New Year's Eve - December 31, 2023

My phone rang at 8 o'clock this morning.  I was still in bed, but The Husband was up, and he answered it.  It was my brother, calling to see if I was bringing a dessert to tomorrow's "siblings lunch."  Earlier this week, when my sister and I discussed the menu, neither of us cared about having a dessert.  I said I might make one.  Or not.  

At the grocery store Friday, I bought a box of frozen puff pastry, thinking I might come up with something sweet for our luncheon.  There's a jar of apricot preserves in my pantry, and I thought I might just smear it on the pastry dough, roll it up, slice it, and bake it.  Ta-daaaa: dessert.

But I bought only 1 box of puff pastry, and the folks on the hill are coming to my house for supper tonight.  I might feed it to them, instead.  

When I called my brother back, he said he was on his way to the store and could pick up something.  I said it was probably a good idea to do that, if he wants any dessert tomorrow.  ;)

* * * * * * * * 

Yesterday, I suggested to The Husband that we take my car to the shop and get them to fix whatever is causing my battery cable to corrode so often.  Friday's "no juice" incident (can't call it a dead battery, because the battery is fine) was the fourth time since this summer.  Fortunately, I've was able to get quick assistance each time, but only because I was close to home, where people know me and will come right away.  It would be a different situation in the big city, and I do go there, occasionally.  

The Husband considered the suggestion, but believed he could fix the problem, himself.  All we needed was a battery-cable connector.  He went to the auto parts store and got one, but it was the kind that is hard to put on, so he went to another store for a different kind.  I tried to stay out of his way while he was working.  He must have had some success, for I heard the car crank after a while.  When I take the car out again, I won't go far.  ;)

* * * * * * * * 

While The Husband was working on the car, I did some drawings. 

You see, a Daughter-in-Law and I have been batting around the idea of renting a vendor booth next year at the local bluegrass festival.  She likes to make t-shirts.  I like to make other things, but I've had a blue-grass-related t-shirt design in mind and would like to do the artwork, myself.  If I can produce a good design, I might try to either get the "official festival t-shirt" work or peddle the design.  If that doesn't work, we might make a few "unofficial" t-shirts.  My idea is not original - forest animals playing stringed instruments - but it's my original artwork and I can put it on anything I want - mugs, tumblers, aprons . . . . 

Mouse Patrol - December 30, 2023

Although I had planned to let The Husband deal with dead mouse #2, imagining its little gray ghost, hovering in the corner not 6 feet from where I work (saying to itself "What happened?") was enough to force me to dispose of the carcass, myself.  All morning, I had been congratulating myself on having eliminated a PAIR of mice - a couple - thinking I might have prevented the breeding of dozens of babies that could have tried to inhabit my happy place.  But when I actually picked up the trap, I discovered that what was in it was not a mouse but a shrew.  

Of course, this completely destroyed my "mouse population prevention" theory, for as far as I know, mice do not "do it" with shrews.

Once I discovered that I'd offed a shrew, I felt kind of bad about it.  It was furry and fat, and a lovely shade of gray, and would probably have been kinda cute with its eyes open.  But I reckon that a shrew is as nasty and as bothersome as a mouse, so it was a good riddance.

I re-set the trap and put it back in the corner.  It's still unsprung this morning, and I haven't heard any more thumping in the wall.  Hopefully, there are not a dozen orphaned baby mice decomposing under the siding.  I was hopeful that I'd eliminated the back porch mouse problem.  

So yesterday morning The Husband says, "Didn't you buy TWO mousetraps?  We need one in our bathroom."  

<sigh>

* * * * * * * * * 

I had some errands to run yesterday.  My sister called mid-morning and invited us to eat blackeyed peas and cornbread with her on New Year's Day.  I said I'd make slaw and MAYBE a dessert, but I had to go to the store for ingredients.

I also needed to go to the beauty shop for a haircut.  Two weeks ago, right before we left for our Asheville trip, I dropped by that shop for a trim.  As the hairdresser worked on me, we chatted and laughed, and I didn't pay much attention to the final result.  It turned out to be the worst haircut I've ever had.  The sides stuck out like Pippi Longstocking.  Yesterday, I went back to the same shop, and the same hairdresser re-cut my hair.  She did a good job this time.  I left the shop feeling all up-beat.  

When I got in the car and turned the key, nothing happened.

This has happened several times in the past year or so.  One minute the car cranks just fine; the next minute...nothing.  I've had the battery tested; it's fine.  When it won't crank, the "red post" on the battery is absolutely thick with greenish powder.  The last time this happened two months ago, the person who gave me a boost suggested that I should pour a Coke over the battery post, now and then, to remove the corrosion build-up.  Only a couple of days ago, I thought about that advice as I was driving, but of course I didn't remember to do it when I got home.

So yesterday, it was the same problem.  It was cold and spitting snow.  I went back into the beauty shop and asked if I could beg, borrow, or buy a Coke.  The hairdresser had about a cup of flat Diet Coke in a 2-liter bottle, and she gave it to me.  I poured it over the battery post, and it removed the corrosion, but the car still wouldn't crank.  I called an auto parts store up the street from the beauty shop, and they sent a lady with a battery booster pack (didn't even charge me - gotta love life in a small town).  The car cranked right up.  The person said my battery was showing a good charge, and that the problem must be with the cable.  I will have this seen about next week.

Meanwhile, I still had to go to the grocery store, which is right around the corner from the beauty shop.  I was afraid the car would not crank again if I turned it off, so I just left it running while I was in the store.  I did not worry about it being stolen, for this car is a stick-shift.  Probably only one out of a hundred people know how to drive one, and this person would be too old and wise to risk going to jail.  ;)

On my way home, I dropped off a new bottle of Diet Coke at the beauty shop.  :)

    

Decisions, decisions - December 28, 2023

At Christmas, The Boss gave me a $50 gift card for an online store.  I knew right away that I would spend it on art stuff.  With all the holiday goings-on, I haven't had much time to think about what I want.  Tuesday night, I decided to window-shop to see what's out there.  I saw a lot of things I wanted, but didn't buy anything.

Yesterday, I had to make a quick run to the get-everything store.  There were two things on my list, breakfast sausage and a mouse trap.  While I was hunting mouse traps in the get-everything store, I made a quick detour through the craft aisles ("since I'm there").  One art-related thing I've been wanting is a pad of pallet paper, and there was actually one on the shelf.  I couldn't use my gift card, but the pallet paper was only $5, so . . . . It fit nicely in the load of stuff I'd already gathered in my arms while looking for mouse traps.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was web-surfing on the back porch, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.  Something seemed to have fallen from the rafters and zoomed across the floor, but it was too fast to really see.  It could have been a reflection on my eyeglasses, but I figured it was a mouse.  The next day, I noticed a wadded-up paper towel in the corner where I work.  It appeared to have been shredded a little.  The vinyl siding at the floor in that corner somehow got cracked a long time ago and is missing a little chunk, and my guess was that a mouse was living in the wall and was using shredded paper to build a nest.  The next day, the paper towel was gone.  I asked The Husband if he had moved it; he had not.  I was certain that the mouse had dragged it completely into the hole.  Over the next few days, I began to smell mouse, but I had used our mouse traps to annoy Jose back in the summer, and he had broken them all, one by one.  

The first thing I did last night when I got home with the new traps was bait one of them and set it in the corner.  The first thing I did this morning was to check it.

  

Got him!

And, look...it knocked the cheese right out of the trap.  (I think that white patch on the floor is 6 months' worth of spider sh*t, but I can NOT find the spider, but that's another story.)  

I decided I would let The Husband deal with the mouse disposal when he gets home tonight.

Meanwhile, as I have been writing this, I heard a noise in the wall.  Um-hmmm...another one.  And there's a piece of cheese just lying there, free for the taking.  OH, HELL NO!"  

I steeled myself and disposed of the mouse and re-set the trap with the same cheese and put it back in the corner.  Not 5 minutes later, the trap snapped again.  Got another one!  I got up to dispose of mouse #2, but as I reached for the trap, I snatched my hand back, thinking I'd better wait until I'm sure this mouse is all the way dead before I mess with it.  Might even wait and let The Husband deal with it.  ;)

* * * * * * * * 

On YouTube, I follow a watercolor artist who uses ceramic dishes for mixing her paints.  I bought a couple of small, compartmentalized dishes and love them (paint doesn't "bead up" on them like it does on plastic pallets), and I've been wanting a bigger one, a tray without compartments.  As I was watching one of her videos last night and saw the mixing tray she was using, I was reminded that I wanted one and remembered the gift card.  Below the video, there was a link to the pallet supplier's web site where I could order one - and even with a 10% discount! - but I couldn't use the gift card at that site, and it was more expensive to order from the gift card site.  It didn't make sense to spend more money just to use the card.  What the heck; I bought the pallet with funds from my business account, since I really will use it in drafting my embroidery designs.

So I still have a whole $50 to spend on art stuff.  ;)

The Day After Christmas - December 26, 2023

This morning there's frost on the vinyl panels that enclose the back porch, and a notification at the bottom of my screen says "Temps to drop Thursday."  The heater under the table makes it tolerable out here, but my coffee's getting cold before I can drink it.

It was warm enough yesterday morning (Christmas Day) that folks came to Nanny's breakfast without a coat.  Yesterday afternoon, the wind whipped up, and we bundled up to visit Son #2's family.

Half of the gifts I ordered for The Husband have not arrived, and the ones I bought him in the store either didn't work or didn't fit.  Half of the gifts he ordered for me didn't arrive, either.  Still, we had a good Christmas.  My "big present" to the Husband was tickets to see ZZ Topp and Lynard Skynard in concert in March.

Heh.  Turn it up.  ;)

Christmas morning was special because The Grandson was here for the first time since he was a baby.  We opened presents here, had a good breakfast and more presents at Nanny's, then we took him home.  After that, we visited Son #2's house and enjoyed seeing all the loot that Santa brought for The Granddaughters.  When we finally got home, we had a quiet evening and were thankful for the left-over soup for supper.  We were pooped.

It was late Saturday afternoon when we finally put up two - count 'em, TWO - Christmas trees, a little one on a living room table, and the big "stick tree" on the back porch.  It took us nearly two hours to clean and rearrange the back porch to accommodate the tree and our Christmas Eve guests, but the result was worth the work.  It was warm enough that the relatives could be comfortable in their shirtsleeves on the porch, and the stick tree looked really cool and festive all lit up.  And the porch is now so tidy.

I think the stick tree might live out here permanently.  

* * * * * * * * 

Last week was brutal on a genetically lazy old lady like me, and tomorrow I'll have to get moving early for "office day," but today I am enjoying a slow morning in my housecoat (which I may still be wearing when The Husband gets home from work).  The Granddaughters gave me a bunch of watercolor paper that I am anxious to try out, and The Husband gave me a new paintbrush holder, so I might paint today.

Speaking of paintings, a few days before Christmas I mailed the best of the Christmas cards I painted before the holiday.  The others I cut into gift tags.  I'm patting myself on the back, not for painting the cards but for actually mailing them (albeit a tad too late for pre-Christmas delivery).  

* * * * * * * * 

Over the weekend, we hooked up a code scanner on the car that The Husband bought at the estate sale.  He had bought the car despite the fact that the dashboard was lit up like a Christmas tree (which I had not known about because I was inside, rummaging through the dead lady's stuff).  He/we figured that part of the lights resulted from the car having sat, undriven, for over a year, for the "car facts" report indicated that the car had been very well maintained.  When the scanner returned the readings, the list was pretty long - this sensor, that sensor - but the estimated cost of repairs was not all that scary.  Sunday afternoon, Son #1 came by and peeked under the hood.  He took the cover off something and discovered that a mouse had gnawed a bunch of wires.  The Husband did some web surfing and discovered that the wiring harness for that model (2007) is no longer manufactured.  However, The Brother-in-Law, who works as an autobody repairman, believes he can find something that will work (he has "connections"), and the menfolk believe they can do the re-wiring.  We'll see.  

I wish they would get right on it, for I've been greedily eying that "remote start" button on the key fob (nothing else in the driveway has one).  I expect I won't get to use it this winter, even if they find the right part right away, since the weather is supposed to turn cold in a few days.  

* * * * * * * * 

I hope to get together with my siblings on New Year's Eve or Day.  In the past, I have invited them for a traditional Southern dinner centered around peas, greens, and cured pork, but when my grandchildren reached school age and began bringing various bacteria and viruses to family Christmas gatherings, I began getting sick by New Year's Day.  We are all a little anti-social and germophobic to begin with, and now that we are old, it takes something special to blast us out of our dens.  But we have fun when we get together, and we ought to do it more often.  I should call them and invite them to dinner, huh?

Christmas - December 25, 2023

About a dozen people showed up to eat last night.  We had soup, pigs in blankets, and sausage roll-ups.  It was all just okay.  

For Christmas Eve, I usually make something we call "hanky-pankies" - sausage, ground beef, and Velveeta cheese on cocktail rye bread.  For the past few years, we've had trouble finding the cocktail rye bread, but we improvised by cutting full-sized rye bread in quarters.  This year, we could not find ANY rye bread.  The Husband tried using Hawaiian bread for his office party.  It just wasn't the same.  The rye adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the thing.  Too late, it occurred to me that a local bakery might make rye bread.  

I always make LOADS of hanky pankies with the intention of having left-overs to tide us over on Christmas morning until it's time for breakfast at Nanny's.  We had no sausage roll-ups left last night, and as I sit here waiting or folks to crawl out of bed, my stomach is growling.  And it's three more hours until breakfast.  Next year, I will ask the local bakery to hook me up with rye bread so this doesn't happen again.  

The Grandson spent the night with us last night.  He was in diapers the last time he spent the night here on Christmas Eve.  I am so happy to have him here.  :)

In about an hour, I will rouse the sleepers when I start rattling pots and pans.  My assignment for breakfast at Nanny's is country ham and biscuits.  I cheated and bought a bunch of frozen biscuits.  I will cook them and the ham here at our house and try to keep them warm until time to eat.  It might be hard not to sneak a ham and biscuit before we go to Nanny's house.

Around 3 or 4, we will go to Son #2's house to exchange gifts with them.  I can't wait to see Granddaughter #3's expression when she opens the "extra credit" buttcrack purse.  ;)

Christmas Eve - December 24, 2023

We had a nice last-minute surprise visit from The Grandson last night.  He spent the night at our house and got up early this morning to go to church with his dad, who plays guitar in a church band.  This pleased me more than any physical give could have done.  The Grandson and his dad have been a bit cross with one another for a couple of years.  It is heartening to see them working on their relationship.

The Christmas Eve cooking is underway.  Stew beef is simmering on the stove with onions and mild sweet peppers.  The shrimp has been marinating since yesterday.  

Yesterday I came up with what I hope will be a yummy appetizer.  I fried 1 pound of pork sausage (the ground-up kind) and crumbled it finely with a couple of bursts in the food processor.  To the cooked sausage I added 1 jar of mushrooms and 1 onion, both of which I chopped in the blender and sauteed until the onions were clear.  I seasoned it with one clove of garlic, 4 dashes of soy sauce, some dried parsley, and about 1/4 teaspoon of ground oregano. Once it cooled, I mixed in 1 cup of shredded mozarella cheese.  I spread this mixture on puff pastry dough (slightly thinned with a rolling pin) and rolled it up like a cinnamon roll.  It's wrapped in plastic, awaiting its time in the oven.

I still have to peel the remaining vegetables - potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and maybe butter beans - and add them to the pot.  And make the cornbread when it's time.  Folks should be streaming in around 6:00 tonight.

I hope you have a good Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  

Christmas Eve Eve - December 23, 2023

In an hour or so, it'll be time to fire up the stove and start cooking for tomorrow night.  I've invited the kids and the folks on the hill to drop by for soup and cornbread and marinated shrimp and a few "nibbles."  

Yesterday was "office day" - Friday instead of the usual Wednesday because we were having the office Christmas dinner (lunch, actually).  The Boss turned us loose after lunch.  People had dropped off cookies, cakes, and candies at the office.  I brought home cinnamon rolls (The Husband loves them) and caramels covered in chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt.  When I got home, Nanny brought us a German chocolate cake (The Husband's favorite).  Wednesday, I made a huge batch of Chex mix to share with the family, and we've been eating it like crazy.  And The Husband brought home a big pecan pie.

Come January 2, we must diet.

Stuck - December 21, 2023

Thursday, 2 p.m.:  Hitting the "pause" button for a minute.  A daughter-in-law needs to take over the craft room for a few minutes.

Got today's major project done (gift bags for all of Nanny's little ones), which required a trip to the dollar store.  I made zippered cosmetic bags for all the little girls - ages 3 to 18 - and equipped them with travel size lotion, chapstick, and an emery board.  Got 'em some socks and some candy.  I forgot one of the girls, one we seldom see, and had to raid my personal stash:  body lotion appropriated from a hotel bathroom (hey, some of it is good stuff!) and a two-for-one sale tube of mascara still in the package.  

I should make two or three more cosmetic bags.  This morning The Husband asked me if I had any extras, but I did not.  I think I'll wait until he gets home to see if he still needs them.  

When he gets home, we're going to pick up the car we bought at the auction.

A hectic Tuesday - December 20, 2023

Whew.  Yesterday was hectic.

The Tuesday painting class party started at 10.  Everyone was bringing food and a gift.  I had a few errands to run before the party but showed up on time with my puff pastry sausage bites and 8 cosmetic bags.  We didn't paint a lick, but the party was fun.

After the party, I went to the grocery store.  I'll probably have to make another run before Christmas Eve since I still haven't decided what to make for dinner.  We usually make some "nibbles" and a big pot of something warm and comforting, like soup or chili or chicken & dumplings.  

As soon as I put the groceries away, I started wrapping presents.  The Granddaughters had asked for little stuff, like cosmetics and art supplies.  I cheated and dumped all of the little things together in one box.  After three hours of wrapping, there are still presents to wrap.

Late in the afternoon, the Boss's secretary called to say the office Christmas dinner had been moved from Thursday to Friday.  (There'd been no mention (to me) of a Thursday dinner; the last I'd heard, the dinner would be today (Wednesday), since this is my normal "office day.")  She said I could just make Friday my office day.  I said that was fine with me.  Now that I think about it, though, I'd rather have gone to the office today and just showed up for lunch on Friday, as I had other plans for Friday, so close to Christmas.

Granddaughter #2's homecoming event was at 5:30. She didn't win.  :(  But she looked absolutely beautiful.  

Granddaughter #2 had texted me Monday afternoon to ask if I would buy a certain present for Granddaughter #3.  "She really wants it," #2 said.  #3's desired object was a stuffed animal buttcrack purse that would have to be ordered online.  I said that I would order it, but that it might not get here by Christmas.  She replied, "That's ok.  It was just for extra credit, anyway."

Because #2 is a straight-A student who doesn't need extra credit, I assumed she meant extra credit with Granddaughter #3.

According to an email I received yesterday, the buttcrack purse will be here Friday.  After the homecoming event, I told Granddaughter #2 that the gift would make it on time for Christmas, at which time she said, "Oh, it didn't matter if it got here on time.  I got the extra credit when you said you would do it."  It turned out that one of her teachers had offered extra credit points to everyone who could convince someone to buy a last-minute present for the students to give to someone else.  They snookered me!

I hope #3 likes the purse.  ;)

Bad daughter-in-law - December 19, 2023

I drove Nanny to her doctor appointment yesterday.  The appointment was at 1:15, so I picked Nanny up at noon.  She got in the car apologizing for the trouble.  I assured her that I was happy to do it.

We arrived well before 1:15. I dropped Nanny off at the door and went to park the car while she signed in.  Nanny was still in the sign-in line when I came in.   The waiting room was packed.  A plaque on the wall said that if your name is not called within 15 minutes of your appointment time, check with the front desk.  By 1:30, several people who had come in behind Nanny had already been called.  ("I know that man came in after me, because he held the door for me.")  Nanny was irked, and she went up to the desk to see if she had been overlooked.  It turned out that her appointment was actually 1:30. She still had 15 minutes to stew until she could legitimately complain.  She came back to where I was sitting and apologized again for keeping me so long.  She speculated that they were making her wait (out of spite, presumably) because she had cancelled her last appointment.  I said, again, that I was fine, was happy to help, and that maybe those people who had come in after her were seeing a different doctor.

At 1:45, she went back to the desk.  They said there was one more person before her.  After several more people were called back.  Nanny just knew they were making her wait because she had cancelled her last appointment.  She apologized again and again.  I said it was ok.

Finally - I don't even know what time it was - they called Nanny's name.  I went with her to the room.  The nurse put the blood pressure cuff on her and walked out of the room without turning it on.  When she came back to check it, she discovered that she hadn't hit the start button, so she punched it and left the room again.  Nanny said that they were dilly-dallying on purpose to make us wait longer because she had cancelled her last appointment, and that her blood pressure was probably over the moon from having been made to wait so long.  (Her blood pressure was fine.)  The doctor did not come in right away.  When he did come in, he said everything was hunky-dory, come see him again in 6 months.  

Nanny apologized again as we were walking to the car.  I said, "Nanny, please stop apologizing.  Please. I really am glad to help you."  

Traffic was congested on the street outside the office because a construction crew was digging up a sidewalk and had blocked the right-hand lane.  We waited through three red lights.  Nanny apologized again that everything had taken so long that we were having to drive home in rush-hour traffic.  

I looked over at her and said, "Nanny, I swear, if you apologize for that again, I am going to put you out of the car."

She grunted and said she would just get out and fall in the big hole the construction crew was digging, and the digger could cover her up.

I said I'd try to remember where they put her.  ;)

* * * * * * * * 

Today is painting class day.  I don't know how much painting we'll do, since we're having a Christmas party.  Everyone is bringing food and gifts.  Before we left for Asheville, I made zippered cosmetic bags for the 8 ladies in the class.  Last night I made sausage-stuffed puff pastry bites for my food contribution.  I'll bake them before I leave for class and take a jar of pepper jelly to go with them.  

Tonight at 5:30, we're going to Granddaughter #2's school to see if she has been selected as the "Homecoming Princess" for her 8th grade class.  We most likely will not stay for the basketball game that will follow.

And sometime between the painting class and the homecoming festivities, I should either buy groceries or finish the odds-and-ends Christmas shopping still left to do.  

Tomorrow is office day, and I believe that we'll be having the office Christmas dinner around noon.  Not knowing if there will be a gift exchange, I have made zippered cosmetic bags for my co-workers.  But I ran out of time before we left for Asheville, and still have several bags to make.  The sewing room light may be burning late tonight.

A good weekend - December 18, 2023

The Grandson is 16 years old and has a girlfriend, which means we rarely get to see him.  I texted him a couple of weeks ago to ask what he would like to have for Christmas.  He said, "How about a shopping trip?"  This suited me just fine.  

After we came home from our road trip, we made our shopping plans.  He wanted to go to the huntin'/fishin' store in the city.  We picked him up Saturday morning and had a good day shopping.  He spent the night with us, as he used to do almost every weekend.  We had a big breakfast and a lazy Sunday morning.

On our way to the store, Granddaughter #1 texted me to ask if I could fix a hole in her jeans.  I told her to bring them to me Sunday.  Around noon, she showed up with Granddaughter #3 in tow.  When we went into the sewing room, #3 whispered, "I LOVE this room!  It's a magical place!  I'm so glad I have you for a grandmother."  (Gotta love this kid!)  She set to work creating an original skirt design on the dressmaker dummy.  I set to work repairing the "hole," which turned out to be a stress rip next to the left back pocket.  It was a mess to fix, but we got it done with a patch cut rom a pair of my old jeans.

While this was going on, Son #1 (father of The Grandson) came in for a visit.  

It was a good day.

* * * * * * * * 

Last week, The Husband noticed an estate sale sign in the little town up the road.  Years ago, he had worked with the deceased and had not known of her death.  He came home and searched for her obituary and discovered that she had died a year ago.  How had we not heard about it?  Anyway, he looked up the estate sale online, and learned that the items for sale included a vehicle, a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 125,000 miles on it, according to the web page.  It looked very nice in the pictures.  Having known the owner, we expected that the vehicle had been well maintained.  Saturday morning, we dropped by the estate sale on our way to pick up The Grandson for our shopping trip.  He made a reasonably low bid, based on some values he'd seen online.  While we were shopping, the estate sale company notified him that his was the highest bid.  He was like the coyote in the roadrunner cartoon in which the coyote finally catches the roadrunner:  "Ok, I got it.  Now what do I do?"

We took The Grandson to lunch, then dropped by the estate sale to write the check.  While this was happening, The Grandson inspected the car and discovered that it was actually a 2007 model.  

We can't bring the car home until the check clears, which should happen in a day or two.  

Now what to do with it. 

The Grandson asked for my 1998 Jeep Wrangler when he was six years old, and I flippantly said he could, if I still had it by then.  I still had it when he turned 16, and I regretted the bargain I'd made with the 6-year-old.  As the date approached, I began to recommend other options so I won't have to give the Wrangler away.  (We've been keeping our eyes open for an older model truck.)  He doesn't have his driver's license yet, so the Wrangler is still in my driveway.  He expressed a keen interest in the Cherokee, but having ridden shotgun with him in the Wrangler to let him work on his driving skills, there ain't no way we're turning the boy loose in a vehicle with a hemi.  ;)

So I don't know what we're going to do with this car.  I think it was a good investment, and we could make a little $$ if we wanted to sell it.  But there are people in our family who struggle to keep their vehicles running, and it might be good to have a spare vehicle (besides the Wrangler, which routinely sits in the driveway with a dead battery).

* * * * * * * * 

I have a LOAD of stuff to do this week.  Today I had planned to grocery shop, but Nanny needs someone to drive her to a doctor appointment in the big city, so the groceries will have to wait.  Tomorrow is painting class day, and possibly lunch with my former boss.  I have to make sausage balls for the painting class party.  And, lunch or no lunch, after the party I must finish the Christmas shopping.  Tuesday night, Granddaughter #2 will be part of her middle school homecoming court, an event that cannot be missed!  Wednesday is office day.  Sunday night, the kids and extended family will be coming for dinner.  We still have not put up a Christmas tree or wrapped a single present.  The bed in a spare bedroom is loaded with stuff.  With all the little girls in the family, I'm not even sure what's for who anymore.  

It's time for me to shift into overdrive.

 

Road Trip - December 15, 2023

The Husband had a meeting to attend in Asheville, NC this week.  It's an annual event. held at a nice hotel/inn.  I went along for the ride.

Shunning the most direct route on the interstate, we opted for state highways and ended up driving through 5 states to get there.  ;)

The meeting was over at noon Wednesday, at which time we hit the road to home, but not the same way we came.  Granddaughter #1, away at college but coming home for Christmas break, was planning to drive home on Thursday.  We chose a route that went right through her college town so that we could follow her home.  When I talked to her about the plan, she said she would be leaving for home at 5 a.m.  The Husband made a face when I told him the time.  We opted to drive on to another town and wait for her there to keep from having to get up at the crack of dawn.  We met up with her a little after 7.  I opted to ride with her since we rarely get any time together.  The Husband ran interference just ahead of us.  So as not to horn in on her homecoming with her family, we followed her almost all the way to her door and waved as we went by.  

I am glad to be home.  

My "must-do" list for next week is very long.  I have not wrapped a single present, and still have some shopping to do.  My "want-to" do list is even longer.

Pray for me.  ;)

Sometimes I wonder - December 8, 2023

In my attempts to learn to paint, I watch a lot of videos.  (Sometimes, I even try to do the paintings.)  Thanks to youtube's consideration of things that might interest me, stuff pops up that I would not ordinarily see.  

Case on point:  zentangle.  

Which led to zendoodle and all sorts of doodles.  Ad nauseum.

Last week, I saw a doodle in which the artist had woven a name into the design.  Cool.  The Granddaughters would love it on a sweatshirt.  For Christmas.  Using their favorite colors.

I did what I considered to be a suitable original doodle with Granddaughter #3's name woven in.  It looked fabulous colored.  Tuesday, I bought a pink hoodie at the dollar store and imprinted my doodle onto it using sublimation.  Yes, a white hoodie would have been better, as it would not have tinted the original colors, but the dollar store didn't have a plain white hoodie.  And, yes, dollar store shirts typically do not contain enough synthetic fibers to be colorfast.  But I did not care.  I wanted to test the whole process before gearing up for mass production of shirts for ALL the granddaughters (6, to be exact).

#3's shirt turned out halfway okay.  The pink background muted the bright colors of the original, and the name is a tad uphill, but the shirt will do for playing outside.  The kid will have outgrown the shirt by spring, anyway, and she spends half her time cartwheeling, so who is going to notice her name's uphill?  

Believing that my grand project was do-able, Tuesday night, I ordered five more hoodies.

Yesterday, I spent ALL DAY doing the artwork for the remaining names.  I resorted to cheating; instead of doing 5 different designs, I did one with no name at all, scanned it, and figured out how to get the names woven in using the computer.  By nightfall, I had 5 prints, ready to paint in the girls' favorite colors.

I felt so...accomplished.

Today I discovered that I ordered the wrong sizes:  two adult smalls, two adult XLs, and one dark purple kid-sized hoodie (against which no sublimated design will ever show).  

WTF was I thinking?  

<sigh>

Thursday - December 7, 2023

Before I forget, lemme give a shout out to my eldest nephew, born this date longer ago than I care to admit (because if he is old, I am REALLY old).  ;)  

It is colder than a well digger's butt on the back porch today, but the sun is shining and the temperature is supposed to be in the fifties today.  My plan is to do some sketching later today in preparation for a road trip we're doing next week, another work-related trip for The Husband.  I'm going along, since I can work from anywhere.  

I'll be lugging two laptops with me - personal and work.  It never fails that when I go somewhere, an Etsy customer wants something special.  On our recent two-day trip to Nashville, I had two custom requests, and for the first time ever, I did not have my personal machine (the one with the digitizing software) with me.  It's kind of a good thing that I didn't have it, for I probably would have digitized in the hotel room instead of going to the State Museum, which I'd always wanted to see.  I'll have two days in which to occupy myself while The Husband is in meetings.  I'll have to fool with the parking valets if I want to drive anywhere, and driving in strange places kind of makes me nervous, so I might just stay put in the room and do some computer drawing - on my lunch breaks, of course.  ;)

Tuesday - December 5, 2023

Back in the summer, Son #2 gave us his old electric smoker grill.  Until this past Sunday, we'd only used it once to cook a brisket, or maybe it was a pork butt, can't remember.  Anyway, a friend who owns a local BBQ joint kept posting pictures of a smoked meatloaf they sell at the restaurant, and I finally succumbed to the urge to try it, myself.  I mixed up 3 pounds of 80/20 ground beef, a couple of eggs, some spices, and 6 slices of store-bought keto bread, put it in a disposable pan, and smoked it at 275 degrees (might have been a little hot for the amount of time we left it on the grill).  At the same time, we put a whole chicken in the smoker.  It was a small one, and I cut it open with scissors, dusted it with spices, and splayed it in a pan.  

We left them on the smoker for 2.5 hours, then checked the chicken with a thermometer.  When it hit 165 degrees in the chicken breast, we took everything off the grill.  I'd meant to put some topping on the meatloaf (ketchup + jalapeno pepper jelly), so I did that in the oven while I shredded the chicken for chicken salad.

It was all really good.  The meatloaf was a little dry in comparison with my normal meatloaf.  It was over-cooked, PLUS I did not treat the bread the same way I usually treat it.  I usually hold the bread slices under running water to saturate them, then I squeeze out most of the water and squish the bread into the meat.  (Sometimes, there's a recognizable piece of crust in my meatloaf, but I do not care.)  This time, I ran the dry bread slices through the food processor and turned them into crumbs, which I squished into the meat.  No added water. 

When we took the pans off the grill, I noticed that the meatloaf pan did not contain the amount of juice/grease I was expecting.  My wet bread meatloaves usually leak out a ton of juice/grease.  I always pour it off before adding the topping and baking it a little more.  What came out of the smoked meatloaf looked like 100% fat, no water.  

And the meatloaf was dry.  Was it because we cooked it too long or too hot, or because there was less water in the meat?  

Going to painting class today for the first time in I-don't-know-when.  

Cold Frame - December 4, 2023

A couple of Saturdays ago, there was a gardening program on PBS that showed how to build a cold frame.  It made me want one.  The TV guy built his frame from scrap materials around his place, but we don't have those kinds of scraps, so I bought a kit.  We assembled it yesterday.  Amazingly, all the parts were there, and the thing went together without a hitch.

We took it outside and looked for the best place to put it.  Our yard doesn't get much sun.  It appears that the "best place" may be the middle of the back yard.  At least, that's where it is right now.  It came with 4" nails to peg it down, but a good wind will send it flying.

The south side of our shed would be a better place if it gets enough sun during the winter.  The cold frame would be better protected from wind, and we could attach it to the shed foundation.  But I have never paid much attention to how much sun the spot gets during the winter, when the leaves are off the trees.  Right now, at 7 a.m., the sun is blasting that side of the shed.  I just asked my phone to remind me to check the situation at noon.  

I bought this thing intending to plant salad greens in it.  I envisioned filling it halfway with a big bag of store-bought dirt, sprinkling seeds over the dirt, watering it, closing the lid, and enjoying fresh, nutritious, leafy green salads this winter.  

Then I watched some videos.  Now I'm envisioning using the cold frame as an incubator for vegetable seeds.  I started my 2023 tomato plants in a tiny tabletop greenhouse (sort of) in the sewing room.  They did well, at first, but soon turned sickly-looking.  There just wasn't enough light and enough space to start them indoors.  Maybe I should try starting next year's tomato plants in the cold frame.  

As I have been writing this, I've had another vision.  Jose comes out from under the shed at night, raises the lid on the cold frame, digs around in it, and goes away, leaving the lid open.

Maybe I should install a padlock.

* * * * * * * * 

Over the weekend, I finished my friend's chair back.  It is packaged and ready to go, along with a hand-painted Christmas card.  I'll mail it tomorrow.  The post office is right next door to my painting class.

* * * * * * * * 

The Husband's office Christmas party was Saturday night.  Thirty-five years ago, when he first went to work there, the office Christmas party was a PARTY, with food and music and dancing and booze and such.  In 2020, because of covid, there was no party.  Since then, we've mostly just gathered for dinner.  This suits me just fine.  But this dinner was not all that great.  We had not-so-great food.  There was enough booze, though, to keep the younger folks happy.  

   

Friday, December 1, 2023

This is the first morning I've had all to myself in a week.

Starting on Thanksgiving, The Husband has been off work.  We were in Nashville on Monday and Tuesday, and he took off the rest of this week because he needed to use up some vacation time.  While I was at work Wednesday, he winterized the porch, which I thought was a terrific use of his time.  ;)  Today, he's gone to the big city to help deliver some collapsible wagons to the Ronald McDonald house.  

I had my yearly physical yesterday.  (Got passing grades on everything.)  My appointment wasn't until 2:15, and I wasn't supposed to eat anything so they could test my blood for cholesterol and such.  (My passing grade may get lowered when those test results come back!)  As soon as the visit was over, I headed to the grocery store and, being hungry, bought everything I saw, including fried chicken strips from the deli.  I hardly ever eat anything deep fried.  My tummy filed complaints during the night.  

So I was up early this morning.  Cooked breakfast.  Swept and mopped the floors while The Husband emptied his truck bed.  Now it's time to play.

The first thing I need to do is finish my friend's canvas chair back.  It goes on a director's chair.  She sent it to me more than a year ago.  She raises puppies and wanted her kennel's logo embroidered on the back.  I happily agreed to do it, thinking it would be a piece of cake since I'd already digitized the logo.  When the chair back arrived, I discovered that I'd have to take it apart to embroider it.  Then I could not find the embroidery design on any computer in the house and realized I'd have to start the logo from scratch.  I laid the project aside, and it eventually got buried in the rubble in the sewing room.  Back in March, when I was purging craft room to turn it into an office, I ran across it and put it away somewhere safe.  When my friend mentioned the chair back last week, I committed to finishing it this week.  

It took me an hour to locate the "somewhere safe" place.  Thankfully, most of the pieces were there.  I did find the logo design on an old computer, but it was not suitable for the chair back, so I had to re-do it.  I sewed the design yesterday evening.  I am not 100% satisfied with the way it turned out, but it'll have to do.  Now I have to figure out how to put the blasted thing back together.  One piece - a stiffener that goes between the layers - is missing.  I probably threw it away during the purge, thinking it was a scrap from another project.  Hopefully, a strip cut off of a yoga mat will make a good substitute.