When there are cats and Christmas trees in the house, the inevitable happens. The cat hangs out under the tree. (Do dogs do this, too? Our dog was always too big to fit under there, but maybe smaller dogs like to get under the tree?) This behavior stops when we fill that space up with presents, but I have a thing about not putting presents under the tree until a few days before Christmas. In the meantime, Gracie’s spot is safe. At least until Zoe – the other cat – decides it is her turn. Fortunately both of them leave the ornaments alone, and somehow, neither of them is interested in climbing the tree. I know. I’m lucky. I think we’ll keep them.
Do you do appetizers or brunches during the holidays? Here is a good recipe that always go over well. (And it’s easy. We all need easy during the holidays.)
Bacon-Wrapped Waterchestnuts
2 cans of whole water chestnuts
1 lb of bacon, sliced into thirds
Sauce:
1 cup ketchup
1 cup sugar
1 Tbl. lemon juice
(OR your favorite BBQ sauce)
Wrap each water chestnut with bacon and secure with a toothpick. Layer on a shallow edged pan and bake at 350 degrees for one hour, or until the bacon looks done. Drain and then pour the sauce over everything. Put back in oven until sauce is heated through.
We’re hoping to be heading out of town for the weekend, but I’ll be back to emails on Tuesday. (Hoping, meaning we’re keeping our eye on the storms going across the midwest. We were supposed to be gone Friday- Sunday, but now we’re trying for Saturday-Monday. Email Susan if you need help on Monday – susan AT theloopyewe DOT com. Or call!) I can’t believe that next week is Christmas already. This month went WAY too fast.
Don’t forget to leave your RAKs in the comments today! We have another drawing for this week’s contest and I’ll announce the winner on Monday again. I love reading your RAKs!
Sheri hopingtogetsomegoodknittingdoneinthecaronourquicktrip
The other day we had lunch at our favorite “Mom and Pop” Chinese restaurant and I gave all the employees working the lunch shift each a $5 Christmas tip. It felt good!
We’ve always called cats under the tree the “live Nativity” LOL
Speaking of cats — My RAK this week was going to the local shelter and getting a 2-year-old cat for my neighbor’s adult daughter. She lost her home and cat in a fire recently and we all chipped in and gave her a monetary donation at that time so she could stock her pantry. She has relocated into a nice apartment, has some furniture and clothes but didn’t have a cat and was lonely for her old one which of course is never coming back. Her mom said she would love one and I told her I would take care of it. So a wonderful shelter cat and a loving woman are now a family. She was so thrilled and the kitty loved her on sight!
None of my cats has ever been a tree climber either. No curling ribbon allowed on packages though – that becomes a snack that could send us to the vet’s office.
My RAK for the week was giving my neighbor my extra faucet covers yesterday. He mentioned Home Depot was out (duh – we’re in the teens, only about 30 degrees below normal) and I had some spares so they have a new home now 😉
Hi! Sheri,
This week I mailed some yarn to the Community Stitching Post at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, 1479 Collins Avenue, Marysville, OH 43040. I had sent them some things a while back (they accept any kind of needlework) and received a nice thank you note that said about 850 women did nearly 35,000 hours of community service through the Stitching Post…the items they make benefit charities and they recently received a Paul Newman Humanitarian Award. They really can’t advertise that they accept donations, so I thought I’d put the details in with my RAK in the hope that some other Loopies might be looking for a place to donate yarn, etc.
Hope you have a good weekend!
We are donating a keyboard/piano to a music student that is in need. DH and I feel so happy to be able to do this.
Safe travels!!!
My RAK this week was to offer an ‘extra’ washing machine to an elderly couple in need. I have yet to hear if they will take us up on this offer, but I hope they do!
We’re teaching the kids about kindness and giving. For their recent birthdays they each picked a charity and instead of gifts, they asked for donations to their charity. We dropped off the donations this week. Then in line at the coffee drive through, we paid for the drinks for the car behind us.
Have a safe trip! My cats always liked to lay under the tree but DID get the ornaments and also DID climb the tree. One would sit on the spokes of the ring that held the branches out and reach through to get the fragile ornaments on top of tree. This is one reason I don’t put up a tree anymore. I suspect my dog would wait until I was spinning or on-line and then get ornaments to chew.
I love tha tpicture of Gracie Sheri! Too Cute.
I’ve been doing the beanie thing, knit knit knit, though so many people have helped by mailing me some for the troops, that I don’t think I’ll have to anymore. Also, I’ve been helping my Aunt out around the house since she’s going through the invetro fertilization treatments to try and have a baby, and tomorrow is when they put the little guys in and hope they take.
Safe travels and have a wonderful weekend 🙂
MY RAK this week was to fulfill some Winter Wishes for children in need. The letters I received this year were so cute – all from 4 year olds. A few of them wanted a soccer ball and one wanted a toy car. I wrapped them up and sent them to their care program where they would receive them at a holiday party this week. Sadly for these little boys, it may be the only gift they get this year. I was so happy to help.
My RAK was to donate blood to the local blood bank. I hate needles and I almost fainted. However, it only took about an hour, and I could be saving someone’s life.
I’m also packing up my less loved yarn to send to my young cousin who’s family can’t really afford luxuries like yarn.
I realize this is sort of wonky but here was my act of kindness. Picture it: Yesterday, on the bus going from Boston to New London, NH. Usually a 2 hour ride accompanied by a free bottle of water, a small bag of pretzels and and awful movie. Not a bad deal. Now add in traffic – causing the bus to be 70 minutes late to its’ destination and a girl sitting next to me who coughed – I’m REALLY not exaggerating – every 2 to 3 minutes!!!!! I bit my tongue; I didn’t say anything to her; I didn’t give her a dirty look; I didn’t sigh…. It was TRULY a RAOK!!!! Merry Christmas!!
Hi Sheri!
It’s also snowing here in Massachusetts and our weekend travel plans may have to be rearranged as well. We were supposed to go visit my sister and her family to celebrate an early Christmas with them.
No cats in our home, but we have a shelter dog who had been abused as a puppy. He is still a bit skittish, even after five years with us. He’s not so fond of the Christmas tree, and just about tolerates its presence in our home.
This RAK stuff is so much fun that I have continued to try and do at least one RAK each day.
My RAK to share for this week is that I gave up my spot on line at the Post Office to help an older woman bring her packages inside to mail. This required multiple trips back and forth from her car. She was very thankful — all of her family lives away and so she had many boxes to mail. I hope that I brightened her day. 🙂
Have safe travels.
My dog Zoee is a chihuahua and likes to sit on the couch next to the tree, but doesn’t like to be under it. She acts like a cat, but only takes it so far. LOL!
I did a couple of RAKs this week. One thing I did that really didn’t cost me anything was donate my Coca-Cola points to Toys for Tots. I had managed to accumulate quite a few points for drinking (too many) Cokes. When I found out that Coke was doing this drive for T for T, I donated my points. The points will go towards purchasing toys for kids who may not have such a great Christmas this year. So far Toys for Tots has raised over 9 million points! So if anyone out there is drinking a Coke product, bop on by mycokerewards.com and donate your points!
Also, we were having a potluck for work and I signed up to bring chips and homemade salsa. The day before, I looked at the list and noticed that there wasn’t much in the way of deserts, so I made several batches of cookies so no one would be without anything sweet. 😉
Hope the weather lets up for ya’ll and have a safe trip this weekend!!!
Be careful traveling – I’m in central IL and we got over an inch of straight ice!
The ice also made it easy to complete some RAKs this week. I have two elderly ladies that live in my apartment building and I volunteered to do some grocery shopping for them this week so they wouldn’t have to go out in all of this.
Happy Holidays to everyone and safe travels!
I bought a $50 gift certificate to Trader Joe’s Grocery Store for a single mother I know who has been struggling with loosing her job and being a full time college student. It is a little help for the kitchen and she has a Trader Joe’s in her neighborhood. Thankfully, she is doing well due to increased support from the college and other well-meaning people! Merry Christmas everyone! We are having a snowy white one!
So lucky your cat is not a tree climber! Our cat ran up the tree on year and it fell over, taking my mom’s 20 year collection of lladro bells with it. I thought there would be a cat hat under the tree that year. She bolted it into the room eaves the next year!
I don’t recall that my mom’s dog, Sammy, laying underneath the Christmas tree. Probably because he’s too busy craving attention, lol. But, he is a cute little guy and I’ll get to see him soon! I leave Sunday to fly to Kansas to spend the holiday with my family. I actually connect in St. Louis, so I probably need to check the weather there too! I’m sure it will be colder than what I’m used to here in Virginia!
Hope you have safe travels and a great time on your trip. : )
As for my RAK, I made an an extra donation to a Street Sense vendor that I see on a daily basis near my office. This is a non-profit organization whose mission is to “increase public awareness of poverty and homelessness in Washington, D.C., and to provide homeless people with an economic opportunity and a forum to be published”.
Our one cat will also hide under the tree–we try to leave her room through the presents so she can have her hiding spot as long as the tree is there.
My RAK was parking related–I have good strong legs that are willing to carry me places, so when I’ve parked anywhere the last few days, I parked farther away than the first open parking space, letting someone else have the awesome spots.
Today my coworker and I decorated another coworkers cube for his birthday. He’s had a rough year. I also picked up a cake for him. Maybe not so random, but it was kind (especially since the co-worker and I have not always gotten along).
Our RAK for the week was to offer to take in a struggling family member for the next 6 months until they can get back on their feet. Don’t know if they’ll take us up or not, but the offer is there. It’s a tough economy and we have been blessed and want to extend those blessings.
I think Ben the cat is going to have the most difficult time with this as it is what he considers “his room” that we’ll be using. Hohoho. He’ll get used to it.
Safe travels. we had a bad bad ice storm last weekend and were without power Friday through Sunday. I had to throw out all the stuff in my fridge and half of the freezer. When i restocked, i bought a bag of stuff for the food bank. Many people here will have lost a lot of food in the outage.
I also donated a dozen knitted hats and 4 store bought hats and gloves to the local Project Santa.
I attended my son’s Christmas Sing a long today-100 first graders, singing their little hearts out. I made a special effort to seek out the parents of the boy who was the “MC” and let them know how much I appreciated their sons performance. They were quite pleased with the comments.
Merry Christmas al!
Why do they do it? Mine too. And one year one of them did climb up. We had to secure the tree to the ceiling with a hook!
The water chestnuts are also good sprinkled with brown sugar instead of the sauce.
We went to a wedding this week for the daughter of one of the attorney’s where I work. The receptionist didn’t have anyone to go with, so DH and I took her with us.
I’ll share a recipe with you. This is from year’s ago when I was in the Amarillo Chapter of Professional Secretaries International. One of the members always brought this to our Christmas party. We insisted!
A package of whatever type of hot dog weiners you like (she said to use “cheap red weiners”), cut into thirds
A package of bacon, cut into thirds
1 lb. of brown sugar
Wrap bacon pieces around pieces of weiners and secure with toothpicks. Put them all in a crockpot and pour the brown sugar on top. Cook on high setting 1/2 day and enjoy!
Random Act of Kindness:
Dropped diapers and baby food off at a local social justice agency.
Oops! Maybe the bacon wrapped weiners that I posted above should be cooked on low.
My cat Hannah absolutely adores laying under the tree every moment she gets. And she has never had any interest in the ornaments or attempted to climb the tree. I’m so glad someone else is as lucky with their sweet cats as I am!
My RAK this week was to donate to the Salvation Army at work.
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^^^ Merry Christmas Sheri!
^^^^^ It’s been a wonderful Loopy year!
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Yesterday, I was swamped at work, but I took a co-worked to the emergency room and sat with her until her sisters could get there. And then I brought her some books and toiletries. Oh, and then I stopped by her house to bring in mail, feed her kitties and clean their litter box. I almost threw up when I was cleaning the litter box, but I was glad to help her out!
I am also a very smiley person, and I made sure to smile to everyone I ran into in the hospital. I know that happy faces are rare around there.
We have a spot in our apartment building where people often leave things for others to take for free. I put some brand new magazines and some new books out there. We have a lot of elderly residents who probably can’t afford to buy them.
This week I help with the classroom party at my Daughters school
My RAK is this: my 13 year old son has been sick all week and missed a couple of days of school. On one of these days, my his basketball team had a game that evening, and I was supposed to bring home 2 of his friends, whose mothers work and could not get off in time to get the boys to an out-of-town game. So I called the boys that morning and told them that even though my son was not at school, I would still be picking them up and bringing them to the game. My son did go to the game and sit on the bench, but did not feel well enough to play
I have been doing RAK all week, however, I thought I would share one that someone did for me yesterday. I usually park in the same area at our grocery store. With the holidays and everything being nuts, I just parked where I could, loaded by two boys into the cart and wheeled in for groceries. When we came out, I was pushing the cart through ice and snow with one hand as my other hand held my Starbucks:) I could not find our car anywhere, I was circling the BIG parking lots in the snow, my coffee was jolting out of the lid and I was starting to feel like I was losing my mind. Until, this very nice lady offered her help. She asked me what our car looked like and then she ran off to find it with me slowly trailing behind here. She was so sweet. She helped us find the car and load the groceries and was just so kind. I felt like a complete idiot! The worst part was my five year old KNEW where the car was but was talking to me in a slightly whine-y voice, so I couldn’t even listen, ahhhhhh!!!!!
Hmmm…if I had a tree, I’m sure the cats would *love* it. My RAK this week was to make an extra year-end donation to Doctors Without Borders and Heifer Project International.
I’ve spent most of this week at home, so finding opportunities for RAKs (as opposed to the usual being kind to my family) has been a bit difficult. One I did find was helping a lady with kids carry groceries to her car.
I have one cat that lies under our tree, and our chihuahua walks under it and helps himself to the water. We use to have a dog that would try to eat any bulb ornaments. For my RAK this week, I took our neighbors trash can to the curb and back after it got picked up. I hope the weather does not ruin your weekend plans.
My big RAK for this week–I let a mother with several unhappy children go ahead of me in the line at the grocery store last night, which was a night before a big snow storm, so you know what kind of crowds and lines were at the store!
Our cats love to sit under the tree too. We had had kittens in the past who tried to take a trip up the tree and got stuck, but not recently. We do put unbreakable ornaments around the bottom of the tree just in case someone decides to have a rousing game of swat.
Travel safely!
My RAK – During the slow drive home on Tuesday during a snow storm, I watched two ladies walking along the sidewalk, I figured that they were heading to one of the other buildings on campus. Once I got past all the buildings, I caught up with them, still walking (one was in high heels). I stopped in the middle of traffic and asked offered them a ride. They said that the buses didn’t seem to be running on campus and could I give them a ride to Centre Station – sure! As we were creeping along, I discovered that they lived near me so I delivered them both safely to their homes. Two hours after I left work, I finally made it home!
Our cats have always enjoyed hanging out under the tree. This year, our 9-month old kitten Zoe is fascinated with the tree. I made the mistake of hanging red and gold jingle bells all over the tree and Zoe makes her own special Christmas carols batting at the bells.
My RAK this week was not ‘random’ but certainly left me with a warm feeling. I have a friend who has been having chemotherapy treatments for the past 6 months and I went with her for the first few treatments – she called me last week to ask if I would accompany her this week for her FINAL treatment – we went, we laughed, we sang, we clapped and celebrated the end of a very long haul. I just realized the RAK was from her to me!! I think we will have a very happy Christmas
Even though my school doesn’t normally do gifts for staff (ie secretaries, janitor etc) or colleagues- I decided to just do it. I placed a big bag of cookies in the office since I know the girls love to have treats and left beeswax candles (handmade by me) in some of my favourite colleagues’ cubby holes. I had great fun watching them find the candles- they were surprised but loved the idea. 🙂
Love the cats! And I’ve got a Gracie too. If she had opposable thumbs she’d rule the world.
My RAK was to give away to a less fortunate neighbor the grass catcher I had bought for my riding lawn mower that I decided was a really big mistake. For me, anyway, but they were thrilled as they’d been wanting one very badly and didn’t know how to pay for one.
Made me feel good, plus it was less junk under my carport Win Win!!
Hi Sheri! Wish I could have brought warmer weather with me from Phoenix this week. I guess all I brought was the rain.
Let’s see – I had 2 RAK’s this week – when I was at Shop n Save this week I rounded up the stray carts by my car and put them back in the corral for the cart person. The other one was finished with help from my husband 🙂 I had 3 boxes of yarn I put together to be sent to an organization that helps developmentally challenged persons learn to live on their own, and they use crafts as part of their socialization process. I packed them up before I left but he took them to be mailed.
Oh – do yummies from Starbucks brought to TLE count as a RAK? 😉
My RAK this week involves a neighbor of mine. She and her partner recently had a baby girl. I went over with a gift and two large bags of stuff my daughter had long-ago outgrown (but that’s not the RAK). I quickly realized that the new mom was quite down, and had a bad case of baby blues. Her partner seemed extremely concerned but not quite sure of what to do. I left and went back to my house, whipped up a salad and a pan of lasagna, got some dessert out and took it over to their place with a “gift certificate” for a night’s babysitting so they can have a few hours to themselves. It’s really a win-win: they’ll get a little break, and I’ll get to enjoy the company of a beautiful baby!
This week at work, everybody was having a lousy start to the week – our server was down so nobody was able to do anything. I’d been having a dreadful time because I had big deadlines at the end of the week. Once the server finally was working again, I ended up having to put in really long hours to try to get caught up. On Tuesday, I was invited to come over for pot roast at a co-worker’s because I was going to be working through dinner. But at 5, she called me to say that neither she nor her husband had actually plugged in the crock pot, so not only was there no dinner, but she now had to throw out 2 lbs of ruined beef. I suggested that we all meet at a restaurant, instead, and bought their dinner as a surprise. Doing something nice for them cheered me up, too!
Dogs like to sit under the tree too! Our small dog always wanted to sit under something and this time of year that was usually the tree.
This week I tried to give someone my seat on the bus, but she wouldn’t take it. I also ran an errand for a friend since she was running late for work.
My family had a larger dog while I was growing up (not huge, but not a toy.) who had a specific corner in the living room, which also happened to be the corner we put the tree in. Even with the tree there, he’d still crawl under there. I’m sure there are pictures somewhere. We had to put him down in ’02-’03 and every year since we put the container of his ashes in the corner under the tree.
My RAK was giving a bunch of my extra yarn to my friend who started crocheting last year, and I just taught her to knit a few weeks ago. She picked up so fast! She’s already finished her first scarf (took her less then a week) and her gauge is spot on. She wants to knit socks someday, and I think that will be sooner then she thinks! The yarn was just sitting in my closet (some of it I’ve had for years) and she’ll probably get more use out of it then I will.
I gave money off coupons to fellow customers at Petland and Bath & Body Works.
My RAK isn’t the biggest or bestest, but when I got home from shopping, our parking lot was FULL of snow. About 5 or 6 inches, at least. So I got out the shovel and shoveled out my fiance’s parking spot for him and made a path to the front door so his shoes won’t get all wet when he gets home from work. 🙂
It’s not random, but believe me it was an act of kindness! I organized the class Christmas party for my child’s classroom and made sure that the food served would be OK for the various health issues in class (peanut allergies, celiac, diabetes). Not everyone could eat every single thing, but there was plenty for everyone to enjoy and not feel deprived!
Also, another bacon recipe
Take half a dried apricot and a sliver of raw jalapeno. Wrap with bacon and secure with toothpick. Bake until bacon is sizzling. YUM!