Comfort Food

On a day like today it seems you need a little or a lot of comfort food.  I had thawed a sirloin roast a day or so ago and decided to use Pioneer Woman’s recipe for Pot Roast—it was just the ticket for a cold, snowy winter day—delicious and comforting!  We have also been snacking all day on the leftover party food from last night—we had a gathering of friends to celebrate Winter Solstice and there was tons of food left over.  Enough to feed us for several days—if we get snowed in, we surely will not starve!

Michael did some leather working and I took a nap—this cold just won’t go away and it makes me very tired.  After lunch I did summon enough energy for working on my little Lynette Anderson, It’s A Dog’s Life quilt which I am doing in wools.  I now have two blocks completed—that is the shapes are cut and fused to the background ready for hand stitching as we tootle down the road. 

We also spent some time packing and rounding up stuff—we were going to turn the heat on in the motorhome and start loading but it just wasn’t the day for that—it snowed hard most of the day—we would have done nothing but track all kinds of snow into the rig. 

That’s about it for our Sunday before Christmas.  Santa is coming—have you been behaving yourself???

Do I win the Betty Crocker award for my cheese tray???

Friday Before Christmas

Not sure what I did today except wander around in a fog with this head cold.  I did manage to take a two hour nap which helped some!  I have the last batch of Chex Party Mix in the oven, I’ve made two other batches trying Pioneer Woman’s recipe for one of the batches.  Now I just have to hide it from Michael—he loves the stuff!!

Did a little house cleaning with the help of Gertrude and took a couple walks with the Emmi girl.  She also got a bath today, much to her dismay!!

Amazon.com to the rescue once again!  Remember Wednesday when I couldn’t buy capers in our local grocery store??  Well, on Thursday morning I ordered capers from Amazon.com for less cost than I would have paid in the Big T grocery store.  And the cost included a $4 shipping charge for getting the capers overnight—we usually don’t pay anything for shipping with our Amazon.com Prime membership but overnight was a measly $4!!  And now I have six bottles of capers—enough to last me a long, long time!

I love getting Christmas cards and our mailbox has been delivering several every day.  I love the newsy Christmas letters people send out, filling us in on all the happenings in their lives.  I too like the photo Christmas cards—got one today from our Arkansas friends, Bradley, Kerri, Harley and Tucker—a fine looking family in their western attire!! 

Warmer today with some sunshine, making for some gorgeous photos.

Where Did December Go

It is really hard to believe Christmas Day is less than a week away!!  I was a whirlwind today, baking cookies and homemade crackers—boy are those crackers good—the recipe is on the RV Goddess blog.  The recipe calls for 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper—in the first batch I used that much pepper, the second batch I cut the amount of pepper in half, they are just a mite spicy!!

The night of the jeep wreck I was wearing a favorite pair of earrings which I’ve had for a long time—when we got home I was wearing only one earring and had no idea where I lost it—in the jeep or out on the road??  I vacuumed the jeep today and when I was finished Michael was picking up pieces of stuff in the back of the jeep—and spotted something shiny underneath the edge of the back seat floor mat—my earring!!!! 

I slept very little last night and as a result Michael didn’t sleep well.  I feel better today—maybe we will have better luck in the sleeping department tonight!

Some of our Christmas decorationsThe little white angels on the mantel in amongst the greenery survived our barn fire in September, 2000.  They had belonged to Michael’s Mother—the day after the fire we were using rakes to sift through some of the rubble and I spotted one of the angles—they all survived, amazing as hot as that fire burned!!  The little red yarn Santa with the white beard on the left was made for Michael when he was a child by his Grandmother. 

Another very cold, cold day with 3-4 inches of new snow, as I type this blog it is 4 degrees above zero!!  BRRRR

WAIT, They Are Leaving Without Me

Not really, Michael and Emmi were taking the motorhome down our steep driveway to the lower shed before the next storm hits tonight.  Look how clean that motorhome is—that won’t last long traveling this time of year!

Michael and I went into town this morning, had lunch at Iron Star Pizza and bought some groceries.  Our little grocery store, an IGA, leaves much to be desired—one day they are out of bread, the next day they are out of milk.  Today it was capers—they don’t carry them anymore—WHY????  I’ve been in grocery stores in towns much smaller than Big Timber with an awesome product selection—why is our grocery store the way it is??  The owners are a young couple and have no interest at all in hearing customer suggestions.   Oh, well—it’s not that much farther to Livingston, now is it??

We spent the afternoon puttering with various projects—Michael is repairing the tow lights on the jeep—we lost one when I hit Julia’s car at yoga and lost the other one when we turned the jeep over in the ditch.  The actual jeep tail lights are encased in a steel cage so they were fine, these tow lights sit on the bumper and took the brunt of our little oop-sies!!  I started putting together a wool project for keeping my hands busy while we head down the road shortly after Christmas. 

The moon going down this morning. 

I went to bed last night thinking I might be getting a sore throat—woke up this morning with a sore throat and feeling mighty icky!  What’s up with that—I don’t have time for a cold—way too much to do!!!  I whipped up a batch of chicken noodle soup for dinner tonight hoping it would make me feel better—maybe a good nights’ sleep will do me good too.

Weather Is A Changing

Well, there it is, Jack St. Milo—sitting out in the Gulf—I don’t really think I would like living on that thing for two weeks at a time, would you??  Rollie called last night and I asked him, “have you caught any fish??”  There was the longest pause and then he said, “NO—it’s too dang far to the water!!” 

Wind again today but not as bad as yesterday and 54 degrees at lunch time.  Mild enough for Michael to finish his roofing job on the shed he built this summer and fall.  Mild enough, we have acres of mud and more mud from all the melting snow.  But the winds are a changing—tomorrow night snow, Thursday snow and temps down into the single digits again.  Nat has always said we should leave in a snowstorm—makes you appreciate leaving more!

I loaded and finished a small customer quilt this afternoon—the owner of this quilt is in Australia with her husband visiting their daughter, son-in-law, grandson and brand new granddaughter.  Donna and Gary have a house over there and spend several months each winter in Australia where it is summer. 

And that’s about it for our Tuesday on the Boulder.

Goodbye Butterbean

We read with sadness Greg White’s blog this morning about James (Butterbean) Carpenter’s death in a car accident December 11.  Butterbean was an avid blog reader and many of we blog writers received daily, witty, down home comments by Butterbean and looked forward to those comments.  He and his wife Joyce invited us to stop by when we were heading to Texas last fall but we thought we didn’t have time—we should have stopped and will always regret not doing so.  May you rest in peace Butterbean and Joyce, may your memories comfort you.  Thank you George of Our Awesome Travels for allowing me to use your photos of Butterbean and Joyce.

It was just another day of puttering, packing a few things, cooking some lunch, playing with the dog and taking walks.  Our walks were a little on the tough side—the wind started yesterday, blew all night and today really got wound up—howling, shrieking, gusting—at times I thought the roof was leaving!!  Walking in that kind of wind is dang tough! 

Sunset this evening was gorgeous!

A Very Good Sunday

The Chinook winds are blowing—when we came out of the church in Big Timber, the wind felt warm, the snow is melting.  Nancy, Shirley and I went to the Christmas Concert tonight at the Lutheran Church—awesome music performed by the most talented people in our area to benefit two local charities, the Food Bank and the Ministerial Association.  A gifted pianist/singer moved to our community several years ago—Tom teaches piano lessons and his pupils stole the show tonight, one young man played the song Music Box Dancer—not an easy piece of music!!  It is amazing to me the talent our community has—the man who owns the local concrete business sings beautiful bass, my quilting buddy Mary’s son Boe has a spectacular tenor voice, the young, talented pianists, my massage therapist has a voice which will knock your socks off—she and Tom, the pianist put the show together every year and it is not to be missed—incredible talent!!

Nat made it up the Boulder to have lunch with us—filet mignons on the grill, baked potatoes and fruit salad.  The dessert was a cherry cheesecake pie which was more like a pudding but it sure tasted good!! 

Michael and Emmi spent the afternoon puttering and holding down the fort.

Taken yesterday

Michael and I enjoyed dinner last night with Jill & Terry, their daughter Kerri and her friend Garret plus Steve and Jeane.  Jill’s house was beautiful decorated for Christmas—the meal and company were spectacular!

Jeane’s latest quilt I did for her.  I love the colors in this one!

We did start loading some non-freezable thing into the motorhome this morning—warm weather clothes, paper goods, etc.