Coffee, tea or hot chocolate, anyone?

A few months ago, my husband and I spent the night in a cute little bed and breakfast in Jefferson, TX.  Early the next morning he asked me to go down and get him a cup of coffee while he dressed.  On the buffet in the diningroom was this amazing coffee brewer with a little carousel of assorted coffees in tiny containers.  All I had to do was pick one out, put it in the receptacle and it magically brewed this steaming hot cup of coffee!

Weeks later I was still thinking about that beautiful, sleek-looking coffee brewer.  I even looked it up online and discovered that it brews different sizes of cups, is available in red, and has two different types of carousels to hold all the little coffees.  I thought about how cute it would look on my counter top and how much fun it would be to twirl that little carousel and look at all those different little K-cups. I could name it Katie (that's what I would have named my third daughter if I'd had one), but no, Katie Keurig sounded too much like Katie Couric and I'm too much of a political conservative to be reminded of her each day.  Beginning to sound like an obsesssion?.

I think so.  Because you see, the problem with all this is I DON'T DRINK COFFEE!!!  Now I tried to justify this obsession with the fact that it also brews tea and hot chocolate.  But, I don't drink hot tea and I only drink lowfat, sugar-free hot chocolate which isn't available in the K-cups. I did think about how much my husband would enjoy having me fix it for him.  But really, he only drinks coffee on Saturday and Sunday mornings and downs a whole pitcher in about 30 minutes.  Oh, and did I also mention that I'm extremely practical and even on vacaction I only buy gifts for myself that are functional?  Hence, my big collection of cookbooks, my rolling pin from Silver Dollar City (who buys a rolling pin when everyone else on the trip is buying jewelry?), and a jar of molasses from some little town in Tennessee. 

So, how, oh, how was I going to justify spending a great deal of money on a beautiful, sleek, shiny, black, magical coffee maker that was obviously calling my name?  Well.........I didn't have to! Because my son-in-law's sweet, sweet mother heard about my ridiculous obsession and understood the need in my life to own something that was completely impractical.  So when she showed up at my door on Thanksgiving with this big, exquisitely wrapped box, my joy was complete!  I now have this ...........

 sitting on my countertop!  Isn't it beautiful?  Then I had to go out and buy this..........

so it wouldn't be lonely!

And now of course, the only way my practical side will ever relax and let me enjoy this thing is by frequent use.  So don't be surprised when you walk in my door and the first words out of my mouth are..."Can I fix you a cup of nice, hot coffee, tea or hot chocolate?" 
Thanks again, sweet Gina, for understanding!

Christmas Giveaway Winner!

And the winner is............................

Leslie!  Congratulations and look for it in the mail later this week!  I hope Makenzie likes it!

Christmas Giveaway!

To celebrate my favorite month of the year.........
 I'm having a Christmas giveaway this week!  You can win a cute little personalized "I Spy" bag  just like the one pictured below.  It contains at least 30 items hidden in the plastic beads. It's a great toy for church, doctor's office  visits or long car rides.  Older children can read and find the items alone, while younger ones can enjoy some quality time with a parent or grandparent.
To win, just leave me a comment telling me who you'd like to give it to. You can leave a comment on this post, email me at msandlin@prodigy.net or leave a comment on my FB wall. (If you have trouble leaving a post here, just sign in as "anonymous" and leave your name in the post.)  One entry per person, please.
The giveaway is open until midnight Friday night, CST and a winner will be randomly chosen and posted on Saturday.
Merry Christmas and good luck!

What?!! You want to give what for Christmas?!!!

This year. those on my Christmas list will be receiving homemade vanilla extract. At least, those are my plans.
I got the idea over at heavenlyhomemakers.com Laura gives a step-by-step tutorial and it seemed simple enough, so I thought I'd give it a try. There are only two ingredients: vodka and vanilla beans.

Since my husband and I don't drink alcohol and don't want to give others the impression that we do, I had to give some serious consideration as to how I was going to acquire a gallon of vodka ( Yes, you read this correctly, a GALLON of vodka). Fortunately, our little town doesn't have any liquor stores (makes for a nice community), but the next little town has a lot of them and I considered driving over there and purchasing some. But, unfortunately, I did teach in that town for a year and it would be just my luck that some little boy or girl would be driving by about then and think, "Wasn't that my second grade teacher coming out of that liquor store with a brown paper bag?" Let's see, those kids would be about 14 years old now and very impressionable.

So....on to my next idea. I was getting ready to take a trip to Oklahoma to visit my sister and decided to ask someone in her family to get the vodka for me. (Most of them drink and know that I don't approve of it, so I did feel a little like a hypocrite asking for their help.) Anyway, that didn't stop me though, and when my grown nephew walked through the livingroom, I called him over and said, "Kelly, do you still drink?" He stammered a little and said, "Well, once in a while, but, but, not like I used to." I could just see him thinking, "Uh-oh, here goes another of her little sermons," so you can just imagine the look on his face when I asked him if he'd mind going and purchasing a GALLON of vodka for me!

Did you know that you can buy vodka in plastic bottles? That was a relief! Because my second concern was that once I had the vodka, I might have a car accident, the bottles would break, and the newspaper report would show that I had open containers in my car! Anyway, despite all these obstacles and a very stressful drive back, I arrived safely with my vodka, ordered some wonderful smelling vanilla beans off the internet and set about making the vanilla.

It's now been in the jar for a month and once a week, I shake it, open it, and take a big sniff.

It's really beginning to smell more like vanilla and less like alcohol! I think it's going to work!!!

Now, on to the next problem.........where do I get little glass bottles suitable for gift giving? Do I order a case over the internet? Does that look suspicious? Will they think I'm making something illegal in my home distillery ...I mean, my glass jar? Next year, I'm giving monogrammed towel sets. That's a lot less stressful!