Yum Yum V - The Last Supper

Yesterday was busy, y'all!

Got up a little past weekday time (6:40 am) to take Oscar to get his claws trimmed at the vet at 8:00 am. (We do not want want a repeat of the ingrown dewclaw incident of October past.) Then we scooted to work (right next door) to get the information for a CD that sold on Amazon and to the PO to mail it. Oscar's so good in the car, he settles in his carrier and doesn't make a peep.

Back home, while Oscar huffed around reestablishing his dominance, (lest anyone forgot in the 45 minutes he was gone, heh), I rearranged the furniture, and... put it right back.

A three mile walk was next, then to Dogstar for a tattoo photo shoot now that it's completely healed; back home for a couple of hours, and finally, Yum Yum Supper Club for the last supper.

The first course:
-House cured Ham salad on benne seed cracker, soft herb salad (so good)
-Deviled farm egg, fried Ashley farms chicken skins, hot sauce (so good x two)
-Cornmeal cake, Ashe county cheddar pimento cheese, pickled celery hearts,
-Buttermilk biscuit, local apple jam, aged white cheddar

There were fantastic drinks involving moonshine, chai, ginger beer, lavender syrup, rosemary, bourbon and a bunch of other stuff in various combinations. Plus beer from Fullsteam and wine. 

Second course was a delicious watercress salad with honey roasted beets, toasted pecans, goat cheese, and grapefruit.

Third course: sausages in a yummy red bean concoction served over rice.

Fourth course: salted chocolate chess pie with caramel sauce (straw please!) and whipped cream. Holy mother of pearl was that good.

I didn't take any pictures of the food. Took lots of the decorations instead.

Today is definitely a pajama day!

Fairy lights on the floor

Balloons and paper lanterns

Reflection of the lanterns in the window - with flash

Reflection - without flash

January Resolutions

Three quarters of the way through the month, some of us may be flagging in our "purge and organize!" resolve. Enter apartmenttherapy.com.

I love this website so much I signed up for the daily email; I do not that kind of thing lightly. And in spite of its name - it's not just for apartment dwellers, so don't be put off if you live in a house.

For the month of January, they are focusing on what they call The January Cure - a daily dose of
decluttering tips and diaries of people who are fighting the good fight.

My charge for the year of 2013? Bring in less! Each time a big bag of stuff goes to Goodwill, I am struck by how I NEEDED each of the items in the bag. Ugh. So, # 2 (the Time Rule) and # 5 (Think Before You Buy) are my new rules of thumb.

There are house tours, a "Looky Lou's" treasure trove of voyeurism (or as my friend E. calls it - house porn); before and afters; and food. There's also Budget Living, Green Living, and DIY projects (loved this Ikea counter top turned into a desk project.)

Check it out. Maybe it will be just the shot in the arm you need to keep up the fight against clutter and save money!

More Love Letters

The other night I was reading The Guardian and came across an article about a woman who, when she was feeling down, wrote an encouraging letter and left it for a total stranger to find. Her TED talk is very encouraging.

Her site is www.moreloveletters.com. If you're feeling low, click on the Found Letters link, grab a Kleenex, and start reading. It will restore your faith in humankind (hopefully).

About a million years ago, I was part of a three-month leadership program. On the last weekend of the program we all wrote "rainy day letters" to each person we had been in intense fellowship with over the past three months. I still have all of mine; they are still important to me twenty years later.

More Love Letters project reminds me of our rainy day letters. Another thing from those three months - one person makes a difference. That also applies to Hannah Brencher, the founder of MLL.

Needlessly to say, I LOVE this idea. So today, once the ice slick melted, I drug myself to the library to return some movies, (the cold I had a couple of weeks ago has reared its crappy head again), and expressly went in TJ Maxx looking for cards to participate in the love letter writing - found the perfect cards!

I'm excited to start spreading the LOVE!

New Neighbors

I have been very lucky in my home owning life, all of my neighbors have been great. We look out for each other, pick up mail, mow lawns when the others can't, things like that.

The house diagonally across the street from me was for sale for over a year. Last week I noticed the sign was down and assumed they took it off the market until spring. Then yesterday, two cars were in the driveway and I surmised it had sold (or rented). Sure enough, signs of life started to appear - people cleaning windows, trimming bushes in the front yard, truckloads of furniture were unloaded, and...dun, dun, dun...a dog was heard.

The dog, (a beagle, my least favorite breed ever), could be heard, with the door and windows closed, in my bedroom in the back of the house. The temperature in these parts in the middle of this January is about 70 degrees, which means storm doors and windows were open, so you can well imagine.

O.M.G.

Beagles don't bark, they bay. Hunting dogs, they're bred to be heard over long distances. My uncle in Georgia had a pack of the standard size. When I was three, for no reason apparent to me, as I walked up the porch steps, one came out from under the house and bit me; the reason they're not my favorite, aside from the noise.


This is a very dog friendly neighborhood; there's a dog next door, across the street, up the street is Samson, the blue nosed pit (a lovely gentleman), Jane, (the former home owner), had three dogs. But they are all well behaved, quiet dogs.

They got a pass yesterday; you're moving furniture, the doors are open, you're keeping the dog in the backyard out of the way, I get it. But the barking went on for HOURS (why do dogs not ever seem to lose their voice?!). Where other people say - awww, poor dog, I just want it to STFU. NOW.


Noise affects me viscerally. As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), I am "...more overaroused by levels of sensory stimulation that do not bother others." People near me sneezing suddenly, high pitched whistling, those f%*&ing cars with the loud bass speakers, repetitive sounds (dogs barking), many people talking at one time - I literally feel those things in my body. In the case of many people talking at once, I hear ALL the conversations. I cannot turn some off and only hear one. It creates a flight or fight response and makes me instantly pissed off; it hurts my head and my stomach.

Yesterday afternoon, my stomach and neck got tighter and tighter as the hours wore on. I imagined several really inappropriate scenarios involving punching.

Anon CP kept me semi-distracted texting about our shared Viking ancestry - inventing hand signs and a motto.

Finally, after about four or five hours (an eternity!), it stopped.

This morning I saw three motorcycles being unloaded.

Oh joy!

Thinking About Aunt Florida

I didn't know Aunt Florida well, due to the nomadic life we lived, but my impression was of kindness, and full on Southern Lady, old school style.

She reminded me of a bird; one of those pert, sparkly-eyed sparrows, who cock their heads in your direction and seem to sum you up in a nanosecond. She was on the tall side and always slim.

She had the snow white crown of hair that all the women in her family had/have (where I inherited mine). Her brothers, who had glorious heads of thick wavy dark hair in their youth were bald later on.

Out of the nine children born to my great grandmother, only are three left. All women.

1930

100 Years, 3 Months, 1 Day

That's how old my grand aunt Florida was when she died yesterday.

Until the end, she lived in her own home, sandwiched by her daughter on one side and namesake granddaughter on the other.

Her sight was dimmed (she would have to get right up to you to see who you were), but she had all her faculties and got around on her own two feet, using a cane to steady herself.

I can attest to her amazingly strong grip, as she held onto my arm at Mom's funeral and cut off the circulation a little. Heh.

She was a lovely woman.

Rest in peace Aunt Florida. Say hi to everyone for us.

Taken on her 100th birthday

Sh%t Southern Women Say

This is pretty funny. And okay, I have said most of these things more than once (except the "Paul Ryan is sexy" bit. I have never said that. Heh.).

To give credit where credit is due, this came from Anon CP's [male] third cousin.