Central Market & Whole Foods Market

We drove downtown late this morning to do some grocery shopping at the huge Central Market. We hadn't been there but our friends K and B say it's an entirely different shopping experience than just going to Kroger.

I love our friends, but give me Kroger any old time. The Central Market is run by HEB, which owns smaller supermarket chains in the area. The problem with the Central Market is that it's just too darn big.... makes you feel like you're shopping in a warehouse, except you're paying top-dollar downtown prices, not warehouse-discount prices. And the layout of that store was just too stupid for words (just like the smaller HEBs)... we felt like mice in a maze, circling this way and that way, and sometimes ending up at the beginning of the circle.

Granted, the Central Market carries foods you won't find anywhere else, but unless you have a map of that store, you might not be able to find them anyway. The floors are dark concrete, and very hard to walk on. Thankfully, just before we left here, I took off my heels and put on flatter shoes.... otherwise, my husband would've been pushing me around in that cart.

We ended up with a cart filled with groceries, and spent $160. (The carts there are smaller than your average grocery cart). I would bet the same amount of groceries bought here in Kroger would've cost us about $90... big difference, plus we had to drive forty minutes downtown to get there.

Before we drove home, we went to the other side of downtown and stopped at the Whole Foods Market. We'd been there once before, and loved that store because of its smaller size-- plus they have a wide variety of foods that you don't find in our neighborhood supermarkets. Both my husband and I said we'd never go back to the Central Market, but we do like the Whole Foods Market, so that ride downtown is worth it to us. The Whole Foods Market isn't too big, and it's bright and cheery in there-- no warehouse decor in that store. Before we left the Whole Foods Market, we bought some hot soup and ate it there before getting into the car. The soup was delicious--- Parmesean Crab Artichoke Bisque. Delicious..... makes me want to start experimenting with soup recipes. The Whole Foods Market has a hot-foods section in the store. You can buy any amount of hot prepared food that you want, and either eat it in their little cafe, or bring it home. I swear, if we lived in that area, I'd never cook again.... I would just drive there every day and pick out their pre-cooked foods. (Their hot foods aren't filled with salt and sugar and junk... they're cooked as you would cook them yourself, if you felt like cooking.)

We were going to leave early this morning for downtown, but there was a racoon in our yard last night, at three o'clock in the morning.... Gracie heard the racoon in the yard, so she woke us up barking. We shooed the racoon away, but then Gracie barked an hour later. Needless to say, we didn't get a very good night's sleep, and didn't wake up this morning till after 9:30. When I looked at the clock, I couldn't believe what time it was. We're early risers here, so sleeping until that hour is like losing half of the day.

Speaking of the day..... we had 80 degrees here yesterday. Today, right now, feels like 40 degrees. It has been getting progressively colder as the day goes on, and the wind has been kicking up so it feels even colder. The cats will have to sleep in the house tonight... much too cold for them on the screen-porch. Oh goodie-- another night when we won't get a good sleep.

Busy with shopping....

I don't know where the past two days have gone, but they seem to have disappeared in a heartbeat. It rained for most of Monday, but I got out to Kroger before the rain started to pour down, and then my husband and I drove into League City for haircuts. I wasn't all that thrilled with this particular hair trim, but in two weeks' time, it will be back where it should be. I asked the girl who does my hair to cut the sides a little bit shorter. Note to self: never use the word short when referring to my hair.

She didn't cut it too-too short, but just short enough to make the curl come out. My hair has been growing a little longer than I usually keep it, so the sides needed to be just a little shorter (pardon me---- a little less long) so they wouldn't droop down around my face, which they had been doing. So now they're not drooping, but they're not as straight as the rest of my hair either. Oh well..... as I said, it grows back quickly.... I wish my hair would just stop growing when I get it to where I want it to be. (Everyone should have such problems. In truth, hair is not a problem. Lack of hair would be a problem.)

After our haircuts on Monday, we went into Barnes and Noble for a look-see, and I found something there for my husband's birthday. While he was looking in the back of the store, I quickly paid for it and had them put it in an over-sized bag so I could fold it over without him seeing what it was. They only had the one, so I couldn't leave it there an go back another day.

Yesterday, I was all over town.... went to Marshall's and to SteinMart and I also went back to Barnes and Noble, to see what else I could find there for my husband. I did find some things, so they're all wrapped up for Christmas.... his birthday is all wrapped up as well. We always say we're not going to exchange Christmas gifts, but little things just find their way under the tree.

In Marshall's, I found some Santa ornaments (blown glass) which match the Santa buttons that I used to decorate the placecards for Christmas dinner. So I bought those, and I will put one at each place setting on Christmas day. My husband suggested that I could use an ornament hook and hang one from each glass, which would look very cute and festive, so I will do that as long as I can hide the hook with some pretty ribbon. I also bought some Victorian Christmas crackers at Marshall's, so we can pop those after we have my husband's Plum Pudding for dessert. We still don't know what we're having for Christmas dinner, but we always have the Plum Pudding for dessert.

Of course, I always find something to put away in my holiday closet.... blown glass Irish shamrocks for next year's St. Patty's Day lunch.... we decided to do that again because it was so much fun last year. I also found the cutest little blown glass high-heeled shoe ornaments-- a box of 8, just the perfect thing for placecards for a Christmas tea party. I thought of having a Christmas tea this year, but I won't have time to do it.

All of a sudden, a lot of invitations came in for holiday get-togethers, so I don't want to bother trying to host a tea on the same weekend that another party will be held. People are just too busy on December weekends to go to two parties in two days.

This coming Monday, we're having a lunch here for the three secretaries in my husband's office building. We did that two years ago, and the ladies really enjoyed it. Last year, I fixed gift bags for the secretaries, and my husband brought those into work.... he said that all three seemed to be disappointed that we weren't doing a lunch. See? Once you start something....

So next week, we're hosting a lunch for the secretaries.... and I fixed up gift bags as well. I've already made the placecards (tiny resin angels hot-glued onto the cards), and I've written out a menu, so my husband and I will go shopping for that before the week is out.

As I said.... all of a sudden, there seems to be so much to do, and so much coming up. Now I'm really glad that we decided not to have our usual Open House Christmas party this year. I've already sent Christmas cards out to our friends, telling them that we're not having the Open House, but we hope to see them over the holidays.

Christmas just pops up so quickly, no matter how far in advance you start planning for it.

When Pigs Fly.......

Young C and her friend M rode their bicycles over here this afternoon for a surprise visit. C was still all excited about her parents coming home last night and finding their Christmas tree up and lighted and decorated. C's dad called us last night and he couldn't stop laughing. He told me that it usually takes him a full day to get those decorations down from the attic and get the tree assembled and decorated. S couldn't believe that the three of us got that tree done in less than three hours.

We should've told S that all it took was some Christmas music, a few Santa hats, and a hopeful 15-year-old's dream of surprising her parents. Well, maybe next year they will all look at the tree-decorating as more of a fun thing to do rather than a chore.

This afternoon, however, C's friend M brought us a gift from his family's recent trip to Prague. They went there over the Thanksgiving holiday, to visit M's sister who is living and studying with a host family in Czechoslavakia. When C brought M up to our lake cottage over the summer, he noticed that I had a cast-iron pig on the kitchen counter. I had bought that little pig during our trip to Savannah, Georgia, and what makes that little pig so cute is that she has wings. (As in the old southern saying "When pigs fly....")

During one of M's shopping trips into Prague, he found a wooden pig with wings, handmade and handpainted by a woodworker there. He said it made him think of the little pig in our cottage kitchen, so he bought it for us. This pig is painted a bright pink, and there's a cord attached to it so you can hang it from the ceiling. The cord goes through the pig's jointed body, and if you pull on the bottom ring of the cord, the pig's wings move up and down, and so does the pig-- so she appears to be flying.

It's a cute little pig, and a thoughtful gift from a 15-year-old boy, so we will hang it up in the kitchen of the cottage. I always smile when I think of the great group of friends that C has... they are all just as nice and as sweet as she is. I hope they all stay friends for a very long time, way after they've all graduated from high school.

My husband and I are planning for Christmas day..... we've invited two more friends for Christmas dinner, so our table will be set for seven now. We still haven't settled on a menu yet, but I do know that I don't want to serve ham again. It seems that we've had a baked ham for Christmas for the past four or five years. I hate cooking ham, and we can never find one small enough so we always end up with way more ham than we could possibly need.

There's a trend here..... I hate cooking turkey, I hate cooking ham, I hate cooking beef. I guess I hate cooking every kind of meat there is. Except fish. I don't mind cooking fish. Salmon.... maybe we can have salmon for Christmas dinner. Lobster? They're red--- perfect dish for Christmas... it would match the table decorations. Except they're so messy... my tablecloth would be a mess as soon as the first claw was cracked. Forget lobsters, no matter what color they are. We'll just have to keep thinking.

Gorgeous day again today... I love this time of the year..... it reminds me of a mild and warm New York day in the Spring. Come to think of it, most of our Winter is like a northern Spring, except when the weather gods give us a cold snap to make sure we're paying attention.

A Tale of Two Trees

The big tree in our living room is all decorated now.... my husband started with the lights last night and finished them this morning. Then I hung up all the ornaments. Well, not all of them, but all the blown-glass ones. I still have the Lenox ornaments in their box, and all the non-breakable ornaments in another big box. We don't need them for this tree because it's only eight feet tall..... so all the remaining tree ornaments don't get to come out and play this Christmas. Maybe next year.

We've been up since before dawn this morning.... my husband got up at 5:00 and started doing some computer work, and I got up at 6:00 and went out to some local yard sales. I didn't get anything for the cottage this time, but I did find a beautiful vintage glass bowl (Cambridge pattern) and it's now sitting in the center of our dining room table. I filled it with all the blown-glass ornaments that are in the shapes of fruits and vegetables and it looks beautiful. I had those ornaments all packed away in a separate box as well, so that was easy to do.

This afternoon, as I was just finishing up with our tree, putting the tree skirts around the bottom, and using teddy bears and Santas to create sort of a barrier to keep the cats from running full-tilt underneath the tree... the phone rang and it was our young Miss C. She had a Christmas surprise idea for her parents and she wanted to know if we could help her.

C's parents were going to a wedding this evening.... C's mom had told me about it last week, and wanted to know if C could come over here if she didn't want to stay alone. Of course, we said yes, but then I forgot all about this being the weekend for the wedding. When C called with her surprise idea, she asked me if we could go to her house, rather than her coming over here. I told her that would be fine, but I asked her why she wanted to change the plan.

C had her own plan.... while her parents were at the wedding, she wanted us to help her get their Christmas tree down from the attic (an artificial one) and all the ornament boxes. C wanted to know if we'd help her put the tree together and decorate it so she could surprise her parents when they got home. We were exhausted from our own day here, but my husband took it as a challenge and he said of course we'd do it. C called us when her parents left the house, and we went over there wearing Santa hats and holding a portable CD player and our collection of Christmas music.

When we got there, my husband and C went up in the attic for the boxes, the Christmas CDs started playing, and we set out to putting that tree together. What a job that was........ I told my husband that I'd never again complain about sweeping up needles and branches from a real live tree. I had forgotten just how ridiculous those fake trees can be...... and I had one for years and years when I lived in NY. Since I've been here in Texas, all we've had are real trees.

Anyway, we got the tree up and then we started with the decorations. At times, I felt like I was peeking into C's family history because there were so many ornaments there that C had made when she was little, and ornaments from her grandparents.... and there were even ornaments there that we had given C as gifts throughout the years.

We got to C's house at 5:30 this evening, and by 8:30 we were home. Her parents called her twice while we were there, but C didn't tell them we were there.... which was a mistake, because her parents called our home phone looking for us. When we got back here, I called her dad on his cell phone and told him not to worry, that all was well, and C was just "being a teenager."

Her mom and dad arrived home at 9:30 and were blown away by C's surprise. Her dad called here and told us that he couldn't believe we got everything down from the attic, the tree up and fully decorated, and the living room back to it's "normal" state. He said it takes him all day to do that decorating job with the tree and he hates it because it takes him all day. (Which is probably why C asked us to help her do it in the first place.)

I told my husband not to be surprised if C's parents tell us they have another wedding to go to next year at the end of November.

Thanksgiving Day +1

I just re-read yesterday's entry..... I must say, I get so sappy on the holidays. And again, I was tempted to delete half of last night's writing. But that's not fair, not the way to do this. My intent when I started this whole thing was to just sit here and type, and whatever came out was out and that's that. I don't edit these entries, but I do check for spelling and grammatical errors, because I detest both.

It just amazes me that here I sit, at 54 years of age, and I can still get teary-eyed about my mother leaving my dad in 1961. It just seems ridiculous to me..... they both eventually re-married, both to spouses who were so different from anyone else in our family, and it seemed to me (and to everyone else) that they were both very unhappy with their second marriages. Now, their spouses have passed away, and they both live alone. My dad is in an assisted-living facility in New Jersey--- not that he needs that type of assistance, but that's where his wife's side of the family put him and unless someone from NY goes to get him, he'll be in New Jersey till his last day on this earth. As for my mother, I don't know exactly where she is because she doesn't keep in touch. She won't give me her address or phone number because she thinks the first thing I will do with that information is pass it along to my dad and his family. Why she thinks she is the center of their universe is just beyond me.

I have to just keep in mind that everything that happened with our family, with our life, is just that-- what happened. And all of those events took me to this place, right here, right now, at this very moment. Without all of that past history, I would not now be in southeast Texas sitting in front of this laptop and typing these words. And I will be the first to admit that my life now is a good one, a great one, a blessed one. As I said last night--- I have much to be thankful for.

Anyway....... this day is like yesterday: sunny and warm and bright and beautiful. My husband and I went to the Christmas tree tent on Highway 3 this afternoon and picked out a tree for the living room. I usually don't go tree shopping with my husband, for the simple reason that his mission in the past has always been to buy the biggest, tallest, fullest tree that he can find. With that in mind, he looks at every single tree, and I usually get bleary-eyed after the ninth or tenth one.

Being that we're not having a big Christmas party this year, and considering that we'd like to spend some time up at the lake, we decided on a much smaller tree: seven or eight feet tall. So off we went, and that's just what we came home with, after looking at just about a dozen trees--- a Noble Fir, approximately eight feet high. Usually, the tree-guy lets my husband use his truck to bring the tree home, and then we need neighbors to help haul in the tree and get it set up into the very heavy, perfectly sturdy, cat-proof solid-steel tree stand.

Not so with this tree-- it was "a piece of cake," as the saying goes. The naked tree is upright now in its tree stand in the living room. We're letting it breathe, and allowing the branches to rest a bit before my husband begins attaching the strands of vintage Christmas lights. That's his job to do.... which can take from six hours to two days, depending on the size of the tree. The vintage lights are tempermental, to say the least, but my husband loves them and enjoys working with them.

Once the lights are all on and in working order, then I start with the ornaments. Two years ago, as I removed all of the tree ornaments, I packed them away separately--- glass ones all in separate boxes, Lenox ones all together, sequined and beaded ones all by themselves. It was so much easier that way, rather than going through each box looking for certain ones for particular trees. As organized as I know I can be, I have to wonder why I didn't think of doing that long ago. Actually, it could be that our trees were always so blessed huge that every ornament we had in the house went on those trees. We had one tree a few years ago that was 14 feet high and was so wide around at the base that nine adults stood around it, all holding hands like the little "Whos" in Dr. Seuss' Whoville in "The Grinch." We had to set that tree up in the very center of our living room because it was much to wide to put in any of the corners of the room. Our friends called it a Christmas forest instead of a Christmas tree.

Today is the 24th...... and with the tree here, the Christmas season has officially begun in this house. One month from today will be Christmas Eve....... and the day after that, we'll be having Christmas dinner in our dining room. It all just goes so fast.

I think I'll stop typing now, before I start to get sappy again.

Thanksgiving Night

It is after 8:30 as I type and our friends have gone home, taking half of our cooked food with them, and leaving half of their cooked food here with us. We all had a wonderful dinner.... way too much food, but isn't that always the way with Thanksgiving?

Just like last year, we started off with a first-course salad and a loaf of hot bread from our bread machine. I was thinking that for next year, I won't even bother with the salad, or with anything for a first course. Unless we do a shrimp cocktail.... that would be nice before dinner. But that's next year's problem so I don't have to think about that now.

It was so nice for me not to have to bother cooking that turkey..... S cooked it on his barbeque and it was delicious. He put some fresh lemon and rosemary inside the turkey and it turned and turned on that rotisserie until it was moist and tender. I had just one bite of the turkey, to see how it tasted on a barbeque. I don't care how that bird is cooked-- I'm just not into turkey --- but it was very good.

My husband's oyster stuffing was the best he's ever made.... along with the fresh oysters that he usually puts in, he also added some smoked oysters and that gave it a great taste. And the mashed potatoes--- he put in three different kinds of cheese this year, and everyone had seconds. (I just had one bite of those--- I'm not into white potatoes either). The sweet potato casserole was excellent, as was L's corn pudding and homemade cranberry-apple sauce.

Inbetween dinner and dessert, my husband had set up a treasure hunt for C.... she loves to do that.... finding the first clue, then the next, going all around the house in search of what my husband has hidden for her. This year's treasure was an 8x10" photo of C's beloved Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros.

Then dessert.... pumpkin pie with whipped cream, apple pie with ice cream. I had a sliver of both pies, without either of the white stuff on top. Both were delicious, but I forgot to warm up the apple pie. I had intended to put the entire pie into the oven, then totally forgot to do that. Oh well.... they will all remind me of that next year.

The kitchen and dining room are all cleaned up now.... and I even took the Thanksgiving decorations off of the sideboard and put up the table-top Christmas tree.... it's a pretty one, decorated with tiny Victorian dolls and miniature teacups and teapots.

And now that I'm finally sitting down, I feel like I could go right to sleep as I'm typing. As soon as our friends left, I took off my high-heeled sandals and put on flat shoes so I could clean up quicker. The high heels are cuter, but the flat shoes are more efficient. When I think back to years ago when I was working and wearing high heels all day long, I honestly don't know how I did it. And I didn't have a desk job.... I was on my feet for most of the day, walking back and forth around a library, going up and down steps and between buildings. I still love high heels, and I wear them a lot, but I know I couldn't walk around in them now for eight or ten hours straight.

How did I get to talking about high heels? I started talking about turkey.

I spoke to my dad yesterday.... he sounded just fine, and said he'd be having Thanksgiving dinner downstairs in the dining room of the assisted-living facility where he lives. He has two children who live not far from there (children from his second marriage).... so of course I wondered why one of them couldn't pick him up and let him share their Thanksgiving. I try not to get into those discussions with him. I never had much contact with that part of his family because my dad's second wife didn't want that, and I don't want to start now, even though my dad's wife has passed away.

I also called my Aunt Dolly and wished her a Happy Thanksgiving.... she was going out for dinner with my cousin R and her mom. Just the three of them. I have so many cousins up on Long Island, and of course I had to wonder why they couldn't invite my cousin and my two aunts to one of their homes for the holiday meal. And when I think back to when my Aunt Dolly cooked for the entire family years ago.... at least twenty-five people in my grandmother's dining room and kitchen..... and now, no one up there invites my Aunt Dolly to dinner. It's enough to make me scream, but I don't say a word. I'm too far away to do anything about that, so I just stay out of it.

When I said goodbye to my dad, the last thing we said to one another was "I love you." When my Aunt Dolly and I were saying our goodbyes, she and I also said "I love you" to one another. I choked up at that point, because in just one split second, the thought went through my mind that in all these years of my life, I don't remember my mother ever telling me that she loved me. I can remember many times when I told her that I loved her, but she never said those words back to me, and eventually I stopped saying them to her. I wanted to call my Aunt Dolly back, to ask her why my mother left my dad after just eleven years of marriage. I've heard my dad's side of that story, I've heard my mother's side. Somewhere, the truth is hidden in there. Talk about a treasure hunt... that's one that will never be solved.

I wonder how old I will be before a holiday comes along when my eyes don't puddle up with tears because I'm wishing that 1961 could be done over again.... my mother would've just stayed married to my dad and we would've stayed in the big house in Woodhaven instead of moving into the tiny apartment in Jamaica. We would have remained a family.

Families really need to stay together. Mothers should tell their kids that they're loved.

This is getting sad. I should delete most of the above, but I won't.

It's been a great Thanksgiving and I've got a lot to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving Eve

I've been busy all day today, getting ready for tomorrow. I spent most of the morning baking sweet potatoes in the microwave, preparing them for a casserole recipe that I found in a cookbook. Once you bake the sweet potatoes, you mash them up, add just a touch of butter for each potato, less than a teaspoon of light brown sugar for each potato, then mash everything up together. To that, I added the grated rind of one large orange, then I squeezed that orange and added the juice to the sweet potato mixture. Heavenly aroma, let me tell you.

Into a baking dish went the mashed sweet potato mixture, then I sprinkled just a touch of brown sugar and cinnamon on the top, then sprinkled some crushed pecans and cashews on top of all of that. I thought I had an apple left from the pie-baking, but I don't. If I had, I would've chopped that up and sprinkled that on top too just before I put the casserole into the oven tomorrow afternoon. And I even ran out to Kroger tonight, to get vanilla ice cream for the pie, so I could've bought apples, but I just didn't think about it. I never remember to buy ice cream for pies... I don't like cold ice cream with warm pie, but everyone else seems to.

Anyway, I'm sure the sweet potato casserole will be just delicious... it should puff up a little bit during the baking tomorrow and come out like a very thick souffle. That recipe is actually a compilation of a few recipes.... I omitted the heavy cream (sweet potatoes don't need that and neither do my hips), and I cut the amount of butter way down (my hips don't need that either). After I was finished with the sweet potatoes this morning, I "dressed up" the dining room table. Lots of coppery, sparkling branches arranged flat down the center of the table, that I had bought at the downtown Christmas Nutcracker Market a few weeks ago... perfect copper color for a Thanksgiving table.

While I was doing that, my sister called and wanted to know how to make that sweet potato casserole. I had told her about it last week, but she didn't write the recipe down and she was making her sweet potatoes today, just as I was. So as I set and decorated our dining room table, I told her the recipe and she was mixing everything in as we talked. She mixed some raisins into her mashed sweet potatoes, then drizzled honey on the top of the casserole. Must be in our genes... we both change recipes as we go along.

Then we got to the good stuff... we both opened a gift from our Christmas packages. Today's gift was the second one.... we opened the first one the other day. We had both mailed out the Christmas boxes last week, and we both got them on Monday. We're ahead of our schedule-- we usually wait till after Thanksgiving to mail those out, so we're usually not opening Christmas gifts before turkey-day. Rules are made to be adjusted.... traditions are made to be amended.

My sister and I send one another little stocking-stuffer gifts.... nothing big, nothing fancy, just little gifts to open which will make us laugh or smile. My sister has just one rule-- I can't send her anything that needs to be dusted. Everything I send her must be something that she can use. (Such as soaps, candles, notepads, fancy napkins, tea, coffee or hot chocolate, decorated sugar cubes.... once you get to thinking, you can find dozens of things to fit that category.) Our husbands think we're crazy, to be opening gifts before the holiday, but this is just our thing to do and we enjoy it. Plus, we always open the gifts while we're on the phone, so that adds to the fun.

The first gift from my sister last week was two packages of tiny angel ornaments. Each angel is just over an inch high, each made of colorful resin in different pastel colors. Some of the angels have blue gowns, others have green, some have yellow or pink. My sister thought I could use them to decorate a little table-top tree, which I may just do. I may also use some of them to glue onto placecards for next Christmas. I can't do that for this Christmas because I've already made the placecards for Christmas dinner..... I used red and white porcelain Santa Claus buttons on this year's placecards. (I had found those at a yard sale a few years ago.)

The second gift, which we opened today, was a package of "Cinnamon Stick" tea. Smells delicious, but I haven't tried it yet. I'll probably taste the tea tomorrow evening when we're having dessert. Cinnamon Stick tea should go nicely with either the pumpkin pie or the apple pie. But tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I'll have a thin slice of each.

The weather has turned warm again.... bright and sunny and very warm today, and tonight's temperature will be around 60 or 65. I am so happy about that, because I've got the cats out on the porch since early this afternoon and they'll be out there till everyone leaves tomorrow night. They're not exactly happy about this arrangement, especially since they spent the last two nights sleeping on our bed. They appreciated that, I'm sure, being that the last two nights were so cold here. They are pure southern cats and don't understand the cold weather. AngelBoy has been meowing by the breakfast room door most of the afternoon. I've gone out there time and again to pet his blue-eyed little face, but I know he won't be satisfied till I let him back into the house again tomorrow night. Cats don't understand patience either.

Morning Mystery

We didn't open our front door today till noon-time, being that I was going in and out of the back door this morning, and I had brought Gracie out into the backyard early this morning. Actually, I did open the front door to pay the gardener at nine o'clock, and everything was "normal" on the front porch. But later on, when my husband went out the front door after lunch to take Gracie for her walk, we found a small vintage-looking wooden ironing board on the front porch. It was all set up, as if it were ready to be used. Very small, either a child's size, or a collectible-sized display piece.

Very cute...... but we don't know who left it there for us. We asked our immediate neighbors, thinking that they were giving it to us to bring to the cottage, since it would make a cute little accent in a country kitchen or a laundry room. I also called our around-the-corner neighbor V, because she recently gave me some pottery bowls to bring up to the cottage.... but she didn't leave it there for us, although she said she wished she had.

The last person I asked was our neighbor ML who's directly across the street from us. She had also given us some furniture to bring up to the cottage, and I thought maybe she had left it there for us. But no... it wasn't from her either. ML did see "some sort of vehicle" in front of our house around 11:00 this morning, and she did see "either a gray-haired or a blonde woman" walking up towards our front porch. ML didn't notice if she had been holding this wooden ironing board, and for the life of her, she can't remember what type of vehicle she was driving. ML was busy taking care of her two-year-old grandson this morning, so she was too busy with the baby to be noticing details. Around 11:00 this morning, I was in the kitchen making a sweet potato casserole for tomorrow, and my husband was in his computer room. No one rang the bell, and Gracie didn't bark.

Our around-the-corner neighbor V told us that there's a "thing" going on in some of the subdivisions lately, where a friend or neighbor will leave a surprise on someone's front porch.... just put something there without ringing the bell or telling the person they were going to be the recipient of a gift. Which is what happened to us, but we hadn't heard of this surprise-gift thing yet, but obviously, someone we know has.... and maybe that's how we got that darling little ironing board this morning.

It's still a mystery.... try as we might, we can't think of who would've left it. I did think it might have been one of our neighbors who moved away a few years ago. She always used to tell me I was out of my mind for ironing so much.... but she's been gone for years now, and I think if she had taken the time to drive all the way over here from Pearland, she would've taken the time to ring the bell and say hello. Right now, the little ironing board is in the corner of my sitting room, along with some other things that we'll take up to Mayberry the next time we go.

I will put the little ironing board in the laundry room of the cottage... it will look cute there, I'm sure, and maybe one day we'll find out who left it on the porch for us.

Pumpkin Pie and Apple Pie

Our young Miss C was here this morning before 10:30 and we got to preparing and baking the two pies for Thanksgiving. We were chopping and slicing and mixing and baking for more than three and a half hours, with only a very short break inbetween the first pie and the second. I don't think C realized just how long making pies from scratch can take, but she seemed to enjoy every minute of it.

The only thing I didn't do from scratch were the pie crusts, I must confess. I bought the Pillsbury crusts that are in the refrigerated section of the supermarket... them come two to a box, all rolled up and ready to put into your pie pans, and they're just delicious. I used to make perfect pie crusts years ago, thanks to a baking class that my friend F and I had taken at one of the local schools. But my pie crust skills aren't up to par these days, and I didn't want to mess up good fillings with not-so-good crusts, especially on Thanksgiving. The ingredients for a pie crusts are so simple, but the method is what can turn a flaky crust into a rock. I'll have to practice making pie crusts, so I can get them to come out tender and flaky again.

C and I made the pumpkin pie first, and we did something different with that crust. I showed C how to use our nut grinder and she crushed up pecans and cashews... then she pressed them down onto the bottom crust before she poured in the pumpkin pie filling. I thought that would make an interesting taste and texture with the pumpkin. I have a quiche pan that my friend F up in NY had given to me as a Christmas gift more than thirty years ago. We had learned how to make Quiche Lorraine in that baking class we took, and F gave me the perfect quiche pan for our recipe. I've been using it ever since, for every quiche I've made all these years, and for every pumpkin pie as well because it's the right size for the recipe I use for those pies. I told C the story behind that quiche pan and she loved hearing it. I let C do everything with that pie.... she cracked and beat the eggs, poured in the pumpkin and the evaporated milk, and then we added the spices, a bit at a time, till we both agreed that we had enough of this and enough of that and just a pinch of the other. For the center of the pumpkin pie, I gave C a silk leaf to trace onto a piece of dough... she put that in the middle of the pie and it puffed up a little during the baking and we have one glorious leaf-decorated pumpkin pie.

While the pumpkin pie was baking, we started on the apple pie. C had a hard time peeling the apples.... she couldn't do it with a knife and the vegetable peeler didn't do such a good job. So we set up a two-person assembly line..... I peeled and quartered the apples and C sliced them all. When we were done with that, I told her how much brown sugar to mix in, then the nutmeg and cinnamon, then a touch of flour. We used about fifteen apples and the bowl was filled... she used her hands to mix everything together, then we each tasted one slice of apple. More cinnamon.... a touch more brown sugar. Another taste... perfect. Into the bottom crust went all those apple slices--- one by one. C decided that if she arranged the apple slices, rather than just dump them all into the crust, the pie would have a more even consistency. So that's what she did.... it was a very artistic-looking apple pie filling.

On went the top crust for the apple pie, and I showed her how to crimp the edges to seal it, then we brushed the crust with egg yolk. On the center of that pie, we used some leftover pastry to cut out an apple shape. Then C made a stem for the apple, and two little leaves. We brushed our little apple shape with egg, and into the oven that pie went.

We still had just a little bit of pastry left over.... and I had a tiny personal-sized pie plate. We cut up two more apples, added the spices to that, and C mixed in some dried blueberries. Into the bottom crust went that combination. I didn't have any more pastry left for a top crust, so I used granola and pineapple juice to make sort of a strussel topping for that cute little pie. When that tiny pie was baked, I divided it into thirds... for C, my husband, and myself. Delicious... the combination of blueberries and apples was great, and we may just make that pie for next Thanksgiving. Unless, of course, we set aside a day for National Pie Day and bake it sooner, which was C's suggestion.

We had so much fun with the pies..... and C was very impressed when the pies came out of the oven and looked so perfect. Except for peeling the apples, and giving her instructions for the sugar and spices, and showing her how to do the edges of the pies, C did everything herself. She was having so much fun in the kitchen that she didn't even realize that she was following my instructions the whole time and doing everything by herself. When her mom came to pick her up this afternoon, she was totally overwhelmed with both of the pies.

Tomorrow is cleaning day.... I'll be busy with that for part of the day. Then I'll do the sweet potatoes and get them ready in the casserole. I'm trying a new recipe for them that I found in the Thanksgiving cookbook that I gave everyone who came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner last year. It's a baked casserole of mashed sweet potatoes, topped with crushed pecans. I can get it all ready, then just bake it on Thursday.

The temperature has warmed up some, and I'm thrilled about that because the cats will have to stay out on the screen-porch starting tomorrow, not coming back into the house till after everyone leaves on Thanksgiving night. Tomorrow is expected to be warmer than today, and Thursday will be warmer still. Thankfully, the cold snap is all snapped-out.

Freezing Cold Snap

The Powers That Be in the weather department have forgotten this is southeast Texas..... it went down to freezing last night. Much too cold to let the cats sleep out on the screen-porch, so I kept all three of them inside. It was an interesting night.

AngelBoy curled up near the foot of the bed, between me and my husband. ShadowBaby curled up on the other side of me, near the edge of the bed. Mickey Kitty had fallen asleep in one of the chairs in the TV room, so we just left him there when we went to bed. Both AngelBoy and ShadowBaby didn't move the whole night, which meant that I was boxed in and couldn't move either. I fell asleep on my back and when I got up this morning, my hair didn't even look as if I'd turned over once. My hair looks as good as it did yesterday, so I didn't even bother to wash it this morning. The first cat to wake up was ShadowBaby, at his usual 4:30 in the morning. I have no idea why that cat wakes up at that hour, but he's done that for as long as we've had him. You could set your watch by that cat, if you wanted to wake up at 4:30 a.m.

Once the other cats heard ShadowBaby get up, they thought it was time to start their day and that's what they did. I got out of bed to see if it was still freezing outside, which it was. I left the window open a little bit so they could crawl out into the screen-porch from the breakfast room, and I went back to bed. Before I got back into bed, both ShadowBaby and AngelBoy had gone out on the porch to use the litter boxes out there. They have boxes in the house, so I don't know why they wanted to freeze their little kitty-tushes out on the porch.

Pretty soon after I went back to bed, AngelBoy and ShadowBaby came back up on the bed also. I was trying to stay awake, listening for any sounds of Mickey Kitty getting into something he shouldn't be touching, but I fell back to sleep. When I walked into the living room this morning, Mickey had taken some paper napkins from the kitchen and arranged them on the tile floor of the breakfast room. He also took the smallest wooden Christmas Nutcracker from my display in the living room and left it underneath the piano bench. Considering all the glass ornaments on the vintage aluminum tree in there, the little Nutcracker was the best thing he could've chosen to play with. When my husband went into the foyer to put his shoes on to walk Gracie this morning, he saw that Mickey had left one of his catnip toys in his shoe. A little early-morning gift from the baby-cat.

The temperatures this week will continue to rise and get back to normal. It's supposed to be near 80 degrees by Thanksgiving, and will stay warm throughout the weekend and into next week. Yeeee-haaaaw to that........... I hate these cold snaps.

My husband and I went grocery shopping yesterday, to get everything we needed for Thanksgiving dinner. We went to HEB instead of Kroger, and I figured out why I don't like to shop in that HEB anymore. The HEB is in a big shopping center with lots of stores, which makes for a very huge and crowded parking lot. I used to always shop at HEB when they were in a much smaller store, but then they moved to a bigger location and changed the whole floor plan of the store--- a very non-intuitive layout, as my husband calls it. But that's not why I began to hate shopping there. The music they play is more like rap than real music, their loud-speakers are always giving you the latest things on sale at the deli counter or at the in-store bakery, they always have the aisles blocked with employees stacking shelves, and the mood in there is downright frantic. By the time you're walking out of that store with your groceries, your nerves are just plain shot.

In contrast, shopping at the Kroger store that's near us is just the opposite. Kroger is in a small neighborhood shopping center--- only a few stores, without a mega-parking lot that you can lose your car in if you're not paying attention where you parked. The layout of the store is better and more convenient, and the aisles aren't obstacle courses with piled-up boxes and employees stocking shelves when the store is busy. The music is nicer (you can actually understand the lyrics), and there are no loud-speakers telling you that mesquite-smoked turkey is on sale for $3.00 a pound and fresh-baked tortillas will be ready in twenty-eight seconds, So y'all better get 'em while they're hot-hot-hot!! When you get your cart to the checkout counter in a Kroger, you don't have to unload everything because the cashier does that for you. And their sackers are mostly adults, not young kids who haven't learned yet not to put containers of apple cider on top of a carton of eggs. Best of all, when you leave Kroger, you don't feel like you've got to decompress before you can drive home.

I'm waiting for Miss C this morning... she'll be here in a little while to help me with the pies for Thanksgiving. I'm going to try something different with the pumpkin pie-- sprinkling the bottom crust with crushed pecans or cashews, or maybe a mixture of both. I thought the nuts would give a little texture to the pie and make the crust more interesting. For the apple pie, I have a recipe that I got out of a cookbook nearly thirty years ago and I've used ever since...... calls for using Yellow Delicious apples, with brown sugar instead of white sugar, and you pile those apples up as high as you can so you have a very thick pie after it's baked.

Needless to say, we'll have a lot of delicious food for Thanksgiving, we'll have good company, and we'll have warm and sunny weather. Lots to be thankful for in our home.

Great weekend........

We went up to Mayberry this weekend...... so nice there, even at this time of the year when the temperature goes down at night and you have to bundle up in a sweater. Most of the trees on our property keep their green leaves all year long, so it still looks like a park. The sky this weekend up there was just filled with stars... many more than we're used to seeing here. My husband says the light-pollution up there is much less than here. The lake is two hours northeast of here, so the city lights are a good distance away. When it's dark up there, it's dark.

We should have a sign put on the front door of the cottage: "Everything is better at the lake." I just can't explain how nice it is to sit in the kitchen and look out at the lake, or sit on the back porch and watch the lake. We can also see the lake from our bedroom, the living room, the game room, the laundry room, and C's cabin also has a great view. There's no fence around the property there, so the view of the lake is just endless. Then we come back here and we look at the wood fence all around our backyard.... Oh well. As I said-- it's better up at the lake.

Our young Miss C and her mom drove up to Mayberry on Saturday morning and stayed overnight. L brought everything she needed to make a great pasta dish--- Rigatoni with shrimp, fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil, and feta cheese. So delicious...... she had made it before, at their house here in town, but of course-- everything tastes better at the lake. I made Italian focaccia to go with dinner, and even that was the best I've ever made-- I picked some fresh rosemary right from our yard to sprinkle on the bread before I baked it. (And this time, I remembered to cut a bunch of sprigs to bring home.)

After dinner on Saturday night, my husband taught us all how to play poker. We even had poker chips. We learned how to play, how to bluff, and we tried to remember what beat what, which was a little easy because we had a sheet with everything printed down. I was the first one to lose all my chips, then C lost all of hers. My husband ended up with everyone's chips at the end of the night. Coincidence or not?

We knew we'd be making a fire in the fireplace, so I had gone to the store and bought everything we needed to make "S'mores." Graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate, and wooden skewers. The fire was a roaring one, with all the small branches and driftwood that had washed up over the bulkhead after the last storm--- we gathered up all that free wood and stacked it up for our fireplace. The S'mores were delicious, and we had fun making them.

That night, when my husband and I went outside to look at the stars, Gracie came out with us, and chased a possum right up to the edge of the bulkhead. I cringed and held my breath, waiting to hear a splash and hoping it would be the possum going over the bulkhead and not Gracie. The possum, however, just stood its ground, right on the steel bulkhead. At first, we thought it was a cat, but there's no mistaking the hairless tail and the pointed snout of a possum, even when all you're looking at is its sillouette in a dark backyard.

So there was Gracie, staring at the possum. And there was the possum, head-to-head with Gracie. We're lucky that Gracie didn't lunge at the possum, because it surely would've bitten her. The teeth on a possum are huge, compared to the size of that animal. Luckily, Gracie ran back to my husband when he called her. Of course, it was a lesson for us-- not to let Gracie out into a dark yard without a leash when we're up there. Too many critters up there in the woods. She's already chased a couple of rabbits, and the squirrels, and now she can add a possum to her list. My husband said we were also lucky that it wasn't a skunk.

Tomorrow starts the countdown for Thanksgiving. We've got to go grocery shopping, to get everything we need for Thursday. C's dad is making the turkey on his barbeque, C's mom is making apple/cranberry compote and corn pudding. C and I are baking the pumpkin pie and apple pie on Tuesday, then C is baking a surprise cookie recipe on Wednesday. (She won't tell anyone what it is, but she said the recipe is perfect for Thanksgiving.) I will make the sweet potatoes, and my husband will make the mashed potatoes and the stuffing. I think I'll also make a special salad as a first course, like I did last Thanksgiving. Last year, I used fresh spinach, but I don't think I'll do that this year, after that big spinach scare this past summer.

Since we're not having a big Open House Christmas party next month, we decided not to get a tree that goes way up to the highest point of our ceiling. Which means we won't need ladders to decorate our Christmas tree this year. Usually, my husband goes out on the morning after Thanksgiving so he can get the tallest tree in the lot. Not this year.... he won't have to rush down there now. Someone else can drive away with the 15-foot steroid-fed tree.

"A blustery day........"

That's what the weatherman said on this morning's news-- that today would be a blustery day. It's a little bit windy, and the temperature isn't going to get any higher than 75 degrees, but the word "blustery" reminds me of winter days in New York with 40-degree temperatures. I guess the definition of blustery depends on where you're living.

It's sunny and bright outside, and even with the winds, which remind me of the tropical winds in Hawaii, this is a gorgeous blue-sky morning.

I spent some time looking at Christmas party favors that we had left over from last year's Open House party. I have enough favors, for both men & women & teenagers, so that if we decided to invite some friends over after we put up the big tree, I don't have to run out and search for anything. I was thinking of maybe having a coffee and dessert party... I could bake some cookies and pies, and ask our friends to bring some cookies..... maybe a cookie exchange party. I'll see.... it's just an idea. When I think of all the work and planning that goes into having 60 people here for an Open House, it just boggles my mind. The only way I did that for all those years was to start the planning in August.

I've already made the placecards for Thanksgiving, and even the ones for Christmas dinner are all done and waiting in my holiday closet. So far, we've invited young Miss C and her parents for Christmas Day. My husband and I still have to decide if we want to ask anyone else to join us. Our friend J came here for dinner with us all last Christmas, but this year he'll be with his brother and his friend, who recently moved here from Georgia. J brought his brother along to our Halloween party.... I hadn't met his brother before, and I didn't know he was coming. The more the merrier, when it comes to the Charades parties, as far as I'm concerned. J is a little bit scattered at times, so it didn't really surprise me when he showed up with an extra person. It worked out that I had an extra party-gift bag for him because one of our friends had to cancel at the last minute because of a sick child...... so I quickly put J's brother's name on the gift-bag and he was surprised at the end of the night when I gave it to him. (Note to self: for all parties, make an extra gift bag or two, just in case.)

I spoke to my cousin R this morning.... when she picked up the phone, I told her "I'm still waiting at the airport! Where are you?" --She had called me two weeks before our Halloween party and asked if she could fly down here for the Election Day/Veteran's Day holidays. Of course I said yes, but I didn't get anything prepared for her because she didn't give me a definite time and date. She said this morning that she just couldn't get everything together in such a short time. Two weeks? But that's just my cousin.... just a little slow to make arrangements, and it takes her forever to pack a suitcase. One of these days, she'll get down here again. And really, the best time for her to come down here is when my husband has a conference somewhere. My NY cousin is just a very high-maintenance type of girl and that would get my husband just a little bit nuts.

I need to call my Aunt Dolly, and my dad.... and wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. I know my dad would like to be in NY instead of New Jersey, but there's no way he can get there to my Aunt Dolly's house. Why on earth he moved to New Jersey is just beyond me, and I know he's sorry that he did, even though he won't admit it. But that's where he is, and that's where he will probably be for the rest of his days.

This week seems like the calm before the storm, as the saying goes. Everything that I can get ready for Thanksgiving has already been done, and until we go grocery shopping on Monday, Thanksgiving is just sort of on hold for now. Miss C will be here on Tuesday and Wednesday, and we'll be baking pies.... or maybe we should just do both of them in one day, which would actually make it easier. That way, my husband could have the kitchen on Wednesday to put his stuffing together. He'll either do his Greek stuffing or the oyster stuffing. I'd rather have the oyster stuffing for Thanksgiving, and the Greek one for Christmas--- save the best for last! I shouldn't say that, though, because they're both really delicious.

And right after turkey-day, Christmas will be here in a heartbeat. Just like last year, just like every year. There should be a way to slow down time a bit.

I haven't mentioned my friend up in NY in quite a while here. Not because I haven't thought about her, but because I don't want to be typing her whole story in here--- for the simple reason that it's her story. She is constantly, constantly on my mind. There hasn't been much that I've done that hasn't made me wish she could be doing it also. She's been getting radiation treatments these past few weeks. Five days a week. I try to imagine what she's going through, how her body is responding, how her husband and sons are coping with this life-changing situation. I can't imagine. And if I think about it all too much, I start to cry. Life just isn't fair, and I wonder why that is.

It's Monday again....

...... and the Mondays seem to come along quicker and quicker as each month goes by. So hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week already. And I know what that means-- Christmas will be here in a heartbeat.

I was at the post office this morning, with eBay packages and Christmas gifts. Only five people in front of me when I walked in there, but by the time I left, there must have been two dozen people on that line. You'd think they would put more clerks behind the counter at this time of the year. Just two ladies working that counter this morning.... they could've used two more. The packages were piled up behind the counter waist-deep and the woman who waited on me said that the Christmas rush has already begun. And my husband laughed at me when I told him that I was going to start mailing out Christmas gifts.

Young Miss C was here after school today. She was supposed to go home with a friend of hers, but her friend wasn't being too nice in school this afternoon, and C didn't want to spend any more time with her today. She called me up when the final bell rang and I was glad that I was here to go and get her. The backpack that C carries weighs a ton, plus she had cookie-boxes that she needed to deliver. The band and Color Guard were selling boxes of cookie-dough mix to raise money for their groups.

We went out for dinner tonight.... to Babbo Bruno's. Our friend K wasn't working.... she has college classes on Mondays. We'll have to remember that. The food was delicious, but it's just always nicer when K is there. We spoke to the owner tonight.... he came by our table to talk after we had finished dinner. He's looking forward to moving into his newer and larger restaurant after the first of next year. We're hoping that all goes well with this move. His current restaurant seems to be just the right size. Not too big, not too small. Granted, it's very crowded at holiday times, and people have to wait for tables. But that's only during the holidays.... it's the perfect size otherwise. So my husband and I hope that he doesn't over-extend himself by getting a bigger restaurant. Even young Miss C is hoping that the restaurant doesn't lose it's "cozy feeling" when they move.

You've lost that co-zy feel-ing.......... a la the Righteous Brothers. (Now I won't be able to get that song out of my head.)

The Gizmo Guys

We went to the local college last night, to see a performance by "The Gizmo Guys." Two men with a comedy and juggling act........ the program said they have performed in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, to name just a few cities.

They were good, both with their juggling and with their comedy routines, but I have to wonder just where they performed up in NY. Given all the talent in that city, I would imagine that The Gizmo Guys are an opening act up north, not the main attraction. Most of their routines were very good, some of it was a little "lame," to use my husband's word. However, the tickets were just $5.00 each, so it's not like we paid top-dollar for a night out. It was fun, something different to do.


Gorgeous day today..... not as warm as yesterday, but it's sunny and bright and clear. We drove to the local park with Gracie and let her run around there for a while as we walked. When she got in the car, she settled down into the back seat and I'm sure she thought we were going to the lake. Our park here is just about a ten-minute ride away, so I think she was disappointed not to be on her own property and chasing her own ducks. Where's my lake? Did you forget how to get up there?

Lots of families in the park today, most of them there for birthday parties. That's a popular thing to do down here.... arrange a kid's birthday party in the park. They hang up colorful pinatas from a tree, decorate the picnic tables with birthday tablecloths and either barbeque the foods or bring food in coolers. No muss, no fuss in the house, and the kids can play as hard as they want to in the park. One of the birthday groups today had a pinata shaped like a lady-bug, and the tablecloth was covered with a lady-bug design as well. Cute theme for a little girl.

I took some time this morning to wrap up the rest of the holiday gifts that need to be mailed out, and then I wrote out our Christmas cards. I wrote notes in some of the cards to our friends, telling them that we wouldn't be giving a big Open House Christmas party this year. I didn't want people to think we were giving the party and not inviting them. Our idea is to get together with small groups of friends and neighbors for coffee/tea/desserts.... so we'll see how that works out during the month of December, after we put up the big tree.

The rest of the Christmas decorations are all out now.... we'll get the big tree right after Thanksgiving. I should suggest to my husband that he ask young Miss C to go with him. I think she'd enjoy helping him pick out the tree. The first couple of years, my husband and I went together, but now I just stay home and keep my fingers crossed that he doesn't come back with a 25-foot tree. Our methods of shopping (for anything) are very different. When I see what I want, I buy it and stop looking. My husband doesn't make a decision until he sees everything, every last blessed thing.

Shopping for a Christmas tree like that can get frustrating for me. After the 14th tree, they all start to look the same. But my husband enjoys looking at each and every tree, so I just let him go and enjoy himself. So far, the tallest tree he's brought home has been about 12-feet high. That tree was so big that the tree-guy gave my husband the keys to the market's truck so he could bring the tree home. Jingle bells.

Garage Sales

I was up early and out the door by 7:15 this morning, off to the local yard sales. There were no yard sale ads in the newspaper this week, but I went out anyway because there are always lots of unadvertised sales. People just put up signs on corners, or at the entrance to their subdivisions, so on any given Saturday, there's always a few sales.

There were more than a few today, but none of them were so earth-shaking. I found a beautiful wicker chair that I would've bought for our porch here, since all my wicker is now up at Mayberry. The lady had marked it $48..... no way would I pay that much for a wicker chair (antique or not) because I usually find them for less than fifteen dollars. I did ask the lady this morning if she would take less than her marked price, and she said she'd go down to $45. I thanked her and said no.... and I started back down the driveway. As I walked away, she told me "You know, there's ten dollars-worth of white paint on that chair." I just looked back and smiled. Sometimes it's better to say nothing at all if you can't say something nice.

I found a lot of Mardi Gras beads this morning... bags and bags of them, for quarters each (per bag, not per necklace). I bought them all, thinking I would put them into my closet for next Halloween and give them out to the kids who come trick-or-treating. I've done that before and the kids just love those beaded necklaces.

When I got home and opened up the plastic bags, though, there were so many purple and green Mardi Gras necklaces that I decided to save the green ones for our St. Patty's Day lunch-- we did that last year and it was a lot of fun. I found green beaded necklaces at Hobby Lobby and put them by everyone's place setting and they all loved them. So now those green Mardi Gras necklaces are in my St. Patty's Day box. Sometimes it takes just one thing to get a party started.

The purple necklaces are now in the closet where I keep all the stuff for our Halloween parties.... these necklaces were more ornate than the orange and black necklaces that I had bought on eBay for this past Halloween party. I put aside one purple-beaded necklace for myself--- to go with my black & purple "When I Am an Old Witch I Shall Wear Purple" costume... and the rest will be given out to all the ladies at our next Halloween party. (And this is how my closets and storage cabinets get filled up with holiday things, and everyone who comes to our parties will tell me "You always manage to find such fun things!") -- Even with taking out all the green and purple necklaces, I still have a bag filled with colorful Mardi Gras beads for the trick-or-treaters next year.


Funny thing with the cats the other day...... my husband had been watching television in the TV room and left his socks on the floor near his chair. As each of our three cats came into the room, they inspected those socks. ShadowBaby was first.... he sniffed around the edges of them and walked on by, walking around the socks in a wide circle as if he didn't want to get too close. Which is so typical of ShadowBaby... he tends not to bother with things that aren't his or things that he has no interest in.

When AngelBoy walked up to the socks, he gave them just one delicate sniff, then turned his back on them and started to bury them by scraping his paw against the carpet. He gave a few back-scrapes of his paw, looked around at the socks and saw that they were still there, and he tried to bury them once again. When he looked at them a second time and found them still not buried, he walked away and curled up in the farthest corner of the room. Typical for AngelBoy.... this prissy, picky cat would have no use for dirty socks.

Mickey Kitty was the last to see the socks, and he gave them a sniff and immediately rubbed his little head on them, and then rolled over on his back so he was on top of the socks. Being that my husband is the one who found Mickey in the park last year and carried him home, my husband is his hero and Mickey will rub his head against my husband's pillow, his towel, and now even his dirty socks. Which proves the theory that one cat's dirty socks is another cat's treasure.

Japanese dinner out...

With all the food that we have in this house, including leftover Thai food, cooked salmon, cooked quiche, all the stuff we bought at the Nutcracker Market and the Whole Foods Market.... we went out for dinner tonight to a Japanese restaurant.

C's mom called last night to ask us if we wanted to try the new Japanese restaurant that opened up a few months ago. Not only do they have table service, but they also have the hot hibachi-grills to cook on. C was at our house this afternoon (I picked her up from school), so when her mom got home from work and my husband came home from his meetings, off we all went.

Delicious dinner.... and we got to taste a lot of different things.... salmon, chicken, shrimp, and beef (just one tiny bite of that for me).... plus the soup, salad, rice, vegetables.... everything was excellent. The chef was very good, tossing things in the air, including a thick onion ring which came down against the blade of his knife and fell into slices as it hit the grill. Nice restaurant, great food, excellent service.... we all said we'd go back happily.

This afternoon, C decorated the silver aluminum tree for me.... I had it all set up on the table when she got here after school, so she got to do the fun part. She had a ball, and the tree looks beautiful. It was cute to watch her... she was smiling and humming as she put on the ornaments. While she did the tree, I took out still more holiday decorations for the dining room and living room, and put some things aside to take to the lake.

While all of that was going on, Mickey Kitty caught a lizard out on the screen-porch, which he brought into the house for all to see. Wonderful. He let the lizard out of his mouth and it promptly ran underneath the piano. Well, no way am I going to move the piano just to get a lizard. We just waited for the lizard to come out, which he eventually did. Trouble was, as soon as the lizard poked his little green head out, Mickey swatted him with his paw and he went back under the piano.

We put Mickey and all the cats out on the screen-porch and shut the door so the lizard could come out in peace and my husband could catch him. Thankfully, my husband was still home, but needed to get ready to get to a meeting at his office. That was an adventure in itself. The lizard decided to crawl up the wall, rather than taking a chance on the floor. So there was the lizard, all the way up on the wall near the ceiling, above all my pretty cameo pictures hanging over the piano.

My husband got him off of the wall with a broom.... the lizard landed upside-down on the carpet and quickly flipped himself over and tried to run back under the piano. My husband used his hand to keep the lizard from going back there again, so the lizard changed his path and ran into the dining room. And there was my husband, on hands and knees, chasing the lizard around the dining room table, trying to capture him in a Tupperware bowl as C is screaming and I'm laughing.

After about three tries, my husband got the lizard underneath the plastic bowl, got a lid on it, and brought the lizard out into the backyard as he's doing his best Steve Irwin imitation: "Crikey, she's a beaut!" The lizard is now free out in the yard, and my husband has dark red rug-burns on his knees. Two minutes after releasing the lizard, my husband had to rush to dress for the office and get to his meeting. He sat through the meeting with burning knees.

I know I've said this before--- just who was it that said that people who have cats have lower blood pressure?

Downtown adventures....

We left the house early this morning, headed for the annual Nutcracker Christmas Market at Reliant Center. Thousands upon thousands of people (mostly women) were on line, and we got there half an hour before they opened up.

The first thing we did when we walked through the doors was to get on line at the booth for the Donne di Domani spaghetti sauce. That's the city-famous homemade sauce cooked up by a group of Italian ladies who sell out their sauce supply before the end of the first day of this four-day holiday market. We bought just a few jars last year. This time, we bought four cases. At $10.00 per jar, that's a lot of sauce. We will give out a bunch of them as Christmas gifts, and bring some of them up to Mayberry. The ladies donate the money from their sauce sales to local charities, so it all goes to good causes. This sauce is very, very good... but I still say that my Aunt Dolly's spaghetti sauce is better. My husband hasn't ever had my Aunt Dolly's sauce, so he doesn't understand.... and my own sauce is pretty good, if I do say so myself. But the Donne di Domani sauce is just excellent.... and besides, it saves me from cooking, and I'm all for that.

They have a package-pickup service at this huge holiday market, so we didn't have to drag four cases of spaghetti sauce around while we looked at the other displays. There must have been six hundred vendors at the market this morning. They hold it in Reliant Center, which is next to the AstroDome..... huge venue..... lots of sellers, lots of buyers. We walked around for about three hours.

I found some pretty table decorations for Thanksgiving, and some that I can use for both Christmas and New Year's. They had so many pretty little table-top Christmas trees there, but I didn't buy a one. We also found delicious homemade pies, dips, chili mixes, chocolate-covered cherries.... so much food there and everyone was giving out free samples.

We saw about 85% of the displays...... after that, our shopping bags started to get heavy, the aisles were getting over-crowded, and all the Christmas decorations were starting to look the same. We left the building, found our car, drove around to the package-pickup to get the cases of the sauce, and away we went.

We drove to the downtown Thai restaurant that we like so much and had lunch there.... we brought more than half of it home, since we had tasted free samples all morning at the holiday market. On the way back from the restaurant, we drove by the Whole Foods Market, and decided to stop in there to see what it's like. Our friends K and B shop there and have told us how great it is, so in we went.

Well.... what a wonderful place to shop--- and that's coming from me, who hates to shop for groceries. But this store was different... lots of gourmet-looking cooked foods, made with good organic ingredients and not filled up with salt and preservatives. Cheeses and olives and fruits and vegetables from all over the country...... a beautiful meat counter, a bountiful fish counter.... you name it, they had it, and they had things we've never seen in any other supermarket. I just wish we hadn't been so tired from the holiday market, because we could've walked around the Whole Foods Market a little more and did some serious grocery shopping. We did buy a few things... some homemade granola, blueberry juice that my husband had found in Maine, homemade spinach lasagne, a creamy swiss cheese from Wisconsin...... and I can't remember now what else because I'm just so darn tired from walking around all day long.

But we'll go back there, now that we know where it is. I should mark this day with a gold star.... my husband shopped like a trooper.... the holiday market, the Whole Foods market.... not once did he tell me that he would sit down for a little while and catch up with me an hour later. I think he likes the Nutcracker Christmas Market because they have so many different vendors from around the country.... and now that he's been in the Whole Foods Market, he's ready to step up to gourmet grocery shopping. Honestly, that store had such an international flair, with ethic foods from around the world, and everything inbetween. And there were plenty of people there handing out free samples of everything you could think of. Amazing store.

It's been a busy day, to say the least. We left the house before nine o'clock this morning, and didn't get home till just before five. We weren't home for too long when the phone rang.... young Miss C wanted to know if I could pick her up after school tomorrow. She missed me today, she said--- I had told her yesterday that we were going downtown today. She just loves to come home with me after school, she told me today, and she's hoping to help me with more Christmas decorations tomorrow. Fine with me..... I told her we could put up the silver aluminum tree tomorrow, if she'd like. Her response: Oh goodie, goodie, goodie! I just love that child.

Jingle bells....

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here, even without the little trees that are in the corner of my sitting room and waiting to go to the lake cottage. I picked up C after school this afternoon and she spent about an hour decorating one of the table-top trees for me. It's a feather-tree about three-feet high with a drum as its base. I bought it after the holidays last year, in one of the more expensive local gift shops. Beautiful little tree, but its price was way too high before Christmas. I was very happy to just wait till Christmas was over and go back and buy it at 75% off its original price.

I took down some of the ornament boxes for C and suggested she fill that little gold feather-tree with all the sequined and beaded ornaments. This way, if Mickey Kitty happens to knock it over, nothing will break. When they had that feather-tree on display in the store, they filled it with Christopher Radko ornaments. It looked beautiful, but I wouldn't trust my more expensive ornaments to be within easy reach of a year-old kitten. C did an excellent job with the sequined ornaments, attaching the small ones to the top branches and the larger ones to the bottom. I didn't tell her what to do... I just gave her the box of ornaments that I wanted her to use and told her to use as many as she wanted in any way she wanted. The result is a very colorful and happy-looking tree.

Next time she comes over, we'll do the vintage aluminum tree.... that one gets vintage glass ornaments, mostly in red and green colors because they show up better on the silver branches. Mickey Kitty didn't bother much with that tree last year, but I still used red ribbon to tie it down to the table that I put it on, just in case. I don't think he liked the brittleness of the aluminum branches. Should be interesting this year with that kitten... he's a little older now and a little bigger. Hopefully, he'll behave his little furry self so I won't have to keep him in the screen-porch till all the decorations come down. I think he'll be fine, though. We haven't had all that much trouble with any of our cats, with anything in this house. They're all curious about everything, but they seem to know what they can and cannot play with. Granted, it takes more than a few times to convince them, but they get the idea after just a little while.

Gorgeous day outside today.... bright and sunny and summery-warm....... I'd be perfectly happy with these 80-plus temperatures all year long. And if we're lucky, we'll just get a cold snap or two, and then we'll get back to spring-like temperatures from December through February.

Into the Christmas closet....

That's what I've been busy with.... taking Christmas decorations out of the big closet. The fancier ones are around the house, and the country-simple ones are in boxes and bags so we can take them to the cottage the next time we go. Which will leave some breathing room in my holiday closet, because I'll leave those things up at Mayberry. Like my collection of wooden Santas... all found at yard sales, and all going to the lake now where they will fit in better with the cottage style. Out of my life here, into my life up there. And I don't plan to replace them with fancy-Santas.... my holiday closet here is quite full enough, even after those country-Santas were taken out.

I also spent some time today wrapping Christmas gifts. Usually I have all of that done by now, but that month of being sick with the flu really threw my schedule off. I'm determined to have all these gifts wrapped up and packed up before Thanksgiving.

I don't think we'll be hosting a big Open House for Christmas this year...... neither one of us has been planning a big party for the holiday-- we're doing more talking about it than actually planning it. No plans for music, no ideas for catered food, no boxes of favors.... we're just going to keep the holidays on a smaller scale this year, so we can enjoy some time up at the lake. Can't go up there if we're planning on having 60-plus people down here.

It's always a surprise to start taking out the shopping bags of gifts from that Christmas closet. I have bags in there for my sister, for young C and her friend L, and for the few children and young teens that we know. As I find gifts for them during the year, I put them into those shopping bags (they're all tagged with their names) and then when I take them out to wrap them, I am ooohing and aaahing over the presents because I don't always remember everything that I've put in there.

As I wrapped the gifts for my sister this afternoon, I had to share all the paper and tags and boxes with AngelBoy. That cat loves the rustle of tissue-paper and wrapping paper, and he likes to play with the cards that I make the tags from. (I save last year's holiday cards to make this year's tags for the gifts.) So there I was, trying to keep everything in separate piles on the dining room table, and there was AngelBoy, moving one thing here, another thing there.... making his own little piles to play with. He will also curl up into any box he can squeeze himself into, so I kept having to un-box that cat as I went along. I just kept boxing and wrapping till my arms and legs got tired (I can't sit down and do all of that, so I'm standing up the whole time)...... I'll finish on another day. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett.

Those brownies I baked on Sunday were delicious.... substituting the yogurt for the oil in the recipe was a great idea........ the brownies came out nice and moist and perfect-- and using the cupcake liners was an even better idea-- no pan to clean, and the edges of the brownies didn't get crusty. So from now on, all of my brownie-baking is going to be in cupcake pans. Round brownies instead of square ones.... cooking rules are made to be broken.

On one of the Food Channel's cooking shows (I think it was Rachel Ray)--- she used a cupcake pan to bake the stuffing for her turkey. She just put huge scoops of her stuffing into the cupcake tin and baked it in the oven-- perfectly-shaped servings of stuffing. She didn't use paper-liners, though, which could make for a messy pan at the end. I don't know if my husband would like to try that idea this Thanksgiving. He's in charge of the stuffing, and if I suggest that we bake the stuffing in cupcake tins, he might think that idea is just too cute for him to try.

I've already got the turkey for Thanksgiving.... 14 pounds-worth, sitting in my freezer now. C's dad offered to cook the turkey on his barbeque--- he's got one of those huge barbeques with a rotisserie and he says the turkey cooks in less time and comes out nice and tender. Fine with me... I was so happy with his suggestion that I nearly got up from their dining room table and did a "I-don't-have-to-cook-the-turkey dance." So I'll keep the turkey in my freezer till it needs to be thawed, then I'll bring it to their house and they can get it ready for their barbeque. They don't have room in their freezer for the turkey....... C's mom cooks a lot more than I do, so her freezer is usually packed with stuff.

Relaxing weekend......

We left early on Friday afternoon and drove to Mayberry.... gorgeous day on Friday, and yesterday, and today. The water-level of the lake is back up to its normal depths-- the Powers That Be up there had to open up the dam and let some of the water out last year because of Hurricane Rita. The water has been coming back up slowly since then, but not till the soaking rains of last month, both in Dallas and in Houston, did the water get to where it had always been.

As beautiful as the lake was before, now that all the water is back, it's even more breathtaking to look at. Because the water is back up, the alligators are gone.... they're back in the shallow water of the creeks now. And now that the gators are elsewhere, all the ducks are swimming in the lake. Brown ones with green feathers, and pure white ones. We took Gracie up there with us this weekend, and it was all she could do to not run after those ducks. We were going to take the cats up with us, then we came to our senses and left them home with the pet-sitter.

Young C and her parents didn't come up this weekend.... her dad had too many things to catch up with around the house before he goes back to his job in Louisiana this week. We're going to their house for dinner tonight, though, and I've got brownies in the oven as I type. I told C's mom that I would bring dessert, and the package of brownie mix seemed to be the easiest thing. I didn't do the usual brownie-thing, though.... instead of the oil that the recipe called for, I used yogurt, and instead of the square pan, I've got them baking in little cupcake-liners. I've got to keep jumping up and checking on them, though, since I'm sure the changes I made will make a difference in the baking time. They should come out just fine..... the mix doesn't know if it's in a pan or a cupcake tin, wouldn't you say?

While we were up at the lake this time, we didn't go into town for one thing. Not to Wal-Mart for groceries, not to browse in the antique shops.... and I didn't even go out on Saturday morning to see if there were any yard sales up there. We just stayed in, stayed home, enjoyed the cottage and the lake and each other. We played Scrabble (my husband won both games), and we played badminton..... with Gracie in the middle of us trying to grab the little "birdie" each time it fell on the grass.

I baked a loaf of whole wheat in the bread machine up there, so we had that for breakfast, then we used whatever was in the freezer and the pantry for lunch and dinner. Every time we go up there, I bring all the fresh fruit and vegetables that I have in the house here, so we were pretty well stocked, even without the trip to Wal-Mart. Most of the time, the Wal-Mart up there has live lobsters in a tank near their fish counter, and we've had fresh boiled lobster on many weekends there. But we didn't even feel like doing that. We had soup and tuna from the pantry, and I had fish in the freezer.... so that was all just good enough.

There was a full moon this weekend, and that was beautiful to see..... at the beginning of the evening, the moon was right over our driveway, but late into the night and early morning, the moon hangs right over the lake and it looks like a painting. Just gorgeous.

The sunsets are different now than they were in the summer.... not as orange as the sun goes down, and it sets rather quickly, but after it does set, you can see streaks of pink and purple in the sky and it just takes your breath away. The weather was warm during the day, and just a little cool at night. Cool enough for the fireplace, and we just sat and watched it as if it were a television set.

Because of the heavy rainstorms of last week and the week before, a lot of driftwood washed up onto the dock, so we gathered that up and used it as firewood. Most of the wood was on our neighbor's dock, but they go up to the lake just a few times a year, so we cleaned up their dock and kept the wood. (They don't have a fireplace, anyway.) While we were there, the man who takes care of our lawn stopped by and I told him that we had gathered up all the wood. He had been by our cottage last week, but didn't walk around to that side of the property because the grass didn't need to be cut, so he didn't see the wood that was there. He apologized to me because we had to clean it up, but I was glad he didn't see it because he would've just piled it up and burned it all.

My husband fished some while we were up there, but didn't catch anything big enough to clean and eat. Our neighbor G (the other side of us) tells us that we need to be fishing with live bait, either worms or minnows. Being that we didn't stop by Wal-Mart this time, we didn't have any live bait. Basically, my husband was feeding the fish with pieces of a hard bagel.

Lots of turtles in the lake this weekend, along with all of those cute little ducks. I wanted to toss some bread out to the ducks, but my husband keeps reminding me of what our realtor told us-- "If you start feeding the ducks, you'll have every duck in the lake on your property and you'll be stepping in duck-poop wherever you go."

I just took the pan of brownie-cupcakes out of the oven.... they smell great, look perfect, and I'm sure they're going to taste just fine. I've been buying the Ghirardelli brownie mix.... a little more expensive than Duncan Hines, but this brand is just the best. I think my husband and I should split one, to taste it and make sure they're good enough to bring to C's.

Back to the costume shop....

My husband and I drove to "The Fun Shop" this afternoon to see if they had discounted their more expensive Halloween costumes. Not a chance. The shop is open all year round, and they sell costumes and accessories for every holiday you can think of, from Halloween to Christmas, from Mardi Gras to July 4th, and everything inbetween. They did have more of those fancy ribbons for Best Costume, Most Original Costume, etc., so I got some of those. I wanted to be sure and have them for our next Halloween party, and this will give me plenty of time to come up with gifts for each of the categories.

We also drove to the Wal-Mart out there, since we were so close to it. They only had costumes for little kids there, but they had plenty of Halloween accessories left over, all at half-price, so I bought all kinds of good stuff. Little trinkets and toys for the kids who come by trick-or-treating, plus stickers for the party invitations that I mail out to our friends. They also had some very fancy witch's hats there.... all black velvet, with either purple or orange feathers all around the brim. Very elegant for a witch, and very pretty. I bought two of the orange-feathered ones, to give out as party gifts to the ladies who win the costume ribbons.

And the purple-feathered one will be for me, because it gave me such a great idea for next year's costume. I have a black and purple dress that I wore to a wedding years ago.... the dress has a sheer plum-purple fabric over black silk, and the bodice of the dress has tiny beaded flowers all over it. Very pretty dress, but I haven't worn it since that wedding. It's too fancy for a Texas wedding (I had bought it for a Connecticut wedding) so unless I wear it as a Victorian costume to "Dickens on The Strand" in Galveston, that dress is going to just keep sitting in my closet.

However, that dress and that purple-feathered witch hat will be perfect for next Halloween. The theme of my costume: When I Am an Old Witch, I Shall Wear Purple. Perfectly purple-y perfect. Let's see..... how many more days till our next Halloween party......

We're still discussing the Christmas party..... we're not exactly in the mood for another huge Open House party. What with the musicians that we hire, the waitress that we get to help me serve, plus the food we have catered in.... a lot of money, a lot of work, and a lot of pressure. We do enjoy the party, but then after it's over, we wonder why we did it up so big. We're thinking of having just a small dinner party for close friends, something like we did last New Year's Eve when we hosted a "gourmet pot-luck sit-down dinner." Each couple brought something truly special and fancy and delicious and we all had a great night. So we may just do that for Christmas this year.... and then have our usual nice dinner on Christmas Day.

One of our neighbors is having a Christmas party in early December.... our around-the-corner neighbor V who comes to our Charades parties. We've already "saved the date" for her on that. Then we're taking young C and her friend L downtown to see the Rockettes and the NYC Christmas show, first time here from Radio City Music Hall. There's also "Dickens on The Strand" in Galveston, and we'll take the two girls to that as well.... we all enjoyed that a lot last year. Then there's the Boat Parade on the waterfront in Kemah... that would be fun to do also, and we've missed that for a bunch of years because our own Christmas party was always on that same weekend.

Lots to do in December.... lots to think about, so we'll see..... But right now, I'm getting the dining room ready for Thanksgiving.... lots of orange and gold candles, silk leaves sprinkled with glitter.... and I found beautiful "Autumn" books by Susan Branch to give as favors for each couple/family that comes for dinner. So far, though, we've just invited C and her parents. We're still thinking about who else to invite. Seems like we're doing a lot of thinking this month.

Sick Day for Young Miss C

I was supposed to pick up C after school today because her mom had doctors' appointments downtown and wouldn't be home till after dinner-time. But C had a sore throat this morning and she didn't go to school.... her mom called me early this morning to tell me that she was going to let C sleep in and she asked me to call and check up on her during the day.

So I drove into League City....... got my hair trimmed and stopped by to see J at the antique shop. Of course, I found a beautiful porcelain pumpkin there (half-price after the holiday) so I bought that and put it up in the cabinet for next year's Halloween party.

I phoned C at noon-time to see how she was feeling....... She had slept late, made herself breakfast and taken a shower and she felt better. I asked her if she wanted to stay home or come to my house.... I also told her I had to stop at Kroger for a few things, but she said she wanted to come along. She called her mom on her cell phone to tell her she'd be with me, so off I went to get her.

One of C's friends got her homework for her, so we picked up the assignments and she brought her books to my house and she got busy with that and she was done by the time her parents came to pick up her. C was with me from just after noon-time till around seven o'clock tonight.... she helped me put away the groceries.... my husband helped her with her geometry homework. While we were walking around Kroger, C asked me if we (meaning she and I) could bake pies together for Thanksgiving dinner. She wants to make pumpkin pie and apple pie. So while we were at the store, I got everything I needed for the pumpkin pie, and I told her that I'd buy fresh apples as we got closer to Thanksgiving.

C is all excited..... she can't wait to make the pies.... can't wait for Thanksgiving.... can't wait till Christmas.... then she realized how fast the holidays will be here and gone, and she wanted to know how she could slow everything down a little bit. I told her that just about everyone on the plantet would like to slow things down a bit, but it just doesn't happen that way.

During the afternoon, C looked around my sitting room at the little miniatures in the curio cabinet. She knows which ones I've had since I was a little girl.... my dad used to buy them for me with nickels and dimes.... now they sell for quite a few dollars. C also asked if she could peek into an Oriental jewelry box that I keep in my sitting room.... there was a little ring in there that belonged to my husband's mom.... I was going to give that to C because it has her birthstone in it, but I wasn't sure if she'd like it or not. C oohed and aahed over the ring when she saw it and asked me if she could try it on.... it fit her perfectly and she loved it. She started to put it back into the jewelry box and I told her to keep it right on her finger.... I told her that it belonged to my husband's mom and she would be very pleased to see it on C's finger rather than just sitting in my jewelry box.