Fire and Ice

Life has been such a whirlwind lately that this post has been in "draft" mode wayyyyy too long! Well, I'm finally gonna tell you about catching a little fire and slipping on a little ice!!! 

My lovely friend, Sarah, and I are both fans of the "Hunger Games" book series. We both also happen to be Toastmasters!  If you don't know what Toastmasters is, you should really consider checking it out. It is a professional club that helps members get more comfortable with public speaking, impromptu speaking, and professional networking. I am a founding member of a corporate Toastmasters club and have enjoyed almost 2 years of great friends and fun events!

With the movie release of "Catching Fire" on November 22nd (the 2nd installment of the movie series), Sarah and I decide to host a Toastmaster meeting with the Hunger Games theme!! Together, we organized elements from the movie and incorporated it into our regular agenda. Instead of "Table Topics" (a portion of the meeting where people are called at random to speak about spur of the moment topics), Sarah and I hosted a "reaping" and drew names much like Effie Trinket!  We also had fun foods that tied in with our meeting theme!



Here I was working to make "Mellark Bakery Cupcakes"!  The frosting turned out more pink than orange, but each cupcake has a flame of fire!!! I had to get creative and use a combination of cookie cutters to make the flame shape, but the red velvet cupcakes turned out delicious!  Jordan helped a lot since I was crunched for time.


These are a few pics of the cupcakes, the reaping bowl, our food display, and fireballs (made out of tissue paper)!


Sarah made some cute labels for the food and my favorite treat was the "Deadly Night Lock Berries"!


Top Left is a picture of Sarah and I holding a bow and arrow! Even small things like our meeting agenda (bottom left) had "Catching Fire" details!!

Later that week, we turned down the fire and turned up the ice! The Dallas area got about 3 days worth of sleet with several days of freezing temperatures. Needless to say, work was cancelled, schools shut down, and milk prices rose to $5.38 a gallon!  Our entire house was iced over, so naturally, I had to take advantage of the photo opportunity!

This is our model, Abby, with her feather vest and ears flowing in the brisk breeze. 


Our trees looked so cool and I had fun taking some detailed close ups of the leaves. Jordan snapped this picture of me behind the camera.  Lately I've been behind the camera more than in front of it. Interestingly, the branches I'm standing next to, later broke under the weight of the ice! No one was hurt, but Abby got the scare of her life!  Jordan and I couldn't help but laugh at the situation.

EVERYTHING was frozen over! Here are pics of a frozen fire pit, frozen grill, frozen house lights, tree lights, and frozen tree branches!

You'd think I would have gone stir crazy stuck at home for 3 days, but I actually enjoyed every moment! We had the fire stoked up almost the entire time and sipped warm beverages together.  Jordan and I watched all 8 Harry Potter movies, caught up on allll the laundry, and cleaned out several boxes of stuff in our attic storage!!! We were able to consolidate all kinds of stuff and throw away/donate the things we didn't need. 

In the process of cleaning things out, we found Scruffy, the bear! Dad and mom had given me this bear when I had my appendix removed around age 12. I thought it was cute how Abby took a liking to Scruffy. Abby is my real life teddy bear as an adult and it was funny to see her snuggling with my childhood teddy. Scruffy had to be washed though...


I've never baked more than I did during those three ice days!! Our household enjoyed potato soup, baked chicken, and even apple pie! All turned out great and the house smelled nice!  It was a blessing to have a few rest days!


And with that, I want to wish you all a merry Christmas! Hope you all are enjoying the winter season!!!  May the holiday bring you peace and happiness!



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