Another New Year

Happy New Year!

When last we spoke I was in the midst of cookies.  Cookies for neighbors and making cookies for a Christmas Cookie Exchange I hosted December 21st.  Thankfully all the cookies and deserts are now gone and out of the house.  My cookie party was a success.  Including husbands and children I hosted 23 people.  We ate appetizers and COOKIES.  We also played some fun games.  One game was draw the Christmas scene on your head without peeking.  The other fun one was Reindeer Game.

We've had an eventful past few weeks.  Christmas week was a down week.  I was able to blissfully relax and not do too much.  We spent a quiet Christmas Day at home.  I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  We feasted on steak and lobster tails in the afternoon after a day of playing with our new toys.

 Daddy received two music stands and a hymnal.

 Sully got lots of stuff.  Lego's, Halo men, Halo computer game, Lawn darts, a football, nerf guns, chocolate and cash.

 I received a Barnes and Noble Nook tablet.  It is kinda neat.  I don't know how much reading I will be doing on it.  I do prefer to have paper pages beneath my fingers.  But I can surf the internet, check email and watch Netflix with it too.  I also received a large pair of diamond and opal earrings.  When I was putting the earrings in my ears, I noticed one opal had a crack all the way through it.  when I went to return the earrings, they did not have another pair.  I exchanged them for a different type of earring altogether.  I will have to take pictures of the new earrings another day.

I jumped right into a couple projects this past week.  One was cleaning out the garden and prepping the soil for the new plantings in a few weeks.  I'm really missing the fresh zucchini.  

The other project is the mulch job I started back in June(when  the power steering in the monster Truck broke.)  I hauled 3 pickup loads of mulch yesterday with only my #2 son to help me.  Manly Man took the day off to help me, and I ended up doing it myself...that is a story for another day... I am still peeved just-so-you-know.  My muscles are sore today so I'm taking a break from finishing that job.  I need one more load to finish that project.  I saw an idea on YouTube I wanted to try.  Placing mulch over the top of cardboard boxes.  The boxes kill the grass and eventually break down under the mulch.  It looked like a lot less work than spading the ground by hand so I thought I'd give it a try.  I'll let you know how successfully that turns out.

Well then, I believe we are almost caught up on my life.  Home School resumes Monday morning.  I'm going to motivate myself to finish my correspondence bible course this year. Really, it's one of my goals :-)  I'll start that Monday morning as well.  Christmas decorations must come down and be put away.  they've been up for almost 6 weeks already!  I must make some  more of that heavenly Carrot Cake Jam.  We were only able to sample one little jar.  It was super good tasting and pretty easy to make.

Carrot Cake Jam

Ingredients

• 1 can (20 ounces) unsweetened crushed pineapple, undrained
• 1-1/2 cups shredded carrots
• 1-1/2 cups chopped peeled ripe pears
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 package (1-3/4 ounces) powdered fruit pectin
• 6-1/2 cups sugar

Directions

• In a large saucepan, combine the first seven ingredients. Bring to a
• boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until pears
• are tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat; stir in
• pectin.

• Bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring constantly.
• Stir in sugar; return to a full rolling boil. Boil for 1 minute,
• stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; skim off foam.

• Ladle hot mixture into hot sterilized half-pint jars, leaving 1/4-in.
• headspace. Remove air bubbles; wipe rims and adjust lids. Process in
• a boiling-water canner for 5 minutes. Yield: 8 half-pints.

**I did use my immersion blender for a few pulses as my pears did not break down like I expected.  This  gave it a nice consistancy, still chunky but not as chunky as it could have been.

Have a great week dear friends!