Good Morning all! It is a rainy Monday here in Ohio, although I hear our Canadian friends have my snow!! Doesn't look to be a white Christmas here, so far.

I have been too busy the last few days, and haven't had a chance to come on much, although when I checked early yesterday the forum was down once again. If any of you "experts" wants to look for another back-up site and set it up, I would really appreciate it. Just let me know. You can still put me as the moderator, but with the Lusenet changes possibly coming, it might be a good idea to have a back-up in place.

OK, so Cale put trim up in our sky-light area. The ceiling goes up about 13 feet here, and the wood had dried and left cracks. So he cut barn boards and made strips to cover the cracks. Took him all day Saturday to do it, but it looks really nice. There is always something to do around here!

Sunday afternoon my Mom and Grandmother and sister came to visit. We had a nice time with them. Grandmother is still in a cast and wheelchair, but MAY get it off this week, which she is looking forward to.

Then the big 4-H Christmas party was last night. We have 20 kids in the club, plus 9 in the Clover-buds group. Plus a lot of parents stayed and the other advisors. We had a house-full!

The food: I made a big pot of chili, and home-made chicken noodle soup, I made 10 (yes 10) huge pepperoni rolls. I made pasta salad, and potato salad, a big relish tray with carrots, celery, broccoli, ranch dip, sweet and dill pickles and olives. I made brownies, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, and lemon cookies. The kids all pitched in and brought chips and pop. There was suprisingly little left over!!

They had their regualar meeting. Megan is the devotion leader and she read the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible, 8 children gave safety, health, litter, and energy talks. They decided to go bowling over the Christmas break, and work as a group at the library one day also.

Then they made home-made Christmas greeting cards for the nursing home. After that they had a gift exchange, had "door" prizes (small bags of candy I and another mother had made up) ate all that food, and played charades.

Mnay people stayed talking until late. One of our close friends lost his job, and we were able to give them some support and advice. I think it was good for them to get out a little and relax. So I hope we were able to help a little. I feel that the economy will continue to worsen and I am praying that everyone is making contingency plans, just in case...

Since we had company so late, we quickly put the house in order, all but the dishes, which I have left to do. I usually don't do this, but was just too tired last night!!

I have to leave shortly, and go to the school to decorate for the Christmas music program. Tomorrow I have to help with Brady's school Christmas party. I just keep racing from one event to the next, like a crazy person!!!!

That is about it around here. I know the forum will probably be a little slow through Christmas, and I hope to think up some interesting topics to start off the new year. If anyone has anything they want to discuss, put it on!!!

Have a great day, and update us on your life and what is going on around your place.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 17, 2001

Answers

Melissa: it sounds a lot like my week. I am very sick after a christmas lock in for the kids so I think I'll be dragging through the next preparations.

One question though: Would you please post the pepperoni roll recipe? It sounds delicious. Wish we could have come to the 4H party!

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), December 17, 2001.

Hi Ann, hope you are feeling better. I just use my pizza crust recipe. If you have a recipe you like use it, or I will re-post mine. You can add some Italian seasonings to the dough or pesto. Then spread on a greased pan, add a layer of pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, and if I am making them for us I will add mild peppers. Roll it carefully and press the edges to seal so the cheese stays inside and doesn't leak out. Bake about 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

You can use sauce if you want, but it is hard to roll. I usually serve the sauce hot as a dipping sauce, or melted butter with garlic and Italian seasonings. Sorry I don't measure things much, but this gives you the general idea to play with. If you 't want to use pepperoni, or sometimes we don't have any extra money to buy any, you can use sausage, or just the cheese plain. Either way is good!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 17, 2001.

Hi, guys, the pepperoni roll sounds delicious. It's been raining here for about the last three days, and we've all pretty much been down with colds. I'm actually feeling better today, and we went out to try and find something for my mother-in-law for Christmas -- you know her, the one who is so easy to buy for because she loves just everything. (Yeah, and she already has two of them!) I'm sure you have one just like her on your lists too! Lance is leaning towards a small water garden for her -- a friend of ours who does remodeling and has done extensive work on his own backyard water gardens has some liner left, and knows how to build a filter, so all we need is to buy a pump and Lance can do all the dirty work while he's bored with no lawn care to do this next couple of months.

Missed everyone yesterday with the server down, it was really the first chance I might have had to visit this past week.

Better go and get with it, I need to visit a friend to learn a little more about water garden pumps, and take some pecans to have them cracked. Yum! Hopefully I'll get to check back tomorrow evening and see what's been going on, and maybe even let everyone in on Christmas in OK this year! God Bless!

-- Christine in OK (cljford@aol.com), December 17, 2001.