Fill gas tank at Harmon's.

Fill gas tank at Harmon's.

I have taken notice that a new grocery store nearby consistently displays gas prices about 2 cents lower than the local competition.

To sweeten the deal, they also offer up to 30 cents off when you buy your groceries there.

A big grocery shopping trip there last week put me over $100 which got me 20 cents off--and put my price per gallon at $1.89!

I filled up my Tahoe for $35 and I saw it dropped another 2 cents a gallon this weekend. This time last year it was costing me $60 a tank. Time for a road trip?

Defrost Turkeys.

Defrost Turkeys.


Because my first turkey-cooking experience was so overwhelmingly successful, I decided to sign up to cook a turkey for the church Christmas party tomorrow night.

If that sounds crazy enough, I actually signed up to cook TWO. ha ha ha ha ha.

To top it off, they brought them to me just last night, all 36 pounds of turkey, still in an arctic deep-freeze.

They told me just "leave it out for 24 hours and it will thaw". If this is the advice they gave to all turkey cookers last night, the advice I have for those attending the party tomorrow night is "don't eat the turkey".

So because my name will be attached to any food poisoning epidemic this weekend, my entire day today is devoted to doing the safer"cold plunge" thawing method on them. I did run to the grocery store to pick up a bunch of Christmas goody supplies too to experiment on while I'm on turkey watch both today and again tomorrow while I cook them. Homemade caramel, fudge, chocolate caramel pretzels, peppermint bark and sugar cookies. Yum! I am so domestic.

Inside I am in a bit of a panic and feel a bit like Joey from Friends in the Thanksgiving episode where he gets his head stuck in the turkey.

Those were good times. Watch it here. (this particular episode is referenced about 4 minutes in)

Hang painting.

Hang painting.

While looking for toys online, I ran across this oil reproduction and with it already being over $100 off and me having a coupon for an additional 30% off that, that put this three foot square framed work of art just under $100. Although maybe not something that will evoke transcendent conversation, I like to look at it, it's colors looked warm and like they went with the house and trees and landscapes remind me of home so, obviously, I couldn't pass it up.

I picked it up from the store today and while I am a little disappointed the colors are much more vivid than pictured online, for under $100, it does the trick of helping fill up our huge empty yellow walls. Merry Christmas to me!

Now if only Jake and I weren't both too injured to hang it.

Shovel Snow.

Shovel Snow.

We got a LOT of snow last night.

It pretty much figures. I had been waiting two weeks for snow so that we could take our family photo outside with a backdrop of pretty Christmas white. Yesterday around noon, I got tired of waiting and had my mother-in-law come take a picture for us. So an hour later, what happened? The temperature dropped and the snow-fest began.

Also, conveniently, my hubby, who threw his back out putting up the Christmas tree two weeks ago but was finally feeling better, had a sudden injury relapse as the snow started piling up on the driveway.

Which is why I am now laying helpless on the couch with his heating pad on MY back after shoveling snow for TWO HOURS. Tell me again why I wanted my driveway that big? All I have to say is Santa better be bringing me my basketball goal to make use of that big, perfectly cleared basketball court.

Appreciate my work schedule.

Appreciate my work schedule.

I just read this article on Yahoo news about Best Buy going to a clockless workplace--meaning the new corporate philisophy is as long as you get your work done, you can come and go from the office as you please. I think the idea is brilliant. The real selling point though, I think was this quote:

"This is like TiVo for your work," says the program's co-founder, Jody Thompson.

Awesome. I then realized this is already my work schedule. Even more awesome.

Tune guitar.

Tune guitar.

I am ready to pull my guitar out of storage. If I can remember how to tune it, and probably re-string it after a two-year hiatus, I think I may even learn some holiday tunes.

You can now buy my guitar for half the price I paid in high school here.

This is still twice what I paid for my very first guitar, which was an "Oscar Schmidt" that my first guitar teacher (who plays guitar, plays harmonica and does vocals with Don Williams ) nicknamed "Schmidty."

Learn to draw.

Learn to draw.

My kids' favorite new thing is to ask me to draw pictures and for them to color them.

I am not an artist.

But I used to think I was. One of my older brothers used to challenge me to drawing competitions. I must have only been 7 or 8 years old when I distinctly remember a competition with him to see who could draw the best banana. I lost but only because he was the judge. Mine was much better. His banana was hairy, as I've discovered most boy/man drawings seem to be.

My drawings turn out best when they're more cartoon-y. (Although I did draw an awesome lifelike bird in fourth grade that my family insisted I had traced. I didn't.)

I have gotten pretty good at barn and zoo animals but my kids have started demanding more. Lately it's been princesses or even something more specific like Scooby Doo.

I have discovered an invaluable tool in this new stage of motherhood. They are called "How to Draw" books. They have them for about everything out there and I checked out about 10 from the library. The one pictured here is called "How to draw princesses and ballerinas" and it is my favorite one so far. I can draw a pretty cute princess these days. Watch out, before long I'll be able to illustrate some of those children's books I've written and then I'll really be in the big time.