Okay, I accidentally invented a cocktail tonight, we can call it Christmas Bourbon Slush, because I made it at Christmas time. It is a cool and icy drink, but when you have Christmas so close to the equator, sometimes a cool drink is a must.
Ingredients
2 ea. teabags (regular size)
1 c Boiling water
1/2 c Sugar
1/2 can(s) orange juice, frozen concentrate (large can)
1/2 can(s) lemon juice concentrate (large can)
1/2 c Bourbon (I use Elijah Craig, but any will do)
1/4 c Sweet Tea Vodka (I used Seagram's, but whatever)
1 c water, boiling
I legitimately tried to follow the recipe from Just A Pinch but I left out about 2 3/4 c of water overall and I added the sweet tea vodka, but mostly because I had never made this before and forgot the step of adding additional water. Also I REALLY wanted to try that sweet tea vodka.
Brew the tea bags in the cup of boiling water. Mix hot tea with sugar in a large glass measuring cup. Add the frozen juice concentrates plus the alcohol and stir to combine. Freeze in the measuring bowl, stopping every 15-30 minutes or so to stir the slush as it sits in the coldest part of your freezer. Scoop some slush into a cup to serve and top off with a lemon lime soda such as Sprite or 7UP. Yummy festive slushy punch!
Friday, December 20, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
Christmas Crunch
I just survived the busiest weekend I will have this holiday season. Friday night was spent in a flurry of activity, building sets and completing tech work for my daughter's recital. I baked for the bake sale that goes along with the holiday show, packed and prepped her for the show, drove there, helped with props and then I ran some tech stuff at her matinee all with able and good natured assistance from my husband. He seriously deserves a medal for all he did this weekend. I have to leave elder child with other mothers who can feed her and help her get ready for her evening performance, because Hubby and I are on our way to his office holiday Christmas party. You know you're tired when you want to duck out of a luau BEFORE the fire dancer comes out. But we rallied and stayed till the end. Got home around 11 p.m. to find our
elder daughter, still stoked from her performance and having an unexpected sleep over with a cousin and cousin's new dog, AWAKE and watching a movie. We put the girls to bed.
Wake up around 6:30 the next morning, to dress and get ready for an all day trip to Disney World. A trip that had been planned MONTHS in advance before we knew there was going to be holiday parties and dance recitals.
I really wish I had a Fitbit or other type of pedometer. I could have used the one on my phone, but I was hoarding battery life so that I could use my camera and text location information to my husband. We have a good system for the lines at Disney (thankfully very few yesterday!) I wait in the line and hold our spots, while he takes the girls to get pictures with characters or ride another ride with a shorter line. Another way we divvy up responsibility is that he does NOT do spinning rides (Tea Cups, Dumbo, even the carousel) but I do all of them with the kids, my inner ears don't bother me. While we are on the stomach churning spinning rides he runs ahead and gets Fast Passes for other rides for us. Anyhow, I am pretty sure we ended up walking just MILES yesterday and I'd love a pedometer to tell me exactly how far we traveled.
Do you use a pedometer? Do you use it just when you are explicitly exercising or do you use it every day to see how far you walk?
elder daughter, still stoked from her performance and having an unexpected sleep over with a cousin and cousin's new dog, AWAKE and watching a movie. We put the girls to bed.
Wake up around 6:30 the next morning, to dress and get ready for an all day trip to Disney World. A trip that had been planned MONTHS in advance before we knew there was going to be holiday parties and dance recitals.
I really wish I had a Fitbit or other type of pedometer. I could have used the one on my phone, but I was hoarding battery life so that I could use my camera and text location information to my husband. We have a good system for the lines at Disney (thankfully very few yesterday!) I wait in the line and hold our spots, while he takes the girls to get pictures with characters or ride another ride with a shorter line. Another way we divvy up responsibility is that he does NOT do spinning rides (Tea Cups, Dumbo, even the carousel) but I do all of them with the kids, my inner ears don't bother me. While we are on the stomach churning spinning rides he runs ahead and gets Fast Passes for other rides for us. Anyhow, I am pretty sure we ended up walking just MILES yesterday and I'd love a pedometer to tell me exactly how far we traveled.
Do you use a pedometer? Do you use it just when you are explicitly exercising or do you use it every day to see how far you walk?
Monday, December 9, 2013
Hey guess what?
I'm back! Just in time to start school up again in the Spring, after 6 months or so of working at our law firm, taking up MARCHING BAND (I play the cymbals now, yo!) and getting a dog, things have been amazingly busy!
And of course, if you celebrate it, Christmas is right around the corner. And New Year's! My resolution this year is to write more, exercise more joyfully, and appreciate what I have. I will be back to posting full time again soon, but for now let's have some fun.
You know you're going to hear 45 different versions of "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" this year (and probably hate every single one of them except for Brenda Lee's.) But you know what I like? Sad Christmas songs, or maybe not even sad, moody and atmospheric Christmas music. Sometimes Christmas with all of its forced gaiety and expectation of joy can underline the depression a lot of people feel in the winter, either because of SAD or they miss someone near and dear or perhaps the holidays just aren't a happy time for them.
Sad Christmas music makes me feel less alone.
Here are two of my favorites, first off Leigh Nash's version of Hard Candy Christmas a song originally sung by Dolly Parton and the cast of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Leigh Nash is of course, the former lead singer of everyone's favorite peppy, indie Christian band, Sixpence None the Richer.
The of course there is the classic song, River, originally by Joni Mitchell. My favorite version is by Robert Downey Jr and Vonda Shepherd from the album "A Very Ally Christmas" which may be the best Christmas album I've ever heard. No, seriously, a great mix of upbeat and moody Christmas classics.
Fight it out in the comments.
This post, apparently, brought to you by the 90's and my teens and 20's.
And of course, if you celebrate it, Christmas is right around the corner. And New Year's! My resolution this year is to write more, exercise more joyfully, and appreciate what I have. I will be back to posting full time again soon, but for now let's have some fun.
You know you're going to hear 45 different versions of "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" this year (and probably hate every single one of them except for Brenda Lee's.) But you know what I like? Sad Christmas songs, or maybe not even sad, moody and atmospheric Christmas music. Sometimes Christmas with all of its forced gaiety and expectation of joy can underline the depression a lot of people feel in the winter, either because of SAD or they miss someone near and dear or perhaps the holidays just aren't a happy time for them.
Sad Christmas music makes me feel less alone.
Here are two of my favorites, first off Leigh Nash's version of Hard Candy Christmas a song originally sung by Dolly Parton and the cast of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Leigh Nash is of course, the former lead singer of everyone's favorite peppy, indie Christian band, Sixpence None the Richer.
The of course there is the classic song, River, originally by Joni Mitchell. My favorite version is by Robert Downey Jr and Vonda Shepherd from the album "A Very Ally Christmas" which may be the best Christmas album I've ever heard. No, seriously, a great mix of upbeat and moody Christmas classics.
Fight it out in the comments.
This post, apparently, brought to you by the 90's and my teens and 20's.
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