Can't a Girl Get Some Christmas Tunes...

Being an advertising major I heart really good commercials in a weird way.  Being a scrooge, I hate Christmas music.

For once in my life, Verizon has actually done something good.  I'm in love with their new Christmas commercials.  They have these great remixes of Christmas songs with "real" songs.  I've been scouring the Internetz trying to find these songs and, of course, Verizon isn't budging.

So for now, I'll just have to get by on these crappy YouTube versions.  Enjoy!

I'll be back....

Just like the terminator, I'll be back....

This week has been a smidge stressful with work, work christmas party, decorating our house for christmas, addressing christmas cards, christmas party for one of my work clients, forgetting my keys 45 minutes away, entertaining my in-laws, dealing with -6 temperatures and our house being freezing and on top of it all....

My head has been stopped up all week, my nose has bled three times and now I have no voice.

Whine fest is oficially on!

Ode to the Crocodile

In the winter (and sometimes in the summer too) my skin resembles that of a crocodile.  I get scaly, dry, itchy, nasty.  This past summer when my eczema started acting up (this is a completely other long story about my bout with eczema that ends with  my nieces calling me Aunt Eczy) I found a savior.

Eucerin I love you!  This past summer when my skin was dry from all the sun and sand I found Eucerin Intensive Repair Lotion.

This stuff is the best for reptiles like myself.  It has a little bit of grit for exfoliation, but it also moisturizes very well.  It's the perfect everyday lotion and it isn't too greasy.  I've tried LOTS of lotions and this one is probably my favorite.

This winter has been a whole different story.  Since around October my skin has been so dry that it has been flaking off (gross I know).  Luckily, I found this little guy:

Eucerin Auaphor Healing Ointment.  It sounds scary and if you don't have dry as the sahara skin it kinda is.  This is basically vasoline with lots of good things in it.  It's really thick and goopy and I love it.  I've actually also found that it is great as a lip balm as well as general lotion for my face and body.  I know that somewhere my greasy sister is cringing as I tell people how I'm pretty much putting vasoline on my face!

These even worked today in the 6 degree snowy weather with 25 MPH winds!  What are your favorite lotiony products?

Please know that Eucerin did not give me any of these products, but if the folks at Eucerin would like to throw some my way I'm not going to stop them!

Menu Sunday...

Here's what the Browns will be noshing this week:

Mon: Mexican Chicken Stew
         I love soup in every form.  This one looks a little weird.  It has sweet potatoes with mexican things, but who knows!

Tues: Work Christmas Party!
          We'll be feasting on goodies from here.  We've actually never been to LAB before, but I've heard lots of good things about it and we're getting free beer steins with our company logo on them.

Wed: Hoisin Pork Stir Fry
         I have a bottle of Hoisin sauce from a recipe I made a few months ago.  When else am I going to use Hoisin sauce, so I thought I'd give this a try.

Thurs: Slow Cooker Beef and Rice Soup
          Once again, I have a slight obsession with soup and my slow cooker.  The recipe calls for using a whole roast, but I will be using stew beef.  It was a lot cheaper and I don't want to have to deal with cooking that much meat.

Fri: Baked Chicken and Rice
      This recipe looks good, but it also doesn't have that many super fresh ingredients that might go bad if I push it back to next week.  Most of the time sometimes I get lazy on fridays.

What goodies will you be eating on this week?

Yes Kermit, It is Easy Being Green

I'm not a crazy environmentalist, but I do love me some mother earth.  This holiday season, KB and I are tasking ourselves with being as green as possible.  I feel like we already do more than regular people do when it comes to being green.  This is mostly because I'm a tightwad and I don't want to pay for things like:

I don't use my dryer.....hardly ever.  I always hang things on my clothes line.  It is supposed to snow this afternoon.....and I have clothes on my line.  I noticed this summer that our power bills were way low, I'm convinced this is why.

Recycling!  I love it.  We generate about a bag of trash every 2-3 weeks.  If it can be recycled, I do.  I haven't bought trash bags in over a year.  Our lovely town does not offer trash pickup, so we do have to sort and take off our recycling, but I love seeing all those bottle and cans and papers going into their respective bins (woah I'm a nerd).

CFL light bulbs might look weird, but they last forever.  Luckily for us, our power company had a promotion where they would give you 10 CFL light bulbs if you just called them up and asked for them.  I was all over that and I haven't bought or had to change a light bulb since last winter.

Composting is the best.  Everything that is biodegradable goes outside.  From vegetable scraps to coffee grounds and filters to egg shells gets thrown outside in my little compost pile.  If you don't live in the great outdoors like we do, there are lots of compost bins.

I'm a thermostat nazi.  In the winter, it doesn't get above 68 and in the summer, it doesn't go below 79.  This might be a little extreme for most people, but we've learned to live with it.  In the winter, we just throw on sweatshirts and in the summer we strip down (ow ow!).  We've also learned little tricks to keep our house warm like circulating fans the opposite way to push warm air down from the ceiling, or leaving your oven door open after you're done cooking to heat up the house.

This holiday season the Browns are aiming for one bag of trash a month and to recycle all of our wrapping paper, etc.....Merry Christmas mother nature!

Barking Up A Storm

Last year I got really into bark.  Not the brown flavorless bark of trees (I'm not sure why I just assume it's flavorless....I've never tried tree bark!), but the deliciousness of confectionary barks.

At work last year one of our clients gave us boxes of Williams & Sonoma peppermint bark.  Growing up in a family where everyone except for me hated all things mint, I had never had it before.  After one bite, I became obsessed.  I ended up making my own for work parties, family parties, watching TV alone parties...you know.

foodnetwork.com

After my peppermint bark turned out so delicious, I decided to try other barks. One of the best was this French Chocolate Bark from my homegirl Ina Garten.  I made it with dark chocolate, dried cranberries, dried apricots and almonds.  It was like the best candy bar I'd ever had....but better.

foodnetwork.com

This year I'm on the hunt for Christmas barks again.  I've looked around, but I'm having a hard time finding something that would compare to last year's deliciousness.  I'm not a huge brittle fan, so that cuts out a lot.  I'm also not a huge white chocolate fan, so that outs alot.  Do you have a bark recipe that can top last year's?

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