What is a crudite?

Look at the amazing appetizer table we had on our ethnic progressive dinner last week.  Almost too pretty to eat.  The dinner was delicious, the company was great and another one is planned for New Year's Day.

Linda's handiwork

Let the cookie baking begin ... and the best sugar cookie recipe ever!

I found this recipe for sugar cookies and made the first batch this morning.  Needless to say, another batch of dough is in the fridge for tomorrow.  These cookies were delicious and the blog I got them from has some other fabulous recipes!

http://creatingpostitnotes.blogspot.com/2010/02/almondine-sugar-cookies.html

Now, what other cookies should I make?  These are going to be hard to top!

Misadventures in shopping

It began innocently enough with my desire to change the light color on my Christmas tree this year.  Since my newest obsession is shades of purple, I thought I'd go with that.  I saw some purple lights at Target and plugged them in and compared them to the pink.  They definitely looked purple.  What better to go with the purple lights than some beautiful purple ribbon for a tree topper.  Made the big bows, put the purple lights on the trees and lo and behold, they didn't match at all.  Once those lights were on the tree, they looked pink and the ribbon looked terrible.

Searched high and low and found some purple LED strings at Target for $11.99 a string.  It killed me to spend that much, but I bought 4 strings and mixed them in on the tree.  They looked great.  The next day I see them in the Target ad for $9 a box.  Off I go with my receipt to get a price adjustment.  After the girl finally figured out to how adjust the price, instead of taking my $13 refund and going home, I thought what the heck ... might as well get some more lights while they are on sale.  I thought white would be nice.  So I pick myself up 4 boxes of white lights and decide to pick up something in the women's department.  Got what I wanted, hunted for my cart and get up to the line and discover all that is in the cart is the leggings I just picked out.  Back to the women's department and finally hunt down MY cart.  Get back in line (6 cashiers open out of 18!) and realize that I picked 2 different kind of white lights - 2 cool white, 2 warm white.  WTH?  Who would have thought that they would make the exact same lights in 2 different shades of white?  Screw it, I got them anyway.  I plan on telling Nick that I meant to get 2 different kinds!

I think the worst part, though, is they gave me a $5 off $50 coupon.  You know I'm going back, don't you?

An organized holiday

Every year during the hectic holiday season, I always say to myself ... "Self, next year you are going to have an organized and magical holiday season."  I clip out articles on how to have a stress free holiday.  I put notes on my Outlook calendar to remind me of things I might forget.  I say "next year I'm not going to make all these different cookies and just concentrate on a few favorites."  I have visions of sitting around the evenings before Christmas watching "Frosty" and "The Polar Express".  I think about what it will be like to drive around and look at the holiday lights, to finally see the lights in Delaware Park, to see Niagara Falls decorated for the holidays.

And every year I find myself knee deep in cooking ingredients, recipes everywhere.  Yards and yards of ribbon to change up the Christmas tree only to find that bows on Christmas trees are apparently out and no one bothered to tell me.

Here it is 3 days before Thanksgiving.  Nick is working so I'll be on my own to get everything prepared.  Pies have been ordered, food has been bought and I am still ripping out recipes from magazines for some glorious cranberry-orange relish, like as if anyone will eat that.  Why, oh why, can't I just be satisfied to slap a can of cranberry sauce in the banana boat dish reserved only for cranberry sauce and call it a day.

Yesterday I wanted to put up my little tree in the living room and spent all day looking for the box of lights and ornaments for it.  Do you think I could find them anywhere?  Nope, brought up boxes one by one filled with all kinds of decorations but the ones I was looking for.  So I thought, might as well put them up.  So, the inside of my house is pretty much decorated, but the bench we had to move from the front hall in the "Christmas tree shuffle" is still sitting in front of the door.  Oh, and I did find the ornaments and lights for my little tree - they were in a box marked material and chair cover pattern!

So, looks like once again I won't be going out on the biggest drinking night of the year (yeah, like that would happen anyway!) and I'll be home trying to get my house cleaned.

And if you happen to be coming to my house for Thanksgiving dinner, just ignore the fact that when you ring the doorbell that I will probably answer the door in my sweat suit with a dustrag thrown over my shoulder!

My least favorite holiday tradition ...

The cleaning of the fridge in anticipation of Thanksgiving leftovers.  Seriously, what the hell was I thinking?  A container with about 3 tablespoons of leftover spaghetti sauce and enough different blocks of cheese to harden our arteries for the rest of our lives.  Not to mention the last of the apples from apple season that I really thought I was going to make something with!

But, it is all done and filled with Thanksgiving goodies.  I can hardly wait to eat leftovers on Friday while watching a 12 hour marathon of Law & Order (or some other similar show) while putting up the tree.  I swear it's going to be decorated differently this year!  Now, all I need is some good ideas.  So, here is some inspiration taken at Dave's Christmas Tree Shop this morning.  (taken with my crummy phone)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes!

Saw this recipe on kevinandamanda.com and just had to try them.  Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough cupcakes  I did cheat, because I just happened to get the cookie dough from the band fundraiser that very same day so I used that and I also had a can of whipped frosting which I used too.  So, basically, all I did was make the recipe for the cupcakes.  Still, they were fabulous!

What do you get your 91 year old Mother for her birthday?

She never wants anything, doesn't need anything. yells if you get her something.  But how do you not get your mother a birthday gift?  So, as keeper of the old family photos, I came upon the idea of framing a picture of her siblings and her Mother.  Sadly, there are no pictures of my Grandfather where you can actually see what he looked like, so this is the best I could do.  What do you think?