Goodbye 2023 (and Our Playoff Hopes)

Today felt more like a typical no-plans Sunday than New Year's Eve. We continued our DE- mode. As in DE-clutter and DE-spose of junk (or add it to the spring garage sale pile, which is growing to the point I'm already dreading pricing things).

For our New Year's Eve excitement, we ordered a DE-licious pizza from Italia's down the road. We hoped the Vikings would look as good as this pie, but that was not to be.

It doesn't help when our DE-fense doesn't show up and the Packers quickly took advantage of that. It was DE-sgusting! Glad Jim and I played some cards to DE-stract ourselves. 

Of course, normal people in the other 48 states are probably partying it up and not worried about two teams trying to make it to .500 and keep their playoff hopes alive. At least the game kept us up until after 10 p.m. We're not making it to midnight, that's for sure. 

Sylvester told us not to be too DE-stressed about it. We'll still have the prettiest kitty on the block when the clock strikes 12. That we do, Princess. We DE-finitely do!

Hope you were able to say goodbye to 2023 with some fun. Be careful out there!

All Versions of Christmas Vacation

Saw this hilarious setup along Chestnut Street in Wisconsin Rapids. Great nod to the Christmas Vacation movie. 

We were quite the anti-Christmas vacation vibe on Bluejay Drive today. We used our free time to start cleaning out our offices and create piles of books, etc., that could go onto our friend Audrey's spring garage sale.

Or if I'lm lazy about pricing things per usual, then it will just go straight to Goodwill. So let me know now if you're in the market for any kind of book from fictional romance to nonfictional sports biographies. We just might be able to accommodate you!

Hope you had a more exciting Saturday. Let's finish this year strong!

TGIF (Thank God It's Frosty)

Even though we had very few places to go this week, I've appreciated the mild weather, clear roads, and waking up to frosty trees instead inches of snow (or ice). Very non-traditional Christmas stay-cation, but I'll take it.

No much on the agenda today. While it ended with Hallmark movies per usual, it started out different. Went to the chiropractor this morning and then Jim and I hit the road to Stevens Point for the Sentry Classic basketball tournament at the university.

Our Royals took on the No. 1-ranked Almond-Bancroft squad. They were tall and talented. We just tried to stay within 20 points. Not the best game, but oh did that fieldhouse have nice lighting! I noticed from tip-off that I wouldn't have to spend hours color-correcting photos before uploading them. Yay.

And hopefully Saturday night will be "yay!" for the Royals. If you're looking for something to do, they play back at the Quant Fieldhouse at 8:30 p.m. versus Pacelli. That's so close to my bedtime! Reminds of bands that start at 9 p.m. – who is up that late?!?

So I'm old. No argument there. We'll see what we end up doing. I have 3 more days (only!) of not setting an alarm. I suppose I could live it up. If high school hoops counts. 

I say it does.

Enjoy your own exciting last weekend of 2023!

Now You Want a White New Year?

While we only got a touch of freezing rain overnight, the above-freezing temps took care of that before we hit the road before noon to take Carter down to the Platteville area.

It was like we hit a line on the interstate north of Madison and the rainy snowflakes were definitely sticking despite the warm temps.

By the time we were to his girlfriend's brother's place, this was our front grill. Ice, ice, baby! But the roads were mostly OK ( I can say that as I was the passenger and Jim seemed to handle it all fine.) When we headed back and were north of Portage, it was like it hadn't rained or snowed here at all.

And our driveway and front yard confirmed that.

Looking up, I think the moon was just trying to mess with us one more time before the end of the year. Hopefully, that's it. And thankfully, we all got where we needed to go today safely!

Be careful out there! 

Getting Cocky about Vacation

Turns out that even if you don't wake up when the colorful cock crows, you still can cross paths with him later. And I did. 

Even though I (and not just me) stayed in bed until after 9 a.m., I wasn't feeling guilty about it. Until I decided to take a lunch time walk and realized the farm neighbor's roosters probably attempted to wake me and the crack of the dawn! 

And the evil-eyed farm cat confirmed I was the neighborhood slacker!

But then I ran into Mr. Elf in their front yard and he was clearly asking: "What was in that eggnog/!" So I felt vindicated that I was just relaxing on Christmas vacay. As one should!

Carter had lunch with one of his high school friends but we had dinner together tonight at Jennings. Their Mac & Cheese Wednesday special included Smokey Cheddar cheese sauce topped with deep fried chicken tenderloins drizzled with a maple garlic sauce! We both agreed: SO GOOD!

In case you're wondering why we deserved such a delicious meal, we both were stripping wallpaper in the main bathroom to rid our house of the last of it. And we ran into the same problem as the kitchen. We think layer of backing is clinging to the drywall. So we'll see what we can get rid of there and in our master bedroom to rid the house of wallpaper once and for wall, er all!

At least we accomplished something on break. No promises for the rest of the week.

Let's all finish strong, 2023!

In the Playoffs!

My real football team may stink, but my fantasy team kicked butt in round 1 of the playoffs and is headed for the championship. Let's go Swedish Chef Mafia!

Still have 2 more weeks of competition – and my players have been dropping left and right. Need a good core group to stay healthy and stick it out. I'll keep you posted.

Reveling in victory was pretty much the highlight of the day. It was a super lazy day after Christmas. Carter actually got up early to go to breakfast with some of our old friends who've known him since birth basically. But Jim and I slept in!

Got in a few Hallmark movies and actually did tackle my "Oh My God" Room, also known as my office and my Scrap Cave. I'm not done, but I gotta spread out the fun since I'm off all week! Jim had the most fun. He went golfing! Not kidding. Things to enjoy about a mild, brown Christmas!

Tonight the boy is visiting some buddies up in Stevens Point and I am chewing gum really hard so I quit eating all the treats around the house! Wish me luck.

Hope you can enjoy some relaxing time off – or at least some stressless hours – this week!

Rudolph, With Your Nose So Bright...

Props to Dwight for nailing our Christmas Eve and Day weather. We definitely needed Rudolph – in the traditional sense, not the practical one.

First of all it was a brown Christmas (including branches from a newly cut down dead ash tree), which was fine with us since we had traveling family. Then, it was misty and foggy on the way to and from our 4 o'clock choir gigs at church yesterday. Thankfully, Carter and Mamie made it safely from North Carolina to Blue Jay Drive before we were done! Had a great Christmas Eve with the long-distance kids plus Clay (who brought us fresh-smoked meat off his grill) and Becca.

Despite our close but not good enough game earlier in the day, Jim and I found one way to cheer up Vikings fans...

While daughter-in-law Emily opened her gift in Portland, Oregon, Mamie and Becca opened theirs here.

All smiles over Austin's Pour House jackets with their names embroidered! 

Now we all have one! 💜

And I have an appropriate hat and glass and sticker with our die-hard theme: SOMEDAY! Just one Super Bowl win before we die!

Even though the girl got great gifts, we can't overlook the brothers who brought them into our lives! 💜

By the time Clay and Becca headed home, we reached the high for the day. 50 on Christmas Eve!

And this was today by noon. This is not a usual Christmas temp in Wisconsin. Don't call me a Scrooge or Grinch, but some of us are OK with that! And now it's a steady rain. But the furthest I have to travel is from my bed to my Hallmark movie-watching recliner.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas with your favorites!!

Un-seasonable Season's Greetings

When I was heading home from book club this morning, I noticed it was unseasonably warm for the day before Christmas Eve. So I stopped at Kwik Trip and got my car washed. Who wouldn't? I have friends in Minnesota who even golfed today. Jealous but glad we both took advantage of the unseasonable season's greetings!

And so did hubby. Here he is grilling some brats outside on Christmas Eve eve at the same time he's testing out the snowblower, of course. It's being finicky. In the months to come, we'll need that a heckuva lot more than the grill.

While he was doing that I made the third version in 10 days of a peppermint bark trifle.

I also got the ham going. But based on the party in our front yard, I could've gone with turkey!

We had a good meal and great time with the Austin clan. My father-in-law appreciated the humor in his personally autographed (via my PhotoShop skills) picture of a certain celebrity he does not like. She takes too much focus off of football!

He did enjoy seeing his great-grandkids – as we all did.

The annual cousins picture is missing two of the tall ones – Casey and Carter – but still looks pretty cute because Colin and Clay certainly are! It was fun having little Mya and Eli here, too.

Pretty sure Sylvester wasn't a fan, but I give them props for trying! At least she didn't hiss, just ran away and hid under our bed a bit.

It was just nice. And we have leftovers for tomorrow night when we feed 2/3 of our offspring after our afternoon church choir "gigs". I just say gigs so the kiddos think we're popular. 

Enjoy your Christmas Eve eve and Eve!!

It Came Upon a Cellphone Clear

Oh my gosh, this has been the story of my life lately. Are you sure you trust me to host the family Christmas tomorrow? 

We had dinner tonight with some friends. I zoomed on the menu but didn't need to take a picture. This time. However, here's a few recent labels...

In my defense, I could read the separate label with the poundage, just didn't know how long to heat it up. Now I see I'll need to take an additional photo to zoom into the correct temperature setting!

We also needed to replace a bulb in the bathroom today. After all this work to zoom in and focus, we still weren't 100 percent sure of the wattage, but we went with 40. 

And don't get me started on the Advent calendar. It was a challenging month! I texted pictures to Carter some days. For example, for this one, I asked him if this was a stocking hat, a bag of money, or a fat cat wearing a scarf. For the record, it tasted like chocolate!

Wish me luck tomorrow! Or maybe I should say, wish my in-laws good luck tomorrow! Just kidding. My recipe cards are pretty legible. Mostly.

Winter Soul-less

The worst part about Winter Solstice is that it's considered the FIRST day of winter – even though we've already had plenty to go around. That's the "soul-less" part of soul-stice. The best part, of course, is that the days will start getting longer now. Early morning and late afternoon commuters unite!

The other "best" part is that today was the last day in the office for a lot of us who are using our PTO for a winter break! So of course we had to celebrate with some holiday holi-grazing!

For me, that means bringing in a holiday trifle. I pretty much replicated my Peppermint Bark Trifle I took Up North to my family Christmas. Since everyone brought something, I actually have some left over that I'll have to suffer through on my day off tomorrow before I create a similar one for Saturday's Austin family Christmas here!

We also revealed our writing team secret Santas with a final gift. That was fun. I had one of the guys I've worked with since Day One and gave him plenty of treats and sarcastic stickers that fit both of our personalities. For the second year in a row, one of our newer writers had me. Besides the amazing fox ornament I shared last week, I got this touching card yesterday...

And a few other nice things! It really can be the most wonderful time of the year if you focus on positive words of encouragement plus the fact there's not snow on the ground to create hazardous travel. And obviously, the fact the days are getting longer. Yay!

We got this!

Hump Day Holiday Humor

After a lot of hours of taking pictures and editing them in the past 24 hours or so – plus making some holiday treats – I'm thinking I'm not the only one could use some stress-relieving hump day holiday humor.

First, I love that area news stations are sharing this funny map. I mean it's funny to me since I am not dreaming of a white Christmas – not with the kids driving halfway across the country for a cool Jul. Let's just keep all the severe and wacky weather patterns on hold for the rest of the year, please.

And this made me giggle inappropriately (sorry, not sorry) on this hump day. I'm not mocking the real Christmas story in any way. Just struck me as funny. And I needed a good morning laugh!

This took me a minute and then I also laughed out loud. I think the stress of the holidays may have turned me into immature 13-year-old boy who snorts like Beavus and Butthead. Lord, help me! 

Thankfully I only have to work one more day for the rest of the year! Then I'll let humor – and Hallmark, of course – de-stress me.

Finish strong, everyone!

 

Unusual Delays

This is the season where lots of things are delayed – from Christmas packages and flights to middle school basketball games. Yup, there's a story...

It wasn't long after I stepped into the gymnasium for the 7th-grade boys game that I smelled burnt popcorn coming from the lobby concession stand. Not overpowering, but you know the scent, it's just annoying. I didn't give it much thought because once the game started, it got interesting.

And not just the score.

Before we even reached halftime, we had our first delay – a fan was ejected from the game. How does this happen at a 7th-grade game? I guess people are passionate. Just haven't witnessed it at a pre-teenage competition. Hmmm.

In the second half, we had another unusual delay...

Yup, the fire alarms went off in the middle of the 3rd period. After half the gym was evacuated, they started turning around and coming back in. The culprit? You guessed it – burnt popcorn!

And even though there was no danger, it took a few minutes of suffering through the annoying alarm noise before it was safe and quiet to resume play. Crazy, crazy. At least our boys won that one.

The other delay today is probably not that unusual but it ticks me off.

Last Monday I sent a small package to the kiddos in Raleigh. Part of it was a St. Lucia Day gift so I paid extra for two-day shipping. Guess when it arrived? Yup, you read that right – tonight! A full week later! I don't want to be that nagging customer who complains when it's clear they're overstressed and understaffed. Still... why the heck would they go to the East Coast by way of a mail center in Houston, Texas? Not kidding. I've been tracking this daily!

Sigh.

Just a reminder to focus on what we can control – and pray for patience on all the stuff we can't. It is the most wonderful time of the year after all. Right?!

Be careful out there!

The Big Reveal

Ok. So even though we aren't 100% done with redoing our kitchen, all the people we contracted with are. So it's time for our exciting big reveal! Just going to try and post BEFORE and AFTER pictures and hope they are about the same angle. 

BEFORE: If you recall, a huge part of this was also stripping wallpaper and painting the walls white. (Side note: I'll have a Lighthouse Liquidation Sale next spring!

AFTER: We replaced the white panel wainscoting with brushed metal panels and black framing. I hated to see those white boards go, but dang, I'm loving our new look! And yes, the wall decor has a long way to go, but we wanted to get it started before Christmas guests arrived.

BEFORE: All I can say for the remaining BEFORE pictures is that our cabinets were in good condition, just outdated. And for us, it's thrilling to see the AFTER! 

AFTER: Wow.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Very excited to turn that space into a pantry!

BEFORE

AFTER

And the backsplash which was just old wallpaper before and is a white subway tile look!

AFTER

We wanted our backsplash (formerly wallpaper) to be somewhat simple – but textured – by our concrete countertop. We love it! Some things are worth the wait!