The Long and Short of it.

I caught this really cute pose, and just couldn't resist posting yet another picture of my "babies".  Actually, Rosie is my baby, and Sophie is her "Daddy's Girl".  They both have their quirks.  Rosie is the old timer around here.  He will be 13 in June, whereas Sopie is truly the baby of the household at about 3 1/2.  We believe she'll be 4 sometime in May.

Sophie (back) and Rosie

This is a shot of Rosie with his other bud, Doodle (or Dood for short).  Not to be confused with Dude, although he is that sometimes, too.  The reason for the title of this post is that when Doodle was a baby, we think he had an accident involving the under-the-hood area of car (possibly one of ours), that injured his tail, and we had to have it amputated.  It is a cute little black stub about 2 inches long, and yes, the hair did grow back, thank goodness.  It was quite vulgar looking for a while.  He was born in the summer of 2000 and lived outside until Christmas of 2007, about a month after we got Sophie.  Now the three of them are friends, and Dood idolizes Rosie.  There are more kitty cat stories and pictures where these came from.

Doodle is the black and white one.

Recycle your Christmas Tree

Christmas has passed, the decorations are packed away, and the tree is bare.  Do you put your tree out by the curb for recycling, toss it in the woods, or take to a drop-off point, or does it get picked up by the trash collector and wind up decaying in the landfill?  The latter is of no benefit to anyone, and the tree is wasted.  Let's all put our trees to good use.  Recycled, they become mulch to beautify the landscape and enrich the soil.  Even those who recycle their trees in the woods are benefiting the environment by returning the tree to nature, and even creating a winter sanctuary for birds and animals.

The cats especially enjoy having a live tree of their very own (or so they think anyway).  Sophie and Dood like drinking the water from the stand.  I'd rather they didn't, but it hasn't seemed to do them any harm, and it's not like they don't have fresh water in their bowl every day.  I guess it's the Eau du Frasier Fir that's so appealing.

So now it is January 6th, the day of the Epiphany, and the day many people take down their Christmas trees and decorations.  The date varies for me, depending on how our tree is holding up.  This one is great, still takes up water and smells nice.  We had a tree one year that was so great we kept it up (lights only) until mid-January - I just couldn't throw it out.  They're not all like that, and some shed so bad that right after Christmas you want to get them out of the house. 

Anyway, I took all the ornaments off this morning, and all that remains are the lights.  It is still beautiful, but I need to let it go.  I'll be vacuuming up needles for weeks to come.  The cats carry them all over the house since they like to sleep under the tree.

So when do you take down your tree?  Are you motivated to get your house back to normal, or do you carry out the tradition of the 12 Days of Christmas, culminating in the Epiphany?  Whenever, I hope you remember to recycle.  It's good for all of us.

It's time to meet the family...

I think it's time I introduce you to our very good friends.  I've mentioned them anonymously many times, and we do hang out a lot.  Ashley has been my best friend since way back, and in today's speak she would be my "BFF".  She is the mother of two boys, Scott 10, and Michael 6.  She was a stay-at-home mom for a while, but is back teaching again, and it's second grade this year.  About 15 years ago she married Kevin.  He is an airline pilot, but due to economic times, is currently doing gardening and landscaping.  This is something he loves and for which he has a great talent.  Ashley's talent lies in painting, crafts and decorating.  Together they do amazing things with whatever they have at hand.

We shared New Year's Eve with them and Kevin's family, and I figured what better time to introduce them than with the beginning of the new year.  I am so glad they are back in town.  They had lived in Florida and Georgia since the late 90s, and when  life brought them back home a little less than two years ago I was thrilled.  They are wonderful friends, and an absolute joy in my life.  I am so happy for you to finally meet the "family I chose for myself".

Quote of the Week

"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow." 
-   Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

This is a beautiful passage, and there is much beauty in the silence of snow falling in the woods. 

There are remnants of last's month's snow still clinging to banks too shaded from the sun to have melted away.

Welcome to 2010!

I hope everyone had wonderful New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations with friends and family.  I know we did.  We dined out with our best buds on NYE at Macaroni Grill.  This is a place we used to love and going there was a treat.  However, the last several time we went, we were disappointed in the food.  Things have changed, as they have in many restaurants, and the cutbacks are clearly visible.  The big round loaf of foccacia is not nearly as big as in years past, and not as flavorful.  It seems that herbs are in short supply.  However, we went and ordered things we'd not had before.  I had the mushroom ravioli and it was very good, as was the house chardonnay I chose to go with.  Hubby had the chicken and capellini pomodoro. The chicken was a little over done, but  the pomodoro sauce was fine, just not to his liking.  Our friends had chicken parmigiana and a cannelloni dish.  According to our dining companions, the cannelloni was good, but they seemed to have changed the recipe on the chicken parm, or at least it didn't taste like he remembered it.  All in all, it was a wonderful dinner, and the most important part was sharing the time with good friends.

After dinner, we regrouped and went to our friend's parents' house to participate in the NYE tradition of making lefses.  His Mom is of Swedish/English heritage.  In a nutshell, lefses are made from flour and potatoes, and look like tortillas when cooked.  It was an assembly line process:  Rolling, cooking, buttering and sugaring (brown sugar of course).  I was the sugarer.  This was my first experience both making and eating.  They asked what I thought, and I said they're fine, but I like mine with more butter and less sugar.  The others wanted the sugar piled on.  His Mom said "MORE SUGAR".  OK, I used MORE SUGAR!  The one I got had too much, so I made one my way for me, but after the first one, I could only eat a small part of the second one.  You can read about lefses and how to make them here. Before the lefses were made, however, we "opened" our Christmas Crackers (click to read about the crackers).

We had some fireworks on the deck.  It was cold, the smoke was thick and the bottle rockets were killer on the ears, but that's another family tradition.  Later there was a rousing game of "Round Robin" ping pong downstairs.  Yes, this is a real game with a number of players lined up around the table.  One person serves to the person opposite him, then places his paddle on the table and moves down the line while the other person returns his serve to the next person in line.  I found this video that shows better than I can explain.

Needless to say, this was a New Year's Eve of "firsts" for us, and It was an honor to be part of these traditions.