It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Not really, but at least I'm not feeling as bah humbug as I was yesterday. I've got a plan to print out our Christmas cards, I've addressed most of the envelopes, I wrapped one of the few Christmas presents we're buying this year, and we're starting our Christmas movie marathon. It isn't really a marathon, but we do have our favorites that we watch every year.

Technology is not my friend

Think I need a new phone? First, the camera function went out. Not that I took that many pictures, but still, it was annoying. Then a week or so later, the LCD went out, but at least I could still make and receive calls. Then the phone would randomly turn off. Then the faceplate fell off. So we decided my phone was on its last legs. I was slightly annoyed that the phone only lasted four and half years (and at the time, I preferred my analog phone to this phone). I hate planned obsolescence. Or maybe technology is moving too fast for me.

We finally found some time to visit the phone store and check out what was available. Our choices were limited since we wanted to keep our almost five year old plan (no texting, no data, and relatively few minutes); the current cheapest plan was $10 more than what we're paying now. Even though I was willing to pay FULL PRICE for a more expensive phone, Verizon would not let us add the phone to our plan. How's that for business sense?

Mr. Fix-it tried to add his phone to his nav system so he could finally have hands free calling, but then his phone locked up. Guess what, it was a bum phone so Verizon replaced it. I really don't feel good about our phones now.

Add to that our five year old computer is slow, slow, slow and we're running out of room on our hard drive (think they might be related), the DVR is acting up, and my printer died, and I'm fed up with technology this weekend.

Yet another sign that I'm a packrat

I finally decided to work on Christmas cards today and had delusions of grandeur or at least of making my own photo greeting cards this year. I finally found the photo I wanted to use and a template (you didn't think I was actually going to design it myself, did you?) and then ran into some hardware problems (that's for another post).

So I thought I'd be efficient and at least address the envelopes so we went to Staples to see what they had. You know me...I couldn't find anything I liked in the price range I wanted. Then we stopped at a post office on the way home to buy stamps, but can you believe it, no stamp machine! Sooo, tomorrow we'll be out running more errands. So much for being efficient.

Ahhh, but all was not lost. After we came home, I remembered that I may have had some Christmas envelopes tucked away somewhere. You know, in that huge Christmas stash I have (not an exaggeration: two shelves in the hall closet, one underbed storage box, two gift wrap containers, and several boxes of ribbon). Luckily, I found the envelopes right away and they even sort of match the cards. Close enough and I didn't have to buy more envelopes. Now if I could only find my Christmas stationery so I could write my Christmas letter.

Marinated Goat Cheese Rounds

This is my new go-to appetizer recipe. It is tasty, looks impressive (see my serving tips), and is relatively inexpensive. I modified the recipe so I included my version and also the original recipe.

Ingredients
11 oz goat cheese (because that's the package size that I got from Trader Joe's, lol)
5 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
20 Katamala or green olives (pitted)
2/3 cup olive oil

Instructions
1. Roll the goat cheese into small (bite-size) balls, then flatten them.
2. Whisk the rest of the ingredients together until well blended.
3. Pour over goat cheese.
4. Marinate refrigerated for 2 to 4 hours. Any longer than that and the goat cheese will start to darken from the marinade. It still tastes good, but isn't as attractive. If you don't mind the color change, you can make this ahead and marinate the cheese for a few days. Let sit at room temperature for about half an hour before serving.

I served this with crackers. Surprisingly to me, rustic crackers like rye crisp held up better than plain crackers like water crackers. The original recipe called for crostini, but I think that plain sliced French bread would also work.

Serving tips
The cheese rounds look more impressive when served on a flat, rimmed serving tray rather than piled in a bowl. Also, you can sprinkle extra olives around the cheese for filler.

I think you could also just make the marinade and pour it over the cheese and let your guests take as big a hunk as they want, lol.

The original recipe
6 oz goat cheese
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon black pepper
10 green olives, pitted and coarsely chopped
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Roll cheese into a 4 inch log, then slice into 1 inch think rounds.
Place in a shallow dish.
Whisk the rest of the ingredients together until well blended. Pour over the goat cheese and marinate, refrigerated for 2 hours to 1 week.
Serve with crostini (grilled French bread rubbed w/olive oil and fresh garlic).

My very last Lifetime Moments order

I received my last Lifetime Moments order yesterday. I was just torturing myself, watching the stock dwindle down in the store. Yes, I did end up placing two more orders; they were shipped together. Thanks for helping me save on shipping Jackie.

On a happier note, there's still time to enter my givaway.

Photo 126/365 Got Cheez-its?

Yes, we have a few, lol. They're on sale through today, $1.99/box at Target. A good price, but not a great price. What makes the price great is you get a $5 gift card when you buy five. Mr. Fix-it usually doesn't like it when I buy in bulk, but since these are for him, he was pretty excited this time, lol. Although he did think that buying another five boxes would be overkill (hey, I could have used my $5 gift card and the next batch would have been free!)

Spreading the scrappy good karma

I often check out the 2peas FSOT (for sale or trade) board hoping for a good bargain. I was bummed that I missed out on a Quickutz mini font for only $10, including shipping. So I posted on the thread to please let me know if the first buyer didn't want it. I usually PM the seller privately, but as it turns out, it was a good thing I posted on the thread because the buyer contacted me. As it turns out, she already had the font (don't tell me that's never happened to you) and offered it to me at the same price. Such a deal! On top of that, she included some Prima leaves (and you know how expensive Prima is). Can you tell I'm thrilled with my good fortune?

Then this week, more scrappy goodness (which helps make up for the scrappy sadness about LM). WR Memory Keepers had a great sale with free shipping with minimum purchase. As it turns out, my order was less then the minimum because many items were out of stock, but they shipped it free anyway. Thank you WRMK! (yes, I did e-mail them to thank them.) I'm bummed I didn't get everything I ordered, but I did get the one thing I wanted most, an album. As it turns out, my whole order was the same price as what I would have paid for that album.

So to spread the good scrapbook karma, just leave a comment and I'll send randomly select someone to send a goodie bag of yummy ribbon. Not a scrapbooker? I'll still send you some yummy ribbon, just something more appropriate for wrapping presents. I'll leave this open until Friday, the 18th.

$2.87

Holding steady.

Lotus root with ground pork

Lotus root is one of my favorite vegetables (unfortunately, Mr. Fix-it isn't a big fan). One of the easiest ways to prepare this is to stir fry the vegetable and add some ground pork. Measurements are vague because I'm a cook-what-you-have-on-hand kind of cook.

Ingredients
Lotus root (one medium or two small)
vegetable oil
garlic, two cloves
ground pork, about 1/2 pound
soy sauce
corn starch
rice wine or sherry
white pepper

Directions
1. Add a bit of soy sauce, corn starch, rice wine, and white pepper to the ground pork. Mix well and let marinate while you prepare the lotus root.
2. Peel the lotus root, slice each section in half (across the length), then cut into 1/8 inch slices. If you do this ahead of time, place the lotus root in some water because it will discolor, like a potato.
3. Heat a small amount of oil (maybe a tablespoon or less), then stir fry the lotus root until it is cooked through. The lotus root will turn slightly translucent. Sorry that I can't give you an exact time, but it will be a few minutes (at least).
4. Remove the lotus root to another dish temporarily.
5. Add a tiny bit of oil to the pan, heat, and add the garlic. Then add the pork and cook through.
6. Add the lotus root and heat through. You could add a corn starch gravy, but usually the lotus root provides enough starch.

Sorry, no picture because quite frankly, the photo didn't look too appetizing, but the end result tasted good. This would be good with some ginger, but I left that out because Mr. Fix-it doesn't like ginger.

Final LM Scrapbook Sale

Save 55% on everything in the store. Use code 55-890 when checking out at lifetimemoments.com. This is the final sale (boo hoo!). The online store closes on December 10th, but if you're lucky enough to be in the Michigan area, the physical store closes a week later. There's still lots of good stuff. Yes, I placed a final order and am considering yet another one.

Apple Crisp

Mom gave us some red Delicious apples, which we don't like, so I had to something with them. So I came up with this apple crisp.

Ingredients
3 large apples, chopped
about 1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup butter
scant 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup sugar (I only had white sugar on hand, I think brown sugar would have been better)
1 pinch salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Place apples in an 8x8 inch baking dish (no need to grease the dish, though you could if you want more butter flavor). Toss apples with syrup.
3. Mix flour, oats, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.
4. Sprinkle mixture evenly over apples.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes, until topping is golden brown.
Tastes great as is or with some vanilla ice cream.

Mediterranean Pork

This was supposed to be Mediterranean Chicken, but pork loin was on sale so we went with what was cheapest. Hey, pork is the other white meat, right? The ingredients and instructions are a bit vague since I was using what I had on hand. It started because I had about 2/3 of a can of green olives leftover from another dish. Then I got some cherry tomatoes from Mom (can you believe she's still getting tomatoes in November?) and I needed to use all this up. How's that for inspiration? I think this dish is very adaptable and would be good with artichoke hearts too.

Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs pork loin
olives (1/2 to 1 can, whatever you have on hand)
2 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes (or any tomatoes)
1 tsp capers
4 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
flour
salt
pepper
oregano

Directions
1. Slice the olives and chop the tomatoes. I either halved or quartered the cherry tomatoes; you want large chunks.

2. Make a coating with the flour, salt, pepper, and oregano. I used dried oregano and crumpled just a bit into the flour.

3. Slice the pork loin into medallions and coat each slice with the flour.

4. Heat some olive oil in a pan and brown the medallions. You'll most likely need to do this in batches. The medallions should be just cooked through. Remove pork. (Sorry, I didn't time how long it took to brown them.)

5. Add some more olive oil to the pan and add the garlic. Then add the olives, tomatoes, and capers. Cook just until the tomatoes give off their juice and soften a bit. You're not really making a sauce, more like a topping for the pork.

6. Add the pork back to the pan and make sure everything is heated through.

We had this with mashed potatoes (hey, russets were on sale because of Thanksgiving), but pasta, rice, or even some fresh bread would be good.

Looking for a holiday gift?

Check out these etsy shops. They're all great artists (and friends of mine, tell 'em I sent you).

The Checkered Rabbit Cute cards, tags, other paper arts, other crafts.

Dusty Rose Designs Beautiful ceramic animals, shells, fruits, polymer animals too. She also does custom sculptures of your pets.

She's gone crafty Cute cards, albums, paper crafts.

Kristie's Kreations Amazing jewelry and county primitives

More sad scrapbook news

My second favorite scrapbook store has closed shop. Linnecards.com was hacked and with the down economy, it wasn't worth bringing the store back up. I'm so sad. Thanks to Sharon, I have an extensive collection of Stickles and Catseye ink pads, Jillibean Soup and Bella Blvd, and don't forget My Mind's Eye.

Where will I shop now? Honestly, without Lifetimemoments.com and Linnecards.com, I doubt I will be buying anything new for scrapbooking for a while. Those two stores are where I kept up with the trends, where I got my inspiration, where I made life-long friends. I'm so bummed.

Split Pea Soup

(I'm copying this over from LM so I'll have it available after LM shuts down.)

1 lb green split peas
1 lb yellow split peas (can use all green if you want)
8 cups of water (or more)
1 meaty ham bone
1-2 bay leaf
1 finely chopped onion (about 3/4 cup)
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
3-4 carrots, chopped
1 potato, finely chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, finely minced
A dash of pepper

Wash, sort, and drain split peas. Combine everything in a 6 quart crockpot and cook on high for 4 hours (or more).

Notes:
This soup is very thick and will be even thicker after sitting in the fridge for a day. If you like a thinner soup, add more water when cooking. When reheating the soup, add a bit of water (or broth). I always make this in the crockpot because I've had problems with the soup sticking and burning when I cook it on the stove.

You can use chicken broth instead of water, but if there is a lot of meat on the bone, I think water is fine.

I don't add salt to this soup because of the salt in the ham and sodium in the celery. Adjust the seasonings to your taste.

More SB discounts

Save 35% on everything in the store. Use code 35-323 when checking out at lifetimemoments.com. If you see something you like, buy it now. There are a couple things I missed out on because I waited too long. Jackie charges actual shipping so if you order paper, it will be shipped in a flat rate box...that mean you can buy more to fill it!

So sad

So sad. This is most likely my last order from lifetimemoments.com: a Basic Grey Indian Summer card kit and buttons, lots of ribbon, some envelopes, newer patterned papers, CI buttons (wish I bought more).

I've got a wish list going at the store and things keeps disappearing off of it. So I'm happy for Jackie that things are selling out with only a small discount.

$2.95

Had to fill up since I hardly carpooled at all last week. Did a lot more freeway driving and got over 32 MPG. Not bad for a teenaged car.

Big scrapbook store sale

The good news is my favorite online store is having a sale. The bad news is that it is a going out of business sale.

For all crafters and scrapbookers, please check out Lifetimemoments.com, an awesome store with awesome owners and help with their BIG closing sale. Starting today, everything in the store is 25% off – you must use this promo code 25-011 at checkout to apply the discount.

Where am I going to shop now? I'm so bummed.

Photo 125/365 There's no accounting for taste

Sometimes Mr. Fix-it's food tastes astound me. There was some leftover Yu xiang eggplant (pork, eggplant, bell peppers in a brown sauce) and baked potatoes so he had that with some avocado (you can barely see the avocado in the photo). Honestly, it was so weird to me, I wouldn't even taste it.