7 Days Left of 2013

We are all ready for Christmas and I am really really ready for 2014 to begin...

• Another of hubby's cousins just came into town and she will take us and a couple of other cousins (he literally has hundreds of cousins!) out for Christmas dinner tomorrow so that is our final (I think) Christmas plan.  We are going to a buffet for dinner and we had a buffet last week with the other cousins and someone is going to need to roll me to the start point for our New Year's Day volksmarch because I am eating so much!! Eeekkkk
• Speaking of eating, I baked a couple of pumpkin pies today just because I want pumpkin pie and the Thanksgiving-Christmas holidays seem to be the only time I make such pies.  I ran out of Crisco, however, and ended up using half butter and half Crisco for the pie crust.  I'm still waiting to see how this concoction comes out but I definitely think Crisco is better for pies as the butter seemed to make the crust too squishy to work with.
• We still have no set plan for New Year's Eve (but this is Vegas so there is no excuse NOT to do something for New Years Eve as there are so many options from going to the Strip to a Nightclub to a casino, etc).
• I am also ready for our no spend month to begin in January.  December has been the month of shop shop shop and now I want to save save save.
• 2014 is going to be the year of walking for me.  Also the year that I try to do less media consumption (I really don't need to know what is going on in the world every minute of the day as it is mostly bad/violent/psychotic stuff plus I figure if an event is big enough I will probably hear of it anyway).  ditto for social media--I need to DO more stuff and less editorializing/redditing/getting my ego stroked with likes and upvotes/etc.
• Here is my grandmother's famous pie crust recipe: put 2 1/4 cup of flour in a big bowl.  From this flour take out 1/3 cup of the flour and put it in a small bowl.  Add 1 tsp salt to the big bowl of flour.  Add 3/4 cup Crisco to the mixed flour and salt and cut the Crisco in (kind of mash it with a fork to blend it with the flour until the stuff is crumbly).  To the small bowl of flour add four tbsp water and make a paste.  Add the paste to the flour/Crisco mix and combine (don't knead it like bread, just mix until it sticks together).  You might need to add a bit more water if the mix is too dry.  Roll out on a floured surface.  This makes two pie crusts.

Merry Christmas everyone and thank you for reading my blog over the past year and adding so many positive, supportive comments :)