December.... second week....

... and this month goes marching along like those little wooden toy soldiers.  December always seems to be the shortest month of the year.  Maybe because it gets dark earlier with the time change, and half the day is lost in the moon-light. ("Lost in The Moon-light"--- now that could be a country/western song title.)

We had our Christmas party this past weekend..... friends, neighbors..... whoever could be here was here. There seemed to be non-stop talking and laughing and visiting.... and with tables set up in both the living room and the dining room, everyone sort of went from table to table, from chair to chair, not wanting to miss out spending time with every single person.  We had Christmas music playing in the background..... carefully chosen songs that my husband down-loaded.... nothing too sad, nothing that would make anyone wistful..... just happy songs.  Have a holly jolly Christmas....

Speaking of Christmas, I've noticed that not everyone is saying "Merry Christmas" these days.... "Happy Holiday" seems to be more politically correct..... and I hate that particular phrase more than anything.  Politicans are never politically correct, so why should the rest of country strive to that level?  Merry Christmas is what always worked in this country before, and I don't see any reason to do away with it.  There have always been people in this world who don't celebrate Christmas, and that's fine for them....... but does Merry Christmas have to be taken away from those who do celebrate December 25th?   Give me a blessed break.

This week is my husband's birthday..... I wanted to make a birthday cake today, since he'll be working on his actual birthday-date........ so I made his favorite, a carrot cake.  I have used that same recipe dozens of times, with delicious results. Not so this morning.  Instead of two layers of carrot cake, I was looking at two large brown hockey pucks studded with carrots and raisins and pineapple.  If I still had the chickens, I would have given those flat layers to the hens.  It killed me to toss all those baked ingredients into the trash....... but they weren't birthday-cake worthy.

The next cake came out better...... one layer instead of two..... with cream-cheese frosting. A good cake, but not the best carrot cake I've ever made.  I have no idea what happened with the first cake........ but thankfully the second one made it onto the cake pedestal. It looked like a happy cake with the decorations on it.  My husband is very particular about the taste of carrot cakes, since that's his favorite cake, and we've had some of the best ones in our travels.

This morning, however, I think I was more upset about the cake than I expected him to be....... he told me that he has a new perspective on such things since our neighbor's wife passed away a couple of weeks ago.  My husband said it didn't matter what the cake tasted like..... what mattered was that I was here to bake it for him.  (Yet another reason to bake the perfect cake.)

Our sunny and warm days have disappeared for a couple of days..... cold all day today, with non-stop winds.  Didn't go walking this morning, and by the time it warmed up a little bit in the afternoon, I had a cake to frost, ironing to do, soup to cook for dinner........ if walking doesn't get done first thing in the morning, the rest of the day just swallows up the time.