I'm ready for the new year to begin. I don't have a difficult time saying good-bye to the old and excited about what the new will bring. This is also the way I greet each waking morning, rain or shine. Christmas decorations came down when we arrived home from Florida. Yesterday was quite overcast but the temperatures reached a pleasant 58 degrees by 4 pm. Today the tree is boxed, lights and decorations are back in their bags for Cliff to store in the garage. My 2019 seed catalogues were in my mailbox before Christmas and yesterday's delightful air sent me flipping through catalogue pages looking for new seeds to try. This morning I returned to the gym. Did a half hour of Zumba and 15 minutes on the elliptical. Felt so-o good to be normal again. The down time in Florida did me good. Made a lasagna and a lemon blueberry loaf yesterday. Cliff is always looking for something to eat, especially in this dreary gloomy weather....
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Last Friday we left the dreary rainy chilly mountains for the flat land in Rockledge, Florida to spend Christmas with Mark and Jen. We always do the trek in two days staying in Valdosta heading south and Perry, GA heading back north. Purchasing the Sunpass was the best money ever spent making the drive through Atlanta easier, quicker, and less stressful for Cliff. Cliff with his Florida dogs, Schroeder and Ember. The dogs aren't really settled comfortably on a human's couch. Cliff also has a pug,Toby, in Virginia. Our weather was cool the first couple of evenings and days, breezy during most of the five-day visit, and high 70's during the last couple of days. Sunday we visited Sledd's U-Pick Farm. This time of year you can walk the sunflower maze and pick eggplant, cabbage, kale, peppers, broccoli, and a few other vegetable on her farm. I just picked kale and broccoli to bring home. Acres upon acres of happy sunflowers swaying in...
A few years ago my neighbor up the road was grocery shopping in Ingles when she felt faint, melted onto the store floor, and was transported to the ER, checked out, and sent home. Not knowing where this occurred or why she went to the ER, I saw her days later, asked how she was feeling and what happened. With a serious face she said she fell off the bar stool. I thought what a great response! If I ever fall down, that's going to be my response. Well, my opportunity came and went and I forgot to use that line. Saturday evening during the clean-up at Station Twenty-five's Christmas party, I felt my right foot hit something as slippery as ice. Both feet became air-borne with the body following. One of the volunteers said I looked like the slow motion sometimes seen on TV. My life raced before me, thinking in those seconds how to avoid breaking the fall with both wrists. When I landed on the concrete floor my right hip felt the imp...
This time of year leads me to the archive of my mother's handwritten letters. She loved the holidays. It was a family gathering time, a time for giving her home-baked wares to other, and a spiritual celebration. While thumbing through my photo box of old letters looking for something dated in December, a January 1996 envelope caught my attention because it was thicker than other envelopes. My mother often included newspaper article clippings that she wanted to share with me or Snoopy , For Better or Worse, Hagar the Horrible comic strips. She also signed off "drink more vodka" at the end of her love letters. My parents didn't drink wine or beer, let alone vodka. (I don't know where they got me.) Tucked inside this thick envelope was included a clipping " Fig- and mango-flavored vodkas seem to be the wave of the future." In Russia, where grain has been distilled into vodka for nearly 1,000 years, a flavored vodka ---- and they do flavor...
Our temperature dropped to 19 degrees this morning. Hideous! for this time of year. The past couple of days steadied in the 30's with today being mostly sunny. This is brutal for late November. I may have to whine my way through fall/winter this season. Normally I can grill our salmon steaks outside until January but tonight they are being pan fried. Our outside Christmas lights were put up yesterday in cutting cold 11 mph winds. We bundled up and did the best we could before my finger tips froze, with gloves on. On a positive note, the crisp cold air wakes up your senses. Thursday morning 9:05 am bright sunshine November 30, 1995 30 degrees at 6:40 am Dear Betsy, Well, I stopped what I was doing to hunt through my recipes books for my small cranberry book of recipes. Can't find it anywhere. Do you have it? Anyway, I got all the books of the shelf and dusted the shelf in the kitchen that holds my c...
Thanksgiving was delightful and delicious. Originally I had planned on slow-cooking a turkey breast, baking sweet potatoes, my gluten-free gravy and dressing, a few veggies, and some kind of dessert. Cliff, being my clean-up guy, began to visualize dirty pots and pans, the slow-cooker, utensils and mixing bowls strewn from one end of the counter to the next and all over the kitchen island. Two weeks before Thanksgiving he announced change of plans. We would be having Thanksgiving dinner at the Chop House surrounded by conversation and smiling faces at other tables. The few times we stayed home alone and made dinner, we found the quiet was depressing, that we needed to mingle and socialize during our dinner. When I found out our yoga instructor, Anita, would be alone that day, we added her to our reservation. I brought my gluten-free gravy in a little jar and poured it on my turkey. I don't eat dressing anyway because it fills me too quickly and ...
Happy Birthday to me!!! Another dreary gloomy 44 degree cold day. My Corinthian chimes have been playing tunes in 11mph gusts. We celebrated my 72nd birthday with a wonderful Flo's Filet steak at the Longhorn in Ellijay, GA. The low temperature in Hudson on the day I was born was 25 degrees and the high was 48, not too different from today's weather here. Interesting facts............. The next time I can reuse my old 1946 calendar is in 2019. I've been living, breathing, and enjoying life for 26,298 days. And there have been 890 full moons in my lifetime with the next full moon on November 23. The modern birthstone for November is topaz. The zodiac gemstone for Scorpio is beryl, which was my mother's middle name! The most popular baby girl name on this date was Mary, which is my middle name. I was named after my dear Aunt Mary. The most popular boy name was James. If you believe in a past life ...............