Just need to talk to my friends (192)

Prayers for Sarah, and her husband and you, Lorita. We know you’re worried .

Cold and windy and dreary here today but we have a Birthday supper planned for my oldest daughter, she is 45 today! Cooking enough for everyone to take leftovers home and have for lunch tomorrow.

After church tomorrow we are driving to Hartselle for fence posts- again- but they’re 6 foot tall and only $3 each so it’s a good deal. I may pack us a little “truck”picnic rather than fast food after church. Tomorrow is supposed to be the prettiest day of the week. Hope everyone is doing as well as possible and staying warm.

Lorita, I did not know she was so young. Truly heartbreaking xo

Prayers going up for Sarah, she's had a tough time.

Lorita I'm happy for you getting a new car. I know how glad I am with mine. No, the Yorkie is not mine, she just brought her when she came over. I did keep her a couple of days when she went out of town. The little thing would come running over to me everytime the sitter came over. So sweet and easy to get attached to. I told the sitter to take off as much as needed that I would make out ok.

Ron

Cold and damp again today.

Eating a sloppy Joe. I bought a mix in a jar. I won’t buy it again, but I forced myself to eat it all and I’m on the last round. I think I make a much tastier sloppy Joe.

I think you said you get your car tomorrow Lorita. That will be nice.

Happy New Year's greetings to all my front porch friends! I'm getting to old to be hitting the floor thinking the fireworks are incoming mortars. Wonder why it bothers ne so much in my senior years? When Lou and I was raising our boys, I didn't think anything about it.

Lou's sitter is suppose to be back today, I'll go to the store and pick up pork chops and cabbage. I already have black eyed peas and will make some cornbread. Hopefully it will be a quiet day!

Ron

Ah, the Tupperware. I stumbled onto two boxes full of the stuff. All with black lids....really good looking.

Did not get to the wrapping paper mess yesterday so I guess that is today's activity.

Wishing all my friends on the porch a peaceful 2024.

@ronald71111 I am sorry to hear of the passing of your dear little yorkie buddy. Such a young pup to lose. I wonder if the difference is about viewing them as an experience vs just hearing them.

Fireworks just annoy me in the hands of non-professionals. It's dangerous and just irresponsible. At our old house a neighbor would set a raft in the creek to launch on the 4th of July but he injured a young girl once with one that flew sideways and never did it again. Our previous neighbor had fireworks for all occasions. He was a menace that set off every dog in the area-- I was glad when he moved away. Of course, I happen to live across a 2-lane highway with the police station and county LE firing range built after we moved in. It's not so bad this time of year, but once it warms up it seems they all come to practice ahead of annual testing on their various weapons. I hate it. The motorcycle squads also practice on their Harleys when the weather is nice. I miss when they sent the handsome young athletic ones in shorts out on mountain bikes cutting through my back yard. But alas, no more.

@Lorita I do hope you get some positive news from Todd and Sarah soon. Good luck with the new car tomorrow.

@dayn2nite2 It sounds like your healing is going well. It must be a relief to be able to manage the dog walking on your own.

@loveskitties That is quite the bountiful display. I bet the gathering was a blast. Does your family do all serious or useful things or do the go rogue with funny things too?

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Roast pork and sauerkraut here today. I'm thinking spätzle and applesauce as sides. I got a massive pork loin at Costco that was marked $18 with an additional $8 off. Any cheaper and they would have paid me to take it off their hands. DS wants a burrito bowl from Chipotle, so I'll grab that on the way from home collecting mom. Mom made a lemon pound cake which will make my DH very happy. However, she's misplaced the beaters to her hand mixer. She says she's torn the house apart looking for them but she's so short I'm guessing they may have gotten put away on the second shelf towards the back with the mixer itself. Or maybe on the 3rd rack of the dishwasher. I seem to think I may have put them there when I was loading the dishwasher before I left. If not, I can order the genuine Kitchen Aid replacements on Amazon or Target and have them by Thursday. She last used them Christmas Eve; I suspect my niece's friend put them away. Knowing this girl, it's probably a more logical place than mom would pick.

We did our NYE celebration a day early which means I was in bed last night by 9pm. A day early worked out great-- we were able to order off the full menu, we had the small dining room with a fireplace to ourselves and it was less than half the price of NYE. It was a little weird the first year, but it's actually better all around. DH tried to stay up until DS came home from a party but gave it up just after midnight.

Catching up on phone calls and reaching out to friends between loads of laundry. So much laundry. It's been a rough holiday for a number of my people IRL. My mom is sad and feels slighted that my dad's brother didn't reach out around the holidays to check in. They used to be quite close when they were younger. I encouraged her to call him for their mutual birthday back in February. He couldn't talk long but promised to come see her and maybe have lunch together. Since then? Crickets. I'm not really surprised; I'm not really a fan. But I suspect either he or his wife are having health issues. Mom always thinks of him as a kid, but he's 80 now. He's one to keep his own counsel, so I wouldn't expect a call if one of them is seriously ill. I ran into him about a year ago and it looked to me as though he might have Parkinson's.

A friend shared that her nephew and his family were badly injured in an accident on Christmas. The two younger boys have been released from the hospital, but the oldest and the dad are on ventilators and the nephew and his wife have been in surgery a couple of times. It doesn't sound good for either dad or the oldest boy. So sad.

Another friend's spoiled stepdaughter derailed her brother and sister's (and the spouses and grands) visit to their dad's for the first time ever on the west coast by planning what she's calling an "elopement" in FL last weekend. It's really an inconveniently planned destination wedding. This meant rescheduling plane tickets around the holidays and booking an Airbnb at a considerable cost. The flower girl granddaughter and her uncle both came down with Noro virus and suffered mightily traveling. They recovered in time for the wedding, but my friend came down with symptoms and missed the wedding entirely. The punchline to this superspreader event is that last she heard but bride and groom have tested positive for COVID. I wonder how many others got sick as well.

My bestie and I met in a random Chik-Fil-A parking lot after my Costco run. This is her first holiday as a widow. She's been keeping busy and has been able to put a brave face on but is crashing as I suspected she would. She's immunodeficient, so she needs to always mask and folks don't always understand. She's more isolated than is good for her. She's OK outside which is why we have these furtive meet-ups at parks, the feed store and such to touch base. Her grief looks like anger right now and it's almost all directed at her daughter (my godchild) which is kind of unfair. I don't know if my godchild thinks her mom is doing better than she is because she avoids people when she's down, or if the girl just doesn't get it or if she's so unhappy in her own marriage that she's avoiding distressing her mom with that. Her husband is not anyone I would have picked for her. He's kind of a jerk. I did try to talk reason to my friend but she's in so much pain it's not helping. She needs to be honest and tell her daughter what she'd like from her. They're both great people and very close, so this craziness is hard to watch.

HB

More on Christmas at Mother's:

We have some traditions such as Mother gives each of her great grands and great great grands a special ornament which opens and of course contains a bit of paper money...lol.

Most are a fan of Chex Party mix...with particular combinations of ingredients, so my daughter made sure each got what they "ordered" this year.

I give each person a gift and try to make a game out of how they are distributed. If I know they want or need something in particular and it is in the budget, I will get them that, otherwise they have been known to get some crazy but interesting things! This was a big book year this time for a number of the adults. In past years, I had had my 2 youngest grands as helpers. This year it was passed on the 2 oldest great grands and they loved it.

This year my daughter added the Saran wrap game...you create a large ball of Saran wrap with prizes at various levels...each person then tries to get to a prize when it is their turn...all this done while wearing oven mitts! Everyone had lots of laughs with that.

Always a good time had by all.