I wish I had a smaller head..........

as wouldn't it be fun to wear one of these.......

 Picked up these for the girls for Christmas.....

 Got them from North of Nine Designs.

They are just so pretty, and I know the girls will just love them!!

Bat Out Of Hell

So excited, just bought tickets to see the show:

(image credit)

Haven't been to the theatre in a few years.  We're not going until December, can't wait........

Along with snow tires for the car, this is our Christmas present to one another!!

Anyone else seen this show?

Getting back to normal........

little by little.

After blowing out the driveway on Thursday I set about putting away some of the Christmas decorations.  I now only have the tree up and the cards up.  I hope to take the tree down this weekend and I'll leave the cards up until the 12th night.  I enjoy having all the Christmas things in the house, but like to have the house back to normal right after Christmas.

We got this from dd best friend "K" for Christmas.

Inside was this; a lovely Crabtree and Evelyn gift set for Gardeners Hands.  I told dh he could use the case as a new lunch box, he said he would pass!!  I am going to use it to store some sewing supplies in.

I saw this great idea over at Cindy's blog.  If you dry out your potato peelings for 24 to 48 hours, you can put them on your fire to help clean off the creosote and build up on your chimney.  So on Christmas Eve this was what was sitting on the hearth:

You still have to clean your chimney, but thought this would help.  The peelings burn at a high heat when dry.

Took a photo of across the way on Thursday afternoon.  Winter bloody Wonderland, for those who don't have to shovel!!!

Yep, I still hate Winter!

A funny, car, Christmas and youtube video

I wonder how many people have actually done this?

Wednesday I was out in the roads by 8 am; wished I had stayed home though, as the roads were treacherous with black ice.  I had to go to the garage however, as my low tire pressure indicator light had come on.  Turns out I had a nail in one of my tires.  Cost to me ZERO!!!!  Turns out I have tire guard on my tires, which means I can get repairs done for free, and if they can't repair my tire they will replace it for free.  It comes with the purchase of the car and lasts for 60,000 km or three years.  In my case it will be three years, as I have a grand total of 9,000 km's on my car.  I had no idea about this prior to this visit, so Merry Christmas to me I think!!!

Started to wrap presents on Wednesday afternoon, so now the living room looks as though a bomb has dropped in there!!  I am having a good clean out of the wrapping paper bag, as it's like the bottomless pit in the bag.

I have had an "incident" regarding a Christmas card or lack of in Britain, and truth be told, this may be the last year I am sending anyone Christmas cards, as I am fed up of the whole thing.  My brother doesn't send cards, he donates to a charity instead, and I think I may go that route myself in future........... :0(  

This is a very beautiful rendition of "O Come All Ye Faithful,"

Lots of links for everyone in today's post.....

On Sunday I decided to take advantage of it being cheap hydro/electric rates all day and do some cooking.  I needed to do something with the nearly 8 lbs of ground/minced beef I bought on Friday, so thought I'd make some Yorkshire Cornish Pasties.  Cornish Pasties are made with stewing steak, Yorkshire Cornish Pasties are made with ground/minced beef.

Here is the recipe:

Yorkshire Cornish Pasties

8 oz Shortcrust Pastry
8 oz Minced/ground beef
8 oz chopped/diced potato, onion and carrot
1 tsp salt/pepper mix (recipe to follow)

Combine filling ingredients.  Roll out pastry and cut into 6 or 8 inch rounds.  Place filling down the centre of the pastry and dampen the edges with water and bring sides to centre  and pinch together, with fingers and thumb (see photo).  Brush with beaten egg and place on a greased baking tray and bake in a moderately hot oven 400 oF or 200 oC for around 40 minutes.  Lowering the heat if browning too much.  ***The Recipe is a Keeper!!***

Dorothy Sleightholme's Salt and Pepper Mix: For seasoning, mix 3 teaspoons of salt to 1 teaspoon of ground pepper.  Mix well together and keep in screw-top or sprinkler top jar.

I doubled the recipe and I made 9 pasties using a 5 1/2 inch saucer to cut out the pastry circles.  I had a bit of filling left over which I put in a Ziploc bag and froze for another day.  The recipe is from a book I have had for donkey's years called "The Complete Farmhouse Kitchen Cook Book," from Yorkshire Television.  There was a television programme that went along with this book, I found a You Tube Clip here.

I had a little pastry left over so I made some jam tarts in a mini cupcake pan

We had some warm for lunch and then again for supper, with mashed potatoes, gravy and broccoli.  The last three I popped into the freezer for another meal.

Also made a batch of choc-chip cookies for dh and at the bottom of the photo is the jam tarts I made.

One of my new to me kitchen finds which I love are these cutting boards.  They are very thin and very flexible and have pictures on them so you can use them just for veggies, meat or fish.  I got them from here and I picked up three sets, as I am giving a set each to two people for Christmas!! (The one on the top is dirty, as I was using it!)

At the end of my cooking session, I had seven 12oz bags of browned and drained ground/minced beef and onions all ready to go in the freezer.  Two more meals of pasties for the freezer; a batch of meat pasta sauce which will do two meals. I thought of having part of the sauce with pasta and the rest use to make some calzones using this recipe.  I have never made them before?  I cooked enough potatoes on Sunday night to put another meals worth in the freezer as well.

I posted a book review on the book, "A Year of Biblical Womanhood," by Rachel Held Evans here if you are interested.

There are a lot of links in today's post isn't there?

Make sure you have six and a half minutes to spare.....

as I have got the most fantastic video for you to watch.  I saw this over at Caroline's blog and couldn't believe how graceful a horse could be.  I normally have no interest in horses, but this was marvelous.




Caroline was saying that unfortunately Blue Hors Matine' had to be put down earlier this year when she broke her leg while in her paddock, what an awful shame.

This is a beautiful song, Celine Dion "Oh Holy Night."

I was in town on Friday night and I bought Molly and dd two cats their Christmas presents.  I bought Molly a stuffed rabbit, to go with the her squirrel and hedgehog.  I am going to wrap it up and she can "open" it on Christmas morning!!