More Adventures in Woodworking

Take a look at the newest home-built addition to our house - a home-built headboard!  Da boyfriend made this beauty for me for Christmas and stained and installed it this weekend.  Eventually, I'm planning on painting the bedroom a light green and I think this color is going to look great with it.  

He's now crafted our lovely mantle, a rustic dining room table and created a spacious jewelry box..  Not only is it great that he enjoys doing projects like this, but I think of all the money we're saving by creating these things versus buying them in a store.  I have a bunch of other projects in mind to keep him busy!  Hopefully next on the list will be a corner shelf like this one.  :)

A Very Merry Christmas (In Pictures)

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!  Ours was filled with good old family time and laughter.  We even had a white Christmas!

My sister somehow found the Clark Griswold moose mugs from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and got a set for da boyfriend and I - aren't they hilarious?  Best Christmas movie ever.  "Are you still in the Navy Clark?"  "PLAY BALL!"

My mom, "the quiltin' bitch" as we've aptly nicknamed her created this beautiful Christmas themed quilt.  I love the semi-abstract Santa's.  My uncle stared at it for a good thirty minutes before he saw them, but I expect you will do much better!

That just about says it all...

Minnie's Grinch feet

"Watch it with the comments lady, I'm mighty close to your ankles and I've been known to nip"

The ever-so-shy Freckles emerging from downstairs to see what's going on.

Looking so demure...

Rocky loves to hang out on top of the stairs and keep his eye on all of us.

And his mom, who was down the hall.

Deliciousness on a pretzel!  My sister melted Hershey Kisses over the pretzels and topped each with an M&M.  The salt of the pretzel, plus the white chocolate, plus the chocolate, plus the peppermint?  Boy howdy!

I picked up this rustic looking clock for my dad.  I thought it would be nice if I put in a battery and set the time for him so it would be ready to go.  After finishing my present wrapping, I heard a ticking noise and realized you could hear the clock ticking through the wrapping paper.  Then laughed myself silly for creating a veritable bomb present.

"Mommmmmm, put me down!"

As usual, before the wrapping paper had even hit the floor, Bootz was all over, in, around and on top of the boxes.

Shadow and what's left of her circle rawhide bone. It only took a couple hours for the other half to disappear.

Do the hustle! 

Woo!  Looks like Freckles got into the spiked eggnog this year!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Its (NOT) the End of the World as We Know It...

When I get bored, I typically crack open a good book and flip on the tv.  But not da boyfriend.  He was bored the other day, so while I was at work, he made me a jewelry box!

Isn't it beautiful?  Lots of compartments to store all different sizes of jewelry.

The top shelf fits perfectly on top of the bottom layer like so.  He's going to stain it for me too, just have to pick out the perfect color.

In his typical style, its a little large.  I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going to put it!  (like our gingerbread men table runner?)

Now I just need to fill it up!

Yum

I received a lovely cookbook from da boyfriend for my birthday.  Full of delicious recipes like this watermelon granita....

and "ooh boy, can't wait to try this pesto sauce"...

 Charming photos of the author's adorable munchkins....

 And pets...

 And munchkins holding pets...

Say it with me now, "The Pioneer Woman!"  I just love Ree.  I've read her blog for years and eagerly look forward to Saturday mornings to watch her Food Network show.  The cookbook is wonderful, full of little charming notes about her daily life and family. Can't wait to get cookin'!  

Sunday Shopping

Price Chopper

• 2 Reynold's Baking Cups $1 each, used two $0.35 coupons = $0.30 each
• 2 PC Sliced cheeses $3 each
• 4 Banquet Sausages $1 each
• 4 Hillshire Farms Kielbasa $2.50 each, used two $1 off 2 coupons (10/14 RP) = $8 or $2 each
• 2 PC frozen veggies $1 each
• President Brie $4.49 - probably coupons out there for this but I got it on impulse 
• 5+ lb. package chicken breasts $10.18 ($1.99/lb)
• Used $1 catalina and $3.10 in bottle slips, total was $31.33

I'll use the kielbasa and sausages towards a $10 Pyramid Ale NBPR rebate.  I got all of my rebate checks back for the spring/summer and now I'm working on my fall/winter ones.  I don't have the full list of qualifying items, but just like before, you can buy any kind of meat (no store brands in NY).

ShopRite

• Mrs. Smith's Pie $1.99, used $1.50 coupon (9/30 SS) = $0.49
• 3 Mission Tortillas $1.49 each
• 2 Wheat Thins $2 each, used $1 off 2 coupon (11/11 SS) = $3 or $1.50 each
• 2 Breakstone Sour Creams $0.99 each, used $1 off 2 coupon (11/11 SS) = $0.98 or $0.49 each
• 5 SR shredded cheeses $1.99 each
• 4 Oscar Mayer Cold Cuts $2.99 each, will send away for $10 Pyramid Ale NBPR rebate = $1.96 or $0.49 each
• Borden American Cheese Singles $2.50
• Moov Frozen Strawberries $2.50 
• Used $5 catalina, total was $30.85

For whatever reason, the lights flickered a couple of times while I was in the store.  You should have heard the groans from my fellow customers at the thought of the power going out again.  Thankfully it stayed on and I high-tailed it out of there quickly.  It was so nice to buy some food and stock up the fridge a bit.

CVS - bought my papers, plus:

• 4 Skippy Peanut Butters $2.50 each, got back $3 EB (WYB $10, Limit 1) = $7 or $1.75 each

There was a Skippy coupon in today's RP.  I'll use that to get some more PB tomorrow.

Rite Aid

• 8 Lindt Chocolates $1 each, got back four $1 UP's ($1 WYB 2, Limit 4) = $4 or $0.50 each
• Betty Crocker Brownies $2.15 (should have been $2) and two RA Applesauces $1.50 each, got back $3 UP (WYB $5, Limit 3) = $2.15 or $0.71 each
• Used $2 UP and two $5 UP's, total was $1.80 

Its nice to be back to normal again.  After being without power for a week and no generator, we obviously had to throw out all of the food in our fridge and full-size freezer.  That hurt a bit, but it gave me an opportunity to give both appliances a good scrubbing.  We had a snowstorm earlier last week and I was so afraid we might lose power again but luckily, we were fine.

I forgot I took some pictures during and after the storm.  The top shot is Gigi in her favorite spot in the house, gazing outside as the rain began.

Forgot about this!  A squirrel was taunting Gigi, sitting on our steps and staring at her from behind the glass door. 

Shadow supervised the situation.

Brave little guy, isn't he?

Other than some missing shingles, this fallen tree was the only damage we sustained.  Thank goodness the tree fell to the right instead of the left where it would have definitely hit the house and taken out some wires.

Another pine tree was tipping over as a result of Sandy, so DBF chopped that one down, plus several others.  Eventually, we'll probably take them all down and plant some hedges or something between us and the neighbors.  It seems so strange without the trees there.  Now I can hear the neighbor kids screaming even more clearly.  Oh joy.  :)

On Top of the World!

Another gorgeous day today, so we took a drive to Sam's Point Preserve in Craigsmoor, NY. The drive up was amazing and I knew as we drove up and up and up to get to the park that we'd be in for a treat.

The view was just spectacular.  This was as close as I got to the edge, but DBF isn't a loser and walked out much further, assuring me that the view was "so much" better there.  Yeah, that's ok, I'm good right here.

This was the trail we had just been on!  Although some parts of the trail are steep, its all on a trail.  No rock climbing involved.

I love this shot.  Doesn't it seem like I'm looking out on an ocean?  Nope, just more beautiful wooded landscapes out there.

At the top of the climb is a gorgeous lake.  The wind was kicking up really good at this elevation and waves were chopping up the surface of the lake.  There's something so serene about being by water.  If it weren't so cold up there, I could have spent the entire day soaking up the sun and listening to the water.

If you're in the area, I definitely recommend taking a couple hours to explore this park.  We were there about two hours and saw a good chunk of it, and there's a waterfall and a whole other 2+ mile trail that we didn't attempt.