Quarantine and chill and kindness chatty clubhouse: Jump in and join the conversation! All is welcome!

[Breezy_Carol]

Watching The Sound of Music. I can watch every time it’s on and recite the lines.

Kirby, you can’t please everyone.

 

[Breezy_Carol]

@Snowysmom and @AuntieMe3, my former pastor posted this and I thought I would share.

 

[Snowysmom]

@flyingdumbo127 Your cookies sound yummy. I am baking my sugar cookies today. The dough is chilling.

@BreezyCarol Thank you for the post your pastor sent. I have been doing alot of those things even before the holidays came and will be doing them long after the holidays are past. My walks are my comfort as I watch for birds and squirrels. I even talk to them. I find comfort in looking out the front window of my DS's house while I drink morning coffee. And I have exit strategies for holiday gatherings. The hygienist at the dentist offered to shut off the Christmas music for me. I made the mistake of listening to one song on the radio and cried like a baby. No more! Grief certainly has a part of the holidays for me and my kids. I have a really good friend who checks in with me a couple of times a week. And if I need to talk she is on the phone with me. I do need to connect with a birth cousin who lost her husband this year. It has been hard to find the time and the energy to call her. Thank you again for the posting.

Off to make coffee and then work. Only a 4 day work week this week.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Good morning all!

I'm done with Christmas shopping. Just waiting for a few things to come in. (a board game for us, not really for Christmas; a couple of books for DGS#2; a gift for SoIL#2 from his wife; the last mug I need for my set of Fuji Starbucks; and an ornament for DD#2...I bought a set from someone on Ebay, and one was broken in transit, so they are sending a replacement at no charge; it'll all be in today or tomorrow.)

We have to wrap DGS#2's gifts from TBRG, but that is waiting for DD#2 to do, as she has specific wrapping paper she wants to use. Everything for the adults is wrapped (mostly bath gift sets or boxes of chocolates), and I picked up a few small things for DGS for under our tree, even though he already had his gifts from us. I didn't want him to not have something under the tree at our house. [They did their Christmas at Thanksgiving, because they knew they had orders to move in December, just weren't sure when it would be, and I had already shipped all his gifts there in October! So he had a little under a month to play with his new stuff, and he'll get it all again when they get to Cali in January.]

I do need to go to the grocery store and pick up some stuff on Wednesday morning; DH is working from home Wed/Thurs; but if I go early, it won't be busy at all. I didn't want to pick up all the produce for this week too early.

DD's fam goes for their Covid tests when they get up (they are 14 hours ahead, so it's 9:30pm ish, their time. So they have their tests, then early bed because they have to be at the airport at 1am for their 6am flight (military flight, no layovers, straight to Seattle); then they are flying from Seattle to Jax (about 24 hours total travel time). They'll be here Wednesday night. They'll need the 23rd to recover, I think; then on the 24th, DGS gets to decorate the tree (we'll have the lights on already) and we need to make chocolate chip M&M cookies and a pecan pie. Why those cookies, and not sugar? Because last year, DGS went to see TBRG, and asked what kind of cookies TBRG liked best. TBRG, instead of saying something like, I love all the cookies or chocolate chip, or oreos, or even simple Sugar cookies, said "chocolate chip M&M cookies, and they must be homemade!" I like those cookies, don't get me wrong, but dang it. So, my plans for sugar cookies will now happen after Christmas, because DGS really likes making them. Ah, well, we'll still have fun! I'm also making eggnog pound cake and eggnog ice cream again, I think for New Years.

Today is DH's 52nd birthday. I gave him a few small gifts from me and DS (a clock with words instead of numbers, from Sharper Image, that he's always wanted, for his cubical at work; and a couple of Star Wars neckties, he doesn't wear ties very often but now if he does, he has some neat ones). I'm making pumpkin cupcakes today, I think, for him. We're having some stuff from our shopping trip to Trader Joe's for dinner: orange chicken, chicken stir fry, and cauliflower fried rice.

Our nativity scene. Bought it the year DD#2 was born. I put it on an old lace doily that I got from some relative when I was a kid. Nothing fancy, but it doesn't need to be, does it?





Penzey's has a deal today: Spend $10 in store or online (online code is SOUL) and get a free Soul 2021 box (8 diverse seasonings) and shipping is free at $20. Hot chocolate mix is $2, and Peace is Good Boxes are $12.95.

Have a good day, all!

 

[lynxstch]

Good frosty 18 degree morning..brrr....

Today is also sugar cookie baking day here, along with my tea cake cookies. Mr L 'has' to make sugar cookies every year, something he did with his Mother when he was younger. She's been gone since 1999, but its his way of remembering and paying tribute to her every Christmas

I didn't sleep well again last nite, was after midnite before I could shut my mind off and try to sleep. Woke at 4, then again at 5, then at 6 I had some hungry , getting angry furbabies, and got up and fed them

Have a nice morning all

 

[Breezy_Carol]

Good morning.

DH and I woke up too early. He was worried about the pipes at his office freezing as it went down to 23 last night and he currently has no heat pump. The replacement happens today. He went to his office to check on things, and they were fine.

I texted him to stop for a cinnamon bun on the way home and I would make eggs, so that was good. Now to start on house cleaning. And I am already on my second load of laundry. Will grocery shop this afternoon and I have my list made.

TBRG

?? The Big Red Guy?

@Bianca and Bernard, You must be excited to have your family coming. And Happy Birthday to your DH.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Good morning.

DH and I woke up too early. He was worried about the pipes at his office freezing as it went down to 23 last night and he currently has no heat pump. The replacement happens today. He went to his office to check on things, and they were fine.

I texted him to stop for a cinnamon bun on the way home and I would make eggs, so that was good. Now to start on house cleaning. And I am already on my second load of laundry. Will grocery shop this afternoon and I have my list made.

?? The Big Red Guy?

@Bianca and Bernard, You must be excited to have your family coming. And Happy Birthday to your DH.

Yes. It's our code for Santa so little ears don't understand, and it's just habit to type it. LOL. Yes, so excited, and thanks.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Up at more reasonable hour today. Watched some DVR'd TV (anyone else following the Harry Potter trivia tournament?) and made meatball omelets for breakfast. I have a load of towels in and am now walking the cat - the thicker-furred one who doesn't care that's cold out )

I have a couple of easy errands I plan to do later, but otherwise a quiet day.

 

[flyingdumbo127]

Love that today seems to be sugar cookie baking day among Quackers! I hope all of you enjoy your cookies and the fun in making them, too!

It's cold here as well. I'm so very grateful for a warm bed each night that's for sure. Hoping my blue nightshirt will indeed come today. The pink robe is due to come tomorrow. I'm sorry some of you woke early due to being cold, no fun at all

Love your advice, Carol. I so enjoyed, as always, worship from yesterday especially the reading from John.

Stay warm and well, friends, and have a blessed Monday!

 

[AuntieMe3]

@Breezy_Carol Thank you for sharing that.

You guys are inspiring me to make sugar cookies tonight too.... Except mine will just be from a mix. LOL

It's been really cold lately, when I let the dogs out before bed, the cars have already been frozen. This morning it sounded like it was raining and when I peeked out the window I noticed it was the leaves falling off the tree....they were just raining down. LOL My sister just told me it supposed to rain Christmas Day so we're hoping for snow....I probably won't happen but would be cool if it did.

DD and I need to run to Best Buy tonight to get her a couple things to help with her work setup here at home. We were all little stressed this morning, trying to get her work phone set up. Ater video chatting DH and our really good friend(DD refers to him as her 2nd dad), the dad's helped us get it figured out and she was able to start working from the dining room table for now....lol I need the wireless company to come out and set up her own connection in her room. Maybe we'll order Red Robin for pickup on the way home from Best Buy.

Getting ready to head to Costco and the regular store to pick up everything we need for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I also need to go to Target for a couple last minute Christmas things but I'm thinking I may just do an order for drive up pickup and then be done with leaving the house for the rest of the week but we'll see how that goes....

 

[Snowysmom]

It is indeed sugar cookie day. It is interesting how it has become a tradition for many. This is my 46th Christmas. They are all done and boxed up for each family. I am taking some to Christmas Brunch for younger DS and family. Older DS and family will have to ask Nana, who is the keeper of the sugar cookies, if they can have one. I could see the 2 kiddies chowing down all the cookies. I put them out of reach but left out 2 santa cookies for them. Of course DS and DDIL can grab one when they want. Me too. I wasn't going to make them this year but decided that a 46 year tradition must continue. I know Chris would want that as he ate alot of the cookies. He loved them. I had a few small cookies in his memory. They are yummy.

I took my walk today and it is cold. It is 30 degrees here right now. I had to wear a wool hat and heavier gloves this time. Winter is definitely in the air.

All my gifts are wrapped. I now have to get together the gift bags with the grandkids' clothes and get their stockings stuffed. I also have a bag for each son and DDIL with a kitchen breakfast theme that I have to get together. I have pancake mix, syrup, coffee, and tea. The bows will go on Christmas Eve and I will bag up the gifts to be ready to go to younger DS's house Christmas morning. It is different from what we would normally do but that is the word of my life, different.

Have a good day.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I think we need some pictures of all of these sugar cookies!!

 

[flyingdumbo127]

I agree, Pea, we do need sugar cookie pictures. One day, when we can meet, we should have a sugar cookie baking party!

Hug, AuntieMe3, so glad your DD has her own dad most of fall, of course, but an extra dad friend is always a positive, too.

 

[lynxstch]

@Snowysmom--I am so glad that you continued the tradition of making sugar cookies today--46 years is a long time, and the tradition should continue!

Tea cake cookies and sugar cookies are baked,,they will get frosted and or /sugar sprinkled tomorrow..too tired tonite to do it. Texted the floor guy, its been 2 weeks since he was supposed to come back and finish the odds and ends on it,,and replace the 3 receptacles, and I am getting tired of waiting. I can't believe that his truck has been out of commission for 2 weeks and that he hasn't worked, so I feel like he is giving me the run around. Called the cardiologist office...she mailed me the papers for the drug company to get my Eliquis on Tuesday..hospital it like 10 min from here, and yet 5 days later it still hasn't shown up. She said she scanned it, and I can stop in the office when I go to the heart clinic on Thursday if it still hasn't shown up. I asked our regular mail carrier today about the mail being left on the ground. She said she's been hearing that from a lot of people. Apparently people are going by and looking in people's mail boxes for credit card offers, Christmas cards, etc..hoping to find gift cards, or cash, or people's identity they can steal. How sad. She said a guy on the next street over, found his mail, down 3 streets and up a hill after someone up there called him and asked him to come and get it

Dinner is country style spare ribs, baby red potatoes, and corn in one of those microwave steamable packages. That and applesauce should fill us up. I tried the biscotti last nite with hot cocoa..and they were so good!

Have a nice evening all..Mona I hope both your robes come!

 

[Kirby]

Was on the chilly side again today, mostly cloudy but the temps are on the rise as we head towards Christmas Day where a high in the low 70's is predicted.

I went over to my sister's house and visited with her for a couple of hours. She's all good today about our Christmas dinner thank goodness. She's my only sibling and I hate for there to be *******. I need to begin looking for a dress to wear to DS's wedding in May. She has a dress that she wore five years ago to her son's wedding. I tried it on and it fits though it wouldn't hurt for me to lose a little weight. It's the color I want, navy blue, so there's a good possibility I won't need to look any further.

DH has been gone all day picking up his truck out in West Texas. He should be home soon.

Went to Costco to pick up some hams for the guys who work for us. It was so crowded. I got the hams, some apples and some small paper plates and got out of there.

Dinner tonight was breaded shrimp and Caesar Salad.

 

[easyas123]

Hi all - greetings from Covid central.
We both got it, from a unvaxed co-worker. 5 employees later, 2 unvaxxed ones in hospital. I've been to pissed & sick off to type about it....9 days later and we are still recovering. Feeling much better, and we will be free to leave the house again in a day or two. I'm double vaxxed w/ the booster and my husband is double vaxxed so that helped us avoid getting really sick.
I'll type more tomorrow - we are well, just noses out of joint over the situation.

 

[flyingdumbo127]

How awful about the mail, Lynn! Hooray for all the cookies, enjoy, please! My blue nightshirt came today. The sleeves are too short for me but otherwise it would work just fine. Tomorrow, the pink robe is supposed to come. I'll decide based on that whether I want to order the nightshirt in a larger size.

Kirby, very glad to hear that about your sister. You will look lovely whatever you wear I hope all in your family are feeling much better by now!

Oh no, Dear Easyas! I've been concerned about where you were and now I know, how awful Please you take care!

Wishing all of you a cozy good night!

 

[Breezy_Carol]

@easyas123, I am so sorry to hear about your COVID encounter. Don't know if you read what I posted from DD but she was livid about the unvaxxed who can spread it to her kids too young to get vaxxed. Hope you are fully recovered soon.

Grocery shopping done. House cleaned. Tomorrow I have a shift at church then getting COVID tested before Christmas gatherings. Then heading to DC.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

@easyas123 Sorry to hear this just before Christmas! Same for anyone else experiencing this.

 

[sweetpeama]

I am trying to figure out what the menu is for Christmas Eve. I don't want to do the turkey that I got for Thanksgiving if we didn't go to DH's brother's place. Mainly because 16 year old will have to work at 4 and may possibly be working until they close at 9 instead of getting off at the normal 8. I am wanting to just get some simple snack items at the store and go over and spend some time with parents in law before having to take her to work and then Christmas Eve church service is at 5 and I am guessing won't get out until 6:30. After picking her up from work the plan is to go and look at Christmas lights especially the illuminaries that are done on what started on one block of a street and is now the 2.5 blocks of that street plus the half blocks the the street goes like this ]---- to have a North and a South same name as the street. These have been lite every year for what will now be the 60th year in honor of a 12 year old boy who was killed in a bicycle motor accident nearby. He and his family lived on the block of the street that started the tradition and his friends did it in his memory as it was something he did the only Christmas he was alive on that particular block after his family moved here from out of state where they had done this tradition with neighbors. Even the power company turns off the street lights and the residents of the houses turn off most if not all of their lights inside their houses so you only see the illuminaries especially because everyone who can turns off their headlights. Sometimes depending on your vehicle type you can't especially if it was manufactured in Canada as they require daytime running lights there so there is no way to turn off the headlights. It drives me nuts with my truck because the lights can not be turned off if the engine is running.
My mom has said that Christmas Day the menu is ham, mashed potoatoes, green bean casserole, (I am guessing also steamed broccoli since neice can not eat the green bean casserole due to allergies to the cream of mushroom soup since she can't have dairy), pumpkin bars and that is probally going to be it I quote. We are making an orange supreme cake from a brand that does not contain dairy so niece can have it in the angel pan that we have and since our frosting recipe is shortening, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and water with the colors being done in the pastes she can have the frosting. With our recipe if you want a butter flavor you can use the butter flavored shortening for half the amount. We have never bothered and have had no complaints. While the pumpkin bars will be frosted with cream cheese frosting my mom leaves about a quarter of the large sheetcake pan she makes them in unfrosted so neice can eat those as the bars themselves are dairy free. My mom has said if she can get all her other stuff done she will also make the popcorn cake.
I would do a fish meal but I am the only one who likes fish, DH will tolerate trout or salmon on occasion when I talk him into our going to Red Lobster but the girls are both I don't like fish in the case of 16 year old and I refuse to even try it and signing stop at me along with shushing me from 14 year old and trying to close my mouth when I start reciting Green Eggs and Ham.
The funny thing is that both of them especially 16 year old used to readily eat cod when we went through a time where the menu would be day 1 tacos, day 2 bean soup, day 3 chilli, day 4 combine leftover chilli and taco stuff to make taco soup, day 5 fish usually cod with macaroni and cheese, day 6 breakfast at dinner either french toast or pancakes usually but occasionally just scrambled eggs with sauage and cheese mixed in, day 7 a roast usually venison with potatoes and carrots for our main meal of the day, breakfast would usually be rotated between oatmeal, pancakes and eggs, eggs and diced potatoes, and cream of the west which is a local cereal that the original is wheat and there are some blends that have other grains in it including a 7 grain one.
Our other meal of the day would be a lighter meal and often was just soup and a sandwich usually tuna or peanut butter and jelly. We started doing the changes when it was discovered that I had developed an allergy to tomatoes so that took out the chili and the taco soup from that week or two of each months menu rotation plus our income increased where we could afford to purchase more at the store and were not so dependent on what we could get at the scratch and dent store (the cod and the dry beans with occasionally the bacon and sausage and we got our eggs there), plus what meat we had from the deer dh would get each year always one and if we were blessed with him getting a tag from the drawn tags 2 though we did have one year that due to drought they were incouraging people to get more tags that were sold over the counter so he was able to get 4. We also got some meat from my parents since they knew what our situation was at the time.
We have also been able to pay off a lot of bills that we owed at that time and due to our insurance through DH's employer offering a HSA plan have been able to pay medical co pays and insurance deductables out of that instead of having to be ok we need to pay this how much can we afford to pay and often where can we rearrange the budget to do so.
I am guessing that we are going to have to plan on eating at least some sort of a meal around 1 PM and then have something to snack on later in the evening after we get home before going to bed. I was thinking about something along the lines of tacos or enchaladas.
Update to this I was able to talk with 16 year old about this because DH will be what ever or I don't care (He eats just about anything that doesn't eat him first with the exception of liver and eggplant and of course he doesn't really favor seafood). She had said ham but I did tell her that Grandma was planning on having ham for Christmas day. She then said either cheesy chicken mac soup or cream cheese chicken which I had to tell her that there is a predicted national shortage on cream cheese to the point that a major national cream cheese brand even had an article in the paper about paying people not to make a cheesecake this year. I mentioned to her the idea about doing tacos or enchaladas and she said those are boring because we do them all the time as everyone will eat them and they are fairly quick to do especially tacos.
So the menu will be as follows:
Christmas Eve Cheesy Mac Chicken Soup at home than snack items at parents in laws house (I need to have DH call his dad about this as MIL is loosing her memory so I want FIL to know what is going on) then something light before going to bed I am thinking something like a coffee cake or even just popcorn and a holiday movie. 16 year old doesn't really want to go look at Christmas lights so I am thinking DH, 14 year old and I will go look at some of them between church service and picking 16 year old up from work and we might just go for a loop of the Illuminaries, Christmas Wreath Lane, and a few more on our way home depending on the roads. Today is supposed to be a high of 30 and then it is supposed to be in the low 40s over the next 3 days followed by highs of 33, 23, and 13 before hitting at least of couple days of negative tempatures.
Christmas Day: Maybe some muffins or something if we want to snack between breakfast and opening presents at my parents house and dinner at their house while we open presents unless we do so Christmas eve when we get home sometime close to 10 PM. More in likely this will be a raid the fridge day.
New Years Eve Prime Rib
New Years Day Spiral Ham that DH got from work
Not sure for Feast of the Ephiany Eve or Day which are January 5th and 6th as they are on weekdays so at least DH will have to work and possibly 16 year old one of the days depending if she is off holiday schedule where she is working weekends because more people are needed on those days and not during the week. I am thinking at least one of those days being something from 14 year old's microwave cooking/ self determined project book.