By Trisha
I am a little closer to being done with Christmas. I have two gifts to finish that are on the "to be shipped" list; a necklace and an afghan. I have until next Wednesday to complete them. I know I can get the necklace done, but I'm really stressing about the afghan. Jarom had to remind me last night that when I make gifts I'm supposed to enjoy myself and I'm starting to stress too much and not have any fun anymore. He reassured me that if I don't get the afghan done we can buy something, and I can send the afghan later. Not really what I want to do, but I think that may just be what will happen. I started early this year, but not quite early enough. Oh well. I also had to scrap the table runners for our moms and those will be their Mother's Day gifts and the necklaces that were going to be Mother's Day gifts are now their Christmas gifts. And, sadly, I had to resort to boxed Christmas cards this year. My stitched beaded cards take about 1 1/2 hours to do each and when you have about 120 to do, it is a big time investment, so I will work on them throughout 2011 and they will be our card next year.
I've been burning the candle at both ends the last few weeks, too. And, Jarom reminded me that if I'm not careful, I will get sick.
All the gifts that are complete are just about all wrapped. I have about half a dozen more to wrap tonight that are done, after I'm done here that is. The rest of this week i will be working hard on that afghan and the necklace won't take much time at all to do. Tomorrow, I'm making a pumpkin roll for Jarom's Christmas party on Friday and one for our neighbors. I want to give them a day to really set up, so I thought I'd do it tomorrow instead of Thursday.
Next Thursday, I will get everything over to the post office and shipped off to their various destinations. I'll get all the grocery shopping done for my baking and Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. I have 10 treats to make for our treat tray and I wasn't going to make anything new this year but I found three new recipes that sound fantastic and can't pass up-Oreo Cookie Balls, Cosmo Cookie Bars and Chocolate Filled Cookie Bonbons. They sound scrumptious! Those are in addition to my "old" regulars and "new" regulars from last year-Lemon Bells, Peanut Butter Balls, Spritz Cookies, Gumdrop Fudge, Cranberry Swirl Biscotti and Chocolate Fruitcake. MMMM! Yummy! I can't wait! I think this is what I'm really looking forward too and why I'm losing steam on making gifts; but I can't do my baking too early or they will go bad, so I'll start them all next weekend.
I've pretty much got our dinner list ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners. We'll have all the traditional sides, but this year we are having turkey and ham on Christmas Eve for dinner and prime rib (Culpepper family tradition) for Christmas Day dinner. And I'll do that shopping next week, too, when I get everything for my baking.
And that is what has been happening the last couple weeks-working on gifts, creating grocery lists, crossing things off lists and so on.
Happy Holidays, everyone!!!
By Trisha
Once again, this it's been awhile since my last post. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. Although we had to travel, we didn't have to travel out of state, only about 3 hours south to Santa Cruz/Watsonville. We stayed at my Aunt Tracy and Uncle Dustin's house and had a great time. Thanksgiving and our days and evenings were spent at Aunt Teresa's in Watsonville. There were 18 of us this year. It was a bit cramped but it was cozy. I so love my family. I am so blessed with a big loving family that gets along well, and a fantastic husband. Two dogs and I cat I love and whom love me very much, a home, clothing on my back, food to eat, and great friends-and that is just the beginning of so many blessings I'm blessed with. I could never name or count all of them.
The days were spend together playing games, eating, of course, visiting, watching football and a little shopping early Saturday morning at Joann's in Salinas. I took a pre-made quilt with me for all of us to design a square with oil pastels and set it with a hot dry iron. I took an couple ornament kits too, but we didn't make them as a group, so I gave one to Coley and sent the other home with Madison and Emily. I tried to work on our card fronts but I only completed one and a half, so I have more than enough work cut out to do to get them done. I had hoped to get about 30 done to send in the envelopes with the finished family calendar and family address sheet that I finally finished. Mom and Dad were kind enough to take the Oregon calendars home with them and Uncle Derek & Aunt Michelle the Utah ones. It only took me a year and a half to finish the family calendar but they are done and all are out except for 4, which will go out in the mail when I mail our gifts on December 15th.
I forgot to take our camera so I don't have any personal pictures, but Coley took plenty and they will soon be on Facebook and I can transfer some over here in a few days.
I know tonight I should be working on Christmas gifts, but I have yet to put up out Christmas tree and decorations. This is the latest I've ever decorated. If they are not up the day after Thanksgiving they always go up the weekend after and here we are almost a week later and they are just sitting in the storage bins in the living room waiting for me. When I'm done, it's back to work on Christmas stuff. Tomorrow, hopefully I will get out and finish what shopping I have left for gifts/stocking stuffers and supplies for gifts and baking.
I'm not doing any new Christmas treats this year. Last year, I tried a number of new recipes and through that experience I found holiday recipes for this year and the years to come: Peanut Butter Balls, Chocolate Truffles, Lemon Bells, Gumdrop Fudge, Iced Pumpkin Cookies, Cranberry Biscotti, Spritz, and Chocolate Fruitcake.
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, too!
By Trisha
I'm sorry to all our friends and family that regularly read our blog, for not being very good at keeping this up-to-date. It has been a busy summer, as I said before in my last entry with weddings and making wedding gifts. It has been a good season for our family-full of weddings and engagements-lots of happy times. I'm still working on wedding gifts-I have fallen behind on completing them and getting them out. Today, was Chad and Kylie's wedding in the Salt Lake Temple. I had hoped to go but with others things going on, I just couldn't make it. We have one more wedding in December, but not only do I have that wedding gift to do, but I have four others to do. I thin I've fallen behind because I've gotten a little burned out with all the gift making, but I'm back up and working to get them done.
Once I get the last five wedding gifts completed, I have Christmas to get going on and I need to get busy. I have been burning a slide show to DVD for my family from my Grandpa's funeral last year. I know-it has taken me a long time to get them burned and ready to go out. I've also been working on a family calendar and address book. With all the weddings and new family additions, it is time to get everyone updated. I have 27 to make and mail by the year's end. I'm plan to make our Christmas card this year, too, and I plan for it to be a stitched card. Finally, I have to decide what to do for Christmas gifts this year. I have ideas, but I haven't sat and drawn everything out and made a plan.
As if I don't have enough I'm trying to get done, but I'm still looking for a job. I spend a couple hours each day looking and applying for jobs. I don't know if I'm applying for jobs I'm overqualified for or if I'm under qualified or if employers are weary because I haven't worked for two years. I know the market is still tight, but I haven't even received a call, just emails that my resume/application has been received. I've also picked up my studying for the CBEST too. Teaching is my dream and I need to just go for it. I won't ever be really happy working if I don't do what I love and teaching is what I love.
That is about it, other than hanging out with the neighbors on the weekends out front while the kids play in the cul-de-sac. Now, stay tuned for pictures from some of summer's biggest events for our family.
By Trisha
I can't believe it had been almost five months since I last posted anything. My, time flies when you are staying busy.
We have be staying busy with family activities and the next two months are filled with weddings and traveling to attend them. In between then, we have family visiting us too. First, my Uncle Derek and Aunt Michelle with be here with Blake, Madison, Emily and Porter for the Track & Field Championships that are in Sacramento this year at Sac City College. Emily is the only one this year to make it to the Championships and I'm a very proud cousin-of all of them of course, since this is for the Junior Olympics. Blake was injured or he'd be running too; such a bummer. This trip for them is also a family vacation so we plan to have dinner one night and I'll watch Em run, but I don't plan to take up all their family time. Aunt Teresa and Uncle Paylor will hopefully still come down, too and we will probably do a breakfast on Sunday before everyone heads home.
Just three days after that is all over, Jarom's parents will be flying in for a week long visit. No plans, but then we don't usually have any. We fly by the seat of our pants. They will leave on a Wednesday and I will turn around on Friday and drive with Aunt Teresa and Coley to Utah for my cousin, Kylie's wedding. I'm very excited! I had planned to fly but Aunt texted last week and said her and Coley were going and so now it's a Girls Road Trip!
At the end of August, the High Tech's new building is being dedicated and we will be in attendance to that. Oh, next weekend we are camping at Meadow Lake with friends. Labor day weekend we will be in Prineville, OR for my brother-in-law's wedding. The following week, we are supposed to be in Vegas fro a friends' wedding, but unfortunately, I just don't think with all the travelling and activities going on that we can reasonably afford it. I'd so love to be there with all our friends to celebrate. But let's face it, they all live near their families and don't have to travel out of state much-not like us and so money isn't as much of an issue for them as us, unfortunately.
June was pretty quiet. July 2 my cousins were here for an overnight visit on their way back home from Southern California. Well, my cousin, John, his fiance, Katie and her son, Josh were here. They are planning on getting married next summer sometime, I think. They've only been engaged a short time so they haven't really thought about a date. It was awesome to have them stop since we are just of I-5 and that was the highway they were travelling. Katie and I are a lot alike and we got along famously. We could talk for hours and we did just that. John and Jarom are the same. Josh and I had fun. He played the Wii Fit and then Mario Bros. We had steak, potatoes, rolls, green salad and fruit for dinner and dessert was my Strawberry Shortcake cookies* and/or Chocolate Silk Pie. Josh and I made him a foam bulletin board and then we colored some canvas fabric puppets I had on hand. I felt bad, because it was almost midnight when we went to bed. I knew they wanted to leave early, so I didn't plan to keep them up late. We all just talked so much we lost track of time. I made us breakfast of french toast, brown sugar bacon and fruit in the morning. I was up at 4am so they could get on the road by 5, but I don't think they got out of her until 6am. Oops. :o) Jarom and I left around noon to head down to Watsonville for the 4th holiday. We had a lot of fun-Aunt Teresa had a fairly large party and all the family here was together for fireworks and dessert. (*I created a cookie recipe-that is my Strawberry Shortcake Cookie-I have yet to share the actual recipe with anyone but a few select individuals in my family, but I will soon. I may enter a contest with it-it is my neighbor's new favorite cookie and I have other ideas for cookies, with different ingredients.)
Last weekend, the neighbors had a birthday pool party for Madysen and Trenton. Trenton turned 2 on the 4th and Madysen 5 on the 7th. It was a lot of fun-started at 11am and went until about 6 or 7pm. I even put on a suit and got in the pool. I had a lot of fun with all the kids. I had Trenton a lot. He wanted to be in the pool with all the kids but not just on the step, so he would bounce with me then he wanted to jump in to me. He'd jump in and bounce up and down a bit and then want me to lift him up onto the edge so he could jump back in to me. At one point he was with one of the other girls and got a hold of a water missile, filled it with water and pointed it right at me with a big grim and released the water. What could I do but laugh. I got quite a sunburn though. I sued my sunscreen and kept putting it on but I think I need to move up the SPF from 30 to 100. ;o) I was trying to be so careful. I am now peeling and it itches, but at least I have some color other than my pasty white.
During the week, I'm applying for jobs and finishing projects. I have a wedding quilt to finish and other wedding gifts started that need finishing before wedding in the couple months. A lot are embroidery projects. I'm teaching the YW how to cook some authentic Guamanian dishes on the 28th.
I've decided I'm ready to go back to work. I've been off my antidepressant for a year now and I'm doing really good. My sleeping habits would get better if I had a job again. It doesn't have to be full-time but if it is the right job, I wouldn't mind it. I'm ready to get out of the house and meet new people. I don't much leave the house. It would be nice to have a little more disposable income again, too. It would allow us to do a bit more, although we are doing well on the one income. All around it would be good for me to work again, I don't' have much reason to stay home without children. I'm really excited about a couple I applied for last week, but we will see what happens. There isn't much out there and a lot people applying for the same positions so it is very competitive. This is our one weekend we have nothing going on-a breather before all the activity starts up again-more for me than Jarom, but he has to work all week.
I guess I'll go have some cereal and start working on a wedding project that needs worked on and get it done, so I can work on the next one and the quilt later today.
Happy Summer, everyone!!
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