Happy New Year !! ........................

It's hard to believe that another year has passed and that another decade is ending. We've been through a lot in the last 10 years, but we have survived. I'm wishing each of you peace, love, and happiness in the coming year. Hope you have a safe and fun evening! We'll be at home, watching TV - to see the ball drop on Times Square. (That is if we don't go to sleep before then.)

I will be back next year!

Our snow has melted .............

Our snow is almost gone.



The cats are glad to see it go.



I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was very quiet. We had our fried oyster dinner at my Dad's on Christmas Eve. It was just the four of us - Dad, my brother, hubby, and me. I had prepared everything except the oysters ahead of time and carried the prepared dishes with me. It didn't take long to fry the oysters after we got to Dad's.


We had a relaxing Christmas morning. Maggie May and Mazie Grace had fun with their new catnip mice and ate some of their new treats. Hubby gave me two books - "U is for Undertow" by Sue Grafton and "Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton. I've almost finished the Sue Grafton book. Hubby got a small portable battery charger - the one he had broke and he wanted a replacement. Of course, we've been enjoying our new TV.


My brother bought a small turkey for our Christmas dinner. He put it in the oven at Dad's that morning. He's become quite an expert at roasting a turkey - it was perfect. We arrived later, and I finished preparing the meal for the four of us. Of course, we all stuffed ourselves and were ready for naps after eating. I was thankful that I got to share another Christmas with my Dad. I've spent every Christmas since I was born with him - a total of 62.

We got rain Christmas Day. As you can see in the pictures above, it melted almost all of our snow. At least we had a white Christmas morning. Today has been another lazy day. We made a quick trip to the grocery store, then came home and made a pot of soup.

Merry Christmas ! ......................

May everyone have a wonderful holiday season full of love, peace, and happiness!

Cats in the snow ......................

Maggie insists on going outside in the snow. She doesn't like to walk in it though. She will shake off her feet after each step. She spends most of her time sitting on the deck looking out over the yard.


Mazie Grace gets around in the snow better than Maggie May. However, she prefers to spend her time inside sleeping under the Christmas tree. I think Mazie Grace has the best idea.

I will start my Christmas cooking in the morning. We always have fried oysters and country ham on Christmas Eve. Tomorrow I'll make potato salad, deviled eggs, candied sweet potatoes, congealed salad and pie to go along with them.

The big snow storm .........................

Like a large part of the eastern US, we got slammed with a big snow storm. It began around 5 PM last night and continued until around 5 PM tonight. This morning the snow turned to sleet for awhile, then back to snow this afternoon. I think we got a total of around 10 inches. I can't remember when we had such a big snow. I know some parts of the state had over 2 feet!

Hubby had to get up and go to work this morning. Everyone was suppose to be there at 6 AM, ready to go out in case someone's electicity went out. Luckily they had very little trouble. In fact Hubby spent the day sitting in the office talking to coworkers. They finally told them to go home around 2 PM.

I spent a large part of the day curled up under a blanket on the sofa, watching TV. Mazie Grace went out a few times, but she wouldn't stay long. She would take a few steps on the snow, sink down, climb out of the hole, and take a few more steps. Maggie May wanted to go out too, but I made her stay in.

The snow plow just went by the house clearing the road. There has been very little traffic today - just a few trucks with 4 wheel drive. Tomorrow everyone will be out and about again.

If you are getting snow - stay safe and warm and enjoy the beauty The snow may still be around on Christmas - so we could possibly have a White Christmas!

Christmas Prep .............

I've been busy the last few days with Christmas preparation. Completed are -

1. Inside and outside decorations put up

2. All Christmas gifts purchased

3. Gifts wrapped

4. Christmas cards written and mailed

5. Cookies baked

6. Menus planned for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

All I have left to do is last minute grocery shopping and meal preparation. I tend to procrastinate and put things off, but once I start I want to keep going until I finish. I can sit back now and enjoy the next week or so.

I still plan on making some peanut butter cookies and chocolate fudge tomorrow. I also would like to make some cheese straws. Does anyone have a good recipe? I've never made them before, but I love them and I think my Dad would enjoy some.

Mazie Grace has decided that she wants to live under the Christmas tree. I have my Santa collection under the tree, so she crawls back behind the Santas and curls up in a ball. This is her first Christmas with us and probably her first Christmas experience. Last year at this time she was homeless, living in the fields behind our house.

TVs and customer service .......

I've been neglectful of my blog again. Seems like I've been constantly busy, but I haven't gotten that much done. Hubby and I put our new TV console together last Sunday afternoon. It went together perfectly - all pieces were present and they fit together with no problem. It took less than 2 hours and, amazingly, no voices were raised during the process. I have arthritis in my hands and have absolutely no grip, so I'm not much help in picking things up and moving them. So, both the new TV and console were in the garage until we could get help moving the old out and the new in.

Tuesday, two wonderful men came to change our Direct TV dish to a HD dish. They got the dish changed on the roof and came in the house to set up the new receiver. I mentioned that we had a new TV and console in the garage that we were going to move in when we got some help. These kind men took everything out of the old unit, moved the old TV and entertainment center to the garage, moved in the new console, got the new TV out of the box and set everything up. The old entertainment unit and TV were very heavy and neither man was young, so they were huffing and puffing by the time they finished. I don't think they realized it would be such a job and I felt bad about them doing all that work. All they were required to do was install the dish on the roof. These guys should be given an award for excellant customer service - something that is rare today. Hubby was very surprised when he got home and his new TV was set up.

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I know lots of you have gotten snow - all we've gotten is rain. We had close to 9 inches last month and already have close to 4 inches this month. That's more than we had in the first five months of the year. The ground is so saturated, you squish when you walk. We finally got a good frost last weekend. Now I need to go out and clean out my flower pots and flower beds.

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I can't believe that Christmas is only two weeks away. I haven't made any preparations. I may try to put up my outside decorations this afternoon and maybe make some cookies tonight.

More mushrooms ...........

We have been inundated with rain lately - over ten inches for the month of November. As a result we have mushrooms growing everywhere. These were on a tree in my dad's back yard.

Shopping, yard work, and repairs ...........

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving with lots of good food and good friends to share it with. We stuffed ourselves, then spent the rest of the day recovering.



Did you hit the stores for black friday? I usually refuse to go anywhere near a store on that day, but we needed to pick up a few groceries, so we braved Walmart around noon. Hubby and I have been wanting a flat screen HDTV, but we've been waiting for our old TV to die before buying one. On our way to pick up some milk, we stopped just to look at the TVs that were on special. I was totally shocked when an employee appeared almost immediately and offered to help us. He answered our questions, told us what we needed, loaded it on a cart, checked it out, and even took it to our truck. We had bought a TV at Walmart on black friday in under 10 minutes! Evidently all the people who work at the distribution center were sent to work in the store on that day. Now that we have the TV, we've got to get a stand for it and the Direct TV HD receiver. One thing leads to another. We also need to find someone who would like to buy the huge entertainment center and TV that we have. Right now the TV is still in the box in the garage - hopefully it will be set up by Christmas. That will be our Christmas present to each other.



The weekend was spent in the yard. Sunday was simply gorgeous - sunny and temperatures in the 70s. Hubby ran the leaf vacuum over the entire yard while I raked in areas that the mower couldn't get. It looked so good right after we finished. More leaves have fallen since then, but they are not as thick as they were. We will probably have to go over the yard again at least one more time. I still have my flower beds to clean out, pots to empty, and a few other fall chores to do. December has arrived much too soon - seems like summer was only a few weeks ago. Have you ever noticed how time tends to speed up as you get older?



I spent all day today at my Dad's. The french doors in his den had to be replaced. The rain had splashed off the patio bricks onto the bottom of the door for so long that it was rotten. It had gotten so flimsy, I locked the door several weeks ago and told everyone not to use it. I was afraid Dad would get upset having the workers there. He never believed in paying anyone to do jobs like that - he would do them himself. But he sat in his chair and watched them calmly all day.