Pluses and Minuses

Pluses:

* I heard some fantastic news on Tuesday! It really is an answer to prayer.

* I got a bunch of online Christmas shopping done today — most people on my list are now checked off!

* Breathe Right strips.

* Hot, steamy showers.

* 22 more days until Christmas!

Minuses:

* I have a cold. I can’t breathe out of my right nostril, but it seems like there’s no reason for this inability to breathe. Gross.

* I ate three sugar-cookie covered grasshoppers today. Very tasty, but not so good for my waist.

* I’m having breakouts to rival a 12 year old girl.

* I still feel sick, but have to go back to work today. Hopefully, my boss will let me go home if I don’t feel like I can make the whole day.

December Goals

1. Go walking with Hubby and Glacier on Saturdays we’re home.

2. Tweak our cleaning chart, so it works better for us.

3. STICK TO THE CHART!

4. Memorize 2 passages of scripture.

5. Read 5 books.

6. Finish Christmas shopping.

7. Do not go over budget on Hubby’s gifts!!

8. Drink at least 5 bottles of water everyday.

9. Make a plan for rearranging the den that includes our current desk.

10. Get a wedding present for my friend.

World AIDS Day

Today, December 1st, is World AIDS Day.

The summer after my sophomore year of college, I had the priveldge to travel to the southern part of Africa to work in a orphanage with AIDS affected children.

Not all of these children had HIV, but many of them did, or had at some point. What many people don’t know about AIDS/HIV, is that if a mother has AIDS, it doesn’t mean her child will definetly have AIDS.

AIDS is only transmitted three ways: through sex, blood, and breast milk. A child who is born to an HIV positive mother, is generally HIV positive at birth, but with proper nutrition, being fed formula, and (in some cases) antiretrovirals drugs, the child can be HIV negative by the time the 18 months old. 18 months is the cut-off — if you are not negative by then, you will most likely have HIV for the rest of your life.

Today, in America and other prosperous countries, HIV is not a death sentance. With proper management, you can live decades before you have full-blown AIDS. But, for the poverty stricken people of third-world countries like Africa, education and access to good nutrition and antiretrovirals, is difficult.

I’ve had people ask me why HIV positive children in third world countries deserve our help. I don’t have a rational answer other than: no one deserves to die without a chance, even if we know death is what will ultimatly happen. All of us will die. None of us know when. Why should a child, and infant suffer when they don’t have to? I can’t describe to you how heartbreaking it is to hold a suffering, dying child and know something could have been done.

Motsilisi, who passed away as a result of HIV only two short months after her birth.

Please, this December, learn more about AIDS and HIV, and find out what you can do to help raise awarness and support the search for a cure. Because everyone, American and African alike, deserves the change to live as full a life as possible.

Teaser Tuesday — On Agate Hill

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Should Be Reading. Here’s how it works:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“The wild black river roared below us, edged in silver lace. Cold air rushed up under our skirts. The water wheel turned at the side with its dripping buckets, yet we saw no one.”

– On Agate Hill, Lee Smith pg. 74 & 75

November Goals Revisited

1. Memorize 2 passages of scripture. I memorized Psalm 40:1-2 and Psalm 48:14.

2. Find Dad a Christmas present. I picked it out, now I just need to buy it!

3. Create a daily cleaning chart. Done! I think it could use some refining though, not all of the chores jive with what I have going on for work or volunteering for certain days.

4. Stick to this chart on the days we are home! Not even close.

5. Find the perfect Thanksgiving picnic outfit. I found my perfect outfit, all in my closet– a maroon dress with gray leggings, brown knee-high boots, and a jean jacket. Comfy, cute, and WARM!

6. Figure out one thing to get Hubby for Christmas. Just like with my dad, I know what I want to get him, now I just have to get off my duff and buy it!

7. Work out 15 times, at least. ONE SHORT! But, with everything that’s gone on  this month, I’m very pleased with 14 times. I think I might count this one, or at least give myself half credit.

8. Visit my great-aunt when we go to SC for Thanksgiving. I planned to, but she passed away two weeks before Thanksgiving. I went to her funeral, so we’ll count that as a visit.

9. Re-accessorize the top of our media cabinet. Done!

10. Set up our Christmas tree before we leave for Thanksgiving (without ornaments). Not done, but the tree was up and decorated by Sunday afternoon, and since the ultimate goal was to get the tree up before December 1, I’m counting this one done!

11. Spend one Saturday raking leaves with Hubby. Nope.

12. Plan a date with Hubby! We’re going to the Nutcracker in a few weeks!

13. Send Janeth a birthday card. Done! I found her the cutest “7″ card, with bees and glitter, and all that wonderful girly stuff!

Dare to…Bake!

This week’s Dare to DIY challenge at Newly Woodwards was to bake cookies! Yes! Hands down, the best challenge for me — I love cookies!

The only problem is, I like too many cookies! Sugar cookies are my all-time favorites, but I also can’t resist anything with chocolate, and Hubby is a big fan of mint. So what to do?

Make sugar cookies covered chocolate grasshoppers!

Now, my favorite thing to do is to find a way to do something that’s a whole lot easier than it seems, and I think these cookies fit the bill. Here’s what you need:

Yes, that’s all you need for friends to ask in amazment, “but how did you get the chocolate in there!?”

Here’s what you do:

Slice off a thin-ish (about 1/4 of an inch) slice of cookie dough, place on baking sheet, and put a grasshoper cookie on top of that.

Then cut another thin-ish slice of cookie dough, and place on top of cookie. There is no real need to pat the cookie down or worry about the sugar cookie covering the chocolate cookie entierly, because the sugar cookie will expand as it cooks, but the chocolate cookie is already cooked.

One of the things I realized after the fact that would have made these cookies more refined would be to trim the edges around the cookie. A simple round cookie cutter or biscuit cutter would have trimmed the cookie down and made more cookies!

Bake these in a 350 degree oven for about 13-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool, and enjoy!

Yum!

Finished Project!

Yesterday, Hubby finally finished his closet!

It all started when Hubby cut a hole in my bathroom ceiling to run duct work out of our gable vent. To do it, he had to go in through his closet, so its been out of commission since mid-summer.

After the duct work project was complete, Hubby decided to build an organizer for his closet, similar to the one he made for mine.

His closet was a little more complicated than mine, because the pluming for our upstairs bath ran through the back of the closet, and there was now some duct work running through the top of the closet, so Hubby did some framing and hung some dry wall to cover all that up.

He also cut into the existing drywall, back to the studs, in the back left-side of the closet to make some cubby holes for his shoes, backpacks, and other things.

I’m very pleased with the outcome of his months of hardwork, and even more thrilled to finally have his clothes back in the closet!

Top Ten Tuesday — Thanksgiving Edition!

We do some “not so traditional” Thanksgiving things in my family, and I love them all. I mean, how many people do you know:

1. Eat Thanksgiving lunch outside?

2. Eat cold turkey and ham unless someone killed a pig hunting earlier in the day and you have a pig pickin’?

3. Eat their Thanksgiving meal off of a styrofoam plate while sitting on the ground?

4. Spend Thanksgiving with dozens of other families, some who they know and some they don’t?

5. Eat their meal in a location affectionately known as “The Swamp?”

6. Go watch deer being butchered after they finish eating?

7. Have three aisles, made up of 4 folding tables each of food to choose from, plus two additional tables of desserts?

8. Have only one bathroom to share between well over 150 people?

9. Pose for the annual Thanksgiving photo on a log. Or, better yet, a tractor?

10. Have to plan their wardrobe around the possibility of mud on their shoes and sandspurs?

We may have an unconveintional Thanksgiving, but I love everything about it, and wouldn’t want it any other way.

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If you love lists, check out Oh!Amanda! for more, or to get in on the fun!

Teaser Tuesday — The Last Queen

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Should Be Reading. Here’s how it works:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“I should have been scared; I should have realized I had lost this battle. Instead, in a steely voice I hardly recognized I said, ‘I never asked for it.’”

– The Last Queen, C.W. Gortner pg. 25

Dare to…Entertain…

…or just set the table.

I’m participating in Kim’s Do it Yourself blog party for the holidays! You might not know it because I missed last week, but this week I was ready to set my table for Thanksgiving! This year we’re going to visit my family for the holidays, so we won’t be home and we aren’t having any pre or post Thanksgiving festivities at our house. Since it will just be Hubby and I for a few short days, I wanted to keep the table simple, something that would be condusive to casual breakfasts and dinners, and somethign that could be morphed pretty easily into Christmas decore.

I wanted something with fall colors, layered, and somewhat rustic.

My inpiration, focus, and pretty much the only thing I did was with pinecones.

I collected these last Christmas, and was waiting for some reason to use them. I love them as a centerpiece!

To make sure my pinecones were bug-free (because no one wants creepy-crawlies in their food!), I baked them for 45 minutes in a 200 degree oven. This also helped the pinecones to open up a little bit.

Now, my table isn’t anything to get excited about, but I love the colors and the simplicty works with my holiday plans. I’m excited to see the other great tables, and even more thrilled about sharing my favorite holiday cookie next week! But how will I choose?