Catch up

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas/Holiday!  This year feels like it just flew by, and it's hard to believe that the holidays are over!  It's been a while since I posted.  Last time, I told you guys about the fun little bachelorette trip we took to Austin.  Here are a few snip bits of my life since then.



Went to my friends wedding and had a great time. I'm so very happy for her.  She made a gorgeous bride - and I told her so.  And she comes back with, "Ya, as if you're going to tell a bride she looks bad on her big day."  And of course I came back with, "I was talking about the clothes, not the face."  But in all honesty - as I know she won't be reading this - she looked gorgeous, top to bottom.   The wedding itself was very small and intimate and exactly what she wanted.  She has lot of friends, she does.  But she just wanted it to be her very close friends and family.  It was at this really gorgeous country club.  I do admit to ditching the wedding halfway through to go explore the area.  I also got to meet some of her friends from across the world - she was skyping them while eating dinner.  It was very funny actually.  Picture this:  New husband sitting on your right eating his little heart away, photographer taking pics of you and your husband and scolding you for not paying attention.  A group of friends standing around the table trying to take selfies with you, and you sit there skyping with people.


BY THE WAY.  I helped with decorations.  I'm not completely useless.  This was for the Dholki - dance partay.  We did go a bit crazy.  None of us are actually good at dancing, but we dominated the dance floor.  And none of us are really good at singing, but we sang out hearts out. fun times.





 







While I wasn't at the events or generally being lazy.  I was trying to meet up as many friends as I could during the Holiday season. Got to finally meet up some of my old High School friends.  We try to do a reunion every now and then.  I remember once saying we should do a hang out once a month - for all the people still in town, some friends have actually moved out to different parts of the world - and i remember everyone saying how they were always busy.  I get that everyone is busy - believe me, I do.  But we hang out with our other friends regularly - friends we've made in college and university and at work, we could take a day out of that and meet our old friends.  I like doing that and being in touch with them.  I don't want it to be one of those things, were we see each other in the future and just smile at each other and turn away because it becomes awkward.   But we did meet up - and had a great time just catching up with each other.  PLUS, JUST LOOK AT THE FOOD.  YUM!

















I was sick for a few days, and stayed at home to rest.  But my dear friends couldn't survive that long without bothering me and just showed up at my place.  It was very cool though, we stayed in and watched movies.  I also had a baking day and made some cinnamon almond cake, Mexican wedding cookies, and peppermint hot chocolate.




 Altogether, my holidays were perfect.  I had some time for just myself, time for my friends, and some for my family.  How were your holidays?  Let us know what you did!

Holiday Lunch

'tis the season to be JOLLY *FA LA LA, LA LA LA, LA LA LA*

Where am I being this Jolly?  At my work Holiday Lunch.  Okay - that is a lie.  I am not all that Jolly, but it was still fun. We had our Holiday Lunch on Tuesday for a couple of hours during lunch time and then we were free to go home and enjoy.

My Company went ahead and kept it at a beautiful ballroom of a nearby hotel.  Once we got in, we received a raffle ticket for one of the bigger prizes. *Naturally, I did not win*. After getting some punch, we were seated in the nicely decorated ballroom.  Had an introduction speech and were told to dig in by our beloved CEO.  We all dug in and enjoyed a three course meal.  We had some bread and butter, very delicious pumpkin soup with breading on top and iced tea, a lovely mozzarella stuffed tortilla with rice or steak for the main meal (depending on what you want) and lastly dessert with coffee.  And with that came conversation with the people we were sitting around.  In these events, they like for us to mingle and get to know new people.  So there I sat, me and my anti-social self, sitting next to some random people.  I sent a quick prayer up to God to save me and smiled politely at everyone at the table.   Thankfully, I was spotted by a girl who sits in the cubicle next to me in the office and she joined me at the table.  I let her do most of the talking smiling and nodding here and there.  I added some input on some things.  Mostly, I ate my food.

Once we finished our grand meal (It all looked very grand).  Came the entertainment and the prizes.  We had the directors of two parts of the company come and host the event.  They were really good.  They were making puns and and jokes left and right.  I quite enjoyed their hosting.  We were then greeted by the holiday committee, that put time and effort in getting the entertainment together for the lunch.  They performed a riveting recital of 'twas the night before Christmas (Actually to be honest, it was really funny and very exaggerated, kudos to the performers!  They did a great job in adding a humorous twist to it!).  Once they completed that, the hosts came back up to give away a few prizes *Didn't win any of these either*.

Once again the performers came up and performed a dance to show diversity in our company by performing a few different styles, genres, and language songs.  It was nicely done and seemed like they put a lot of effort into it.   After that, the hosts were back up with other prizes *nope - no winnings for me*

The entertainers were back up with a dance group (I'm sorry, I forgot what the dance group name was)  They were were good, dancing and signing and getting everyone in the holiday spirit! The hosts were back up with more prizes *once again - i didn't win*  They also did a quick trivia game, that was to be done with the table mates *didn't win that either*

And we were then dismissed to go home and enjoy the rest of the day.

It was a very nice holiday lunch.  I really enjoyed myself.  The entertainment was good, the food was good, and the whole atmosphere itself was great.

Thank you for reading.  Please share you Holiday Party stories or please leave a link below to your blog.  I would love to check it out.  Thank you!


PS. I have no idea, why I only took the below pics.  And not of the actual food.  I think once the food came I was just too interested in eating to take pics.  I'm sorry about that. 

my view

ignore my work phone

......................................................

hmm

Black Friday

It is once again that time of year.  After giving our thanks and filling our bellies with yummy food, we run to department stores and stampede over each other to get our hands on that 1 item in the store that is unbelievably cheap for just those short few hours.  BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING *queue the dun dun dun*

I usually don't go for black Friday shopping.  I in general don't really like shopping all that much.  I love dressing nice and fashion and all, but I cant stand to shop.  It hurts my head.  So - I usually avoid black Friday shopping like the plague (that it can be).  My sister and mom however, they are fanatics.  My sister is no longer living with us - she is in a different city, a different time.  So of course - she couldn't go alone, and there is only one other girl in the house who would be patient enough to with her - 'tis I.

We got to JC Penny around 5:00pm (ON THURSDAY...?)  and the doors opened *DUN DUN DUN*.  There were some very nice employees standing around the doors and handing out 10 dollar coupons.  My mom and I ran to the cooking appliances and got whatever my mom needed in around 5 minutes - and then we proceeded to stand in line for an hour.  Fights broke out among other shoppers, check out machines decided they needed a break on this day and broke down, employees had melt downs, and I stood there watching it all go down.  It was an experience, a traumatic one.  The guy in front of me and my mom was standing in line with one pair of jeans and his coupon - that was all.  He saw a lady cut in the front of the line (who had a few items) and he went mad.  He began yelling, saying that, this wasn't fair that he was standing in line for so long, with just one thing to purchase and he had to wait, while other people were cutting and the employees were doing nothing.  Now,  it is not nice to cut in line PEOPLE.  Not nice at all.  BUT at the same time, it is not nice to yell at the poor employees, who have to work during the most busiest and traumatic times of the year.  These people had to leave their families, and their lovely dinner to come work.  (Anyone here worked during black Friday hours? - if so, please leave your traumatic stories below!)

After finally getting to the check out - I started talking to the lady checking us out, and allowed her to vent her frustrations out on me, while she rang us up. I thought it was only fair - poor thing was going through awful things.  After checking out, I ran to my car and took a deep breath  - and my mom said - on to Macy's now...GREAT.

Macy's however was not as crazy - don't get me wrong, there were LOADS of people there.  But, I think they had many more employees.  Things were moving faster.  I still stood in line for about 40 minutes.  But didn't witness any fights!

In all this - I actually purchased nothing for myself.  Just for the household.  *sigh*  I'll live, and shop another day.

How was your black Friday experience? 

Sweet tooth

Guess whose back with a few sweet treats?

Cookies

Chocolate covered strawberries

I had some left over chocolate (milk chocolate Hershey's and some dark chocolate Dove bars), that I put in the oven and melted for a few minutes. While the chocolate was melting, I crushed up almonds very finely. Once the chocolate was ready - I put both the milk chocolate and dark chocolate together and mixed it up once it was melted - I just rolled in the strawberries and coated with the crushed almonds.  It was absolutely Delish!

The cookies, I cheated on -  I had the Pillsbury dough, and just baked that for about 12 minutes.

But overall, it was a good snack while watching the basketball game! GO ROCKETS! :)

Cinnamon Cake Recipe

Yes - I've added effects to make it look cooler

The other day, I was just sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. I was getting kind of bored, so I walked up to my freezer and pulled out an Oreo Sandwich Ice Cream. 

Just to have something to do! 

Now, I've been trying to be on a diet for the past few weeks.  I'm not changing up much of what I eat.  But I am trying my best to stay away from junk food - because that's where my weakness is.  So I controlled myself, put the ice cream up and walked away.  I started walking around in the kitchen thinking of all the things I could do to occupy my time.  I finally got it - why not bake a cake?  And I know, I'm trying to stay away from junk food, so why bake a cake?  Well, my dad had been asking me to bake a cake for the past two weeks, but I was too lazy to.  But I knew this was the perfect opportunity.  It would take up some of my time and I'll bake that cake my dad wanted.

So I present to you, my recipe for cinnamon cake.  It was pretty good and is pretty simple if you have all the ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1  (1/2) cups all purpose flour
• 1  (1/2) tsp baking powder
• (1/2) cup milk
• (1/2) cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla/chocolate extract (I used chocolate)
• 2 tsp cinnamon powder

Directions:

1.  Combine and swift through the dry ingredients (flour and baking powder).
2.  In another bowl take your room temperature butter and sugar and cream together.  Once that has been done, beat in your eggs. Mix well.  Add in the extract of your choice (As mentioned, I used chocolate, because I like how the cake color turned out - a light brown).
3.  Combine the dry ingredients with the mixture you made above. 
4.  Add in the half cup of milk.  Mix it all well.
5.  Add in cinnamon powder and mix.
6. *I sprinkled a bit more of cinnamon powder on top before putting it in the oven, because ya know - why not?*
7.  Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.  Monitor on your own as well. 

Frosting?  Nope - I'm on a diet remember!  But for an extra kick, add some ice cream on top - while the cake is still hot.  YUM!

Let me know if anyone tries this out, and how they like it.