Blessings to you and your family from my house to yours.

As you come into this holiday season, let the spirit of the season bite you right where it’ll get your attention…your heart. Right now, instead of fussing about all the stuff you have to do, focus on what makes you want to fuss with the stuff in the first place. It’s love. Love of your family and friends, love of the traditions you have that have survived every year of your life. God knows what you love and just as you delight in a desire to give to your children to delight them, God loves to give to us to delight us. The ironic thing about that is, what we really want is to feel good and that choice is being offered to us every second.

I was at The Dollar Tree yesterday and I ran into a mom with an infant in a stroller being guarded by her four-year-old. We got to talking and I said, “Do you love this time of year, being able to know what your kids love and want for Christmas and then being able to be the one who can see those wishes come true?” She literally lit up with the question and her answer shot goose bumps all over me. It was like we were in this beautiful zone of positive energy.

SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) have to be very cautious when any big holiday comes around and Thanksgiving is no exception. The excitement accompanied by our amazing creative abilities can send us to places that make great material for sitcoms. If you don’t want to slip over the holiday edge this year, the following DON’Ts will help you think twice before you make any festive moves.

Reducing your intake of carbohydrates can sound a little sad. Afterall we love "the white stuff." You know, potatoes, rice, pasta and bread, our blessed "comfort" foods. But since Terry and I have been living a low-carb lifestyle for the last eight years, I've figured out how to cook many delicious meals without the carbs. This is a delicious, company breakfast dish you can make the night before so you won't have to get up extra early in the morning to fix a meal for your overnight guests. So please enjoy this short cooking video. 

If you've been thinking about losing weight by reducing your carbohydrates, I hope you'll read my book "The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here!" I share how Terry and I slashed our carbohydrates eight years ago and are still enjoying the healthy results. We'll never go back!

Here's the recipe and video for the low-carb breakfast casserole.

If you’re a cozy person, you probably have a cozy home.

Now that winter will be coming soon, do you get the urge to cozy up the place? Webster defines cozy as: enjoying warmth and ease, marked by the intimacy of family or a close group. It takes a cozy person to make a cozy home. For every cozy home, you'll find a happy family.

When I was growing up, our house was always cozy, but as the holidays came closer, the coziness factor seemed to rise. Do you think it could be genetic? If it is I got my cozy gene from Mom who got hers from Granny.

If you’re a cozy person, it probably is.

Now that winter will be coming soon, do you get the urge to cozy up the place? Webster defines cozy as: enjoying warmth and ease, marked by the intimacy of family or a close group. It takes a cozy person to make a cozy home. For every cozy home, you'll find a happy family.

When I was growing up, our house was always cozy, but as the holidays came closer, the coziness factor seemed to rise. Do you think it could be genetic? If it is I got my cozy gene from Mom who got hers from Granny.

Every home that Granny made was cozy.

Three of her homes that I can recall, were only two rooms; two cozy rooms. I remember one winter, Mom, Dad and my baby sister, Peggy, had to live with Granny for more than a week. The Northwest experienced what they call a Silver Thaw. I think I understand what happens when one hits. First of all, the air nearer to the ground is below freezing and the air a little higher up is above freezing. When the precipitation hits the freezing air, it turns to ice. The super fine ice collects on everything, turning the landscape into a sugary, slippery wonderland. 

Before the Silver Thaw, it had snowed about six inches. When the ice storm hit, it covered the snow with such a thick layer of ice that we could walk across the snow and not crunch through. The ice collected enough to pull huge trees over. Power lines were powerless to escape the accumulation of the frozen water and electricity was cut off for more than a  week. That’s why we went to Granny’s. Our home was all electric. Granny had a wood stove. 

Halloween is wearing a costume. Halloween is scary. But the biggest thing Halloween is, is Halloween CANDY!

You know your kids are going to bring home a pillowcase full of it and you know you'll have CANDY left-over after the last witch leaves your porch.

So the question is, What can you do with all that Halloween CANDY now?

In this video you'll get some great ideas for decorating with that left-over sugar.

9 SHE Don'ts for Halloween

SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) have to be  very cautious when any big holiday comes around and Halloween is no exception. The excitement, assisted by our amazing creative abilities, can send us over the holiday edge into over-doing. The following DON’Ts will help you think twice before you make any big Halloween moves. (This photo was taken in 2016. We were dressed as Trump and Hillary before the election.)