Welcome 2011!!

Christmas has come and gone once again and now life is filled with reflections on 2010 as well as resolutions and hopes for the coming year. My past year was an interesting one to say the least, but I am happy with the way things turned out in the end and am looking forward to a fun 2011!

**Do you say "two thousand eleven" or "twenty eleven"? I think I use both. Well, whichever you prefer, I hope that everyone has a wonderful year!**

The Girls

While in VA I was able to participate in the daily chore of taking care of the chickens, a.k.a. "the girls". Every afternoon we would go feed them their scratch, crumble & corn, refill the water, and collect eggs.

Some of the ladies eating their dinner.

An afternoon collection.

The eggs all cleaned up and ready for the carton.

It varied each day as to how many eggs we would gather, but it hovers around 40-45. I went with mom to sell them at the Healthy Foods store as well as to another lady who does a lot of baking. Chicken rearing definitely takes effort, but it is fun at the same time :)

Geaux Saints

After waiting ALL day for Monday Night Football to start, then not feeling so well when it actually began (dang headache!), I finally settled in to watch the game-- wearing my new jersey of course!

I was able to talk my dad in to watching with me, but mom stood her ground and ignored us. There was a lot of punting and mis-called plays, but in the end the Saints beat the Falcons 17-14!!! This is a BIG deal! The Falcons are now 12 & 3 while the Saints are 11 & 4, so their next games will be crucial as well! YAY :)

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...

...and that dream has come true! We woke up Christmas morning to a fresh dusting of snow on the driveway, then it continued to flurry lightly the rest of the day. Mom, Dad, Bryan and I did Christmas at the house before bundling up and heading to Waynesboro to be with mom's side of the family. It was great to see everyone and catch up on the passed few months. There was plenty of food and laughs to go around!

Bryan looking like a lumberjack elf!

Tears of Happiness

Before I left for Virginia Brie and I did our little Christmas gift exchange. I am now the proud owner of a Shockey jersey!! For those of you who don't follow Saints football (I'm guessing that would be quite a few folks), Mr. Jeremy Shockey, #88, is the New Orleans Saints' Tight End.

He is 30 years old, 6'5", full of tattoos, and oh so sexy! Hehe!

Now, I may be slightly embarrassed to admit this, but I shed a few happy tears when I opened this next gift. I could tell from the wrapping that it was a DVD but I had no idea which movie it would be. Nor did I anticipate it being autographed! Charlie St. Cloud signed by THE ZAC EFRON! In case you can't read it, it says "Katie, All my love, Zach Efron"!!!!! What?!?! Yes, Brie had him sign a DVD for me :) What a great best friend!

And with a slightly different look: Mr. Zac Efron, 23 years old, 5'10", no tattoos, but still oh so sexy!

Honey, I'm Home!

Yesterday I woke up, packed my suitcase and left a lovely 70 degree New Orleans on a big ol' plane headed for Charlotte, North Carolina. By the time I boarded another plane for Charlottesville, Virginia it was dark outside (I have never flown at night). I had a window seat and thank goodness; it was beautiful to look out over Charlotte and see all of the street lights and to make things even more picturesque, it was a full moon! Gorgeous! When we landed the pilot informed us of the current weather: 36 degrees. Yuck. Mom, Dad, and Bryan were all there to greet me and we were off to Cracker Barrel for some "home cooked" food! There is snow on the ground here and it is definitely chilly, but it is nice to be home for the holidays :) Now, to wrap presents and visit everybody!!

Busy Busy Busy

Here are some photos from work I thought I would share...

Lots of macaroons in their trays... just waiting to be boxed up!

Holiday macaroons get festive packaging.

This picture does no justice for the number of packages we have been sending out recently. It took the UPS driver an hour to load everything this evening.

A macaroon "tree" made by the kitchen. They make these with all combinations of macaroon flavors/colors.

Libation Chocolate Collections. Magnolia, Port, Grand Coeur, Absinthe & Rum Raisin...for the lushes out there!!

What's My Name Again?

At work I have plenty of time to "zone out" and during this time my mind wanders to many strange places. The other day I was thinking about people's names which led to nicknames which led to people who change their names altogether. How strange would it be to one day say "I am no longer Katie Smith, don't call me by that name, I am now Camila Anderson." Weird right? Celebrities do this all the time! Here are some examples of name switch-a-roos:

Ringo Starr -- Richard Starkey
Alice Cooper -- Vincent Damon Furnier
Elvis Costello -- Declan Patrick MacManus
Billie Holiday -- Eleanora Fagan
Bo Derek -- Mary Cathleen Collins
Whoopi Goldberg -- Caryn Johnson
Elton John -- Reginald Kenneth Dwight
Rodney Dangerfield -- Jacob Cohen
Marilyn Monroe -- Norma Jean Mortensen

Who suggested these new aliases? Are/were their careers more lucrative due to the change? Were their mothers offended by their choice to change their given names? Did they change their social security cards, driver's licenses, and other forms of identification? There are so many questions!

I think I'll stick with Katie :)

New Look!

If you are reading this then I am sure you noticed I changed the look of my blog! I thought it was time to freshen it up a bit, and in all honesty I am procrastinating. That huge "to do" list is staring at me from my night stand, but I am ignoring it and pretending it does not exist. Unfortunately, I know that it is not going to go away on its own, so I suppose it is time to get up and start crossing some items off! First up: finish licking Christmas card envelopes. Oh joy.

Lose One Gain One

Nick has departed for New York for a few days to visit family and friends, so it would seem that where there had been four, there would now be only three. That is not the case however. Good buddy AV had a little mishap with a chimney fire at his place and thus has been crashing at our house. He has set up residency in the dinning room, creating a cot of sorts to sleep on and he and I are sharing a bathroom. Everyone is on such opposite schedules though, no one really sees each other much these days, so his presence has not been a problem at all. I believe the unofficial motto of our house is "the more the merrier"!!

Time Is A Tickin'

Twelve days until I fly into Virginia on a big metal bird! Twelve days to cross off every bullet on my extremely lengthy "to do" list. Twelve days. *sigh* I have things to purchase, packing to do, errands to run, things to clean, hair to pull out! There just aren't enough hours in the day.

Sucre's Little Elves

Whew! We are in full swing at Sucre now! Mondays are the worst because we have not shipped anything out since the previous Thursday, therefore we have four days worth of orders to process! There are lots of holiday workers assisting in the chaos, but none-the-less it is still crazy in the shipping & packaging department. A lot of folks and businesses seem to be purchasing edible delites for numerous people; so there can be one person making ten separate orders.

But, hey, I try to look at it as job security ;)

This is our "Mint to Be" Collection. It includes Holiday Macaroons, Peppermint Chocolate Bark, Peppermint Cocoa, and Marshmallows. Very popular.

Large boxes of the Holiday Macaroons get special packaging! The brown is Double Dark Chocolate & red is Peppermint Candy Cane.

One of the many chocolate collections. Yum :)

Joseph Street Obsession

It all started when Brie bought an iPad the other week. It is so thin and light and fun and cool--we all had to play with it! So instead of everyone sitting around in the living room waiting for their turn to play on the new toy, she bought the Sporcle app. This has changed all of our lives! It is a trivia game/quiz of sorts with a bunch of categories ranging from history to television to religion to literature. For the past week if you were to walk into our house you would find Brie, AV, Nick and me all huddled around the small touchscreen testing our knowledge of movie taglines and Greek gods. It has been tons of fun! Good thing that iPad has a long battery life :)