Quick weekend recap

Time for a VERY quick weekend recap:

I worked from home on Friday. My co-worker needed constant attention.

At least I had cute decorations surrounding me.

Mark went to the farm for Friday day and night and came home around lunchtime on Saturday. I watched Love Actually and a couple of Christmas movies on Amazon Prime Friday night. I have a tendency to stay up much later when I'm home alone.

Saturday morning brought heavy rain so I participated in WW via zoom and then I got busy in the kitchen. I made a carrot cake and a pan of brown sugar brownies as Christmas gifts for two of my co-workers. Since I don't eat sweets, I don't bake them as often. I always forget just how much mess I make in my kitchen. The carrot cake required the "peeling" of the big carrots; using the food processor to grate the carrots, the stand mixer for mixing the cake. Oh yes - I almost put a TABLESPOON instead of a teaspoon of one of my spices. That would have been a horrible mistake!! I also had the hand mixer because you beat the egg whites separately and fold those in at the end. I washed and reused my stand mixer to mix up the cream cheese frosting. The brown sugar brownies require a glass container for melting the butter and a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. I had a ton of dishes! I must admit that it gave me great joy to make these homemade gifts and both were received well. 

Mark brought a giant bucket of greenery home from the farm and in between rainstorms on Saturday, I decorated our mailbox. I still plan to put a big red velvet bow in with the greenery.

I also wrapped a few more presents . . .I have to wrap one more big one and put some ribbon on a few. I bought these cute santa bags at Kohl's and used them for giftcards for our church maintenance staff. They do so much for me and for the rest of the staff.

Sunday morning we went to early church and the flowers on the altar were gorgeous!! I know I've mentioned this before but our altar arrangements are done by volunteers every week. They usually bring in a florist to do a fun training session every year or two. They pair the newer volunteers with the more experienced volunteers and they do AMAZING arrangements. We have sponsors for almost every week who pay $60 toward the cost of the flowers. The sponsorship could be in memory or in honor of someone. We also had sponsors for the individual poinsettias and folks can take those home after the last Christmas Eve service.

We ate lunch with Mark's family and hung out with them for the afternoon. We went back to the 4:00 p.m. Contact Christmas Service - a service of stories and bluegrass music. It is one of my favorite services every year. It was extra special this year because our son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter #1, and their friends came to worship with us. We attend the traditional service on Sunday morning but we LOVE the music in the more contemporary service (Contact service).

They opened the service with "I Will Wait" by Mumford and Sons and they had interwoven a Christmas carol at the end . . .We are indeed waiting on the baby Jesus to be born -- the season of Advent -- a time of waiting. IT WAS AMAZING!! In between each son, one of the pastors tells a story. I left the service with my cup full and we hurried home as quickly as possible because . . .

We had a zoom reunion with our new friends! We "gathered" with the group of folks who travelled to Ireland together back in October. I thought my cup was full when we left the afternoon service . . .and it was . . .but this zoom call filled it up to overflowing.

After our zoom call, we ate a bite of leftovers for supper and talked about what a great day we had. 

Yes, I know I said it was a quick recap . . .but I tend to be a bit wordy! hahahaha!

Did you have a busy weekend?