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.