Yes, I am sick again. I have now outdone my highest fever ever, (this one was 103.6) and actually did go to bed where I slept all afternoon, all evening and all night. The pain I felt when I turned over was acute, but I told myself I had to do it.
This morning my temperature is down to 101 degrees. I still feel weak, can hardly walk and have chills. My question is, how can I build up my immune system so I stop getting pneumonia?
Okay, so where has this year gone? Suddenly it’s December first and I know from years of experience, that this month is going to fly by. It always does.
I need to finish my Christmas shopping in the next two weeks, as I hate being a last minute shopper.
My Dad was a last minute shopper. Literally! He would go out to a convenience store on Christmas morning and buy these odd little gifts for us. Puzzle books, silly toys or magazines, and boxes of life savers. Mom did the heavy pulling of gift giving from them, but Dad always gave each of us his gifts, and looking back now, I smile at the memory!
My daughter, Mandy is born this month too. She kind of got ripped off by being born December 20th. But for me, it was one of the happiest days of my life!
It’s also Arnie & Anneliese’s 7th birthday. Can you believe that! My babies are so special to me. And now they are all grown up!
Today also starts my cruise countdown. Thirty-nine days until my cruise departs! Yahoo!!!
Happy Saturday morning my friends! It’s not Christmas, but on Saturday morning I felt just like it was! Hubby gifted me with a 9 day cruise in the Caribbean! We really only stop at Grand Turk, but we will have 9 days of relaxation, warm weather and no chores!
My usual Dog/House sitter is busy and couldn’t commit to it, but a young man I have known since he was a sophomore in High School (he is now a sophomore in college), will be stepping in, to move in and care for the brood!
Here is where we are going:
Thu, 01/14 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Fri, 01/14 At Sea
Sat, 01/14 Princess Cays, Bahamas
Sun, 01/14 At Sea
Mon, 01/14 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Tue, 01/14 Princess Cays, Bahamas
Wed, 01/14 At Sea
Thu, 01/14 Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos
Fri, 01/14 At Sea
Sat, 01/14 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
We are both pretty happy about this because after the year we have had, we are both simply exhausted! We both need a chance to have some extended rest and relaxation.
Our cabin is near one of the nice pools and hot tub areas. As well as near the 24 hour dining room, so if I get hungry at midnight, I can send Jack to get me some tea and crackers.
Now I need to start planning what we will bring and what to pack! Yes, this is one of the best early Christmas presents ever!
I’ve been preparing food for days. I even searched and searched for my favorite Ocean Spray Cran/Orange Relish, but to no avail. I’ve tried to make it from scratch and not been thrilled, so today I set about to make it. This is what I did.
I got one can of whole berry cranberry sauce. I had one beautiful fresh orange. I washed the orange, cut it into slices and then sections and then tossed it into the food processor, peel and all. I ground it up until it was a finely chopped consistency. Then I put in the can of whole berry cranberry sauce. and processed that a moment or two. I put it into a closed container and chilled it down. When we took our first bite at dinner, we knew I had succeeded! Quick and easy!
The dinner was great, and we waited a bit to have dessert, bu here we are now at 8:30 in the evening on Thursday and I am still simply stuffed! Stuffed and tired.
But it was a good day and Hubby and I toasted each other. 26 Thanksgivings together! Life is good!
Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the USA. A day where we stop to give thanks for all that we have. Like the Pilgrims before us, our country continues to face many challenges, but I think many of my fellow Americans would agree, we are thankful for the love of our God, our family and our friends. So, here is a random list of 13 things I am thinking about this Thanksgiving.
1. I made the apple pie this evening. All done. It looks like it came out well.
2. I made the dressing yesterday, and have it chilling down. I will stuff Mr. Tom Turkey this morning and roast him slowly until he is perfectly cooked!
3. I peeled and diced the Yukon Gold Potatoes yesterday and they are soaking in a pot. Yukon Gold Potatoes make the best mashed potatoes!
4. I actually cooked the butternut squash a couple of weeks ago and it is frozen in the big freezer, waiting to be thawed.
5. I roasted the chestnuts and then shelled them. I am so happy that Julia Child wrote about the easy way to shell a chestnut. In the past I did it all wrong and ended up with sliced up fingers. This easy way, soaking them in boiling water for 20 minutes, putting a large X in the rounded part and then placing them on a roasting pan in a 400 (F) degree oven for 25 minutes. Cool, place all the chestnuts in a dishcloth and then crunch on the kitchen shelf. They almost peel themselves! Makes a great addition to the dressing.
6. Hubby peeled 2 dozen pearl onions.
7. Then after I did all that preparation work for today’s dinner, I started to make dinner for last night.
8. The dogs began to demand to be fed, so I broke down and fed them 10 minutes early.
9. Just about the time dinner was ready, I kind of lost my appetite. All the preparation of food, just made the food look unappealing.
10. Finally I finished all the cooking and cleaned up and got to sit down in my recliner at 8:15 last night.
11. After three such busy day, I felt exhausted!
12. Oh yes, one more thing to mention…I was up before dawn on Wednesday to go with Hubby to the VA. Horrendous weather!
13. To all my family and friends, here and abroad. May you enjoy the blessings of Thanksgiving. I know it is not a holiday for everyone, but I believe that the feeling of thankfulness that I feel in my heart and mind, for the ones that I love, is something shared universally.
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
1. Are you settling for something?
Yes. But in a good way. My face is not “Hollywood” perfect after all the surgeries. However, I have now decided that perfection is over rated and I will accept and enjoy my beautiful, patch work quilt face!
2. It wasn’t that long ago almost every store in the US locked doors and turned out lights on Thanksgiving Day. This year many will be open all day Thursday, giving shoppers a jump start on ‘Black Friday’. In your opinion is this a good thing or a not so good thing? Will you be shopping on Thanksgiving Day?
No, I will not be shopping on Thanksgiving. I believe that simple old traditions are best left alone. People deserve one day, to sit with their family, give thanks and not be forced to work.
3. Speaking of shopping… I saw a recent article on the twelve best shopping cities in the world. In order they are-
New York, Tokyo, London, Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Vienna, Dubai, Madrid, Milan, and Seoul.
Ever shopped in any of the cities listed? In which city would you most like to pull out the plastic or cold hard cash?
I’ve shopped in New York, not impressed. I’ve shopped in London and dream about going back. I love Vienna, but I would dearly love to go to Hong Kong and go wild!
4. When did you last dine by candlelight?
Dear me, I cannot remember! I will be setting up the table on Thanksgiving with candles and making it special.
5. What do you have too much of?
Everything! I need to go through and start weeding out things. Sell some old sets of china, and give away blankets and coats to the homeless.
6. The Hunger Games…are you a fan? Did you read the book(s)? Will you/have you seen the movie? Will you/have you seen Catching Fire? No spoilers please!
Not a fan. My whole family is but I did not get into the Hunger Games nor did I get into the Twilight Saga.
7. Share your plans for Thanksgiving Day. The who, the where, the what…especially the what! As in what’s for dinner? If you’re one of my International visitors, whose homeland doesn’t celebrate American Thanksgiving (the whole world doesn’t ya know!), then still tell us your plans for Thursday.
Who: Me and Hubby. Where: Home. What: Spinach and artichoke dip, crab dip and champagne for appetizers while I’m cooking. Dinner: turkey, stuffing, gravy, yukon gold mashed potatoes, garden green beans, garden butternut squash, mashed with butter and brown sugar and cinnamon, boiled sweet pearl onions. Dessert: Apple Pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
8. Insert your own random thought here.
As I write there are delicate snow flakes falling on my lawn. So very pretty. I wish it would just do this for the next two days, but the weatherman has said that starting tonight we will have torrential downpours, washing away all this loveliness.
Oh well.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
When we got up on Monday morning it was only 13 degrees (F)! I’d heard it was supposed to be cold, and since we had to get up and get out early, I had gotten out my heavy winter coat and gloves.
Hubby had medical tests to get to the hospital for, and I went along for moral support! I did not eat breakfast, as Hubby couldn’t eat before his breakfast. So needless to say, once he was done, we both hit the hospital cafeteria and had breakfast.
Today I was sort of a “Chatty Cathy” as our cable company has decided to go digital and this means that unless you have a digital TV or one of their decoder boxes you will not be able to receive a signal. Well the change started today!
Now we all know we can live without TV, but you know what? I’m really angry about this. At night, when I go to bed I like to turn on the TV for Fritz and me. We like to listen to it while we relax and slowly slip off to sleep.
Whatever happened to “FREE TV”? Not so free any more is it? Almost everyone has cable of some sort and if you have those big heavy dinosaur TV’s (like I do in some of my rooms) they are totally outmoded and useless.
All I can say about that is Thank You to Washington for once again changing our laws so it screws the little people!
Tuesday I think I will do some of the chopping for the Turkey stuffing. Wednesday I will be cooking our apple pie and actually making the turkey gravy and stuffing, so if I can get some chopping done today that will be good.
We’ve been told by the weather people to expect snow, rain and sleet and generally lousy weather the next few days. I sure hope they are wrong!
Oh well, enough complaining! Have a good day, out there!
Our host is Gattina. Come join us and tell us what YOU did this past weekend! After all, you never know when you will need an alibi!
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My steri-strips fell off, giving us the first look at my eye brow. Hubby examined it closely and declared that it isn’t perfect. It got me to thinking. Are any of us really perfect? (Besides my Savannah, who is perfect in every way!) Not really. Maybe our ears stick out, or our noses are too big, or in my case I am a patch work all over my face.
My skin cancer and the surgeries that followed taught me so much about how I have looked at life and what is truly important.
I am alive. I am happy and I hope I am a good person. Isn’t that what counts in this crazy world of ours?
I worked on Sunday to clean up my kitchen. (28 cabinets and 4 drawers and one wine rack) I washed each and every cabinet and the wine rack and drawers. That took me all morning. Then this afternoon I did laundry. All of it. Sheets, towels, clothes and doggy blankets.
There is a Sunday roast in the oven and I’m planning the turkey day cooking. Some I can do the day before, but some has to be done on Thursday. Thanksgiving, like actually cooking the turkey!
But the green beans and butternut squash are all done and in the freezer. The stuffing I will make the day before, so I can stuff the turkey cold. I always make my own gravy and I’ve been reading that you should start to make the base the day before.
I will also make the apple pie on Wednesday during the day. And I am thinking about making a cranberry/orange sauce on Wednesday too. Hubby wants pearl onions. Thankfully he just wants them boiled.
I’ve done some Christmas shopping as well. Mostly for Mandy and Matt and Savannah! Oh my sweet family! It is so wonderful to buy gifts for them!
Sunday night ended with us enjoying our roast beef dinner, and of course, me doing the dishes. Yah-hoo (not)!
Have a great Monday Everyone!!!
Saturday found me visiting five Christmas Bazaars. I had a great time. But it struck me that some things certainly have changed at some of the Bazaars, while at others, they were blessedly familiar.
What used to be, were the table upon table of hand made, hand knit, Christmas items. Cookies, cakes and pies, all from loving kitchens. Oh yes, and Grandma’s fudge.
Two of the Bazaars were like that today, one was close, and the other two were more like going to the local Mall, with high prices and mass produced ‘product’.
I love the hand made items. I love grandma’s cookies and fudge. I love the ladies in Christmas aprons and jewelry, smiling, as Christmas music wafts through the air.
I love Christmas in Old New England fashion.
The other Bazaars. The commercial ones, just aren’t the same, and sort of leave me cold. The only good thing about the last one we went to, was seeing a girl that had helped me care for Shubi all those years ago. She was painting handmade ornaments. She was doing a fantastic job!
Tonight is an easy Saturday night meal. We’ll sit in front of our fireplace, and enjoy the end to our day.
Life has been busy lately! Good busy, but busy none the less. I’ve been out for gal pal time lunches, Christmas Bazaars, doctors appointments and shopping. It’s all good, but often in the evenings, I’m so tired I just want to put up my feet, make myself a nice hot cup of herbal tea, and do nothing in the evenings.
Of course the pooches keep me honest with their desires to be fed and walked and then walked again. They play with me, by racing around the house and under my feet and making me laugh.
Tonight I made Hubby his favorite quick, easy, and comfort food for him, meal. Scrambled Meat. You can go HERE and get the recipe. I served it over mashed potatoes and he was a happy man. I wasn’t really hungry and just had some Carrot Casserole. You can go HERE for the recipe for that.
Saturday is the last of the Christmas Bazaars and my friend Laurie and I are going to four of them. I love going and it makes me feel all warm and happy inside. After this, I will have to wait until next year.
Well, have a great weekend everyone!