Guess Who's Coming to Town

Not Santa Claus - not just yet anyway.  Vicki!!!!!

She'll be here tomorrow night.  Then we will know Christmas is really here.

Cucumber Sandwiches

Are there words worthy of describing how wonderful these are?  I think not.  Mamaw has been making these for years.  She has always made them for New Year's Eve or any bridal/baby shower that she had to contribute to.  Tonight she made them for Circle meeting at church.  Squirt and I love them -- so Mamaw made us our own stash of them.  They are so simple that I hesitate to even post a "recipe."  She takes "white" bread and trims the crust off and then cuts out circles.  She peels and slices her cucumbers.  Then she assembles these little darlings  with a thick layer of mayonnaise (it MUST be JFG), a little sprinkle of onion salt, and a healthy shake of cayenne pepper.  If you can resist them for about 30 minutes or so, they are even better.

Cucumber Sandwiches
white sandwich bread, crust trimmed and cut in circles
cucumbers
onion salt
cayenne pepper

Trust me -- these are SO GOOD! 

Magic Bowl(s)

Several years ago, I inherited Memaw Jennie's mixing bowls. There are 3 of them, and they have been in my cabinet all this time. I finally decided I needed to be using them. Gosh, I love them. She created magic with these mixing bowls. I can remember her mixing up her wonderful light rolls in the biggest bowl, and then letting the dough rise while lightly covered with a dish towel. I have tried to recreate those magical light rolls but haven't mastered it. I think I'm getting close, but no cigar yet.

Tonight, I mixed up chocolate chip cookies. They turned out fabulous! I'm sure that magical bowl had something to do with how wonderful they were. And for the record, I ate all my allotted cookies before they were baked. :D

PANIC and More Hidden Treasures

I'm almost in a panic. There is so much to do and so little time. There is shopping still to be done and TONS of wrapping. The dining room will serve as the central wrapping station (as always), and right now it is a complete disaster. I have spent most of my Saturday busting tail getting this house ready for Vicki and Joseph on Wednesday, but the dining room is still a mess.

Before I tackled my house, We went to Mamaw's this morning and finished decorating her tree and helped her get her house ready for some visitors this evening. She had plans with Harrell and Molly, some of their dearest friends. Mama and Daddy have spent many anniversaries with them over the years (they shared the same wedding date). They have taken trips to Dollywood and the Outer Banks together, and lots of trips out for breakfast and across the state line to Canaan, Virginia. I'm so glad she is planning to get together with them tonight.

After that, I came home and we got going on our house. I washed clothes, vacuumed, took the shower curtain from the kids' bathroom outside and scrubbed it, finished the decorating, blah blah blah. A day of chores but the house is clean now and ready for our guests, assuming they don't venture into the dining room. ha ha!

Anyway, I wanted to talk about LAST Saturday because it was a lot more fun. First off, it snowed last Saturday. The first snow of the season. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it sure was pretty. We actually were back at Mamaw's house last Saturday too. She wanted to put her Christmas tree up so the kids got all her boxes out and I came up a little later to help decorate. She had decided that she wants to put ALL her ornaments up this year which really excites me. In years past, for whatever reason, Daddy never liked her decorating for Christmas. It wasn't that he was a scrooge, but he never seemed to understand the excitement we had for pulling all the ornaments out. We now wonder if they were so poor growing up that maybe Christmas wasn't a time of joy for him and his sisters like it is for us today. Anyway, for whatever the reason, Mamaw would oblige and only put out minimal decorations. But not this year -- she's ready to go all the way. So as we were putting the ornaments on the tree, I asked her where her wooden ornaments were that I remember so well from my childhood. She said they may be up in the attic. We finally talked Papa Bear into going up in the attic and looking for more decorations. As it turns out, her wooden ornaments weren't in the attic, but we found some other treasures. Apparently when my grandmother passed away (my Daddy's mother), he inherited a few items. According to Mamaw, they were put up in the attic in 1981 when Grandma died and never looked at again. We found several boxes that I can hardly wait to go through, but a few things we found that I immediately brought home were this old wooden cane and a pair of eyeglasses.



There was a piece of tape on the cane that said "Mr. Ladd - please return." We are sure that it belonged to my Daddy's daddy who died when he was only 11. We can't imagine where he borrowed it from though. Squirt loves the cane and has claimed it already. The eyeglasses belonged to Grandma Fuchsia. I love them. I'm positive I have seen her in pictures with those glasses on. According to google, they were popular in the '50's. Very stylish, I'm sure, back in the day. Scooby snagged them right up.

I love finding stuff like that. There are more boxes to go through. We'll probably tackle that project after Christmas. Sure wish we would find the wooden ornaments!

My Day at the North Pole

(All photos courtesy of the Internet.)

Me, Teeter, and Harley Girl met up at 8:00 a.m. here:


Approximately $500 and 2 1/2 hours later, we needed a snack:


And a thirst quencher for the road:


And then headed here:


But we had about a half-hour of this:


Hours of shopping there resulted in this:


And a much-needed this:


Rejuvenated, we tackled this:


With a quick stop in here:


And success for me in here:


We then moved on to here:


And quickly slid in and out of here:


Wearing down, we headed in here:


No trip to the North Pole is complete without a trip to the local junk, I mean salvage store:


Exhausted, we called it a day and headed back to reality. We never made it to here:


or here:


nor here:



or here:


or even here for BOG2 shrimp:


Once home, after feeding the troops this:
(for Squirt)


(for Scooby)


(for Papa Bear)


I had a little bit of this:




And washed it down with this:


A day full of fun! This MUST become a tradition! And with that thought, I'm off to bed!