Thursday Deets

In case you wanted all the details of Thursday... the chocolate-mint trifle was a big hit. And the birthday boy, who has known both Jim and I for decades after working in Iola together, was kind enough to be sure there was ONE serving left for hubby.

I think I'm putting a time limit on that because I will definitely devour that serving if he isn't committed to it!

The other excitement of the day was shooting hoops – or photographing our boys playing hoops tonight. I haven't been able to shoot a boys' game in a while and the season is winding down. Stratford is always a tough opponent. 

In the end, we lost, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

We had lots of our guys taking shots and a lot of them making them. It just wasn't enough to overcome the consistent 3-point shots from Stratford.

Still in the end, we really just like to include all our players in our successes. Onto the post-season! Go Royals!

For Your Enjoy-Mint

 

Had a busy day and evening with work, then book club, then choir practice. The whole time I'm thinking, "I gotta get home and whip together that trifle!"

And I did.

Bottom layer is brownies, next is that fabulous Shamrocky pudding, then crushed up Mint Oreos. Repeat and top with a thin layer of Cool Whip and Andes Mint chips.

Think anybody will like it?

I don't even know if the birthday boy will like it. But I did two peanut butter and chocolate ones in a row so I needed a change of flavor. I wouldn't mind taking most of this back home with me since it's my favorite. Ha.

Hope you found some enjoy-mint in your Wednesday as well!

Well Shake My Shamrocks

I forgot to mention one of the highlights of Camp Crop-a-Lot. Every year the event falls on the weekend of my friend Becky's birthday. She's one of the coordinators so for her, there's no place she'd rather be to celebrate.

As a bonus, her husband always delivers her a cake, balloons, and a Shamrock Shake. Make that a 4-pack – because he's been bringing one for me for the last 10 years! So that was a nice surprise that I hoped would happen.

Either way, it put me in a minty mood.

So this week's work birthday trifle – yes, the 3rd week of trifling in a row – will include a wee bit of Shamrock flavor with chocolate.

Here's my game-changing ingredient. Instead of adding mint extract to pudding mix, one of these bad boys from Kwik Trip is 2 cups. And blends perfectly with a package of instant White Chocolate pudding. It's Shamrock-a-licious! A perfect pudding layer for what I will now have to call my Shamrock Trifle when I "assemble" it tomorrow night.

Follow me for more Trifle Tips! ☘😋

The Smiling Scrapbook Gods

 

It's always funny looking out at this totem pole at scrapbooking camp. It's like the scrapbooking gods are watching over us!

And they were this weekend. 

I had the treat of having my twin sister Raylene join me for the weekend! We think it's been about 15 years since the last time she did. It was just so nice to hang out, visit, be creative, and have a treat or 2. Of course! By the way, we did not tell each other what we were wearing. She just showed up Friday and we matched!

The theme this year was scrap-iversary since it was the 25th year of Camp Crop-A-Lot and my 20th year attending. Such a fun group!

This weekend I was working on my 2017 scrapbook. Got as far as October anyway. A few favorite pages....

I got home about 3 p.m. today. And it was such a warm welcome! 

I expected it since there was a meltdown starting at camp as the temperature reached 50-some. It was a gorgeous spring day!

And yes, after a well-timed chiropractic appointment, I did get in line at the car wash! It wasn't so bad since people have had several days to take advantage of mild temps. I'm glad to see they're continuing this week. Just one less thing to worry about when I'm headed back to work.

After a 4-day weekend, that's hard enough!

Between that challenge and lack of sleep this weekend, I'll be hitting the hay early tonight. Maybe not until after The Voice though. Priorities.

Have a good week!

Every Layer is Packed

 

If I sleep fast tonight, scrapbooking camp will be here before I know it! And I am ready. I have everything packed and even whipped together a Chocolate-Peanut Butter Trifle to bring along.

I took a break from packing and went to the first half of the girls basketball game. It was senior night so I wanted to watch at least some of the game against Stratford. We also had two girls reach 1,000 career points tonight. This team (this No. 1 ranked team) is on fire! Perfect timing going into the playoffs.

Got home and got a few pictures edited but the rest will have to wait. I need decent sleep tonight since I'll get very little the next 3 nights. But you won't hear me complain about that!

Also, hubby is home from his brief trip so I better talk to him before we're separated again for a few days. And keep an eye on him and that trifle. It looks too good to ignore!

Sweat dreams!

Raw Deal

This Polar Vortex is like a fat man in a bakery. He's gotta touch 'em all. All the states, that is. 

Poor hubby had this for temperatures "down South" in San Antonio. That's so crazy. Even though the trip is for work, he certainly deserved a bit of a break from winter. Wow. This can be over already!

On the flip side, when Carter texted he had a Shamrock Shake for lunch (cold be darned), he admitted, "I am my mother's son!" Love it. And oh that sounds good! 

I should've thought of that when I was grocery shopping after work. Yup, I'm two sleeps away from Camp Crop-A-Lot so I had to get the essentials – food items I signed up to bring, snacks and drinks for myself, and oh, just a trifle to share for dessert on Friday. 

Just the usual.

Most of my other "scrap" has been set to go for weeks. But tonight after choir, I'll take inventory again just to be sure. I'd hate to have all this time then forget the real essentials!

Bundle up and stay warm – no matter what state you're in. Be careful!

Ugh, and They Had to be Right

Sometimes it stinks when the weather dudes are right. As predicted, we had super chill wakeup temperatures today. And with that windchill, there's no way the kiddos would be safe waiting for any buses or walking to school.

Good call, school officials.

Of course, these days there's not a lot of REAL snow or weather days. Thanks to what everyone figured out in the pandemic, there a virtual learning days. Sorry, kids. You missed out on the good old days.

It was 67 degrees in San Antonio today – hubby's work destination – that's an 85-degree temperature differential. But good for him, right? He was sick all of January so he deserves a spot of warmth!

Meanwhile I stopped on the way home tonight and pumped a few gallons of gas as quickly as I could so I wouldn't have to do it in the morning. Another sub-sub-zero day! 

Please, please be careful out there. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, er week. But for now, it's time to be smart Midwesterners and bundle up!

Popsicle Prediction

I was going to complain about our minus 8 wake-up temperature today... until I saw a high school classmate who lives in Dickinson, N.D., had a legit minus 31 with a minus 45 windchill. Holy crap!

Still, the Deep Freeze is moving this way. And has prompted area school closings tomorrow with a predicted windchill of -32 here when kids normally would be waiting for the bus. Good call.

At least two people in my family are lucky enough to be flying to warmer climes tomorrow. My only request is "Save room in your luggage to bring back the heat!" Does that ever work? I sure hope so!

While I did have to go into town after work for my 6-week hair appointment, I'm staying in tonight and watching The Voice. I may or may not already have turned on my heated mattress pad. 😁

Please be extra careful out there!!

BING-Oh Shucks

Like the meme above illustrates, I was pretty excited to go to BINGO at Assumption today. The progressive jackpot was $4,000+ AND I had a special guest.

Thanks to peer pressure from a few of our friends, Mr. "Hard No" at BINGO came along today for what he called his first – and last – time. He did have fun visiting with the guys, but that was about it. 

One of our group of 8 won a game, but had to share winnings with other winners. The 50-50 prize was $900 and none of us won that. As for the progressive blackout jackpot, that pot is going to keep growing for the next session on March 2. 

Knowing hubby has no interest in the game, I'll just keep my mammoth winnings to myself when I surely win in March! Ha.

I still had fun. And it's always fun to have friends there, too. Being losers together is a good bonding experience!

The rest of the day was recliner time watching golf and I guess some racing. I think I fell asleep for that part. No sense doing anything too exciting. We're plunging into a deep freeze, so I'm just snuggled in my chair and counting down to bedtime at this rate.

I used to say that just because I play BINGO doesn't mean I'm old. But counting down to bedtime at 6 p.m. might count!

Bundle up and have a good week!

Soup's On

We woke up to enough snow that hubby needed the snowblower. Something like 4" but it has been floating down on and off all day so who knows the amount?

After Jim shoveled out his dad's driveway, we went to the South Wood County Empty Bowls event – where $10 gets you a locally crafted pottery bowl, a bowl of soup from a local restaurant, and a dinner roll and yummy cookie. Also, for those who do that sort of thing (Me!) there were more than 100 raffle baskets.

We took our soup to go so we could deliver some to Jim's dad on our way home.

My Beer Cheese Soup from the Junkyard Bar and Grill was delicious! I did not win any raffle baskets. But maybe my luck is just waiting to change. Perhaps at BINGO tomorrow??

The rest of the day was major couch potato (or recliner potato) time. Watched the Badgers upset Purdue. Yeah, Bucky! Got all our tax stuff scanned for the Tax Man. Then I managed to get in two Hallmark movies with some leftover pizza in between. 

I was super lazy and owned it like a boss. And surprisingly, don't feel guilty about it. Very unlike me. I must be maturing! 😀

We'll see. Be careful out there!

Dinner and a Movie... and Snow

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you're all feeling the love from somebody – even yourself!

Since we both had to work today, we couldn't be Valentine-ing all day. But we made plans to go to a 4:40 p.m. movie in hopes of beating the snowstorm.

What movie? Well it's the Craig T. Nelson one about John Deere tractors.... you know, Green and Gold? Honestly, the hardest part was saying the name of the movie out loud to get the tickets. But it's not a Packer movie. If you are a farmer, or know a farmer, or appreciate farmers, this movie will tug at your heartstrings. A neat story you should see... and bring Kleenex. Lots of Kleenex. 

Since the snow was really coming down when the show let out, we headed straight home and got a pizza from Italia's down the road. Which we both love, so that counts as a romantic Valentine's dinner to me!

Now we wait to see how much snow silently falls while we're sleeping. Latest forecasts I saw were 5-7  inches here. But Wisconsin Rapids is right on that imaginary line on the weather map, so may just get 3-5. Either way, I am not setting any alarm. It will be a minute before I can leave the house tomorrow.

Be careful out there! 

Pretty Galentines

When I booked tickets to Pretty Woman the Musical a few months back, I knew it was the day before Valentine's Day. But didn't realize they call February 13 Galentine's Day.

Perfectly appropriate though since there were 5 of us gal-friends going together. 

Three of these ladies are Jim's high school classmates, but they've graciously adopted me as a friend on occasional social outings! 

Tonight we started with a pre-show dinner at Caio! Just 2 blocks from the Grand Theater in Wausau so very convenient on a single-digit night!

Yummy Italian food!! Too full to even have dessert. Wow.

Our seats were the front row of second balcony. But the theater is small enough there isn't a bad seat in the house.

We'd all seen the movie multiple times but didn't know what expect from the musical. Very fun and entertaining and managed to include all the best dialogues from the movie between musical numbers. Excellent!

Pretty sure Valentine's Day will have a tough time surpassing Galentine's Day. But if fairytales can come true for Vivian Ward, there's potential!

A Few More Requests, My Prayer Warriors

First of all, I thank all of my friends and family who have prayed on demand when I've asked for it. Secondly, I send super hugs to all of you who follow up later – even months later – to see how the situation is going.

I love you for that – and so does my family!

It's been almost 11 months since my sister Rachel was in a life-threatening, almost life-taking car accident. After 3 months in a trauma center then several months of rehab, we were encouraged with her progress. I mean she took several steps at Christmas unaided by a walker or cane.

But sometimes your body takes a minute to reveal what's happening internally.

She now faces a minimum of 3 more surgeries – starting with one tomorrow – and I don't know how her mind and body can handle it. I'm asking for prayers for physical, mental, and emotional strength for her. 

And frankly, please God, make these the last medical efforts to help her whole-y heal! I don't think I'd have the physical or mental power to endure what she has. That's why she's awesome. And I'm just the praying sister.

Thanks for your past and future support!

Girls Hooping it Up

Since we were confined to the house so much of January, I finally made it to some Lady Royals basketball games tonight to take pictures versus Marathon.

The JV game was really exciting. We won in overtime!

In the varsity game, we quickly took control and were ahead by so much at halftime, I was ready to head home and work on photos. Then I remembered I purchased 50-50 tickets and hated to leave early in case my luck for the week took a turn.

It didn't.

But the varsity victory gave us at least a share of the Marawood South Conference title! I'm pretty sure the outright title will come down to next week's tilt versus No. 2 Stratford. We'll see. 

For now, I'll start editing pictures and expect it might take me 2 nights. But go, Royals! Keep up the phenomenal work!

Not So Super Sunday

When your hometown or home team (sort of) isn't playing in the Super Bowl,  there's only three things you can hope for.

You want a close game to keep it interesting but really want the game – no matter how it goes, to match your numbers. Well as a nice Mom, added Carter to some boards. And guess who won? Not me. But my donation on his behalf did. Figures. I was on 4 participation boards and came away with not a thing.

Oh well, the third thing we hope for is at least some good commercials.

As someone who saw this original scene from When Harry Met Sally on the big screen years and years ago, I found this one highly entertaining! Which one was your favorite?

I'd comment on the halftime show but one, I don't know his music at all. And two, I was visiting with a friend who was in town so really wasn't into it. Did you like it? 

What about that score? Congrats to the Eagles for dominating. I'll admit I was not expecting that. Not like I am one to place bets on something like that. 

Or am I?

Have fun the rest of the week with not much on TV. Time to countdown to baseball! 

Blustery Business

 

Today was definitely a stay at home as much as possible Saturday. We just didn't know how much of the snow storm we were going to get. I think it ended up being just 3-4 inches. But still, it required some snowblowing.

Meanwhile, I was inside trying to wrap up the last of my Camp Crop-A-Lot preparations in case I'm lucky enough to have plans next weekend (Valentine's weekend). I also tried a new Lasagna Crockpot recipe. Tasted good but could use a few adjustments.

So tonight I think I'll view at least one of the leftover Hallmark movies in the DVR queue. I think it's early enough I could maybe finish with Christmas so we can move onto "Valentines fun". I'll let you know.

Hope you found some ways to enjoy the weekend so far! 

TGIF Normal

It's so weird. I have no special reason to appreciate Friday or celebrate it. It was just work, a little scrapbooking shopping and visiting my father-in-law.

I also got the "Apple computer transition" items delivered today so I could finish my photo editing from Monday. So that was good. But now it's a weekend of watching/dealing with some snow storm before Sunday's Super Bowl.

Stay safe out there. I think it's only going to be a few inches so don't let that scare you from weekend fun! In my humble (and uneducated) opinion!

Blow it Off

We had such high wind conditions today that on the way to work, I wasn't sure if my car was moving due to black ice. And on the way home, with better visibility (above) I was just thankful to keep my car in my lane. Uffda.

Of course, it was easy to cope with the commute when I was filled with comfort food. As a whole, we're (non Chiefs and Eagles fans) all blowing off the Super Bowl this year.

But still... we started our Super Bowl pre-gaming at work today. I encouraged people to bring in appetizers and share their recipes. I brought my Rubi Reds inspired dip and I latched onto a good beer-cheese dip recipe!

With 1 Vikings fan (duh) and 10 "other" fans, we could all just commiserate and eat. Works for me!

As it turns out, I have enough chips and pretzels AND dip left that I'm already set for Sunday. 

After making it to and from work safely, I'll latch on to any positives! Hope you can do the same!

Technical Difficulties or Something

Figures that when I'm having technical difficulties with my "old" computer, I have them with my new one, too.

I was so frustrated last night with Photoshop issues with boys basketball pictures I took, that I almost said screw it, and bought a new computer.

Then this morning, I said screw it, I'm getting a new iMac from Best Buy – who only had 2 in stock. 

I was thrilled to pick it up after work and get home. Then I realized these new Macs don't have regular USB ports, but require some sort of transition devise. I didn't find that at WalMart despite talking to 3 associates in the Tech area. So ordered something off Amazon tonight to help with the transition from old to new.

I mostly feel bad that it will take another 2 days or so to share pictures from a Monday JV game. It sucks to have to rely on technology. Hopefully this old lady will eventually catch up!

Reaching Out

I find this statement to be so true. I mean here we are, empty nesters, and yet life somehow gets too busy to stay connected with friends. It's such a travesty, especially when many of us live in the same town. And some of us in the same neighborhood.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a bad friend that way. Not sure where the time goes and suddenly I wonder how people are doing. It's worse when you learn too late they've been dealing with challenges and heartbreak that you knew nothing about. Because you weren't paying attention!

That's one reason I'm grateful for my Girls Night Out group. I can't recall when or how I got in it, but it's great. They make a point of getting together to go out to eat somewhere once a month. Sometimes there's 6 and nights like tonight, we had 11. I don't always make it, but I've started to be more diligent in trying. 

We all need friendship. Whether it's other couples or girls nights without our hubbies or our sisters. 

If I were to actually make a New Year's resolution with some meaning behind it, it would be to be a better friend. To reach out more. To make and take the time to connect – either virtually or physically. 

I've had enough unexpected losses in my life that I really don't want to have regrets. 

But know that even if you don't hear from me, I really do think of you. And hope God is smiling on you with all the blessings you deserve. He's way better at keeping in touch and in tune to your needs. I will try to follow His lead!

Jimmy for the Win

Sorry I didn't get time to blog yesterday. I was doing too much research trying to figure out if I should believe  Punxsatawney Phil's prediction of 6 more weeks of winter (boo!) or Wisconsin's own Jimmy the Groundhog (above) who says we're in for an early spring.

In the end, of course, I'll go with Jimmy for the win.

And there's actual data to back that up. 

While groundhogs across the country are asked to predict the weather without a formal education or degrees, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says some of them are accurate more than 50% of the time.  This includes Sun Prairie’s Jimmy the Groundhog, who ranked sixth in the country for most accurate Groundhog Day forecaster. Jimmy was found to be accurate 60% of the time in the past 20 years.

As for the furry forecaster in Pennsylvania? 

He may be the most iconic groundhog and the one that started it all, but he was found to only be accurate 35% of the time, placing him at 17th on the list.

Go, Wisconsin!

And was my only win of the day. I played BINGO and won diddly. And that progressive jackpot sits at over $3,000 for the next game day on February 16. Maybe the Dobber Diva Gods are just waiting for me to win a bigger pot.

I should ask Jimmy the Groundhog if he has any predictions!

Hello, February

With the wind picking up and the temps dropping, the transition from January to February took a negative turn. Of course, we were just being teased with that nice "car washing" weather the past several days.

Not we flip the calendar and are reminded we technically still have a lot of winter to go. 

This is such a quiet weekend on our calendar, we really didn't care what the weather did. Just ran a few errands here and there and mostly hung out at home. I got a few more things set for scrap camp and even took a short walk.

Tonight I'm working at getting at least 2 Hallmark movies off my DVR queue. Right now I'm 100% in Christmas mode. With a romantic happy ending of course.  In fact, this feeling might stick around for a another month if I don't have time to get through my DVR recordings. 

Good thing there are no sporting events on TV this weekend that I feel compelled to watch. I just might make progress on some projects yet! Hope you're having a fun or productive weekend – or both!