A Fondue Fairwell to 2022

We ended 2022 with our traditional chocolate fondue, as we have done so many, many times before.  This time we warned everyone that they would have to leave before midnight because Jack and I were scheduled to leave early the next morning for our train trip down to New Orleans.  But no year is complete without a sweet chocolate ending, at least not if we can help it!    It pleases me no end that what started as a single chocolate bar and whatever was on hand - an apple or graham cracker - has lasted all these years.  I never would have expected it to endure past my own children's childhoods, but it went on through their teen and young adult years, and now into the teen and young adult years of my grandchildren, with all of us still looking forward to it each year.  I watch with wonder and hope we have more years of this fun and delicious tradition.   It is something I hope will outlive me, my family enjoying time together and somehow connecting memories of me to the sweetness of it all.

We shared pizza beforehand, and did the "saran wrap ball' game for the first time, along with the more traditional Christmas "crackers" or "poppers."  There is not much better than corny jokes and paper crowns!

                                

2022, like most years, has been a mixture of fun and sadness, but we have no complaints.  Every year I become more grateful for every minute.  Let's hope that 2023 will be even better for all of us.

Ho Ho Holidays!

Christmas Morning we had brunch at our house with my family, a flurry of food and gifts.  I made ornaments for the Grands and offered my family "first dibs" on my stack of quilts, warning them that anything they didn't choose would be given elsewhere.   I really thought they were probably 'quilted out' because I have given each of them several, but they seemed excited to be able to choose their own and the pile pretty much diminished to a few baby quilts that I will hold onto anyway, just in case.  I was happy to have a baby quilt on hand this past month when we received news of a bonus grand niece that we didn't know we were expecting, so I will try to keep a small selection of those always on hand.  I have to admit, it felt really good to have my family cherish the unexpected quilts.  In the course of things I learned that all four of them use my quilts frequently and that my grandson uses only my quilts on his bed instead of any other blankets, and that touched my heart.  I think I might  make this a  new tradition; instead of making a quilt for a specific person, I will just bring out the year's production for them to choose from again next Christmas.    I don't know why, but that makes me want to quilt more than ever, after months of not having any sewing mojo!

Jack made socks for everybody -- family, friends, even our mailman and his family.  Jack asked for fleece fabric for his birthday and I bought him a lot, at least 20 yards and maybe more since I kept finding new patterns and adding them to the gift bag.  He started sewing on his birthday, right before Christmas, and had to go out to buy MORE in order to make socks for everyone on his list.  My family group put theirs on right away -- we are glad for new socks this time of year because it is cold!

For our brunch I made quiche (vegetarian), and egg bake (meaty), almond pastries, cookies, hash browns (with and without cheese), along with fruit and cheese and homemade eggnog and juice and coffee.  Jack's daughter and little George joined us to eat and having so many of us together was the best gift of all for Jack and me.  

Our weather was typical of winter here -- slippery and snowy, but nothing unusual.  My brother's area in Grayling was hit by a blizzard over the weekend, though, and although he had intended to join us for Christmas,  he was snowed in.  He had snow drifts of 4 feet or so in his driveway, made worse by the wind and the hard working snow plows that had been up and down his road, forming ice dams at the end of each driveway.  We all agreed that even if he could get out to the roads, they were too dangerous up there to drive on.  We were both sorry about that and hoped we will be able to get together for an alternate Christmas before Jack and I leave for our week in New Orleans.  I missed him and he was sad to miss the crowd and chaos,  since his life is pretty quiet, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that there would be football all day on television.  He said he considered it a win-win situation, either time with family or lots of football to watch.

Since my brother Bill wasn't able to come to stay at our house, Jack and I exchanged our gifts on Christmas night.  We don't have any traditions yet around the holidays so we are sort of just doing whatever fits in, and that is likely to be our ongoing method since it suits both our styles.  I guess 'light' must have been the theme of the year for us since I have him a variety of lights to use at his sewing station and he gave me diamonds!

Christmas with Jack's family was the following Tuesday, two days after Christmas, designed around their work schedules.  The plan was that Jack would make the turkey, his kids would make the sides, and I would make whatever I felt like (which turned out to be a salad and yeast rolls).   There was no gift exchange, but we planned for lots of food and a good time together.  Unfortunately, one of his sons ended up working and the other got sick, so it was a much smaller group than we had hoped.  Still, the food was good and having baby George around makes any gathering a party!

The next day, to our surprise, my brother Bill showed up so we were able to give him his presents, share a meal and visit for a couple of hours before he drove back home.   It was a nice visit; I cherish my relationship with my oldest brother.  We have only become close in the last several years and that feels like a gift.

Now we have a day or two to gather our wits, get whatever 'dippers' I still need for the chocolate fondue, and pack for our getaway.   I normally take my decorations down on 3 Kings Day, January 6, but this year we will be gone that day.  Since I want to leave them up for our New Year's fondue, I guess they will stay up until we are home.  I like to leave a clean  house when we travel, so I am still wrapping my mind around that!  But it's all good.  Aside from a few scheduling issues and a couple of us who were under the weather, it's been a good holiday, and now we are looking forward to celebrating the new year.    In years past I would have made a list by now of goals, sewing and otherwise.  This year I am happy just to be here!

December

Our busy social schedule, or what now passes for a busy schedule, has continued into December.  Jack and I took his daughter, boyfriend, and baby George to a charity cookie decorating event to start out the month.  It was so much fun!  As quickly as a decoration could be placed on a cookie, George carefully removed and ate it.  His diet does not generally include sugar, so he was definitely in a Sweet Spot that day.  It will be another year or two before I will even think of trying to actually make cookies with him, but he really enjoyed this day of picking off the sprinkles, one at a time.  Best of all, the decorating/un-decorating event took place away from my own kitchen, so I didn't have to clean up the sugar that must have been everywhere once everyone was finished!  Prizes were given for the best decorated cookies -- for some reason, we didn't win anything!

On December 8, Jack and I quietly celebrated our 4th Anniversary.  We cannot imagine life without the other and are grateful for our lives.  The next week I went to hear my grandson's high school band -- he is a senior this year and I will miss these concerts.  Joseph plays tuba in the band, which is quite a difference from the orchestra, where he plays cello, but I enjoy both so much.  Time has flown by as I've watched him grow into a young adult.

The next week Jack and I entertained our first dinner guests - aside from family - since the beginning of the pandemic.  I was a little nervous about everything -- getting the house clean (after 3 years of the more casual approach that being alone created), cooking for people I don't know that well -- but it was a truly fun evening.  These years of social isolation have left a mark on all of us, I suspect, and it felt good to take our first baby step back into the world we used to know.

Jack's birthday is in three days, which we will celebrate with dinner out and gifts.  I am trying to focus on that but his birthday marks the beginning of the Christmas Craziness, so the back of my mind is a turmoil of lists and chores that need to be done.  The next two weeks will be full of activity, and I am looking forward to every bit of it!

November - Thankful For Family

I have been Covid-isolated for so long that it takes very little for me to feel overwhelmed with activity.  And this last month or so has seemed CRAZY busy because we have had as many as -- imagine! - one or two things a week on our schedule!  When I think of how busy my life was not that many years ago, I barely recognize the slow moving tired old woman that I've become.  But whatever, the last few weeks have been a treat.  November was family month.  Both Jack's  family and mine got together to have our annual family photos taken.  Jack and I like to have a picture of the whole group, which we use on our Christmas card.  One the "business" photo is taken,  Karen Fordos, our photographer and friend, takes any photos that any of the family want for themselves.  It is always fun and we follow up with dinner for the whole group at our house.  This year Jack's son Zack got the idea to have us all pretend to be a band, with whatever instruments we could scrape together.  We laughed a lot that day.

A few days later we all celebrated Thanksgiving -- my son and his wife cooked on Thanksgiving Day, and about 20 of us gathered at their house -- my family accounted for about half the guest list.  They are so well organized and prepared a huge feast, accommodating both the carnivores and the vegetarians among us with a long table filled with food.  No one went hungry that day!  

The very next day, my siblings and some of our extended family gathered at my brother Bill's house in Grayling, Michigan for a "paprikash cook off," where 3 versions of our traditional chicken paprika (as well as one vegetarian version) were prepared and voted on.  My sister Marilyn, to no one's surprise, won the competition since that has long been one of her signature dishes.

The day after that, Jack's kids came over to our house for yet another Thanksgiving feast!  Jack prepared the turkey that day and his kids brought dishes to share, so it was very little work for me, and I could get used to that!  I put up the Christmas tree (which fascinated George, of course) and cleaned the house, but that was about it.

We finished off the  month with my 73rd birthday.  I used to feel anxious about my birthdays but as I get older, for sure, I am more grateful every year to have one.

A Grand Weekend

This was a grand weekend, indeed.  Which is to say, it was a weekend filled with Grands.  On Saturday we watched George, who really just delights us.  (He was baby shark for halloween.  He loves that song!)

George is 19 months old now and cute as a bug.  He will suddenly stop what he is doing to run and give me a hug, which of course just melts my heart.  And lately he rummages through the box where we keep his books and brings them to me, one after another, to be read.  This is a fairly long process because we have a lot of books.  In this house we do a lot of singing and sound effects, and George is an extremely appreciative audience.  The big winner this weekend began when we were reading “Open The Barn Door,” a book that matches animals with their sounds.  We’ve read it a thousand times, but this time George noticed the small pictured flies in the backyard of a pigpen scene and pointed at one of them.   I told him that it was a fly, and that its sound was Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz, making the sound up against his neck.  He laughed out loud and then pointed to each and every fly on the page, again and again and again.  When his father came to take him home, George made it clear that he preferred to stay and discuss entomology.   On an ordinary day, I would have gladly indulged him, but on this particular day Jack and I were in a hurry because our Saturday night adventure was to go and see my granddaughter Ray’s school musical!

Ray’s school performed the musical “Beauty and the Beast” this weekend.  As you would expect from 6th to 12th graders, the talent and engineering were mixed.  As you would also expect, Ray was fabulous in her role as Cogsworth, who, under a spell, had been turned into a clock.  She has a lot of talent, a ton of courage and presence, is smart as can be and a genuinely nice person.  Of course I love her to pieces but seriously, who wouldn’t?   It was so much fun to watch her perform - she really is the whole package, a fearless actor with a lovely voice —  and maybe even more fun to watch her afterwards as she mingled with her friends on the cast, praising their performances.  Ray will have one more year of high school after this and I can’t wait to continue watching her blossom.  She’s lovely, of course, but also a very competent artist and an honor student like her older brother, but seems so much more mature and down to earth than I was at her age (or ever).  She delights my soul.

On Sunday we went to hear the Saginaw Bay Youth Orchestra, where my grandson Joseph is currently the first chair cellist.  (Ray is one of the first violins in the youth orchestra, but missed this concert because the final performance of the musical conflicted.)  Joseph was a featured soloist in one of the pieces that was performed, and that made it even more special. I love listening to my grandchildren play.   It just amazes me, having listened to them play from their very first lessons years ago, how really good they are.  Joseph is currently working on his college applications, hoping to study math and music composition, which require a series of taped auditions and submissions of music compositions.  He reminds  me of his father at that age, so smart and yet never acting like he thinks he is anything special, always eager to help, a natural teacher.  He is slammed with work in his high-pressure math and science intensive high school, as well as with his extra-curricular activities  in orchestra and school clubs, but he is always attentive and takes time with other people.  From the time he was little, even other kids have remarked on what a kind person he is, and it is true.  I was in New Orleans when Joseph was born, saw him minutes afterward and took his first photo.  Time sure does fly.  But I have adored him every minute of his life.

It’s been a pretty good month so far. This is my birthday month and again this year Jack has been having flowers delivered every week.  He is a romantic at heart, although he hides it as well as he can.  

This weekend, of course, the focus was on the Grands.  And next weekend we are having our family photo taken to use as a Christmas card again this year, with dinner back at our house after the “shoot” is done.  Family time is always the best, and I can’t wait for more of it.

Good and Ordinary

Into each life some rain must fall, they say.  And rain it did.  I talked Jack into a very spontaneous trip when we found out that we had a couple of days with no scheduled tasks.  I thought we should go to an area in Michigan that we've never visited before.  He opted for Ludington, where we've gone a lot.  I thought we should try a new hotel or B&B, he lobbied for the old Stearns Hotel, a partly refurbished 1920's hotel in Ludington.  I didn't feel strongly enough to push my own uncharted and therefore uncertain ideas, so Ludington it was.  During breaks in the rain, the 2-hour drive there was beautiful.  The trees seem to be at their peak of color, and there were areas where both sides of the road were lined with red and orange as far as the eye could see.  There was so much rain that we thought for sure we would be eventually rewarded with a rainbow, but no such luck.  When we reached lake Michigan, the wind was so strong that it was nearly impossible to get out of the car.  Actually, after seeing that it was nearly impossible for Jack to get out of the car, I didn't even try.  In the end, both of us stayed under cover to take a few photos before moving a block or so farther from the water and from the worst of the wind.

I thought we could try a couple of new-to-us adventures while we were there, but all the things on my list were closed; either closed (as of the day before!) for the season, or closed on the two weekdays we were there.  So we had our usual breakfasts at our usual places, and dinners at places we had been before, and it was all just fine.  On the way home, we stopped at the same quilt store where we always stop, and that was fine, too.  

The one fly in the ointment happened when we stopped at a little hole in the wall shop where a local man, Walter, smokes local fish.   We have stopped there before and there is always a story, because Walter is something of a character. The shop was closed but we phoned and Walter came right over.   Jack was delighted when Walter said he had whitefish on hand and he bought out the whole bunch of it, 6 boxes in all.  Walter babbled on about the different laws in Michigan and Texas, and complained that Texas gives 30 more days before they consider the fish 'expired,' and that makes no sense to him.  I didn't hear it all because I stayed in the car with my  heated seat; I am not a fish person so I felt no obligation to sympathize.  We bought the fish on October 17, and Jack intended to give a box of it to each of our kids, and keep one for himself.  When we got home, we discovered that the "expiration" date stamped on the boxes was October 13, and Jack realized that Walter was really saying that this fish was not lawful in Michigan, but would be just fine if he were in Texas.   So now my freezer if full of food I will not eat.  Jack is eating (and so far enjoying) the fish, but I am not letting him give it to anyone else unless they insist (as one of Jack's sons already has).  I suspect Michigan might have some reasons for its food safety laws, and I have no way to confirm (or care) how Texas handles things.  Walter was one of our favorite Michigan 'gems', and I was disappointed to find him so tarnished.  

We arrived back home in time for a last-minute opportunity to watch George, whose day care was unexpectedly closed because the provider's child was ill.  George also had a runny nose and was a bit under the weather, but we had about as much fun as could be had anyway.  He is more and more Grandpa's boy, and Grandpa is loving it.

It was not a bad thing to have a change of scenery, but it was good to get home.  I got to see my granddaughter, one of my rays of sunshine, and do a few errands.  Back by my fireplace, with a pot of chili on the stove.  It doesn't get much better.

October's Mid Point

It is truly and fully autumn here now.  The trees are beautiful.  We had about a week of deer visitors, coming more than once a day right into our yard, before bow hunting season began and they disappeared again into the woods.   We didn’t think we would see them again for another month or so, but a doe and 3 fawns stopped by yesterday.  The doe was anxious and tried to keep out of sight, but the fawns were right up in the yard and not at all concerned about baby George pounding on the window.  We enjoy watching them so much.  It surprised me to learn that people can apply for permits to hunt them with bow and arrow even here within the city limits.  I am not opposed to hunting in theory, but I am feeling very protective of “our” deer!

It has been cold and damp this week and I am piling on the clothes.  Already we can see that our heat bill will be significantly higher than last year — and it isn’t even cold yet! —  so my stack of quilts and fleece is welcome.  I know I would stay warmer if I were more active so that can be one of my goals going forward into the really cold weather that is still ahead of us.  

    

                                                    

After months of procrastination, I spent a couple of hours (literally a COUPLE of hours) in my sewing room this week and finished off two quilt tops that had been pushed off to the side.  It is shameful how much energy I put into avoiding work that is so quickly and easily done.  Chauffeuring and other duties took most of the week, which I do not mind a bit, but I hope that I will get my going going again in the next few days.  I keep planning projects, no matter how few I do, and they are stacking up.  I am close to the tipping point so it’s definitely time to get some projects finished and off the list!

I am still feeling a bit sleep deprived.  My daughter has had some extra struggles lately, with her own health issues and her partner in the hospital for cancer treatment; we are trying to figure out what we can do to help, and I am waking up nightly with questions and ideas.  The long distance between us complicates things, of course.  I am reminding myself that this, like all times, will pass, but so far that hasn’t helped me sleep through the night.

My older grands both had homecoming games and dances this month, and it is such a joy for me to see how they have grown up when I can get them to send me photos (which, so far, only one of them has done)!  They seem to be taking advantage of all the fun things their schools have to offer, and I enjoy it all vicariously.  I never went to any of my “special” school events, and watching them feels a little like a second chance, so I guess they are my Fountain of Youth!   But truly, never in my life did I look so elegant and grown up as they do.  I hope they are all as confident and comfortable with themselves as they appear, I can think of no better gift as they go forward.