Sigh……..

There is much to be said for Hot Cocoa Ice Cream and tea.

Shop is getting emptier and emptier by the day.

Sigh.

One of the main highlights of our week is our weekly group dinner. Friends and family get together each week at our house and we just hang out, eat, and visit. Makes for a wonderful break to the usual routine and is always fun times. I love it especially because it gives me a chance to make new foods (or old favorites).

People sometimes change from week to week, depending on their schedules, and sometime we have 4 people other times 14. In getting the menus together for these gatherings , I realized something. I read cookbooks the way other people read novels. I start at the beginning, and go through the whole book, section by section. I highlite, mark pages, refer back to passages I especially want to remember, and in general treat them the same as other books.

I should have know this sooner, and in reality I have given it a passing thought or two. As in thinking “Good Lord, the way I looked at that book you would have thought it was the latest best seller”.

But I have now come to the realization that that is exactly the way I read them, and with the exception of the Bible, reread them more than any other books I own.

My DH is a bit dismayed by the stacks of cookbooks laying about on the fireplace and is beginning to hint that perhaps they would be happy to live in another spot. Silly man, he actually wants to USE the fireplace now that the cool winter weather is upon us.

Today we are using a fantastic book “The Cornbread Gospels” by Cresent Dragonwagon.
Our Tuesday dinner for tonight is White Chicken Chili and Double Beef Chili, so we are making a Creamed Corn Cornbread to go along with it.

Oh, and Gooey Butter cake for dessert.



I will let you know how it goes

So far:  

The table:

(notice the bookcases, all cookbooks)

Corn Bread Bowls, large and small

The Chilis:  Double Beef

And White Chicken

The Gooey Cake waiting to be cooked

Now we are just waiting for the others to arrive

It has been a long week.

Lots of phone calls, lots of trying to figure out what to do

Been filling out applications, but nothing yet

My availibility is not good, with having to be at the shop at least 60% of the time I am only available after 6p and weekends

I did get some things listed on ebay, clothing, not fabric

I need to work on fabric, but I can only do so much

Car is on ebay. Ending tomorrow.  We are taking such a loss.  It breaks my heart

But our property taxes are due now and insurance, and tires, and electricity, and so on and so on.

So anything is a Godsend and I am greatful for it

The Weekend List

Finish Menu for Tuesday Supper Club Meal 

Finish Thanksgiving Menu

Get the final grocery items for Tuesday and Thanksgiving

Sweep and Mop all floors

Clean both bathrooms

Dust

Laundry

Clean middle room

Clean Sunshine’s room

Work on Christmas projects

Find craft things for kids to do Thursday

Get suitcase for Arizona gifts

List a bit of Fabric

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Starting to plan the menu for Thanksgiving.

Having breakfast with my SIL’s Mom & Dad tmrw – should be fun

*******************************

Feeling very blessed at the moment – thanks so much for all the kind words

*******************************************************************************

Today an old friend came by the shop

We see each other a couple of times a month and talk about our families and our lives.

Normal middle aged ladies stuff   ……

We used to work together. Drove to work together.  She is freaky smart and I learned a ton from her. When they fired me no one was more shocked than she was. She brought me my things – took her whole van, and for a few days we walked together in the mornings before she went to work,  she knew I would be up and a bit lost. So we walked, talked, and I cried and tried to understand.

Eventually they fired her too.  When she left the building she headed to my shop.  She had not been there before, not in the four years I had been there.  When she walked in I knew what had happened.

Since then she has come by about once a week.  We have talked about everything under the sun and more.  Kids, Grandkids, spouses, all of it. We have plotted, planned and conspired.  Mostly we laugh. Funny, we never go anywhere together anymore.  We used to go out to dinner, and once we joined a gym. 

Life has set us in a pattern that revolves us around each other in a very specific manner.  But it is good, and I much appreciate her presence.  Today I made a point to tell her that.  You know what?  She already knew!  Told you she was freaky smart.

Well, the time has come.  Today is going to be house cleaning day. 

Used to be every Sunday, but habits are so much easier to break than follow.  

So now it is time to make up and get the mess taken in hand

So here goes: 

To-Do List 

Clean and mop master bath   

Clean and mop hall bath

Sweep all floors   

Mop all floors

Vaccum bedroom

Vaccum office carpet

Dust

Remake Bed

Laundry

Make Tuna Loaf

Clean out Back Fridge

Clean out house fridge

Paperwork for Care Credit

Paperwork for taxes

Sew Xmas gift to take to AZ

Clean middle room

Clean sitting room

Clean S Man’s room

Grocery List for Tuesday

Menu for Thanksgiving

etc

etc

etc

Breath

Coffee

***** Check Protected  — New Photos up *****

Haven’t been posting, but have been lurking.    The words don’t seem easy right now, and I just don’t want to spew forth with a bunch of negitivity or come off as always crabby and bitter.  I’m really not at all that way.  Well, sometimes I am .

I have baby gifts almost finished for a couple of my Xangans and swear they will get to you before the kids start school.

Things with the store continue the downhill slide.  Lots of ebay, but not enough it seems.  All the wedding dresses, save 4 are gone and went at about 25% of the wholesale cost, but at least they generated a bit of the rent.  Listing of shoes got nowhere at all. 

Fabric moves a bit, I need to be listing more and more. 

Spent a couple of weeks in a drug induced funk by mistake. Seems one of my blood pressure pills and a pill for insomia looked too much alike to me so I was taking a sleeping pill in the morning and zombing through the day and then awake most of the night, repeat, repeat, etc.  Of course neight I or the Dr. realized what I was doing so it just continued on until I decided to make a pill chart one night (when I couldn’t sleep of course) and discovered.  I am such a doof!

When to see about a Chapter 13, but seems we do not qualify for that.  We don’t want to shurk our debts, we just want to be able to stretch the payments out.  How sick is it that you don’t qualify to file bankruptcy?

But I have tons of good in my life, fantastic family and faithful friends and I am beyond blessed and grateful.  Just struggling to remember that sometimes. 

It would depend on what I die from. For the most part, I would say yes.

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!