Happy Things #8

Three things that made me happy today:

·        Getting the right amount of caramel extract to make my cocoa taste perfect. The dash of heavy whipping cream helped, too. :-)

·        Beef stew for supper. It’s become one of my favorite dishes in recent years, and it’s great on chilly nights.

·        Making gingerbread cookie batter. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve making gingerbread cookies—following Betty Crocker’s “Stone Jar Molasses Cookies” recipe, watching Mom melt the butter and molasses together (and later doing it myself when I was old enough), chilling and rolling out (and sampling!) the dough, cutting out fun shapes, decorating them with special candies. Ahh…memories. *Cue nostalgic music* Yes, sir, stirring that sticky-hot molasses and butter brought back a tiny bit of my childhood.

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

Happy Things #7

Three things that made me happy today:

·        Having a warm scarf (courtesy of Shawn…ten years ago, eep!) to keep the cold air off my face in town. When it’s only 15° in the sun, the air simply cuts your face like a knife!

·        Picking up some goodies and nibbling on samples at Winco. Sugar-free Gummy Bears, Green Dragon apples…mmmmmm….

·        The nice compliments I received on my royal blue coat!

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

Happy Things #6

Three things that made me happy today:

·        Peter getting caught up on his homework, thereby earning himself an evening off to relax with the family. Go, Bro! *Confetti*

·        Watching The Rescuers Down Under. Man, it’s been a long time! The “Joanna-Eggs” scene had us in stitches…and I don’t laugh out loud much. Definitely one of Disney’s better “kiddie flicks,” and great fun to revisit as an adult!

·        Eating chocolate-chip cookies with our hot cocoa. A step up from cookies-and-milk, wot? ;-)

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

Happy Things #5

Three things that made me happy today:

·        Finding the perfect beads for a Christmas project!

·        Discovering a new-to-me bookstore, Hastings—wowie-zowie! That place is HUGE! (They had the books I was looking for, too!)

·        Mom’s promise to have a special Girls’ Day Out after Christmas. *Rubs hands with glee*

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

Happy Things #4

Three things that made me happy today:

·        Finishing Grandma’s Christmas present, despite a couple false starts and such.

·        Chocolate-chip Cookies. ’Nuff said. :-D

·        The adorable Advent calendar Aunt Betty sent us via JacquieLawson—beautiful graphics, and good music!

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

P.S.

Don’t forget to do the Christmas Mad Lib! :-D

Happy Things #3

Three things that made me happy today:

·        Seeing the sun for the second day in a row—despite all the snow we got last night (which has pretty much melted). There’s just something uplifting about seeing the sun after gloomy weather, especially in Winter. When I grow up, I’m moving to a place where it’s sunny most of the year. Yeup.

·        INSPIRATION! By God’s grace, I was able to write fiction for about two hours straight—which I haven’t been able to do for…has it really been years? And it was on a book/series I haven’t been especially excited about (takes place in the Real World), so that was an added bonus.

·        Eating pomegranate seeds with a spoon! Seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t think to put all the seeds in a bowl years ago. :-P And it’s been a good year for pomegranates—totally worth $2 a pop.

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

Happy Things #2

I have to confess, it was harder to find three “happy things” today. Oh, it wasn’t exactly one of those Blowtorch Days*; things just happened that were rather annoying (the pin-back on “Wild Irish Rose” popping off while I was changing the stone…just before we headed to town, of course) and even downright scary (driving home from Bible study in the dark, in blinding snow. Eek).

But God is good, even though my circumstances today weren’t fun. Life often stinks, but that doesn’t change the fact that God is good, and that His plans will succeed. (Mom and I got home in one piece, after all!)

So then, three things that made me happy today:

·        Mom coming in from teaching *just* in time to form the hamburger patties for supper. I was getting ready to, but she came in and relieved me. She’s not squeamish about handling raw meat! :-P

·        Mrs. A’s white-chocolate-peppermint-chip cookies, which she brought to Bible study to share. Yummy!

·        Meeting Peter’s engineering partner and watching them demonstrate their machine…which ran perfectly on the first try! And they even got it on video. :-D

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

Happy Things #1, and a Mad Lib

Here it is, December already. Didn’t we just ring in the New Year a couple months ago?! :-P

Hysterics aside, I’m really looking forward to Christmas this year. Our family have determined—by God’s aid—to have fun this Season. Baking gingerbread bears and decorating them with special (naturally sweetened!) candies. “Light Rides” (driving about town and oggling the pretty lights and epic decorating skills of our neighbors). And a special Skype Party with relatives in California.

Part of our Skype Party with Aunt Betty and Cousin Brenda will involve a Christmas Mad Lib. We started this tradition last year and had a blast! This year, I decided to share our favorite Mad Lib with you, Gentle Readers, so you can join in the fun! Below is a list of words required to fill in the Mad Lib. E-mail me your submissions to tomwildrose[at]gmail[dot]com, with “Christmas Mad Lib” in the subject line.

Number
Adjective
Number
Color
Adjective
Past-tense verb
Number
Mineral
Spice
Plural noun
Fraction
Adjective
Beverage
Liquid
Number
Fruit
Plural noun
Weight measurement
Noun
Time Measurement
Noun
Adjective

With the help of my fellow judges (Mom and Bro), I will choose the funniest one and post it sometime around New Year’s Day, with the runners-up in a later post (’cos I’m sure they’ll all be too funny no to be seen). I’ll also include Aunt and Cousin’s submission from last year ’cos it’s sooo hilarious—ooh-hah!

I tried last year to borrow a page from Jenny-Rose’s blog and post three things that made me happy each day of December. I think I did maybe one day…? Bad, Bad Tom! :-P

This year, though, I’m determined to do one every day if possible—or at least more than Day One! So for starters, here are three things that made me happy today:

·        Having my very own case of foundation. Mom gave me hers a while back because I was always borrowing it to cover up the ugly dark circles around my eyes that I can’t seem to get rid of. :-P It was so nice to have it right there on my bureau, ready to use!

·        Watching Peter build the “Rube Goldberg” machine he and his partner are making as part of their Engineering class at the college…and watching him demonstrate it as he went along.

·        Trying out the fun extracts Mom and I got for our cocoa this evening. We got coconut, caramel, raspberry and coffee, and we already had mint. I tried a bit of coffee extract and a dash of cream in mine, aiming for a Mocha Latte!

Have a blessed Christmas Season, Gentle Readers!

God bless,

~“Tom”~

Happy Things #2

It would seem that "the madness that is December" kinda hijacked my Happy Things idea. It's been a rough few days, and to be honest, it's been hard to find anything happy in them...but not impossible. :-) I can't remember *exactly* when things happened, so I'll just do a general list:

~Happy Things, December 3^rd-8^th, 2011~

• Peter fixed my camera!!! :-D Thanks, Bro!
  
• Redeeming the dress I'd stupidly donated at work...in September...for a fraction of what I expected to pay for it. In a nutshell, I regretted getting rid of it, saw it in a storage room at work, and by God's aid got up the courage* to ask my boss if I could buy it. She said yes, and that I could have it for $8.50 instead of the $16 she was going to charge for it. When I went to pay for it, the ladies at the cash register only charged me $4.50! PTL!

* By that I don't mean that my boss is unapproachable or grumpy or anything. It's just really hard for me to ask for things. :-P

• Mom's patience (as always) with a slightly neurotic me, and her help in figuring out how to raise the neckline on said dress. I love my Mommy. :-D
  
• Finishing said neckline insert before suppertime, so now I can wear my pretty dress (christened “Celtic Princess”) this Sunday! (Pictures to come in a later post...when I've uploaded them. :-P)
  
• Getting to “play with beads” this past week...and coming up with some pretty baubles that will help use up The Stash™ without needing too many extra parts.
  
• Mom's announcement that, next Tuesday (Lord willin' and the snow don't fly!), we will be going thrifting to get me some Winter dresses. Apart from the box of purple velvet scraps, I have practically NO Winter-weight fabrics, so Mom's Christmas present to me this year is to get me some ready-made that need little to no tweaking. Because I have sewing projects coming out my ears as it is, so there's no sense adding more unless absolutely necessary, wot?
  

Well now you've gone and blabbed about it, we'll probably be buried under two feet of snow next Tuesday. >:-P


Scram. >:-(

• The jug of cream from the family at church who have a milk cow just GAVE us, and the whacking-great lot of chocolate chips Mom bought yesterday. I'm seeing truffles, peppermint patties and maybe caramels in our future....
  
• Going on a “light ride” with the H family down the street. One of our family's traditions around Christmastime is to drive around the town and look at the lights on other people's houses. This year we were going to invite the H family, but they called us first! Hee. Great minds think alike.
  
• Seeing Jordan R for the first time since she got home from the Philippines, hearing her stories—both sad and happy—and seeing her pictures.
  

Well, it's getting late, and I have to work tomorrow. So until next time, Gentle Readers,


God bless,
~“Tom”~

Happy Things #1

I'm borrowing a page from Jenny LaFleur's book and posting about things that made me happy, in order to combat the madness that is December. Being an incurable tweaker, though, I've made some changes. Instead of listing what made me happy the previous day, I'll be posting about what made me happy today (although since I didn't get to it yesterday, I'll include Happy Things from then as well). I probably won't get to it every day this month, but my goal (Lord willing) is to post as many days as I can. Focus on the positive and all that. ;-) Also, I'm not going to limit myself to three things. 'Cos God doesn't limit Himself to bestowing only three blessings a day, if you look carefully.

So here goes:

~Ye List of Things that made Tom Happy~

December 1st, 2011:

• Singing Happy Birthday to my dear Aunt B! (Actually, we sang to her answering machine, but whatever. ;-))
  
• Finding a GENUINE ruby cabochon on eBay the right size for a pendant in the works...for only $11.20!!! (When I could find a cabochon anywhere near 6mm, they were either lab-grown, completely fake, or priced at three arms and two legs. Now you understand my excitement!)
  
• Going to order a rose quartz cabochon on Etsy for the same pendant (I'll explain later), discovering that the seller would only offer them two at a time (I only need one), then finding another seller--from whom I was gong to order a couple other cabochons anyway...and consequently offers free shipping with multiple orders--had *just* put up a listing for ONE rose quartz cabochon. At half the price of the other listing. *BigGrin*
  
• Watching Scrooge (the musical--LOL!) and eating sugar-free chocolates in celebration of Mom's finishing her part of the Sunday School Christmas program at church

December 2nd, 2011:

• Actually getting up early enough to make my own lunch AND get ready for work, with time to spare.
  
• Trying a new kind of cookie--spice cookies with chocolate chips and toasted nuts--made by my boss' husband...and getting ideas for how to make them myself.
  
• Finding a knee-pillow for Mom among the incoming donations.

Copyright 2011 Wild Rose Designs. Thou Shalt Not Steal! Thank you.

So now you're wondering about this mysterious pendant I mentioned. Well, it's a pet project of mine that's been changing and developing over several years, and now, thanks to Laurie and Avo K. of Laurie Sarah Designs, it's in the process of becoming a reality! It's basically a flower (a wild rose blossom, actually :-)) surrounded by gracefully curving lines and Celtic knotwork, with a quartz crystal point hanging from it, and a 6mm cabochon in the center. And the cabochon is removable, held in its own separate setting that is secured in back of the pendant. That makes the stones interchangeable with one another, so's I can wear the pendant (christened "Wild Irish Rose") with pretty much anything! At right is my PaintShopped "sketch" of the pendant design. It will probably look different in real life, as it's often harder to create things *exactly* how you want them in the physical world, than it is on the computer. :-P Even for professional jewelers like Laurie and Avo. But they do custom work all the time, and they've been so very patient with me when I changed the design a couple of times, and so willing to work with me to get it the way I want it. I'm certain it will be beautiful when it's finished.

And if you're wondering how a country-lass jewelry-maker, who alludes to her "poor starving bank account" now and then, can afford to have such a complicated bauble custom-made by professional jewelers...it's because Laurie happens to be my first-cousin-on-my-mother's-side, and they want to do this for me. I am truly blessed in my relatives, wot? ;-)

Now hopefully nothing will go haywire with the thing, now that I've blabbed about it on my blog. Seems to happen a lot with things like this..../FRETTING

So anyway, have a Blessed Christmas season, Gentle Readers, and until next time,

I remain

Sincerely yours,

~“Tom”~