Girls just wanna have fun!

 Bloggers - Blogettes....I gotta tell you about my fun Friday!

 First of all, I asked a couple of friends to meet me at the chocolate festival they have every year in our town.

 Would you look at all this yummy chocolaty goodness!

 There are about 20 or so booths, that has chocolate goodies for sale.  You buy two tickets that are $2.50 each.  (you have to buy two, so it's $5.00)

 Each booth has chocolate yummy goodness packaged and you could buy their ticket item, for one ticket.

 Here's an example of my friends bag of chocolate.  Each package was one ticket.

Here's a hint....don't buy just $5.00 worth.  It will not be enough!  I already had a ticket that was given to me, so I only bought two more tickets, thinking I would have will power.  Wellllllll......some of the booths gave you samples.  Lawsy peeps there was some good chocolate there.  I had to buy two more tickets.

Here we all are on chocolate highs.   Is that guy in the back left photo-bombing us?

I think he is!

 Then after I left the chocolate festival, I went to my sisters house for a party.

  Peeps....I laughed so hard that night my stomach hurt.

My Sister was having a girl, chocolate and wine birthday party for one of her friends.
I took the chocolate that I bought at the festival and put it on a plate for everyone to enjoy.  (except for the chocolate cheesecake, which I am enjoying little by little.  Hmmm.....Hold on.....I'm going to go take a bite right now!)

Remember the little wine scarves I made for my Sister's wine glasses?  Cute huh?

See these bags....They all had a dozen little conversation valentine hearts in them, and every time one of us said the word "NO" we had to give our heart to the person that caught us saying "NO."  It was so funny.

 The person with the most hearts at the end of the evening got a prize.  All of the prizes were books that she raided from her Mother-In-Laws shelves!  Her MIL always buys a lot of books, reads them, then puts them on a shelf.  Then My sister gets them.

 I have to tell you about another game we played.   There were six of us.  There was a picture of a love bug with numbers by the arms, legs, antennae, eyes, nose, mouth.  We all had a dice (would that be a dye...or a die....anyway, one dice)  and each time we rolled the dice we would draw on our paper the corresponding body part to the number we rolled.  For example, my sister rolled a 5, which was a mouth.  So her love bug got a mouth.  The first person to finish their bug, wins a prize.  

The next time around, my Sister rolled a 5.

The next time around, my Sister rolled a 5.

The next time around, my sister rolled a 5 and said, "WHAT THE HELL!"

I looked at her dice, die, dye....only one....and it was ALL 5's!!!!!  It was hilarious.  We all laughed so hard our stomachs hurt!  Apparently, we later found out, it was a dice that belongs in her daughters magic box!  

Anyway, it was a fun evening full of laughter and I have to tell you I can't remember when I felt so good or slept so well afterwards.  I love laughing with good friends!

I came home to this.  This is as far as the car could make it up the hill on Friday.  Almost there, but not quite.  I drove the four wheel drive.  My Shug wasn't planning on going anywhere.

 But he got called to go check on his Mom.  I thought he hit the rock.

He did not.  Phew!

anyway, everything was fine and today, Sunday, it got up to 50 and sunny!!!  WOOHOO!  I went out without a coat!!!

 

So, when was the last time you got together with friends and laughed till it hurt?  I do believe it is good for the soul.

Cindy Bee

Company and the kitchen!

Last week, the day after attending my Uncle's funeral, I had an appointment with a kitchen designer at Lowe's.  As I was walking in to that appointment, I got a phone call.  My cousin Gloria, whom (is it whom?) you have met many a time, was coming over that afternoon, with two of her sons that were visiting from out of state. 

The Dixie boy fell in love with Troy.  No wonder....Dixie is a snuggler and demands to be the center of attention and Troy gave it to him!  He wanted to take him home but I was adamant about Dixie staying here.  (Dixie has actually gotten in the car with cousin Vickie before, and one time she even took him for a ride.  Crazy dog.  Crazy dog family!)

 This is Gloria's other son, Clint, and his wife Akemi.  You actually met Gloria and Akemi  here and here.  Clint has never been here.

 So of course, when I gave them a house tour, I had them all write on the wall.

 Clint is deep in thought.  ( I wish you could have seen him at the funeral.  All dressed up in Navy uniform. He had a lot of 'stuff' on his uniform so he might be a high ranking officer or something)  I bet Gloria has a picture or two of her sons she could share with us...Gloria?  They are both Navy men.

 So after touring and chatting a bit, we spent most of our time going over my kitchen design plans.  And they were very helpful!  Troy had an idea of putting a small fridge in one of the pantries for nothing but drinks. I like it.  And one of them decided I needed to leave a little bit of an overhang on the end of the island top for more outlets.  Clint wasn't interested in my design plans at first, but I called him out on it and he came right over and sat down!  And Akemi told me I was talking too fast.  She only understand little Englsh!

So here's what I'm thinking...I'd like for you to tell me what you
wish you had in your kitchen,
what you have that you love
and what you wish you didn't have! 
Basically, give me ideas.




Because after two- three hour visits, and many books, magazines, and pins on Pinterest, I never know if I got it all. 
Here are my plans so far.  You would walk into the kitchen from the left.



This is the wall (above) that you are looking at (below)  The dark area in the center of the cabinets is the window.

I'll start with the left. The tall cabinet, at the top, has slots for cookie sheets and pizza pans and such.  The bottom has slide shelves.  The cabinets on the top are just that, cabinets.  The two on each end have an open area under them which are shelves.  On the bottom, under the counter, the first cabinet is just a cabinet with a drawer above for ladles, spatulas, etc.  The second, taller cabinet has a shelf that comes out that holds my Kitchen Aid mixer (that I got for Valentines Day last year!).  Then we have your normal drawers and doors until we get to over by the stove.  Those are BIG drawers.  Like in the picture below.  Which I think I'm going to love for pots and pans.

This is the island

The picture below shows the pantries that we built in and the little nook by the window. I wrote in pantry in the above pic, where they are on the diagram. The island will go in the space where My Shug has been working.  It's a 10x4 island.  In the photo above, below the island, the door to the left holds two wastebaskets.  One for trash, one for recycle.  There is a second oven, some shelves, cabinets, and then there is a fake panel on the end.  That end of the island is shelves that will hold cookbooks.  On the opposite side of the island are all cabinets that are only 12 inches deep.  They will not be convenient to get into because there will be seating, but they will be nice for extra long term storage. 

Anyway, that's it.  Send me your ideas! 

Peace and Love, (because we need it in the world right now)
Cindy Bee

Just the two of us!

SUNDAY....

So...I hear it all the time...I don't bother cooking anymore, it's just the two of us.  

 I'm so glad I never felt that way, or I'd never have learned to cook a thing!  It's always just been the two of us.  Oh sure, I might have company for a few days now and then, and when I watched the boys all those years I'd cook for them.  But for the most part, it's just been the two of us. 

So, yesterday and today was a hunker down kind of day.  

It snowed all day yesterday and today everything was slick as can be.

I was stuck inside.

I baked a ham last week.  And of course, with only two of us, there are leftovers.

So....

I shredded some cheese (2 cups)

Cut up some potatoes and leftover ham.

 Melted 3 Tbl. of butter in a pan,
then added 1 Tbl flour,
1 tsp salt,
and 1/4 tsp pepper (I didn't really measure the pepper, I just sprinkled it on.) 
Mix it all up on the stove top and let it get all bubbly.

Then add 2 cups milk, and 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese to the pan with the bubbly butter, flour, etc.

Stir and Heat until that's all bubbly, and hot.  Let bubble for one minute, and don't stop stirring.

 Pour on top of ham and potatoes.

 Bake at 375 for an hour, give or take, mostly give....because some of my potatoes were hard.

 Add the extra 1/2 cup of cheese and viola' you have a cheesy top.  You can also add bread crumbs to the top if you want.

 

 Green Bean Casserole

Who doesn't know how to make GBC?

Shame on you.

 

 Dessert for him...because you ate too much of the cheesy potato stuff because you are a starch person and not a peach pie person. 
Roll out some pie dough (pre-bought because you are living in one room and you are not going to make pie dough from scratch with a rolling pin when you have this > < much counter space.  Add some peaches you canned a few years back...when you had a real kitchen in a real house.  Throw in some flour, some sugar, and some cinnamon, and voila' again, bake a pie. 

Comfort food!

A Comfort meal!

 MONDAY....
Today, Monday, I woke up at 1:30 a.m. screaming from a nightmare! I yelled "GET OUT OF MY DORM!"  Who knows why?   Good thing it's only the two of us.  I woke My Shug up!  We got up to icy roads so he had to take the only four wheel drive we have to work.  I cancelled my hair appt. and my lunch plans.  Ten minutes after he left, the assisted living facility called and said his Mom fell in her room and they are going to have her go to the hospital for x-rays and such.  I was stuck at home but I think she is going to be ok with some pain meds and therapy.  My Mom, who works at the hospital, visited her. Nothing broken.  She is 92.  I have not had access to internet all day long.  AuGH!  What a Monday!

Cindy Bee