What Happens When...

They turn me loose in the kitchen...

I decided that I wanted to make one of my favorite cookies, Million Dollar Sugar Cookies.

Anytime I volunteer to cook anything, Missy just kind of raises her eyebrow and lets out a mostly quiet groan. I don't often do anything in the kitchen besides walk through and get something to drink, or do dishes or clean the stove or mop the floor.

I do cook a little bit once in a while, in fact last night I made a one skillet dinner called Mexican
Dinner (a real original name). It's also one of my favorites and is really easy.

But I wanted sugar cookies. When it comes to light weight stuff like flour and powdered sugar, I can sometimes get a little messy. A lot messy. I bought this mixer for Carol (Missy as I sometimes call her) last year for Christmas.

I, once again, don't usually do anything other than carry it to the table for her to use. In fact, I think today s the first time I've used it since we brought it home.

I mostly did okay with creaming the butter and sugar together, but then I added a cup of powdered sugar. Not being familiar with the speeds on the mixer, I turned it up too fast and, whoosh, the powdery stuff went flying.

No problem, slow it down and add more powdered sugar, right? Right. Then after the oil, vanilla, and eggs are all creamed in, I put the rest of the dry ingredients in a bowl and started mixing them in, nice and slow.

After adding about half of the flour, being the bright person I am in the kitchen, I decided that,
since it was thicker I needed to speed it up a bit. Whoosh, there it goes again. After that fog I just put it on nice and slow and left it there.

For those of you that haven't had enough of sugar cookies, or like me, can't get enough of sugar cookies, I will post the recipe on the next post.

The cookie dough is in the fridge right now. The recipe says it's easier to roll 'em into balls to smash if you put them in for a couple of hours, so when I do the next step and cook them so you can see the results, I'll share the recipe with you.

But I'm warning you now, these cookies are sooooo good they are bound to become favorites. If you need to lose 20 pounds like I do you may want to disregard my next post.

Just try, I triple dog dare you!!!

Whew...

Well, I've survived another Christmas at my baby brother's in Ft. Worth. I say survived because, literally, there is a whole mess of kids and grandkids. Since my brother and his first wife divorced, the kids split time at Christmas and this year they all came over in the late afternoon for gifts and supper. There ended up being about 50 of us. What fun.

Ben smoked pork loin, pork chops, ribs and chicken breasts, turkey breasts and then everyone brought something to go with it, mac and cheese, green beans, potatoes and so on so forth. We all ate until we foundered, then ate desserts.

Home-made banana pudding, turtle cheese-cake pies, cookies, fudge, turtles, more cookies... I couldn't bend over to tie my shoes for two days. We have some folks in our family that can flat out cook.

Then, on Friday, all of us sibs got together. All three of my brothers and my sis and I met for lunch to visit and we got one of the nephews to take our picture together. My sister went home after lunch because she was suffering with a pulled muscle in her back from lifting something too heavy (probably a grand baby) on Christmas day, and baby brother and his wife went home because her back was needing heat.

Bro and I went over to our oldest brother's home and visited with them for about an hour. It was so nice. I hadn't had a visit with them for much longer than to say hi for about three years. As soon as I get photos, I'll post one or two up so you can all share.

In the meantime, I'm going to play catch-up on my reading and see if I can come up with ideas for my blog. It is good to be back.

Merry Christmas To All...

Merry Christmas to all...


Hope you all have a joyous and peaceful holiday.


Helen

Fruits And Nuts, and Kings

Contrary to the title, this post is not about my family. Well, it is sorta, but not in the way you
would normally think. When we were little, we went to church at Second Methodist Church in Okla. City.

Every year on the Sunday night before Christmas there was the Christmas celebration. There would be the reading of the story of Jesus' birth. Then came the entertainment. There would be singing of Christmas songs, both by the congregation and by the choir or the church quartet accompanied by Aunt Myrtle, who was not really our aunt, but was close enough to the family to be called our aunt by all of us kids.

Also helping out on the accompaniment was an older gentleman on bass fiddle, you know those 4 stringed instruments that were bigger than cellos, and his son on the xylophone or the marimba. At the end of the service came the part long awaited by all of us kids...

Santa's visit. Santa would come in and pass to all us kids a Christmas Bag. In it would be an apple, an orange, assorted nuts and ribbon candy in a brown paper bag. It was, at least to us kids, the highlight of the evening. I still can almost feel the anticipation to this day and see the sparkle in the eyes of the other children and, I'm sure, my own eyes.

I rode the train down to Ft. Worth last Saturday and spent the rest of Saturday helping my SIL run errands and wrap gifts, just trying to help out and earn my keep. Sunday afternoon I went with my brother to go shopping for his sweet bride. Ben wanted to run by the church to see if they needed any help to take down the stage that the children had performed on earlier. The pastor and his wife, whom I just love, were getting into their cars to head out, and I just had to jump out for my hugs from both the pastor and his wife.

We visited just a few moments before we got back into our respective cars and JoAnn took off running to her car, reached in, grabbed a bag and came running to my side. I rolled down my window and she handed it to me and said, " Merry Christmas!"

Imagine my delight when I opened that brown paper sack and saw an apple, an orange, some nuts and some ribbon candy.

I hope each and every one of you have a peaceful and joyous Christmas holiday. Embrace each other with love. Rejoice in being free to worship and praise the Lord for sending his son to show us the way, the truth and the light.

He is, after all, the Reason For The Season.

A special thanks to Rick at Organized Doodles for this art work.

Time To Go...

Don't these two look kinda lonesome? These are the last of a fantastic first litter.

The darker brindle pup is the little girl that I fell in love with and the lighter brindle pup is a little boy that our friend Pat fell for...

Unfortunately with 5 people and 3 dogs already at our home we could only love them from afar.

My niece sent these photos to me since I'm in Texas for Christmas and she knows I have pupaholics that drop by to check on their progress.

The other 4 puppies have gone to good homes,
Christmas surprises all. They were getting such cute personalities and starting to worm their way in to hearts at home.

Nancy and Steve were both saying last week when I was there that they had to get these pups to new homes. They were both getting too attached to them.

I sure can't fault them for that 'cause I was getting attached myself and I was only seeing them once a week.

I guess we all will have to wait until around this time next year for our next round of puppy fixes, and I know it will be very hard to wait, at least for me... and Nancy and Steve... and several of you who like my puppy fixes. Dang.

But let me ask you something... Is it just my imagination or is Maddie smiling about breast feeding being almost finished?

I Love My Gloves...

You know, somehow one of the things I never thought I'd be professing love for would be a pair of gloves.

But these gloves, these gloves I love. I keep track of them and don't just take them off and put down anywhere. I usually put them right by the front door on the floor or on the floor right by my chair.

When I go out to do anything outside, I usually tuck them in the back of my Levi's until I'm ready to do the weed-eating, digging in the in the garden or the flower bed.

Are you getting my drift? I love my gloves. They helped me to catch a snake, pull out an incredible amount of weeds and brush, they've protected my hands pulling dead wood out of the trees, running the chainsaw, the cultivator in the garden, mowers and weed-eaters.

When I recently went with my Bro to Ft. Worth to move his stuff out of storage my gloves went with me on both trips.

On the second trip, coming home, my little pickup started coughing and sputtering and choking and I told Bro to pull over and stop.

I'm also very attached to my little Ranger pick-up. I was worn out, it was after dark, I don't deal well with stress and I was getting stressed not knowing if my p.u. was breathing it's last breath or what.

Of all the stupid things I've done in my life, the one, for sure, smart thing I've done is my AAA
membership. I've been a member since 1969 and for the last 10 or 12 years I've gotten the more expensive, 100 mile tow package. If you, like me, drive older, well used vehicles you need to
work that expense into your budget.

If not AAA, some type of auto assistance club. I called my 800 number and before long, the operator had the wrecker service in my area call me. He assured me that they could load my truck and pull the loaded trailer, too, so I wouldn't have to set out in the cold and wait for my niece to come hook up her pick-up and pull the trailer to the house. So what does that have to do with my gloves?

My gloves were the only thing, besides my Diet Pepsi, that I took out of my truck. I tucked them in the back of my Levi's, as usual. The tow driver was wonderful. He took Bro and I home, unhooked the trailer where we asked and then took my pick-up to the repair shop in Norman.

Since we had been on the side of the road for a while and I'd been out in the cold for a while and I wouldn't go pee behind the trailer like Bro, when I got to the house I told Carol I would tell her all about the pickup in a minute. I headed for my bathroom, dropped trou and, sweet relief... then I got up and turned to flush.

You're right. My gloves hit the pot. I gingerly fished them out and laid them in the tub to dry.
Did you know that you can wash heavy leather gloves? Yep, you can. But with the dogs, I'm now afraid to leave my gloves on the floor. You see, their sense of smell is so great and I've seen them pee where each other has peed, trying to show that they are the top dog, so I figure, even after washing, they will be peeing on my favorite gloves...

Their one chance to tell mom that they're are boss.

Snippet Time...

When I can't sleep I get to thinking and sometimes it gets a little crazy in the confines of my mind, but I can't help but wonder...

Since the Imus fiasco is Santa Claus going to have to quit saying, "Ho, Ho, Ho?"

Puppy Update...

We went to my niece's to visit a bit and to take pictures of the puppies. They will be 6 weeks old on Dec. 20th and Nancy Lu, my niece, started an add in the paper so folks could get a Christmas puppy if they wanted.

We were greeted by being attacked and the announcement that we have puppy teeth! Sharp puppy teeth.

There are six, gorgeous active puppies, four boys and two girls. I can attest to the fact that the girls are just as rowdy as the boys. This is one of the
girls playing pull on the pants leg.

I know an old Aunt is not supposed to play favorites, but this one is my favorite baby, not that I couldn't love them all, but she is special to me.

I love her markings, although you can't see them now I will point her out in another photo, but her sweet and gentle nature tells me that whomever is lucky enough to get her will be getting a puppy with her mother's sweet nature.




All of the pups seem healthy and when you pick any one of them up they just want to cuddle right into your skin.

Mellisa is not really liking this stage because they are starting to nip fingers and pull on britches legs. Since Aunt Helen was in the floor with the puppies, though, she wanted to come see them.

We all know how sharp puppy teeth are and I had the blood-letting to show for it. Just a little tooth puncture, but I bleed easy. Oh, well... comes with the territory if you hang with pups.


This little guy made me think of a Sharpei puppy. While all of them have skin to grow into, this little one seems to have a bunch.

If you don't think I'm having fun, take a look at the smile I can't seem to get off my face when I'm around the sweeties.

I'd love to bring one of them home with me, but Chloe would shun me and SueSue would be afraid of them because they would get so much bigger than her, so I just can't do that to my girls.


I'm going to wind up this post with the traditional photo of Maddie and the babies in their bed, which now, by the way, they can get out of and also back into...

Max, the big daddy, is scared to death of the puppies. It's the funniest thing. He can't seem to figure out what these little biting critters are. When it is going to be a cold night, like tonite is and tomorrow is going to be, Steve and Nancy let him into the garage.

The puppies immediately think something else to chew on and it just freaks Max out. He gets on the top step going into the garage, because all those jaws can't bite him from down on the floor.

I guess if he could figure out where they came from, it might work as birth control, but I doubt it. This was the first he ever got and he's seven, so if he gets another chance at it you know he's gonna go for it despite the consequences.

Who could blame him?


Don't forget... you can click on the photos and make 'em bigger.

Frequent Flyer.... Not...

We've never talked about flying, mainly because I haven't flown in years. I am pretty much your drive where-ever I need to go person. If I can't drive there, I don't need to go.

I like to be able to get in my car and leave, so if I fly I have no means of instant escape if I find myself in an uncomfortable situation, plus I pretty much have to find things to occupy me in the air so I don't think about not being able to just walk out the door. Can we say, "Claustrophobic?"

But this trip was something that I felt was necessary for me to do. We have a friend who lived in Reno that was moving to Oklahoma. It's not a trip that I would want, at my age, to drive by myself, and since our friend is older than I am, and older, probably than dirt, I felt she needed someone to drive the 16 foot moving truck and pull the car hauler with her little purple truck.

So here I am, flying. And, obviously, to entertain myself I took photos, many photos. So to start off our little jaunt, I get to share with you...

Photos out the airplane windows.
(You can click on them and make 'em bigger)

The first photo was one of the tilled farm areas that is so fascinating to me. The quilt like landscape looks so much like a coat of many colors. I have a couple of others, but I didn't want to inundate you with too many s.o.o.c. (straight out of camera) photos. If I can make one or two look better, I will share them with you down the road.

The second shot looked, to me, like a dragon or a herd of horses galloping... depending on which way you looked at it. I'll let you all draw your own conclusions as to what you might see, or you can decide that I've really gone 'round the bend now.

But the weird, skewed way I look at these things comes even more into play on this third one, and please don't ask me why this popped into my brain when I saw this photo as I wouldn't be able at all to explain...

My first thought when I saw this photo on my computer screen was, "That looks like what my ob/gyn tried to describe what my fallopian tubes and other innards associated with them looked like when he did my hysterectomy."

I don't know why I think these things. Maybe it was because of how bad I felt before I got my works jerked. I'm just keeping it honest with you and trying to keep it interesting so you will keep coming back.

Now this last one anyone with dry, cracked, chapped lips ought to be able to identify with. As you all know, I was fighting an awful cold all week before and when I left on this little tour.

My lips felt like someone had taken a jack-hammer to them while I was asleep, and I could hardly move my mouth without pain. And you must know by now that I don't mind jacking my jaws a bit. I do not like to use chap stick kind of stuff, but I must now say I've changed my mind.

I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found a tube that I got two year ago in my Christmas stocking (yes, I'm 63 and still get a stocking). It was some nasty berry flavor something, but it saved me a great deal of pain.

Since I survived the flight, now I will get to share with you some of the hundreds of photos I took on the road from Reno, Nevada, to the red dirt of home in the middle of Oklahoma some 1600 miles worth. Aren't you excited?

But we will save some of those for another day. My question of the day is, "How many of you are having flash-backs of the days when you had to sit through Aunt Fannie's or Uncle Henry's trip to the Grand Canyon and points west slide show?"

Home Again, Home Again...

For me, there is nothing much better than getting home...

To these two smiling faces.

To my own bed.

To home cooking.

To my life out of a moving truck.

Back to the red dirt.

Back to my blogging friends.

Thank you for your travel prayers and all the wishes for me to get over this dang cold.

Thank you for checking up on me.

Thank you all for your patience and know that I will have stories and pictures to share with you as soon as my brain starts functioning again.

I missed all of you and I'm so glad I'm home again.

More to come...

Hi All -

You all are in for an unusual treat today. This is "Missy", Helen's roommate. She wanted me to drop you a few words because she is out of pocket for a few days.

Her cold is better -- not gone but definitely improving.

She flew to Reno on Saturday to help a friend drive a truck back to Oklahoma. Plans were to be home late this afternoon. But you know what they say "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray."

They were to have left Reno early Sunday and spend the first night in Las Vegas. They did manage to do that but didn't arrive until midnight. They ran out of gas on the way to Las Vegas.

As it turns out, they couldn't get gas to go in the truck and (after getting it fixed) only made it to Kingman, AZ. But they are now on the road and at noontime were just past Flagstaff. Maybe they will make it home by tomorrow but may be Thursday.

She just wanted me to let you know she hadn't fallen in a hole someplace or actually quit breathing from the cold. She'll be back with you in a few.

Carol "Missy"

Snippet Time....

Can anyone explain to me how a person's body can manufacture so much snot. Not a pleasant subject, but it is one that I've never figured out. I guess that's why they say to drink lots of fluids. So your body doesn't dehydrate itself. All I know is I'm tired of this shit. Or I guess I should say snot. It's one in the same isn't it...

Just A Quickie...

I'm fighting a 'code in my head' so here is another Maddie, Melissa and pup picture to tide you all over...

I'm going back to bed now. I'll try to get back later.