Friday Favorites and a Giveaway!

If you've been following my blog for a while you know that I have a problem with buying things in multiples, especially magazines...

The magazines have been accumulating over the past year since my subscription mania event, though I am starting to let many of my subscriptions lapse, but I absolutely ADORE the special Holiday baking editions. And by adore, I mean, well...

I have purchased 18 this holiday season...(that's just Christmas themed, there are also fall & halloween issues that I did not count)
**i'm whispering this so that hopefully hubs won't read it...shhh--don't tell on me!**

Well, as I have unfortunately not kept up with the reading of the magazines as I come in, to my shock and horror I saw that I had purchased two copies of the same issue!! boo!

Better Homes & Gardens Ultimate Cookies edition
**I think I was confused by the fact that the title to one is in shiny letters and the other isn't**

So I figured that I would use my confusion to benefit someone else, so I'm doing my first giveaway!!

If you want to be entered to win a free copy of this, just leave a comment and let me know if you have any favorite Christmas cookies to bake or eat! (if you are reading this on facebook but want to be entered into the drawing, head over to my actual blog and enter a comment here)

Sorry that I haven't been very active lately--I missed TWD this week, but I have been doing a ton of baking and work for my Open House this weekend so I am beat! Hopefully I will be able to catch up on everything soon!

tonight i am missing my friends. hubs made me feel it b/c all his friends are here and for some reason mine keep leaving me! why wouldn't you want to live in bowling green, i mean seriously?? ;) i love my coworkers dearly, but i just miss the people that i would spend time with outside of that. i have a few sweet ladies that i still hang out with, but we haven't been able to get together lately. boo. i usually enjoy my alone time but right now i just want a friend to talk to!

in happier news, my mother-in-law came by today with a box of cookbooks that she got for me at a yard sale for 10 bucks!! that has added another 18 actual "books" along w/several small pamphlets and magazines to my shelves, and i also got another one in the mail this week (actually 2 but i am returning one). a lot of the books she brought are southern living which i LOVE and i have had to do a bit of shifting on the shelf, which i hate to say...it is now full!

the other (free) book that i got is junior's cheesecake cookbook which i have seen mentioned on some of the other food bloggies. i have been meaning to mention this b/c i think some of you would be interested in it, but i have participated in this market research group for several years (since college) that gives you points for completing market research surveys, and then you can cash your points in for free stuff! so far i have gotten this cookbook, martha stewarts baking handbook, and a novel that i'd been wanting to read called such a pretty fat (haven't read it yet due to my HUGE stack of reading material that i am getting overwhelmed by) but they also have electronics & dvds and home decor and tons of random stuff. and you don't even have to pay shipping! and sometimes they send you free products to test! (i've tested the glad press & seal wrap when it first came out, and some face wash.) it's called zoom panel, and if anyone is interested let me know and i'll send you a referral--oh and it's completely free to do, and i've done it for about 6 years w/no complaints.

so that's life for now. no baking b/c i'm out of food--i decided last week that i would NOT go grocery shopping, so we have been surving on food f/m two weeks ago, which means NO fruits/veggies, i am now out of eggs, ran out of cheese today, and our milk will soon be expired! i had to make 2 pecan pies (one chocolate) for friday and got worried that i would not have what i needed, but i found a store bought pie crust :( and a tart crust that i had made in the freezer, had just enough pecans in there too, and tried to stretch my 2 eggs into 3 by adding some pasturized egg whites. one pie worked very well, the one w/the tart crust and egg whites had some issues, but tasted okay. i will go grocery shopping tomorrow though and look forward to having options for food again!

the cookbook shelf

So recently i decided to upgrade my cookbook shelf from this:

to THIS:

I ended up sorting by author/publisher and kinda by genre. The top shelf is mostly "brands" such as Pillsbury, Southern Living, Betty Crocker, and then some of the BEST cooks: Dorie Greenspan, Julia Child, & Martha Stewart. The second shelf is Taste of Home & Southern Lady publications (including, but not limited to Taste of the South, Tea Time, and Cooking for Two), the third shelf is Food Network cookbooks and my measly collection of "healthy" cooking (3 cookbooks & a subscription to Cooking Light magazine). Fourth row is any short books and pamplets--includes the Cake Mix Doctor books and several small booklets. Then the final shelf is Goosberry Patch and misc. things that didn't really fit elsewhere.

I also decided to finally count the cookbooks, and I have..
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drumroll please
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75!

I actually thought there would be more, but do take note that the total is only for actual cookbooks--not cooking magazine subscriptions or special edition magazines which would take up at least one other shelf on there own (probably more considering that I have a stack about a foot high that I have not finished reading...)

So...needless to say...if you need to borrow a good cookbook--you know who to come to!

categories

i am having a quite silly, yet very real, dilemma over how to re-organize my cookbook shelf. i finally broke down and switched bookcases from the small (but still 4 shelf) metal one i had in the kitchen to a wide and tall white 5-shelf bookshelf that i moved from my "craft room"( aka: the room that hubs has taken over for his SECOND office. this room was supposed to eventually be a child's room. it is full as is the rest of our house...but don't get me started on that one...). on my little shelf i had one shelf devoted to magazines, the rest just stuffed full of whatever would fit. i have mentioned (here and here) my cookbook collection before, but i am overwhelmed right now!

since i was young i have always tried to categorize my things: when i had a huge CD collection i would organize them by label, then alphabetically by group and then album & year. currently our dvd collection is ordered alphabetically, but i would really prefer to do them by genre, then alphabetically within the genre (i.e., disney movies, musicals, comedy, comic book, etc...) books are a little harder b/c you get authors who may write in different genres. at this point i have separate shelves for fiction, religion (divided in to christian living, biblical history, and world relgions, and then alphabetical by author), & magazines (different shelves for different types: "current events" (aka: tabloids that i love--please don't judge me), general women's interest (woman's day, family circle, redbook, etc...) home & garden, and then the cooking-exclusive magazines in with the cookbooks.

then comes the cookbook shelf. my natural tendency is to want to group them by author or company (i.e., paula deen, pillsbury, taste of home, southern living, etc...) but then what about the genres?!?! i really want a shelf devoted to baking, but do i split up the taste of home or paula deen sections just because i have a few devoted only to baking? then what about the holiday issues?? i could probably have two shelves devoted purely to holiday food preparation! and then there's the holiday cooking and the holiday baking, and some devoted to just holiday cookies! oh goodness. i know i'm over-thinking this but it's an area where i am a bit obsessive compulsive. i have so many cookie cookbooks, and am developing a collection of cupcake cookbooks, and of course martha stewart has both--plus the baking handbook. what to do what to do?

bah. that was a long rant and ramble about something fairly pointless. how would you organize it?