Hello 2017…it’s nice to meet you! It will probably take me half a month to write 17 instead of 16 on the millions of things that I have to date on a daily basis at work.Anybody else struggle with this? For me…the struggle is real!

I am not sure where December went but it sure did fly by. I guess I was just so caught up in getting things done that I didn’t realize that I had not taken the time to blog…not even ONCE! Oh the shame! But that changes today. We have a lot to catch up on!

My Mom turned 80 in December! My Sister and I put together a surprise party for her and she was REALLY surprised! YAY! We pulled it off! I love you Mom!

The birthday party was the Sunday before Christmas which is a pretty busy time of year for everyone, but my Nephew and his family were able to make the hour and a half drive up from Montgomery, and my Niece was able to wrangle a little time off from her studies/work/interning to come and show a little love too! My daughter and her family were there and a couple of friends from Mom’s work showed up too. I think it was a good day!

Next came Christmas! I actually had all the presents wrapped and under the tree before midnight on Christmas Eve….go me!!! I am usually up well after midnight wrapping like a mad woman. Not this time and it felt great! My goal for next year is to have everything wrapped the WEEK before Christmas…I should probably start NOW!

I decided not to do stockings this year because I saw a cool game on Facebook and wanted to give it a try instead. And it was a success! It was the Saran Ball with prizes in it. I used little Christmasy things and candy and half dollars inside the ball. I used a whole roll(200 sq. ft.) of Saran and just wrapped and wrapped and wrapped. Here is what it looked like when finished.

As you can see….it was a pretty good size! I would say  it was about the size of a large cantaloupe! The antlers were my idea…I thought it would just add to it if they had to concentrate on changing antlers too!

I did figure out for next time that the outside of the ball needs to be in shorter pieces because they did figure out that you could grab the end and just unroll the ball. I can’t wait to do this again next year!!! Baahaaahaaaa!!!!

And last but not least…this is what happens on New Years when a Northern Lady marries a Southern Gent and they are both “Foodies”.

In Indiana we always had Corned Beef and Cabbage for New Years day. In the South they have black eyed peas, greens, pork and cornbread. So…we have it all! Corned beef and cabbage is supposed to be symbolic of the fortune you deserve in the coming new year. Cabbage is representative of money. In the South….black eyed peas are symbolic of good fortune. Pork represents health and wealth and prosperity. Greens are the color of money and we could all use a little more of that! And well…..cornbread just goes with it all!!!

Happy New Year my friends!!! May you all be happy, healthy and prosperous in 2017!