I am off to work at Inspired for You in a little while. I have been working hard to make more sock monkeys for the store. If you come in and visit today, you will find me at the desk stitching on monkey limbs and tails. After work we are getting our real, wonderful-smelling Christmas tree! This is fun busy!
Tomorrow, I will be attending a neat coupon class at the West Bend Community Memorial Library. They started sending out emails every month not long ago. I recently got an email advertising this free class on couponing and starting a coupon binder. I use coupons, but I am not a super couponer. I am hoping I can learn something new for household grocery shopping, but also, I want to apply it to purchasing materials for giggleFritz and Co. We’ll see how it goes.
I am not very upset that Hostess has gone out of business. It has been years since I have purchased a Twinkie, HoHo, Fruit Pie, or Zinger. I really like to bake our snacks and treats. It is healthier, cheaper, and I always learn new things when I work in my kitchen.
I have been collecting recipes for years. I have a cupboard filled with cookbooks and notebooks shoved with clipped out recipes from newspapers and magazines. I also have a good number of recipes inherited from my Mom and Grandma. I have probably made 25% of the recipes in my possession, but I enjoy sorting through them once or twice a year and discovering something that I could make in the next menu lineup. I also love the mishmash of color and texture of the pieces of paper I have collected.
Part of my Recipe Collection
One of the best cookie-bar recipes I have been using is the Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe from the Gold Medal unbleached flour package. There’s a good amount of fiber in these cookies, they are soft, and they taste great. I have been making them into bars. We freeze half of the bars immediately after they cool. We enjoy the other half of the bars for dessert and in lunches for three days. When they thaw out later, they are perfect!
Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip BarsOatmeal-Chocolate Chip Bars ready for freezer
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. In large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter, vanilla and egg with electric mixer on medium speed until blended, or hand mix with wooden spoon. Add oats, flour, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
On ungreased cookie sheets, drop dough by rounded spoonful 2 inches apart.
Bake 9-11 minutes or until golden. Cool for one minute on cookie sheets then place on cooling racks.
These also make GREAT bars and are even faster to make!
Instead of dropping into cookies, spread into a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet and bake 15-18 minutes or until golden.
Holidays are a lot of work, aren’t they? I really look forward to Thanksgiving every year, and every year I overdo it. I underestimate all the work I put into planning, cooking, cleaning, and visiting with family. My biggest problem is that I don’t say “no” enough. Do you want more pie? YES! Do you want to go shopping at 11PM at Target? YES! Do you want MORE pie? YES! I need to say “NO” more often.
We wound up at Target in Germantown around 11PM on Thanksgiving. There was nowhere to park. We drove around a while looking for a spot. After driving up and down the rows of cars for ten minutes, we finally got a spot and almost ran over a group of kids in the process. There were crowds of people everywhere. People were rushing in, people were rushing out. Some people had bags of stuff, other people left without anything. The store was packed with televisions and Hello Kitty blankets. I looked around at different things, but nothing I wanted was on sale.
When we entered the store we immediately noticed the long line to check out. One person from our group got in line right away while the others went to shop. (He came along for a different store.) When I went to join him he was carrying a few items. You can’t wait in the line to check out if you don’t have any items. So, along the way he picked up a few things that other people left behind. We picked up so many DVDs and video games in line it was funny! We didn’t purchase all of them, but we did leave with four seasons of the Big Bang Theory. Score!
Black Friday Shopping at Target
Though I overdid it on Thanksgiving and wore myself out, I am fully recharged and happily in the Christmas spirit! I have been listening to my favorite Christmas CD, “A Winter’s Night: The Best of Nettwerk Christmas”. My sister gave the CD to me for Christmas one year when I asked for it on my list. I REALLY wanted the CD because it has “Christmas Day” by Dido, on it.
My Favorite Christmas CD
Now I need to get a tree and decorate, and bake some cookies, and finish Christmas shopping, and, and, and….!
We woke up to a foggy Wisconsin morning. It’s been abnormally warm this year. The last few days the temperature has been in the 50’s. It cools down into the 30’s over night, but warms up quickly when the sun comes up. So, for now we get fog. Tomorrow we are to reach 60F and on Black Friday 36F.
Foggy Day in West Bend, Wisconsin
I don’t mind driving in snow and thunderstorms, but I hate driving in fog. Ten years ago not far from where I live there was a terrible accident that killed 10 people and injured 40. It was a huge car pile-up due to fog. No one could see to stop. It was terrible just watching it on the news. I felt so bad for the crash victims and their families. When my husband left for work I made him promise to text me when he got there. (“I-43 crash, 10 years later” story)
On a happier note, I am so excited about Thanksgiving tomorrow! We are hosting 12 people at our condo and so far everything is going smoothly. I have had more time to plan since I am not working full time at a regular job. (I do work hard for giggleFritz and Co, but it’s MY time!) The 21lb turkey has been thawing in the refrigerator since Friday evening. I made a large batch of turkey gravy on Sunday and froze it. It is now thawing in the refrigerator with the turkey. I just have to put it in a crock pot, plug it in, and not worry about having enough or if it turned out to thick or thin. Other than veggies and Jello, my family is bringing the rest. I just need to do a little more house cleaning today and we are good to go!
This past Saturday I had the gFritz booth open in the St. Ann’s Holiday Gift Fair in Stoughton, Wisconsin. It was a great craft fair! It was a smaller venue, but I still sold a decent amount and talked to some wonderful people. Colette Vitiritti of Willow Works was there with her mom and brother. She makes beautiful jewelry! I traded with her back in August: a striped sock monkey for a beautiful green necklace and pair of earrings. They were in the booth next to me. It was great seeing them again!
I also got the chance to meet Bonnie Wanta of Bonnie’s Cottage Boutique. Bonnie came over and talked for a little bit. I had to tell her my sister and I love her children’s capes she had displayed at her booth. They were so adorable! Check them out and other neat things she makes in her Etsy shop. It was great to talk with her about her business and selling in general. There were other really nice people at this event. I will be back next year if they’ll have me!
Now I am off to do business-y things, but before I go, I leave you with my good friend Socky Claus. I took some time and did something Christmas-y last week to divert for a little while. He needs some work, but I like him. Hope you do too!
Two days until St. Ann’s Holiday Gift Fair. I would be far more excited if I weren’t coming down with a cold. I have had a headache for three days now. Ibuprofen is dulling the pain, but it is still there. It makes getting ready for a craft fair not very enjoyable. To help keep my spirits up I have been listening to Christmas music on Pandora. No, it’s not too early for Christmas music. I really love it!
I am not sure which is the busier time of year: fall or Christmas. Really, every weekend is just PACKED with activities. This weekend was busy and fun! My sister is a teacher and she was visiting for teacher conferences in Milwaukee, WI. She was gone most of the time Thursday and Friday, but we managed to visit the rest of the time. She accompanied my daughter, another sister, and me to the Meadowbrook Pumpkin Farm in West Bend, WI on Saturday. My daughter is a high school student, but every year we make it to the pumpkin farm and visit the petting zoo. We really like the llamas!
Tina (to us)
We also celebrated my daughter’s birthday Saturday evening. I have edited her name from the cake for privacy. She would KILL me if I put it on the internet! 🙂
Tinker Bell Birthday Cake
We did not get to pumpkin carving yet. Tomorrow is Halloween. I was thinking of putting on “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” on TV, and carving pumpkins, then. We have “..Great Pumpkin..” on DVD, but I like watching it on television with the rest of the world. If feels like everyone is in on the fun! I feel the same way about “White Christmas” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I have those too, but I like watching on TV more.
