Arrrgh!!!

I was talking with Dear Husband about something that has been taking place when we host my family at major holidays. My sisters, and their adult daughters bring "bread and butter" gifts. There's nothing wrong with bread and butter gifts, but it seems as though the cost of these gifts has been rising steadily over the years.

Where someone might have brought a jar of something they had canned, or a candle, or a pot holder, now the gifts are getting up scale. At Thanksgiving, I received a beautiful bowl painted with a country style pumpkin design, a chocolate dipping pot, a jar of gourmet chocolate and two pound cakes, a pot with three of the most gorgeous poinsettias, and a gift basket with five or six items for Mexican appetizers and hot chocolate. And, my niece who was in an accident sent the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I've ever seen.

Has there been an announcement I missed that has stepped up the gift giving?

I routinely take gifts to my hostess. I'm sure there have been times when I missed, but generally, I try to show my appreciation for having been invited with a small gift. I'm concerned about this increase in the size or quality of the gift. Is this just a reflection of our stage of life, where we can afford to give more?

Dear Husband suggested that my family was just trying to show me how much they enjoy celebrating at our house. He went a step further and said that perhaps they were showing their love for me. How can I argue with that??

So...I guess I'm going to have to do a better job of shopping before we go visiting.

This week, the figures have been on the radio, on TV and in the newspapers.

40,000,000 people have HIV/AIDS. 2,300,000 of them are children.

It's expected that 3,000,000 people will die of AIDS this year, and half a milllion of them will be children.

More than 25,000,000 people have died from AIDS since 1981.

Of the 6.5 million people in developing countries who are infected with HIV/AIDS, only one million of them are receiving life prolonging drugs.

More than 6,000 young people (ages 15-24) become infected world wide every day.

There are more than 1.2 million people in North America living with HIV/AIDS.

The statistics are chilling, especially those dealing with children.

I was just over at WHUZZUP!, seeing what Eric had to say, and he made a suggestion that was SO sensible.

Go read what he had to say about comments on Thursday, November 17th, in the post on spammers. Just disregard the entry on the penis-enlarging pills, and scroll down.

Do you suppose he's right, and that most of us have been doing this backward? After all, he has had a blog since 1998....a year BEFORE Blogger came along.

What do you think?

My word, it's cold! When I got up this morning it was just 16 degrees outside, and right now, it feels about sixteen next to these windows!

For Elegante Mother, we have the temperature set at 72 degrees. If she didn't live with us, the temperature would be at 68 during the day and 65 or so at night. I'm usually too warm, and would willingly lower the thermostat for the winter, but Elegante Mother is going to be 89 on December 7th, and she tends to look blue if we turn the heat down too far.

I've been trying to get her to get up and move around, but she doesn't seem to believe that being active will keep her warm. I have the perfect idea for this afternoon, though. I'm going to bring the box of ornaments up from the basement, and have her work at decorating her Christmas tree.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

And THIS (ta daahhhh) is what the new roof looks like:

The shingles are going up fast and furious. A storm is coming in. Scattered severe thunderstorms are predicted to start in just a couple of hours. When Dear Husband and I did the roof 16 years ago, it took us almost four months to do what they did in four and a half hours. Aren't pneumatic hammers amazing??

Black felted paper has been laid over the entire roof. The valleys have been reinforced with "Water and Ice" barriers and "baby tins" and flashing are in place. Next stop...shingles!

This is the North side of the house. The roof is just about stripped, and ready for the black paper to be laid. It took a day and a half to remove the shingles Dear Husband and I so laboriously put up. The white framed window is the bay window over my kitchen sink.

You can see the seven guys who worked on our roof. They started at the top and worked their way down, slipping reinforced forks under the shingles to pry them off. This is mid-morning on the first of the two days they were here.

There are tarps all around the house, protecting the plants and grass below, as they fling the shingles down to the clean up crew.

This is what the worst section of our roof looked like on the day the roofers were scheduled to begin re-roofing our house. These shingles are only 16 years old, but on the South elevation over the garage and mudroom they were crumbling to nothing.

We've chosen to replace them with 50 year guaranteed architectural shingles that should withstand the wind and sun better. This roof has splashes of red and green in it that I'll miss, but I'm glad to know that we have a sound roof over our heads.

We made our first trip out to shop for Christmas today. We actually found a few of the things on our list! Unfortunately, not as many as we had hoped for.

One of the best finds was a group of small gift bags that we can use for the gift cards that Elegante Mother will be giving. That resolves a major wrapping issue for the year. I used to object to gift cards, because I felt that the giver wasn't choosing something specific for the recipient. I've finally been persuaded that a gift card for a specific store is an acceptable gift. Still....I wish I had the ability to find the PERFECT GIFT for everyone.

Which brings me to an interesting question. Do you feel that a giver should be responsible for returning a gift that is a duplicate? Or should the recipient make the exchange? That's assuming that the gift is a gift that CAN be returned, and that you've supplied the gift receipt.

I had to adjust to a practice in Dear Husband's family when I joined them. The women of the family would call to discuss what was being given, so that there were not duplicates to exchange. In my family, you buy what you want, and the recipient decides what they want to do with the gifts. One year I received two Sony Walkman cassette players. And another year I got two microwaveable gel pads for my back. I kept all of them, and they've come in handy.

So....do you return the gift, or does the giver?

I love TV mysteries. I can remember when Columbo, McCloud, MacMillan and Wife and Hec Ramsey alternated through the year so that we had a new mystery every week. Perry Mason, Ironside, Rockford Files, Cannon, Banacek, Miss Marple, Murder She Wrote, Hercule Poirot, Magnum, P. I., Nero Wolfe, Dragnet, Due South, Hill Street Blues, Quincy and Remington Steele were all favorites.

We have the TV on now, and Dear Husband settled on "The Cosby Mysteries." I had forgotten Bill Cosby had made this series. I love the shows that skip all the blood and gore and focus on clever detecting, or intelligent, interesting or quirky detectives.

Gene Wilder did several mysteries set in the 1930s. The character he played, "Cash Carter," was the director of a small theater in Connecticut. He solved mysteries because he was an observant man.

John Larroquette has a series out now on the Hallmark channel called "McBride." His detective is always short on money because he's willing to help those who need help, and can't pay for his services.

"Monk," is our current favorite. Tony Shalloub plays Mr. Monk, brilliantly!

Perhaps we've enjoyed these series because they are gentle. There's not so much focus on blood and guts. The characters show some humor, and we occasionally have to wait to find out who-done-it

I'm ready for the new season of "Monk" to start.

We just finished making the cinnamon dough ornaments. This year I added a tablespoon each of cloves, nutmeg and allspice to the dough and the house smells marvelous.

I rolled out the dough and used cookie cutters to create Christmas shapes. And then I made my mistake. I asked Dear Husband to give me a hand putting the holes in the ornaments for the ribbon I'll use to make hangers. I was laying ornaments on the pans to dry when I realized that all the angels looked like snowmen. He felt the "wings" on my angels weren't pronounced enough and had added indentations where the coal would be on a snowman.

So, if you get to see these ornaments, you'll know just where to address your comments.

Did I tell you what he did at Thanksgiving?? The counter is covered with food, and he brings out a platter of White Castle burgers....the ones that are called "Sliders."

I'm perfecting my "evil-eye."

Cowtown Pattie was a visitor today. In her comment under "Cinnamon Ornaments," she mentioned that she has lost her sense of smell. My Dad had the same problem. I know we take that particular sense for granted.

Think of all the celebrations and special times and family days that have scents tied to their memories! I can't imagine Thanksgiving without the scent of roasting turkey (and neither could my sister, the day we forgot to turn the oven on, when 25 people were coming to Thanksgiving dinner.) There are two other scents that I strongly identify as Thanksgiving smells: onion and celery cooking in butter, before they are added to the dressing, and the scent of pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread baking.

Those of you who are coffee drinkers....would your day start out as well if you couldn't smell the coffee perking?

Autumn wouldn't be Autumn without the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves and allspice in the air. Think of all the harvest baking that would be bland and uninteresting.

The smell of burning leaves reminds me of Fall, followed by the scent of evergreen as we decorate the house with wreaths and garland and trees.

I live in an area where gardens are put to bed for the winter, so summertime is the time I think of herbal scents. Late in Spring I can begin to smell the perennial herbs, but the garden doesn't come into it's own until June and July. Then, you can just brush your hand over the herbs to release their fragrance. Basil, oregano, sage, lemon verbena, lemon balm, scented geraniums, dill...even the cherry tomatoes are wonderful!

Marigolds are a summer smell to me, but I love lavender and alyssum more. Chrysanthemums have that tart, clean scent that marigolds and home grown tomatoes have.

A freshly washed and powdered baby has to be one of the best scents of all.

Pizza.

Old Spice. Dad wore it....and so does Dear Husband.

Cowtown Pattie.....I'm so sorry that you've lost your sense of smell.

Dear Husband and I were watching TV last night. The movie "National Treasure" was on cable, and I went to the Internet to find a synopsis of the story line. The first two paragraphs were written by critics or press agents, but the third one was written by a movie buff.

The story line was a spin off of "The Da Vinci Code" story, suggesting that the Knights Templar sent a HUGE treasure from the era of the Holy Grail to the infant United States for safe keeping. Supposedly Benjamin Franklin and other early leaders left a slew of clues showing where the treasure had been buried.

The movie buff was explaining the plot, and wrote that the "Four Fathers" of the United States had left clues. I had to go back to read that line. Obviously he thought there were 4 (four) fathers who had started our country. He'd heard the words, but had not seen it written out. Four fathers.....let's see...that would be Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Hancock and....???

It reminds me of other goofs I've heard that have brought smiles. Have you heard about the child who came home from Sunday School to tell his mother that they had sung his favorite hymn, "Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear"?

We love puns because of the word play, and Four Fathers seems to fit right in.

I've been a long time recovering from the cold that took me down after Thanksgiving. I've been short of energy, and interest in anything that required concentration or commitment. So, I was relieved to have a sense of second wind last night.

We were watching "National Treasure" on cable. I realized about half-way through the movie that I could iron and watch at the same time. The ironing basket has been overflowing since Thanksgiving, and one of the things I wanted to do was to get things ironed so that we'd have napkins and linens should we do any spur of the moment entertaining.

I was about two-thirds of the way through the basket when the movie ended. Frankly, it gave me such a boost that I sent Dear Husband off to bed and took care of the dinner dishes on my own.

I also did three loads of laundry, cleaned off the counters, finished a little office work, and planned the chores that needed to be done today. By then, it was 1:00 and seriously past my bedtime.

I can feel my "clock" getting out of sync with my life. I almost had the 5:00 rising down pat, when I stayed up until 2:00 in the morning. It only takes one of those days to wipe out all your good intentions. I'm on a medication that makes a good eight hours of sleep almost a necessity, and it's hard to do when you're up until 2:00 and you have to be out of the house by 8:00.

Still, I feel very virtuous about having gotten so much done. It spilled over to my day today, and kept right on through the evening. Tomorrow, we start wrapping gifts, so I'm glad that I got so much cleared off my plate.

Wednesday, December 7th was Elegante Mother's 89th birthday. We didn't plan a special activity this year, but did a number of low-key things, instead.

In our household, the birthday person gets to choose where we will go out to dinner to celebrate their birthday. We went to dinner on Tuesday night, thinking that the storm might make travel difficult on Wednesday evening. EM chose a small chain called "Redstone." They serve American cuisine and feature a lot of wood smoked or roasted items. She chose to take home a huge chunk of bleu cheese encrusted fillet, so that she could have the flour-less chocolate cake with raspberry coulis.

Wednesday morning, my siblings and some of their children called to wish Elegante Mother a happy birthday. One of her granddaughters (the one from the car crash) picked her up to do some Christmas shopping, and then I met them for lunch at the mall.

My niece went on from there, and I was in charge of getting EM home again. I wanted to make a stop before we left the mall. Unfortunately, it was the full length of the mall away from where we had eaten lunch. Elegante Mother was up for the trek, because it ended at Christopher and Banks, one of her favorite stores.

My errand was to buy her a sweater. Since there was no way I could do it without her knowledge, I put her to work, and we shopped together. Mother has always said that she was easy to buy for. Just be sure that it's red. We ambled through the sweaters, and I picked up one for her approval. When I realized it was on sale for half price, I held up a second. She liked them both, and we were out of the store in ten minutes. She's my kind of shopper! I left her seated near the entrance and hiked back for the car. By then, it was time for both of us to head home.

She told me the cutest story on the way home. It seems that my youngest sis called to wish her happy birthday after I'd left the house. The cute part was that she had her entire classroom shout "Happy Birthday, Mrs. ---------'s Mother!!" so that Elegante Mother could hear it over the phone. And then she did it again when the bell rang and her second class was ready to go. Cute, huh?? I hope the kids had as much fun with it as we did.

I envy those of you who are organized enough to have your house decorated and Christmas gifts purchased and wrapped by December 1st. I bet you've been enjoying the season while the rest of us have been running around like crazy people!

I tend to decorate gradually, rather than doing it all in one day. I've been thinking about what it must be like to survey your home for almost a month, enjoying the seasonal decorations. Elegant Mother is in the habit of taking her decorations down on New Year's Day. If I did that, I'd barely have one week to enjoy the completed decorations, so I let it linger just a bit.

Well...that's not quite the truth. No FRESH tree.

Dear Husband seems to be allergic to evergreens. Each year when he puts up the Christmas tree, he's swathed in a zipped hoody sweatshirt, in an effort to keep the sap off his arms and back.

This year we will not be hosting any holiday parties. I don't know how that happened, it just seemed to evolve that way. I've been out to dinner with the Quilting Bee, and the exercise group met for brunch at our exercise leader's home. We'll be spending part of the Christmas weekend with family. It seems that this was the year for everyone to go in different directions.

So, our decorating has been proceeding at a slow pace. The other night I turned to Dear Husband and asked if it was important to him to have a "live" tree. He shrugged his shoulders and tried to weasel out of the question. I took pity on him and said that since we weren't having the family here, we might consider not putting up a fresh tree. After all, we have three fake trees in the front half of the house. That ought to be enough.

We decided that the fake trees were adequate this year. So, in a short conversation we resolved the issue of having to clean up the pine needles from the trees being carried in and out. And no one has to worry about watering the tree. I can water the Norfolk pine and ficus trees instead (which won't have to be moved), and pile presents at the base of their stands. It's possible the Christmas tree skirt might drape around the base of the pine.

I'll miss the wonderful scent of a Frasier fir, but I won't feel guilty watching a beautiful tree die. Merry Christmas, Mother Nature!

Saturday was Cookie Day! It's just one of the reasons my blog has been blank for a bit.

We've been in this house 16 years, and shortly after we moved in, I invited my sisters and their grown daughters to come for a day to bake cookies for Christmas. We've held a Cookie Day every year for the past 15 years. With organization, we might be able to have six women making cookies. This year there were just three of us, my oldest sister, my brother's daughter and me.

(Raising my hand...) Ahem....I'd like to change my vote, if I might.

I come from a rather prolific family. My four siblings have thirteen children and eighteen grandchildren or so. And Dear Husband has four children and now two grandchildren, and the children and some of the grand children are married, so there are spouses to consider....and on and on and on....

Today, I realized that a wrapping room is not as bad an idea as I first thought. For the past two weeks both dining tables in my house have been covered with wrapping paper, tape, name tags, gift bags, ribbon of all texture and (taking a deep breath) gifts.

Someone else who has a large extended family must have decided that they would like to see their dinner table during December, or maybe they wanted a place to stash all the gifts until the big night....er...morning....ummmm DAY!

We have a stash of gifts to take with us on Christmas Eve that will fill the trunk and back seat and a couple of laps. Then there's the stash that will go with us when we visit Dear Husband's side of the family. And there's a smaller stash for us to open Christmas morning. Sounds like overkill, doesn't it.

If I had planned a wrapping room for this house, I would have added a freezer to store cookies and shelves to store Christmas cookie cans! My house has been disrupted for days between the cookies and gifts, and I'll be very happy to get it back. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind giving my family gifts. I just need to be more organized about it.

So, maybe that wrapping room wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Have you ever been at a point where you can't make a decision?

I find that when I have a backlog in the office I have that problem. The solution is to sort through everything on my desk and organize it into levels of priority. I separate personal and business things. Then I take the business material and sort it into several stacks: things to be filed, bills, things which require my attention and things which can be thrown away. Once I get into that sorting mode everything falls into place. Occasionally I fill a box with things that don't fit any of those categories and that's a really bad move. That box will hang around waiting for my attention for a YEAR! Better to deal with things right away, than to let them build up.

I wonder if that's a metaphor for life....

I found two new recipes for Christmas treats this year. One is ridiculous and the other is sublime. *S*

The sublime cookie is a shortbread based treat. You make shortbread from scratch. The recipe makes 48 triangles of shortbread. We discussed it, and feel that we could actually get more cookies from the recipe because it makes such a big cookie.

When the shortbread has cooled, you finely chop pecans, melt 24 caramels, and in a separate bowl melt half a cup chocolate chips with two teaspoons shortening. For each cookie, you dip one side in the caramel, and then in the nuts. When you've finished that step, you drizzle the chocolate over the cookies, and chill to set the chocolate. It's a lot of work, but it makes a lot of cookies. They look and taste wonderful. The hardest part is melting the caramel.

My family says they've heard the other recipe called "Haystacks." You melt chocolate chips and mix them with chow mien noodles and peanuts. It sounds odd, but tastes great!

Chocolate and nuts, how can you go wrong??

Just little thoughts here and there....

The table in the casual dining room, the room we call the Green Room, has been cleared off. Tomorrow, I'll wrap one more gift for our granddaughter, an over-sized chalkboard, and then I'll cover the table with a red cloth, and set out candles.

The cans of Christmas cookies and the cinnamon dough ornaments were given to our friends at the salon on Thursday. I had to do errands, so I missed what they had to say, but I understand the cookies were well received.

We have received an embarrassment of riches from the contractors and suppliers with whom we work. One sent a stunning white Poinsettia, two have sent fruit baskets. One woman, a long time friend, has sent me an amazing collection of spa products. I won't ever have to buy anything to pamper myself again!

Tomorrow at 8:00 I have a hair appointment. I've never had someone do my hair on Christmas Eve before. It seems like a nice way to start the day.

I have to pick up two gift bags to wrap (read: hide) our exchange gifts. Otherwise, I think we finished shopping today. The traffic was hideous. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day. I could have worn a heavy sweater and left the coat behind in the car.

The older couple who lives on the other side of our grove have one of those Santas that is filled with air from a compressor. Wait until Elegante Mother discovers that it's there! Maybe I need to keep a tape recorder handy.

One of the local hawks has been hunting at our feeder. I thought about stopping the feeding, but then all the little birds would suffer, not just those that get caught. I think the hawk is using the reflection off the Green Room windows as part of his hunting strategy. I haven't looked in the bird book to see what kind of hawk it is. I know it's not a Red-tailed Hawk. It might be a Coopers Hawk.

Dear Husband has all the gifts organized, or most of them. One stack is for Christmas Eve, one is for Christmas morning, and the last is for Christmas Day. I haven't told him that there are two bags of black oil sunflower seed in the trunk of the car. I figured the birds deserved a Christmas present, too.

I don't know if I'll have the chance to come back to blog on Christmas Eve, so let me say that I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas. We hope you are well, and happy, and that you will have peace and good fortune in the coming year. Merry Christmas to you all!

I managed to get almost all of it done. I finished my shopping December 24th, and reaffirmed my belief that you need to finish your shopping MUCH earlier! I found bags or boxes for everything but the trike, and we just put a big bow on it. Not all the gifts had bows on them, but no one seemed to care.

There were two things I didn't get done. I managed to get about half of my Christmas cards mailed this year. The unfinished ones were waiting for a longer, personal note to be included. I guess those friends will either get New Years cards, or St. Patrick's Day cards, or maybe Memorial Day cards. If you live in the U.S. and you didn't get a Christmas card from me, you may still find one coming your way.

The other thing I couldn't clear the decks to do was to wish all my on-line friends a Christmas wish. If you come to read my blog, or if you are a friend from my chatting days, I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends. I hope that you find Peace and Joy in the coming year, and that our friendship will continue through the years.

Happy Holidays!

I had an interesting discussion with Elegante Mother as we ran errands today. She said that she had read that hobby fiction was the big thing these days. I nodded, thinking about the mysteries by Earlene Fowler that I've been reading, which all have a quilt block for their name.

"Dove in the Window," "Irish Chain," "Mariner's Compass," and "Goose in the Pond," are just a few of the titles in that series. You can find them at Amazon.com by typing in "Benni Harper Mysteries."

At last......

Tomorrow (Friday), we will come to the end of our celebration of Christmas. One of Dear Husband's sons is married. His wife wanted to celebrate Christmas with her siblings this year, so we didn't see them Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Instead, we will get together tomorrow to swap gifts and see how everyone's holiday went.

Second son, who lives with us, and DH's only daughter, her husband and their baby daughter will join us, so all but one son and grandson will be here.

We're doing pizza. It's the universal meal....the common denominator...for this group. Some of them don't do green. Other's prefer white sauce to red sauce, so to make sure everyone will find something to eat, we'll do pizza.

Perhaps we'll chat for a bit, play with the baby, maybe watch a movie together, and then Christmas will be over. I'm looking forward to the start of the New Year's celebration.

One of Dear Husband's sons lives with us. I'd asked him some questions concerning a wireless mouse some time ago. He must have made a mental note of it, because that was one of the things he gave me for Christmas.

I enjoy it. The previous mouse had a squeak. I know they don't usually build that kind of thing into them, but something about the cord made a rusty, squeaky sound as I used it. This one is quiet as a.....well....mouse.

A friend told me I should have gotten a tracker ball, but I'm happy with my ice blue mouse with a red heart light. My needs are simple, so it suits.

Go take this quiz to see if you can recognize whether the ten men shown are computer programmers or serial killers. I got seven out of ten right and still think some of the programmers look like serial killers! *G*

http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

Dance to the Music! Do it for us, won't you? We celebrate the coming new year VERY quietly. We stay home and generally watch TV or movies and go to bed early. Exciting, huh??

I made baked French onion soup for dinner, and a huge salad. I've munched on Christmas cookies for dessert. Dear Husband built a fire in the fireplace for me, and I enjoyed the warmth of it, and the cheeriness of the flames.

I try to hold out to midnight so that I can usher the new year in with the rest of you, but it's a trial. When bedtime is normally 9:00, it's hard to last those three extra hours.

We don't observe the black-eyed peas tradition for luck in the New Year, but I do have one little tradition I observe. At midnight, I walk out my front door with a pot in my hand, and a wooden spoon, and I bang on it to drive away the bad spirits. You may think this is pretty brazen of me, but my front door faces a line of trees and two retention ponds. The neighbors to the east of us are too far away to actually see me beating on the pan.

I may have to set the alarm to be awake at midnight, but it's worth it to get rid of those bad spirits! *G*

To those of you who come to read my blog, Dear Husband, Elegante Mother and I hope that you will have all the best this coming year. We wish health and prosperity will shine down on you and that you will find Peace.

Now, LET'S CELEBRATE!!!!