Making Cents Of It All

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I am not listing my Christmas presents because I don't think of them as free. Most people that give me a gift, I do so to them. I am only listing things that I got free (or almost free) with nothing in return.  I received a gift card to Cheesecake Factory from my manager at my job. I love going there but I don't do it often. Now I will be able to go with friends and not have to worry about it.  I received this from another manager. She said it was because I always help her out. The kids and I have been enjoying it.  My son brought all of this and more home on Christmas Eve. They were dead all day so there were tons of leftovers. He brought a cake to my SIL's for Christmas Eve and one to my parents house for Christmas day.  We also have been getting our free bagel everyday. The green tea was free too.  My girlfriend dropped off a huge tray of cookies. They were amazing! YD...

Merry Christmas   !

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas. I have been busy with making sure everything is done and ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. All of the gifts are wrapped, labeled and sorted. Homemade cards are done for immediate family members. Baking is going well. I am working Christmas Eve morning. Both of my kids that live at home are also working. We will all be bringing homemade treats to work. We will then be going to mass. My SIL is hosting Christmas Eve dinner. We are bringing bread pudding with a brandy caramel sauce and wine. I am bringing GF cupcakes for YD too. We are going to my parents for Christmas day. We are bringing rice pudding, red jello and GF cupcakes.  Lots of baking is going on here. YD made cupcakes with supplies I had to take to work.  We did get lots of things done this week. We cooked most meals at home. I used the crock pot since I knew I would be busy.  We did get Chinese one night. We only bought 2 entrees and a soup for the...

Hubby went out to lunch with his department to celebrate the end of the year. They went to a very nice steakhouse. His company paid for it. Hubby brought home his leftovers. His office has been having lots of end of year meetings. Pizza has been served numerous times. Hubby grabbed some of the leftovers one day. This was YD heating it up for dinner the next night. There was also some salad piazza leftover. I ate it but I don't understand it. We finished the hot chocolate at work but there was whipped creams leftover. The kids enjoyed trying them but they are not something I would buy. I also brought home more butter. They never keep it for the next meeting. I don't understand why, but I am happy to take it home. This went into my freezer. My office got a box of DVDs and Blu-rays. I was not there when it came in but one of the managers was nice enough to put these in my desk for me. They will both become gifts. Hubby replaced 2 of my ...

I love this time of year. I would hang Christmas lights and play Christmas music all year if Hubby would let me. Hubby and I went on a date and drove around looking at lights and listening to music. We brought drinks and a snack with us so all it cost us was the gas. We are planning on doing it again this week.  Youngest daughter has been excepted to another college that she applied to. She was also given The Presidential Scholarship. We are so proud of all of her hard work. She is still working on scholarships as she has time. We are still waiting to hear from 2 more schools.  I had my work holiday party this week. They provided the main course and employees were asked to donate desserts. We had a great turnout and so many people brought goodies. We watched ELF and played games and had an ugly sweater contest. I went with a long sweater since I had this old cardigan. Unfortunately I did not win. A beer sweater won. I did have fun making it though. We also did a t...

I love homemade honey butter. I don't know why I don't make it more often. It is so easy to do. If you like honey and butter then you will love honey butter. I had gotten some free butter from a work breakfast. They are the little wrapped butters so I just unwrapped them in put them into my Kitchenaid bowl. It took my a while to unwrapped the amount I wanted. It was  free  so I was willing to work a little.  I whipped it some to get it nice and soft. Then I poured in a 1/4 cup of honey. The honey was bartered for over the summer with a friend.  I whipped it some more and tasted it since I wasn't sure how much butter I had used. I added a little more honey. Then I whipped it some more. I usually do 1 pound of butter with a 1/4 cup of honey.  I got 2 jars worth. One was the honey jar that I finished so that jar might be a little sweeter. It came out great. I had some on some warm challah bread. It was delicious. 

I had some Kohl's Cash that I had to use. Got some EOS products. They will be going into stockings. I also had $10 from Bob's. The one near me is closing after the new year so everything is an additional 20 % off. I got 3 pairs of ladies wool blend socks and 10 pairs of men's black socks for 24¢. They will make great gifts. My job had a holiday party. They supply the main course and hot chocolate bar. Employees are asked to bring desserts. We had a great turnout this year and everyone brought stuff. But when cleanup time happen, everyone disappeared. There was so much stuff leftover. We packed the break room fridge with as much as we could. Then 5 of us took the rest home. I brought home an unopened apple pie that went into the freezer. I got an unopened box of powered donuts, an assortment of cookies and rice krispie treats, unopened sprinkles and 3/4 of a bag of mini marshmallows. I also brought home 1/2 a tray of tomatoes with mozzarella with balsami...