Christmas recipe

Before giving you this delicious Christmas cookie recipe I thought I'd divulge my naughtiest Christmas memory ever. I've always been an impatient girl. I couldn't STAND waiting to find out what we were getting for Christmas. I often went on gift hunting expeditions in my parents room. I'd look under their bed (found some nail polish there once), and their closet. It's no wonder I don't remember when I stopped believing in Santa. I probably found my Santa gift before Christmas. Anyway, once when I was young (not super young, mind you. I think it was in Jr. High) I was extra naughty. When everyone was gone for an evening (Nathan may have been an accomplice, I'm not sure if we did this together or if I was alone), I very carefully unwrapped one of my presents. It was a Mickey Mouse watch! Something I really wanted. I carefully wrapped it up again so no one would know. I put it back under the tree and was very surprised and excited on Christmas morning when I opened it.

I've gotten much better since then. We have a Christmas box of presents from my in-laws sitting half opened in our house and I haven't so much as peeked at it. We began opening it when it arrived since it was from NY. When we got it partially opened, we realized it was their gifts and we stopped. It's too big to really take with us to Snowflake so we'll open it here on Thursday night since we're leaving Friday. Patience is a virtue I'm finally beginning to get.

Onto the recipe. I made these last night. Oh man are they good. Allrecipes.com is one of my favorite places to find good food.

Big Soft Ginger Cookies
Submitted by: Amy Sacha
Rated: 5 out of 5 by 640 members Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes Ready In: 50 Minutes
Yields: 24 cookies
"These are just what they say: big, soft, gingerbread cookies. They stay soft, too. My oldest son's favorite."

INGREDIENTS:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons white sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly. (this dough is not for rolling out or cutting into shapes. it is perfect if you follow the directions. )
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

The svithe I haven't written

It's been ages since I've written a good ol' svithe. It's kind of hard to want to do anything after church on Sundays since we don't get home until 6 pm and it's already dark. So I'm writing it on Monday when I didn't really get home until about 8:30 pm because of Christmas bustling and last minute visiting teaching (3 appointments).

This morning a co-worker and I were talking about the HR assistant position we both applied for. She told me that though there was only one opening right now that there would be another opening soon for the same position. We thought it would be fun if we both ended up filling those jobs since we enjoy working together. She then said, "We should both pray about it."

I like that she said that.

It's nice to live somewhere where people of two different faiths can pray about a common goal regarding work. We've talked quite a bit (for the little time I've worked there) about God and miracles and faith. She has such a great spirit about her and she has such a strong faith.

My supervisor talked to me today about the HR assistant position. She had me send the hiring HR coordinator an email telling her to call for a reference. I did, she did, and my supervisor gave me a glowing review. She said that the HR was impressed with what she had to say about me, and that she was going to talk with the hiring board about me. I feel good to know that someone who just met me a month ago is willing to stick her neck out for me because she sees some potential.

Out with the old and in with the new

I decided to finally take the plunge and switch to the new beta blogger thingy. We'll see how this goes...

Also, speaking of old, have any of you ever wondered why there are so many people still sporting horrendously non-flattering 80's style haircuts? Come on, you all know which hair cut I'm talking about. The poofed up, high bang/top, sprayed-so-heavily by aquanet-you'd-be-afraid-to-light-a-match- around-it hair.

I admit, I have lived through so pretty bad hair years myself. It was especially difficult trying to tame my curly hair when I didn't know was truly curly. I'm actually still trying to figure out what to do with hair in this humidity, but there are some hair styles (and clothes styles) that really shouldn't be resurrected regardless of location or time.

When we lived in UT we didn't see that hairstyle very often. There was, however, "UT hair" that Matt so detested (dyed blond with streak chunks with a bob cut that had the poof back), but that really doesn't rival some of the hair I've seen here.

In all honesty I can often take a good guess at why these people still do it. Some think they have a skinny face and want to give themselves a little more shape. It reminds some of their prime and what a fun time that was. It makes them feel a little younger though it often dates them and makes them look old. Or some people just have a hard time with change.

I often wonder if the same thing will happen to "my generation" 20 years from now with styles of "our day". If my peers will still be sporting the overly dyed (and eventually fried) hair accompanied by an orange leathery fake-and-bake tan.

Go to Girl

I've been at my new job now for 2 weeks. For those of you who didn't catch it, I'm working for the county as a temporary Property Tax helper. Tis the season for property taxes. I took this over a nanny position so I would still be available for the HR assistant position for which I've had two interviews and a test. I'll hopefully be hearing about that job shortly.

This is the first time in my life that I've worked an 8-5 job! I've been tired and I've had more headaches, but it's really nice to be busy and feel productive. My house is not as clean as it used to be, but such is life. At least I'll contribute to our bank account while I'm in a position to do so.

Apparently last year was a horrendous tax season. They started out behind and got backed up like crazy. This year is quite the opposite so far. I don't know why it's so different, but it is. We have about 10 temps helping process the influx of mail until mid-February. Right now we're getting enough mail for all of us to work until about 1:30. The majority of temps are then sent home.

I have thankfully been dubbed the official "go to girl." On my fourth day I was pulled aside by my supervisor; she told me they really liked me and were happy with my work and personality. They told me they needed someone to do miscellaneous jobs around the office to help out the full time people keep up with their work. She told me she wouldn't send me home early and would find work for me if I wanted it.

I'm happy about this for a couple of reasons.
1. I get a full 40 hours of work if I want it.
2. They like me! They really like me!
3. It gives me the opportunity to meet a lot of people and learn their jobs. I almost feel like a manager in training.
4. I'm hoping this will help with references later on.

I'm warming up to the job, and I really enjoy the people I work with. There's only one lady who's a little bitter that I've been getting to work full days. She's probably in her 70's and she will occasionally mutter things like, "I know they'll find things for you to do, but they won't find work for me." Sometimes I want to tell her, "Haven't you learned by now that life isn't fair?" But I can understand her frustration. That doesn't mean I'm volunteering to give up my "go to" status to her, however.

Shark attack

Many childhood memories of my dad involve sports, ESPN 2 minute replays, etc. I'd have to say that baseball was one of the more watched sports at home. Though I enjoy watching people I know play sports, I never caught the sports fan bug that requires you to know and watch every game on the face of the planet (or TV).

Matt's never been too into sports and takes little to no pleasure watching mainstream games. We don't follow football, he detests soccer and baseball, and basketball is out of the question. HOWEVER, he quite enjoys ice hockey. More specifically San Jose Sharks hockey (the one sport my dad didn't follow!). His dad's a die-hard season ticket holder. At the beginning of the season we checked their playing schedule against the Dallas Stars here in town. No luck. All the games here were on Sunday. Or so we thought.

Raytheon periodically offers discounts for sporting events and other niceties. They had two Stars hockey games at half price for employees. One of them happened to be against the Sharks. On a blessed Monday. We bought those tickets up quickly. Some friends of ours in our ward (he also works for Raytheon) decided they wanted to go so we ended up carpoooling last night.

Matt wore his Sharks jersey. I was a little worried we'd get beat up or something, but I would have worn one too if we had two. As we hopped on a shuttle from our parking, I whispered to Matt, "How many death glares have you gotten?" He whispered back, "I'm not making eye contact."

As the bus filled up we ended up sitting behind our friends. Behind us we heard someone say loudly, "I'd sure be embarrassed to be sitting by a guy in a SHARKS jersey!" In front of us our friend (a very funny guy) yelled "KILL HIM!!" (referring to Matt) We were cracking up. I kind of knocked him and told him to be quiet. Some people next to us whispered, "I think they must be together..." No beat downs thankfully.

When we got to the stadium we were sneaking in two bottles of water since outside food/drink weren't allowed. I know, I know. I'm a bad girl. Slap me on the wrist. Matt took his and put it in his oversized pockets under his jacket. I tucked mine in my pants under my sweatshirt. I had no belt on, no jewelry on, no change in my pocket, etc. so I thought I'd be peachy going through the metal detector. Matt got through with no problems. No such luck for me. I set it off. They had to wand me. It kept going off over my button on my pants (and coincidentally right over my contraband water!). GREAT! I was going to be found out, and that would be SO embarrassing. My ticket accidentally fell (honest to goodness) as he asked me what I had there, so I bent down to grab it . I kind of turned, set the water on the ground behind me and stood back up. I totally thought he saw this whole thing. But they didn't say anything more and let me go. I picked up my water as others walked through the detector and went on my way. Whew! I don't know how that worked out!

The game was fairly boring the first two periods. The Stars scored one goal in the first period. No goals in the second. No fights. Nothing good. The third period was quite intense and we were all on the edge of our seats with excitement. The Sharks almost scored like 5 times in a row in the last few minutes but with now luck! So we walked away defeated. 1-0. But maybe it was for the good of our safety.

We're going to check again for other games we may have missed on days other than Saturday. I say, if you're going to watch a sport, Hockey is the best. Not much better than a contact sport with checking and fights. So much more interesting than...

Maybe I shouldn't finish that. I don't want to offend any of you fly fishers or bowlers out there...