Happy Memorial Day
I hope everyone is able to enjoy a nice long holiday weekend and take a moment to remember what the holiday is all about. A big thanks to the men and women who continue to fight for us every day and those who have given their lives for our freedom.
Photo by DMC43
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My family traditionally makes the rounds to decorate graves around this time of year. We most recently lost my Dad last August and my Mom didn’t have it in the budget to get a headstone up this year. (Let me take this opportunity to get on my soapbox and encourage everyone to get some sort of life insurance policy, no matter how small, believe me, every little bit helps!) I felt bad he’s in an unmarked grave not knowing how long it will be before the headstone will be put up (hoping by this time next year) so I made a temporary grave marker for him but didn’t have a solid frame or anything to keep it from just being set on the ground.
I scoured the internet looking for some sort of sign frame, thinking there MUST be something out there. Well, a couple hours of searching resulted in nothing that would suit my needs. I mentioned this to my handy husband who promptly said, “No big deal…I can make you one.” Have I told you how much I love this guy?! So we took a trip to Lowe’s, bought some steel, and here is our creation:
Hopefully that will suffice until we get a real headstone up.
My thoughts go out to everyone who is remembering lost loved ones this weekend.
Dare to Give Homemade Gifts
It’s another edition of Kim’s Dare to DIY Blog Party and this week is about DIY gifts, which I :::heart::: tremendously. I’ve got a few things in the works this year but I realized I had better not post them yet so I won’t spoil the surprise. 
I will try to post on this year’s gifts after Christmas though. I will, however, share a couple things I did last year, hope you enjoy!
Gifts in a Jar: Sand Art Brownies and Smores
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Ever since we got this house it has been Andy’s dream to get a giant tree to put in front of the window in the great room. Last year we got a “normal” sized tree for the dining room but I told him we needed to hold off on the giant tree, $500+ just wasn’t in the budget for another tree. While out shopping last weekend we decided to check Craigslist and we found a 13′ tree that was a much better fit for our budget!
We decided to put it up the other night and I must admit, it does look pretty nice!
Even the boys were pretty tired by the time we got it up and running.
Who You Gonna Call?
In the spirit of the season, I give you the Ghostsbusters Multi-Track video. This makes me very happy. It scored me my first smile of the day when I heard the radio peeps talking about it so I immediately had to look it up and share it with you.
Happy Halloween!!
Fall Festival Party
The Meckley’s threw a Fall Festival/Wine Tasting/Halloween Party last weekend. Andy went all out with a fog machine, strobe light and a great Halloween playlist. The fog machine was awesome, but we had to disable the smoke alarms all through the house!
Only a few of us dressed in costume, but it was a fun night anyhow. I told Andy you know you’re getting old when everyone tells you that you threw an awesome party, you feel like you threw a good party, when everyone leaves you get things picked up and then get settled into bed and when look over at the clock you see that it’s not even midnight! Oh well, we all had a good time and I prefer that to our previous knock-down-drag-out-nights followed by a 2-day hangover. The party pretty much died down quickly after watching the Hawkeyes add another notch to their helmets after the nail-biting game against the Spartans. (Yay Iowa!)
Here’s a little run down of our menu and other fun photos:
Caramel Peanut Butter Apple Dip
A bag of caramels
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Splash of milk
Splash of vanilla creamer
Cheese & Fruit for the wine
Cheese Dip
1 box of Velveeta cheese
2 lbs. of browned breakfast sausage
Everyone’s favorite Buffalo Chicken Dip
Apple & Pear Crisp Fake Out
Thanks to Kimba’s recipe
on A Soft Place to Land
Sadly, I don’t think anyone ate any of it! I had a bite later but need to
make it again because I know it’s super delicious.
Harvest Snack Mix
I adapted a recipe I found somewhere online. (Sorry, can’t remember
where!)
This is what I *think* I did:
Mix 4 tablespoons melted butter with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves. (P.S. Note to self, DO NOT try to ground your own whole cloves in your Magic Bullet. You will ruin the plastic cup. Those suckers must be pretty rough or something. Not sure how or why, but I really messed up the cup and I had to toss it.) Then add a bag of popped microwave popcorn and 2 cups of pretzel sticks. Mix well, put in cake pan and toss in oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool, then add in however much you want of candy corn (or pumpkins as you can see), chocolate stars, I threw in some kind of Ritz mini-bites that had frosting, and a cup of Banana Nut Cheerios because I knew they’d never get eaten otherwise. 
Then again, nobody but me ate this mix. I kinda like it.
And, last but not least on the menu, my favorite food item of
the night:
This was really fun. Not really easy to eat, and no one really ate much, but it was a great addition. Find a plastic (or in this case styrofoam) skull. Wash well. You could add plastic wrap as someone mentioned at the party but I did not. Mix 2 blocks of cream cheese with whatever seasonings, I used garlic salt & onion powder. Spread on skull and cover with torn pieces of
lunchmeat. I left the eye sockets, nose, and teeth uncovered and popped two
large olives in the eye sockets. Dave decided the head needed a little more so
he added a festive knife:
Andy added dry ice to the punch:
And to drinks (P.S. we learned you should not add to beer!)
I forced my tall blonde babe to dress up like Fred so I could
be Daphne. I pretended for a moment Tiger was Scrappy. Our wigs were terrible, looked nothing like the photo on the front of the package, but oh well, you get the idea, right?!
Of course I had to dress up the boys:
The Willetts were super cute all dressed up. Karen even made
Lena’s costume!
The Duitsmans were great sports. They came from a wedding and
added accessories to their outfits to be in costume, though Tom almost
immediately took off all his cop gear. Amber made a great Flapper girl.
Demitrios decided to don my wig:
And The Elliotts and I had a good time hogging Andy’s remote later in the night so we could kick some old school tunes and reminisce back to our Junior High and High School days. :::singing::: One, Two, Three and To Tha Four…Because I’m Real…Meet Met at the Alter in Your White Dress…
And speaking of back in the day, Schmeed even brought us a
bottle of Mad Dog. Funny! That brought back some memories. I never knew it was a form of wine!
All in all, a great night with great friends – some old, some new…Love you all!
A Good Marriage
Okay, so I’m guilty of posting this late and back dating it, but I’m trying to stick with my weekly schedule of Thankful Thursday one way or another.
This week I am thankful for having a good marriage. No, a GREAT marriage and a wonderful partner. On November 1 Andy & I will be celebrating our 1-year anniversary and I couldn’t be happier. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had so many consecutive days of being happy. And as he always says, “we’ve got a lot of life to live.” I can only hope so.
To celebrate we will be headed to the beautiful little town of Galena this weekend to walk downtown, maybe do some shopping, tour a mansion, enjoy a little wine tasting, maybe catch the Halloween Parade and I cannot believe it, but Andy agreed to a Haunted Dinner & Ghost Tour! =) See, I told you he’s the best!
What are you thankful for today?
Happy New Year!
Josh & Rachel came down to celebrate the new year with us. We started off at Graze for a delicous dinner, fabulous martinis and their signature “Big Ass Ice Cream Cake”
We then went to a local bar to watch Mommy’s Little Monster perform and they were REALLY good. They even served hot dogs on stage!
Unfortunately, a rock hit the windshield of the new Yukon (see arrow) and it proceeded spread left, right, and down. 
That did NOT make me happy at all. So, we’ll have to have it repaired next week.
The next morning Mr. Rachel Ray helped me whip up a nice breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and bacon with juice and milk for our guests.
What did you do to ring in the New Year?
Final DIY Christmas Gifts
I found this cute little idea from this blog so I had to try my hand at them.
All you need is:
1 Snack Size Baggie
1 Regular Size Baggie
1-1/2 Cup Krispies
1-1/2 Cup Mini Marshmallows (Or I used 5 large ones)
But I didn’t really measure…I just poured. Believe me, I tested this method (twice) and they taste just fine.
Merry Christmas!
Crafty Christmas Gifts in a Jar
While blog-stalking Kim over at Newly Woodwards I ran across a link for a really fun S’More’s in a Jar recipe. I made a batch and boy are those good…Andy and I ate an entire batch over the course of one day. I wish I were joking, but I’m not; These things are dangerous! Leave the pan out in the open and it’s a bite here, a piece there and the next thing you know someone’s licking the pan. (Okay, not really…but I thought about it. They are THAT good!)
I searched for more gift in a jar recipes and found these Sand Art Brownies. Since we are FREE FROM SCHOOL (YAY!) for a few weeks we slept in late, then I whipped together a few Christmas gifts this morning.
‘Tis the Season
In my last post I talked about wanting to teach our potential future children about what Christmas means to me. First let me start by saying my thoughts of Christmas are more spiritual, or goodwill in nature than truly based on the religious aspect. And while Christmas means getting together with friends and family it always reminds me to do a little something extra for someone who may not be as fortunate. Whether it’s participating in an Angel Tree program, sending an anonymous gift, or dropping a little extra money in the Salvation Army buckets. Something, anything, with hopes it will make somebody’s holiday a little brighter.
If and when we have children of our own it is very important to me to instill the value of giving to others. We will make it a family tradition especially during the holiday season in some way, shape or form.
And this is why…
When I was little we didn’t have a lot of money. Don’t get me wrong, we got along okay and I don’t really think we were “poor”. My dad used to say we had everything we needed and half of what we wanted. That’s probably fair to say. But, I constantly heard my mom say “we can’t afford it” or, “we don’t have enough money.” Maybe that was just her way of telling me no when I wanted some unnecessary toy, but I grew up hating those words. To this day I will never say I can’t afford something. Instead, I prefer to say “it’s not really in my budget at this time,” which, I guess basically says the same thing but makes me feel just a little bit better about it.
Just like the present time, money was sometimes tighter than others back then. When I heard my mom say we “couldn’t afford” things I used to think about all people in the world that were “rich” in my naive eyes. I wondered why they couldn’t just share their money with us and then we’d all be equal and happy. Now that I’m older I realize and understand it doesn’t quite work that way.
I was maybe six or seven years old at the time when my dad lost his job shortly before Christmas. One night there was a knock on our door. It was our neighbor, a widow probably in her late 30s who was raising three kids on her own. I listened as she told my mom she was sorry to hear my dad lost his job, especially so close to the holidays. She held out her hand and gave my mom $100 saying that it wasn’t much, but she hoped it would help. I could tell my mom was surprised, and maybe even a little embarrassed. She thanked the neighbor repeatedly and I’m pretty sure both of them cried a little.
It almost makes me tear up now just thinking about it. A hundred dollars was worth quite a bit more back then, and a whole lot more to a family who suddenly had no income. I will never forget that night. I have no idea how my parents spent the money, or what I did or did not get for Christmas. That was never important to me. What I remember is someone doing what they could for a family to make a difficult time a little easier, and the holiday a little better. And I remember my mom working on various little homemade gifts (probably where got my craftiness) to give to our neighbor as a way to thank her for her generosity.
So, Christmas to me is paying it forward in any way I can. I know the economy is bad and everyone is running pretty tight this year. But if you can spare a little goodwill this holiday season please consider doing something nice for someone who may need it more than you know. It doesn’t have to be money either; a smile, a nice card, a pleasant conversation with a stranger, heck, clean out your closet and take an extra load to the local Goodwill; Little efforts can compound and go a long way. You never know…one small gesture on your part may inspire someone for a lifetime.
(Thanks again, Mrs. Leedall, wherever you are.)
P.S. Check out the amazing story of Larry Dean Stewart, the real life Secret Santa. I aspire to one day have the means and the ability to give like this man, and those who now give in honor of his memory. But, if and when that day comes I won’t tell a soul.
