Weekend Recap

Well, let's see. We had such a busy weekend! We had guests all weekend, which I love. My Dad, my bonus-mom Peggy, and my Dad's cousin Carol all stayed at my house Friday night. Unfortunately, Carol had to leave Saturday morning - she missed out on all of the cooking we did Saturday night.

But before I get to the cooking we did, let me tell you about Bailey. She's been wanting me to blog about this ever since it happened. On Saturday afternoon she competed in the Academic UIL meet for the local middle schools. She had never done this before, so we weren't real sure what to expect. Basically, students go and take tests on various subjects (whichever ones they choose to be a part of) and are competing against kids from other schools. The subjects were things like math, spelling, reading, comprehension, science, etc. Bailey chose to only participate in science.

She ended up getting 3rd place! She was so pleased!

And I'm sure you can't tell, but her father was quite pleased as well.

I think this now means that she will participate in a district wide event later on this school year. We'll see.

Now for the cooking. I made some bread this weekend. Yum!

Actually I make this bread every weekend these days. I freeze the loaves and then pull them out as we need them. It took quite a lot of convincing from bonus-mom Peggy and my mom to get me to finally understand that you can freeze bread. I can be a bit stubborn sometimes. Don't tell anyone.

The other cooking Peggy and I did was to make some recipes from The Pioneer Woman's new cookbook. We made her cheese grits, the prune cake (I'm not getting the right name of it here) and her homemade ranch dressing. Everything was great! Peggy made her yummy bread-crumb covered chicken to go with this. We feasted like kings. I have some pictures that I took of the various food items we made, but since my camera is old and not that good (hint, hint - Rominal, are you listening?) the pictures didn't turn out.

I'm sure it's the camera and not the photographer that is to blame, right?

Sunday night was a special night. Every year Dillards has a special "invitation only" shopping party after hours. Somehow, I get invited every year. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my shopping habits. It's become a tradition for Mom, my friend Donna and me to go. We look forward to this each year.

We go in with a plan - I first hit the men's department and quickly pick out stuff for Rominal. Then I take the stuff (can't be more descriptive than that because he might be reading this. Hi Rominal!) over to the free gift-wrap area and drop it off. I have to do this quickly because as the night goes on the gift-wrapping people get overwhelmed and at some point they tell you that you have to come back the next day to pick up your gift-wrapped items. That's another trip out for me and that is just not going to happen.

Besides free gift-wrapping, they have snacks and goodies throughout the store - so if you missed dinner like I did this year, you can make up for it by eating small bites of cheesecake and chocolate covered strawberries. Dairy, fruit and chocolate - all of the food groups - so I'm covered.

The best thing at this shopping party the raffles. Several year ago, Mom won the grand prize which was a Coach purse, wallet, key chain, sunglasses and case. Luckily for me, the purse didn't quite work for her and I am currently using the purse. Last year my friend Donna won a prize which was a basket of pajamas and socks - all fun stuff.

Honestly, it only bugged me slightly that my guests keep winning things, but not me. Even though I'm the one with the actual invite to this special event not them. But I'm not a bitter person. Really I'm not.

This year Mom and I (Donna couldn't make it this year - I did invite her, even though she'd probably just go and win something again) were both lucky enough to win something! Mom won a $100 gift certificate for shoes and I won some coffee mugs, coffee and a blanket with sleeves. More about this blanket in a minute.

My brother Eddie needed some coffee mugs, so he was able to use them as well as the lose coffee that came with it.

The other thing that was included was 2 Senseo 10-packs of coffee. I don't have this kind of machine. So, if anyone is still reading this incredibly long post - and you have a Senseo machine - let me know. I'm not saying that I'll do anything about it, but just let me know. Hee hee.

Now, back to the blanket with sleeves. You know the ones I'm talking about - their commercials are everywhere. Rominal just laughs every time the commercial comes on. He just doesn't understand what the big deal is. Well, in the basket that I won, there was one of these blankets - not the same brand as in all of the commercials, but I would say a nicer version of it. I got it out last night and OH MY GOD! I get it. I totally get it. I was instantly warm and within two seconds I had a cat on my lap that would not move. Rominal just shook his head and laughed at me. He still hasn't tried it yet and I don't know if I'm going to let him because then he'd fight me for it. And I'm willing to fight for it.

So, that's my very long weekend recap. If you have made it this far then thank you very much for hanging in there with me. I hope you had a nice weekend too!