Category Archives: holidays

Family, Food, holidays, Seasons, Uncategorized

Rich Beyond Measure

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I made broth last weekend.  It is the Brodo recipe from The Splendid Table with 9 lbs of turkey wings and 3 lbs of beef bones.  It simmers for 14 hours. It produces a couple of gallons of golden brown goodness. We use it all the time, so we try to always have some on hand.  We  consider ourselves rich as we put the broth containers in the freeze “This is wealth”, we say.  Who needs more things when you have broth?

We have much to be thankful for besides homemade broth.  We feel especially rich in good friends,  good coworkers,  and in our community as a whole.  In this season of rampant consumerism, I think it is good to consider all the things that contribute richness to our lives.

What makes your life a richer, more satisfying one?

 

Fifty Words, holidays, home, pets, Uncategorized

Kitty Conundrum

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Nimue, my tabby, cannot stay away from the tree. She’s too tubby to climb it anymore but the ornaments and the beads are simply too much temptation.

Any advice for keeping her happy but the tree intact?

Fifty Words, holidays

Prepare ye!

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Well, today is December 1. How are your holiday preparations coming along? I was jolted out of complacency by two Christmas cards this week.  Time to get busy!

What do you have left to do for the holidays?

Gatherings, holidays, Nature, Stories, Uncategorized

Baboon Dreams

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I am not  proponent of analysing dream content for deep meanings.  If my dreams mean anything, they reflect my current degree of anxiety.  I had the funniest dream the other night, though, that I would like some Baboon help with interpretation. I should add that I had this dream  when I was particularly calm the night of Thanksgiving Day after a hectic month at work.

I was in a small house, at a party of some sort. Steve, Linda, LJB, Bill and other, obscured  Baboons were there. PJ arrived at the party with six enormous boxes of freshly picked garden peas still in their pods with vines attached. The boxes also had beautiful vases in them. While she doled them out to everyone, Bill was correcting my grammar in a very kind way as I spoke.

The scene shifted to a car with Steve and PJ. Steve was driving the car in a snow storm up a hill toward a group of building that were part of a college. It turned out to be a college I had attended. I took them around and introduced them to a psychology faculty member who is, in real life, an old college boyfriend from Buxton, ND who is a church organist and oboe player. He has never had anything to do with psychology. He was wearing academic robes.  We left the college and walked out in the snow, and Steve proceeded to explain the significance of various naturally formed snow and ice sculptures, Then I woke up.

That has to be the silliest dream on record. I have no idea what Freud would make of it.  I find it interesting that I dream about Baboons when I am  feeling  calm after hectic times.

If you were a psychoanalyst, what would you make of this dream? What is the silliest dream you ever had ?

Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, Uncategorized

Leftovers!

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Photo credit: Steven Puetzer / Getty Images

YA and I have done Thanksgiving with the same folks for all of her life so I don’t know about anybody else’s traditions, but at our festivities, everybody brings some Tupperware (or cheaper equivalent!) and then after the meal, we divvy up the leftovers. Our favorite leftovers include mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and sage dinner rolls.  YA wants the potatoes; I want the sage rolls.  Here’s my favorite leftover recipe:

Juju’s Sage Rolls w/ Cheese
1 sage roll (or two if you’re counting this as a meal)
1 not too skinny slice of cheese (your choice)
Butter (or mayo or mustard)

  1. Heat up the roll a bit, either in the toaster oven, the microwave or even the regular oven if it’s already on for something else
  2. Pull the warm roll apart (breathe in deeply while you do this so you get the sage smell)
  3. Slather on the butter or mayo or mustard
  4. Add the cheese
  5. Eat with your favorite day-after-Thanksgiving beverage!

What’s your favorite way to deal w/ leftovers?

 

Family, Fifty Words, holidays, home, Kids, pets, Seasons, sports, Stories, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Happy Thanksgiving!

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This is a straight up-homage to the day. Not the turkey and football filled day, not the sweet potatoes and pilgrim hat day.  For those of us who don’t practice thankfulness as often as we should (including me), today is a day to help us do just that – practice thankfulness.

You’ve heard it before – what are you grateful for?

 

100 Words, Art, holidays, Movies, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

Let’s All Go to the Lobby

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The holiday movie season has started; I just saw that Fantastic Beasts 2 is out now. I will admit that I haven’t yet seen the first Fantastic Beasts; I’m a marginal Potter fan so not excited about seeing it in a theatre with the cost that entails.  But the concept of a pre-Harry world is appealing to me so I’m looking forward to seeing it one of these days when Netflix or one of the cable companies picks it up.

Who would star in a prequel of YOUR life? Theme song?

 

Business, Family, holidays, Kids, Technology, Uncategorized

Appliance Shopping

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The electronic display on our range/oven is more on the fritz than off the fritz these days. Most days a good “thunk” to the side of the range will turn the clock/temperature display back on but with the holidays coming up, I thought it was about time to get it fixed.  Unfortunately one of the two broken parts isn’t made anymore and although we could send it in to try to have it rebuilt, but it would take 6-8 weeks and there is only a 70% chance of success.

So I took the day off; after voting and a nice breakfast out, YA and I started out for our hunt. As we drove to the first place on my list, a place that does refurbished  appliances, YA gave me her list of “requirements”.  She wanted stainless steel with a grill in the middle of the burners, electronic display separate from the light switch, a bigger drawer in the bottom; I lost track of her desires after that.  My list was shorter – gas, cheap.

My requirements were met within the first five minutes. YA spent quite a bit of time googling ranges at Home Depot and Warner Stellian before giving up and agreeing to the range I liked.  I know her idea of shopping was to hit several stores and mull over many alternatives before making a decision.  It’s hard for me to imagine a more horrible scenario for spending a day!  I do not have the shopping gene; she has it in spades!

Of course getting the old range disconnected and then the new range connected is going to take a while – Centerpoint Energy does not make it easy for you to buy an appliance that they don’t sell you. Looks like we’ll be thunking the side of the old range until after Thanksgiving but hopefully not into December!

Do you start your holiday shopping before Thanksgiving?

Art, Family, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

Charmed

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Today’s post comes to us from Crystal Bay.

A friend of mine sports a lovely bracelet with initialed charms of her grandchildren. I loved it, so I decided that I’d tell my kids that the most special gift they could give me is a bracket or necklace with my 12 grand kid’s names for Mother’s Day, my birthday, or Xmas. Years went by and this special gift never materialized.

Still wanting one, I decided that if I wanted this so badly, I’d have to make my own. I went on Google, ordered the charms, and bought a silver chain. I excitedly strung the initialed charms, in order of birth, onto the chain.

Hanging below the 12 charms is my “Survivor” pendant. I’ve worn it around my neck 24/7 ever since. The unexpected out play of giving myself this gift is that I find myself constantly rubbing the charms together. It makes me feel like my family is with me. 12 charms are a lot for one chain, so I put three charms on my three kids on an ankle bracelet.

WHAT HAVE YOU HAD TO DO FOR YOURSELF THAT YOU WISH SOMEONE ELSE HAD DONE FOR YOU?

Art, Fifty Words, holidays, home, Uncategorized

Lobby for a Hobby

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The egg table went up today. I’m way behind my usual schedule but after an evening of wax and dye I feel pretty good and remarkably relaxed.  Between paper crafts and the Ukrainian eggs I am in hobby heaven.

It’s fantasy time. Money and time are no object.  What’s a hobby you’d like to try?