celebrations, winter, ready or not

 My lovely Aunt Mary turned 80 last week and we were delighted to help

her celebrate this milestone. I have such wonderful childhood memories

with Aunt Mary. Remember back in the day when cars were huge and

seat belts weren't required? Actually, cars didn't even have seat belts

back then. I used to ride in Aunt Mary's car and sit on the fold-down arm

rest in the front seat so I could be right next to her. I called it the "Easter

seat." I have no idea why. I'll have to remember to ask her about this. Aunt

Mary introduced me to Mad Libs - and actually played them with me. She also

let me color with permanent markers. There was no such thing as washable

 markers back in the late 60's. And when I took Aunt Mary's black and white teddy

 bear off her bed because I wanted to keep him as my own, Aunt Mary let me.

 We celebrated another birthday last night - Tim's! He turned 23 a few days ago

but was still at school. So now that he's back at home again, we took him out

to dinner. He chose a nearby Irish pub - Middleton's. I had a turkey panini but

it was rather rich with some blue cheese and a cranberry mayo on it. I also had

some sweet potato tater tots. I should've known better than to eat that much

rich food - I felt sick all evening and even up until I went to bed.

 

 I didn't sleep well last night - was up most of the night because Tim was out

with some friends and it was sleeting and snowing. I was worried about Tim

getting home safely. So between the overly-rich food and no sleep, I got up this

morning with a massive migraine. I was so sick all day and spent some time

reading while snuggled under a quilt. Love when my kitties join me.

Good day to stay indoors anyway when the weather looks like this. It'll definitely

be a white Christmas here in northern Illinois.

 Turns out that my sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces will be coming over on

Christmas day, as well as my mom and cousin. I only have a small table in my

kitchen and no dining room, so I think we'll move the 6 foot long table in the

basement into the kitchen. We'll make do somehow.

I have to pick up a few last minute items at the grocery store tomorrow before

I go to physical therapy (my shoulder is doing so much better!), then I might make

one more batch of cookies. I don't know what's going on with my cookie karma

this year, but I've ruined three batches of cookies. Those mexican hot chocolate

cookies that I featured a few weeks ago turned out terrible. They were really

dry. I made them last year and they were fine, so I'm wondering if it was the

butter. Some say there are differences in generic butter versus the more

expensive butters, such as Kerrygold or Cabot's. They have a higher butterfat

percentage. Generic butter has a higher water content. (Moreso than say,

Land O Lakes? I'm not sure. Need to do more research.) I also made a

chocolate cookie with peppermint crunch pieces in it - sounds good, but they

weren't. Hope the birds and squirrels liked them. And...today I went to bake

a batch of M&M cookies and I burned them.

Are you all done with everything...shopping, wrapping, baking?