Sunday Social

1) What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

2) What is your favorite smell? It depends on the season or my mood. I love the smell of pumpkin spice, apples, pears, snow, leaves, the forest, rain...

3) What is your favorite TV commercial (past or present) Its funny but even before I saw Neely's answer, Neely's answer is my answer! I love those older Gap and Old Navy commercials.

4) What is your favorite day of the week? Saturdays

5) What is your favorite way to waste time? Reading, Movies, Walking through the woods

6) What is your favorite article of clothing? Shoes!!

Catch-Up

I knew it had been awhile since I had last posted, so I wasn't at all surprised to log in and see that it had been since October. I wish I could say that I've been busy doing great things, but its just been the regular run-of-the-mill fill of the days.

In November I spent Thanksgiving with my family, which isn't at all peculiar. No Black Friday shopping for me, but I did do quite a bit of online shopping on Thanksgiving and some on Cyber Monday. Honestly though I got the better deals on Thanksgiving. I guess that's sad that they do that now. We went to go get soda on Thanksgiving night at K-Mart and they wouldn't let us in because they were gearing up to open the doors at 8 or 9 that night for the start of their Black Friday deals. So sad.

December is a slower month at work, which was greatly appreciated. I've been run ragged since July at work and it was nice to have some breathing time again. I actually went to my work Christmas Party this year and it was fun. I actually have a great group of co-workers (for the most part) and it was good to see some of them that work in different offices and that I hadn't seen in awhile.

Lately this month I've been wrapping presents, reading Christmas books, watching Christmas movies and baking. LOTS of Christmas movies. Its bad...I have an addiction. I'm going to try to not be so bad next year. Today and tomorrow I will probably only watch the old stand-bys, though. By that I mean that when I was a little kid my mom would record Christmas specials on videotape and we STILL have them and watch them every year. Sure, the quality has suffered but honestly to me that adds to it. And its so funny to watch some of the commercials and see the weather alerts and how the people have changed over the years. I mean, we're talking about watching something that was recorded in 1986 and seeing that it was 14 degrees out and the weatherman was sooo much younger looking. I have some newer ones I like to watch every year, too, like The Santa Claus, Christmas with the Kranks, This Christmas, Elf, etc., but those old ones are priceless.

The weather here has been fluctuating. One day its 50 or 60 degrees and then the next its 40 or 20. Just a little bit of snow so far, but it didn't stick. We had a big wind storm the other day and that was intense (good-bye outdoor decorations). We have snow in the forecast for Christmas night/the day after (go figure). 

Well anyway, here are some photos of goodies I have been making:

Getting ready to make candy sleighs for my co-workers (found the instructions at this great blog here)

Sleigh part constructed:

And voila! So pretty and cute and well-received! And so fun and easy to make!

Chocolate truffles:

One of my specialties, Pumpkin Roll:

My other specialty, Chocolate mints:

Chocolate-dipped pretzels:

Fill in the blank FRIDAY

....A day late...better late than never? Hey, I've been busy folks. :)

1) My favorite flower is....peonies. Love them. And gerber daisies. I guess you could say I like my flowers big and beautiful.

2) You should never talk about....I want to say religion or politics, but I want to CLARIFY religion only if you are talking to someone thick-headed :)

3) My favorite discovery as of late is...almonds. I know, sad. I guess this is 'new' for me because when I first tried eating them plain the kind I got were just nasty to me and didn't taste right. But then I found Blue Diamond's Natural Whole Almonds and yum. Honestly I think what happened is the ones I tried before were seasoned or something and I prefer them without any of that. But these 'new' almonds are great and addicting---a good healthy snack for me. 

4) This fall you will probably find me wearing...boots, scarves and sweaters. I started wearing the boots and sweaters a couple of weeks ago. We got a cold front and its been perfect sweater weather. 

5) I wish I were....still on vacation and not going back to work on Monday. Eck.

6) My favorite TV show currently is...Well the Real Housewives of New Jersey is just wrapping up so I don't know if I can count that? I actually haven't been too good about watching tv lately--we've been DVR(ing) a bunch of stuff lately and  I just haven't had a chance to watch most of it. I've been DVR(ing) 2 Broke Girls, How I met your Mother, Parenthood, Gossip Girl, the Office, and have been watching Grey's Anatomy and Revenge live. 666 Park Avenue isn't too bad either, but not sure if its going to last or not since I like GCB and they cancelled that. 

7) This weekend I want to...do exactly what I'm doing now :) Ah, the perks of a late post? I slept late and lounged around watching Christmas cartoons/movies while getting a few things done around the house. Tonight, hubby and I are going out to eat for our FIVE-YEAR anniversary (woo!). And tomorrow its back to the grind, I think.
 

.::Sunday Social::.

1) What were you like in middle school/HS?

 Middle school was probably the lowest of the low for me. I had awful rat brown stringy hair and acne kicked in. Went thru of a flannel stage, too, hah. I played volleyball and was in a few clubs but I was just kind of a lonely pre-teen. In high school I made a lot of friends and was in a lot of clubs but dropped out of sports and became more of an artsy person. I accomplished a lot of, well, let's say, shock value in these years. I did pretty much everything you can with your hair--dyed it every normal color and then some weird ones (black, purple, yellow). I spaced out my pierced ear holes (smells like rotting flesh, I don't recommend it). I did a lot of crazy stuff. I can't say I really regret any of it though because I got it all out of my system fairly early and once I graduated high school and was in my first year of college I was a pretty responsible adult and got going with life--I look at what all I have now because I worked for it, and what the late bloomers and partiers have, and I'm pretty content with my life.

2) What were you favorite past times?

I think driving around is probably a big teen past time. Once one of your friends got their license you could just spend all night driving around and ending up in the craziest places. And there were always places groups of people would park at and socialize, like parks, banks, stores, etc. In high school we went to a lot of local concerts, too--like kids just like us starting bands and having kind of local punk-rawk shows. Oh yes, I did just spell that like that. 
 

3) What songs were you obsessed with?

'Bitch' by Meredith Brooks and she had another song 'What would happen if we kissed'. A lot of grungier songs and I went through a punk phase.

4) What fashion statement do you look back on and cringe?

The overly baggy clothes that I wore. I guess guys pulled it off okay, but I was a girl and should not have participated in that trend. Nor should I have worn boxers and my girly underwear at the same time.

5) Who was your celeb crush?

Skeet Ulrich--one of the murderers off the original Scream movie. And Ryan Phillippe from Cruel Intentions (of course, now I don't like him since he cheated on Reese Witherspoon). I had a big thing for Christian Slater and Christian Bale, too. Still do for Christian Bale.

6) What were your favorite TV shows/movies?

I watched a lot of WB and then the CW when it switched over. So Dawson's Creek, Gilmore Girls was a big one, One Tree Hill, loved Everwood. Home Improvement. And then of course TGIF on Friday nights was a HUGE deal---Boy Meets World, Sister Sister, Full House, Step by Step, Family Matters, Who's The Boss, Growing Pains...I could go on and on.

 

Fill in the blank FRIDAY

 

1.  The best thing to do on a hot day is hang out under an umbrella somewhere on a beach. Not that I've ever been able to do this....yet. Or somewhere with one of those spritzing fan things. You know, the ones that lightly spritz water on you as the fan runs?

2.   The best place to be on a hot day is   inside my house. 

3.  The best thing to eat on a hot day is  raspberry sherbet.

4. Hot days    make me sweat. Especially my face.  And that is sooo not pretty. Not to mention it means I get to have yet another cystic acne breakout--woo hoo!

5. My go to uniform on a warm summer day is  depends if I am at work or home. If I'm home its just a tank top and running shorts. If I'm at work I don't get that luxury and usually have to wear pants or capris and my work shirts are polos but such a bad fabric for hot days. Yuck. Lately I've been really missing being able to wear whatever I want (within reason) to work.

6. The scent that reminds me of summer is  sunscreen or hawaiian ginger-themed smelly stuff like lotion/body spray. Fresh cut grass. Coconut.

7.  My favorite thing about summer is  laying out on my Ostrich at night and looking up at the stars. I did this the other night with the meteor shower and it was sooo nice out. Are you wondering what the crap I'm talking about laying out on an Ostrich? These things are the BEST. You can find them here. Well worth the $$$.

Its OK Thursday

Had some AWFUL storms roll through here just after I got home from work. I don't mind storms, but its the tornadoes and tornado watches/warnings that get me. And of course that's what we had. Luckily, no touch-downs (hah, made me think of football there). Anyyyyyyway....

Its OK...

To skip out on the gym for a day (or two) and take a much-needed nap instead....

To let The Real Housewives of New Jersey auto-record all episodes INCLUDING the social media episodes just to be able to watch whenever I want and prolong the inevitable end of season....

To ignore my wifey duties for awhile longer because (OMG) Season 2 of Laguna Beach is re-playing on MTV....

To chow down on shrimp poppers instead of eating the rest of that salad....

That I have to get up early and get to work early tomorrow and then drive for an hour....

BECAUSE TOMORROW IS FRIDAY.

.::Sunday Social::.

1) If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

 

Probably pasta. I could definitely eat it everyday and, sometimes I do. Very filling, yummy, and versatile.

 

2) What's your guilty pleasure/comfort food?

 

Cake. But not chocolate cake. If it was between eating chocolate cake and no cake at all, I'd probably choose no cake at all.

 

3) What's the weirdest/craziest thing you've ever eaten?

 

I don't go too weird with food. I mean, I've had sushi and that was okay (salmon sushi--tasted like mandarin oranges to me.) I had frog legs once--really did taste like chicken. But that's about as far as I'll go. 

 

4) What foods do you avoid at all costs?

 

Pet animal foods. You know, like rabbit, squirrel, horse. Ew.

 

5) What meal reminds you of your childhood?

 

Just basic comfort food like chicken and mashed potatoes or chilli--things like that.

 

6) Share one of your favorite recipes and the story behind it.

 

From: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pumpkin-roll-ii/

Pumpkin Roll

This isn't the exact recipe I use, but its pretty close. I make these every year. People LOVE them. The only real difference in how I make them and this recipe is that I don't use nuts or dust the roll with confectioner's sugar or use parchment paper. I have one of those silicone non-stick sheets that I sit down on in my tray beforehand instead. This is the only type of roll I've successfully made. I've tried to make a chocolate yule log before but that ended disastrously because the house we were renting at the time had a SLANTED kitchen floor (which I didn't realize at the time) so the roll tilted to one side on the baking sheet in the oven and was burnt on one side lol. But these pumpkin rolls are really so yummy and I make them every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and even made a few for gifts last year because so many people look forward to them. Enjoy! I feel like making one now....

 

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2/3 cup canned pumpkin
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• confectioners' sugar for dusting
•  
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 8 ounces cream cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 15x10x1 inch baking pan and line with parchment paper. Grease and flour the paper.
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs on high for five minutes. Gradually add white sugar and pumpkin. Add flour, cinnamon, and baking soda. Spread batter evenly in pan. Sprinkle walnuts evenly on top.
3. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 15 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Immediately turn out onto a linen towel dusted with confectioners sugar. Peel off paper and roll cake up in the towel, starting with the short end. Cool.
4. To Make Filling: Mix confectioners sugar, vanilla, butter or margarine, and cream cheese together till smooth.
5. Carefully unroll the cake. Spread filling over cake to within 1 inch of edges. Roll up again. Cover and chill until serving. Dust with additional confectioners' sugar, if desired.