppermint candy canes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with Pam (or equivalent) and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together brownie mix, flour, brown sugar, and salt. Add in eggs, milk, and stir with a large spoon. Add in melted butter, vanilla and peppermint extracts, stir until well blended. Spoon dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Once cool, frost cookies, and sprinkle with crushed candy canes.

Vanilla Cream Frosting
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
6 Tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt

In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, whip together sugar, butter, and cream until fluffy, Stir in vanilla and salt, blend well.

Ta-daaa! These were delicious. I would have maybe rolled these into circles, because the “dropping them onto the sheet with just spoons” left them ragged and ugly. But the frosting hid a lot of those mistakes. These were awesome.

Chicken & Dumplings

After having been in Germany for a week, and eating out every night, I was ready for some home cooking. I scoured recipes to see what I wanted, and finally landed on making chicken and dumplings. I found a good recipe on Pinterest, and went to work on it. First of all, I’ve never made chicken and dumplings before, but they were always a favorite during childhood. So I was psyched to see if I could recreate. I’ll share the recipe and pics, naturally.

Chicken:
I large fryer chicken (4-5 lbs), neck and gizzards removed. (I just used chicken breasts here…I don’t know where to find a whole chicken. Just at the store? I don’t know)
1 Large onion, peeled and cut in half
3 Carrots, cut into large pieces
3 Stalks of celery, cut into large pieces
Kosher salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Dumplings:
3 cups cake flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
4 1/2 Tbsp shortening
1 Cup milk

Place the chicken, onions, carrots, and celery in a large stock pot and cover with water

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat so water maintains a gentle simmer. Cook chicken for 1 hour or until cooked through (about 165 degrees). About 30 minutes after you start cooking chicken, get started on the dumplings, or you can wait until the chicken is fully cooked.

Once chicken is done, remove from broth and let cool. Remove chicken from the bone, and shred into medium-sized pieces, discarding bone and skin.

Pour the chicken broth through a fine mesh sieve (I’ll be honest, I used a clean, thin dish towel) lined with cheese cloth, discarding vegetables. Reserve 6 cups of the broth for the dumplings. Refrigerate or freeze the rest to use in another recipe.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl. Cut shortening into flour mixture with your fingertips until it resembles small peas.

Add milk – 1/4 cup at a time, you may not need the full cup (I did) – and stir until a ball of dough just begins to form, being careful not to over mix. Roll out the dough onto floured surface that you don’t mind cutting on. Roll about 1/4 inch thick. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut dough into rectangles about 1 inch by 3 inches long. Place strips on wax paper and allow to harden up a bit, about 30 minutes.

In a large pot or dutch oven over medium-low heat, bring broth to a gentle simmer and drop in dumplings. Cover and allow to cook for 6-7 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add chicken. Allow to cook until thickened, about 15-20 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper.

This was actually really delicious – I recommend to everyone! Make sure to leave plenty of time, though – because it does take a while.

And Now, The End

Finally, our trip comes to an end, and on Friday, we were set to fly out of Frankfurt at 7:25 AM. When we awoke at 4:30, I couldn’t help but notice that while it was 4:30 for us in Germany, it was 8:30 PM back home. That sort of thing really messed with my mind. We hurried to get ready, finish packing, return the rental car, and got to the airport at about 5:45. We SPRINT across the airport, because it’s huge and we need to get to a different terminal. So we get to the right one, and Husband is checking us all in, and I happen to glance up at the Arrivals/Departures boards. Our flight was to leave from Frankfurt at 7:25, as previously mentioned, to Paris, then we’d fly from Paris to SLC, in one shot. Luckily, they post everything by time, so I glanced at the flight to Paris, and I see one word:

CANCELLED

Uh…what?  Then I think, maybe I’m looking at the wrong board…or time…or something, so I frantically glance around, and no, that’s us, that’s our flight. So we get into this line that we’re directed to, to see what other flights are happening. We are automatically booked for a flight leaving to Paris at 1:15, but there’s no flight from Paris to SLC until Sunday. So we get in this line and wait. And wait…and wait…we were in that line for 4 HOURS. When we finally get up to the counter (keep in mind, they only had 2 people to wait on all of us) it took another 90 minutes to get us onto another flight that day, get it all squared away. Our new flight had us leaving at 12:45, landing in Chicago at 3:35, and then leaving from there to SLC, landing at 7:30. I was so glad we got to be on another! We RUN across the airport once again, since we had to get to the opposite terminal again, and we barely make it with 30 minutes to spare.

The flight here was nice, I won’t like. I had a great selection of movies I could watch, so I watched many that I had been wanting to watch, but never got a chance. The meal on this flight was a little more delicious, I thought, it was lasagna.

We finally landed in Chicago, and we take a look at the time of our next flight departing, and it’s in one hour. We have one hour to make our way through customs, security, and get across the airport to our next destination. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. We finally made it to the front of the line of customs when our flight left. Luckily, we had gotten a hold of Delta in the line, so we thankfully were able to get on another flight, departing that day. It was 2 hours later. We got through customs, security, and all that with maybe 45 minutes to spare, so we sat down to have a bite. We finally landed in SLC at 9:30, and at this point, we had been awake for about 27 hours, all of it having been spent in lines, or an airplane, or just an airport. But the time we finally made it home, it was 10:30, and I barely made it up to my FREEZING bed (We turned off the heat before we left, so the house was so cold!) and fell asleep. I didn’t sleep 11 hours like I had our first night, but I felt rested in the morning.

So all in all, a pretty good trip. And I feel like my experiences could be written into book entitled: Europe for Dummies: Since I seemed to have made so many mistakes and done so many dumb things. At least I lived!

Ticket to Ride

I had to find something to occupy myself, of course, and I was told that downtown Stuttgart is very nice. I didn't want to drive our beast of a rental car, so I wasn't sure what to do. Someone told me that I should take the train to Stuttgart, and it would be easy and only cost about 3 euros, and I should just do it. Well, if you know me, you know what a giant sissy I am. I get very nervous and anxious doing some things, and especially when I'm by myself, and especially me being in a foreign country, where I couldn't understand everything, so I was nervous. Finally, I psyched myself up for it, walked to the train station (only getting lost once!) and bought my ticket. A train came up about 5 minutes after I got there, and I didn't think it was my train, so I didn't get on it. Right as the doors closed, I figured out it was my train, shoot. The next train was coming in thirty minutes, so I just had to sit there and wait. IT WAS FREEZING so I tried to spend it getting warm, with hardly any luck. The train finally came, and off I went. I made it downtown with no problems, so that was awesome. I walked around, and walked past what seemed to be a department store, with a window display of Legos.

I also walked around a German bookstore for a while, laughing at most of the books, and the translations of the English books. I found Hunger Games, which looks cool

Doesn't Katniss look way cooler on this cover? I like it a lot. I went through a lot of stores, and didn't buy much, mostly because it's like, what would I do with a bunch of it? I found this cool building that I thought was like, the Stuttgart city hall, and took a bunch of pictures of it. Later, when I got back to the hotel, I discovered it was actually a castle that I could have gone into, and I kicked myself for not going up to investigate it further.

Dang me for not just walking up there to find out. After I finished taking these, and walking through their Christmas market, I made my way back to the hotel. I made it there with no problems, and then took a pic of the euros I managed to accumulate during the day

 The euro is weird, in that they have a lot of coins. $1, $2, $0.50, $0.20, etc, are all coin, so you collect a lot of coins with any purchases made. I felt good about the accomplishments made, and that I made it successfully there and back with no problems, and no tears.

Adventures Continue

The adventure, continues, my friends, and not always the good way you think. Last night, we had to leave our city of Attendorn and our castle hotel. We are now in the city of Stuttgart, and the hotel of Best Western. Luckily for me, this hotel is pretty close to how an American hotel, which is nice. And mostly everyone here speaks English, so double yes! On the way here, we had to switch cars, for 2 reasons. A: The original one was a stick shift, and I can't drive it, and B: we are now taking a fourth person with us to the airport, so we need the extra room. So we stopped at the Frankfurt airport again, and drove away with this behemoth:

Holy could it be any bigger?! It is huge. The van hits the top of the parking garage we were in - it's that large. Now that we have the big car, I'm actually afraid to drive it, so getting the automatic car might have been a waste of time, oops. The room is still needed!

Now, we got in, really late, on account of the GPS taking us to the wrong location. Someone, whoever put the city/address into the GPS (I'm not saying who, but maybe their name rhymes with Eve) and so we were in the total wrong location. Naturally, as we were then about an hour or so later than we intended to be, and we're all hungry, this led to small fights starting in the car, as we just wanted to be out of it. But we made it, checked in, and got on our way.

The next morning, I was alone in my hotel room, getting ready, and I decide to brush my teeth. I should mention, I'm in underpants. Literally, I have no clothes on except for my underthings. So I'm sitting there, brushing along, watching some TV, and all of a sudden, the door opens, and in comes a maid. Well this SURPRISES me, so all of a sudden, there she is, and I'm like, uh... don't know how to get out of this, and I tell her I'm not ready and she says something in German. I say again, I'll still be a minute, and she goes and gets the door hanger - you know, the do not disturb-please come in one. And then she explained to me (In German) how I had it on the wrong side, so that's why she came in. The whole time, I'm thinking, I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENED JUST LEAVE SINCE I AM NAKED, and she finally left. Here's what the door hanger looks like, and I SWEAR, I SWEAR I didn't have it on the wrong side, but alas. We'll never know for real.

Then later, I went to discover the town. I walked around, I found stores, I walked, I walked, and I walked. And....I got lost. I tried to find my way back to the hotel, and it didn't work. At all. I wandered around for an extra hour and a half trying to find it. When I finally did, I had to take my pants off and put them on the radiator to dry, because I was soaked. But now at least, I know where everything in town is!

Germany, Continued

Hello again! Still here, still not speaking German. I forgot yesterday to do my standard "rental car" pic. The cars here are similar to ours back home, but not quite. Here's our car:

A VW Passat! It's pretty big, which is weird, for me, usually on trips, my car is so small. But there are a few of us with all a bunch of luggage.

I thought I'd show some pics of our hotel. The first night, we stayed in a hotel called Burg Schnellenberg. It's fancy! I tried to take some pictures of it when we got there, but it was dark, so here's what I got:

Here's some of it, from the side, and sadly at night.

And there it is, impressively looming. Here's a pic off of the internet, so you can see what it's supposed to look like:

Pretty fancy. A weird thing with this place, is that there are no heaters. They have radiators in every room - including the bathroom, and you just turn that on and let it heat up the place. The pillows are weird. The blankets are weird. The toilets are weird - they flush weird and everything. And with everything in Celsius, I'm just guessing at how warm it will be! But things are good, and I'm safe, and I'm eating food I probably wouldn't. I did try a drink today that was a combination Orange Soda/Coke and while I thought it would be gross, it actually ended up being pretty good! So now, my mind is being opened all the time!