Christmas, Ferryboats, and Gingerbread Houses...Oh My!!!!

Wow! It has been a while since I have attempted to write anything on my blog. One reason is that I just don't take the time to do it. Another reason is that I haven't had any pictures uploaded to add. I must admit, though, that the new blogger makes it much, much easier to put pictures in the posts, and that should make me more eager to get on here and 'blog'. I still spend several hours trying to write just one blog, so that is another reason that I haven't penned one lately! We have had some pretty exciting adventures in the last couple of months. Rachel's tummy is finally looking like there is an actual baby inside there! I was beginning to wonder if she would ever 'poke out'!!

Adam and Vicky are in Florida, and they are not able to get home very often. Adam did make a surprise trip, for one day, to attend Kate's college graduation! He was intent on getting here, even if it meant making that long trip, staying one day, and then making the long trip right back home for work. Thanksgiving came and went without much hoopla. We went to my brother's house for dinner. He enjoys having everyone over there and 'frying' a big turkey. We missed Adam and Vicky, and Thomas and Lauren, but they are grown ups now and have their own things to do - like WORK! Rachel, Don, and I went to Tampa and had an early Christmas with Adam and Vicky, because they were not going to get home for Christmas. We had a great time. While in Tampa, we made the usual trip to Ikea :), which is a place the kids love.

We spent a little while on Saturday at the dog park, which is on a little section of beach near their house. We took some beautiful sunset pictures while we were there.

We also saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie, and I was very impressed with Robert Downey, Jr. He is a really good actor. We celebrated Christmas on Sunday. They asked for a Lasagna dinner, which I obliged and happily made for them. It was pretty good, if I do say so myself. Adam and Vicky gave me a great big purse that I have been using every day! I do love pocketbooks!! Rachel gave all of us one of those neat Tervis Tumbler glasses. We will all enjoy those! Alas, we could only spend the weekend in Tampa, and we came home on Monday. We had a great visit, though. Rachel and Vicky spent some time making some crafts. Rachel found a neat star to make, and Vicky joined in and made some really neat snowflakes!

Each Christmas in Savannah, there is a big gingerbread house display at the Westin Hotel, which is right across the river. A co-worker of mine has told me about taking her son on the the ferryboat from River Street across to the Westin. It is a free ride, so I thought I would take my little niece and nephew over there. They were scared of the water and the ferryboat on the trip over, but they finally settled down and enjoyed the trip on the way back across! I must admit that the boat was very loud! Little Dewey kept telling me we were going to see the choo choo train, although I knew we were going on a boat. I guess he knew what he was talking about, because Thomas the Train was there!! Boy oh boy did he have a wondrous time chasing Thomas from one side of the display to the other! I showed him how Thomas would come around the bend and then go over to the other side. After we saw that a couple of times, he started FLYING around the display to catch Thomas on each side! I just knew he was going to knock over an older gentleman, with his cane, who was there with his granddaughter. Dewey never once ran into him, though. It was an amazing feat! He would wave and say, "Hi Thomas!" Then, ZIP!! He was on the other side! After about thirty trips like this, he started zooming away as soon as he saw Thomas come around the bend! Julia was busy looking at the gingerbread houses and the other items on display, but she tried to get into the Thomas spirit a bit, too. No one could keep up with Dewey III, though!!

William and his family came over to see Daddy Friday night, and I got them to all come over to my house. I made hot chocolate and the girls made a gingerbread mix that I had. It was delicious. If you can find the Krusteaz gingerbread mix, BUY IT!! John William put together a train set that I found in the attic this year. I bought that for Adam some years ago, and I haven't seen it since. The box was unopened, and the kids had a good time putting it all together. It is an electric train, and it works great. We put it around my tree. John William also put in a lot of lightbulbs for me, in my high 'ceilinged' lights, AND he fixed my toilet. It now flushes! I have had the top off for a long time and have just been pulling up the bar inside the tank! Daddy bought a piece for me to fix it, and John William saw it sitting on the table (where it would still be, if he hadn't gotten interested in being a handyman!).

Julia got 12 inches cut off of her hair! She is going to send her hair to Locks for Love. I took Daddy over to see her and 3D, who also got a haircut. She told me that I could not tell Papa, because it was a surprise. She said that, and I quote, "He will realize, though. He will realize!" This statement is coming from a FIVE YEAR OLD!!

After our visit, it was time to back out of their yard. Well folks, I ran into a TREE backing out of their yard! So, I now have a cracked back bumper!! I knew the trees were in the yard, but I thought that I was not headed for one. I was not feeling so terrific that afternoon, but I surely thought I was not aimed directly at the tree!! I must tell you why I was kind of 'out of it' when driving that particular Christmas Eve afternoon. Earlier in the day, Rachel and I had gone out shopping for candles and an extension cord (big spender!). On the way home, just a few blocks from my house, some young girl decided that she didn't need to stop at that big red thing on the corner that we like to call a STOP SIGN!! Yes, she ran the stop sign and almost RAN INTO US!!!! I swerved really hard, screeched the brakes, and tore up the left side of my body from the swerve. If I hadn't, Rachel and her unborn child would have been crushed!! Talk about an angel being on my shoulder...I know that my angel was there!! I wanted to stop and yell and shake my fists at that person, like the monkeys in Caps for Sale, but Rachel told me to keep on going. I noticed, in the rear view mirror, that the girl had stopped in the street. I HOPE SHE WAS SCARED OUT OF HER WITS!!!!!! Needless to say, I was very, very sore for the rest of the day and night... and that is my Christmas Eve story for the year! Christmas morning came in silence this year. I was by myself here at the house, so I wished myself a Merry Christmas!

I piddled a bit, and then I went across the street to be with Daddy, who was also by himself. I tried to get him to stay with me overnight, but he wanted to stay home. He did stay at my house until pretty late Christmas Eve, though. Anyway, we had a bit of breakfast, and then Rachel and Don came over to my house. We exchanged gifts and had a nice, quiet Christmas morning.

Then, William and his family came in. It was about 12:30 by then. So, we all went across the street to spend the rest of Christmas Day at Daddy's house. I had baked some gingerbread cookies and two cakes for the day. We took those things over to the house, after I let Lauren pick out the various toppings to use as decorations to use on the goodies. I have been teaching her a little bit about decorating cakes. She loves to do the "piping". I showed her how to put the icing in a ziplock bag and cut a tiny hole in it, as a way to do a piping job. I didn't want to take a bunch of tips and things across the street, since we weren't going to do any real serious decorating, other than putting buttons on the gingerbread men and sprinkling the cakes. Lauren enjoyed piping buttons and things on the gingerbread men, and then she adorned my two cakes, a Christmas tree and a Santa Claus. She had picked out the red, green, blue, yellow, etc. stars to use, as well as the shiny gold and silver glitter. She also used some shiny red sugar and shiny white sugar for the cakes. They turned out very nicely. Thomas and Big Lauren came over to join us, in between visits to the Powells and her families. They didn't stay long, because they had more traveling to do that day. Big Lauren got in on decorating Santa and the tree, though!!

Rachel took over the cooking for us yesterday, and Amy helped her. I usually volunteer to do the cooking, and then I wear myself out! With my back being in such bad shape these days, I just didn't think I could stand up for hours doing the cooking. I guess I spoke that out loud, or complained a bit too loudly about it, because Rachel did not allow me in the kitchen yesterday!! Thanks to she and Amy, we had a nice spread of things to eat, and everyone got plenty full. After dinner, we did the Christmas present exchange, and everyone seemed to actually enjoy their presents! With a bunch of adults, you never know if you are getting the right thing or something that someone will like:) Daddy doesn't like for us to get him presents, but I got him a calendar with Rainbow trout pictures and a Farmer's Almanac. Those seemed to suit him just fine. I told him they were things he could use every day. He really loves the fish pictures. I found it at Barnes and Noble, and the pictures are really interesting. I never knew there were so many different kinds of trout!!

I mentioned my back, well, I am in a lot of pain with my back almost every day, which is caused from leftover remnants of my car crash injuries from 21 years ago, as well as moving too many heavy things at work and tearing up my back! The least little thing will set it off. Kate has a friend who does massage therapy, and I have been talking to her about going to see the lady. Well wouldn't you know, she and Susan gave me a gift certificate for a deep tissue massage!! I am definitley going to call this lady up this week and get this thing done. I think that will be much better than going to a chiropractor. Having worked in a chiropractor's office once, I know that I do not want an adjustment of any kind. I am eagerly anticipating the deep tissue massage. I might even get Rachel a certificate for a prenatal massage. She has been having some back problems with her pregnancy. I think that would be a nice gift. I will see how my visit goes and then take Rachel. I hope that everyone in blog reading land is having a great holiday vacation, and I wish everyone a Happy New Year!!

The Weeeekend

Hello, We have a three day weekend right now, but I am sick with a bad cold. I guess my weeeekend will be spent resting and getting ready to go back to the world of munchkins next Monday! This year has been pretty good. The days are going smoothly, until afternoon bus duty that is. Our school is in a temporary location this year, and ALL of the children are bussed to school. These kids are used to being 'walkers', and it is very difficult for them to get used to riding the bus...especially the overcrowded busses that we have. I teach in an inner city school, my 20th year there, and I must say that iwe teachers have many challenging days. All in all, though, we are very dedicated to our students, and we try extremely hard to make their school lives as positive and productive as humanly possible. As a public school teacher, I am not supposed to put anything out on the internet about my job or the cildren, because I could LOSE my job if someone thought that I put out something inappropriate or derogatory. We must be very careful of anything we post on facebook, or on our blogs, or on anything connected with the internet. You never know when the 'internet' police are watching. In our country, we are supposed to have freedom of speech, but that doesn't really fit a person in government, or a public school teacher, or anyone like that. It is a shame, too. Well, I hope this cold will go away with rest and relaxation and not get any worse. I am getting the chills, though, as the weather is getting cooler, and it is kind of rainy. Also, Happy Veteran's Day to all those out there who have fought bravely for our country...those serving now and those who have served. My father is a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant, and I am extremely proud of his service to our country. He was drafted during World War II, served as a career soldier, went to Vietnam, and many other places. Congratulations and THANK YOU to all of our servicemen and servicewomen. We love you, and we appreciate you!!!!!! I found some clip art that is just right for the occasion.

90 YEARS!!

We had a 90th birthday party for my Daddy last week. His real birthday was yesterday, but we had to do the party when all of the family could get into town. We had a spectacular day! We also had a dinner last night. I made a big dinner for the family. All four of us (siblings)were there. We each had one of our children in attendance. Although everyone could not make it, Daddy had a good time. I made another cake, too. I also made a cake for Kate, whose birthday is today!


I am late posting this blog, because I did not have the pictures to use. All of my cameras bit the dust a long time ago, so I borrowed my daughter's camera for the day. My Iphone camera just doesn't do justice to many images these days. Anywho, I am posting the party this week in honor of my Daddy.

One of Daddy's nieces made the trip down from North Georgia to attend the party, and she brought her whole family! All of my Savannah cousins were there, also, so we had a great big crowd.

I made a three tiered cake and turned it into a mountain. The mountain leaned a bit, and I was afraid that it was going to fall over! I put some dowel rods inside of it, and the whole thing stayed together. It looked kind of like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but it never fell over! I had two fishermen on it. I actually thought that the one on top was a hunter with a bow and arrow, but it was a fisherman. HA! My eyes are a bit feeble these days. The fly fisherman was on the bottom layer. He had a fly rod with fishing line! I had fish all over the cake placed to look like they were in a stream going down the moutain. The "hunter/fisherman" was on top with a moose and a pine tree.

I also had a neat little sign that said, "Super Dad" that was written in tools. Daddy is a great Mr. Fixit guy, so I thought that the tool sign was really appropriate. Daddy is from the Georgia Mountains, and that is why I made a mountain with a stream going all the way down.

My brother fried the fish, along with several "helpers"! HA!

We had the party at my daughter's house.

We used the lot next to her house for our party, which is right by the playground and pool for their community. Although no one went into the pool, the kids enjoyed the playground and big yard.

We had horseshoes and ping pong, too.

We called this a BYOC party - bring your own chair - and everyone sat around talking and having a great time of fellowship and fun. It was a great day!!

We were all very proud to be able to celebrate the 90th birthday of such an awesome man and father. He is also a war hero, from World War II. Daddy was a medic in the war, and he received the Bronze Star for going out under fire to rescue soldiers by bringing them out of the line of fire to receive medical attention.

Daddy is a wonderful person. He is extremely honest, to a fault some may say. He has always been hard working and honorable. I am proud to say that he passed those qualities on to our whole family. Daddy was raised in extreme poverty up in the North Georgia Mountains. He worked very hard from the time he was a young teenager, in order to help feed his family. There are any tales of hardship that he could tell, but he has come out of it all as a strong, sincere, honest, and awesome man of integrity and honor.



I cannot say enough positive things about my Daddy. I love him very much, and I am very proud to be called his daughter!!

Rose Petal Saga

Hello,
I tried a new thing this week, making crystalized rose petals. Mine didn't turn out exactly right, but I used them anyway. My birthday was Thursday, and I decided to try out this new cake topper on my own cake. I'm glad I tried it out on me first! I bought a dozen beautiful pink roses at Fresh Market. They are really soft and velvety! Here they are, minus the two I plucked!


I plucked one of the roses and started peeling off the petals. After peeling a few and tearing them, I figured out that I should pop the entire top off of the stem first. Wow, that made a big difference. The petals just peeled away easily after that. So, I put the egg whites on each petal and sprinkled my pink cake sugar on top. I put them all on parchment paper, covered them with foil, and put them in the fridge.

I thought I had followed the directions, but I must not have done the egg whites quite right. Plus, the recipe calls for 'superfine' sugar, which I did not have. The super fine sugar must be the trick to the whole thing. The next day, I took the petals out of the fridge, but they were not crystalized. So, I stuck them in the freezer. WRONG idea. They got dark and wimpy! I put them on top of the cake anyway!
Oh well, they still looked kind of pretty. Since those didn't work, I plucked another rose and spread the petals out around the base of the cake. I thought that they looked pretty.
So, there is the saga of the crystalized rose petals! I am going to try this again, though. I might also do it with pansies, since pansies are also edible!!

Yards

My front yard is very hard to mow. It has a hillside type of slope, and this incline makes it very difficult for me to mow my yard. I finally got out there today and did the best I could, but it isn't very attractive. The weeds were knee high, and I think the lawn police are around the corner waiting to give me a ticket!! The last time I tried mowing this front yard, my face turned red, red, red, red, red, and it stayed that way for the entire day. I felt awful for a day or so, too. At that time, I did not know that I had high blood pressure. Also, this particular day was a very, very, very hot summer day. I was totally worn out. That incident was a few years ago, and I haven't attempted the yard since then. I was really scared that I was going to pass out for good if I did. So, I have asked and asked people to cut my yard lately, but no one has taken the offer to heart. So, I pumped up the lawn mower and just did it. Yes, I wore myself out, but the weather is a bit cooler than that summer day a few years ago, so I didn't have heat stroke today. I even ran over the backyard a bit. Do I want to do this again? NO! Will I do it again? I will only attempt fate again if no one else will agree to do the yard. So there! The good thing is that we are now having fall weather, so maybe the yard won't need mowing many more times before next Spring!!!!

Grandma ME

Hi,
I am going to be a GRANDMA!! My daughter will be having her first baby in March, and we are all excited. Just this past week, her little tummy tum tum has really expanded! Sunday, she had a small, small little tummy. Wednesday, she had a pretty big one sticking out there! That day was also the first day she actually let me touch her tummy. She has her next doctor's appointment, @16 weeks, on my birthday. They hope to find out the sex of the baby in November, @20 weeks. Everyone is anxiously awaiting. This baby will be the first one, in this generation, on our side of the family. Rachel was the first grandchild, and now she is having the first grandchild...How fitting!
So, you can just call me Grandma!!!!!!

Critical Decisions

I have made one very important decision in my life. I am going to take off two quarters from school, writing my dissertation to be exact. I have been enrolling each quarter for several years, but I haven't been getting anything done. Many thousands of dollars later $$$$$$, I finally decided to take a break. I have been at this 'extra' schooling thing now for almost ten years, and I am plain old tired. I worked three years on my National Board Certification, then a year and a half on my Specialist degree, then I went straight into coursework for my Ph.D. After two and a half years of courses and then my comprehensive exams, I started the dissertation stage. Almost three years later, I have not finished the first three chapters. I have gotten two extensions, but life keeps me from writing. I have gotten a house full of stuff that has not been attended, and it looks like a hoarder house. I have many, many obligations to take care of my daddy, including his health and other affairs, and I am just way, way overwhelmed. I think that if I take off from the tension and the pressure of a timeline and a time limit, maybe I can focus on real life for a change. I hope to get this house decluttered during this time. That issue alone could help my brain become more focused and alive. Also, I am going to become a first time Grandma in March, and I need to be de-stressed when all of this happens. So, I am not quitting the pursuit of my doctorate, but I am delaying it for two quarters. I hope that this critical decision is a good one, and I hope that I can now accomplish the regular day to day life things that most normal people take for granted. Wish me luck on this journey to de-stress, de-clutter, and de-activate the tension and nervousness that is my everyday life.
Maybe I will finish a book or two that I have started, childens' books of course.
Wish me luck!