DD Daughter - December 1979

Word of the Day (Week)

Slavor - To slurp ones soup, coffee, eggs, or dessert in an attempt to enhance the flavor or increase the brief time period in which the food can be savored.

Well, CARP! It takes longer to nurture good habits than to destroy them. Daily blogs are becoming very difficult for me to maintain. It's going to take a while to nurture my blog back into full gear. However, one must at least try.

No excuses but things have been rather busy around here. I've been trying to get into a Christmas mood. HTP and I are going to be doing the empty nest thing this year. Just HTP and me. It's been kind of hard to get into the mood. However, DD Daughter, Sarge, and #1 Son bought HTP and me tickets to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra here in Arizona...an early Christmas present. Wow! It was great! Our seats were right up front. HTP was really watching the guitarists as their fingers flew over the strings. The show was spectacular. And? It jump-started my Christmas mood.

So...I wrote my annual Christmas letter...first draft. HTP took that draft and as Editor and Chief, he edited it. We printed out our final draft, got our address lists checked twice and I "think" I've got all the Christmas cards in the mail. Of course, it seems, that there are always those few that come back undeliverable or those few that we "forgot" to send but...I think I've completed the Christmas card portion of our Christmas preparations.

Christmas shopping? Well...HTP and I are already enjoying the Christmas present we bought for each other. I've completed all of my online shopping. As for the rest of my gifts, I planned to start my Christmas baking today. Unfortunately...

We got a monsoon-style storm that hit our area last night. The wind howled through the Arizona, bringing lots of snow...but not here. We got all the wind and LOTS of desert dust and a half inch of rain. The half inch of rain was greatly appreciated, but, I could have done without the layer of dust that coated my patio, including my grill, my patio furniture and clogging my fountain. Dust?

I WAS going to spend my day baking Christmas goodies. Instead, I spent the day shoveling, scraping, and sweeping "dust" from my patio and from the walkway in front of my house. Dust? It's amazing how the word "dust" seem to quite fit what I always end up removing after one of our Arizona "dust storms". Big mistake? I should have removed all of my patio cushions and stored them in the relative safety of my garage. When I woke up this morning, every cushion looked like it had been dyed the same color. Desert brown. The top of my mosaic table was a uniform desert brown. The water in my fountain was...desert brown. My grey concrete patio was...as desert brown. Dust? We're talking a fine silt...kind of like pancake makeup. Because it was a bit damp...I had pancake makeup sticking to everything. It took me a couple of hours to just sweep off the first layer of this stuff. I've got to wait for a couple more days before I can bring out my shop-vac so I can vacuum up the rest of the mess. And then...HTP will have to wash everything down with the hose. And then? We just might have another "dust" storm coming by the weekend. I'm not sure what they (Indian reservation land) plan to grow in that empty field just south of us where all the dust came from (the state just paid for and installed a special irrigation system)but I'm afraid that me and my neighbors just ended up sweeping up and disposing off most of the topsoil from that field.

Despite the major weather and its resultant mess, I did manage to bake two stollen today. Yesterday? I put up a new artificial Christmas tree that I bought on Sunday...on sale. Cheap. And, yes, Virginia, you get what you pay for. However, our old Charlie Brown tree had seen better days. However, as I said, you get what you pay for. As I was putting this six-foot tree together, branches were coming off in my hands. At the price I paid, there was no pre-installed lighting. I decided to buy some of those new LED lights which aren't supposed to use so much electricity. So far...so good. I've got my new tree up and decorated. Even at six-feet, it's a bit short so I set it up on a chair. However, HTP says it looks nice. Gypsy hasn't complained.

So....why bother putting up a tree when it's just me and HTP this year? Celebrating Christmas without a tree is kind of like celebrating the 4th of July without fireworks. And...following that line of reasoning...Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without Christmas cookies....which...I've got my baking list and I've checked it twice. I'll be baking Jan Hagel tomorrow....if we don't get hit by a plague of locusts. I plan to turn on the surround sound, crank up the Christmas music, heat up the oven and concentrate on Christmas baking...knock on wood.

Random Thought of the Day

If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)