Happy New Year

In the quiet of the morning on a brand new day in a brand new year, I am up. Coffee in hand, the chickens have been let out and the big dog has gone to do her thing. She sneaks into a daughter's bedroom to curl up on the foot of a bed. Our animals are very spoiled here.
We stayed in last night. Declined two invites but just felt like staying home. We barbecued a delicious tri tip and fell into bed by nine. A dog at my feet and my hubby asleep next to me. The perfect way to ring in the New Year.
This is a busy week for us as we host Christmas and a family birthday on New Year's day. We are making a big turkey dinner as we had Mexican food on Christmas day as is not uncommon in Southern California. So hubby and I will begin our scurry in the kitchen. The turkey is in the brine and I cannot wait for the wonderful smell of it roasting in the oven.
I feel good about the coming New Year. I look forward to sharing the frugal challenge coming in the next few days. This will be a high priority for our household this year.
No resolutions, but I have been watching the calories lately. I actually lost a few pounds in December so I think I will keep that up. My daughter is running track and I refuse to let her head out for a run alone so I throw Q in the jogger and we chase her as best we can. Good for all of us. I will re-join a yoga class I have not been to in months as it really helped my flexibility. Move it or lost it right?
From my home to yours.... Happy New Year!!

Winter Red

I love red. After Christmas, the reds that remain, cheer me.

As the sun streams in, it says, "Hello morning."

Winter berries left in a crock .

Every few years I leave one of the small trees up for a couple extra months. I decided my winter woodland tree would be perfect.

Hearts that were bought our very first Christmas when we had a huge tree and no money to decorate it, will start to appear as we think of Valentine's.

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SNS

Sunny Simple Sunday

Getting back to normal around here. Always sad to see the Christmas decor be packed away but the restoration of normal is also very comforting. Things back where they belong. Had a nice day. Decided to wake the girls up and head out for an early breakfast and then a trip to the camera store for a new lens cap and cleaner. 

Now for a few features from last week:

A Sugar and Salt Scrub recipe from Family Home and Life. Perfect for that dry winter skin.

Call Her Blessed shares her "Pantle" with us. A piano that doubles as a mantle. Hey I have have one of those too. I love the winter scene she has set.

Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson  shared the most darling post of her daughter's vintage VW bug all set for the holidays.

Now onto what you have been up to this week. Thanks for linking up and joining the party:

On a Chilly December Day

Hello...

From our neck of the woods where it is chilly and rainy again. The hens are tucked up dry out of the rain.

A real hot cocoa kind of day.

I think I will take the tree down today but the snowmen wintry scenes will stay up through the first.

See you later today for Sunny Simple Sundays.

Top Posts of 2012

Funny when you write a post you never really know which ones will really be popular. Here are the three most clicked posts for 2012.

How to Clean Stove Burner Grates

Making Bananas Last Longer

This post is now my most viewed of all time. Who knew? It was pinned to pinterest and went crazy from there.

Organize Kitchen Counters Into Work Zones

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Sat. Night Special

The Last Few Days

We have had a very full and lovely last few days. It is evening and the kitchen is dark but I wanted to show you the little darling one of my girls put under the tree for me. Ain't she sweet?

We spent two days baking. Four kinds of cookies and toffee too.

The girls start baking as soon as they can sit up at the table. I just make the dough and they, along with a neighbor girl who has baked with us for 11 years, roll out, cut out and decorate. I love it. I run a tough kitchen don't I?

My oldest bakes the gingerbread men every year. This year we tried a very old recipe which made the best we have baked yet. I will have to share it.

Christmas Eve came and we let the kids each open one gift of my choosing. Usually jammies or slippers or maybe robes.

My SIL wraps things so beautifully. This girl loves owls so her gifts were in owl themed wrap. I am more of a wrap in what's handy and slap a sticky bow on it kind of gal.

Despite having a head cold that hit me hard Christmas Eve, we somehow made it through a party that night and hosting almost 20 people on Christmas day. If my husband had not dived in big this year and helped me shop, wrap and get the house ready, I fear things would not have went as smoothly as they did. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. We did and are now in our jammies watching TV and resting. Whew!

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Merry Christmas from the Coop and Me!

Even the chickens have Christmas lights.

An old snowman decoration I was ready to toss, hubby put in with the chickens. He said it is plastic and washable. He's perfect.

Merry Christmas to all of you from our home to yours!!

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A Very Merry Sunny Simple Sunday

Short and sweet my friends. Whoo-Hoo it is almost Christmas. We are finishing up cookies and rocking to some great tunes from the 80s. Oh they take me back. You know I can still remember the song playing when I first kissed my hubby. "Pictures of You" by the Cure. Love that song!! Merry Christmas. You all have a wonderful time with family and friends.

Broken Candy

Imagine yourself a young mother with eight children and it is coming up on Christmas. You are struggling to survive the changes that have been handed to you. Your husband has decided he would rather live with and raise the family down the street than to honor you and be with his own children. Imagine yourself at a time when we did not have the safety nets we have now. No food stamps, no means of income. This was the reality that faced my grandmother. This was the Christmas my mother faced as a little girl when her father abandoned them.

This is not however a story of anger but a story of simple Christmas blessings. My grandmother did not let this shock shake her faith. On Christmas she gathered up her children to head to church. After the service, while walking home, my grandmother instructed her children to wait outside a shop where she could see someone working in the back. While the children waited, she approached the man working in a candy store and explained to him that the children out front were hers and that she had no money to buy them anything for Christmas this year. Would the man be willing to let my grandmother have any broken hard candy he was going to throw away as a small treat she could give her children for Christmas. The man agreed and for that one year all my mother and her siblings received was a bag of broken candy for the eight of them to share.

My mother never told me this story until I was an adult. She said this was not a sad story but one of hope. What my grandmother overcame seems insurmountable to me. Often there was not enough food and the Salvation Army provided many a meal for them until they could get on their feet. My mom always felt that this experience was character building. I think she was smarter than I knew. My parents lived a very simple life with no frills but I felt rich as a child. I never knew hunger and always was cared for by two loving parents. A stable home was all my mother ever desired. She was very content in her simple life and I can remember thinking even as a young teen that I wanted a life like my moms. She always seemed content with what we had. Never a need to change what was still usable. Never a rushed feeling in our home chasing busy
schedules.

So as we race around trying to make everything perfect for the holidays, I remind myself of this story and that it does not take much to make a loving cozy Christmas. A warm home, some delicious food and thankfully we have always been able to provide more than broken Christmas candy. I love to make things special but I know more and more how at some point I just say that is good enough.

I wanted to share this story with you as a tribute to my mom but also to ask that if you pass the red kettle, think of dropping a little money in for the Salvation Army. They are a truly wonderful, selfless organization. 98% of all donations go to help those in need. I have always raised my kids giving donations to them every time we pass a kettle and making sure they know the story of how they helped my mother when she was young and how now we can give so they can help someone else.

Frugal Challenge - Cash Only Christmas

For the second year in a row, I spent only cash for all of my Christmas shopping, yet somehow this year I had a harder time covering it all and I even cut back on how much I spent. It seemed as if other things in life really hit us harder this year including all the everyday expenses plus large raises in college tuition for our second daughter. So then came Christmas, and though I am just about done, I am heading out today, early, for the last few items for stockings and some gift cards. I needed to wait until payday like I am sure so many others have.

When I was younger I would just charge everything I didn't have cash for and then cry when the bills piled in. I would over spend and buy way too much for the kids. These past years we have changed our thinking and spend much more carefully. Even though it is hard to always stretch the cash, it is so good to know I will wake up on Dec. 26th knowing I will not have Christmas to still pay for in the New Year. We have cut who we exchange with each year but the list is cut as far as I WANT to go. I still love to give gifts and if we can afford it, then I like to do it.

The kids gifts are mostly practical. No Ipads or anything fancy, Mostly new coats and clothes and of course some toys for Q. If our girls want something like a computer or expensive electronic they have to save for it. We can give them the amount of cash we would spend normally and they can add other gift money or savings to buy it themselves. This is nothing new for us but just what we have always done as we have four kids and never budgeted that much for a single gift. I think this has worked well as the kids have all of their original game boys and ipods that they have bought mostly themselves. You know the old adage, you will take better care of what you spend your own money on. Now don't get me wrong. If I could, I would love to give them these types of gifts, but like I said our budget never allowed for it so this is what we have come up with for our house.

Here is what I did that worked to help pay cash for Christmas but also improvements I need to make:
1) I bought gift cards I knew I would need throughout the year.
2) I have a gift savings account but clearly I need to budget more into it each month.
3) Purchase more gifts earlier in the year.
4) Budget more for those end of year expenses that always hit and I act like I am surprised. You know how    that goes right?

My husband and I have committed that after the holidays we are going to develop a new written budget. Together at the table hammering it out. We have some specific goals we want to meet and I don't have much faith that the gov't is going to solve our fiscal problems. I see higher taxes in our future. We want to be prepared for this as best we can. Our expenses are not going down but up, as incomes stay stagnant. Some things are changing for us, and college expenses are rising but we need to prepare for the coming changes the government is going to hand us all next year.
You can find my posts on the Thrifty Living Series here.

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December SoCal Garden

Hey can you believe I have tomatoes? Happens every once in a while where we don't have temps too low. I can pick until Christmas. Amazing. We were pretty cold last night so we will see what is out there this morning. These plants are just volunteers that came up from seeds dropped last summer.

I have kept the garden very full this winter to keep weeds down.

Nasturtiums roaming are threatening to take over.

Look I still have a pumpkin growing and somehow a couple stocks of corn are popping up.

So here is what I am harvesting this month:
lettuce
tomatoes
carrots
Swiss chard
bok choy
collard greens
chives
bell peppers

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Last Night

Last night my husband had to go back into work. It was the coldest night so far this season. I always pray extra hard that drivers will watch for the guys out working at night. I know he will need his cold weather gear. So while I made a thermos of coffee and a lunch for him, life hummed that beautiful normal hum of life.

The piano music just played preparing for an upcoming competition.

As I finished the dishes from a delicious dinner of calzones and lay the gloves to dry, I could hear my daughter splashing in the tub. Her class had red noses when I came to pick them up. The teacher painted them all and they became a room of Rudolph's. She wore it all day and hated to wash it off.

The sparkly wreaths on the window I know are hung for my pleasure. I just love to have the glow shining in the glass at night. I have purposely continued to keep all news off in our house, shutting out the world. Kids and their parents get enough of the real world when we are out but at home, I want our house to be refuge. They keep reminding me only nine days, only eight days. What a wonderful time of year. I am savoring all the little things.

A plate of cookies and milk brought to my daughter studying for finals. "Mom you don't have to." I know I don't but I want to. Rather sad looking cookies. Not sure why my one cookie sheet makes funny cookies.

My husband asks am I done shopping yet. Almost, I tell him and he assures me it is over soon and I say, "Shoosh!!!!" Even though I may be a bit spread thin, I want to enjoy and savor it. You never know what the future holds so hold on tight to the now.

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Cookie Baking Time and A Few Recipes

Cookie baking has begun in our house. The littlest always likes to help. Over the weekend my friend Shelly gave Q this darling apron of her very own. She wore it all day baking away in her little cozy kitchen and even fell asleep in it. I had to take it off of her once she was asleep.

We have favorites we bake each year. Here are some of our recipes for our must have cookies.

Mom's Best Easy Roll Sugar Cookies

White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Snickerdoodles

Cowboy Cookies

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Christmas Memories and Feeling Blessed

There is almost no time that I miss my folks as much as I do at Christmas. So today to give me a gift more priceless than anything under the tree, my hubby took out all my mom's old ornaments and a few delicate ones from our past years and he arranged them all in our china cabinet where I could see them and know they are safe from the threat of breaking. Really? I almost cried.

All the ornaments below were on the trees of my childhood. Some are over 60 years old. I could not buy any now that I would cherish more.

Ornaments from our first year of marriage.

This old crackled beauty is my favorite of my mothers.

See what I saw when I walked in the dining room? Do you ever feel life is so good you just know something is going to happen that will burst it? Now I have been married a long time and know that things do come to our lives that seem to shake us but for right now, this season, I am so truly blessed.

We have our problems like everyone else. Raising a family is hard work but I sure do savor this time of year and all that it holds. The memories we cherish and knowing we will make new ones this year.

I am a child at Christmas. For that one day I refuse to grow up. I relish the gifts and the kids and our dog who somehow knows it is a day like no other and always roams threw the wrapping on the floor on Christmas morn, her tail just wagging going to each of us with her Christmas greeting. Maybe it is that she knows there is always a special treat under the tree for her on the day the humans take all the boxes and rip them apart making a huge mess of the den.

I had a wonderful weekend of simple pleasures. Lunch with my good friends and children running through my house making a mess in every room. It was all good. It was how it should be. A party for a friend's birthday  and a day of wrapping today and putting some of the final touches on the house. We are all shaken this week but I don't know about you but I have to put it out of my mind as much as I can. Sadness like that is so consuming. Of course we cannot escape, but my children deserve a life of hope and a wonderful Christmas, not fear and overwhelming sadness. We have discussed it, prayed for the families and reminded ourselves of the blessings we have. We will savor this Christmas I think, just a little bit more.
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