Recipe
A friend gave me a little sample with this recipe attached a few years ago. I love making my house smell delicious, like something other than the-trash-needs-to-go-out smell. If you put this on your stove this week, be prepared to pass out the recipe. Everyone goes bonkers for this, even some of the menfolk ask casually, “So, what’s that smell?” (Probably because they just want to eat it…)

Christmas Scent Potpourri

3 – 4 inch. Cinnamon sticks
¼ cup whole cloves
3 bay leaves
½ orange, sliced (optional, in my opinion)
½ lemon, sliced (optional; I use just the rinds)
1 quart of water

Combine ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer. Check often and add water if needed. Mixture may be stored in refrigerator for several days and reused. (Source: Southern Living, December 1984)

This week
With both the adult and children’s Christmas programs behind me, I’ve turned my attention to finishing preparations. I kept a running list of “Things To Do” and a master shopping list, but when I tried to open it this week, Word would only allow me to open it by converting it to Japanese. (I could understand if Word automatically converted Wal-Mart lists into Chinese, but Japanese?!) I sent out a plea to my very own, personal rocket scientist to reprogram my lists, but he could only recover some of them. What good is having a private rocket scientist on staff if he can launch a rocket to Pluto, but then tells you, “Your computer has issues; I dunno…”?

Now, my husband isn’t a stereotypical engineer: unable to relate well, lacking common sense, and unable to succeed with manual, useful work. He even has a descent sense of humor. Just so you know.

Regifting
It is my opinion that regifting is in very poor taste, unless the recipient of the passed-along gift would absolutely adore the thing. But it doesn’t happen often that you receive a purple feathered angel statue, and you just happen to know an angel collector whose favorite color is purple. So it is with great hesitancy this year that I endeavor to gift my loved ones with offerings that cannot be returned or passed along:

blanketCaleb

Unless you have friends with the same name or initials, you’re stuck. The onesie is for my cyber-friend, whom I met on MOMYS. (Mothers Of Many Young Siblings—to “qualify,” you must have had 4 children within 8 years. With my fifth coming while my oldest is 7, I feel like such an overachiever. :eek_wp: ) She delivered her fifth child this month: a 10 pound, 12 ounce boy. Wow.

Honorable Mention
It is often that I’ll be chatting along with a friend, and she’ll ask me about something that I’ve already mentioned on this site. To which I’ll exclaim, “Don’t you read my blog?!” Then my shamefully unfaithful friend will beat around the bush, mumbling something about being busy.

But not my father-in-law. He reads my blog. So much so, that when I described my trials last week, he offered to bring a ham and all the trimmings for our gathering this Friday night. I am loved. Friends, blogging pays off sometimes.

If that wasn’t enough, my daughter asked for her birthday dinner party tonight for the terribly difficult menu of pepperoni pizza from Papa John’s. I told all the guests that the menu was now streamlined, due to the wishes of the Birthday Girl. It’s definitely not that I’m tired, lazy, or overworked. Nope. Praise God for little girls who adore take-out pizza.