The Mountain Thymes

What disappointingly was going to be a quiet alone Christmas, became an unexpected noisy and comforting Christmas Day.  Matthew, Taelor, with great-grandson Christopher and possibly Mark had planned on spending Christmas with us.  Plans changed when Matthew took a new job and couldn't get enough time off to stay overnight and Mark decided to fly to Florida with his girlfriend, Jen, and spend Christmas with her family.  After we absorbed the news and accepted the idea of a much down-sized dinner,  I decided not to make pies or dessert.  Sunday Barb and Mike arrive in Georgia and the day before Christmas, Barb called and asked what we were doing on Christmas Day. So Christmas Day Mike and Barb arrived ready to mash potatoes and make gravy.  Actually, Barb was ready to make gravy.  Mike took pictures of us doing "women's" work. Mike continued to take pictures of noteworthy events. Mike doing "women's" work.   Din...

The blessings of Peace The beauty of Hope The spirit of Love The comfort of Faith May these be your gifts this Christmas season MERRY CHRISTMAS to all Peace and goodwill to all creatures on Earth. 17 degrees at 7:30 AM!

Temperature this morning was 23 degrees at 7 AM  but we reached  a marvelous sunny 52 today.  Yesterday while Cliff was on the phone with his mother, he witnessed a bright red male cardinal fly into the living room French doors and land on the porch carpet.  We have bird alert decals on the windows but the decals only last 3-4 months and then new ones need to be put on the windows again.  We watched as the cardinal slowly got his wits about him and within 15 minutes he was hopping around and he flew away.  This afternoon I washed the outside windows with the Windex outside hose sprayer, let the windows dry, and applied new bird alert decals to the peak windows and the french doors. You can understand why birds fly into windows as the reflection appears to be the sky to them.  The bird alerts do work.  During the spring and summer, no hummingbirds or other birds hit the windows.  It's so disturbing to hear the thump.............. and wait a...

We were so-o-o lucky to have driven home from Massachusetts when we did.  If we had been visiting this past week, we would still be there.  There is no way we could have left.  By Friday all of the truck route, rte 81, was under winter storm warnings. The Poconos, Scranton, and all the other cities we passed through were iced and treacherous and thousands were without power.  All I can say is WHEW!! That Saturday on the way home, we did stop in Virginia, spent the day with Lauria, Jim, and children and the two dogs, three cats, a black bunny, and a gaggle or a herd of chickens.   Jim was making Challah bread with Sofia. And of course, while Jim and Sofia are trying to bake, Olivia was doing a River Dance on her father's heels. We ordered Chinese (what else?!) take-out so nobody had to cook.  Low mein noodles, egg foo young, fried rice, mai fun, won ton soup and more being spooned onto little children's plates............ hungry adults, happy chatter...

Cliff's mother was released from rehab three days before we arrived in MA and was overjoyed to greet us in her own living room.  None of us really believed she would be well enough to go home.  She worked  diligently with OT and PT wile she was in rehab.  Since she's come home, she'll have a visiting nurse, OT and PT a few times a week for a short time to acclimate her to her new routine at home.  Cliff spent Thanksgiving with his mother and sister-in-law and I enjoyed Thanksgiving with my family.  A couple days before Thanksgiving, I went with Vic and Retta went to Gerardo's Italian Bakery in Westboro for cannolis, Italian cookies, carrot cake, and cheese cake.  You can put on 10 pounds just walking through the doors in that bakery. Just two of the many cases filled with luscious pastries.   My oldest son, Michael, and grandson, Mike Jr. came down from NH and  I got to meet my new great-nephews, ages 1 and 2 years old, for the fir...

After returning from any trip comes the dreaded unpacking of folded or rolled clothing, lugging armsful of pillows, winter jackets, boots and sneakers, and the snack bags.  We also had a cloth bag full of library books-on-cd and Christmas music to take some of the boredom out of the long drive.  The stories we really enjoyed were Robert Parker's Jessie Stone mysteries.  Of course, I envisioned Tom Selleck for hours while listening to High Profile and Stranger in Paradise.   Since we weren't sure how many days we needed to spend visiting Cliff's mother, we filled two weeks worth of vitamins, supplements, and Rxs in the pharmacy snap cases labeled Sunday to Saturday AM/PM.  Those containers were also put in a soft bag (along with peppermint patties, Cape Cod potato chips, and a can of low sodium almonds to cancel out the sodium in the chips) and strategically placed in the back of the Kia where I could grab them when needed.  We did pretty good staying on ou...

How could you possibly have a bad day when greeted by a dancing 4-year old first thing in the morning?! We arrived home from our week away yesterday afternoon around 4 o'clock.  Before returning to our mountain, we stopped at Ingles and picked up a half-gallon of milk and my coffee creamer, two critical items for breakfast this morning.  During our packing and preparation the day before we headed to Massachusetts, the refrigerator iced up for the second time in a year causing the fan to whir-r-r-r louder than our clunking dishwasher.  We were able to store some of the cold foods in our neighbor's refrigerator but threw away too many items such as partially used bottles of dressings, relishes, yogurts, etc. so we wouldn't take up all of Alberta's refrigerator over the holiday.  The next morning we left the refrigerator standing with its double doors and freezer draw open like a wide-eyed child in awe while we were gone.  The day before the refrigerator froze up...