Happy New Year ~ Happy New Year!!!

Well........hope your not feeling like this cute little turtle above. I found him on one of the websites I was on tonight. Will be using him for a card in the near future. The site I was on had alot of "free digital stamps and svg. die cuts" soooo, got lots of great ideas to play with.

Today we had a nice day. Went to Sandi and Doug's place on the river, had ham dinner (yum) and basically relaxed while watching the water and ducks float by. There were even some ice chunks that passed by too.  Sandi gave me a few sites to check out and download some die cuts, which is how I spent the evening. JP spent the evening having arm pains........I don't know, something has got to give with those pains, I sure could not handle them as much as he does. He struggles alot with them especially Sunday evenings for some reason. Wonder if part of it is stress and his neck is all tensed up which causes the nerves to constrict. The tension comes from his worry about work.......he moans and groans an awful lot!!!!

I found out over the holidays that I am allergic to shrimp.....boohoo......my mouth itches, and now also crab. I only had just a real little bit, coating on salmon and my mouth started itching.......oh well, I guess that also means lobster too, not that I have had much lobster lately, nope, it's been years! So I guess, don't give me shell fish, a shot of penicillin, sting me with bees or mosquitoes or spiders, I will break out.

Well, guess it is time to close this blog.......just figured out that I must be that turtle at the top of this page....hope my new year won't be up-side down and will finally turn the right way. Or maybe this world is just up-side down and I am really right-side up.......who knows, shall have to figure this out.

You all have a great day and keep looking up for your redemption draweth nigh. Cheers ~ Louise

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day



Christmas Eve dinner was steak, shrimp and red pepper grilled on the George Foreman grill. The steak was to perfection and was still pink on the inside. No special seasoning except for my "no salt Greek seasoning" also on the plate was fried mushrooms. I tried to plate it to look tantalizing, not sure 'Gordon Ramsey' would be impressed. Also, on the menu was "Crispy Mashed Potato's" (you will find the recipe in the previous blog) salad and celery with dip and onion rye toast. JP had a bowl of fruit and yogurt for dessert. We enjoyed our dinner very much.



Christmas Morning ~ this is JP looking at his new scrape book I put together for him. The original scrape books were falling apart after 40 years!! I thought I would just get a couple of pages done, but managed to get 23 pages done from 1972 and into the start of 1973. Over the years, pictures and newspaper clippings were taken out and misplaced. So I had to really work hard at piecing it all back together again. (just like humpty~dumpty)

I really enjoyed doing this scrape book, so now maybe I won't be so fearful to try another one. I do have plenty of pictures that can be scrape booked using many themes.....my next book, (which I started about 4 years ago) are all my dogs. Now that Hyko has left us, I guess it is time to get that started again.



Here is a page from the scrapbook, I took a picture cause I wanted to see how it would turn out. So maybe during the course of the next couple of months I will take pictures of the scrape book, so you can see the lay-outs and what the book looks like. I know, I know, "you say.....I have seen plenty of scrapbooks" Ah....BUT, you've not seen this one!! Anyways, this is a picture of JP winning a feature race in his old car "169" in 1972.

 As I said, I really enjoyed putting this together as it brought back lots of memories. I was really looking forward to giving it to him......now I can finish it without being rushed. Christmas eve I received some racing paper and stickers that I had ordered last week. So I was able to organize the book a little bit more before giving it to JP for Christmas.



Christmas Day we spent a few hours at Jim and Arlene's house. Ham, dressing, peas and carrots, baked potato, pear salad, berry pie and tea. Then we opened some gifts....Arlene likes to go "thrift shopping" so I got a cook book full of cookies, JP got a doggie calendar and a picture frame with a picture of a cut-out doggie that looked like Hyko. The didn't know Hyko had died, and so the dog looked like Hyko. (sniff-sniff and sigh)

It was a nice visit, as we sat around talking about the Lord and reading and speaking scripture. JP and Jim can really banter back and forth pretty good and JP usually knows what address that scripture comes from. They both know the Word really good.

We left about 3:30pm and came home.......I guess I was tired, cause about 5:00pm I closed my eyes and did not wake up till 7:30pm...........whew, where did that time go?? So about 8:00pm I made a lasagna in my new little casserole dish from Kylie....can you imagine she paid $3.99 for it. Guess that is another picture for another time. (smile)

You are going to like this........so I made the lasagna and put it in the oven about 8:20, set the temperature for 400 degrees and FORGOT to turn the "ON" knob, soooooo needless to say the lasagna sat in the oven for 1 hour without being baked...........GOOD GRIEF where were my brains!!! So when I realized the lasagna was not baking, it was about 9:20pm. So about 10 minutes after 10pm we were eating lasagna............it sure was good, and well worth the wait or should I say weight....I think it was the new casserole dish that made it taste good.

Well, I guess this blog is getting a bit to long and no doubt you are getting bored with all my rambling. So I shall close for now. Hopefully I will get another blog in before the New Year. So you all take care and keep looking up for your redemption draws nigh.
Cheers ~ Louise