Wonderful Treasure From Italy

I've been friends with Jeannie from Jeannie's Happy World for years.  After years of living in Georgia while her husband was stationed there and was in Iraq (Army), she finally got her dream of him being stationed in Italy.

She sent me an amazing Christmas package and let me open it early while I was talking to her on the phone.  The outside was all decorated and Oskar knew it smelled good!

This first baggie is full of candies and confections.  Notice how beautifully all of the baggies are decorated.  Jeannie is an amazing card maker & made everything look perfect.

These are Italian truffles.  My husband was begging me to share these each time I bit into one!

She went to the factory to get these samples of extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and balsamic vinegar.

Jeannie stamped the designs on these tea lights & they're wrapped in ribbon.  Everything is just so perfect!

These are minestrone beans that I made up with some smoked sausage, it was so good!

Look at how beautiful these beans are!

Jeannie knows that I like pea soup so she sent me this one.  It was really fresh & light, perfect for a day I was having tummy trouble.  I had to use Google Traslator to figure out how to make it, lol.

Here's all of my delicious booty, all made in the region where she lives.  Right by Venice...I'm so jealous I can't see straight, but so happy that she finally got to go to Italy.

Stop by Jeannie's Happy World and give her some love.

She's former Air Force, her husband is in the Army, her oldest daughter just finished Air Force basic training, her son-in-law is in the Army & her son is getting ready to graduate high school and go into the service this year.  They are a family working hard to protect our country & I'm so proud that she's my friend.  Especially when she's sending so many yummy goodies my way ;-)

Random Updates

We had a nice Christmas, but I was home sick on Christmas Day, while Chris & the boys went to my families gathering for a few hours.  We had already done most of our celebrating on the 23rd & 24th so I didn't feel too bad about it. One thing I missed is having a Christmas dinner with my immediate family here at the house.  We don't have a dining room table though. Since I'm getting read to do a review for them I can tell you that CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find anything you need whether it be modern dining furniture, fitness equipment, or even cute cookware. I've dealt with CSN Stores many times and have always been satisfied with their products and service.

Chris (DH) has been home sick so I haven't been around the blogging world much, so I thought I'd share some random updates.

I got my Kindle for Christmas.  I'll have my review, not a paid or endorsed review, but there are some things I would have liked to know before I got my Kindle & I'll share those with you in a day or so.

I got to open my Christmas present from Jeannie in Italy, and I'll share that with you soon too.

I got a new (inexpensive) camera to do Project 365, but the quality isn't that much better than my old one & even though it has 2 more megapixels I'm going to return it to Best Buy.

I miss knowing what my blog friends are up to, so I'm going to stop now so I can come around and check you all out!

Cutting Back This Year

How is all of your holiday planning going friends?  I'm just where I want to be.  This year I'm taking the pressure off of myself to try and let the holiday spirit speak to me again.

My tree is up.  It's not all decorated, but who says you have to have a million ornaments on your tree?  Maybe I'll put some on if it seems like a fun thing to do.  If it doesn't it's O.K.  See where I'm going with this?

It alright to opt out of your yearly cookie exchange this year, or leave some of those cute holiday knick-knacks in the box, if it means you can enjoy yourself and your loved ones more.

I decided that cards were important to me this year and that was my first priority.  My cards have been sent out and I'm hanging the ones that we recieve on some twine that we strung up around our sunporch.  I bought some tiny clothes pins to hang them with & it only cost me $12.00 total for the twine and clothes pins.  Do you like it?

Oskar participated in a card exchange with his blogging buddies so we have lots of adorable pet cards on our wall.  They just make me smile!

You can see that Oskar is in the holiday spirit with his candy cane collar. 

I guess in my rambling way what I'm trying to say is don't put too much pressure on yourself to make the holidays "perfect".  Identify what's most important, make that a priority, and then do the rest if it sounds like fun. 

What are you doing to make your holildays less stressful?  I'll take all of the ideas I can get, lol!

Christmas Ornament Swap

I found a great ornament exchange over at Lisa's Chaos. Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE decorating my tree every year, so I joined up right away. Hop on over to Lisa's Chaos and join the swapping fun!