Here’s to all of you – thank you for visiting my blog this year, for replying to my posts, sharing your thoughts and kind words, for caring about following my silly stories about my family and for trying out my recipes.

It’s such an honor to know that you care and that you enjoy reading my ramblings…

Merry Christmas to all of you
from all of us.

Sorry for the absence of posts this week. It has been rather hectic around here – wrapping up the work world for the year (I’m off now until after Christmas), final week of school for the kids, preparations for our trip to Mom’s and our church group Christmas party, baking, shopping, wrapping and all the other minutiae of every day life – laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc.

It’s enough to drive a girl a little crazy.

I’m sitting here on my first day of my vacation, enjoying a bowl of homemade granola (a most awesome recipe I must share with you soon) and making list after list of things that must be done before the party, before we leave, before Christmas.

I’ll admit, I’m a little overwhelmed.

I’m starting to think about what things I can just strike off the list without even doing them… how can I calm this crazy down just a little?

I will continue to ponder this…

but right now, I must go put on my makeup and head out for the day. Errands await and there’s not much time before I pick up the kids and the crazy resumes!

I can hardly wait –

I’m like a kid at Christmas –

Are you going?

Be still my heart.

The Muppets!

My most favorite characters in all the world.

I have a little tummy bug today – the thought of planning meals – and of food in general – is making me a little queasy.  So, who knows what we will do tonight for dinner (SuperMan? Any ideas?) but I am hoping to be back to my old self tomorrow and planning out the rest of the week’s meals.

Right now, I’m just headed back to my ginger ale and remote control. Ugh.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Well, I do know, actually.

Work!
And more work… And ferrying kids to school… And a sick Big Girl who needed TLC.

So, I’m sorry about not having a post for you today. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better!

But I do have a picture to share:

The girls spotted this overhead on the way to school. When I got home Buster was very distraught at the Hot Air Balloon Monster that was over his yard!!

If you have been a reader for a while, you’ve probably figured out that most Wednesdays mean a new recipe post on the blog. But what you may not know is that I’ve created a quick and easy reference for you to use to go back and find a recipe.

So, when you decide you want to try out my crock pot lasagna or maybe bake a Sunshine cake, you can quickly and easily access the recipes without a lot of searching and scrolling.

Simply click on one of these links:

• You can click on the “Recipes” link on the top menu bar. It will link you to the Recipes page where all the recipes are directly linked and sorted by type.

• You can also click on the “Looking For Recipes?” button on the sidebar. It will take you to the same page.

• And, a third option is to search for a particular recipe – you can use the search box and type in any phrase – “bread,” for example – and find the posts that contain that phrase.

(You can use this search to look for any type of post or phrase in a post – not just recipe-related posts!)

Another thing I’ve done on the posts is add the easy print option so that you can print the recipe if you decide you want to keep it on hand in your own personal recipe collection.

Once you click on the button, it will bring up a window where you can delete anything from the post that you want (like photos or my extraneous chatter before a recipe) and then print your recipe.

You can also save it as a PDF file and/or email the post to someone.

I hope this helps you to utilize the recipes I’ve posted on the blog. They are there for you, after all, and to share my family’s favorites with you so that they can become your family’s favorites!