Mr & Mrs Peters

This year I was in the mood to do a lot of holiday baking. I decided to make treats for our neighbors and hand them out with Christmas cards. This is the first year we have done it, and I think I will continue with this tradition in the future. I made the mistake of having Radar go with me to deliver the first set of popcorn, and the poor elderly lady who lives across from us looked a bit overwhelmed when he tried to bust down her door!

For our neighbors, I made Maple Brown Sugar Popcorn. It was delicious! I purchased super cute 1/2 gallon Christmas tins to put the popcorn in. Here is the recipe:

Prudy’s Maple Brown Sugar Popcorn

For Christmas Eve I made holiday bark to share with everyone. It was fun to make and because it is so rich- a little goes a long way.

Here are the two recipes I used for inspiration with the chocolate bark… I sort of mixed what I liked about the two. I ended up doing two kinds of bark: Double Chocolate Peppermint and Double Chocolate Pretzel with holiday sprinkles.

Noble Pig’s Double Chocolate Peppermint Bark

Maria’s Holiday Bark

Christmas has come and gone and thus the countdown to December 25th begins once again. This year I was reminded time and time again why this IS the most wonderful time of the year. Throughout this month I had so many opportunities to spend precious moments with loved ones. We ate amazing food ’til we nearly burst and were spoiled with gifts from our family.

One of the best parts of family gatherings? The laugh-out-loud moments where someone inevitably has to run out of the room to the bathroom to avoid an emergency.

One memory that will stand out this year? I was opening gifts from my Mom and she gave me a beautiful roasting pan. I began to feel confused when I realized the box was awfully light for such a heavy item. I peered into the box and saw nothing but air. As I looked up and around the room, people began to laugh hysterically. Mom, with an incredibly guilty expression on her face, said, “We needed to use it tonight for the prime rib!” She then confessed to opening up the side of the wrapping paper and slipping the pan out. Classy, Mom, very classy.

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones too. Oh, and Mom?? You better watch out because your birthday is coming and I am already plotting!!

First, I must congratulate my cousins Paul and Paige. Today they found out that their baby-on-the-way is a sweet little girl. Well, I suppose they didn’t find out that she is a “sweet” little girl, but I think it is safe to make that assumption. Their firstborn daughter, Charley, is a total cutie pie and I look forward to seeing this new one in a few months!

Now, onto a very serious matter.

Have you ever thought about what you would do in the case of a major natural disaster? Because I am a paranoid freak and worry about my personal safety approximately 73 times a day, I think about disasters a lot.

As a little girl every night I would pray there would not be a fire or earthquake. One night I forgot to do my prayers and in the early morning we were awoken by an earthquake. I am not lying, people.

Last month I was sent to a Disaster Preparedness Academy to work on our company’s emergency plan. Honestly, it was a terrible idea for ME to go. All it did was send me into a tailspin of worries, fear, and anxieties. But, on the upside, I did learn what to do with Radar if we ever get hit by a tsunami. Anyway, there was an entire ballroom filled with safety products. Going in to the day, I told myself that I could not buy anything, no matter how panicked or scared I became after hearing the geologist talk about the 9.8 earthquake that is going to strike us any minute.

Free samples? That was a totally different story. Please look at what was delivered to the hotel today, just for me.

I will now be able to survive an earthquake even if I am stuck in the middle of the freeway in my car for several days. Merry Christmas to me!

At work, we get freebies (like shirts and wine) donated by our vendors fairly frequently. Tonight, I was lucky enough to come home with a nice bottle of Cab that I was VERY much looking forward to enjoying.

And then this happened.

Seriously? It is in these moments that I just want to walk out the door and leave the mess for someone else to take care of. The wine got EVERYWHERE. The wall, under the washer/dryer, nothing was spared.

So, after I fished out the glass shards from Radar’s mouth (he started licking up the mess before I could even react) and changed my pants and shoes, I set out to the garage to get a pack of paper towels. OUT. Of course we are out of paper towels in my moment of need!

Hey, at least red wine doesn’t stain, right?!?

After several rounds of sweeping, mopping, bleaching, drying, sweeping, mopping, etc… I got the mess all cleaned up. I think. We will see how many tiny shards of glass I step on in the coming days.

The one upside of this incident is that I don’t think my laundry room floor has been this clean in a year.

Because my husband is a freak when it comes to the cleanliness of our cars, he set me up with an unlimited car wash plan. Essentially, I can go as many times as I want to get my car washed- no matter how often I go, I pay $35 per month.

My favorite part of going to get the car washed is how cleansing it is to my soul. I am referring not to the car washing, but the organization of my purse. You see, everytime I go to the car wash I force myself to empty my purse, organize receipts, and throw out all the random crap that ends up in there. You have no idea how freeing these sessions are… No where else could you find therapy this cheap!

This is an actual picture of one of my purse cleaning sessions.