two oh one three

Twenty thirteen was not a bad year.
Here are some of the highlights:

time with family at a reunion in Natchez
our annual sisters trip (the second in a row and my second trip to Natchez for the year.

Finally attending the Audubon Pilgrimage in St. Francisville, Louisiana  and having my sweet nephew Cole meet us there.

Attending the new Disney movie "Frozen" with my grandbaby and her adorable cousin from the other side of the family. Attending "The Nutcracker" ballet and sitting with my grandbaby's other grandmother, Mimi.

Attending the second Hobbit movie. "The Desolation of Smaug" with more of my favorite people.

I got a manicure and pedicure with a good friend.  (This was after she sang in a Christmas program preceded by a childrens performance and flanked by one of the best Christmas sermons I've ever heard.)
The drive to those performances was amazing.
Those are just the highlights. So am I worried about the New Year not living up to its predecessor?! Not at all!
Two thousand and fourteen is going to be an exemplary year. I just know it.  Just you wait and see!

holiday mani/pedi

There isn't much I love better than a manicure. Unless it's a pedicure. It's a very relaxing yet energizing thing to do. When a dear friend suggested we somehow fit in both before Christmas Eve it didn't take a whole lot of convincing. We had time to chat a while during the pedicures. And we shopped a bit after the manicures. It was one of the best things I decided to do, last minute, in a while!

What to do on a Saturday morning

I woke up early. It was especially early for a Saturday. The grandbaby spent the night and at some point had crowded the Hub onto the couch. I woke to her beside me trying to get her Tinkerbell music box to open without using the key. The good/bad news is that the music in the box works quite well. A little too well for my taste on a Saturday morning.She has the best/worst bed head on the planet (with the possible exception of her two paternal aunts.) Taming it this morning was hard word but the Hub, who she calls "Granddad" took the task head on (pun intended. I helped dress her and then he drove her to art class. He had her there by 9.
When he returned home with the mail, I sorted through it, had a biscuit with the scuppernog jelly we got as a Christmas gift and I crawled back into bed. That is where I am right now. I've sorted some of our Christmas pictures for uploading. I've done a bit of reading. Now I am blogging. I might try to catch a couple more winks before it is all said and done.
I feel a bit guilty about this because the Hub is will be attending basketball practice with the Grandbaby after he picks her up from art. Then he will drop her off to her mother at dance class. I will likely still be in my pajamas(and maybe even asleep) when he gets back home and wonders what we are doing for lunch.
I could get up and whip up a pizza from the kit on the counter (another Christmas gift.)
I could use some of the Christmas ham to make sandwiches. I could even,  gasp, bathe and dress and go to the market to get ingredients to make soup or chili since it is a bit chilly outside.
I could take down the tree and undeck the halls. But usually I wait until after  epiphany. I could finish up some projects I did not complete in time for Christmas.
I might need to rest and reflect on these options.
Perhaps I could ponder. Or mull over them.
yes, that sounds about right...

the story of gwendolyn

 

The doll to the right in the photo above is named Gwendolyn. She was the first thing I bought for Christmas this year. I had big plans for her. Some of them even came to fruition.
She was to be given to my grandniece Lilliann, who I call Buttons. I bought the doll because she looks so much (to me) like the darling little girl she was purchased for. I intended that she be presented to her recipient together with a tote bag full of office supplies.
You see, Lilliann, aka Buttons, loved to go to "work" with her Nana, who is my sister. My other sister, who is called Gogo (we really like unusual nick/names in my family) also works in the same place. They work for my brother-in-law, who we call "Kelbo." (told ya we like unusual nicknames.)
Kelbo says that our nicknames remind him of dog names, but I digress. This is about Gwendolyn.
I chose the name Gwendolyn for the doll because Buttons' other maternal great-aunt loves the name. She wanted to be named Gwendolyn when she was little. She probably still does. When we played dress up or school, she always wanted to be called Gwendolyn. She does not have a grandbaby girl (though she does have a darling grandbaby boy.) But I digress again.
I found some soft, butter-yellow chamois fabric that goes well with Gwendolyn's hair. I intended to embroider "Lilliann/Buttons" on one side of the bag and "Gwendolyn" on the other.
I bought lined yellow pads in regular and mini sizes. Matching writing instruments aka pens, in regular and doll sized versions, some mini and regular markers, etc.
I even found matching "Issues" notebooks. Issues notebooks are what we called the old school speckled primers I give to my eldest daughter to record the things she needs to discuss with me and//or her dad. But I digress, yet again.
Thanksgiving weekend, just as I was finishing up all the embroidery projects I waited to late to start on, my embroidery machine broke. The Hub took it in to the shop to see if there was some quick fix that would get me back to gift making. The fix was not that hard, they told him, but it would require a new part.
The next day, more bad news. The part was not to be had until after New Year's. So much for Gwendolyn's bag being monogrammed.
I determined to put a note inside the package with the fabric and the office supplies explaining that I would personalize the bag as soon as my embroidery machine was up and running again. Gwendolyn, I planned to tied on top, in lieu of a bow.
The good news is, Gwendolyn sits beside me even as I right this. The bad news (worse even than the embroidery machine issue) is that I cannot find the box containing the office supplies.
Somewhere in the glorious mess that is Christmas morning, there is a box with regular and doll sized pens and paper wrapped in a lovely, butter-yellow chamois fabric. But I cannot find them. I have looked eveywhere I can think to look.
I cannot bring myself to give the doll to Buttons without the accessories. I have improvised with a toy that I hope she will like. It is the duplicate of a gift bought for my own Granddaughter  from her wish list in duplicate. I am so glad we never got it back to the store for a refund or exchange.
I hope Buttons will be happy with her gift. Since it is a thing longed for by her cousin, I expect she will like it. Perhaps she will be happier with it than she would have been with the Gwendolyn doll and accessories. I am just happy that she has a birthday in April. Maybe I can find the rest of the Gwendolyn's gear and my embroidery machine will be fixed by then!

I 

Some Christmas celebration essentials

 

Its so funny to me how some things just catch on with my kiddos. Taken Martinelli's sparkling apple cider. I do not recall when we first cracked open a bottle but for some years now, they have declared it to be a Christmas must have. They will ask, at some point, whether I have found any. It is not always so easy to find. 

They want to sip it while they watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  They want it to be part of either a Christmas tea party, lunch or dinner, or all of the above.

Then, there's New Year's. Both at midnight and with black eyed peas the next day, they would have cider.

We clove oranges and sometimes apples and slice them to serve in the cider. This year we used clementines. The grandbaby likes cherry juice and sometimes cherries and grenadine in hers, as she says it reminds her of gingerale and that's how she likes to drink gingerale. (She doesn't know to call that particular beverage a Shirley Temple or even who Shirley Temple is, though that is about to change.)

White cheese ball puffs, marketed as "Snow Balls" are a recent big hit. The baby daughter said she "needed
 these to make merry. This means, to snack on while we watch old home movies or Christmas movies.

Then there are the cheese apples. They'll require a blog post all of their own.

Thundered Up

My sister and brother-in-law took their kids and grandkids skiing the week before Christmas. They left their courtsisde seats to the Thunder v. the Chicago Bulls with me, the Hub, the baby sister and her Hub.I am not much of a basketball fan.

 Though in high school I cheered at basketball games, I relied on the head cheerleader to call the cheers. The cheers and chants, I knew. The intricacies of the game... not so much.

None of my kids played basketball. We are not so tall, you see. The Hub played some but at a different school than the one I cheered at so I didn't learn from observing or having discussion with him.

I should have talked to someone who could have given me some idea about what I would be watching.

The seats were amazing. We sat right behind the players and two rows of guys in suits with clipboards and/or folders who turned out to be coaches.

The baby sister said we would not be eating or drinking anything because we would likely be on ESPN and be seen by our other sister, the seat owner/ticket bestower and we might not look dignified if captured doing one or the other. 

I really wanted to be on the kiss cam, though the baby sister said that would just be weird. I wasn't going to kiss her. I was going to blow a kiss to the other sister and brother-in-law, the seat owner/bestowers who may or may not have been watching from their ski resort condo in Colorado.

The food we were served before the game was likewise excellent. Yet, I could not keep from wishing I had a basket of the chicken strips I saw at a kiosk coming into the arena. It being less than a week before Christmas, I wanted to wear a Thunder Santa hat like the one my Thunder Sister and her Thunder fan family had on in their Christmas card photo. We search for one, but alas, there was none to be had. One of the information guys who my little sister befriended (or who befriended her, perhaps) said they'd been sold out "for the last four games."

I did find a Rumble hat in one of the gift shops and tried it on but the baby sister said absolutely I could not wear it on the floor in our sisters seats. Something was said about shaming her. I would never.

Rumble, the Thunder's mascot, it turns out, was my favorite. Unless you count the cool little referee who I mistakenly called an umpire. At first I thought he was a player since he had a number on his back. He about got KO'd in the first half and when I wondered aloud about him returning to the game I was told by the baby sister, who thinks she knows everything, that he was not a player. 

I will admit that though she bossed(es) me around, spending time with her was the best part of the whole evening.  The other sister posted that we were not supposed to sit together, rather with our husbands. She thought we might get into trouble much the same as we used to in church, which is why Mother sat the middle/other sister between us.

We really didn't though. Not too much, anyway. 

We were mindful that any antics might be captured on live tv.

We resisted many urges and I don't mean just chicken strips and wearing a Rumble hat out into the arena.

But I dare not disclose more here. 

The little sister said there are things that happen at the Thunder games that should stay at the Thunder games.

Christmas cards through the years

 

spinning in circles

 

Vertigo

An artic blast has made an early December stop in our area. Last night, in anticipation of its arrival, I gathered up gloves and scarves and boots so I would not be scrambling for them this morning.
Things should have gone smoothly as organized as I was for today. I did not count on, though, on an early December (re)visit from vertigo.
A few years back I had the real live genuine swine flu. It settled in my left ear.
I will stop here and admit that there was a time when I would hear one of my elders reference something "settling" somewhere and would roll my eyes. But I now know that it really can happen. And it happened to me. Now, periodically, I have vertigo.
My daughter calls me Lucille 2, after the character played by Liza Minelli on "Arrested Development." While I wish I had Liza Minelli's legs, I do not want her character's vertigo. Alas, I have it.
It is especially bad when my allergies  flair up. It is also bad when it is really cold. Today it is really cold.
So here is how it happened. I bend over to zip my warm boots and our of nowhere it strikes. I should have anticipated it as soon as I heard the weather forecast.
The good news: I caught myself before I fell to the floor. It was ugly but there was no one around to see it but the dogs, and they aren't talking. The bad news, if I had fallen to the floor, there would have been no one to help me up. Also, I am not sure I could have lived with the shame of it if I'd broken something.

a perfect thanksgiving setting

My sister and brother in law hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the fam at their lake house.
It has to be the most perfect autumn holiday house in the world.

At least for me it is.
I decided when I was still in elementary school that this particular spot was one of the prettiest places on earth. The picture to the left is what I remember looking at when I made this particular decision.

Why I was at this particular lake at this particular time,  I am not sure.

I remember there being other little girls, there , all of us dressed up. There were growns up there, too.

I rather think it was a women's church group and that I was with my grandmother; as I was as often as I could manage it.

I remember warm apple cider with red hots.

I remember looking across the lake at the fall leaves and thinking that it was the prettiest place I had maybe ever seen.

Now I grew up in a house that sat up on a hill over looking a forest my sisters and I considered enchanted.

The walks we took  and the time we spent playing there seemed only to confirm this opinion.
The flora and fauna there were incredible to my little mind.

Looking out the great window of our house toward the woods during the months of autumn was an incredible sight. I say that to say I was used to pretty sights, especially in the fall.

Still the lake site impressed me enough that I remember it 40 years later.
This is why I feel especially blessed to be able to spend Thanksgiving there with my family.
A blessed setting. A blessed people. A blessed holiday.