Our Christmas started before Thanksgiving with decorations and present opening when Jen and Mark celebrated Thanksgiving/Christmas with us. Actually, I enjoyed the extended holy season of playing Pandora's calming Christmas music in the kitchen while cooking. In the evening Cliff played Mannhiem Steamroller, Il Divo Holiday, and Trans Siberian Orchestra Christmas music on the TV. This has been a wonderful December weather-wise. We've been able to walk Konehete Park with only a long-sleeve shirt and on most other days wear a light jacket when going into town. I've had so much less pain and less reaction to the weather fronts so I've been easier to live with and not as fatigued. Christmas day was spent with Barb and Mike. As usual we forgot to get pictures. Once Barb and I get together and start talking, game over. Barb is a wonderful cook and loves being in the kitchen too. She prepared a feast, plus fudge and the best apple pie I've ever tasted. We wadd
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I am still alive! The only pain I've had is when I've felt so energetic that I overused my hands and wrists. Lavender Epsom soaks, rest and within 24-48 hours I'm back to being my adorable self. The weather has been up and down with cold and dry breezes, then warm moist air and today is in the 40's, no sun. All the Florida families with children who have rented cabins here in the mountains for the Christmas vacation in hopes to see snow will be extremely disappointed when Christmas day the temperature hits 68. At 7:45 this morning we were sitting at the counter in Waffle King ordering Cliff's favorite waffle, eggs and bacon for breakfast. We call the diner Rick's Diner. We were out early because we needed to go to Wally World to exchange two items and pick up a new furnace filter and a few other things. I thought for sure at that time of the morning I'd be the only one at Customer Service. Wrong. People had been coming in since seven o'clock w
Blairsville, GA had their annual outdoor Christmas Farmers Market Saturday. Luckily, the weather was phenomenal, sunny and 60 degrees. Cliff bought his favorite big bag of freshly popped kettle corn, a blueberry white-chocolate scone and a chocolate chip cookie. I bought goat milk and rosemary with fig goat cheese. I found Santa and told him what I wanted for Christmas................ Had another routine liver panel done at the doctor's yesterday. He feels the methotrexate injections are working because with the last couple of cold fronts and night temperatures in the high teens/ low twenties, my joints haven't been painful or inflamed. Blood work came back normal. After the Christmas holiday and our January trip to Florida, he will slowly wean me off the old meds that I've been on for five years and see how the joints behave. This was the most uplifting news I've had for some time and now I can hardly wait until the end of January. This afternoon I start
Thirty degrees here on the mountain this morning at 8 am. Thirty-four downtown Murphy. I had to pour hot water into the birdbath again because I still have't connected the little bath heater to the bird's water supply. As soon as the water was available, more than a dozen robins flocked to the rim and the tree branches overhead jockeying for water rights. Kind of strange to see so many robins this time of year. Our decaying leaves supply birds all winter with little sprouts and buried insects. One suet block hangs from the back porch eaves and one on a wire strung where squirrels can't get at it but we can view it from our kitchen island. Suet brings the male and female downy and the red-bellied woodpeckers during fall and winter. I don't understand why the red-bellied has been named so as there's no red on it's belly. Before doing errands at Wally-World, we had our senior coffee at McDonald's. Businesses were quiet. There was no line at Dunkin D
Today is a raw deeply overcast dreary dank day. Early this morning a dusting of snow left mush on the porch but clear roads, thank goodness, so I could go dance at the gym after a guilt-free Thanksgiving weekend with Mark and Jen. They arrived early evening on Thanksgiving Day. Friday was perfect for sitting out by the fire pit. Even though it was cloudy, the temperature stayed comfortable. I brewed up a real hot cocoa recipe with a pinch of cayenne pepper in Christmas mugs. Cliff and Mark needed a can of whipped cream for theirs. After relaxing by the pit we went to Bistro 29 in Murphy for dinner. I made whoopie pies before they arrived and froze the cake halves. Mark and Cliff enjoying guilt-free pies with coffee ice-cream filling and whipped cream. Friday we went to Blue Ridge, GA where I thought I was going to buy Three Sisters Homemade Fudge. It seems everybody else decided to visit historic Blue Ridge Friday, too. Coffee shops had thirty minute wait lines a