Honey, we're home

We spent Thanksgiving with our son in Columbus, Georgia, this year.  Wow, what a long drive; it's somewhere between 800 and 850 miles one way.  We drove straight through on the way down.  We ended up traveling in the dark for over three hours, and Cliff hates that.  I read aloud most of the way down, which really makes the time go by fast.  We read "Now You See Her" by James Patterson and finished "Mudbound", which I'd started on a road trip some time back.  If you read "The Help" and liked it, you will like "Mudbound".  I was hoarse from all those hours of reading by the time we got to Georgia, let me tell you.  

That's Debbie, Lyndsay (my youngest grandchild), and our son, Jim.  

Friday we were all surfing the Internet together (the highs were in the 70's all the time we were there) and I wanted a picture of all that techie activity.  Since I couldn't be taking the picture and still be in the picture, a neighbor boy took my place.  

Lyndsay with neighbor kids.  

 Some of my son's grandchildren are shy, but not these two.  In this picture, I'm showing Morgan and Cambry (not sure of the spelling) some pictures on my Ipad.  
I took dozens of pictures while we were there, but I am pretty sure the general public doesn't want to see every single one.  

Cliff and Lyndsay getting in a few hugs our last evening in Columbus.

Coming home, we drove as far as St. Louis yesterday and stopped to spend the night at Cliff's sister's house.  That got us out of driving in the dark; this morning we headed home, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Thankful

Last year on Facebook, I made an attempt to post something for which I was thankful each day in November leading up to Thanksgiving.  I started out with gusto.  
By the time Thanksgiving Day arrived, I was boring myself.  Not for lack of reasons to be thankful; it's just that posting some different thing day after day, as though it were a job, just gets to be mundane.  
This year I saved my thankfulness for this one day, and I won't need to list that many items.  
I am thankful that in a huge world, this solitary and peculiar person found someone to love her.  
I am SO very thankful for my upbringing and my past:  for the parents and uncles and aunts and cousins and children and grandchildren God blessed me with.  They made me who I am, for better or worse.  They are with me, in me, in every breath I take.  
I am thankful that I am able to see and hear.  The older I get, the more I appreciate those gifts, because I've seen relatives lose them.  What a dreary world it must be to one who can't see or hear.  
I am thankful for the Internet, my window on the world.  I am thankful for all the friends I have made on this information highway, because honestly, with the exception of my husband, they are my only friends.  I have always a hermit and a loner, but somehow it's been easier to share my world with my Internet friends; we got to know one another without judging by appearances.    
One of my dearest Internet friends recently sent me an email that expresses how I feel at this stage of my life, and I'd like to share it here.  I wish I could give credit to the author, but I haven't found who that is.  

You know, time has a way of moving quickly and catching you unaware of the passing years.

It seems just yesterday that I was young, just married and embarking on my new life with my mate. And yet in a way, it seems like eons ago, and I wonder where all the years went.

I know that I lived them all…

And I have glimpses of how it was back then and of all my hopes and dreams… But, here it is.. the winter of my life and it catches me by surprise… How did I get here so fast? Where did the years go and where did my youth go?

I remember well… seeing older people through the years and thinking that those older people were years away from me and that winter was so far off that I could not fathom it or imagine fully what it would be like…  But, here it is…my friends are retired and getting gray…they move slower and I see an older person now. Lots are in better shape than me… but, I see the great change…  Not like the ones that I remember who were young and vibrant… but, like me, their age is beginning to show and we are now those older folks that we used to see and never thought we’d be.

Each day now, I find that just getting a shower is a real target for the day!  And taking a nap is not a treat anymore…it’s mandatory!  Cause if I don’t on my own free will..I just fall asleep where I sit!

And so, now I enter into this new season of my life unprepared for all the aches and pains and the loss of strength and ability to go and do things that I wish I had done but never did!!

But, at least I know, that though the winter has come, and I’m not sure how long it will last…this I know, that when it’s over…its over….Yes , I have regrets. There are things I wish I hadn’t done ,,,,,things I should have done, but indeed, there are many things I’m happy to have done.  It’s all in a lifetime….

So, if you’re not in your winter yet…let me remind you, that it will be here faster than you think. So, whatever you would like to accomplish in your life please do it quickly!  Don’t put things off too long!!

Life goes by quickly.  So, do what you can today, as you can never be sure whether this is your winter or not!

You have no promise that you will see all the seasons of your life.. so, live for good today and say all the things that you want your loved ones to remember… and hope that they appreciate and love you for all the things that you have done for them in all the years past!!

‘Life is a gift to you. The way you live your life is your gift to those who come after.

Make it a fantastic one.’

What day is it?

I think it's Sunday.  Cliff's been off work for over a week, we had our Thanksgiving yesterday instead of Thursday, and I've lost all track of time.  Cliff has decided he's going to love retirement.  For seven more months, though, he'll have to hit the old time clock.  
I had a close call with our turkey.  It took an hour longer than I expected to get done, and I was really sweating it, what with all those hungry faces out in the shop.  Yes, we had Thanksgiving dinner in Cliff's shop!  

People said everything was good.  I wouldn't know:  I had three servings of twenty-four-hour salad and three servings of cranberry salad.  No turkey, no dressing.  Not even any noodles.  I decided to focus on two dishes I absolutely love, but very seldom make.  I didn't make pumpkin pie, nor any other kind of pie, this year.  I made Oreo Delight, pumpkin squares (squash squares, actually, with pureed squash from the freezer), and a peach cobbler (with peaches from the freezer).  I went over budget, but will make it up next week, I'm sure.  
Noodles are not optional at our Thanksgiving dinner.  They are required.  In fact, we'd ban turkey before we'd get rid of the noodles.  When I was growing up, no big family meal was served at my grandma's house without noodles, so it's a nostalgia thing for me.  My oldest granddaughter never eats anything except noodles and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving, and I usually send most of the leftover noodles home with her.  
We opted out of going to Cliff's brother's on Thanksgiving Day in order to avoid temptation for Cliff.  
Yesterday, though, it was no holds barred.  I looked the other way and let Cliff have at it; it's one day a year, after all.  I'll probably turn a blind eye on his partaking of a few of the leftovers today, too.
It was an enjoyable day, all told.  The oldest grandson and his girl friend stayed around and visited for quite a while, along with Cliff's sister and her husband.  We had lots of laughs.  


Have any of my readers ever bought a fresh turkey, as opposed to frozen?  Every year it seems more water has been pumped into my bird, and I get tired of paying 69 cents a pound for water!  I wonder if fresh turkeys have all that liquid added to them.  
I realize many people have no problem paying a big price for water:  I watch folks everywhere paying $8 per gallon for bottled water (that's what it comes to if you buy it in plastic bottles which, by the way, aren't very good for you or the environment).   Yes, I used to do it too, but the Oregon guy converted me; Guy won't be converting me to his atheistic beliefs, but he got me on this one.  Ha!


I received a wonderful surprise in my mailbox Saturday:  Vicki, the lady who once gave me an egg beater that she no longer used, wrote a letter to tell me a little about herself.  My blog, she wrote, was the first one she ever read.  She discovered it around the time that my dog, Mandy, was killed by a car, and has gone on to read other blogs I've recommended.  Mine, she says, is still her favorite.  
Vicki is my age, got married around the same time I did, and has children in the same age range as mine.  She lost her husband in 1991; a month after that she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  In 1995 she had three heart attacks.  Her neighbors "fixed her up" with a man, and in 1998 she remarried.  
As I sit here and toss words into this thing we call cyberspace, I often wonder about the people who read my blog.  Of course some of my readers have blogs of their own, so I feel I know something about them.  It's the others I'm always curious about, the "anonymous" ones:  What leads them here?  Why do they find this drivel interesting?  
Thanks, Vicki, for introducing yourself to me, for letting me know about some of your trials and triumphs.  Thanks also for reminding me how good it feels to go to the mailbox and find written words put down on paper.  I had forgotten how much more satisfying that is than email.
By the way, I used your mother's egg beater about twenty times in the last three days.    


Wow, this turned into quite a ramble, didn't it?  I'm heading to the fridge to get myself some cranberry salad for breakfast.

Delayed Thanksgiving

Cliff's youngest sister and her husband, Charlene and Pat, are coming in from St. Louis this evening; they'll spend tomorrow, Thanksgiving, with his parents.  
I asked my daughter if she wanted me to "do" Thanksgiving, and if so, would Saturday be all right; she said that would be the best day, for her; so Saturday it is.  Charlene was delighted that she'll be participating in our family dinner, as well as Pat's.  
I got a huge turkey:  I probably shouldn't have, because by Saturday everybody except for me and Cliff will have had all the turkey they want.  That's no problem for me, because that means I get lots of leftovers to put in the freezer for casseroles, jambalaya, salads, and other good things.  
There was a time when I'd cook both turkey and ham.  This year I couldn't bring myself to spend all that money on ham, when it isn't very good for us older folks.  Believe it or not, by dividing my holiday grocery purchases between this week and last, I still stayed under my $70 per week budget.  I even have $19 to spare, although with my track record there will be several last-minute purchases of items I've forgotten.  I already realized I'll be needing more eggs than I bought; one forgets how many eggs it takes to make a double batch of noodles.  the whole family knows I forget stuff when I cook a big meal, so anyone who is near a grocery store calls to see what they can pick up for me.  
Rachel and Kevin are taking care of the broccoli-and-rice casserole and the sweet potato casserole.  I'll resurrect my favorite cranberry salad, my mom's recipe.  I don't make it often, even on holidays, because I love it so much I end up eating most of it myself.  I've never seen this dish made by anyone outside our family.  Here's the recipe in my mother's words, the way she wrote it on a card for me:

CRANBERRY SALAD

For large batch

Grind one pkg cranberries. Stir in 2 cups sugar and 2 cups miniature marshmallows. Set back in refrigerator overnight or for two or three hours. In morning, add 1 can crushed pineapple (drained well), 4 diced bananas, cup chopped nuts, and fold all into 1 pint cream, whipped. It fluffs up and stays good for a couple days.

I use Cool Whip instead of whipped cream, these days. I have a cow, and I have the cream; but real whipped cream separates in a few hours.   

Of course I'll be making Mother's noodles; granddaughter Amber would cry if I didn't.  And I always make my tried-and-true yeast rolls, the recipe I learned from my first Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.  I simply have to make Oreo Delight, because the oldest grandson would cry if I didn't.  By the way, one of the most frequent searches bringing people to this blog is Oreo delight.  
The son-in-law said his mom would make a dessert of some sort.  

I used to have a simple apple salad recipe with grapes and nuts in it, and whipped cream (or Cool Whip).  I've lost the recipe, and all the ones I google have mayonaise in them.  I've made that version too, but I prefer the one without mayo.  Maybe I should just use that recipe as a guide and then leave out the mayo.  

Anyhow, the menu is planned.  Tomorrow, actual Thanksgiving Day, will be a nice, quiet day for me and Cliff.  He'll likely spend hours in the shop like he's done during all these vacation days of his.  

Oh, remember how I mentioned that Cliff passed his stress test with flying colors?  I'm assuming that's still true, but the other day we talked to a neighbor who's had that kind of stress test, and he said the doctor's office calls a few days afterward with the results.  So if that's the case, we really don't know for sure how Cliff did.  See, the first nuclear stress test he had cause his heart to short out, and he never got to finish it.  So I just figured if he made it through, he passed.  Ha!   

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Thanksgiving leftovers

Cliff had to go get some filters for his current moneyhole tractor project, and I went along. I needed to buy carrots for our turkey frame soup, among other things. You know I can never resist a bargain.

So when I saw five pounds of carrots for $2.49, I was ecstatic. Do you think eating five pounds of carrots will atone for five pounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, noodles, and pie I've consumed? Please tell me they will!

Back home, I took the big baggie of turkey out of the refrigerator and divided it into manageable amounts. When my children were home, I'd have made a gigantic turkey pot pie with most of that, and we would have devoured it in two meals. Unfortunately, turkey pot pie is as unhealthy as any other food that includes pie crust in the recipe. I didn't freeze all the turkey, by the way; we'll have some for lunch, and Cliff will take a sandwich of it to work tonight. The carcass is boiling merrily away as I type this. Tomorrow, turkey soup!

My mother never actually had me do much cooking when I was growing up, but I did a lot of watching. It amazes me to see how many things I do just like her, since she never actually told me anything about how to cook. I learned mainly from a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, after I was on my own. Of course after I married Cliff, I asked her advice many times.

Pies, for instance: I make the same thumbprints around the edge, and put the same designs in the top crust, as Mother did. She always cut a pie into six pieces, and I did too, until the last several years. Now I make it eight pieces, and that's plenty. By the way, Lloyd's of London wouldn't insure that pie; Cliff and I can't walk past it without looking at it. I'm fairly sure that Mother covered her turkey snugly when she roasted it, and that's what I've always done. Even though all the cookbooks and online recipes say to leave it uncovered except for putting an aluminum-foil tent over it at some point, I've always been afraid to do it that way. This year, I got brave.
It worked! We almost broke into applause when we drew that twenty-pound bird out of the oven; the legs were a little dry, but that's because I left it in the oven longer than recommended. Oh, the stuffing: that's something else my mom did: she cooked the stuffing in and around the bird, not in a separate pan. Of course, she made her own, from scratch. I use Stove-top Stuffing.

So I'm sixty-five years old, and I finally roasted a turkey like it's supposed to be done. The old dog learned a new trick.

A perfect Thanksgiving day

If I had custom-ordered the weather for Thanksgiving, yesterday would have been exactly what I ordered. Temperatures near sixty, sunshine everywhere. The perfect day for that after-dinner walk. You know, the one you force yourself to take, even though you're so full you can hardly get out the door.

You barely burn calories because you're walking at the speed of a slug, but the fresh air and sunshine are a nice change from the turkey-laden, oven-heated air in the house. I brought up the rear, and when we got back to "the point", I dropped on the ground and lay on my back, while the others walked a little farther. And was greeted with this:

Nothing like dog-slobbers in the face. Of course, all she wanted was....


somebody to take her stick and toss it.

Happy Thanksgiving, Sadie. Did you get enough turkey to satisfy you?

Countdown to Thanksgiving

The neighbor who gives us catfish (filleted and ready to fry) so often blessed us with a gallon bag-full of frozen fish last week, saying he won't be going fishing again for awhile. I decided to share the bounty, so yesterday the daughter's family (some of them) came over to help us eat all that fish. Cliff's sister and my oldest grandson also helped out. I find I don't manage the coordinating of company meals all that well any more: the baked beans were done early, and the scalloped potatoes took longer than expected, delaying the actual fish-fry by a half-hour. Cliff was looking forward to corn bread, but in the last-minute rush of frying fish, no corn bread was made. And I'm doing the Thanksgiving dinner Thursday? Lord help us!

The son-in-law is making sweet potato casserole, and I'll have the sister-in-law next door do the broccoli and rice casserole; she's the one who originally introduced the dish to the family. In fact, we call it "Rena's Green Rice", although you can find it online at Campbell's Kitchen, Cooks.com, and other websites in various forms, without Rena's name attached. Now that I think of it, it's going to be handy having Rena next door with her fancy new oven. I may put her in charge of ham or turkey!

I'll make "Mother's noodles", which recipe I have never found online with the exact ingredients my mom used. Thanksgiving dinner without noodles and mashed potatoes (and home-made rolls) would be a complete disappointment.

I look forward to having turkey and ham leftovers. I can't wait for the turkey frame soup Cliff and I love so well, and I always freeze some of the ham in small amounts to be metered out in soups and casseroles later on. The ham bone, of course, will season either a "big ole pot of beans" or some split pea soup, later on. Cliff's younger sister and her husband will be here for three days, so I'll no doubt use some of those leftovers while they're here. Which reminds me, it's time to wash the sheets and get their bed ready! Anybody and everybody has been using their bed lately. (I added that for Charlene's benefit, but she knows who's been sleeping in her bed.)

Wish me luck. I certainly hope I coordinate things better than I did yesterday!

Thanksgiving: All relatives and former relatives

Yes people, I am going to "do" Thanksgiving dinner this year. It will take place around noon on Thanksgiving Day.

We will have turkey and stuffing. Possibly ham too, if the budget allows.
Cranberry sauce, the canned kind.
Home-made rolls.
Home-made noodles.
Mashed potatoes, giblet gravy.
Broccoli-rice casserole.
Maybe candied sweet potatoes... I'm not sure yet.

I realize there should be something green and healthy-like. Sorry about that, we eat that stuff all the time around here. The broccoli in the casserole is about as green as it's going to get.

Cliff wants apple pie and pumpkin pie for dessert. If enough people beg, I might be persuaded to make Oreo Dessert.

Obviously, this menu has about half as many items as the dinners I used to prepare. Feel free to bring something. Otherwise, what you see is probably what you'll get.

Questions?

Oh yeah, let me know if you're coming.

Wordless Wednesday... my husband, one year later

Cliff, right out of CABG surgery on April 20, 2006

My husband today, during a motorcycle ride.

Thank You Lord.

For more Wordless Wednesdays, go HERE.