RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE COOKIE CREATION...

I hosted a wedding shower recently, and had asked the bride what kind of goodies she liked.  We tried to make all her wishes come true with this spread!  She said she liked Chocolate chip cookies and berries.  

We had blonde brownies, chocolate chip cookies, berry cups, pink flower sugar cookies, and raspberry cheesecake cookies! I had the idea for raspberry cheesecake cookies when I tried a new icing recipe with cream cheese in it, and it seemed way too rich.  Then I decided to try it on a very plain sugar cookie and topped it with a raspberry and Voila!  Raspberry cheesecake cookies.  They were pretty and delicious!  Here's the recipes:

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

8 oz. cream cheese

2 sticks butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 3/4 cup flour

1 t. almond extract 

Mix all ingredients and chill overnight.  Roll out and cut into shapes.  Bake on middle rack in a 400 degree oven for 7-8 minutes.  Try not to let the edges brown.  Frost when cooled. 

I used this recipe for frosting from Pinterest and added a few drops of red food coloring into it to get the pink hue.  I used an M tip and piped it onto the cookies in a rosette shape.  These cookies do need to be refrigerated because of the cream cheese in the frosting.  

Finally, about an hour before the party, I rinsed raspberries and let them dry on a paper towel.  Then I carefully pushed one into the middle of each cookie.  They were beautiful and tasty with the tart raspberry and the sweet cream cheese frosting on the plain shortbread type cookie.

The whole table - I got this fun picture with the groom and all the hostesses!  He had arrived before the bride at the start of the shower and we thought it was funny.  They're a sweet couple.  

 

ORANGE BEACH IN WINTER...

 We are kind of creating a tradition heading to the Gulf Coast each winter for a couple of weeks (snowbirds in training?) and this year we chose Orange Beach, Alabama.  The Hubs worked and we squeezed in a lot of fun between his responsibilities. 

This was our second time in Orange Beach.  We picked a small-ish condo.  We like the small ones because we like the idea of less people and no lines at the elevator.  We like to get privately owned VRBO places that seem well cared for and have fresh furnishings.  That's what we got this time at The Breakers.  It wasn't fancy or brand new, but it was nice, with a magnificent view of the ocean!  We found ourselves with the balcony doors open most of the time.  Pretty great in January!

We did a lot of the same things we did last time we were here - daily walks on the beach, hiking and biking the Hugh Branyon Backcountry trails.  We did find a couple of new things we loved, though:  

A short drive away you can hunt for dinosaurs along the highway in Elberta!

Near the dinosaurs there is also "Bamahenge." It's pretty big - see me in there?

Part of the Hugh Branyon trail in OB

Along the Jeff Friend trail

We reached the lagoon at the end of Jeff Friend trail!

A new Paula Deen restaurant opened in nearby Foley since we were there last time.  We had to try it out and opted for lunchtime.  It's the same menu as dinner but cheaper, of course.  We also got $10 off using a tourist book coupon we picked up at a local grocery store.  Score!  The biscuits were delicious!  I think that and the broccolli casserole were my favorite things about the meal.  

YUM

Buzzcatz is a coffee shop that we frequented often - they have a Happy Meower (Hour) and sell their cookies 1/2 price!  I think we tried all the different kinds by the end of our time there.  :) We went to another great fish place, Doc's Seafood Shack.  We were told by a local that is the best fried shrimp in the area. - fresh, handbreaded - not from Sam's!  It lived up to the hype!  

We shared this - the fried shrimp is buried under all that!

In the meantime, I re-organized my recipe album and did some reading.  I shopped one day and discovered a family owned supermarket (Rouses) that I liked that had a lot of Cajun specialty foods and King cakes!  I visited an artists gallery that houses about 50 local artists' works, Prosperous Pelican, and then enjoyed a little variety store called Al's 5 & 10 - it reminded me of the old TG&Y variety store I grew up with in OK.  

Another fun thing about the Gulf Coast in winter is that they are getting ready for Mardi Gras! 
I got this mini raspberry filled King Cake at Rouse's Market.  
 

See ya another time, Orange Beach!

I love this new tradition we've started - if you're an emptynester what kind of getaways do you do?

P.S.  I always like to find fun places to eat or see along our route and this time on the way home we stopped in Baton Rouge.  We ate lunch at Elsie's Plate and Pie.  It was pretty delicious, too!  

WINTER BLUES PARTY...

 Here we are again in the dead of winter with more weeks of cold ahead of us than behind us!  I don't know about you, but this time of year is a bit of a struggle for me.  Too many gloomy or cold days and I find myself dragging.  Thankfully, I've been distracted because it was my turn to host a monthly event with my Heartfelt group!  It gave me the motivation to get all Christmas decorations put away and my home ready to entertain again!

 I decided on a WINTER BLUES theme, making it a positive thing with blue and snowflake decor!  I already had a lot of blue things so that helped. I requested that the guests wear blue to the party and be prepared to share a tip with everyone on what helps them avoid the winter blues.  We had comfort food (chicken pot pie, roasted sweet potatoes, salad and apple crisp with ice cream.  We had a craft as well, snowflake mason jar vases.  We had so much fun, even though the temperature was 20 degrees outside. 

 

A fun sign for winter!

Group photo

Making snowflake mason jar vases!

My dishes have a blue stripe and I already had the light denim placemats, in addition to the navy napkins.  I also have several pieces of blue glass from my mother.  

I gathered natural branches to put in my vases and they do look like winter!

I found the snowflake runner, confetti and decorations 

on clearance at Party City!

 

I found two snowman dishes at the local thrift store!  

They were perfect to hold molded snowflake candies!

I think next winter I will hold another WINTER BLUES party now that I have all the cute things!  

LEARNING TO LOVE THE BIBLE...

Before 2021,  I was a Christian that knew a good amount of Bible and biblical concepts, having been raised in church.  Our family went 3 times a week; basically whenever the doors were open.  I was baptized for the remission of sins at age 14 and I loved growing up in the youth group and the many other families and mentors that surrounded me.  I went to a Christian college and took required Bible courses.  I married a Christian, with the good encouragement from my parents in my formative years.  Thankfully we've been together 38 years.  Even though there have been ups and downs, church was a big part of our shared life and has been a way to be in community with other Christians and serve all these years.  BUT I still felt inadequate about how to study the Bible, and when questions were asked in Bible class, I felt intimidated by others' knowledge.  For many years I focused on reading the children's Bible, with all the basic stories, to my kids at bedtime.  My faith was on auto-pilot.  I did do a small group Bible study for about 10 years that met during the school year, that was an intensive look at one book of the Bible each year, and learned a lot.  But I wouldn't say that I loved it.  

Last year a friend mentioned The Bible Recap to me, and then I saw an invite on Facebook to join a private group doing the The Bible Recap, and I joined in with them. The daily reading + podcast was a game changer for me in a lot of ways.  I have learned to LOVE the Bible!  I couldn't wait to see what the reading would be and what I might learn about God each morning!  And, I completed reading the Bible through in a year, like I've always wanted to do. I loved that each morning the host asks, "What was your God shot today?" Meaning, what did you learn about God?  I realized that for many, many years, I have looked at scripture as a self-improvement book and was looking for what the words meant to my life, instead of desiring to learn more about the Creator of our world! New perspective, that's what was the game changer.  Along with a great help in the daily habit of reading, listening, and checking in on the Facebook group.  

If you feel stuck about Bible study or just want to try something new to add meaning to your life, try The Bible Recap! 

May God bless you in 2022!

CHRISTMAS CRAFTING AND FAVORITE SPOTS IN MY HOME...

 This year we weren't doing Christmas with our kids until January 2, so I was a little slow to get motivated to make things!  I did make a couple of batches of gingerbread cookies and a cookie bowl as well.  I have made these since the kids were small but hadn't done it in a while.  I decided to test my skills again...  Finally on December 23 I got busy with the saw and paint after being inspired by a cute Santa I saw in a store...so here they are!

You shape the gingerbread dough over a foil wrapped bowl and bake.

Cooled and ready to fill with goodies!

I always cut out tiny holes with a cookie cutter before baking so I can thread pretty ribbon through it.

So cute!  I usually fill it with some other goodies as well and wrap it in cellophane paper.

Now on to wood crafting...I had some thin wood and cut it into triangles with DH's help.  He also drilled the holes.

I had fun painting them into Santas!  

No wrapping required

Next, a few of my favorite scenes in my home right now!

The tree, complete with an old wagon, toy car, and teddy bear.

My mantle this year

Entry

My kitchen tree

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

STEPPING STONE CRAFT...

 I thought it was a shame to let our old pool tile go to waste when our pool was being remodeled this summer, so before they took the debris away, I scooped a couple of buckets of it.  I have always wanted to try making a mosaic type stepping stone so here was my chance.  There are lot of tutorials on Pinterest.  I tried this one and this one.  The first turned out the best for me.  For the molds I bought a plastic mold at Hobby Lobby and also got an old piece of Tupperware at a garage sale for $.50 that works great!

my molds

with texture lines

After cleaning up some of the tile pieces with muriatic acid (carefully!) and breaking off bits of the white mortar with pliers, I sorted all the pieces and laid out a few designs. The Hubs helped me mix the sand mortar to the right consistency (pancake dough) and then I quickly set in my broken tiles, piece by piece, tapping the sides to let the air  bubbles out of the cement.  It's always fun to pop out the finished product 2 days later.  Some looked a little rough in the middle so after some experience I made some stepping stones with texture lines to look that way on purpose. 

this one was the one where I put the pieces in upside down before the concrete pour - didn't work so wel

I'm planning on giving them away for Christmas to my family - we have a tradition with homemade gifts!  These cost me less than $20 and were a lot of fun.

FEELING GROUPY...

 Looking for fun and feeling GROUPY!  :)

Sorry, that song popped into my mind just as I started this post!  We've committed to several new things lately, all small groups.  So all of a sudden The Hubs and I have a busy life again!  But we're excited about it.  We had gotten a little lazy with all the Covid precautions.

One group we started is a Q group (small group meeting) with some other families in our Bible class at church.  We have been meeting every Sunday evening at our home and so far, it's been really good.  We've had one dinner together and also had a fun "service" project - decorating a car for our church's Trunk or Treat and passing out candy to the little ones!  We had a lot of fun with a Jonah and the Whale theme.  

The Hubs and I were jellyfish!

Another group that I'm in is a new program for women at church called Heartfelt.  It is a mentoring-type group with several older women (ahem, that would be me) and several younger women.  We meet once a month, in one of the homes, and the older women serve dinner, have a devotional, and teach a skill or do some type of craft with the younger.  In September we met in my home and I showed them how I divide my aloe vera plants and re-pot them.  They all got to take home an aloe vera baby.  In October we made toilet roll pumpkins.  They sound funny but they're really easy and cute!

Toilet paper roll, batting, a fabric napkin,cinnamon sticks, and fake leaves...

What do you think of our pumpkins?

Finally, we started meeting with friends playing games once a month.  This month their kids had come for a visit from TN so we extended the invite to any of our kids that could come.  It feels good to have some fun things to do and look forward to...even though I'm an introvert.  I need organized things like this to get me out and have some things to do!  

Playing Fish bowl with long-time friends

How about you?  Have you returned to activities?  Do you like structured times of activity with others or are you more of a spur-of-the-moment kind of person?  I'm sure there's an Enneagram number for this but I'm not into all that.  :)