sweet tooth

The novelty of eating well is wearing off.
I need scandalously delicious recipes to entice me to continue on this journey to better health.
So far I've discovered a love of grapefruits and sliced & baked sweet potatoes.
Wait - is it grapefruit, or grapefruits?
Anyhow, since I opened my Christmas stocking from Jamie and it was full of delicious morsels like ferrero rocher, hershey's chocolate mint 60 cal sticks (they're only 60 cals if you only eat one!), and Terry's Chocolate Orange, I've definitely been enticed to sneak a taste (or more than just a "taste") a few times.
*sigh*
My sweet tooth is just too much for me sometimes.

sweet find

Today I went to Value Village to a) try and find black pants and b) help Jamie find some "throwback" suits for a video he's making.

Instead, I walked away with this sweet find for $1.99 (and it's not from China - made in England!):

It's a silver tray. I'm quite pleased with it. Just in time for the Christmas season of taking Christmas cookies to and fro to friends and relatives.
I also debated buying a scandalous green dress.
I decided against it because ... well, basically I would never wear it in public. And that would be a waste of money. Let's be honest, here.

tunes

As I sit here wasting my time away fiddling with this blog and listening to Christmas music on the tv (I love those cable stations!) I started thinking about my favourite Christmas songs.
Here are mine:
*Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (just because there aren't any words doesn't mean you can't sing along to it!)
*O Holy Night
*Do They Know It's Christmas? (when it's sung by The Barenaked Ladies - the live version!)
*All I Want For Christmas Is You - sung by Mariah Carey of course
*Baby It's Cold Outside
*Christmas Waltz
*Christmas Time All Over The World
*Joy To The World
And one I wish I could sing and mean it: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - only because there's no snow. :(
What are some of your Christmas faves?

baking goddess

I just finished watching A Christmas Carol - the REALLY old version.
It was a truly festive evening as I sat on the couch with my hot chocolate and mini marshmallows and watched this old Christmas favourite.

And this afternoon I discovered the amazing smell of boiling a stick of cinnamon and orange peel with a bit of water. My apartment now smells incredible! And very festive. :)

I baked like a mad woman yesterday; I made Chewy Molasses-Spice cookies (my favourite of the bunch), Bittersweet Shortbread (made with huge chunks of bittersweet chocolate and pecans) and Peppermint chocolate cookies (which taste good but were extremely sticky and difficult to work with).
So it turns out that Martha (that's Martha Stewart of course!) really DOES know a thing or two about recipes - and Christmas recipes especially!
The Chewy Molasses-Spice cookies recipe I got from her website and you can get it too right here!
So enjoy and happy eating! :D

Sincerely - The Baking Goddess

Bing and Heroes

Oh how I love the whole Christmas season.
Tonight I watched Bing Crosby in White Christmas, sipped warm milk with cinnamon and wrapped a plethora of presents.
It was...delightful!
I realized something today - or at least during my preparations for Christmas;
I love giving gifts. Receiving them is (are? Beth...help me out here) nice, but I really do love giving gifts. BUT...when you start buying presents for people for the sake of buying presents for them - then I feel...frustrated with the sense of obligation that I feel - and don't WANT to feel.
On an entirely different note:
While browsing facebook I found a wall-to-wall with Priyanka and Jenn about tv addictions and Pri left a link to a site where Jenn could get addicted to Heroes. This show looks interesting to me so I clicked on the link (cue foreboding music now) and watched the pilot episode.
It was good.
I might watch a few more episodes...*famous last words*

trip

My time in Tanzania has come and gone and I'm left with (among other things) a slight glow of a tan.
Actually the shepherding trip to Tanzania was encouraging for both myself and the STINT team. It was really good to catch up with the girls and to see their place, meet their disciples and the other girls they work with and get a reminder of African culture.
Someone asked me when I returned if it made me more excited to go on STINT next year.
My answer is definitely no.
It was more of a reality check - which is a good thing. I think it's good that I know and have a better idea of what I'm walking into, what I'm committing a year of my life to and the kind of living conditions I'll be living in.
Anyway...so this trip was good for me to rethink through my reasons for going next year and if it's the best decision for Jamie and I.
Oh and lying on the beach was also pretty incredible. :)