Packing

Tonight I will be packing for our long weekend to North Carolina and it made me think of Rocky. Don't ask me how I get from point A to point B in my head. I am still trying to understand. But I think it goes a little something like this....

Last January I took a trip alone to visit my parents in North Carolina for a weekend and it was one week after we had gotten Rocky. He was so cute and cuddly and little. In this photo he was helping me pack.

Now one year later, it is another Wednesday in January and I will be packing but I don't think Rocky will be looking like this. He will be going crazy running around and jumping everywhere and terrorizing the cats. So then when I go to comfort the cats, he will run back into the bedroom and rip all the clothes out of our luggage because he thinks they are toys.

At least he will have fun at doggie day camp with no cats while we are gone. And I will not being pulling out my hair yelling ROCKY!

On another note, please disregard my messy sort of made up bed as Brian will never make it properly, which drives me crazy. Or wait, was I already crazy. On second thought, just forget I said anything.

Until Next Time,

Christine

9 degrees in Florida

Okay so here in Tampa it didn’t get down to 9 degrees but it did get down to 17 last night and there were snow sightings the night before. That is right, you heard me. Snow in the middle of Florida!! The last time that happened I wasn’t even born. However all of this cold weather has brought back the memories of recent trip the hubby and I took.


The husband and I took a trip to Orlando (the land of the larger than life mouse). We spent the day attending an attraction called ICE! It is the only place (at the time) that was 9 degrees in Florida. It is this entire winter wonderland that is created entirely from ice. What these people created is absolutely awe inspiring! Here are some photos from our adventures at ICE!

Old Man Winter

I was freezing sitting on the merry go round.

He sooo didn't want his picture taken.

A nativity scene that was spectacular.

My absolute fav was this angel. So beautiful.

Until Next Time,
 
Christine

Grandma’s Snickerdoodle Cookies

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We sure had a wonderful time with family and friends. I am big on traditions and since we are still kind of newlyweds we are merging traditions we both grew up with into our own traditions. One tradition that Brian grew up was having his grandmother’s Snickerdoodle cookies every Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember when my mother-in-law gave me the recipe after we had been dating for a couple of years and said I could bake his cookies for him every year now. It really made me feel as if I was part of the family. So if I didn’t bake his cookies for Thanksgiving I would have had a riot on my hands. As it is he has shared his cookies with his coworkers and now I bake dozens of cookies for them, too. This is a simple easy delicious cookie. Enjoy!



Grandma’s Snickerdoodle Cookies

• 1 cup Crisco shortening

• 1 ½ cups sugar

• 2 eggs

• 2 tsp cream of tartar

• 2 ¾ cups sifted flour

• ½ tsp salt.

• Cinnamon and Sugar

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. In mixer, combine the Crisco, sugar, and eggs until well combined.

3. In a bowl, mix the cream of tartar, flour, and salt. Slowly pour the dry mixture into the mixer to combine with the wet ingredients.

4. When all ingredients have been combined into dough, roll the dough into small balls then roll in sugar and cinnamon. Place as balls on ungreased sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden in color.

On another note, that should not be related to the cookies at all (I only had one cookie, B had the rest) but I did have my weigh in over the holiday weekend. I lost another pound. I am now down 22 lbs. Yay! I have never lost weight over Thanksgiving before. It is very encouraging for the rest of the holiday season. We have my company’s holiday party next weekend and knowing I lost weight over Thanksgiving will help with the willpower to say no to all the bad stuff at the party. I am part of a no gain campaign at my gym, which basically is where we signed a contract to not gain any weight over the holidays. We don’t have to lose anything, just not gain any weight. I am one of the few that is currently maintaining the goal and that just boosts my esteem over the weeks to come.


Until Next Time,

Christine

My So Called Life....

So before I hopefully tempt you all with my culinary skills, I figured I would give you some background. I have been known to randomly throw out obscure references (that only I usually get), so some background might help in sifting through my crazy thoughts. I am a southern girl living in Florida. And I don’t care what you say Florida is south of everyone else so my claim of being southern is true. And for all of you out there that think Florida is so great with the beaches and all, think again. Living with this humidity everyday is a killer on my hair and that is all that is important, right? So I married my high school sweetheart. How cliché is that? That is us below on our honeymoon. We went to Alaska. How cool is that? You might hear me call him the hubby, hubster, oh dear one, Brian, B, pain in the tush, and a lot of other names in my head when I am mad. But those might get me in trouble here as he is probably reading this right now. (Hi Hunny!) We officially met when we were 17. We knew of each other at 12 but that is a whole other story…. to make it short he listened to Marilyn Manson, I listened to Britney Spears, enough said. We went to college together and married one month after I got my degree. We will have been married three years next June. I then started my wonderful job. I mean it I truly love my job. (I’m not kidding.) What do I do you ask? I work in the psychological research field. I know some of you might be thinking she is the crazy one, she should be researching herself. But I am going to pretend to not hear that.

Okay, back to the oh so important info. We have two cats, Chloe and Pebbles. Yeah, Chloe is the queen of the United States and will let everyone know it. Pebbles is the cat who spends all day in the sink. I mean she is really there all day. Do any of you know how hard it is to get cat hair, and I mean clumps and clumps of cat hair out of the sink every day? But I regress, it was great for the two of them.

Until about a year ago, when I decided I wanted to expand the zoo I had created and we got a dog. He is Rocky and he is CRAZY. And he has made the cats hate us because they hate him. It is a dream of mine that one day I will live in a house of peace, but who am I kidding that is so not going to happen. (However if you know any good tricks on getting the cats and dog friendly, send them my way.) So those three animals are our kids. No real human babies yet and not seeing any in the near future much to the despair of both sets of prospective possible future grandparents.

One last big thing you should know is I am on a diet. Yeah, I know, I know diet=evil word. But remember that whole life change thing. Well my weight and body need to change. To put it simply, I am fat. Okay, wow that really hurts to say but it’s the truth and you know I only tell the truth (as I hold up my hand and look as innocent as a girl scout). So you can all know the numbers… I started out at 240 and I am currently at 225. I have lost 15 pounds so far. Only 75 more to go to hit my goal weight. So I will most likely be sporadically posting the weight loss updates and if you haven’t seen one in a while then harass me please. What better accountability is there than the harassment from complete strangers? So now you have the back story and can now say she is truly weird? But it’s okay I embrace it. Until next time……
Me


P.S. Sorry for the quality of some of the photos. They were taken with my old camera and I'm still figuring out photoshop. Hopefully this will encourage me to improve.