In The Refiner's Fire

It's a busy week heading into the last little bit a Advent for us.  The kids have their last week of school before break this week, we had the Church Christmas Program and the Fall Piano Recital this Sunday already and we have the school Christmas Concert this week too.  Whew!   John has a final to finish and I have grading coming out of my ears that needs to be done ASAP.   With my folks coming we also have some deeper than normal house cleaning to do and we need to bring 4-dozen bars or cookies to the concert this week. I'm trying to keep it simple - some days that works better than others! Here's my goals list for the week: Work: * Grading * Proposal School: * Email Advisor again * Proposal (final draft) Jazzercise: * Teach two classes * Learn two new routines * Review new routines DVD Family: * Piano Recital * Piano Lessons * Pick up my parents from the Airport * School Christmas Program * Dance Lessons * Swimming Lessons * Attend a play fol

I've been trying some new recipes - yum!  So many good recipes out there!   I'm so glad that I have so many options for wonderful food for my family and the opportunity to find recipes for us to try and enjoy (or eliminate depending on the recipe!). We have company coming for a whole month starting on Wednesday this week and we are SO excited.  My parents are braving the cold and joining us for Christmas, New Year's and John's 40th Birthday.  I can't believe John is turning 40 - and just around the corner too!  We're hoping his parents can come visit for that too. We'll see.  Anyway, we did some stock up shopping this last week and a quick run to Sam's Club the week before to get some things that we were low on - spices for Christmas baking, bread flour, canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and a few other things.  We stayed within out budget and were very happy with the holiday grocery deals the last few weeks.  I picked up a turkey for 59-cen

We have been soooo busy these last few weeks and doctor appointments for John added to the mix just made things more chaotic.   We are diligently trying to celebrate Advent here and my photos are carefully ensconced on my iPod.  So, sorry, no photos with this post!  Hope to have some up later this week! Here are some of my favorite little things this last week or two:   Celebrating St. Nicholas Day.   The Advent wreath.   Our fun fabric Nativity (a wedding gift from friends of my parents).   The children playing Christmas carols on the piano.   Cookies!!!!  YUM! Starting to wrap the gifts.   Decorating the china hutch and the kitchen shelf.   Getting ready for company.   Finishing up the semester - for John and I.   Making Christmas gifts.   Hot Cocoa.   Marshmallows.   Hot Tea.   Hot Coffee.   Trying new recipes.   Christmas lights! (One of our neighbors has the best display this year!)   Seeing friends while running

I'm hoping to get back to more regular posting about our little life in here in frozen Minnesota (our high yesterday was a balmy +3F - Brrrr!).  We'll see how that goes because we always know that something will come up!  That's the plan anyway.  Thanks so much for sticking with me! So we'll start by sharing frugality!  Here are the things that we did this last week that were frugal: * We watched a Christmas movie on Netflix with the children. * I used the turkey carcass I brought home from Thanksgiving dinner at our friends' house to make Turkey Noodle Soup.  We ate some for dinner one night, took some for lunch at work and froze the rest for later use. * I worked from home several days either to avoid paying for childcare or to avoid driving on our super-icky roads this week (rain-snow mix anyone? no thank you). * I mended a pair of pants, three camisoles, a pair of pajamas and I took in the waist on a pair of snow pants. * John returned a four sets of