Spent the day at Kris’ yesterday, baking a gazillion different kinds of cookies and other holiday treats. We made scotchios, fudge (regular and mint), Hershey Kiss cookies, caramel corn (with and without nuts), sugar cookie lollipops, peppermint bars, Texas Two-Step soup mix, granola, and probably several others that I’ve forgotten. Actually, it was mostly Kris, NJ, Andrea, & Jody making the cookies. I was relegated to smashing the candy canes with a hammer, as my friends are all aware that my talents lay in areas other than those of the culinary arts. My 10 y/o daughter was dubbed “More Useful In The Kitchen Than Her Mother.”

On the other hand, when it was time to get the burn pile fired up, you know who was on the A-list to manage that job!

NJ did carefully transcribe all of the recipes for her own later use. God knows her mother is no help in that department. On the other hand, she will know how to captain a ship and put on her own dang tire chains, thanks to that same mother.

Ta-da! Another major step in making this a reality; the house in Snohomish went on the market yesterday. Although the final work on carpet and some finishing touches are not complete, I came to the realization that if I wait for the contractors to be completely finished doing what they say they’re going to, it would be March before we listed the place! I’ve always heard the “multiply the estimate by two and add a week” rule, but I had no idea how true it is! Arrrghhhh! I’m a generally nice person, but man, they were pushing me close to the edge. Tomorrow. Yeah, well, maybe the next day. Oh, we’ll be there tomorrow for sure. I can’t tell if they’re blatantly lying to me or just truly horrible about managing their time. Either way, it’s appalling!