Go Texan Day.

Today is the day when all the trail-riders come into town for the Rodeo. Translation--- there will be cowboys/cowgirls riding horses all over the Houston area, on their way to the rodeo arena. They don't really call themselves cowboys anymore, I don't think. The correct term is simply "riders," I believe.

The riders are usually in groups of at least fifty-- safety in numbers, I guess, being that they're riding with the traffic from whatever part of the state they've come from. For "Go Texan Day," everyone is urged to wear denim and whatever western wear happens to be your favorite. At one of the local consignment shops years ago, I found a denim shirt studded with all kinds of beads and fringe.... it's an over-sized shirt that's meant to be worn with a white tee-shirt and jeans. Perfect for Go Texan Day, and I've never worn it on any other day of the year. Come to think of it, I could use that shirt as part of a costume for our Halloween party.


Dinner last night with C & L was lots of fun........ C loved the place cards so much that she took the two home that I made for her and her husband. Everyone loves place cards... it never fails. C brought a canvas bag filled with books on Germany..... I chose just four of them to look through... one is a little pocket-sized book just on German restaurant menus, which would be a big help. My husband will look on the Internet and see if there's a German restaurant in the downtown area. This way, we could try out the cuisine before we leave, so we'll know what to expect. There used to be a German restaurant right around here, but they're no longer open. Guess there weren't enough Germans in the area (or adventurous Texans) to make the restaurant a success.

C also had a book on the castles of Germany, which looked interesting. We might turn this trip into a castle-touring adventure. Between castles and cathedrals, Germany certainly has a lot to see. (A bit of castle trivia--- the castles in DisneyLand and DisneyWorld were built to resemble one of the most famous castles in Germany.) And all those picture-postcard-perfect places in my own guidebook--- both C & L told us that every place in Germany will be like that. Lots to see, lots to do, very clean, very friendly, very European.

C & L showed us plans for a new home that they will start building soon. Over 5,000 sq. ft. of living space, and a six-car garage, on two-and-a-half acres of land in Friendswood. The house will have walls of 18-inch-thick concrete, which will withstand a category-5 hurricane. There will also be a concrete "safe room" in the house--- a place to go to during such a storm. I'm a little skeptical about that...... if the storm is that bad, why would I want to stay in the area? Even if the house does withstand the storm, everything else outside the house will be out of commission, such as electricity, water, gas... not to mention the roads not being passable.

Their new home will be beautiful, with all the latest bells and whistles, as the saying goes. But if it were me, building such a huge and gorgeous home, I wouldn't want to be building in the middle of a hurricane path, no matter how thick the concrete walls were going to be.

Dinner for 4.

Our friends C & L are coming over for dinner tonight. The dining room looks like St. Patty's Day, the dinner menu will be mostly Italian, but we'll be discussing Germany.

My husband has a summer conference in Germany this year, and we're stretching a two-day conference into a week-long vacation. C & L used to live in Germany (L was in the Air Force), and we figured who better to ask about where to go and what to see. We bought a travel guide to Germany, but in all of these books, every single place looks picture-postcard perfect, and being our time will be limited, we'd like to see the best of the best.

I also thought of going by train to see some of the other countries, but we'd really need a lot more time for that kind of trip. If it were up to my husband, he'd plan a month-long trip, but that would just wear me down and wear me out. Ten days away from our home and our "kids" seems to be my limit. Anything more than that and I get tired of living out of suitcases and eating in restaurants. And I also start looking around the street corners for a stray kitten who looks like it needs cuddling. Here kitty-kitty.... let me just pet your little kitty-nose for a minute.

The Germany guidebook gave me an idea for place cards--- I've made them with the colors of the German flag (black/red/yellow). I was going to search for German recipes and try something new for dinner, but I hate serving something to company that we haven't tried first-- and I didn't think of looking for those recipes till just the other day.

I also just read Bill Bryson's book "Neither Here Nor There," which is an account of his travels through Europe. Germany's cuisine is based on meat and potatoes--- both of which I'd rather not eat. They must serve fish there, wouldn't you think? Fresh fruit? Green vegetables? Salad? (Oh please tell me that they have salad bars there.......)

To hail with summer.

We're having "one last blast of winter," as the weathermen told us. The temperature today will get no higher than 70 degrees, and tonight will be around 50. To make sure we were all paying attention, we had hail this morning. Honest-to-goodness hail. Just before dawn this morning, we heard thunder, then the sky opened up and pelted the screen-porch roof with bits of hail.

It was warm enough last night to have the cats sleeping on the screen-porch, but as soon as I heard the noise of that hail, I jumped out of bed to let them in. Mickey Kitty is afraid of the sound of rain on that roof, and I figured that the rat-a-tat-tat of the hail would really send him hiding under the wicker sofa on the porch. As soon as Mickey Kitty heard me by the door, he ran out from his hiding place and put his nose by the bottom of the door..... as soon as I opened that door from the porch to the breakfast room, he was racing into the house to get away from the noise of the hail. The sky is falling! And it's bringing down all the planets with it!

The hail didn't last long... just long enough to make a racket on that roof and get us out of bed. So we've been up and awake since around 5:30 or so. It's going to be a long day.

Last night, we had a raccoon in the backyard. Gracie started barking as soon as the raccoon put a paw into the yard, and my husband opened the back door so she could scare the raccoon away. I hate when he does that because I don't trust any of those raccoons not to turn and try to swipe their claws against whoever is chasing them.

The raccoon jumped up on the gate separating the breezeway from the backyard, and Gracie jumped up against the gate trying to get the raccoon. The raccoon was so scared that he tried to grab onto the vines that are growing up the side of the garage.... the vines are strong, but not strong enough to hold a twenty-plus-pound raccoon, so down came part of the vines, down came the raccoon, and thankfully, Gracie wasn't on the same side of the gate as the raccoon.

So here I am, typing at 9:30 in the morning. I've already done two loads of laundry, changed the sheets on the bed, ironed some shirts and a tablecloth, and dusted all the furniture. By noon-time, I'll be ready for a nap. As I said, it's going to be a long day.

First day of summer.

I think the weather has finally turned the proverbial corner. Today is wonderfully warm, bordering on hot, with blue sky and a tropical breeze. The weather god finally looked down on us and said Bam! Summer! And I love it.

We went to the Kemah waterfront today and had lunch at Landry's...... sitting outside in the sun, without even an umbrella to shade the table. (In another couple of weeks, an umbrella-less table will be unthinkable.) We watched the boats going by, and there were a lot of them. Seems that everyone else in the area knows that summer has begun. People were walking the boardwalk in shorts and sandals..... which they do during December and January also, but now their arms aren't folded protectively across their chests trying to keep the "winter" breezes away.

Georgeous day..... perfectly gorgeous. Now this is why we live here... for days like this...... fresh-caught seafood for lunch at a waterfront restaurant surrounded by sailboats while the Yankees up north are layering on sweaters and gloves and scarves while they're trying to remember where they put the snow shovel. (My apologies. But I can say all of that because I used to be one of those Yankees.)

Some of the restaurants on the Kemah waterfront are undergoing renovations... and one of our favorites (The Crab House) has changed its name to The Chart House. We tried to go there for lunch, but we got there at 11:00 and they don't open up now till noon. We looked over their new menu while we were there--- seems that they raised their prices. (Someone has to pay for the new sign, new menus, new name on all those matchbooks.) We weren't happy with the menu prices, and didn't think it was worth waiting an hour just to try the new restaurant. If we were going to pay those prices for lunch, then I don't want to be sitting outside on a wooden deck hoping that a seagull won't perch (or worse!) on my shoulder. The prices at the old Crab House were reasonable...... the menu prices at the Chart House are off the charts-- hence, the name.

There are plenty of restaurants there to choose from, all in a row along the boardwalk surrounding the Kemah waterfront. Easy enough to just walk down the stairs of the off-the-charts restaurant and walk into the next one. All the seafood restaurants there are delicious.... I guess people just pick their favorites, according to decor and atmosphere.

The wooden roller coaster is up and running..... as it was all "winter" long. I think they call it the Boardwalk Bullet. It looks like the old monster roller coaster that was up at NY's Coney Island. Not something that I'd like to try. We watched it take a few runs, and you can hear the riders screaming for mercy as the coaster goes down all the very steep drops of the track. I would imagine that all the people who live in the neighborhoods surrounding the Kemah Boardwalk can hear all those screams day and night when the boardwalk park is open.

One by one, those quaint old houses in Kemah are being bought up by the owner of the Boardwalk area. The houses are torn down, making way for parking lots. Not a good thing. Kemah used to be such a sleepy little seaside town until Mr. MoneyBags got the idea to turn that town into a destination. People now come from all over the state to vacation in Kemah. And you would think that could have been a good thing for the town because it brings in a lot of money, but it doesn't work that way. All the money coming in goes right into the pockets of Mr. MoneyBags. By now, his pockets must reach down to his toes.

We used to go into Kemah for lunch or dinner all the time, but now we try and go just on Sunday mornings---- mostly everyone else is just getting out of church, so the parking lot is more than half-empty. We have an early lunch there at 11:00, and by the time we're ready to leave at 1:00 or 1:30, we can see the cars circling the parking lots looking for an empty spot. And usually, there are more tourists on the waterfront than locals.

My goodness, we've lived here so long that we're now locals. No one has called us "transplanted Yankees" in many years.

All wet.

Wet. Totally wet. The ground is so soaked-through here that the new rainwater has no place to go--- it's just resting on top of the already wet lawn. You would think, being that it's so blessedly warm outside, that some of the water would evaporate, but that's not happening. Maybe the laws of physics are at work--- does it take longer for water to evaporate than it does to fall from the sky?

And, once again, we have three cats with cabin fever, even though they slept on the screen-porch last night, and spent part of this morning out on the porch. Mickey Kitty doesn't like the sound of the rain falling on the roof of the porch....... so he was meowing at our bedroom window early this morning as the rain fell. Let me in! The sky is falling! Let me in!

I was in such a good sleep that although I heard his meows, I couldn't get myself out of bed. An hour later, when I did let the cats in, Mickey Kitty walked through the breakfast room door, sat in front of the table and gave me his best poor little scared kitty look. He does this by tilting his head to one side while his eyes are as wide-open as he can possibly stretch them. And he will hold that wide-eyed, tilted-head pose until you scoop him up and hold him near your heart and apologize for your mindless actions, or non-actions, as the case may be. And then this tiny little cat will bend his head towards your body and listen to your heartbeat..... and then he starts to purr.... the heart-beats seem to calm him down.

AngelBoy and ShadowBaby have been sleeping for most of the day. When they're awake, on rainy days like this, ShadowBaby will pounce on AngelBoy until my blue-eyed cat screams for mercy. Mrrooooooowwww..... he's killing meeeeeeeee. Usually, all I have to do to break them up is to call ShadowBaby's name.... and then he will look at me with his golden eyes and I know he's thinking He's such a baby.... I hardly touched him.

I'm waiting for the rains to quit. I'm waiting for the sunny days. I'm waiting for summer to begin--- to really begin... not tease us like this with warm days and gray skies and clouds that are filled to overflowing with rain.

Wear something green....

... and bring something green. That's what I wrote on the invitations for our St. Patty's Day lunch. I think this is the third year that we've been celebrating St. Patty's Day with an all-green lunch. Not green food coloring-enhanced, but naturally green food. Makes for an interesting menu, and a healthy one.

I've decided to get out my recipe for Irish Soda Bread..... haven't made that in years, and of all times when I should make it, I'd say St. Patty's Day would be the time for it.

I spent a few hours today decorating the dining room with green glassware, shamrock-shaped candy dishes, and glass shamrocks are now dripping from the chandelier. (All the Valentine decorations came down a couple of days after our Valentine's party, so the dining room was ready for a new look.)

This isn't a big party with the Charades group.... there will be just 8 of us around the dining room table for this one. After doing those huge parties, a sit-down lunch seems like nothing at all to arrange. I've already made the place cards and the favors--- I had bought all the stuff after last year's St. Patty's Day, to take advantage of the sales.

Nice and sunny today, but not quite as warm as I'd like it to be. (I will stop complaining about the temperature when we get to 80 degrees and above--- without the thermostat dropping down past 70 when we aren't looking.)

I've started to read another book by Bill Bryson-- this one is about his travels through Europe-- "Neither Here Nor There." He also wrote "A Walk In The Woods," which was a wonderful laugh-out-loud story about his trek through the Appalachian Trail.

I've been going through so many books lately.... now that I've finished the Ken Follett books on the Middle Ages, it's been hard finding other volumes of fiction to measure up to those historical novels. I went to the local Half Price Bookstore the other day, and sold them two bags filled with books. They recently moved to a new and bigger location, and the new store is even better than their old one. The aisles are wider, the store is larger, the parking lot is bigger, and their clearance section is three times the size of the old one--- lots of books for one dollar and less.

Between the clearance section of Half Price Books, and the bookstore in our local library (hardcovers for just one dollar).... it's easy to buy great new-looking books for very little money. I still say that you can buy books faster than you can read them.... and you can't keep every book you buy unless you have unlimited shelf space in your house. The only books I keep are those of my favorite authors, novels that I know I will read again, the classics, and the reference books.

I recently spent hours on a rainy day rearranging all of my books...... fiction is on the shelves on one side of the fireplace, non-fiction is on the other. Everything is arranged according to author's name. All those years of working in a library..... it's all still with me.

Drippy Saturday

The warm weather is staying with us, but the rains have returned. If we can believe the weathermen, a bad storm will be coming through here after five o'clock this afternoon-- dark skies, thunder and lightning, tornado-conditions. What?! This is mid-February..... Mardi Gras has come and gone, and we're supposed to be having summery, tropical weather.

Well, it is what it is...... and whatever weather we get will be here if it has a mind to. With all the storm warnings that we have heard all morning long, I got all my errands done early this morning-- even went to a few yard sales. My husband's car needed an oil change so I brought that in after my last errand---- my car is safely tucked in the garage. (It's perfectly clean and I didn't want so much as one rain-drop to touch it.)

Our car service station is just about a mile away from here.... when you bring your car in for repair or maintenance work, they drive you home, then come back to get you when the car is finished. When you pick up your vehicle, it's been washed inside and out-- thoroughly "detailed," as they call it.

When they called here to let me know the car was ready and the driver was on his way, my blue-eyed AngelBoy was sound asleep in one of the chairs in my sitting room. I don't leave that cat in the house when I can't watch him, but he was sleeping so soundly that I hated to disturb him.

I was nearly to the front door and then I thought better of that decision--- I scooped him up and put him out on the screen-porch.... better to disturb that cat than to have to clean up the carpet should he decide it's too far a walk to his litter box, or if a noise bothers him and he gets scared. So into the porch went AngelBoy, out the front door I went, and the driver was waiting for me in front of the house.

Back I came with a shiny-clean, sparkling car (which is now getting rained on because my husband's motorcycle takes up the other half of the garage, along with our Christmas reindeer, and he never puts his car in the garage anyway). I walked into the house and there was AngelBoy, sitting just as pretty as you please in front of the fireplace with his fluffy tail curled around his front legs in that classic cat-pose which says I am the cat and that's that!

How did you get back in here? Back at me came a little Mrrrow (he doesn't bother with the "e." I put you in the porch, AngelBoy. Mrrrow. He was looking at me with those sky-blue eyes of his, not blinking, and his tail whacked against the carpeting. Not a good sign. How did he get back into the house? The door to the porch was closed...... but I had forgotten to close the cat-window between the breakfast room and the screen-porch.

AngelBoy and his blinkless blue eyes were watching me. I walked around the living room and the dining room and our bedroom....... looking in the corners. Not a thing. I checked the litter boxes in both bathrooms. Not a thing in those either. AngelBoy was still sitting in front of the fireplace, whacking his tail against the carpet. If he had blinked, I missed it. Were you a good boy, AngelBoy?

Not a sound. Not even a blink. But then AngelBoy walked slowly, slowly, sloooowly from the fireplace in the living room, through the breakfast room, through the kitchen and into the laundry room.... and used the litter-box. When he was done, he walked into the kitchen, where I was putting the car keys away, gave me a blue-eyed, blinkless stare, then walked through the dining room, down the hallway, into my sitting room, and jumped up in the chair where he was sitting before I left to pick up the car. And he's still there.... once again sleeping soundly, curled up like an innocent, carefree cat.

My husband is right...... there's a little person inside of this blue-eyed cat and he understands every blessed little thing that you say, and knows every blessed thing that goes on in this house.

I am the cat, and that's that. =^..^=

Valentine's Day

Lots of sun today, and it's beginning to warm up again. There's a tropical breeze blowing, which makes the palm trees look magical. I do wish the warm weather would just stay put.

Valentine's Day always seems so quiet here, being that we had 26 people here on Saturday night for our Valentine's party. Really, we've already celebrated Valentine's Day with all of our friends. We're going out later on..... for a nice lunch rather than dinner. The restaurants are all too crowded on a holiday night, and neither one of us would enjoy that.

The cats have a bit of cabin fever still, because most of the nights have been too cool for them to be sleeping on the screen-porch. Mickey Kitty and ShadowBaby can come in and out of their little cat window between the breakfast room and the screen-porch, and when I wake up in the morning, the living room is covered in cat toys. (AngelBoy sleeps in the laundry room on cool nights--- I can't trust that cat in the house unless I'm able to keep an eye on him.) Mickey Kitty brings all their toys inside during the night..... one by one, through the little open window. I find the toys on the carpet, on the chairs, on the table behind the sofa. I pick them up and put them back on the screen-porch (except for the few that are always in the house)...... and the next morning, they're all back in the living room again.

Mickey has taken to running a race all by himself around the living room. He will start out on the screen-porch, fly through the little cat window, leap up onto one end of the sofa, jump the entire length of the sofa and land on the other end, then fly from the sofa to the back of the tall upholstered chair which is sitting in front of the Oriental screen. The screen will bounce back against the wall, which then hits up against the beaded lampshade of the tall lamp on top of the small buffet in front of the screen...... making a sound like thwaaacccck rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle. That's when I will walk into the living room with my hands on my hips and look at Mickey Kitty with a What are you doing?! look on my face. And he will sit there and stare back at me, just as calm as can be, waiting for me to be the first one to blink. (Last night's thwaaacccck rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle was at 3:30 in the morning.)

Mickey Kitty will never fly around the porch furniture like that...... my guess is that there's too much going on in the backyard for him to waste time going through the acrobatics. Between the birds and the squirrels, and the cat next door who will sometimes be sitting on V's garage roof, there's plenty of action out there to keep the cats occupied. Another reason for me wishing and hoping for warm weather.

I was watching "House Hunters" last night on the Home & Garden channel. I like that program because it shows you different styles of homes in lots of states, and when they do their International shows, you get to see European cities. Last night, a couple was looking for a home in Hawaii, on Maui. Beautiful views of the ocean.... nice homes.... lots of palm trees swaying in the tropical breezes that never end on the Hawaiian islands. We have been to Hawaii (the big island) and every day was just filled with sunshine and perfect temperatures. When we were there, we said that we could live there easily. One look at the prices of houses on the Hawaiian islands brought us back to reality, not to mention the tour of the lava fields which were once communities filled with pretty homes and happy families.

One interesting thing about Hawaiian homes.... most of them have an ohana on the property. An ohana is a little guest house, usually with one bedroom, kitchen, private bath, small sitting area. The reason for the guest house is because when you live in Hawaii, you just have to expect that everyone you know will be coming to visit. Our friends K and B have a little guest house in their backyard. What they did was take a two-car garage and convert it into their "Casita" (little house) as they call it. The casita has a small kitchen, bedroom, living room, small bathroom. K's granddaughter sleeps there when she comes for her week-long visits during school breaks and summer vacations. It looks adorable, just like a miniature house, complete with heating and air conditioning.

Whether you call it an ohana or a casita, it's a great idea to have a little guest house on your property. Not only could you use it for company, but when your cats have cabin fever and start leaping and flying all over your living room, you can keep them in the ohana and save your sanity. =^..^=

Sunny one day... rainstorms the next.

Oh well..... summer was just fine while it lasted. The temperatures were near to 80 degrees over the weekend, and the sun was shining on all the roses and azaelas that are blooming. Now we're having a rainy, windy day, with rainshowers this morning that shook the trees. The roses and azaelas are still blooming, but I'm sure they're not as toasty warm as they were yesterday.

"If you don't like the weather in Texas, just hang around for awhile and it will all change in 15 minutes." So they've been telling us since we moved here. (Actually, it sounds more like If y'all don't like the weather here, just hang 'round for 'while and it'll all be changin' in 'bout 15 minutes.")

We're still talking about the Valentine's party on Saturday night..... as we meet neighbors and friends around the subdivision, everyone just smiles and tells us their favorite part of the night. One of our neighbors told us that we should be video-taping the Charades--- especially when the guys get up there to act out their clues. I can't imagine doing that. Knowing that a camera is pointed at them, the guys would either freeze up completely or go over-the-top in their acting. Plus, everything is totally hysterical the first time around, but maybe it wouldn't be so funny if we all were able to watch it over and over.

One of our friends is a retired military man, and every time he gets up to do his Charade, his mannerisms are so distinct and precise--- as if he's standing at attention in a parade line. I couldn't help it on Saturday night, but before I did my own Charade, I did my imitation of L's method of giving his clues. It was so funny, and L's wife said I had all of her husband's moves down pat as I stood up there. When it was L's turn to give his Charade clues again, we all couldn't help but laugh at his military precision.

What a comedy that night was...... I still can't believe we played Charades for so long.... it was the longest night we ever had for a Charades party, with friends staying till midnight. Either everyone had too much coffee, or too many of the chocolate desserts, or we were all just having a grand time. (All of the above.)

One of the funny parts at the end of the night also.... one of our newer friends, who comes here with her husband and her mom--- this was their third time at one of our parties. As L was going out the door, she asked me when the next party would be! Which is really funny, coming from L, since she's not that outspoken. L will guess the other ladies' Charades, but doesn't get up to act out her own because she's too shy. Her 75-yr-old mom, however--- she had the best time with her Charades acting on Saturday night...... she was excellent with her clues-- we guessed every one of her Charades.

The next things coming up are St. Patty's Day and Easter.... and they're only two weeks apart since Easter is so early this year. I told my husband we need to pick just one, instead of doing both. My vote is for St. Patty's Day....... the "green" luncheon is a lot of fun, plus I already have all of the St. Patty's Day favors--- I bought them all last year when they were on sale. If we're going to do that, I need to get started on those invitations so they'll be ready to mail three weeks before the day.

Maybe by the time St. Patty's Day comes around, the weather will be back to its normal warm and sunny self. If not... wait 15 minutes....

Party one day... laundry the next.

And that's what I did today, the day after our Valentine's party-- two loads of laundry. One of towels, one of tablecloths. I always go through so many kitchen towels during the preparations for one of our parties....... constantly washing my hands, wiping down the countertops.... and using one fresh towel after another.

As for the tablecloths... it just makes for a nicer atmosphere when all of the tables I set up have matching linens..... all in ivory, very soft... plus I can just toss them into the washer the next day and touch them up with an iron.

I'm so glad I stopped using "real" dishes for our parties. Once our guest list started to grow to thirty people, the amount of dishes got out of control. I have more than enough plates and cups and saucers for everyone, but running the dishwasher two or three times after a party got to be too much of a chore. So I compromised--- I buy the prettiest paper plates that I can for our parties, then use matching paper napkins, and real silverware instead of the plastic stuff (which always breaks and doesn't work well with some foods). Paper cups for the punch, but real cups and saucers for the coffee and tea. (I hate drinking hot tea from a paper cup-- makes the tea taste weird.)

My husband and I are still talking about the party... still laughing at our friend S and his "YMCA" Charade. Before S and the "YMCA" clue, the most talked-about charade was another friend of ours (C's dad) who tried his best to mimic the smile of the Mona Lisa--- his Charade was the Nat King Cole song "Mona Lisa." As he stood there smiling like Mona Lisa, we were all just falling out of our seats----- and some of the guys thought he was trying to look like Oliver Hardy (as in Laurel and Hardy). That was a funny Charades game as well.... I think that was last year's Halloween party.

Oh, and J last night with his Charade--- which was a song called "Dancing Cheek to Cheek"-- he pointed to the cheek of his backside for the word "cheek" in that song---- and for all of his 60+ years, he never knew that the cheek to cheek in that song meant the cheek of a person's face, not the cheek of their dancing partner's rear end. How ridiculous is that?!

I swear, these parties are so much fun. And with all the work and the planning and the imagination in keeping each party different from the one before, it is so very much worth all the time and the effort. We have such a great group of friends here, and we're so very lucky to know them all.

Party Heart-y......

It's 2:15 in the morning as I start to type, and there's no sense in even trying to go to sleep yet. Our Valentine's party ended at nearly midnight...... and even then, it seemed that no one wanted to stop playing Charades. The men won, by one point--- 76 to 75. Considering that we get just one, two, or three points per Charade, we played a lot of Charades tonight. (Three points if your team guesses correctly in one minute, two points for guessing in two minutes, and one point if it takes three minutes to get it.)

Not only do we act out the Charades, but we also use a large drawing pad--- it's up to the person acting out the Charades clues whether he/she wants to try to draw a picture or not. With that in mind, the funniest Charades tonight was our around-the-corner friend/neighbor S (V's husband). The Charade was a song-- "YMCA." Now you would think that this song would be very easy to act out, considering that just about everyone on the planet knows the hand/body movements to the "YMCA" song by The Village People.

Well, S stood there and gave the guys the signal that it was a song. Then he stands there trying to figure out how he can act out the Charade. After a few minutes, he said "Can I draw the clues out?" Well, of course.... go right ahead. S takes the large pad and the black marking pen, and he draws out big letters--- Y M C A. Naturally, all the men on his team scream out "YMCA!!!!" And half of the room starts doing the YMCA movements.

It took at least ten minutes for everyone to stop laughing.... and S was standing there wondering what all the fuss was about because we all gave him the go-ahead to draw out his clues and that's what he did. It was just so very funny, and S did it all so innocently, that we gave the guy's team the three points anyway. Too, too funny..... I'm laughing right now as I type this.

The food on the pot-luck dinner table tonight was outstanding...... chicken tortilla casserole, Waldorf salad, tossed vegetable salad, spinach & cheese tarts, potato salad, baked beans, chicken & noodle casserole, steamed pork dumplings, sourdough bread filled with spinach dip, garlic bread, pimento-cheese pinwheels. And the desserts--- chocolate/cherry trifle, Dulce de Leche cake, apricot/pecan cake, chocolate layer cake, chocolate bundt cake, red velvet cake, strawberry/orange/coconut/whipped cream trifle. And I'm probably leaving some of the dishes/desserts out, but I'm finally getting tired.... and it's been a long day.

The kitchen is all cleaned up, the dining room is put back together, I've run the vacuum around the carpeting-- lots of crumbs from all those cakes tonight. The tables/chairs are all back where they belong. And except for the red hearts and the other Valentine decorations all over the house, you would never know we had such a great party here tonight. But somehow, the energy from the party is still lingering.

The energy in this house tonight was amazing, right from the beginning of the party. Even before we did any of the games for the prizes, everyone was talking up a storm.... you would think we all hadn't seen one another in months and months. The last time everyone was here-- was our Christmas party in mid-December, which wasn't all that long ago.

The party games--- besides Charades: I filled up a Valentine cellophane bag with red M&Ms, and everyone had to guess how many were in there (397). J guessed 400, and her prize was a straw purse with red handles and red ribbons along the top of it-- just her style, and she loved it. Then for the guys only--- I had one single chopstick for each guy here-- they had to pick a chopstick, and the one who got the chopstick with a red-heart sticker on the bottom of it got a prize-- a Chinese restaurant to-go box filled with Valentine candy and a tin of smoked oysters.

For the ladies only: I had boxes of Hallmark ornaments--- one said "Fabulous" and was decorated with sunglasses, lipstick, a pretty purse-- all girly things.... the other ornament was a miniature box of candy, with tiny faux-jewels making up the tiny candies. Each woman got to pick either of those two ornaments. On the back of one of the "Fabulous" ornaments, and on the back of one of the jeweled candy boxes, there was a red-heart sticker..... and whoever was holding those got special prizes. The best part of the Fabulous ornament was that I had found a pair of red heart Valentine sunglasses, which looked similar to the sunglasses on the Fabulous ornament, and those sunglasses went along with the prize for being Fabulous. C got the prize for her red-heart-marked Fabulous ornament-- a porcelain bowl decorated with handpainted hearts, and the red-heart sunglasses, which matched her all-red outfit. And R picked the tiny jeweled candy box with the red heart on the back of it, and her prize was a set of four Valentine placemats and napkins, along with a book titled "The 50 Most Romantic Things Ever Done." I had a bunch of prizes here, so I tried to give the winners something that I knew they would like.

The ladies got to keep all those ornaments.... plus everyone got a goodie-bag at the end of the night, so everyone went home with a Valentine gift.... and I also had red-heart beaded Mardi Gras necklaces for all the ladies. I usually find Mardi Gras necklaces for all of our parties...... somehow it just adds to the fun, and there are so many different designs that you can find a Mardi Gras necklace to "match" any occasion.

I could go on and on here.... but I'm really getting tired. It's 2:55...... time to get to bed. Once again, tomorrow is another day, Scarlett. What a great party, honestly.

What a difference a day makes....

.... to paraphrase that wonderful old song.

First of all, today was warm and sunny and absolutely beautiful.... summer has arrived, and I hope it stays right here. The cats have been on the screen-porch all day long, and will be there till after our Valentine's party is over tomorrow night. Little Mickey Kitty is the unhappiest one on the porch...... he doesn't much like being out there when he can't come back in when he's ready. He keeps looking into the windows of the breakfast room with a wide-eyed, questioning look on his face. What did I do wrong? Why won't you let me back in? I thought I was your favorite little baby-kitty?! Oh well..... he will forgive me, in time.

The furniture store delivered my dresser this morning.... it looks gorgeous in the bedroom. I'm so glad that I didn't buy the mirror that went with the dresser.... I knew it would look too much like a dresser with that mirror. I hung up a painting on the wall over the dresser, and it looks just like I wanted it to look--- like a credenza. (Do they still use that word in the furniture world?) I have a leopard bench that used to be in front of our old bed...... I don't have it in front of the new bed because it hides the beautiful footboard, plus takes away the "look" of the new dresser. So now the leopard bench is up against a wall, with an round antique mirror hanging above it. Perfect. I love that bedroom..... so glad we finally changed that bedroom furniture.

I have been busy all day today getting the house ready for tomorrow night's party...... the living room, breakfast room, dining room-- everything is party-ready and looks great. Lots of red candles, red hearts, heart-shaped dishes and heart-shaped candies. All of the party gifts (the prizes for the games) are on the piano and the goodie-bags for everyone are lined up on the bookcases. It looks so happy and festive in this house that everyone will be smiling as soon as they walk into the door... which is the perfect way to start a party.

Speaking of starting a party....... while I was out walking Gracie a little while ago, my husband had some visitors. Two of our neighbors (a couple from around the corner) thought that tonight was the party-night. They came to the door at 6:30, took one look at my husband in his casual clothes standing in our quiet foyer and they said We guess tomorrow is the party, not tonight, right?

My husband felt so badly for them..... and when he told me, I felt badly as well. I'm hoping that by tomorrow night, our neighbors will be able to laugh at their mistake. This was their first invitation to one of our parties. My husband and I met them at V's Christmas party this past December, and we thought they'd like to join the Charades party group. As far as we can remember, this is the first time that this has happened with one of our parties. I have had friends call me to ask me Is the party on Friday night or Saturday night? -- but they've done that on a Wednesday or Thursday, if they've misplaced the invitation. Oh well... on the bright side--- at least they just walked from around the corner rather than drove in from the other side of town.

Tomorrow will be another busy day. I still have some cooking to do..... which should have been started today, but I was putting my clothes into my new dresser (love this dresser!) plus setting pretty things on top of it. So the cooking got pushed to the bottom of today's to-do list.... and then I ran out of hours, and now I'm just running out of steam. Better to just quit for today and finish up tomorrow.

Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett.

What to wear..... or not to wear.....

My husband came home from work last night and I was in the dressing room surrounded by six black skirts, seven tops and three pairs of shoes. Plus the shoes I was wearing didn't match-- one was a high-heeled suede, the other was a satin sandal with a rhinestone heart near the toes. I bought those sandals a few years ago just for Valentine's day, and I've been wearing those to all of our Valentine's parties since then. Depending on the skirt, I may or may not wear them this weekend.

Ever since I started watching that show "What Not to Wear," I inspect every item in my closet when I'm putting an outfit together. I can't begin to count the number of things that I have given away to charity-- all the things that broke the rules of that television show. My new rule is that if I take something out of the closet and don't love the way it looks, into the donation bag it goes. Someone else (with very little else) is sure to love it.)

Last night, I was trying to figure out what to wear for our Valentine's party this weekend. My basic dressy outfits always start with a black skirt, following my Aunt Dolly's rule of "You can never go wrong with a perfect black skirt." Trouble is, I have a lot of favorite skirts, and they're all black..... some are straight, some A-line, one has pleats near the hem, another has flounces, and another has ruffles. All are so pretty, but you need to match the right skirt with the right top, then get the right shoes..... which is what I was doing last night for over an hour.

By the time my husband came home, I had the perfect skirt with the perfect top..... and I was deciding on the shoes, which is why I had a different shoe on each foot. My husband took one look and said that no one would bother looking at my feet anyway because I looked so good in the skirt and top. (What a guy!) Then he walked over to his own closet and pulled out the first shirt that his hand touched, held it up to himself and asked me "Tell me the truth... does this shirt make my butt look big?" (Men.... all they have to do is grab a shirt and slacks and they're good to go as long as they can find two socks that match-- and my husband never has trouble finding socks because I match them all when I take them out of the dryer.)

Well, now that my clothes are set, I can get the house ready for the party. Which would have been done today, but the cats will be sleeping inside the house tonight because it's still a little cool out on the screen-porch..... one more night inside for them. Tomorrow morning after breakfast-- out on the screen-porch they will go, and I will be turning our living room into a party room with the extra tables and chairs.

Also tomorrow morning, the bedroom dresser will be delivered.... for the second time. I called up the salesman at the store, just to make sure he knew what had happened with the first delivery. Plus I felt that whoever is in charge at the warehouse should know that a good piece of furniture left there without being fully inspected. So tomorrow will be a busy day..... lots to do, getting everything ready for the party, and finishing up with the bedroom.

Thankfully, it's supposed to be sunny and very warm....... which is really nice. We had a perfectly awful January, so February is looking like the start of our summer. (From my lips to the weather god's ears.)

In with (almost all of) the new......

Our new bedroom furniture was delivered yesterday..... looks wonderful, and it's making us think that we were a little nuts to have waited so long. This new bed is so grand that we feel like we're sleeping in a Victorian Bed & Breakfast.

The bed (headboard/footboard) came in perfect condition, as did the night-stands and my husband's dresser. But before they unwrapped my dresser, we noticed that one of the legs was missing. The dresser has a "serpentine" shape along the front, and the center has two sets of legs, as well as the other ones on each of the corners. Well, two sets should have been there, but only the one was on the dresser. Must have happened at the factory, because there were no pieces in the delivery truck... and even if there were, I wouldn't have accepted the dresser that way.

So back on the truck it went, before the wrappings were removed. We were able to notice it so quickly because the dresser was upside-down on the dolly, with its feet sticking up towards the ceiling. The delivery guys couldn't have been nicer, and they were apologetic as could be. We called the store before they left, and they will get a new one out to us on Friday. Since our first phone call to the furniture store, we've had five calls from different offices of the store-- everyone apologizing and going out of their way so our feathers wouldn't get ruffled. (If that is the worst thing to happen to us all year long, then we're very lucky indeed. -- My new mantra.) I told them not to worry, but to please get the new dresser to us before the end of the week so I can get this room put back together.

Before the new bedroom furniture came, I had taken everything down from the walls..... and when the new bed was brought in, I knew that I wouldn't be putting up all the pictures that had been hanging there before. I've already taken two of the larger pictures to the antique shop.... I'll be "trading" with L, for things I can use, like pretty glassware that I just can't seem to resist.

I saved just two things to hang on the wall with my dresser....... I don't know if I will use both of them or just one....... I'll have to see how they look once the dresser gets here on Friday. I was hoping to have all of this done yesterday, so I could concentrate on getting ready for the Valentine's party on Saturday, but I'll just have to work around that.

I'm trying to work around this stupid weather as well. We've gone from near to 80 degrees during the day, down to 50 degrees at night. (Again.) It's supposed to warm up near the end of the week, so I'm hoping for that so I can keep the cats out on the screen-porch starting on Friday. (I wish to all the heavens that this screen-porch was a sun-porch, complete with heating and air-conditioning.)

Just about everything is ready for the Valentine's party..... I will finish cleaning tomorrow... start some of the cooking on Friday. But the games and prizes are all set..... guessing the number of red M&Ms for one-- can't have a party without that kind of guessing game. I've got all the red M&Ms in a pretty cellophane bag decorated with red and pink hearts. Then I have Valentine-y ornaments for the ladies to choose......... I've got them all set up on a serving tray. Just one has a red heart sticker on the back, so whoever chooses that will get a special gift. For the men to pick--- I've got a bunch of single chopsticks for them to choose... the one who picks the chopstick with the red heart sticker on the bottom of it will get a Chinese restaurant to-go container filled with chocolate goodies and smoked oysters-- plus a real set of chopsticks. I've been carefully counting the RSVPs in order to set out the exact number of ornaments for the ladies and the exact number of chopsticks for the men.

These parties are always so much fun...... and the number of friends/neighbors who come to the parties just keeps going up. Sure does take a long time to set up...... plus wrapping up the goodie bags, coming up with different ideas for the games, and the prizes, and the cooking, and the cleaning, and keeping the cats out on the porch. A lot of work. But without all this attention to the details, it would be just another day. Everyone seems to be looking forward to the Charades game....... we all had such a blast with that for the Halloween party that everyone seems to be more than ready to go at it again.

Out with the old....

Our old bedroom dressers are now officially gone. I got the name of a young girl who desperately needed bedroom furniture-- one of the directors of the local church group found her for me. She and her father-in-law came by this afternoon to pick them up.

They had to make two trips with their car (one trip per dresser) with my husband following them in our car-- the dressers went in their vehicle, and the drawers made the trip in ours. This girl was absolutely thrilled to be getting them. Even though those dressers were over 25 years old, they were in excellent condition and I guess she didn't think she'd be getting something so nice for free.

Our bedroom looks positively empty...... all the pictures are off the walls, as is the mirror. I don't think I'll be rehanging everything that I took down, except for the antique mirror that will once again go over my dresser. This new furniture is larger than the old, so the room will look different and may not need all the extra stuff on the walls. It's a huge room to begin with, 14 x 20', if I remember correctly, so it can hold the larger furniture. I just don't want the walls to look crowded. I want this new furniture to look as elegant here as it did in the showroom at the store.

Elegant. I imagine the girl who took my old dressers is now looking at that furniture and thinking those pieces look elegant in her apartment. I'm glad that we were able to give that bedroom furniture to someone who could really use the dressers.

The Gulf Freeway to Morocco

We went downtown to the Moroccan restaurant last night...... we met K & B and we celebrated my birthday. Thankfully, celebrating twice in one week doesn't make me another year older. We had all gone to this restaurant back in early December, and it was just delicious-- which was why it was my choice for second visit.

We ordered a family-style dinner for four, and for each course, they brought out four plates of four different menu selections. Four soups, four appetizers, four salads, four main courses, four desserts. So many different flavors.... raisins and onions cooked with the meat, onions and peas cooked with the fish, prunes and carrots cooked with the lamb, chick-peas and acorn squash sauted with couscous...... and small plates filled with fresh fruits, grilled eggplant wedges, tender salmon slices. We had enough left-overs to fill up three to-go boxes, and once again, K & B insisted that we take them home. (I didn't taste any of the meat dishes, but there was more than enough there with the shrimp and and the fish.)

K & B brought me a beautiful Pashmina shawl from their recent trip to Egypt, which was my birthday gift. So soft and warm, and such wonderful colors-- purple and gold with touches of brownish-black. I put it over my shoulders when I opened the package and then didn't take it off the entire night.

During dinner, we talked about the two books on the Middle Ages by Ken Follett--- K & B and I decided that Follett needs to write one more book, and fill in the years between the first volume and the second one. For right now, the three of us are have had enough of the heart-stopping stress of the knights and priors and bishops, and we're on to other books. I'm reading "The Care and Feeding of Books Old and New." I just started it this morning, but it promises to be an interesting book.

The sun is out today and it has warmed up-- really warmed up to where it should be at this time of the year... more like summer than spring. (There is a weather god after all.) The house, however, is still a bit on the chilled side. Which shouldn't surprise me, since it has been soaking up all that cold air for the last three weeks. The cats are out on the screen-porch, sleeping in the patches of sunlight, and I'm in here with two sweaters on. Maybe I should be sitting in a patch of sunlight myself.

Is that the sun I see?

Finally, finally... the sun has made an appearance-- two days in a row. Still cooler than usual out there, but at least the sky is blue. Although, yesterday morning was awful-- pouring-down rain and high winds and you would think we were in the middle of a tornado. Then by noon-time, all of that quit and the sun came out and we had a beautiful day. A cold one, but nice and clear. I don't know about the rest of this town, but I am certainly ready for 80 - 90 degrees, and even higher. I don't think the temperature is going to get higher than 60 degrees today--- much too cold for me.

We went furniture shopping yesterday afternoon-- our second trip to the local and downtown furniture outlets, looking for new bedroom furniture. When my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told him that I would like to (finally, finally, finally!) get rid of the two bedroom dressers that we have now. Those dressers are nearly thirty years old, which isn't old if it's beautiful vintage furniture, but these dressers were from my old house up in NY, and ever since I moved them here to Texas, I'd been wishing I'd left them up in NY.

We kept saying we'd replace those dressers (and get a headboard for the bed) but we just never got around to it. The end tables were sold when I had my resale shop years ago, and the headboard was carried out to the curb for trash pick-up when I still lived in NY. But the dressers.... they just seemed to always be here. Come to think of it, I don't know why we didn't move them up to the lake house when we bought that, but we just didn't do it.

But now..... they will be gone before the start of next week, hopefully. I've called some of the people I know who work for local charities. I've told them they can have the dressers for free if they will just come here with a truck and pick them up and give them to someone who can't afford to buy their own.

After two trips to six or eight different furniture stores, my husband and I found a bedroom set that we both liked (his taste is more traditional than mine)..... beautiful bed, night-tables, two dressers. I didn't like the dresser that came with the set, but I found a gorgeous one that goes with all the rest of the furniture we picked out. Everything will be delivered next week, and I can hardly wait. Besides that bed, which is so pretty with it's high headboard and carved footboard, I know my favorite part of the room will be that dresser. I almost didn't buy it, because the price of the dresser was higher than all the other pieces. I kept looking around the store, trying to find a more reasonably-priced dresser, but after seeing this one, there was just no comparison. My husband kept telling me to just buy it, and I'm sure the salesman didn't want me to buy a less expensive one, but he didn't say a word. Finally, I justified the high price by knowing that this will probably be the last master-bedroom dresser that I will ever buy. So why settle for something I wasn't going to be happy with.....

I've already started to pull apart our bedroom here. I've moved furniture around, taking out the end tables that we had by our bed. We didn't want to give those away, so I found other spots in the house for them. I switched out the bedroom lamps..... those are in my sitting room now, and I put antique brass lamps in the bedroom, which will look nicer on the new night-tables, and will be higher next to the new headboard. I pulled off the dust-ruffle and washed that, so it will be clean and ready to go on the new bed. (The bed looks quite weird without a dust-ruffle.)

Just a few more days..... and the "old" bedroom will be just a memory. And it's about time.