Musing Monday- Holiday Reading

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about reading/blogging during the holidays…

How does your reading (or your blogging) fare in the holiday months? Do you read more or less? Do you have to actively make time to read?

During the holidays I never seem to get much reading done. This year had been pretty off for me and some months I haven't read anything at all. I have a feeling December will be like that too. However, in December of 2006 I read 17, in 2007 it was 6 and 2008 was 9 books. Hopefully I can make time to read more this year but I doubt it. :(


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From now until Christmas whenever I update I'll try to include a video clip of a Christmas song I'm listening to lately:

Christmas Eve in My Home Town by Kate Smith (introduced by Bing Crosby)

Happy Turkey Day

Hope everyone who is celebrating has a great Turkey Day!

Queenly Muppets

New Moon, Cupcakes, and a Book

I got up a little too early for me today since I stayed up until 3am last night/this morning but I got up for good reason: I went to see New Moon this morning!

I can't say I was really surprised that some of it I didn't like since the angst in the book annoyed me so much but what did shock me was just how much I liked Jacob. With the books I'm die hard Team Edward... now with the movie I'm kind of Switzerland. I still just love Edward though. Okay, I'll talk more about this in a review whenever I get a chance to (hopefully not once it's out on DVD either...)

Okay, after the movie we did a little shopping and I went to one of my favorite places: the cupcake store! It's called Frosting and they are the yummiest gourmet filled cupcakes I've ever had. They have a different set that they sell every day and today was Elvis' Favorite, Cheesecake, Mocha, Chocolate Covered Strawberry, Almond, and Lemon Poppy with Apricot. Since they've gone up on their prices I only got one this time but it was the first time I've ever been on a Friday so I got to try something I had hadn't before. That cheesecake was a good choice! It's a white cake filled and topped with cheesecake with a white chocolate coating topped with a cherry. Yummmmy!


On our way home we stopped and picked up Marked by P.C. & Kristin Cast so now I have all of them except the third one and I picked that up at the library so I could re-read them. So that's what I'm off to do now. I'll be around the blogs sometime tonight though!

Recipe: Divine Almond Toffee

Today over on my Movieholic and Bibliophile blog I reviewed Sammi Carter's Candy Apple Dead which came with a few recipes. I made the Divine Almond Toffee from the book and it was surprisingly good! I've never been that fond of toffee but I can't seem to stop eating this stuff so be warned!

Divine Almond Toffee

2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter
¼ cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon baking soda
12 ounces chocolate chips
1-½ cup sliced toasted almonds, coarsely chopped

Lightly grease a 10x15- inch baking sheet and set it aside. In a large heavy saucepan, combine the brown sugar, butter, and water and bring slowly to a boil, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
Insert a candy thermometer and cook until the mixture reaches 285 degrees F (soft-crack stage).
Remove from heat and quickly stir in vanilla and baking soda.
Immediately pour the hot mixture onto the greased baking sheet.
Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the hot toffee. Let the whole thing sit for 5 minutes, then spread the chocolate evenly over the surface of the toffee with a spatula. Sprinkle the nuts evenly over the top.
Cool completely. Break the hardened toffee into pieces and store in an airtight container (I've been keeping mine in the fridge too).

Makes about 1-½ pounds