More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

My niece made these and brought them to Thanksgiving dinner at our house - how cute are these??

(I know I just did a "More Thoughts Too Short" post last week, but with all the busy-ness of the holiday and the weekend, I have a lot of tidbits to share.)

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I did.  I loved visiting with family and somehow I managed not to totally stress myself out preparing for the meal.  Everything turned out fine except I burnt the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes.  Whoops.

The day after Thanksgiving we un-decorated from Thanksgiving/fall and decorated for Christmas.  It's so tiring to tackle that after just doing Thanksgiving, but on the other hand it's great to have it all done!

A classical music radio station is doing a fund drive and I hate to tell them, but the music they are playing that they think is going to inspire me to donate is actually having the opposite effect.

I recently spent $5 on a "blogging book" written by a gal whose blog I've followed for quite some time.  99% of "How to Make Money Blogging" books are total scams, but I went out on a limb and spent the 5 bucks, and it actually was a great book.  In it, she mentions that if you have a blog and want to do a giveaway of her book, just send her an email.  I know it's free publicity for her, but it really is a good book that I thought was worth sharing with my fellow bloggers, so about two weeks ago I sent her an email telling her a little about my blog and asking to do a giveaway.  Haven't heard back from her.  Maybe I'm not "blog worthy", ha ha...  Or maybe she's just been really busy.  Probably she visited my blog and thought it was the stupidest thing she's ever read and immediately deleted my giveaway request, LOL...

My husband happened to have an issue of Guideposts (a Christian magazine with "true stories of hope and inspiration") he got for free that has Buddy from Cake Boss on the cover, and he thought I'd be interested, so he gave it to me.  I read the article, which was really great by the way, and read some of the other stories.  I skip the sad ones though.  I used to subscribe to Guideposts, but some of the stories are too sad and I couldn't take it anymore, so I canceled it.

I must own 3,000 bookmarks, yet it seems like every time I need a bookmark I end up using a napkin, grocery receipt, pen, etc.

Over the holiday we were playing the Wii - Wii Fit in particular.  And somehow by accident while I was on it, it went to the screen where it shows you your weight.  There should be like three passwords to enter and five warning screens before that appears on the tv.  LIKE I WANTED MY HUSBAND AND DAUGHTER TO SEE MY WEIGHT, NO LESS AFTER I HAD EATEN 25 LBS OF FOOD OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS.  Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!!  *I* didn't even want to see my weight!!!!!!

How was *your* Thanksgiving?  Any funny "food" stories?  Did you burn anything?  Forget the bags inside the turkey?  I remember one year my sister-in-law was bringing this cranberry-jello-salad dish (which is really good!) and it fell over in the back of her van on the way over and she had cranberry sauce all over the floor of her van, I felt so bad!  Do you have a tragic Thanksgiving food story?

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More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

I made this "monster" for dinner around Halloween.  He was tasty.

I've been busy getting ready for Thanksgiving.  Seems like everywhere I look I discover something that's dirty.  Weird places like the top of the microwave, a spindle in our staircase, behind a doorstop...  Because you know, if I don't clean all these little spots, my family is going to come over and inspect every inch of my house and then gasp in horror at what a horrible housekeeper I am and leave the house screaming in horror.  Not!  LOL...  But yet I must find and clean all these spots.

Speaking of dust and dirt, ha ha...  If you have allergies, just a heads up that tomorrow's episode of "The Doctors" is going to be "Air: Are You Breathing Yourself Sick".  They are going to be featuring the Allergy Armor Bedding from a company I love - AchooAllergy.com.  I wanted to mention their pre-Black Friday sale - 7% off and an entry to win an iPad 2  - use the coupon code 7ACHOO.  Also, there *may* end up being a coupon code on the Doctor's website after the show.  I myself need some sort of whole house sanitizing system, ha ha...

We like to play jokes on each other - the Husband especially likes to trick and scare myself and our daughter.  Lately we have this paper that says, "Tag - You're It" that our daughter originally got from an American Girl magazine and it's been making the rounds, popping up in unexpected places.  The last place it was hidden by the Husband was in the chocolate milk mix container.  Got our daughter good!  To a lesser extent, sometimes the "cheese touch" goes around (from Diary of a Wimpy kid).

I think we hopefully have the Husband's car problems under control.  (Notice I didn't say "solved".)  It's just one of those cases where he drives like 400 miles a week to and from work, and it just ends up burning up the car, you know?  We're hoping it will last a few more years.  He drives a Honda Accord, and they're known to last, so hopefully it will.  He's long past the warranty period and roadside assistance plan.  In fact, the current roadside assistant plan is me, LOL!  Do you have or ever had a Honda?  How many miles did you manage to rack up before it rolled over and died?

Here is my Thanksgiving menu: turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, rolls, homemade stuffing, sweet potato casserole (the kind with the marshmallows on top), cranberry sauce and cranberry-jello-salad.  What are you having?  Is there something unusual that is part of your traditional Thanksgiving dinner?  Sometimes I wish I was Italian because I like how they sometimes have lasagna and whatnot in addition to all the usual fixins.  :-)

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Wanna See My Martha Stewart Pre-lit Sparkling Pine Artificial Christmas Tree?

UPDATE:  Would you believe we ended up having to un-decorate the whole thing and return this defective tree?  A portion of the lights went out on top which is very surprising as the box specifically says, "Continuous-on technology (lights stay lit even if a bulb gets damaged, is loose or burns out)".  After calling customer service, trying a few things to try to repair it to no avail, and hearing what they had to offer, we made the heart-breaking decision to just return it.  You can read more about that here: Returning our Defective Martha Stewart Prelit Sparkling Pine Tree.  I wouldn't recommend this tree to anyone.

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I know you're only reading on because you can't believe that after all the years of chopping down a REAL Christmas tree (I even wrote a guide called "How to Cut Down and Care for a Real Christmas Tree 101"!), that *I*, of all people, bought a "Martha Stewart Pre-lit Sparkling Pine Tree".  From Home Depot.  And before I even show you any pictures, do you want to know why it's called "sparkling"?  It's because there is actual glitter glued to the ends of the branches.  Also, it doesn't even say this in the description, but it's flocked with FAKE SNOW!  With fake pine cones!

I know you're thinking this is going to be the cheesiest, fakest looking artificial Christmas tree EVAH.  It's that same morbid curiosity that makes people look at accidents along the side of the road that makes you want to see my pictures...  Well, read on and you can see for yourself what you think...

Ok, well just a little background.  As I've mentioned in a previous post, we got sick and tired of paying higher and higher prices for the "privilege" of traipsing through hill and dale to chop down our own Christmas tree.  So we decided the heck with it, we'll get an artificial tree and pay for it once and be done.  We looked at artificial Christmas trees in a number of places, and believe it or not, yes, this is the one we picked.

As if you don't already think I'm pretty nutty for having put up my Christmas village already, I decided to put the tree up right away.  I have a good reason though!  What if there was a part missing or something not working?  I did NOT want to find out the day we planned to decorate for Christmas that there's something wrong with the tree.  See?  I told you I had a good reason.

So, I took everything out of the box.  The tree parts were MUCH heavier than I expected.  That seemed like a good sign.  Like maybe this thing is of halfway decent quality?

Following the instructions, I open the stand and fit the bottom section of the tree in.  Next you're supposed to fit the middle section into the center hole. Only thing is, the branches are clumped so tight together, I cannot for the life of me see or find it.  I'm also wondering why I can't seem to open up any of these lower branches.  I mean, I saw it in the store and it did not look like a clump on a stick in the store.  Anyway, it doesn't tell you this in the directions, but there's this big "twist tie" that cleverly blends into the branches that were holding them closed.  Niiiiiiiiiice.

Once I removed this, I could move the branches and I was able to fit the middle and top pieces in.  There was another "twist tie" around the middle section which I discovered much more quickly than the first one *eyeroll*.  I plugged the sections together and turned it on and thankfully, it seemed to be in fine working order.

Now seemed like a good time for a little nip of Bailey's Irish Cream.

Ok, so the next step was to lower and "fluff" the snowy branches, starting at the bottom and moving toward the top to fill it out.  I must admit, this took MUCH longer than I thought as this tree really has a LOT of branches.  Again, I was surprised at the nice quality of this tree.  (Call me crazy, but "Martha Stewart" and "Home Depot" don't exactly scream "superior quality".)  So, what do you think?

C'mon - it's not nearly as bad as you thought, is it?  LOL...  Now it's hard to capture in a photo, but this tree is flocked, so it looks like it has snowy branches.  It's nicely done - just enough to give it a pretty look - not like someone took a fire extinguisher to it.  And it has some fake pine cones interspersed that give it a pretty charm.  And did I mention glitter?  Oh yeah baby!  It has glitter glued to the ends of some of the branches which actually make it look like it's glistening with little frozen water droplets.  It is actually really, really pretty.  Here is a closer photo to try to give you an idea:

You still may think this is the stupidest artificial Christmas tree you've ever seen but we really like it.  The fact that it's pre-lit is a major bonus.  Also, I always was in the multi-colored light camp, but we actually liked the clear lights better.  I love the sparkling, snowy branches, and the fake pine cones.

Could it be that this tree reminds me of a snow covered Adirondack pine tree?  Ya think?? :-)

The only negative thing I can say about the tree is that it made a bit of a mess with the glitter on the floor.  However, I think the first time putting it up would be the worst of the glitter falling off - I wouldn't expect there to be as much of a mess next time.  And really, after years of vacuuming up pine needles every few days from our live Christmas trees, vacuuming up some glitter ONCE = no big deal.

So, what do you think - would you never be caught dead with a tree like this, or do you like it?  What do you have? A real or artificial tree?  Or maybe you don't celebrate Christmas and this post is making you appreciate that, LOL??  'Cause you know Christmas is so all about the tree.  Well, and yeah, and there's this Jesus guy...  :-)

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The Duggar Family | What's the Problem with Michelle Duggar Getting Pregnant With Her 20th Baby?

Photo courtesy of People.com

You know, I have read all over the place all kinds of disparaging remarks about the Duggar family and their announcement of their pregnancy with their 20th child.

I've seen criticisms that Michelle is taking too big of a risk, getting pregnant at her age.  Yet really, there are plenty of women getting pregnant into their 40s, for reasons like they married late, or focused on their career and put child bearing on the back burner.  And many of these women have had to resort to fertility treatments to get pregnant at an advanced age - but not Michelle Duggar.  Her body is still clearly fertile and ready to carry another baby - I'd put my money on her having a healthy 20th child over other women in their 40s trying to have a baby for the first time.

And just because she had complications with her 19th pregnancy - with Josie - what happened to Michelle was preeclampsia - which can happen to anyone at any age!  In fact, Michelle had preeclampsia with her SECOND PREGNANCY.  It didn't occur again until her 19th, and it is said that her gall bladder problems may have played a role in bringing it on.

Another criticism I've seen of the Duggar Family is that Michelle and Jim Bob can't possibly have the time or the ability to give each of their 19 children as much attention as they need.  There is criticism that the older children end up helping raise and homeschool the younger children.  As if that's such a terrible thing?  Let's stop and compare this to the working Mom with two children that she drops off at daycare at 7am.  From daycare, the kids are bussed to school for the day, then bussed back to daycare.  Finally they are picked up at 6pm in time to get home, have dinner, do homework, take a bath and go to bed.  These two kids in this example spend nearly their entire day being raised and educated by strangers.  Yet where is the criticism for this Mom?  So that is "acceptable" in our society, but a large family where the children are together and cared for and educated by parents as well as siblings - that's worse than sitting in daycare and public school all day?  ???

I think the Duggars' children are better educated, loved, cared and provided for than some kids I know that come from families of only one or two children.

I don't think it's anyone's business how big the Duggar family gets - they're able to physically and financially take care of all their kids.  They're not on welfare - they're not asking for anything from you or the government.

Why on earth are people getting so hung up over Michelle being pregnant with her 20th baby?

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Apparently Any Lap Will Do #2

A little over two years ago, our sweet cat Basil appeared on my blog for one of the last times before she passed away at the ripe old cat age of 16.  It was in a post called, "Wordless Wednesday: Apparently Any Lap Will Do" - here's the picture from that post:

Well, guess who we caught in Pumpkin Man's lap this year?

Angel kitty confirms that indeed, Pumpkin Man has a good lap!

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More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

Q-ee, leanin' on the sauce.

A good piece of advice my father once gave me:  Never drive in the lane with the red "X".

My husband is the Stainmaker General.  Seems like nearly every time I go to do the laundry, there is a shirt on the washer folded to highlight and showcase the latest stain challenge he is presenting to me.  As a nice change of pace from the usual grease, buffalo wing sauce or mystery liquid, the Husband got a pair of his jeans covered in gasoline earlier in the week, so that is my latest "stain" project.

Another very good piece of advice, but this time from the bible:  "Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse."  Philippians 4:8, The Message.  Not always an easy thing to do, but you really can't go wrong following this advice.

Sorry about the occasional paid or sponsored post - but the pocket money I make really helps, especially around Christmas time.  I only write about things I really *do* think are good, and I try to make them entertaining and informative.  I hope you understand. 

We had this horrible infestation of fruit flies a couple weeks back.  IT WAS SO ANNOYING!  Finally they seem to be gone.  Tonight the Husband says, "I miss the fruit flies..."   ??!?   Yes he is a nut, but there is never a dull moment around here, trust me.

You know what I miss?  The minnows up at our Adirondack lake.  They were my friends, the minnows.  I loved to wade into the water and watch them.  They're really fast!  I tried catching them in a net, but I never could.  In fact, look - here's a picture of the minnows - they're kinda hard to see, but I wanted to remember them. I'm kinda worried about them with winter coming, but the Husband says they can survive.

We got our artificial Christmas tree.  Get this - it's by Martha Stewart and it has fake snow, glitter and fake pine cones.  I know!  It sounds horrible! But it's really nice, honest!  Ok, well I took a bunch of pics as I put it up, and you can see for yourself in a future post.  We all love it!  (And we've been turning it on every night along with the Christmas village!  LOL!  I know!  We're bad.)

Well if we're bad, then Walmart is even badder 'cause they've already released their Black Friday 2011 circular!  Wanna see it?  It's here:  Walmart Black Friday 2011 circular.  I used to, years ago, be one of those people that shopped on Black Friday.  But once people starting lining up outside stores at 2am, and people got killed in stampedes when stores opened, that was it for me.  I shop online and avoid risking my life.

Do you go shopping on Black Friday?  Have a crazy story to tell?  What's the best deal you ever got on Black Friday?

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Austin Air Purifiers | So My Mother-in-law Was Vacuuming Her Air With Her Vacuum Cleaner...

I was talking to my Mother-in-law the other day, and she told me she was "vacuuming her air" with her Electrolux vacuum.  Laugh if you must, but hold on - I could totally relate to why she was doing that.

She told me she was vacuuming in her bedroom and there happened to be a sunbeam shining right through her window.  In that sunbeam, she could clearly see all the dust and who-knows-what that was floating around in her air (I bet you know just what I mean).  It grossed her out so much, she decided to pick up her vacuum cleaner, and just let it run for awhile, in midair, in the hopes of "cleaning" some of that "stuff" out of her air.  I know I've seen this before in my own home - in fact, I can top the grossness of this...

Have you ever happened to see a dog shake himself, while standing in a sunbeam?  Well I have.  And I have vowed not to EVER EVER LOOK AGAIN if he does that.  The stuff that flew off him...I can't even believe I breathe that all in and live.

Anyway, my Mother-in-law laughed after telling me her story and mentioned she was thinking of looking into an air purifier.  That got me thinking that maybe I should too.  (Or else start wearing a breathing mask.)

Austin Air Healthmate

One of the brands of air purifiers I looked at is the Austin Air brand.  What I liked most about this brand compared to other brands is that first of all, for most models you only have to replace the main filter every 3-5 years!  I do not want to have to spend a ton of money replacing filters all the time.  Secondly, the controls are really simple - three speeds, that's it.  Nothing to program, no flashing lights, no 300 page manual to figure out the thing, virtually no upkeep - plug it in, choose your speed, and that's it!  That's what I like!

Austin Air Baby's Breath

They have a number of different models depending on room size and your air purification needs, but I have to show you this - although not something *I* personally need, how cute is this?  Air purifiers in pink and blue, in the perfect size for a nursery or child's room!

Something else I really like about this brand - the filters are medical grade, HEPA filters.  They trap 99.97% particles 0.3 microns or larger.  The filters aren't "HEPA-like" or "99% effective" - they are true HEPA filtration.

And wow - check this out:

"Austin Air was the government's choice for air purification. These HEPA air purifiers have been used by the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Red Cross, and the NYC victims of 9/11.  The military carbon cloth and activated carbon absorbs hundreds of harmful gasses and vapors, as well as dangerous particles like mold spores, concrete dust, and even anthrax spores."

Well I wasn't really worried about filtering out anthrax from my air (if there is anthrax in my air, I've got a lot more to worry about!), but these filters do capture odors, smoke and common particle allergens like pollen, pet dander, mold spores and dust.

But wait!  I've been saving one of the best things for last - Austin Air Purifiers ARE MADE IN THE USA!  American made, people - the money stays here and it's not cheap junk from China.

So, whatever I decide to do, I have at least learned a lot of important things to look for in an air purifier, and I think I'll be hard pressed to find one that I like better than the Austin Air.  (And getting an air purifier would sure be easier than hoisting my upright Hoover vac into midair, LOL!)  In the meantime, I'm going to try not to breathe too much...LOL!

Legal Disclosure:  This is a sponsored post.  All opinions are honest and 100% mine.

Wordless Wednesday: Dear UPS

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Pumpkin Cat

Ooh, I just noticed that Moocow snuck in the picture there on the right!

The theme for this year's pumpkin was the daughter's idea.  She found a picture online of what she had in mind, I drew it on the pumpkin, and the husband carved it.  I was wondering how he was going to carve this somewhat precise design.  Definitely trickier than the traditional triangle eyes and nose sort of pumpkin face.  But me of little faith, the husband did a great job.

I always get a little nervous putting it outside with a candle in it and this year I was thinking of getting one of those "fake" battery operated candles instead (although I didn't).  I was even thinking we could light it with a nightlight battery on a cord (could even use orange wiring loom so the cord wouldn't be noticable) through a hole cut in the back of the pumpkin - that's how my Christmas Village houses light up - why not our pumpkin?

Anyway, it sure was an interesting Halloween.  Kids trick-or-treating in the snow, avoiding downed power lines and tree limbs from the storm...  Geez, when we were kids all we had to worry about was shaving cream and rotten eggs, LOL!
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Snowtober 2011 Pictures

Well, I'm thankful to report that other than some downed branches, and a tree that snapped and fell across our walkway, that was pretty much the worst of it.  Believe it or not, I didn't even lose power!  The thing is, of all weekends, the Husband happened to be away serving on a youth retreat and the Daughter and myself were on our own through the storm.   I think God at least kept my power on as a consolation for having the Husband be away doing His work, LOL!  I'll take it.  :-)

Anyway, here are some pictures.  As bad as I feel for all the destruction this storm caused, it was so beautiful the morning after.

As you can see, we got quite a bit of snow.

That's the tree that snapped and fell across our walkway.

It was a strangely beautiful landscape.

I couldn't capture how beautiful it was with a photo, but when the sun came out over the clouds and shone through the snow covered trees, it was magical.

How did you fare through Snowtober 2011?

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