Sugar Cookie Day!

Did you know that today is National Sugar Cookie Day?  I didn't, if you look  at this website Bizarre Holidays  there's all sorts of interesting holidays to celebrate......

This is what the website gave as a description of the holdiay:
National Sugar Cookie Day is a day to satisfy your sweet tooth. Popular with young kids, and old kids, sugar cookies usually don't last long around the house. It's pretty easy to see how Sugar cookies came to get their own special day. Almost everyone has had them. Many people are hooked on them. Put out a plate of sugar cookies, and you can be certain they won't be there for long. We haven't seen any surveys, but it's a sure bet that sugar cookies are right up there with chocolate chip cookies as America's favorite cookie. And there is no explanation of how the holiday was started....

In honor of Sugar Cookie Day, my daughter Grace and I made Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies from Martha Stewart.  I'm eating one right now, and they are very Giant and very good.  How can you go wrong with chocolate and sugar.. am I right or am I right?

here's the recipe, but if you click here it will take you to Martha Stewart's page and you can get a printer friendly copy....

Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 c. cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. vegetable shortening, (substitute: 1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted and cooled - which we did)

1 large egg

1 1/2 ts. pure vanilla extract

1.Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

2.Put butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in shortening (or additional butter). Add egg and vanilla; mix until creamy. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until just combined.

3.Using a 2 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 4 inches apart. Bake until edges are firm, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 2 days.

So here are some pics of Grace helping me out, and Nelson came in a little later to help lick the bowl and the spoon....

Grace cracked an egg w/out any spilling or shells in the batter!

Nelson joining us....

and the finished cookies (p.s. if you let them cook to long then they get too crunchy, I happen to like mine a bit softer) but they are still very, very good!

Well, have a good National Sugar Cookie Day!

P.S. Do you think we have enough Barbies in our house? 

Thankfully, I got all of them for $1

Sarah

Failing W/Style!

WHOO-HOOO I'm failing w/style................ ya know those goals i've talked about and lists that I've made.... Well, haven't followed any of it yet!  I know way to go me! 
it's just silly now, I've got all these plans, and goals, and dreams and I'm just not getting them done....

So, on our little vacation (more tomorrow) I read a book titled  Time Mangaement for the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern.   It is a really good book, you may have heard about her other book Organzining from the Inside Out.  My mom gave me both her books, or maybe I "borrowed" them from her.  

I'm summarizing my notes from her book.  She writes that a goal is a destination and an activity is how you get there.  Makes sense right! Like DUH!!  A goal, is WHY you want to do something.  I've come up with my Big Picture Goals in the areas of Work, Family, Home, Self and Friendship, and I'll share later what the specific goals are, and what are my activities are to get to those goals!

Also, another thing Julie talks about is a TIME MAP....  which is a schedule (yucky word for me) BUT stick w/me..... to help you (copying from her book) "to make time for your activities"  and once again here is another HUGE DUH! 
so hopefully, you will stayed tuned for my journey thru once again another way to manage my time!

Tomorrow, i'll tell y'all about our family trip (not a vacation b/c REALLY is going anywhere w/ a truckload of food and clothing a vacation.  ABSOLUTELY NOT!)  It was good and fun though!

My excuse

I'm here, i really truly am, I'm wanting to do soo soo much, all at once, but I can't, so the blog slipped out, BUT I really, really want to write here, so I will, but I'm not going to pressure myself to write every day, come up w/cutesie stuff, i'm just gonna write what comes to my mine.  i do want to show off the stuff i do and ideas i have, but i also have to be me, so.... look for me tomorrow :)

List Making.................

I LOVE lists, they make me so happy, so organzied, so smart, and notebooks are even better.  I could collect notebooks, they are always so pretty, and just all the blank pages bekon me to write and make lists.......

Two things I did to make my day go much faster, smoother and easier, make a master grocery list and make an blank hourly schedule/calender. 

I've been wanting to make this master grocery list for a while now, and one day about 3 weeks ago I did it!  You know, if you want something down, just sit down and do it, stop thinking about, talking about it, JUST DO IT!  (there, now is that enough motivation for you or what!)  From, what I can remember, I think it only took me about an hour, and I just typed out a list of any item (by memory) that we buy at the grocery store.
How I use it:  Every week, when I am ready to make out my list, I print the master list off the computer, and just circle each item that we need.  I think this saves me at least 10-15 minutes b/c I'm not writing the same thing done week after week.  Now, as I find things missing from the list, I will add them.  I have it divided up into categories, and it is organized by our route thru the store.  It isn't in alphabetical order yet, but i'm thinking that is the next step, and then the items would be much easier to find on the list.   So, an hour of my time one week, saves me 10-15 min. each week, so it will "pay for itself" in about a month.... I think that is time well spent.

Next,  I made up my own daily schedule.  I've tried this several times before, but with only short-lived success.  Since, I've been frustrated with not getting much done, I once again took the advice of my very wise friend.  She has told me this several times before, so thank you Diane for telling me once again.  I've been thinking, a teacher takes some time to plan out thier day, so why can't I?  So, every Sunday, I will sit down for a little bit, list any projects (w/steps) and phone calls, visits, emails, my blog that I would like to get done each week.  Then, I will divide it up between the days of the week, and that gives me focus, instead of wandering around wasting time, I have everything planned out.  Since, I've lately figured out my life, I really like schedules and routines.  This was my 3rd day to do it, so I just need to keep going! 

Now, the key will be to actually keep this going, but I am at that place in my life, where I am ready to do this, be a planner, be organized, get things done, instead of wishing that I could be that way.  Right now, I feel like I've hit a wall, and I think if I can knock down this wall, get past it, then i will be on my way to success with my goals.  I'm pretty happy and excited!!

Here's a link to my Daily Schedule and my Grocery List!

Thanks for reading!
Sarah

Snow Day!

6 inches of snow, 4 people w/a stomach virus, and 10 hrs. without power

That was my week last week, how was yours???

The snow was absolutely AMAZING!  I know for all those living everywhere else in the country are absolutely sick of it, but for me and my family it was incredible!  I've lived in Texas now for almost 12 yrs, and I haven't seen so much snow in that long of a time.  So I'm gonna just be all nostalgic about the snow now....... When I woke up Sat. morning, it was all so beautiful and peaceful outside. 

Now, i grew up in Indiana and Iowa, so I know snow, Joe and I went to Vail on our honeymoon (March).  But after years of not being around snow, it was beyond belief. 

All that snow brought back so many memories of when I was growing up.   We lived in Goshen, IN when I was younger, we moved to IA in 1989. 

I remember waking up in the morning after a good snow, and listening to the radio, very, very closely to see if school was cancelled.  My dad had this big plow and he would plow our driveway and then go down the street and plow some of our neighbors driveways.  We lived on a dead end street, so the snow plows would plow our street and leave this huge "hill" of snow, so we all would play on that  all day.  We would "hitch" our dog Prince to the sleds and he pulled us down the street.  It was awesome.  We would be bundled up in our coats, hats, scarves, snow pants.  Just some really fun memories.  I can't remember where we went to go sledding, I think it was just a park nearby, it had this huge hill, and it would get pretty icy, and man you would just go flying down this hill.

Our kids have seen snow before, but of course not this much.  So they had an absolute blast.  It snowed all day Friday, so Nelson especially was out there alot , playing in it and making snowballs, and throwing them at anyone and everything. 

Saturday morning, before it all melted away, we all went outside, made our "Snow Family" and had a snowball fight.  It was fun.

It was wonderful while it lasted and I'm glad it's gone and it's supposed to be 60* tomorrow! I'm definately getting out my flip flops!

Here are some pics of the snow, I ended up taking over 100 pictures, of course I deleted some....but I was suprised by how many when I downloaded them.....

Out our front door, I took a whole bunch of photos from the same spot to "record" the snow falling. This was Saturday morning.

Our Snow Family

and then just a fun one of the shirt I made for Valentine's Day!

Hope y'all have a good day!

Sarah

New Day, New Week

Hi, I am so very thankful that today is a new day and the start of a new week, well technically, yesterday was, but anyway........

All, I'm gonna say about last week, not good, very frustrating,....so glad it is over.

I'm focusing on the good things so far this year, I've accomplished. 

I so thought that this was more, but not so when I started checking back over all my pictures that I took in January....  Out of 31 days......I only took pictures on 11 days.... now I really did take pictures every day, but the rest of them were just stuff.....not people.... oh well, I shall continue. 

What the Project 365 has helped me with, is I carry my camera EVERYWHERE!  It is always in my purse, so that I can get those "moments" that are oh so cute......

LIKE:

this:

or this:

 or this one:

These were all taken at Joe's parents house, and if I hadn't had my camera those memories would have been lost.

So, I'm very thankful for my camera!!

so last week wasn't so bad b/c this was on Saturday!

Sarah

Poof!

I watched this Joshua Brody Francis: Hair Poofing 101 last week, and tried it!  I'm so excited!  my hair is longer, and it doesn't have layers, but it still worked out really, really well!

Here are the results!

this is on Sunday!

and then on Monday!

a view of the back!

and here is the hairspray I used.  I tried to find the hairspray she bought, I couldn't, I think the key word is

"freeze"

this stuff worked pretty good! 

I am soo very happy this worked, and it didn't take too long at all.  It just opens up a whole new world of style for me! No bumpits were used in this hairstyle, very happy not to spend the $10 on them thingies.

Sarah