Now that Elegante Mother’s party is over, it’s time to focus on getting ready for Christmas. Today is December 3, so that means we have three weeks to Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve is on a Sunday this year, so my family is planning to meet earlier in the day for our annual celebration. Normally we meet about 5:00 in the afternoon, and have a light supper, swap and open gifts.
The adults have a uni-sex gift exchange which is very entertaining. Each of us brings a gift. Usually the worse or funnier the gift is, the more likely it is to be gorgeously wrapped. We draw numbers, and the person holding number one is the first to choose a gift. If a following number holder happens to like that gift, it can be stolen from you. There are usually some spectacular gifts, some thoughtful gifts and some very odd gifts. Last year, Dear Husband chose a package that had the most current edition of the “Bathroom Reader” plus an assortment of chemicals to clean a bathroom! It turns out that the “Bathroom Reader” is pretty interesting! *G*
Elegante Mother will be invited to make her barbecue, and my nieces will load the table with all sorts of tasty things that will kill my diet! Thank you, God, for holidays!
I still have a lot of decorating to do. We have to decide the question of a live tree or a fake, and choose one. (Dear Husband drags his feet on this issue every year, and we’re lucky to get a tree up by Christmas!) I have a little homely fake Sitka spruce that resides in my living room year ’round. It showcases the ornaments that my quilting bee friends have made for me over the years. There are wreaths in place, but I have some roping that needs to go over the mailbox pillar.
I think we might do a laid back Christmas this year. As far as I know, there won’t be visitors here for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, so we might relax on some of the traditions. I hope I get a lot of good books as gifts. I can spend the day with my feet up, lost in a good story!
Happy December, everyone!
90!
Elegante Mother is going to be NINETY years old on December 7th. We’re planning an open house a week from today to celebrate. Plans have been in the works since September.
One of my nieces created her invitations and addressed about two-thirds of them. She is also preparing music for her iPod to play as background music during the open house. AND, this same young woman is going to oversee the beverage table for us. Her husband is going to be our official photographer, so that we can get pictures of family and friends.
My two older sisters are working on picture boards. There are pictures of family members from my great grandmother down the family tree to my granddaughter. There are also shots of EM on a camel in Morocco and other memorable vacations. I’m looking forward to seeing them when they are all complete.
My youngest sister has been collecting information and pictures about EM and her family to make a binder or scrapbook that has journaling, and mementos. I hope that we can duplicate that book for each of us, because her collection of historical information about the family is just amazing.
I helped EM make the choices at the caterers, and I’m keeping the list of who plans to attend. I’ve organized carpet and window cleaning for this week, and I have some cleaning of my own to do. We will not have all the Christmas decorations out, but some of them will be in place. I have to put away all the Fall decorations before the end of the week.
Saturday, I get to take EM to the salon, so we are both going to have our hair done for the day.
My mind is focused on lists of things to be done. The lists, and the chores are not what’s important, the celebration of my mother’s long life is the key. But, if the lists help me to clear things away so that I can focus on EM and her guests, then they have served their purpose. Each day, we’ll get closer to our goal, and I hope that makes us calmer, happier hosts.
Ninety! Pretty darned spectacular, isn’t it?? *G*
Where to Start?
Earlier this week, I wanted to make time to wish all my friends a lovely Thanksgiving, or at least a Happy Thursday. I think I got part of that message through, because I can see my friends chatting about menus for the meal. *G*
For the first time in years, I didn’t have to cook the turkey! I wonder if they were worried that I might forget to turn on the oven again??
We spent the morning cooking. I made Mother’s famous brownie recipe, and Vernice Kastman refrigerator rolls. Dear Husband did his world renown lasagna, and I steamed cauliflower and made buttered bread crumbs with green onions for the topping. I washed three heads of Romaine, and we gathered the rest of the ingredients for Caesar Salad. We don’t normally eat this way, for those of you who are worrying. This was what we contributed to a MUCH larger meal.
There were about 24 people from three branches of my family. My niece did a spectacular job decorating her house and providing seating for everyone. She cooked the turkey, her mother brought a ham. There were appetizers, lots of veggies, and of course, pumpkin pie for dessert.
It interested me to read the comments to the previous post on Thanksgiving dinner. It seems that every family has it’s own expectations as to what should be served. When I married DH, I quickly learned that lasagna was the meal for special occasions. His children don’t care for my lasagna recipe, so DH is always invited to cook. Now, MY family has come to expect lasagna on the sideboard!
I was good. I took very small servings of those things I wanted to try. Since there was such variety, my plate was full, but when we walked away from the table, I wasn’t too full, or uncomfortable. We left the lasagna and brownies for my niece. One of my sisters took the refrigerator rolls and the cauliflower home with her, so we didn’t have to eat leftovers for a week.
Tonight, we’re having a beef and potato soup that I’ve whipped up from the broth left over from cooking a sirloin tip roast in the crock pot. A simple soup and salad sounds just right following Thanksgiving, don’t you think?
Borrowed From WichiDude
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You scored as XIX: The Sun. This is the happiest card in the deck. It is full of joy and optimism, everything is right with the world. We are as innocent children playing in the fields without care. The Sun brings success, well-being and happiness in all spheres – material, emotional, spiritual -wherever our desires lay.When this card appears in a Tarot spread it indicates success, joy and happiness. Obstacles will be overcome, goals achieved.When badly aspected, it can indicate a stagnation through over-indulgence, too much of a good thing.
Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You? |
Thanksgiving
This is the first time in ages that we won’t be holding the family Thanksgiving at our house. One of my nieces has a new home, and she offered to host us. The only thing I have to cook is a veggie dish! Actually, Dear Husband has to cook more than I do. He’s been asked to bring lasagna, and Caesar Salad.
We’re also taking four folding chairs and the salt and pepper shakers.
That seems like a really good deal to me!
Frankie and her family have gone south to see her new grandson and his parents. My brother and his wife are entertaining her family, while his kids are getting together in Iowa. My two oldest sisters and their families, Elegante Mother, Dear Husband and I will be going to my niece’s home. I’ll miss the parts of the family who will be away, but I’ll enjoy the 20 or so I’ll get to see.
Should I not have the opportunity to say it to you this coming week, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families, and that you create good memories for the future. Happy Thanksgiving!
What a Day!
I had a list of chores that needed to be done outside to put the lawns and gardens to bed for this year. Usually I start working on them earlier, but weather and other obligations have kept me from getting to them. Last week, we had a stretch of three days with temps in the sixties. You can bet I made use of that time to trim things back and weed. I pulled spent plants, and got rid of a few unwanted plants.
Today’s work was more along the lines of cleanup. I needed Dear Husband’s help, but it turned out that he had his own list of projects, so I carried on without him until lunchtime. Then I asked my resident StepSon to give me a hand. I got an early start, and the guys helped me the last hour or so of my time outside. By 2:30 I was MORE than ready to come in.
I tidied up the mulch pile, moving part of it off the grass. (DH moved the pile with the snow plow. I wouldn’t call a snow plow a precision tool. Some of the mulch ended up on the grass, which bothered me, but not DH.) I mulched the day lilies in the herb garden, and the sidewalk garden. I mulched the clematis, and put rings around the two roses that are in ground. I raked the north yard, and then mowed part of it. I moved mulch to the southeast corner of the house and set in stepping stones to make a path to the gas meter for the meter reader, and I raked birch leaves out of the junipers.
SS moved compost for me, and covered the peonies, roses and iris with compost. (My iris are trying to grow over each other. Some are completely out of the ground, so we covered them for the winter). He raked up everything that I cut out of the driveway garden last week, and took it to the north end of our lot, and finished the raking I had started on the front lawn.
Dear Husband moved the timbers I wrote about, that looked like pick-up sticks in my herb garden. He set them atop the raised veggie bed so that water would drain off them during the winter. DH caulked the soffit at the living room cathedral window. He had to tear it out earlier this year to remove the bees that had nested, and was just getting around to caulking the replacement. While he was there, he decided to caulk the center panes of the window.
I had forgotten that my favorite painter was visiting this morning to do some touch-ups. Before he left, I asked him how warm it needed to be outside to paint trim. He said that today actually was warm enough, but that it was supposed to be warmer toward the end of the week. You all probably know that it’s best to paint between 10 and 2:00 this time of year. Dear Husband and I agreed that we could put off the last of the trim painting until later this week, so the scaffold remains under my living room window. I hope that warmer weather doesn’t necessarily mean wet weather or that scaffolding will never be down in time for Elegante Mother’s Open House!
Dear Husband and I were running out of steam when it came to the last of the chores. He and SS moved the piles of leaves I’d gathered to the compost pile. I set rigid insulation on the floor of the garage and DH helped me move some of the plants into the garage to be wintered over. Then, I swept off the sidewalk, and fed the birds.
Elegante Mother put a beef roast in the crockpot this morning. I contributed roasted potatoes seasoned with Lipton’s dry onion soup mix, and steamed broccoli with white cheese sauce. It was a surpisingly easy meal, and tasted good.
Are you tired, yet? I certainly was. I need a new body. Every time I sit still for a bit something hurts! I spent some time in the office this evening, and I’ll need to put in more time tomorrow I have a punch list of things to be done inside tomorrow, but that’s another post. *S*
Music
Do you have a favorite CD or album?
I like so many different types of music that I can never answer that question, but I can tell you that when I’m working in the office, I seem to keep gravitating toward “Romanza,” by Andrea Bocelli, and “Closer,” by Josh Groban. I’ve played “Closer” about two and a half times tonight while I’ve been working. I bet my mother, who’s bedroom is next to my office, wishes I would go to bed! *G*
I also love “Standards in Silhouette,” by Stan Kenton, and most of the CDs Diana Krall has recorded. I also like the collection of music from the movie “What Women Want.” Madeleine Peyroux has grown on me, as well as Jane Monheit, and Eric Clapton and Bill Withers pop up now and then. I have several Chris Botti CDs and need to listen a bit more to decide if one of them might become a favorite. I’d be happy with any of the Beatles albums.
I’ve been taking brass quintet music to play before exercise for those who come in to walk and warm up. I love the Canadian Brass, and the Empire Brass. Most of the CDs in the office are pop or jazz. The classical music is out in the living room. Which reminds me….I have to get the Bose repaired. I think the CD player is on the fritz. One more chore to add to the list!
Late Night
It’s late for me to be posting, but I’ve gotten SO much done, that it’s been worth staying up later than usual.
We finished dinner about 6:30 and I cleaned up the kitchen, put a load of laundry in the washer, folded a load and then headed for the office. There’s never a time when I don’t have plenty to do in the office. If nothing else, at least I could file! *G*
I paid bills, put together some deposits for the bank, loved up the cat, and worked on miscellaneous paperwork. It’s satisfying to get that type of work done, but you don’t have much to show for it. I guess my job is one where you have to be satisfied with the knowledge that you’ve moved right along, even if it isn’t apparent to the rest of the world.
Speaking of things that are apparent to others….
Dear Husband was cutting some angle iron this afternoon, just outside the garage door. I asked him if he saw the results of my weed collecting, and he paused (trying to find a way out of trouble, I’m sure), and said, “No.” I can’t believe he missed them. I took the time today to collect a huge armload of teasel and a smaller, but still good-sized bundle of dried curly dock. The teasel is quite tall, and I have it standing in an empty 5 gallon bucket in the garage. The curly dock is sitting on top of a stack of boxed kerosene heaters.
He must have passed them dozens of times before he came into the house. How could he have missed them? I realize that this project isn’t one that interests him, but he still should have realized that some of the space in the garage was now filled with weeds!
Last weekend I brought the milkweed pods into the house so I could remove the silks and seeds, so he knows that I’ve been working on this project to create bouquets of dried seed pods. When he’s ready to move those heaters, I’ll hear all about the “WEEDS,” you can bet! *G*
Chamomile Tea
For my friend, Cop Car, who recommended chamomile tea:
Do you believe in serendipity? The day you suggested that I try a cup of chamomile tea for my aches, I read a recipe for it at my herb group.
Pour two cups of hot water over one tablespoon of chamomile flower heads, and 1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger and let steep for five minutes.
Strain the herbs from the liquid. Use Stevia or another sweetener if needed. Serve hot, or chill.
I think I’ll stick with Lipton’s.
Accent
I was visiting blogs this morning, and found this at Bogie’s blog. I don’t think there were enough questions to pinpoint my location, but they hit the nail on the head with the comment about “Are you from Chicago.” Actually, the Chicago accent is quite different from mine, but there must be similarities. But, you’ll never hear me say “How ya dooon?”
Wouldn’t you think that I’d score in the North Central area, rather than Philly?
| What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Inland North
You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.” |
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| Philadelphia |
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| The Northeast |
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| The Midland |
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| The South |
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| Boston |
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| The West |
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| North Central |
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