• Life

    I hadn’t thought of you today…

    December 26, 2020 - By 

    Frank Zappa…a name I heard as Rob read from book that he got for Christmas. As he read he said the name “Frank Zappa”…in my head “Dad loved the Zappa family and their music.” Then I remembered what today was… 2013 the family and I were in the air on an airplane. You can read about that here. This combination of days. Christmas and the day after. Christmas such joy and elation. Soaking in the family moments. Yesterday on my Timehop app a cropped pic of this popped up. It was Dad’s last Christmas (which we knew would be the…

  • Life

    Christmas Decor 2020

    December 24, 2020 - By 

    Happy Christmas Eve, everyone! I really wanted to get this posted way before now, but man, I’ve just been busy. You would think having this week off that I would have so much ‘free’ time, but honestly, we have stayed busy with last minute shopping, wrapping gifts like Personalized Christmas Gifts, baking, and catching up on some everyday life stuff. Anyway, today I’m sharing my Christmas decor for this year. Honestly, I thought I’d dome more of these post through the years, but it doesn’t look I’ve really done any dedicated Christmas decor posts since 2008! Geez! Let’s start outside!…

  • Life

    December Court of Honor

    December 23, 2020 - By 

    Last Sunday our Boy Scout Troop met in person for a the only Court of Honor we’ve had this year. Thanks, COVID! Alex has been the SPL (Senior Patrol Leader – boy leader in charge of entire troop) for the last year. Typically our troop has elections every 6 months, but due to COVID the term for that group of leaders was extended. The troop voted on a new slate of leaders a couple weeks ago. Alex is happy to not be in the leadership core now. Ready for a break. Discussing the ceremony. Alex is modeling in perfect form…

  • Life

    December 2020 Monthly Musings-The Holidays

    December 19, 2020 - By 

    Today I’m linking up for Monthly Musings for December with Patty & Holly. 1. If you celebrate Christmas, what are your traditions? We go to a Christmas farm and cut down a real tree. I make lots of cookies and chocolate covered everything. We go to Christmas Eve service and have a big feast that evening that I cook (Ham, Hashbrown Casserole Cracker Barrel Copycat Recipe, and another side that I change up year to year. Sometimes I do Bacon Wrapped Green Beans or Candied Green Beans Christmas morning we wake up and I put Sausage Balls and Apple Dumplins…

  • Recipes - Sides

    Andouille Cajun Dressing (with Gluten Free option)

    December 18, 2020 - By 

    This year for Thanksgiving I wanted to try something other than the Apple Cornbread Dressing that I normally make. I found one from Emeril. I tweaked the recipe just a tad and was so glad I made it. Everyone loved it. It is a bit spicy, so if you like spicy then great. If not, see below on how to make it not spicy with some simple substitutions and omissions. This would go great with any turkey or ham. We deep fry a turkey that’s injected with Tony Chachere’s Creole Style Butter Marinade. I made a Popeye’s Cajun gravy copycat…

  • Life

    The Weekly [12.6-12.2020]

    December 14, 2020 - By 

    Another week gone in a blink. PICS & GOINGS ON The bookends of our week were full fledge Christmas decorating. Sunday we went Christmas tree shopping. Friday we went shopping for new outside lights. Rob is completely over the icicle lights that we have been hanging on the house. We ended up spending way to much money, but feel ok about it as we felt like we needed an upgrade and we’re almost completely LED lights outside now. Saturday Caitlyn and Drew came over to make sausage balls. Drew had cut his finger the night before and decided it would…

  • Life

    The Weekly [11.29-12.5.2020]

    December 7, 2020 - By 

    Last week was our coldest week so far this season. We survived and are thankful for a heated house! PICS & GOINGS ON I finished off this upgrade, I guess you could call it. These are Boy Scout popcorn tins that I have around the house that we use for little trashcans. I didn’t like the design on this one, so I painted it and put a ribbon with a chalkboard heart on it. We don’t really use the word rubbish around here, but I liked that word more than trash or garbage. Tuesday was our coldest day yet. Lows…

  • Pork - Recipes

    Sausage Balls

    December 4, 2020 - By 

    Sausage Balls have become part of our Christmas tradition. This Sausage Ball recipe is one that my Grandfather started making back before I was even born! An in law of ours brought this recipe to our family. My Granddad loved it, but tweaked it a bit through the years. We made them every Christmas. I’ve continued the tradition by making them ahead of time, bagging them up, and freezing them. That way we can heat them up through the Christmas season and sometimes even in to the new year, because I double or triple the recipe. I am happy that…

  • Life

    Currently – December 2020

    December 2, 2020 - By 

    Holy moly! How is it December? Here’s another Currently post. I have been doing some baking lately. I have several recipes to update or just share for the first time. I’ve made pumpkin bread, oatmeal cookies, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies. Of course with the holidays coming, I’ll be making more cookies like Pretzel Square Bites, Snowballs, Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Crackers. I’m getting tired just thinking about it. I have done a tiny bit of Christmas decorating. I have 1 Christmas bin that we store in a different part of the attic that is super…

  • Life

    Memories of the Month {11.2020}

    December 1, 2020 - By 

    This month I was happy about: having a little break for Thanksgiving. This month I was sad about: just been kind of in the dumps here and there throughout this month. Not for any other reason that just tired and stressed, I guess. Here’s my rating system for entertainment: ♥ ♥ = Love it! A must read/see! ♥ = Really good! Highly recommend. ✓ ✓ = Good, not great ✓ = Not much to talk about X = Awful. Total waste of time Movies I watched were: Alex and I watched a bunch of movies. Happy Death Day! – ♥…

  • Life

    December 2019 Happenings

    January 10, 2020 - By 

    We started off the month with a win in the Auburn vs. Alabama Game. Here’s Drew and Caitlyn at the game before they rushed the field with everyone else. Here’s Daisy when she was still out of it because they had to sedate her so they could do x-rays. She started limping on the backside around Thanksgiving. You can read about all that here. The next weekend we headed to Gatlinburg for a soccer tournament. Daisy…just so darn cute! Dang how I miss that face and her companionship. My Honda Pilot hit a milestone. Alex has been watching every time…

  • Travel

    Gatlinburg Fun & Soccer Tourney

    December 13, 2019 - By 

    In early December we headed off to Gatlinburg for a soccer tournament. Follow your team’s journey with the detailed match reports by SportScore. Friday Friday we worked half a day and then went and check Alex out of school. Came home and loaded the car and picked up #5 to try and make it to Gatlinburg in time for their Christmas Parade. Our friends, the Farrows were there with their younger son, so we met up with them at the parade. Here I am with Julia. I loved that they had a car that looked like the one from Christmas…

  • Life

    The Weekly [11.18-12.1.2019]

    December 2, 2019 - By 

    There wasn’t much going on the 18th-24th, so I decided to combine the 2 weeks for this week’s weekly. PICS We enjoyed watching Drew sing with AU Cappella the week before last. This is a pic of the group after the concert. Here’s one of Drew’s solos “Billionaire” by Bruno Mars. Pictures 1-7 are from Thanksgiving weekend. 1: Here’s Drew and Grampa discussing business related to Drew’s Marketing Business major. 2: Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we enjoyed homemade Cavatelli with Meatballs. So yum! 3: That night we went to Wesley Chapel, FL for a Soul Circus Cowboys concert. Rob’s Uncle Mike…

  • New York Highlights
    Travel

    New York City Highlights

    June 1, 2019 - By 

    Over Christmas break, we made a trip to New York City. So much fun! This post is a summary of each day with links to each daily post in case you want to read about each day in more depth. [Click on the picture to go read all about that day.] Day 0/1 Flew from Atlanta to LaGuardia 911 Memorial Museum Brookwood Place Statue of Liberty Wall Street Little Italy Macy’s Day 2 Fox News Radio City Music Hall Rockefeller Center for the Christmas Spectacular St. Patrick’s Cathedral Day 3 Central Park Grand Central Station New York Public Library Bryant…

  • New York City - Trip Day 4
    Travel

    New York City Day 4

    May 31, 2019 - By 

    If you missed my first posts from our trip to New York at Christmas click —> New York City Day 1 New York City Day 2 New York City Day 3 Saturday, December 23rd Saturday was our last day in NYC and we hadn’t had bagels yet. So we stopped at Brown’s Bagels before getting on with our morning. Pretty good bagels, but they put a ton of cream cheese on their bagels and maybe that’s the way they prefer it up there. However, all of us ended up scraping half of the cream cheese off because it was too…

  • NYC Day 3
    Travel

    New York City Day 3

    May 28, 2019 - By 

    If you missed my first 2 posts about our trip to New York at Christmas click —> New York City Day 1 New York City Day 2 Saturday, December 22nd Saturday after finishing off the eggs and bacon we headed out towards Central Park. The night before we had walked a little bit of it in the dark, so I was happy to get to explore it in the day light. This street performer was unique and attracted quite a few onlookers. Although, I’m not sure he made much money. The bubbles he made with the rope were huge. I…

  • New York City Day 2
    Travel

    New York City Day 2

    May 21, 2019 - By 

    If you missed my first post about our 1st Day in New York at Christmas click —> New York City Day 1 Friday, December 21st Friday morning started off early as we wanted to get down to 1211 Avenue of the Americas to see if the hosts of Fox News Show Fox and Friends would come out and talk to us. However, it was a dreary day and rain was in the forecast. We got there and it started drizzling and then it started raining harder, but we stood there for over an hour or maybe it was 2. We…

  • New York City - Day 1
    Travel

    New York City Day 1

    April 18, 2019 - By 

    Over Christmas Break we went to New York City. This post covers the evening that we got there as well as our first full day. Wednesday, December 19th As soon as Alex got out of school, we booked it to Atlanta with a quick stop in Valley for lunch at Zen House. Our flight left at 5:50pm Eastern Time. Going through security went fast and we had time to kill, so we made our way to the international terminal and then made our way back in time to board our flight. We arrived at Laguardia at 10:50pm. We grabbed our…

  • December Wrap Up 2018
    Life

    Christmas Season Wrap Up 2018

    January 6, 2019 - By 

    Here’s a quick run down of what we did in December. December started off with getting a Christmas tree the first weekend of the month. Drew performed his last concert with AU Cappella as the president. Drew and Rob flew to Baltimore, did some site-seeing, then went to pick up his friend, Joseph, from the Naval Academy. From there they drove to Philly for the Army-Navy Game the next day. Although it was quite cold they had a good time. While they were away, I took Alex to the Auburn Christmas Parade, where he got to march in a parade…