Add This to My List of Favorite Songs

I don’t know how long this song has been out there, but I heard it for the first time yesterday on Slacker. Kind of one of those “right song at the right time” kind of things. The song is beautiful and so are the words.

What Faith Can Do
by Kutless

Everybody falls sometimes
Gotta find the strength to rise
From the ashes and make a new beginning
Anyone can feel the ache
You think it’s more than you can take
But you are stronger, stronger than you know
Don’t you give up now
The sun will soon be shining
You gotta face the clouds
To find the silver lining

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard
Impossible is not a word
It’s just a reason for someone not to try
Everybody’s scared to death
When they decide to take that step
Out on the water
It’ll be alright
Life is so much more
Than what your eyes are seeing
You will find your way
If you keep believing

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

Overcome the odds
You don't have a chance
(That’s what faith can do)
When the world says you can’t
It’ll tell you that you can!

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do
That's what faith can do!
Even if you fall sometimes

You will have the strength to rise

Ban

I think I'm going to petition the networks to ban all Zales, Kay, or any other jewelry retailer who has a sugary sweet Christmas commercial with some over the top wonderful guy giving some girl a piece of jewelry. Can't handle it right now and I can't afford to replace my TV when I succumb to the knee-jerk reaction to throw something at it.

What Was I THINKING?!?

That pretty much sums it up. My first Etsy sugar cookie order was a learning experience (that’s the nice way to put it).

First, how long does it take to make, decorate, and individually wrap 84 red Volkswagen sugar cookies with flames on the back? Answer: 20 hours approximately (maybe a little more).

I mixed the dough up Friday night, and then got up early Saturday morning to starting working on them. Naïve me thinking “oh, I’ll get these done early so I can do some house cleaning this evening.” Uhhh, didn’t happen. I started at 7:30 a.m. and finished decorating them at 9 p.m. I did take two short 15 minute breaks and had to get up and move a few times during the day, but I basically spent the entire day making cookies. And other than a small bowl of cereal and a handful of pretzels, I didn’t eat either. By 9 p.m., this is how things were looking:

My kitchen at 9 p.m.

This is how much space 84 cookies (actually there are 97 I think) take up on my kitchen table.

Almost finished product. Those look like flames right? Say "yes".

You would think from there I would have gone to bed. I WISH!!! I was having my bible class over for dinner the next evening, so I did some house cleaning while the icing set up. At midnight, I was putting cookies in little plastic sacks and tying them with a bow. Bedtime came at 1 a.m. I SOOOO didn’t charge her enough.

Fast forward to Sunday night. Bible class group left at 7:30 p.m., so I’m thinking “YES! I can curl the ribbon, box them up, and make it to bed by 10:00.” I go to retrieve the container of cookies and much to my dismay, the wheels had bled on over half of them! WHAT?!? I’ve never had this happen before. At first I’m thinking it’s just one or two. Oh no, well over half of them had black icing bleeding a good half inch onto the red. Shoot me now! I’m panicked. I want to cry. I can’t redo all of these cookies. Not only is there not enough time, but my hand is killing me still from the day before.

I’m now doing this mental check list in my head…“what did I do differently this time that I haven’t done in the past?” I had just used the same black icing the weekend before to decorate Halloween cookies and they didn’t bleed. Maybe I didn’t let the red icing set long enough. I have no idea, but it was too late at that point.

Cookies Saturday night, wrapped and ready to go.

Cookies Sunday night. Thankfully they were not all THAT bad.

This morning I emailed the lady and explained the situation. I told her I could keep them and refund her money (my office would have been eating sugar cookies for a LONG time) or I could ship them and if she’s not happy with them I would refund half her money. I’m praying she’s nice and that doesn’t happen because if it does, I will maybe break even on the deal. Why you ask? Because even though I did some research, I way underestimated the cost of shipping. My expenses came to almost half of what I charged her.

Did I mention I did NOT charge her enough? And for all of you out there that said I should be charging more, please don’t say “I told you so.” I get it. Lesson learned. LOTS of lessons learned to be exact.

Cookies, Glasses, and a Flashback to the 80’s

Cookies
These are the Halloween sugar cookies I made this weekend. Believe it or not, it’s the first time I actually made Halloween sugar cookies. I bought a new “boo” cookie cutter and had a fun with it. I named the green cookie “Frankencookie”. It was actually an accident, but my favorite once I was done. I took pictures so that I could it to my Esty site next year.

Glasses
Because of too much extra money I have in my cafeteria plan this year, I decided this would be the year to replace my frames. I’ve had the same frames since I got glasses seven years ago. Since I don’t have to wear them all the time they’ve held up well, but I was bored with them. Plus I also needed new prescription sun glasses because the ones I have give me a headache because they’re too tight and they couldn’t loosen them up. To my delight, EyeMasters was having a “Buy One, Get One Free” sale with no exclusions. Score! Of course, I couldn’t pick out glasses on my own, so I had to call in reinforcements.

Saturday morning, my friend/fashion advisor met me at the mall to help me pick out glasses. No joke, I think at one point we had close to 20 pairs of frames in our hands. Just randomly trying to narrow it down wasn’t working, so we divided them up by style and narrowed down each style, then narrowed down what was left. It took us a while, but we finally found a winner (sunglasses were thankfully easier).

One of the sales people asked me on numerous occasions if I had finally found frames. He was laughing by time I took the final selection to him.


Flashback to the 80’s
My bible class had an 80’s Party on Saturday night. It was actually a lot of fun. (Side note, anyone else notice lately how “80’s” many of the current styles are. Scary!) Here are a few pictures from the event. I didn’t do a great job of getting very good pictures, but you get the gist. Awe, the good ‘ol days.

Date

I know that title has some of you excited. Don’t get your hopes up. Friday afternoon I had my yearly date with Cody. Cody is the guy who inspects my house for termites. He’s the kind of guy I’m often attracted to, but would never let myself date. He has that cute “bad boy” thing going for him, but what little I’ve learned about him over the years tells me that our “values” are very different. I do have to give him props…he doesn’t smell like cigarettes anymore. I didn’t like that much. So thank you Cody for the date. It may be short and sweet, but they’re the best dates I have all year long. How sad is that?!?