IT'S NEW YEAR'S EVE ALREADY?

 Hello, friends!  Can you believe it is the last day of 2020?  I know this is a year that many people will be glad to leave behind.  Let's pray that 2021 will be a better year for everyone.  And pray for an end to COVID-19.  Two people in my family have died from it and I know I am not the only one.  Many have lost so much.  But let's look forward to a brighter year.  

I put up my second vlog video today.  I never understood what vloggers meant when they said it took so much time to do.  I understand now.  It is time consuming.  But I am having fun.  I am not doing it on any kind of a schedule, just when I get an idea for a post.  Thank you to everyone who took a look at it.

And I decided to change the name.  It was so hard to find it with "Looking at my Life."  I took an hour last night and played with names.  It seemed like everything I came up with had already been taken or wasn't valid.  Finally I tried  "Kathy's Happy Home" and it clicked.  So that is the new name.  It comes up quickly and I am hoping that more people will find me that way.

What I put on the vlog was my recipe for a snack mix.  I have never tried to make this before.  But I had seen several videos and put them together to make my own version of this.  Let me tell you how I did it.

I took a bag of oyster crackers...

...a bag of thin pretzel sticks...

...a box of chex like cereal (I had left over corn and rice)...

...an envelope of Ranch seasoning mix...

...vegetable oil, garlic powder and dill weed.

Take a gallon zip lock bag and put the crackers, pretzels and cereal in it.  Use the entire bag of crackers, but add as much pretzels and cereal as you want.

Add 1/2 cup of vegetable oil.  Close the bag and toss to cover the cracker mixture with the oil.

Add the packet of Ranch seasoning...

...1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder...

...and 1/2 teaspoon of dill weed.

Close the bag and toss again to make sure all the contents are covered with the mixture.

Set the oven for 250*F (121*C).

Lay it in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes.  I found it needed only 15 minutes.  Keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't burn.

Let cool and put it into an airtight container.  I have been eating it all morning.  If I don't stop, there won't be any for tonight.

Joe and I always have a low-key New Year's Eve.  We usually don't go out because of the drunk drivers on the road.  But who knows what tonight will bring.  Everything is different this year.  But not for us.  We are still not going out.  We plan to have snacks, watch TV and see if we can see any fireworks

I will not be sad to see 2020 go.  What a year it has been!  I am looking forward to see the good that 2021 will bring us.

Joe and I wish all of you a wonderful new year.  Stay safe.  Be well.  I will see you next year.

Kathy

CHRISTMAS AND MY BIRTHDAY

 

Hello, friends!  Welcome back.  Hopefully today I will get you all caught up on what's been going on.

Is it cold where you are?  It is so cold here.  And I am not a person who likes cold weather.  But...  every day it is getting closer to spring  I'm happy about that.

On Christmas Day Joe and I really didn't do too much.  We kept thinking that Christmas was the day before when we had our Christmas lunch and opened gifts.  So it was rather low key.  We napped, watched TV, talked and that's about it!  I was going to do laundry and clean the house but just didn't.  I was so tired from that drive the day before.  That's the good thing about being retired.  You don't have to do something if you are tired.

The one thing I did do was make us a Christmas dinner.  It was so good.  Joe had gotten a beef roast when he went to the store for me the last time.  I asked him for a piece of beef for Christmas dinner.  We had just had turkey at Thanksgiving and were having pork for New Year's Day so this seemed just right.  We don't have beef very often because it is hard for my stomach to digest.  I roasted it in the oven with some potatoes that my sister told me how to make and we had some mixed vegetables and gravy.  Easy to do and it turned out so good!  I even used my good Christmas plates with the holly and gold around the edge.  Sorry it's a little blurry.  It's not your eyes, but my poor camera skills.

That looks like a huge piece of meat, but it really wasn't.  It was pretty thin.

We caught up with our devotions after dinner.  The candle is getting smaller and smaller.

Yesterday was my birthday!  I was so surprised to get about 60 birthday wishes on my facebook page.  I had no idea that would happen.

Joe bought me lunch at our favorite Japanese restaurant Yamato.  I had asked for that and he came through.  We put in the order online and then we drove up there to pick it up.  It's about 20 minutes from home but it doesn't seem that much when you hop on I-95 and just go.  I will be so glad when thing open up again and we can go inside to eat.

I was so hungry and couldn't wait to get home and enjoy that wonderful food.  I ordered two appetizers for my lunch -- pork gyoza (dumplings) and avocado, sweet potato and mango sushi (vegan).  My very favorite things.  And shouldn't you eat your favorites on your birthday?  Joe got a teryaki chicken bento box with sushi, dumplings and rice.  It came with miso soup.

After lunch there was a knock at the door.  Joe answered it and said it was for me.  There was a big bouquet of flowers that he had sent.  But most surprising is that the flowers were in the shape of a birthday cake!  It even had birthday candles stuck into the top and a big balloon that says "Sweet birthday."  The ribbon tying it together said, "Hope Your Birthday Takes the Cake."  I tied that ribbon to the balloon.  It is so beautiful!  I was just blown away by this wonderful gift.

Joe also gave me a birthday gift.  He got me a new Kindle since mine had broken several months ago.  I had that Kindle for over 8 years so it didn't owe me anything for sure.  It was the first Kindle Fire that came out so it was very outdated.  I love the new one.  He also got me a cover for it an a charger.

The other thing I asked for was a hot glue gun.  I was sure he would not get me that and was looking at them in Rite Aid to see how much they were.  But Joe came through and gave me the glue gun too.

Neither of us was hungry for dinner, so we just snacked.  We ended up eating the last two cupcakes from my birthday celebration at my sister's house and I had a dish of ice cream.  That's a real birthday celebration.

It was a great birthay.  Much better than last year when I spent two days in the hospital.

One other thing I did was something I've been thinking about for a long time.  I started a YouTube vlog.  It is called "Looking At My Life."  I found, though, that even though I researched it and didn't find a vlog with that name, there  are lot of other things close to that name that come up and it's very hard to find.  So I put it in the search box with no spaces like this "lookingatmylife" and it comes up.  I think I'm going to have to change the name to something else.  Anyone have any ideas?  If you would like to stop by and see it, I would be most grateful.  It's only 3 minutes long.

Thanks for stopping by this little blog.  I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Until later...

Kathy

CHRISTMAS EVE

 

I am such a bad blogger lately.  I began this post yesterday, ran out of power on my computer and then just never got back to it.  It was not a good day for several reasons.  But today is better so let me finish and post this.

Christmas may be over on the calendar, but it continues here at Looking at Life.  Today I will tell you about my Christmas Eve.  What a day that was!

It began with a wonderful breakfast that Elaine made for us.  She had deviled eggs and peppermint chocolate scones.  So good.

Then it was off to open gifts.  This was one of my favorites.  Elaine made me a 2020 Survival Kit.  It had all kinds of things in it like hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes, gloves, face masks, a sponge and even a roll of toilet paper.  So cool.

Ace was waiting for his gifts too.

He does love his toys.

Joe got his favorite Harry's products.

I got some cute Christmas hand towels.  One is already hanging in the kitchen.

Elaine found some "Joe" coffee for Joe.  It actually says "Hello, Joe!" on the box.

Even without a tag you would know this gift was for me.  Everyone knows how much I love my Hallmark movies.

Elaine had to go outside to talk to someone.  While she was gone, Ace walked over to his stocking, pulled out this big orange ball, and proceeded to tear off the cardboard it was attached to and to play with it.  Way to go, Ace!

Since I am on a big cleanout of my house, I was thrilled to get this lightweight stick vacuumn.  I love it.

I gave Elaine this little gnome for her collection.

I got my birthday gift too.  Elaine made me this wonderful blanket with different logos from the annual t-shirts collected from when I used to work for the Academy of Natural Sciences.  It was a wonderful and thoughtful gift.  I am so in love with it.

Joe went to take a nap and Elaine and I watched one of our favorite movies, "A Christmas Movie Christmas."  It is so good and so funny.  The two sisters in the movie remind us of ourselves.

Around noon we had lunch.  We have the same lunch every year.  There were three kinds of crackers, about five kinds of cheese, a wheel of brie, and some sliced up summer sausage.  I look forward to this every year.

We were going to stay until about 2 p.m. or so.  But the weather changed.  It started raining and we were afraid with the low temperatures that it would freeze.  So we quickly got everything together and took off.  It's always sad to leave.  But we got a few pictures together before we left.

It was a little icy near Elaine's house, but got better the closer we got to home.  In some places it wasn't raining at all.  But it was by the time we got home.  It usually takes us 2 hours each way but going home took 2 1/2 hours.  I rested for about an hour before I had to go back out and pick up Debbie and Rusty to take them to Christmas Eve service at church.

It was a beautiful service.  The video is up on YouTube if you want to see it.

I drove through Greeby Street on the way home from church.  It was much more lit up than it was when we were there earlier in the month.  So beautiful.  And then I dropped Debbie and Rusty off and headed home.

We hadn't eaten yet, so I made a Christmas Eve dinner -- flounder and Brussels sprouts and mushrooms.

We had our new stove going.  It is so nice.

As we did our evening devotions I noticed just how small the candle was.  Christmas is here.

Next time I will tell you about Christmas.  So much more to go.

Until later,

Kathy