Naughty or Nice

We had our YW in Excellence event this week. We presented these cards to each of the YW to congratulate them for all of their hard work this year. I scanned the cover of a personal progress book, edited out the YW medallion picture that was in the middle, printed the cards, and then attached a YW chocolate coin to each card. They worked out pretty nice.

Good Mail from Elizabeth (nice)!

Good mail from Lisa (nice)!

Good birthday mail from Kristi (28 yards of nice)!

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And today I had a creative Thursday with my friend, Angela (nice). She made her Christmas cards and I made my Secret Santa gift for work. I drew the name of the nicest woman. She's so sincere and caring and devoted (nice) but she has the wildest college stories I've ever heard (naughty). I knew just what I wanted to give her: some of my favorite Christmas wrap.

But a tube of wrapping paper didn't seem like much of a gift,

So I pulled out my Cricut and used up a bit of an already opened package of wrap to make a dozen coordinating gift tags to go with her wrapping paper. (blurry, but nice)

And then I made her a card. The inside says: To a girl who is BOTH! Love, your Secret Santa. (I made the envelope from wrapping paper with my Cricut. I love that machine!)

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Christmas Chocolates

On the weekend I travelled to my parent's place and dipped chocolates with my mom and my sister. We had so much fun working and chatting together. Marie provided the Christmas music to put us in the spirit and vetoed my dad's movie choice of an old Clint Eastwood flick on Saturday afternoon. I think this weekend may have been the first time I've dipped chocolates with my side of the family in more than 15 years! I've kept up the tradition of making chocolates, but I've done it with Ken's mom and sister and sister-in-law.

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While I was dipping with my mom on Friday we had some adjustments to make so that we could work together. I use something different to keep my hands from getting sticky when I roll fondant, and I like my chocolates smaller than hers, and I use pecans instead of peanuts. At one point she exclaimed, "You just don't do anything the same as us anymore!"

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My traditional chocolate dipping sweatshirt - a Christmas gift from my parents 19 years ago (Cutie-Pie).

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It took 10 large pizza boxes to transport all of my chocolates home on Saturday night - a brilliant idea I got from Ken's sister (or was it his mom?). I brought home around 700 chocolates.

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.Carmen offered to pose for a picture of her "stealing" a chocolate. I would love to give someone a whole pizza box of chocolates! I'm going to make more chocolates in a couple of weeks, and I'm toying with the idea of getting some small pizza boxes to fill up for the staff rooms at my office, Ken's office, and the kids' school.

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This is the size of chocolates box I use now. We give them to teachers, neighbors, and friends. I have 30 boxes this size ready to give away when December comes, leaving maybe 100 chocolates for my family to just eat - and they'll be gone fast!

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SPT: Advance Christmas Preparations

We are in full swing with Christmas preparations around here. I normally have a rule against starting this early, but we are working on a few homemade gifts and that takes time!

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. Yesterday the kids helped me make some Christmas presents, and Chloe posed with a finished project, but it is Top Secret, so I can't share.

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.Thanks to all the creative bloggers inspiring me to improve on last year's Walmart photocard, I crafted my Christmas cards this year. Again, the homemade aspect motivated me to start early. The cards are all done, and now they come with me everywhere I go in this orange box so that I can write a note in each of them and send them off!

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I always make fondant in November. There is no way I would have Christmas chocolates to give my neighbors if I didn't get this project started early.
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I wish you could smell the cream and sugar cooking together, delightful!

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I don' t use a candy thermometer, I just do the softball method, submersing a spoonful of fondant in ice water to see if it's done.

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.The big bonus to this method of regulating my candy cooking is tasting the spoonful after it's cooled!
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Once the whole batch has had time to cool I have to beat it until it 'turns'.

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All done and ready to flavor. Phew! Now all I have to do is dip the chocolates.

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Sunrise, sunset

I'm not sure how much longer this will last! For years now we have eaten our winter dinners by candlelight. The kids have loved it, and with daylight savings this past week it has been dark enough for candlelight family dinners again.

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Chloe was the one who remembered the tradition and got the candles out.

Carmen still enjoys the candlelight dinners, but the older two have outgrown them. Now Jaclyn and Steven are being forced to endure a tradition they started for at least one more year, for Chloe's sake.

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The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree

Today was Take Our Kids to Work day for 9th grade across Canada.

Jaclyn is very sure she is not interested in being a dental hygienist, so she went to work with Ken today.
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When asked, Jaclyn and Ken both say their day together was 'good'.
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This is about all the communication I'm getting from either of them.

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Gimme Ten !

That's right, I finally ran an entire 10K yesterday! It almost didn't happen this year. Back in July on a day I was feeling good I set out to run 10K and I did the whole thing with no walking, but I hadn't clocked the route out ahead in my car, so I just ran a route I figured was 10K (I run gadget free, so nothing to tell me my distance while I'm running). When I drove the route I'd ran afterwards it was only 9K, which was pretty defeating that I hadn't accomplished my goal.
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Shortly after that we went on our summer holiday, which meant 2 weeks with no running. And when I got back from my holiday I didn't feel like running, but for months now the fact that I fell 1K short of my goal has been nagging at me. I started up on exercising again in September with the help of my friend Erin. She is the best because she sets goals for herself, and then brings me along for the ride. Like she decided it was time for her to get serious about food storage, and she invited me along to the cannery, and now I'm all stocked up!*

Cannery Self Portrait *

But back to my running: So Erin decided she wanted to go to the gym early in the morning before her children woke up, and she asked me to come with her. I'm glad I said yes to her because I'm not sure I would have exercised regularly this fall without my 6:30am gym date. So all we've been doing is running for 20 mintues, and then walking for 10 minutes, followed by a few weights and sit ups - nothing close to running 10K.

And then yesterday was such a beautiful day. Before I went grocery shopping Ken told me he was going to go for a bike ride because he'd heard it was going to snow, and so Saturday may have been his last chance for a ride this year. That planted the thought with me that Saturday might be my last chance for a long outside run this year, and it was all I could think about while I was at the store. So when I got home I just did it. Working out at the gym with Erin gave me just enough cardio strength, and then my mental toughness got me the distance.

My running style is that I disguise myself with sunglasses and a baseball cap so that no one driving by will recognize me. I keep my hands in a fist with my thumbs tucked inside - I'm not comfortable any other way. I keep my eyes on the ground in front of me with just the occasional glance up to see how far away that next corner or landmark is. I don't have an mp3 player, and I'm not sure I want one. There is something about being alone with my thoughts that I like when I'm running.
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In other fitness news, I'm still swimming. At least half of my adult swim class has dropped out of the lesson, which makes the lesson that much better for me with a smaller group. At my last lesson I learned a new skill: I learned how to do a somersault in the water at the end of a length to turn around and *Just Keep Swimming* in the opposite direction.