We traveled to Branson, MO for a little R&R over the Labor Day weekend.  It had been years since we (suit and I) had been there, and this was a first for our boys.  Although this trip had tentatively been planned for several month we hadn’t made any decisions about what we were going to do once we got there.  We wanted to wing it.  We had coordinated this trip so we could make a stop to see the newest addition to the family, little Baby Anna, our niece (who by the way is as …

Found a new recipe at Allrecipes.com called Snow Flake Cocoa which was a huge hit at our annual Halloween bonfire last night.  Although I did decide to change the name to Hot [White] Chocolate.  If I would have told everyone I had made some Snow Flake Cocoa they would have said, “What?”.  So I decided to avoid any confusion and give it a more descriptive name.  Speaking for all of my neighbors, we have decided to give this recipe a rating of five stars. (I can speak for them since they drank my entire batch!)  I …

If you haven’t checked out the Pioneer Woman’s blog yet, you need to right away.  She writes beautifully and has a variety of content that is unique and definately her own.  Why am I talking about someone elses blog?  My answer; to give credit where credit is due.  One section of her website is about cooking where she shares recipes I believe she mostly creates herself.  She is in the process of writing a cookbook, one I will definately be adding to my bookshelf!  Awhile back she posted a recipe for …

The last few weekends we’ve been doing landscaping.  Personally, I’ve never been a fan of landscaping because of the clay we have here in Missouri.  It’s such a pain to dig in!  However, we had a few plants in the front yard that had taken over the area and dh kindly uprooted them and moved them to the back.  Since he asked where they should go it forced me to make a global landscaping plan and on this plan I found the need for a trellis.  
Over the years I have been intriqued by climbing …

Turns out I need to get copies of cancelled checks from years back.  This should be a simple process, something I should be able to do from the comfort of my home office chair, right?  I proceed ahead with a positive attitude and a little bit of naivety.
I begin by calling the bank’s 1-800 number.  How great would it be if she could just view the checks and give me the information I need to confirm.  Although she was very nice she informs me it’s been too long  and that she has no access to …