Toy and Food Drive and More Food

On December 21st the local FFA Chapter delivered over 5 ton of food to the needy Vernon Township residents wtih their annual Toy and Food Drive. Their advisor, Linda Maxie, asked me to cook for the workers who were there to help with the delivery.

Starting off the day, it was pouring down the rain. Good thing it wasn't cold, but it sure was wet! I had made biscuits and gravy to start off the morning and we had extra fruit to slice for everyone.

Ninety-six biscuits later, I was out of gravy! The workers stomachs were full and ready to start their day! I got the dirty dishes all cleaned and the room straightened up to begin the lunch process. It was still a little early to begin, so I made my way to the small gymnasium where everything was happening.

The local volunteer fire department men and women were there to drive the kids to their destinations. This year the fire department had called people who had covered trailers and horse trailers to haul the food, and kids, since it was raining so hard. Thankfully, it was warm, mid 50's, and not freezing. However, a little snow would have made it feel a little more like Christmas!

I believe there were over 90 families helped along with the elderly at the apartment complex in the Town of Crothersville. This is something you have to see to believe. Each year there is a glitch or two, but each year is more rewarding than the previous, and we are constantly looking at ways to improve on the process.

After I took a break for a few minutes, I headed back to Ms. Maxie's room to begin making lunch. I had a roster full of chili, along with an electric skillet full of sloppy joe's for everyone who braved the weather and stayed till all the deliveries were made.

Around noon. most of the cold, wet workers made their way to Ms. Maxie's room. Warm food on a cold day ... it don't get much better

It didn't take long till we were out of the sloppy joe's and another roster full of food was history!

The 2013 FFA Toy and Food Drive was another success and plans are being made to make the 2014 delivery even better. If you're not part of the day, the weekend before Christmas, make plans now to be. You will be blessed!

'Tis The Season

I've been pretty busy for the last few months but I did find time this past weekend to make some Christmas goodies.

Chocolate is a good thing and anything covered in chocolate is even better!

These are chocolate covered cherries, with a chocolate kiss and sliced almonds. I use melted almond bark for the eyes with a green sprinkle for the eyeball. Some of the little mice I placed on half of an oreo cookie. The others I just dipped the cherry, with the stem, into the melted chocolate and placed on the wax paper to dry.






Next, I rolled several hundred peanut butter balls. The recipe I used called for smooth peanut butter. Why? I love nuts, so I used the extra crunchy peanut butter and had no problem.

Placing the balls in the freezer for a few minutes to make the balls firm is the trick. I then dipped them in chocolate, but left the top un-dipped to create a buckeye.

Some of the peanut butter balls I placed on a pretzel, topped it with a pretzel, and gently squeezed them together. I then placed the pretzel in the freezer for a few minutes before dipping them, half way, in the melted chocolate.

It seemed I was unwrapping kisses for days. Regular kisses. Mint kisses. Caramel filled kisses. Hug kisses. If I wasn't unwrapping the kiss, I was lining up pretzels on a baking sheet.

Place the pretzel and kiss in a 225 degree oven for 2-3 minutes. Just long enough to soften the chocolate kiss.

After I remove the baking sheet from the oven, I begin placing M&M's on the kiss and mashing it down slightly into the pretzel. There are several different kinds of M&M's. I use the peanut ones, because I love nuts! I also used the peanut butter filled ones this time too and they were delicious!

The hug kisses make an attractive desgn.

I also found some peppermint kisses and made some on a pretzel, but also made some on a cookie that was rolled in Christmas sprinkles.
























I'm not a big fan of marshmallows, but they are easy to work with when baking and using for recipes. But as I said, anything dipped or covered in chocolate can't have a bad flavor.

The bottom are round crackers with extra crunchy peanut butter spread between them then covered with chocolate. I then dip half of the marshmallow in the melted chocolate and place on top of the cracker. After they are set, I decorate the marshmallow with sprinkles to create the holly. Actually, it is pretty simple!

I try to do things with the white almond bark and the dark chocolate.

Peppermint candy canes with melted chocolate and sprinkles added. The recipe said to place the candy canes in the oven for a few minutes to soften them so they could be formed into a heart. I did not do this, I just used the candy cane as it was in the package, place it around a kabob stick and filled the cane with the melted almond bark.



Most of my designs used pretzels, M&M's, chocolate, Oreos, and sprinkles. Why not add all that together and call it Christmas Bark?

I mixed all the ingredients together, poured the melted almond bark over it, sprinkled with Christmas M&M's and sprinkles. After the bark dries, I broke it into bite size pieces. Place the broken pieces in a candy dish to snack on.

Don't be surprised if you are filling up the candy dish all the time!

Just Like A Pencil

Remember I said I was going shopping?

Remember I said I had my Christmas shopping done?

Remember I said I was looking for a pencil tree?

Well, yesterday was a success!

A picture of a tree. This one is actually in my house!

Exactly what I have been looking for this year!

Found it at Sears. On sale! And I even managed talking them into giving me an additional 18% off the sale price! How cool is that?

'Tis the season!

It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas (A Little)

All my shopping is complete, however, will be going shopping today, on the weekends, and Christmas Eve. Not looking for anything particular, just enjoy having time to do it, plus people watching. Sometimes people watching can last for hours. I often wonder if some people watchers are looking at me thinking 'what is that crazy lady doing?'

Anyhow, I love the winter. Not necessarily the holiday since The reason for the season has taken on a whole new meaning in recent years. Seems too many people have forgotten it's Jesus' birthday, not seeing who can out-do each other. (That's a whole other story)

Time with family and friends, parties, reflections of those no longer with us, and just spending good quality time together makes me really love this time of year.

A tree is up!

It's not mine, but it's a picture of a tree that is up!

Wintery Blast

For over a week the meteorologists talked about the end of the week's wintery storms. From the beginning of the week they were saying we could expect 3-5 inches of snow. By the end of the week, the totals were as high as 9-12 inches of the white stuff! When the first storm was done Friday evening we ended up with around 7 inches in Crothersville.

All Jackson County schools were closed Friday, along with all Friday and weekend basketball games being canceled. Just got an update about an hour ago the school will be closed Monday as well. With the low temperatue in the single digits till mid-week, it looks like the kiddos will have some days to make up during the school year!

The following picture is from Saturday morning.

I do love the snow and the cold weather that goes along with it...however, experiencing my toes in the water and ass in the sand sounds good about now :D

Six Less Days

What am I missing? All the radio stations and commercials have everyone in a panic because they are saying there are six less shopping days for the Christmas holiday season this year. Really?

That would mean in 2013 there were only 359 days! It wasn't a Leap Year, so February had the usual 28 days, instead of 29. I don't remember a month with only 24 or 25 days this year. Where did the six days we are missing go to?

I use to decorate for the Christmas season and have my decorations up right after the Thanksgiving holiday and not take them down till after the first of the year.

Recently I have begun to resent seeing the end of the year get here, because of all the hoopla. Christmas isn't about the biggest sales and racing to see who can open first on Black Friday, or now, it's Thanksgiving Day!

What has happened to spending time with friends and family, traditions, and just good ole rest and relaxation?

Today, depending on who you listen to, we are preparing for 3-7 or 9-12 inches of snow in our region. People are out grocery shopping and running the food stores out of bread, milk, and eggs. Panic mode has set in once again.

Thank goodness there are six less days in 2013! Some people couldn't handle all three hundred and sixty five of 'em! :D

New Word?

recently, I read the new word added to the dictionary is 'selfie'

A selfie is a type of self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone, and are usually taken in a slightly tilted manner.

What's next?

Duck-face?

Happy Thanksgiving to all my followers!

Thanking A Veteran

Some of the Veterans in my family.

Top left to right are James "Ed" Scifres, my grandfather, WWI. Dwight J Sweazy, my father-in-law, WWII. Barton Riley, my dad, Air Force during the Korean War. Bottom row, left to right are Harold "Bud" Scifres, my uncle, Army during the Korean War. Guy L Riley, Navy, my oldest brother, and Larry J Riley, Navy, my younger brother.

The Crothersville FFA had a tribute to the Veterans on Novermber 11, 2013 at 11:00am. They had asked the public for pictures of Veterans and these are the ones I sent to them. I have several other Veterans in my family, but couldn't get the pictures of them in time. Even though they aren't pictured here, I still thank them for the freedoms we all share today.

I'm going to make it a point to thank the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for our freedom. Not just on Veterans Day, but everyday!

Greed

greed
noun \ˈgrēd\

: a selfish desire to have more of something (especially money)

I find it really odd that a sibling doesn't know what county their own father died in, and even stranger than that is how the same deceased father is able to sign his signature on legal documents.

I guess it's true ... wonders NEVER cease!

I won't have any trouble laying my head comfortably on my pillow tonight. Not sure if everyone else will have the same results.

Sad. Really, really sad.

Regardless, I'm sure the sun will rise tomorrow.

Phone of Tomorrow

I received an email recently that I had to chuckle about. It was simply three pictures of phones.

Today's phone of a six year old:

The phone my son had when he was a six year old:

And finally the phone I had as a six year old:

Sure has been some changes over the last several years. I think it will be interesting to see what my grand children and great-grand children will have to communicate, uh, play with when they are six years old!

Kim, Brad, Jill

Indiana University Football

Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Indiana, also known as The Rock.

I had a chance to go there again this year on Saturday, October 5, 2013. It was the opening day of the Big Ten Conference.

It was fun to get back in the 'Hoosier' groove again. Hooo-Hooo-Hoosiers could be heard from the Stadium and I'm sure for blocks away from The Rock. The Marching Hundred band were awesome, like always.

The scoreboard was amazing to watch. The 'Kiss Cam' got some interesting people to give their loved one a smooch.

The most exciting thing that happened was the IU Hoosiers defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions for the first time in sixteen tries by a score of 44-24. Actually, they spanked them!

Even though it was a rainy day, it was worth the 1 1/2 hour drive to Bloomington and well worth the five hours we sat on the cold aluminum bleachers.

I can still hear the announcer saying, "It's third down, let's make some noise!" Or my favorite was, "First down Hoooooosiers!"

Can't wait to go back!

The Tale of Two Companies

There are two companies we order our bills, checks, etc. from about every other year. Recently, we placed an order with Company A for utility bills with our current address on them. When we received them I immediately put them to use with the August billing.

What a headache I created!

As I was looking through the bills I noticed some were tearing apart easily, but made sure to put a piece of tape on it so it wouldn't be a problem with the post office.

Little did I realize that was the small problem!

After giving them to the local post office, they sent them to Indianapolis to be sorted. The Indy post office had a terrible experience with them tearing apart, getting stuck in their sorting machine and only half of the bill being saved.

When we learned of the problem we immediately called Company A and asked if they had changed anything on their end. Of course, they denied any changes and couldn't figure out why we would be having a problem.

Before my next billing in September I went through 800 bills and taped the perforated edges to insure they would not tear apart when the post office began their sorting process. When we took the bills to the local post office to send to Indianapolis, we explained to our local postmaster what we were doing. The following day she calls me to tell me the Indy office could not run the bills because they were still tearing apart as they ran them in their sorting machines.

Again we call Company A and they advise us to send all the bills we recently purchased back to them and they would check and see if there was something wrong with the newly order bills. Within a couple days Company A calls us to say nothing is wrong! REALLY?

We have a second company we do business with also, I'll call them Company B. We make a call to them and ask if they can print our billing cards. That same day, Company B sends us a sample with quotes of the price. We explain the problem we were having with the bills tearing apart and tell them the weight of the paper. Without delay, they tell us that is the wrong paper to use because they had problems with it. Interesting!

Doing business with Company B has been an eye opener. They are working on new billing cards for me to use for the October billing. They couldn't promise the bills would be here by the end of the month, but they are doing their best to satisfy our needs.

Looks like Company A lost a good, honest, loyal customer!

Alphabet vs Numbers

a b c d e f g h I j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

We are all guilty of doing it, or most of us are anyway.

When asked for a contact number, house number, social security digits, etc, do you say zero or ‘oh’. There is a difference. Zero is with the numbers and ‘oh’ is with the letters.

I’m asked several times a day for numbers and always try to say zero rather than ‘oh’

Since my house number, cell phone, social security, and home phone all has zeros in them, it’s a daily struggle.

Think about it the next time you are asked by someone, “What’s your number?”

Another Chapter

August 19, 2013 begins a new chapter in our lives. Patrick started college! Where has the time gone? Praying he remembers all we have talked about the last 19 years and he makes the right decisions and choices. There are things I am worried about and as a mother I can't let my guard down!

I Am On Vacation!

Hello! My name is Jane Doe.

I live at 111 Easy Street in Anytown, USA 12345.

I will be on vacation to the Bahamas for an entire week.

I will be flying to my destination and will be leaving a day early to sleep over at a hotel close to the airport so I don’t have to travel on the roads so early in the morning.

I can’t wait to get to the Bahamas and have my ass in the water and toes in the sand with a drink in my hand, the ones with the little umbrella. Ahhhh!

Look for pictures posted all over the internet while I’m gone. Please feel free to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Make sure to share my beautiful pictures with your friends and be sure to tell them to share with their friends also. I know they will be breathtaking and I want the world to see the beauty of the world, of course, all the fun we will be having too! I will keep everyone posted on my whereabouts while I’m enjoying my vacation.

HELLO IDIOTS!!!

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have read these comments on the internet sites the last few months. Isn’t that just about begging someone to come into your home, while you are gone enjoying your vacation, and steal everything you own? How awful would you feel to come home to an empty house?

I guess there could be worse things happen.

Hope you have a great vacation and when you come home, it’s just how you left it!

Have a great summer!

The Garden Hose

Scientist have conducted an experiment and determined parents should not let their children drink out of a water hose. There seems to be chemicals in the hose and bacteria that can be on the end of the hose where the child would put their mouth.

Really?

I'm wondering if these same scientist have ever swabbed a public drinking fountain?? It might be a little more nasty there rather than the end of a garden hose.

I guess my parents were negligent letting my brothers and I drink from the garden hose.

We also played on a swing set that had lead-base paint, rode our bicycles with no hands, climbed trees, and rode a motorcycle without a helmet!

Wow! Life was sure different back then, but so much easier!

Peaking Emotions

I remember the day like it was yesterday. However, the day I'm refering to was four years ago. Patrick sat on the couch in the living room, with his baseball uniform in his hands. I watched him as he sat there and just stared at it for the longest time then said, "Today is the day I've been waiting for my whole life." At 15 years old and he's talking about something he has waited his whole life to do?? I asked him what he was referring too, and he said, "Putting on his varsity baseball uniform."

What a happy, sad, proud moment I had witnessed.



From his first game as a varsity baseball player, to his last game today, it has been an emotional roller coaster. I knew four years ago this day was coming. Trying to prepare for it doesn't get any easier as the days tick away. Today, the baseball team traveled to Springs Valley in French Lick, for the first game of sectional play. The Tigers faced the Trinity Cougars from Seymour. During the regular season the game scheduled with Trinity was rained out and never rescheduled. So, this was the first meeting the Tigers had with the Cougars this season.

Last year in the baseball sectional at Dubois, the Tigers faced the Cougars in a simular situation. It was the semifinal game with the winner advancing into the championship game. Last year the Tigers were successful in defeating Trinity and were sectional runner-ups after they were defeated in the championship game against Dubois.

Today was a different story.

The Tigers lost to Trinity 12-0 in five innings.

This was the final at-bat and final swing for Patrick as a varsity baseball player.



Emotions ran high after the final out when the seniors realized they'd never again put on their uniform and play the game they so dearly love. Tears of sorrow, comforting hugs, and kind words were said to try to ease the pain of reality. In the end, the young men will have their memories to look back on and hopefully realize they did make a difference, even if they were only there for four short years.

Meet Me In Wonderland

The 2013 Junior - Senior Prom was held Friday in the school's cafetorium. Prior to the prom, Patrick, Lindsay and their friends traveled in style to Columbus to eat at Texas Roadhouse.



They had the limo all day to do what they wanted. After traveling to Columbus for a meal, it was time to head back to Crothersville for the prom.



As they entered the prom...



As president of his senior class, Patrick gave his thank you speech to the junior class, thanking them for the special evening.



After an evening of dinner and dancing, the limo picked the kids up from the school, came to our house, changed clothes, and was off to the bowling alley for the rest of the evening and early morning. Bowling, games, and eating was the agenda for the after prom.



Most of the couples wear matching shirts and have cute sayings on them...



Everyone partied till the early morning hours until they were just too tired to party anymore.



The 2013 Prom is over, which means ... another day closer to graduation :(

Austin's Sunshine Dance 2013

Patrick attended his first Sunshine Dance on Saturday night in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Before the night began, we met in Scottsburg at Lake Iola to take a few pictures with his date, family and friends.



We spent over an hour at the lake taking photos, talking, and watching several others taking pictures and trying to capture that 'special moment'.



Of course, it's easy to have good photos when you are photographing beautiful people.



After an hour and 138 photos, I knew this one would end up being my favorite when I was taking it...