WONDERFUL XMAS HIGHS AND SAD LONELY POST XMAS LOWS

 OMG!!!!  What a blast we had!!!! We had soooo much fun!!!  I think this was one of the best Xmases ever.

The kids arrived on Wednesday, unloaded and we started to eat.  And we basically didn't stop eating until they left on Tuesday.  We had soooo much food.  Thank goodness the deck could become an extended fridge, sorely needed I must say, at least until it turned into a deep freezer!  In fact we had a few exploding cans of pop.  They sounded just like gunshots!  The half gallon jugs of Clamato, orange and apple juice and a two quart of milk froze solidly right to their bottoms.

On xmas eve April and Aryn set up the amazing incredible charcuterie board!  Oh my goodness!!!  That was some serious grazing I gotta say!!!  I got the idea from Million Dollar Listing.  They did one on the island of the open house they were hosting.  I took one look at that and thought...holy crow!  We should do that.  By we I meant April and Aryn!  And boy did it ever turn out!  I will put a pic below.  And yes, we had a little leftovers!!

It took us two to three hours to open presents, all except a few for Christmas morning.  And what awesome presents this year!  Everybody was over the moon with all their loot.  People that say presents are for the kids are crazy!  We had so much fun opening them one by one so everyone could see what you got.  I will only mention the granddaddy of all granddaddies present of the year.

It was from Myles and April to Bradley.  As some of you know Bradley, Aryn's squeeze, is a well known dj.  His dj name is BradleyBe.  Well, Myles and April found a place, with rave reviews, that make written neon signs.  So they ordered one that is about four feet wide and one foot high in bright red.  It is a written BradleyBe.  With a remote you can make it flash or be steady etc... They set it up downstairs.

  When it was Bradley's turn we all brought him downstairs into the recroom in the pitch dark.  He thought we were all preparing to murder him!!!  And when he was all situated, Myles turned on the sign.  And I can honestly say I have never ever in all my years seen a reaction to a gift like he reacted to that sign.  First he was speechless, then he walked up to it, I do believe there were a wee bit of tears, and shakily he hugged the kids then exploded.  Honestly best moment of the whole Christmas!!!!!

There were games.  We played many rounds of triple Yahtzee!  And we played an awesome fast paced game called For Sale...best game!!!!  There were lots of Caesars, Old Fashioneds, Negregos?, beer, wine by the bucket, coffee....and did I mention food?  And more food....

Turkey dinner and all the fixings on xmas day.  None of this roast beef or ham or whatever.  A tradition is a tradition and turkey dinner it was.  And we say it every year but seriously, best turkey ever!!!  Great gravy, stuffing, candied yams, mashed potatoes, parsnips and carrots....mmmmm.  And now buckets of garbage soup!!!!

On Boxing Day Stan, Antonia and their dog Cara came after lunch.  Bradley and Aryn made amazing beef wellingtons.  I mean AMAZING!!! With madeira sauce.  Holy moly!!!  Delicious!

On the Thursday before Xmas day, it snowed.  Bradley went nuts.  Xmas is his all time favourite time of the year.  He went outside, so did April, and they went nuts in the snow.  They built a snowman, pic below!  They threw snowballs.  They whooped and hollered.  At some point Aryn and April did a four kilometre hike down to the quay and back.  The next day April and myles and Leeloo did a five kilometre hike up and through the bush to the other side of the gorge.  And that little dog walked the whole way!

They stayed until the 28th.  They packed up and by twelve noon everybody was gone.  You know I think that after two years of not seeing them except for two or three short times, having them here was a lot more intense and special than normal.  It truly was awful after they left. It still is.  I am tearing up right now thinking about it.  And now with this fucking (pardon my French but....) omicron, another one of my years, the few I have left is being robbed from me.  I wanted to go to Vancouver in Feb. but that can't happen now.  Anyway,  I have had lots to do since Xmas getting the house back in order, thank heavens.  It's good to be busy.  And it's time to turn my phone back on.  It has been off other than for pics.  Time to call a few people...Cookie, Kathy, I am thinking of you here.  Happy New Year everybody.  It is going to be a good one.  TTYL

BAD BRADLEY...EXPLODED A SNOWBALL IN THE HALLWAY!!!!  (BY ACCIDENT)

PLAYING YAHTZEE WITH US...LOOKING BORED

BEST WELLIE EVER

SNOW BALLS

HAPPY BOY

BRAVE GIRL!

BRADLEY IS HOLDING A FRAMED PIC OF THEIR PASSED ON DOG...SADIE

FALLING DOWN ON THE JOB

 It just dawned on me that I haven't blogged.  It's been pretty busy around here.  Finished the tree, wrapped a thousand presents, baked many many shortbread cookies, baked many many butter tarts, cleaned a guest room, did massive piles of laundry, the kind that gets left on the floor forever....old towels we don't really use, Monte's clothes that don't fit and are destined for Salleyann, odd socks, like hundreds of odd socks, other boys clothes that got mixed in somehow, the odd piece of mail, jar lids, missing slipper etc...But it is all kind of fun, getting ready for Christmas.

Monte bought me a Xmas present.  And just like his father, I mean seriously like his father, he gave it to me early.  If I had only Bill with me at Xmas I would never have a gift on Christmas morning to open, he would have already given it to me.  I used to give him heck and tell him I would love to open something Christmas morning, but no, he always gave them to me weeks ahead.

Now it seems his son is the same.  Monte loves, and I mean loves, to give presents.  Way more than getting them.  He can't wait for people to open their presents.  But this one he bought for me apparently could not wait.

So open it, and it was a biggun', I did.  And I was over the moon!  He gave me a Nesspresso!  He also enthusiastically told me that he saw that they were on sale at Walmart for 99.00!  I was relieved.  I thought they were all around 350.00.  Anyway he also got online and found out that you can order the pods directly from Nesspresso and they arrive within two days!  And the boxes they came in were perfect for wrapping awkward presents in.

Well he has become obsessed with MY present.  There are quite a lot of different types of pods so we have been experimenting with them all and bit by bit settling for the ones we will consistently like.  He is just so excited to have this thing in the house...like twenty cups a day excited.

Until yesterday.  I went to make myself the first cup of my day and it wouldn't work.  So he, kind of scathingly, pushed me aside, wouldn't listen to me when I tried to explain that I did everything right, and took over.  You, know, dumb old Mom obviously doesn't know how to do it.  Which of course was quite possible.  LOL!!!

Well after half an hour of pushing buttons and changing pods and spending a half hour on the Nesspresso help line, the sad outcome was it was broken.  Poor Monte.  I thought he was going to cry. But the lovely Nesspresso people are immediately sending out a brand new one and a shipping label to send the broken one back.  Whew!

But the next thing I know he is hopping into the truck, driving to Walmart, purchasing another one, and bringing it home.  WTHell???  He was so excited to be sharing this coffee maker with his siblings when they come on Wednesday.  He had already actually talked to them and told them all about it and there was just no way was he not going to have a nesspresso machine for when they come.

I guess when the new one comes he is going to put this one away, its black, not red like the one he wanted and first bought, for the future...just in case.

The funny thing is that I have a wee Keurig type coffee maker.  I have loved it.  It works just fine.  But just in case, I ordered another one to keep on hand.  The one I have is cheaper and the last one only lasted for about six months.  It should be here in the next couple of days.  Sigh.  Maybe I will send it back to Amazon.  We really don't need it now.  The nesspresso coffee is infinitely better, no question about that!

Well Milly is coming this morning.  I did clean the house last night but there is still some tweaking to do.  I can't wait for Wednesday.  The kids are coming and I am making an old recipe I made up years and years ago when we were dirt poor.  Aryn was talking about it and I think she said she wanted it.  I had to go to the butcher for chuck steak, they don't sell it in the stores anymore.  Just like they don't sell whole cut up chickens in one package.  Anyway, you put the steak and a load of breakfast sausages, (I can't get the ones I really like anymore too) into a roaster. You then cover the whole lot with sliced onions.  Then make a canned diced tomato spaghetti type sauce and pour it over and baked the whole lot until the meat falls apart.  Serve with mash, noodles or rice, name your poison.  Serve with a crisp Caesar salad.  There.  That's my food bit for this post!

Take care, stay safe, have a wonderful Xmas, I will blog a little faster now hopefully!  TTYL

THE PRESENT FACTORY

MY MORNING VISTA

MY RED NECK, I MEAN RED TRUCK, CENTRE PIECE

I LOVE CHRISTMAS

 I love Xmas!  I cannot lie.  I love the lights, the decorations, the prettily wrapped gifts, the shopping, the baking, the turkey, the stuffing, I love it all.  I have absolutely no problem with the commercialism.  And I don't need kids to make Xmas better, although it's awesome to have them around if possible!

If there is anything I have learned in my ripe years is that Xmas is what you make it.  There have been years where I had zero money.  All that did was spur me on to come up with home made ideas.  Some of them pretty pitiful but it's the thought that counts mantra comes to mind.  I have had Xmases with no family and far away from home.  Those were the toughest to deal with but I made huge carby dinners and snacks to make up for it!  And I have had huge peopley, rellyful, expensive, gifty Xmases.  And they were awesome too.

I was thinking back to last year.  There was just Monte, Peter and myself.  We decided to share some of our favourite music with each other on Xmas eve.  Now, I could have done with a tad less Elvis's Xmas, but it was such a special Xmas.  I will never forget it.

This year will be entirely different.  Three of my four kids will be here.  All of them would have been but Kevin and the two kids are not vaccinated.  He didn't want to take a chance.  But the other three will be here.  We have been planning and planning the dinners and the Xmas eve food and the gift buying and list making....we can hardly wait!  Like Aryn said, "All this anticipation and it will be over so fast."  Cookie and I used to feel that way too when we were lucky enough to get some time together.  But we developed a little trick to help make it seem like it was lasting longer.  I shall teach it to Aryn. Nothing beats a full guest room, floor sleeping and nowhere to park!  Doesn't get better than that.

The only downside is this is the one time of the year that I miss my mom.  I will be honest and admit I don't really miss her.  You get to an age where losing your mother is expected and you move on.  But at Xmas memories of Xmases past wander into my brain, especially when listening to Xmas music.  My mom was at her best at Xmas (and camping out in horrendous conditions where she could pull her pioneer persona forward!).  We usually ate dinner mid afternoon, so mom would get up in the middle of the night to stuff the massive turkey and get it in the oven.

  Lots of times we would gather with the Davisons, my mom's sister and family, set up tables in the living room, set the table with the good dishes that had a brown spotted pattern that looked like someone eating a bran muffin sneezed on them, crowded around the table, six kids, one baby in a high chair, four adults, giant turkey on a platter at the head of the table with my dad, all the steaming bowls of food spread down the table.  We would all bow our heads for dinner prayer and then my mom would loudly announce, "Everything passes to the left please!"  The hardest part was waiting for the damned gravy!  It always seemed to be last and someone would inevitably forget to pass it along.

We always opened our one present, usually one we carefully chose out of either the Eatons or Sears catalogue, on Xmas eve.  So immediately after dinner we kids would rush into our bedroom and play with our toys.  And that was the one time of year mom would make fudge and not tell us to be quiet.  And then when all the dishes were done and tables put away and kids tucked into a sea of beds in the one bedroom, she would sit at the piano and play her litany of songs, Falling Waters, Robin's Return, Red Wing, This Old House.....  I miss her.

Stay safe, enjoy this awesome time, TTYL

Something about an old-fashioned Christmas is hard to forget.

Hugh Downs

SIZE CONFUSION

 I have a real problem with knowing what a listed size is.  I just don't compute the details into real life. In Maui we went to a lovely waterfront restaurant, you know the kind that charges an arm and leg for Mac and cheese, if they actually had that.

It was prime rib night and I was starving and still a carnivore with an appetite.  So I was busy talking to Arnie who happened to be with us that night along with April, not paying attention.  I ordered their biggest cut, as rare as possible.  Usually there are two sizes, normal and small.  Bill casually asked me "are you sure?"  YES!  I answered kind of snippily.  I think I know what I want.

Well holy crap!!!  The waiter comes and with great aplomb, plops this dinner plate in front of me  that is entirely covered with a massive, and I mean massive, raw hunk of meat.  OMG!!!  Holy shit!!!  It was huge!  Embarassingly huge!!!! Everybody started to first of all stare, aghast, then laughed and took pictures. Even the waiter was cracking up!  Jeez, I pulled my shirt up and over my face I was so embarrassed.  Bill cash as always drawls, "well you said you wanted it". I could have hit him!  I think that sucker was 36 ounces at least.  I ate a sliver off the edge, took it home and we all had at least two meals out of it.

Well it has happened again, only its chicken gravy.  I have been ordering from both amazon and Walmart.  And inevitably what ends up coming is either too small or bigger than anticipated.  I have learned to check weights but its always in metric.  Jeez I have enough trouble with imperial, never mind metric.  I am constantly getting Hey Google to convert for me.

I bought a door hanger and a wreath from amazon.  When they arrived I actually laughed.  The frigging door hanger was about six inches long.  They are ALWAYS at least a foot.  And the wreath was tiny!  Ridiculously so.  Its hanging on the bathroom door now.

The other day I made an order from Costco.  They are pretty good at speedy deliveries.  So I went through their merchandise and picked quite a few things.  One of them was a bucket of chicken gravy mix.  I like chicken gravy mix.  I whipped through the club house one.  This looked like an ice cream bucket sized one.  My thought was that I could refill the smaller one and store the bucket downstairs. We buy ice cream in those bucket sizes and we buy mayonnaise in buckets too.  Why not chicken gravy??

So a lovely big box arrived from Costco.  It had my two boxes of Verona coffee pods, big bag of croutons, two things I can't mention here, Xmas and all! and....a massive, crazy ass, HUGE, heavy as hell, bucket of chicken gravy.  HUGE!  I can't even convey in words how huge that thing is!  Well I started to laugh.  I mean we won't get through all that in my lifetime, that's for sure!!!  I will put it beside a mayonnaise bucket and take a pic and show you at the bottom.  Seriously!  I need to start taking lessons on size realities!  Hahahaha!!!

  If anyone needs chicken gravy...good for a la king, pot pies, roast chicken dinner, soup thickener, add it to mashed potatoes,  creamed peas, you name it, I will gladly bag a bunch and send it to you!!!!!

Take care folks, stay safe and TTYL

The rhythm of relations of color and size makes the absolute appear in the relativity of time and space. 
-Piet Mondrian

See?  See why I don't understand size ratios?

THERE YOU GO....FIVE KILOS OF CHICKEN GRAVY

FEELING A TAD GUILTY

 I am feeling a tiny bit guilty.  Bright and early Monte and I went downstairs, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to conquer the freezer.  With garbage bag in hand we started in.

We didn't get very far, and I really mean NOT very far.  I had cut open, ready to dump, a melted bag of green beans.  Who knew green beans could smell so bad?  But they did!!!  And Monte, big giant burly Monte, started to gag.  And that unfortunately triggers something in me.  I start laughing.  Now if I could just bust out and laugh that would be okay, but it makes Monte really angry when I laugh at his gagging.  So I almost choked myself to death trying to hold it in, mostly unsuccessfully.  The noises that escaped through my nose were worse than if I just opened up and laughed.

The bottom line?  He really couldn't do it.  A lot of the stuff in the freezer was still half frozen, I had opened the door an hour earlier.  I grabbed a more frozen hunk of pork shoulder roast and cut it open and threw it into the garbage bag.  I think I did a couple more when Monte said the magic words.  "Let's just throw it all into garbage bags and I will drive it out to the dump.  They will never know."  And that's what we did.  Seriously, even though I gave it the old army try it was an overwhelming task to try to de wrap every single thing in that freezer in order to compost.  What would have been an all day onerous job was instantly reduced to ten minutes.  I can handle a little guilt!

Well Gladys is on her way out.  I have enjoyed driving her but there are just too many negatives to keeping her.

I got a phone call from the dealership the other day which got me to thinking.  They want my truck back.  They are so desperate for inventory they would basically pay me what I paid for it.  And when I thought about the difficult steering, inability to see properly over the dashboard, ( I refuse to sit on a cushion), all the blind spots, and when I sit in the back seat which happens more often than you might think, I lose my virginity every time I get out of the truck.  So.....time to make a change.

I want a Chrysler Dodge Grand Caravan.  Cookie had one for a hundred years and Monte has one.  You can fit as much in the van as I can fit in the truck and it is, without question, the most extremely comfortable vehicle on the road.  Their seats are magic!  And I can use it as my camper!  So I have made friends with the fellow up at the dealership and I shall go up and start the process.  It is going to be a slow one.  They don't have any more vans than they have gladiators.  But I can wait.

Now the next consideration is buy or lease.  I have read all about leasing, thank you April!  And really I see the plus side to it but....I hate payments.  And they are like having a strata payment.  I was pissed off every time I had to make a strata pmt.  I can't see a lease pmt being any different.  I always felt that people lease when they can't afford to buy.  Which is wrong but I still feel that way.  Its like renting a house instead of buying one.  

It is going to be a long process though.  I will have to negotiate a trade in price.  Then order the new van.  Then wait.  Which I have had to do with every vehicle I have bought in the last few years.  Hopefully I will stick with this van forever (which at my age realistically is only ten or fifteen years).

That last statement reminds me of Gramma, mom's mom.  I remember taking her shopping for some necessaries.  She needed sheets but she wouldn't buy new ones.  "I will be dead before they get properly broken in."  I kind of relate to that at this point!!

I was going to start the wrapping today but I got a call from Ange.  She needs to go up to Walmart for cat food.  A special cat food.  So I shall put the wrapping off until tomorrow.  Plus I was just informed by Amazon that the present for Aryn has been cancelled. Grrrrrr!  But there is a special little local store that carries that general merchandise and I may find a decent replacement over there.

Well that is it for now.  I must go out and shovel snow and clean the truck off.  Stay safe everyone and TTYL

• “As you start traveling down that road of life, remember this: there are never enough comfort stops. The places you’re going are never on the map, and once you get that map out, you won’t be able to re-fold it no matter how smart you are. So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can, pull over and have a picnic.” – Jim Hensen

This describes so well how Bill and I used to travel.