Cranberry Orange Sauce

As promised, here is the recipe that I had mentioned before. Please note that this is not my original recipe, I did find it in a magazine at my Moms house, but unfortunately do not remember the title of the magazine.

Cranberry Orange Sauce:
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tbs honey
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup pure orange juice
1 package of cranberries

Combine sugar, honey, water and juice in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Add cranberries and spices, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Makes 2 1/4 cups.

What I changed in the directions was this - I started to squish the cranberries after they had simmered for 10 minutes so that they would absorb the sweetness from the sauce. I also then simmered for an additional 10 minutes to ensure a good mixture.

oh eeeewwww

I guess maybe I was trying to ignore Weight Loss Wednesday - especially since I gained 1lb!!!!! I fluctuate a lot with water so I'm really really hoping that it's just that. I did return to spin class last night and plan to go next Wednesday night -then after New Years plan to join "for real" the gym. I'm just waiting because I'm hoping that there will be a fabulous deal.

Okay, and I don't know why I was hesitating to mention this, but I finished book #3 in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. I have to admit that I didn't quite love it as much as I thought I would. But, I did really like it. I sort of thought it might go in a different direction than it did. But, that's a good thing that I couldn't tell exactly what would happen because it's not any fun to read a predictable book either! I read the manuscript of "Midnight Sun" on the Stephenie Meyer website which is Twilight from Edward's point of view and I soooooooo wish she would continue the story!!! You'd have to read her synopsis to understand why it doesn't seem like she will. It would be cool if she did though, I will say that.

I have a confession: I have hardly decorated for Christmas and I don't even think I'm going to. My heart is just not in it. It's weird not being in my "home" and frankly I guess maybe I'm just not in the mood? I can't explain it very well without going into too many details. Hopefully everyone else is getting into the Christmas spirit and enjoying getting ready!

pants and TobyMac

The not as exciting part first - I made Jan a pair of pajama pants for her birthday. Yes, I felt extraordinarily chintzy giving homemade pj pants, but what the hay. She seemed to like them okay (?) but I'm not a good judge of that kind of thing.

now onto the exciting part:

Last Saturday I went to check my email. Completely unsuspecting of anything cool in my inbox. And then! There was an email that I had won two tickets to the TobyMac Winter Wonder Slam tour, and the tickets were in the third row!!!! What?!? I never win anything! But, it was true! I had entered a raffle on KLOVE because I am a KLOVE insider. So, it was TobyMac, Relient K, and Stephanie Smith. I'll be honest, I actually had to think about if I was really going to go - for a few reasons. First, it's a 4.5 hour drive on a perfect day, and we just had a giant snow storm. And the concert was on Sunday night and I have to work at 8 am on Monday morning. And then gas money was also a factor, since it is such a long drive. And, I would have to go alone because everyone I asked thought I was crazy. But then I was like - wait a minute! This is a concert that I had been dying to go to, awesome tickets, and I'm only young once!!!! So I went and it was totally cool. The drive wasn't so bad - like 4.5 hours on the way there even with slowing down on the pass for packed snow. On the drive back it was more like 5 because I took it reeeealllly slow. I got home at like 2:30am, and I would say it was worth it. I was a really good show! It was great because you could tell that they were having fun up there on stage, not just putting on a show. I love his music so it was cool to see it performed live.

You say it's your birthday ba na na na na na

Yesterday I came home to two fabulous surprises! One was a birthday card from my Mom with a gift certificate for Joann's and also one for Michael's. The other was a swap package from Holland! How fun!!! This is another FQ sheet swap, love the sheets and especially love the card she enclosed.

Nothing much new, I just had lunch with some friends for my bday. I took the day off work so I could sleep in :) It's nice just to not have anything to HAVE to do today!

Weight Loss Wednesday

I'm going to go with my Monday weigh in because it was better than today by one pound! By Monday's weigh in I'm down 4 lbs from last week. I haven't actually noticed that I've done anything different, just watching portions and making sure to eat breakfast. I actually didn't do spin last week or the week before so I'm surprised that I lost anything at all - but I'll take it!

Catch up

So, here are a couple of pics from Thanksgiving. I made this little turkey pin to add some festivity to my outfit! LOL, no one noticed but it made me smile :) And here's a pic of the cranberry sauce I made from scratch. I found a recipe in a magazine at my Mom's house and she had given me this carnival glass dish so I thought *perfect*! The recipes was super easy, and smelled divine while it was cooking!!! I'll find the recipe and add it in later.





And then there's Sam - realizing that I am getting ready to leave the house and not too pleased about it! He cracks me up!


So, yesterday I stopped into the hospice thrift, one of my favorites, and I found a ton of great linens! So the top two sheets were $2 each and the pillowcases were .50 cents each. There are two crinoline lady pillowcases! I love those. The sheet with the bolder flowers was $1. It's sort of hard to find sheets around here for less than $2 so I think I did pretty well. I've almost got enough variety to start a quilt. So, that will be good. Speaking of sheets I just sent out two more packages for another sheet fat quarter swap from Swap-bot. I didn't get pics to share. I hope they like their packages, and I can't wait to get mine!




Let's see, what else? Oh, I went to see New Moon - not sure that I mentioned that? And I liked it. I actually liked it better than the first one. I've just finished the third book in the series. I also had to read the ending of the last one because that's just what I do. I had to know what was going to happen. I will still read it though. I also read another book last night, it was an easy read called "The Book of Jane" I don't remember the author - it was two ladies. The premise is that they took the book of Job from the bible and sort of adapted it to a modern day lady living in New York. It was a fine book, just not completely engrossing.

WLW

Ya-hooo is all I have to say! I'm down 1 lb so I'm happy! I thought for sure I would have gained or at the very least stayed the same with Thanksgiving (and two cheesecake options! Bah!) and no spinning class last week. The other days I tried to be good with cutting my portions, so I guess it paid off.


I have a few crafty things in the works. I am crochetting a scarf that I might give as a gift depending on how it turns out! Then, Joanns had flannel on sale the day after Thanksgiving for $1.49 a yard so I picked out two super duper cute prints to make pj pants. One pair for sure is going to be a gift and then the other might be for myself. I am also almost done with the Christmas advent calendar - I HAVE to finish it this weekend fo sho! I was stumped though last weekend on whether I wanted to embellish each little pocket or leave it plain. I think I've decided to embellish - after all I have all these fun embellishments! Why not use them :)