David Foster on PBS!

I LOVE watching PBS when they have music specials. Tonight is the "Hitman-David Foster and Friends. What an amazing man and talented person. He truly can inspire anyone to bring out the best in them. Tune in!

My Heavenly Treats

I have found (and gathered) my favorite holiday treats to receive and give this year. All of the things shown in the below picture were under $2.75 with tax except for the Martini mix which ran me $5!!!! I just love the colors, smells and taste of this little bits of Heaven. You don't have to spend a bunch of money on quick hostess gifts or treats for your co-workers/neighbors or little ones in your life. Enjoy the FUN in this season. Try to rediscover the meaning of Christmas and see where your journey takes you. Happy Holidays!

A Long Night/Morning

Well, I didn't win anything at the South Pines Elementary school auction last night. Bummer:( I still had a TON of fun upping bids and trying to out bid people (insert the WHAAAHHAAA here)! We went over to my sister's house for a night cap, invented a new drink the Watermelon Jolly Rancher Martini, cried a few tears (long story) and am just now getting around to my "computer work."

As I have posted to the right side of your screen, my Picasa album here is a direct link Picasa Web Albums - Heather - My Digital Scrapbook Pages. Part of my "work" is checking up on all the blog post I missed out on during the day. Low and behold I found my name being dropped by a friend of mine on her blog!!!!!! Thanks Misty, waaaaay cool of you to do that. You can find her blog @Ian & Aidan. I just wanted to say Congrats to her for landing her first creative team position and thanks again!

I work up yesterday morning and made a quick page about my "Santa experience" last year! That was a fun party......if I remember right. It was called the Fifthmas party. Everyone brought a wrapped Fifth of liquor, put it under the tree and proceeded to follow the "white elephant gift exchange" rules (HOWTO: White Elephant Gift Exchange Party Rules Guide [decheung.com])It was a hoot!

Lots of Luck....

Hey everyone out there. If you happen to stop by my page, I was just hoping you could wish me a little luck or LOTS of luck! You see, I am trying out for a few Creative Teams (CT) to help cultivate my digi-scrapping abilities. I have put up a slide show of my first few pages. They aren't as perfect as I would like them to be:) but they are a start. I hope you enjoy the new addition to my page.

Thanksgiving Sweet Potatoes

Thanksgiving was great this year (as I blogged already:)! We had the best food with the least amount of stress. I decided to cook sweet potatoes. I was a little nervous because I have NEVER cooked them before. We has a couple of finicky eaters in our family and I don't mean just the kids! LMBO! I found a great recipe in the Good Housekeeping (GH) Nov. 2008 issue. Maple-Cranberry Sweet Potatoes. I combined a recipe I saw Emeril a few days before that looked much like a cranberry salsa without the kick. What resulted was a not too sweet best food of our Thanksgiving! Even the little kids liked it.

Here is the recipe as found in GH (my added ingredients are in red):

Here is what I did to save some time on the day of Thanksgiving. You can prepare the sweet potatoes (even arrange them in a casserole) and syrup up to 1 day ahead and refrigerate separately. Allow both to come to room temperature before baking. I chose to bake the potatoes with the 1 1/2 jars of Jet Puffed Marshmallow cream topping in the oven for about 20 mins to brown the puff. Top potatoes with hot syrup (or salsa mixture), and pop in the oven when the turkey comes out. Select sweet potatoes of the same size so they cook evenly.

4lbs. of sweet potatoes, peeled
salt
1 c. (I used 1 1/2 c.) pure maple syrup (I didn't have this so I substituted reg. pancake syrup)
1 1/2 c. cranberries (1/2 of a 12 oz. bag)
Salsa mixture: 2 diced apples, 2 diced pears, 1 diced orange with skin on, juice of one lemon
3 Tbsp. butter (no subs. but I didn't use butter at all:)
1 1/2 jars of Jet Puffed Marshmallow cream topping is optional

1. In covered 6-quart saucepan, heat whole sweet potatoes with 1 teaspoon salt and enough water to cover to boiling on high. Reduce heat to low; simmer, covered, about 30 minutes or just until potatoes are fork-tender. Drain. Set aside until cool enough to handle.
2. Meanwhile, in 1-quart saucepan, heat maple syrup to boiling on high. Reduce heat to medium, and boil gently 10 to 15 minutes or until reduced to 1/2 cup. Add 2 diced apples, 2 diced pears, 1 orange diced with skin on, juice of one lemon cook for 10 mins. Stir in cranberries, butter(I didn't use butter), and 1/2 teaspoon salt, and cook just until cranberries pop, about 5 minutes longer.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut cooled sweet potatoes crosswise into 1-inch-thick slices and arrange in shallow 3-quart ceramic or glass baking dish, overlapping slices if necessary. Spoon maple-cranberry syrup evenly over potatoes. Bake, uncovered, 20 minutes or until hot.

To make Ginger-Almond Sweet Potatoes: Prepare sweet potatoes as above in step 1. In step 2, instead of maple-cranberry syrup, prepare ginger syrup: In 1-quart saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon margarine or butter on medium. Add 2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger; cook 1 minute, stirring. Stir in 1/2 cup apricot preserves, 1/4 cup orange juice, and 1/2 teaspoon salt; heat to boiling, stirring. Complete recipe as in steps 3 and 4, spooning ginger syrup over potatoes and sprinkling with 1/2 cup toasted sliced natural (with brown skin still on) almonds before baking.

Each serving is About 230 calories, 4 g protein, 45 g carbohydrate, 4 g total fat (1 g saturated), 5 g fiber, 0 mg cholesterol, 210 mg sodium.

To make Butterscotch-Spice Sweet Potatoes: Prepare sweet potatoes as above in step 1. In step 2, instead of maple-cranberry syrup, prepare butterscotch-spice syrup: In 1-quart saucepan, heat 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 3 tablespoons butter (no substitutions), 2 tablespoons water, 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne) to boiling, stirring until smooth; remove from heat. Complete recipe as in steps 3 and 4, spooning butterscotch-spice syrup over potatoes before baking.

Each serving: About 210 calories, 2 g protein, 43 g carbohydrate, 4 g total fat (2 g saturated), 4 g fiber, 10 mg cholesterol, 175 mg sodium.

December First

I am thankful for my digital diet this weekend. I sooooo needed to stay away from my computer and focus on family time, friendships and the never ending eternal searching. Thanksgiving was calm, very somber from years past, and the food was AMAZING! Our family received an extra blessing this year..... our Dad has been blessed with more time here on Earth. He loved being in the kitchen preparing the fixings for everyone. Maybe it was the young ones being just a year older, maybe it was the light snow fall that we had, maybe it was knowing it was a four day weekend but whatever the reason this year seemed different to me. I did realize in all the calmness of the day that I long for the day when I have a family of my own to cook for, care for and simply enjoy the long winters day with.

The day after Thanksgiving we received our first official snow fall to mark the beginning of the Christmas countdown. With Thanksgiving so late this year, Christmas seems to be barreling toward me. I am okay with that! I LOVE Christmas. I love the smell of fresh cut trees, the awesome smells coming from the kitchen, preparing gifts for friends and family, sending/receiving actual Christmas cards in the mail and spending time with family. Since this was such a long weekend and I took a digital diet, I went back to creating jewelery, a new project that I can't talk about just yet (TOP SECRET of course:) and re-decorating our apartment. BTW, I love my apartment again! It has a much improved floor plan and an overall functionality to it that wasn't there before.

But perhaps the best part about the weekend was just hanging out with my BFF! We haven't been able to do that for the past couple of months between our new jobs and new business ideas. Overall, I feel refreshed and repaired. I cannot wait to see what December will bring me (phone ringing)....just as I typed that last line, I received a phone call from the mechanic I went to this morning asking if he can come by and pick up his vice-grips that he left under the hood of my car. Great, I can see the December writing on the wall already! Anyway, Happy December 1st everyone.

Black Friday Success

My BFF and I went out "late (12 p.m.)" yesterday for Black Friday and still managed to get all the great deals we had on our lists! Not only were we done making the rounds to all the stores by 3 p.m., we managed to snag our stuffing from my sister's house from Thanksgiving dinner the night before! YMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm!

I gotta go, more to come!!!!!!