Fifteen

Today is my and Larry's fifteenth wedding anniversary and the very first one we got to spend together, well, at least all day together.  We had another winter storm blow through and we were iced in yesterday.  We did have ice on our deck this morning but mostly, we were just cold-rained in.  I'll be glad to see this winter go.  I am so ready for some sunshine and warm days.  Hopefully, this weekend!  We're heading to the beach to celebrate our anniversary and Valentine's Day.  The forecast is now saying 70 degrees and sunny.  Fingers crossed!

We went shopping this afternoon for things to take on our trip and then to LongHorn for steak for supper.  



Larry got me these pretty flowers and a new purse and I got him a new work watch.  Church watch for his birthday, work watch for our anniversary.  He ought to always know what time it is!  :)  We got sweet cards from Mama and Daddy and Ami and Brian, along with lots of love and good wishes on Facebook from our friends and family.  

Here's the beautiful card that Ami made for us.  We just loved it.

 So sweet.  

Thank you so much, Ami.  This made me cry!

Happy Anniversary, my love. 

Come grow old along with me.  The best is yet to be.

Sunday Cake

Since I've had some requests for my Sunday Cake recipes, I thought I'd start giving y'all the recipes with today's cake.  I always ask Larry what kind of cake he wants and then we go buy whatever we need that we don't already have on hand in the pantry.  This week he said an orange cake.  He loves orange juice and has it every morning with his breakfast.  I love oranges, too.  They always remind me of summer vacations in Florida when I was a kid.  So I was excited to find a recipe for this week's Sunday Cake!

I used this one.  It called for a yellow cake box mix but you can use my basic cake recipe as well.   

1 cup of sugar 
1/2 cup of butter 
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Tried and true.  :) 

Orange Cake
1 box of yellow cake mix
1 small box of orange gelatin
1 cup orange juice
3/4 cup oil
4 eggs
2-3 teaspoons orange zest

Orange Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoon orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest

Heat oven to 325F degrees.

Beat cake mix, dry gelatin, orange juice, oil, eggs and zest in a large bowl on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed for 2 minutes or so. Pour into a generously greased bundt pan. Bake for 1 hour.

Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan. Meanwhile, whisk the powdered sugar, orange juice and zest in a small bowl. After you move the cake to the serving plate and while the cake is still warm, prick the cake with a fork. Pour glaze evenly over the cake. Allow the cake to completely cool before serving.

 Beautimous!

Do what makes you happy

Yesterday, Larry and I went on a shopping spree!  Thursday is our 15th wedding anniversary and of course, Friday is Valentine's Day so we did our shopping together.  That way you get what you really want, right? 

Larry's birthday is the 24th, too, and I already knew I wanted to get him a new watch.  We found a beautiful gold Seiko at Belk.  On sale, too!



We started out getting haircuts and he got his beard trimmed.  His very first time in a salon!  I got a few layers cut into my hair.  Not too much of a change.  Just enough to not make me cuss when I'm trying to fix my hair.  During the week, it's fine since I wear a ponytail to work but on the weekends, I wear it down and it was starting to really make me talk ugly.  I have extremely fine hair and it will not hold a style to save its hide.  Never has, except for that period in my life that I completely lost my everlovin' mind and got a perm every three months.  We probably shouldn't go there, though.  The girl who cut my hair yesterday did her job and sold me some foamy gel to go along with my new haircut.  Some stuff called Blow It Up.  Absolutely fitting for how I feel when I try to fix my hair.  Blow. It. Slap. UP.  :)  It's good stuff, though!  I love it!!  

We each got some new church clothes and a couple of shirts a piece and Larry got some jeans and a belt.  And an absolutely beautiful aqua blue paisley tie.  I just fell in love with that thing the moment I saw it.  And when I held it up to him and saw how it made his eyes just pop, he had to have it.  He bucked a little when he saw the price tag, but it was on sale!  Plus 20% off!  Plus it makes your eyes pop!  He couldn't say no to that.  Or me.  :)

I got some Clinique Happy for my Valentine's present and since Belk was having their Clinique bonus time, I got that, too.  My anniversary present was a pair of Skecher's GoWalk shoes that I've been wanting ever since Brian, Ami and I went to Stone Mountain in October and stopped at Tanger Outlet on the way for a bathroom break.  Ami and I saw those shoes in the window at the Skechers store and we both said how comfortable they looked.  And they are!  They're like not even having shoes on at all.  And y'all know how I like that.  I put them on right then in the store and wore them the rest of the day.  

We picked up a few more albums, too.  We're getting quite a collection!  Larry had hundreds of albums when he was younger but lost them all so we're trying to replace some of them.  No way can we get them all back but the ones we can get, we're going to get.  We got Carole King's Tapestry.  One of my favorites.  We have it on CD but there's something about that crackly vinyl sound.  A CD cannot compare with that.  Larry told me that he bought this album as a soldier boy in Germany in 1971 and it was one that was lost to him.  Well, now it's found.

When we got back out to the truck with all of our purchases, Larry found a little blue card under the windshield wiper and on it was written, "Do what makes you happy".  We thought that was so appropriate because that was exactly what we were doing!  We were spending the day together.  A day that was still way out of our reach this time a year ago.  We looked around and the car behind us had a card as well.  What a sweet, thoughtful gesture somebody made!  We were both so touched by that.  It's behind a magnet on our refrigerator right now.

We had such a great day!  And today, Larry felt the Holy Spirit tugging at him at church and he made the decision to join our church!  I went down to the altar with him and when our pastor introduced us to the congregation, he told them, "If you get to know this couple, you will find that they are a delight."  How sweet that was.  Everyone came around and shook our hands and welcomed Larry to the church family.  

Right now, I can hear the power saw out in the backyard.  Larry's building a work bench for his shop.  

Another wonderful weekend. 

Super weekend

Saturday was Ami's birthday and we had a little party for her at Mama and Daddy's house.  We stopped off at The Party Store before we left town and picked her up some birthday balloons and Larry picked out a Birthday Girl ribbon for her to wear.  He'd already been to Books-A-Million and got her the entire set of V. C. Andrews' Flowers In The Attic books.  I read them as a teenager and passed them and the story down to her.  She mentioned wanting to read them again as an adult, with adult perspective, and I thought that was a great idea.  I might do that, too.

Before we got to the party, I took Larry on a little tour of Montezuma and Oglethorpe and showed him a little bit of my hometown(s).  I was born in Montezuma but raised in Oglethorpe so I claim both of them.  I love that Montgomery Gentry song, My Town.  I agree with Eddie Montgomery.  No matter where you go in this world, you always take a little piece of your hometown in your heart.  I couldn't wait to show Larry where I keep all my yesterdays.  I've been telling Larry about Troy's for 25 years so we had to go there, even though we were going to eat and have cake and ice cream at Ami's party!  I ordered two double all-the-way, two double chili cheese and a chicken breast dinner.  You just ain't lived until you've had a double all-the-way Troy Burger.  Larry's now a believer  :)  I took him to the high school, too, and when I saw the condition of it, I almost cried.  Nobody is taking care of it and parts of it are in horrible shape.  What is going on in Montezuma?  When I went there from 1981-1985, we took pride in that school.  Coach Peaster demanded it.  We were angsty teenagers and naturally we hated school and couldn't wait to get out of there but we respected it, both the building and the people inside it.  Something is terribly wrong now and it makes me very sad.  And the sign outside the football field that prohibits "excessive walking around" during a game??  What??  That's what you do!  You walk around during the games.  We sure did.  That was the best part!  I've said a thousand times that I would have loved to have lived in simpler times, in better times.  Well, I DID.  I did live in simpler, better times.  When I was a kid, growing up in Macon County, Georgia.  I didn't appreciate it then but I sure do now.  

We enjoyed having our LizzieBean with us Saturday!  Here she is in Larry's lap.  He was blowing in her face and she loved it!

Since Sunday was the Super Bowl and since I couldn't care less about the game but I love my Larry more than life itself, I made him some Super Bowl snacks.  He didn't really care about the outcome but he was pulling for Denver because he's a big fan of Peyton Manning.  Well, we all know how it turned out.  It was actually painful at times to watch.  And the commercials were a huge disappointment for me, too.

Anyway, I made a spread!  Chili cheese sausage dip and little smoked sausages in the crock pots, a bacon ranch cheese ball and crackers and lemon pepper and buffalo wings.  And we had our Sunday Cake.  Larry wanted another German chocolate so that's what we had.

Super fun, super yummy weekend!

A little southern snow

After a very long wait yesterday watching the skies and grumbling about having just rain (well, that was mostly me doing the grumbling), we finally got our snow last night!  A few minutes before 9:00, that cold rain changed to sleet and at 9:00 on the dot, huge, beautiful flakes started to fall.  Here's Larry out in it just after it started, in his shorts and flip flops!  He's filming me taking a picture of him. :)

We were home all day yesterday since both the base and the college were closed due to the bad weather that was coming.  Atlanta was a mess!  The snow came earlier and harder than they had expected.  We felt so bad for those folks who were stranded and stayed in prayer for them.

Once we had some snow on the ground, we gathered some up for a big bowl of snow ice cream.  It was delicious!  And it was Larry's idea to add raisins and cinnamon.  Yummm.

We made a snowman head, too.  Good thing we did because today, the snow was so dry that it was almost impossible to form a good snowball.

And then we had the best snowball fight in the house!  We were laughing so hard, we could hardly even throw.  I hit Larry so many times in the back and he hit me once under my eye and then it was ovah.  :)

This morning we got up and let Tabbie Hoffman go outside to check out his first snow.  He wasn't afraid of it at all.  But he was ready to go back in pretty quick!

We bundled up and got out and walked around our yard and neighborhood and I took over 80 pictures!  Everything was so beautiful and peaceful.

 Icicles hanging off our house

 I love this picture of Larry in the "wilderness".  :)

 

Hand to God, he told me to hit him in the face.  

How could I say no to my beloved?  :)

 This picture got some giggles on Facebook.  The perspective makes me look like a little person.  Larry said he had him a little hobbit girl.  :)

I was so very happy to be able to share these two snow days with him!  Now I'm ready for a little sunshine and a warm up!

Sunday Cake

When Larry came home last month, I started baking him a cake every Sunday.  He's had German chocolate, carrot and last week's was triple chocolate fudge.  Today's Sunday Cake is strawberry!

I liked it because it's pink.  He liked it because it's cake.  :)

Finding Crackhead Santa

Yesterday, Larry and I went to Forsyth to the Circle of Care thrift shop.  Ami, Brian and I had gone in September and had the best time.  I couldn't wait to take Larry!  We went looking for albums and we bought 14!  We lucked up and found some really cool ones!  Peter, Paul and Mary, The Moody Blues and John Denver's Back Home Again are just a few that we got.  And Larry found this awesome handmade watermelon potholder that I just had to have.  For 75 cents!  I absolutely love it.  It looks so cute in my kitchen!  We went looking for lamps for our bedside tables but didn't find any that we liked.  I want old, vintage, mismatchy and Larry wants a touch lamp.  The thrill of the hunt is what I keep telling him!

 We added a few Santas to our collection
 

I just had to have this one. Crackhead Santa is what we call him.  :)  He just looked like he needed a home.  And some rehab.
 

Y'all know I had to clean them folks out in their sheets and pillowcases!  We got two fitted sheets, two flat sheets and six pillowcases for $8!

We had lunch at Forsyth Country Cookin' and had the catfish and shrimp lunch with french fries and it was delicious!

We stopped by the furniture liquidation place to look at lamps there but it was so cold in there, we didn't stay long.  It was colder in there than it was outside so we left pretty quick.  We saw some really good deals, though, and said we'd go back.  When it's warmer!

Speaking of cold, there's a rumor going around that it's gonna snow Tuesday!  Oh, I so hope we get snowed in!!  I've been saying if it's gonna be this cold, it needs to snow and make it worth it.  Looks like maybe, just maybe...

We went over to some friends' house last night and grilled pork chops and played cards.  We had the best time!  We went to church this morning and had Sonic burgers for lunch.

Pinch me.  I'm that happy.  :)