Fancy

My long time pal, Kathy, and I have had a running conversation over some months about our kitchens.  I subscribe to the theory that a room we spend so much time in must be attractive and be filled with attractive and useful tools.  In short, I like it when the things I use make me smile.

The kitchen in this house is an unusual shape.  Our house has an angle in it and one wing of the angle forms a kitchen wall.  That means the room does not have four ninety degree corners; it's a trapezoid, with a peninsula in the middle of it which contains the sink.  When we bought the house over twelve years ago, the kitchen was the room that needed the most immediate attention. We've done a lot:  stripped wallpaper, put up bead board, taken down cupboards over the peninsula, redone the lights and counter tops, and the work continues.

In our last house, the original sink was avocado green, and I hated it except for one thing; I absolutely loved its configuration.  The right side was huge and deep, and the left was small and shallow with a garbage disposal attached.  We replaced it with an almond sink of the same style.  This house had an almond sink, but it was the conventional two, same size, both useless, basins.  When we redid the counter tops, we replaced it with the style I loved and added a new faucet, also in almond.  I liked the look, and liked that I didn't have to continually buff it to get rid of hard water spots because of our well water.  

Fast forward a few years, and we made the discovery that our lovely water ate away at the almond finish on the new faucet, causing it to chip away in places.  In November, Dan completely redid our water softener system and we no longer have pipe and faucet eating iron in our water, so today he installed a bee-u-ti-ful new faucet.  It's pewter colored to match the door pulls on my new cookbook cupboard (we're nothing if not coordinated here at the Resort).  

Pretty fancy, huh?  It looks great from any angle, and yes, it makes me smile.  

Memories of Christmas

We had a quiet Christmas here at the resort.  My parents, ages eighty-eight and eighty-six drove up and arrived early in the afternoon of Christmas Eve.  There is a new bakery in my little hometown, and they came bearing yummy apple fritters for an immediate treat, and almond scones for Christmas morning breakfast.  We boiled a kettle and sat down for the fritters and tea.  Oh the deliciousness!  

We visited over the afternoon, some secret Santa work transpired, and Dan's friend Dennis stopped by to say hello to Mom and Dad.  Dad worked with Dennis in the '80's and has known him longer than Dan has.  We cooked up a pot of meat, potatoes and carrots with gravy and enjoyed dinner with salad and lemon pie.  

Ann, Eric and the boys came by to see Great Papa and Gigi, visit, and exchange gifts about 7:30, and we got several pictures of the littlest man with the great grandparents.

Here's Gigi and Daniel:    

And Great Papa and Daniel:

We enjoyed a leisurely morning of presents and scones (highly recommend!), and then Mom and Dad treated us to a lovely dinner at the Broiler.  Dan, Dad, and I chose the turkey dinner and pumpkin pie, while Mom chose the ham dinner and pecan pie.  Mom and I also had an incredibly delicious spinach salad for the first course, while the guys had shrimp bisque.  It was fabulous to leave the dishes behind and drive away.  After a little more visiting, Mom and Dad loaded up their Jeep and headed back home.  

Monday night, Dan and I packed up our Explorer with presents and drove over to Ann and Eric's for pizza and Christmas with them.  Such a fun evening we had!  I got an aebelskiver pan and cookbook (I'll post more another time), Dan got tools, the boys got toys, Ann got a new springform pan and a Willow Tree figurine, and Eric got an air compressor.  Happiness abounded! 

Here are some photos to document the evening:

Serious present opening:

Bashful Keaton:

Brothers:

Cameron with a completed Lego robot:

Another Christmas has come and gone, but the memories are tucked away, and we have Jesus with us every day!

The Rest of the Story

I know you're all wondering if I have recovered from my relentless stream (or so it seemed to me) of illness just before Christmas.  I am relieved to say that I have. However, I'm steering clear of salsa and other spicy foods for a while yet.  

It does appear it was the water, or something in it, that caused many of us to get sick last Monday night.  The details are sketchy, but the evidence seems to point that way.  The good news is that by the time my tummy was feeling better my cold seemed to have run its course.  

Dan, bless his heart, held down the fort and even made a trip to the woods to cut our tree.  He came home saying it was the best he could do, but I think it's one of the most gorgeous trees we've ever had!  While it's not as full as he would have liked, its shape is perfect!  I just love looking at it.  Here he is putting on the lights (take note of the chair):

And the finished product:

While he was putting on the lights, the wrapped presents were stacked around the fireplace to await their placing under the tree.  

When Dan was done with the lights and the garland, I began hanging the ornaments and then went to the kitchen to start some cookies.  I heard him yelp that the tree was tipping so I hurried back to the living room to help.  Remember that chair?  I had scooted it toward the opening to the hall while I was decorating and as I moved in to help Dan, I took a step back, caught my foot in the legs of the chair and tumbled backwards into the pile of presents, smashing several of them.  I will draw the curtain on the scene that followed.  We were able to salvage the presents with new wrapping, and, as they say, the show went on.  At least I didn't throw up and the gouge on my arm and the bruise on my backside are healing.  

Speaking of Unplanned Events...

Does getting the stomach flu count?  Monday night I started feeling strange, and finally thought maybe I was feeling like, well, you know.  And then I did.  Now, I rarely get the stomach flu, so this was totally unexpected. Ugh.

Yesterday I was finally feeling like joining the living and so I called Ann.  Turns out she and Keaton both came down with it the same night.  And so did others.  We think it was the lemons or limes that were in the water at an event at church Sunday night.

Ah well, we're all recovering and it's still several days until Christmas.

An Unexpected Date

Dan and I were both finally feeling pretty good yesterday, so he invited me to dinner.  I'm a smart girl--I said yes! We bundled up and drove downtown to our favorite Mexican restaurant.  We ordered chicken fajitas to share (hey, we've both been sick, those germs have already been shared) and enjoyed every last bite. They were extra delicious.  

As we left, we were "discussing" where we'd parked when we were suddenly surrounded by laughing people.  It was old friends and former neighbors John and Cyndi, their son Andrew, and another person we knew.  They'd been trying to get our attention and finally just moved in and stopped us.  

After a few hugs and more laughing, they mentioned they were going across the street to a showing of It's A Wonderful Life and asked if we'd like to join them.  Why, yes, we would!  While we were eating we'd noticed the marquee on the one of our town's historic theaters had it listed for a special weekend showing, and had mentioned that maybe we should go Saturday night, but then remembered we had a party to attend at five.  Problem solved!  (Don't ask why didn't think of going last night on our own.  We just had that discussion and decided the answer was, well, we don't know.  Maybe we thought it was too late to go?)

As we approached the theater, we were surprised and delighted to note they had carolers singing, and singing beautifully!  How fun!  Inside, which has been beautifully restored, we were offered free hot chocolate and popcorn in the foyer.  Better and better!  We all settled in and throughly enjoyed this wonderful, classic movie.  Each of us had seen it a number of times, but all of us were too young to have seen it on the "big screen" when it first came out.  What a wonderful, totally unplanned Christmas treat!   

Cough, Cough...

Yes, we here at the Resort have fallen prey to the dreaded cold, or 'flu.  Dan has had it for well over a week, and Friday I came down with it.  Buy stock in Kleenex!!

Hope to be back tomorrow, feeling better and with some pictures...or something.  Ahh choo!!  Sniff, sniff...

A Christmas of Yesteryear

Christmas of 1955 has been mentioned here (and here) before, but evidently it was a well photographed Christmas because I have more photos and another story to tell.  

In addition to the dolls I got, I also got a little baking set, complete with pans and cake mixes.  These were meant to be baked in a regular oven; there was no Easy Bake Oven in those days (in fact, I just googled it and apparently it made its debut in 1963).  

A day or so after Christmas, I made my first cake and had my picture taken with it.  You can tell that I am quite happy with the results.  

My brother was just three at the time and asked to have his picture taken with it as well.  Please note that in the following picture, he is not looking at the photographer. Please note, too, where the fingers of his left hand are.  

Yes, my little brother was looking to see where I was, and his little hand was preparing to lift that cake from the plate so that he could have a little bite of it.  And yes, he did get a bite.  Poor Bruder Bear, he has taken much grief for this over the years--apparently I was was not too thrilled with his getting the first bite of my first cake.  If I could do it all over again, I'd definitely share it with him!  

A couple of notes on the pictures:  That darling checked dress I'm wearing?  It was red and white and just one of the many lovely Christmas dresses my mom made me over the years.    

If you look closely at my brother's right leg (you can click on the picture and make it a little bigger), you'll see what looks like some type of string around his leg.  It's the tie down to the toy gun and holster he got that Christmas and always wore after that.  :-)  Ahh, the '50's and the era of Davy Crocket and all those cowboy shows on TV. "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear..."  -- The Lone Ranger