Gardening Dreams

 

They time it just right.  Some time between Christmas and New Years the Burpee catalog arrives in my mail box.  

It's a spirit booster, those wonderful pictures of flowers and vegetables, with the tempting new varieties.  

I loved the little yellow squash that grew on a bush last summer - will it work as well next summer with small watermelon that climb on a trellis?

And a late flowering basil?  My neighbor and I definitely need to share that seed packet.  He makes the best basil pesto.

And that deep, deep purple morning glory - oh my goodness.  

It's the season for gardening dreams.

Flowers

 

Thanks to my neighbor for this wonderful bouquet.  It started out like a regular florall bouquet, then this lily started opening, and it's huge, with another that will be following behind it.  My neighbor said she got it at Trader Joes. 

The same neighbor just took out my trash and recycling cans.  When I'm mobile I'll be taking her out for a nice lunch.

My North Carolina family got home at midnight last night.  I miss them, of course, but I'm glad they are safely back home.

The first day after company leaves is always a tired day, but navigating  with the walker is going much better and most of the exercises are as well.  There will be PT again in the morning.

And tomorrow New Year's Eve.

Tradition

Tradition - the car is packed, good-bye's have been said - and then someone says, "Wait, we need to take the picture."  And so we do.

And then the car rolled up the hill and the Christmas visit was over.  

The house is way too quiet, of course.  The refrigerator is full of good things for the week ahead, the presents are all unwrapped.

I have new Christmas pajamas to wear to bed tonight, along with many, many other nice gifts.  

The little dogs are no longer looking out the window waiting for dogs and people to bark at.

The single bathroom in my house is empty.  There are no plans being made.  No on-line after Christmas shopping.  No sisters' nights that may or may not involve a bottle of Tito's.

No Bengals do or die games for another week

It's been the best.

The Point of This Picture

 

The point of this picture isn't me in my living room chair again,  the highlight is the bowl of pimento cheese that Winnie made.  And, of course, the two little hopeful dogs, since they like a little taste of most anything that is good for dogs.

If you get Southern Living, you can find Roselynn Carter's recipe in the December issue.  It's just so, so good.  Highly recommend.

It's been a beautiful December day.  Since there is only one step down to my back porch, I was able to sit outside for a while and that was good for my soul.  Sarah very nicely even blow the debris off the porch and carried out my bed  room chair.  Fifty-nine degrees.

For one bright shining moment I thought I could surely make it down the steps and into the car for an evening drive to look at the lights.  When I got back up that one step I decided that wasn't such a good idea.

***Sometimes it's hard to be a Bengals fan, but a win is a win, and a big win is even better.

Barbie Night

 Last night was family Barbiie movie night, complete with pink flowers for the occasion.  And popcorn and snacks, of course.

Nora had seen it twice before, Winnie once before, and the rest of us not at all.  And we all enjoyed it.

There was PT yesterday as well, with a few new exercises added.  And one stair step, just one.

The tech from the eye doctor's office called this morning, saying that the doctor wouldn't be in the office on Monday and asked if we could change my scheduled appointment to the following Monday.  That's fine with me, it will give me an extra week to get stronger, with less effort to navigate the steps.

I woke up during the night worrying about projects that I hadn't been able to focus on.  So this morning I tried to make a dent in a few of those before I started on the NYT word puzzles.   Mini, Spelling Bee, Wordle, and Connections, in that order.  Does anyone else love those?

Change of Plans

 

Little visiting dogs on the Purple People Bridge this morning.  

As the name implies, the bridge is only used for people these days, and it's painted purple.  Opened in 1872 as a railroad bridge connecting Newport, KY, and Cincinnati, it's decorated with lights at Christmas.

Our Christmas Chinese take out dinner yesterday was delightful, but not as planned.  Our go-to Chinese restaurant was closed - we should have remembered that - and we selected another one close by.  We'd ordered ahead but the restaurant was swamped, even doing carry out only, and our order wasn't ready and wouldn't be for more than an hour.

Time for a back story - last Christmas my daughters had Covid.  Fairly mild, so they went for a solitary hike then started thinking about food.  They ended up Door Dashing from a local Indian restaurant because that was what they could find open.

So it only seemed appropriate this year to order appetizers from the Indian restaurant, to be picked up with the Chinese food.  Since the Chinese food wasn't ready we ate the Indian appetizers, then went back for the Chinese order.

Which was perfect.

Christmas Is Here

 

Merry Christmas Everyone.  

May your day be merry and bright.

May your heart be light.

Christmas Eve

 The last minute wrapping flurry is happening.  The family Christmas will begin in two hours.

Tonight there will be pizza and cookies, tomorrow Chinese take-out.  And it will all be just right  Who doesn't love pizza and Chinese?

When I was a child we would gather at my grandmother's.  We would wait impatiently for my dad to finish milking so we could head out.  And then after dinner we would wait impatiently again for the dishes to be washed and dried so we could open presents.

There was a gift exchange with a $2 limit.  Totally exciting, both to get a gift and to see who drew your name.

One year my sister, ten years younger than me, got a Fisher Price corn popper push toy and we were all amazed at such a wonderful gift.  I just checked on Amazon - that corn popper is still available, for $24.

My grandmother would give us each red envelopes from the bank.  $1 for the grandkids and $2 for the adults.  One day this fall I was going through drawers and found several of those envelopes, still with the crisp bills inside.

I thought it would be fun to give them to my family for Christmas this year, but, today, I can't find them.

All Those If's

 IF

the Bengals win their last two games

and

if the Denver Broncos lose to the Kansas City Chiefs

and 

if the Miami Dolphins and the Indianapolis Colts each lose at least one mor game

THEN

and only then

The Cincinnati Bengals will be in the playoffs.

ESPN gives them a 10% chance but Bengals fans are ever hopeful.

(But don't forget, in seven weeks pitchers and catchers report for duty.)

Good Week

 It's been a good week.

I talked with the ortho PA and learned that I have two sacrum factures, but no nerve involvement, which is a good thing.  And so, in home PT for now, very conservative to start, to keep from aggravating it again.  This morning we added a few simple exercises.  No walking without the walker or stairs yet.

Patience and PT should get me back to where I was before.  And I was happy with where I was before.  I could walk the hills in my neighborhood, do some easy gardening, do a lot of stairs.

But today I can stand for longer periods of time, am increasing my steps and decreasing the pain meds.  All good things.

And in the meantime, it's almost Christmas.  Steph helped me wrap and she's been so nice with making sure I'm eating good food and have clean laundry, Sarah and Winnie are on their way with the little dogs,  I've loved my tree every single day.

My sweet sister sent me reindeer chow, a lovely recipe that doesn't have powdered sugar or peanut butter.  It's delicious but not messy -  the perfect reindeer chow.

And I always love the Winter Solstice.  The days lengthen so slowly at first, like the earth is holding its breath before it commits to moving forward.

Happy Birthday Again

 

Happy Birthday to Nora - (sorry about her dad's leg in the picture.)  The semester is finished, and we celebrated her birthday today.  What kind of grandmother - I had to ask her if she was 19 or 20.  Twenty it is, she is out of her teens.

There were gifts and goodies, at my house since I'm staying at home these days.  It was just the nicest day for me.

I missed a call from my doctor yesterday afternoon - she will call back on Monday.  Her message said that the MRI showed sacrum fractures, usually treated without surgery but she wants me to see an ortho.  

This gives me time to think of questions before the Monday call, so that's good. And it allows me to relax a little over the weekend since some of the possibilities have been eliminated.

MRI

 I've been having lots of hip pain for the past few weeks, like having to use a walker pain.  So today I had my scheduled MRI.

For reasons that aren't especially relevant, I had it done deep in the Cincinnati Bengals stadium.  Well, ok, it was the first appointment available, and the copay was less that at the hospital.

I thought that might be exciting, but the only exciting thing was seeing a sign on a door saying "Bangals Interview Room."  And a cardboard cutout of Joe Burrow in the scan office.  And maybe the golf cart ride from the entrance to the scan place was ok too.

Getting down and back up my steps, not exciting, but it worked out.  The MRI lasted just twenty minutes, and I'm glad it wasn't longer because my back really hurt on the hard table.

Moving on to other news:  my North Carolina family is picking up a new Subaru Forester Wilderness as we speak.  In a lovely dark green.  They will be traveling for Christmas in style.

A couple of years ago my local family was traveling to Florida for a pre-Christmas vacation when they had transmission problems near Atlanta.  Knowing they would probably need to replace that car soon anyway, and knowing that the repair would be expensive and would take a couple of days out of their short vacation, they hobbled to the local dealership and bought a new car of the same make and model.  The salesman helped transfer everything to the new car and they went on their way.

Happy Birthday

 

Happy Birthday Nora!

If all the grandgirls were lined up in a row, I'd always choose you.

Tradition

 

.

If you're lucky, you have some family  holiday traditions  that you enjoy, year after year.

And a few days ago you saw my Christmas tree.  Lots of Hallmark ornaments.  Every year they come out of their little boxes and I admire them.

The back story to that is that I love to give my family members (and myself) Hallmark ornaments each year.  Of course, I'm frugal, and the ornaments are purchased when they are 75% off after Christmas and saved for the next year.  They have the previous year's date when they are received, but no one seems to mind.

I figure that when the grands have their own homes they will have a nice collection of ornaments for their own trees.  They both get one from their mom too.

Last year I missed giving the those Hallmark ornaments because I was in rehab (the PT kind) on Christmas.  My daughter did that year's post-Christmas shopping, so this year there will be at least two of those little boxes for everyone.

We may not celebrate on Christmas day this year because my North Carolina daughter may be on snow removal duty at the arboretum but we will celebrate,

Additional note:  last year my daughters both had Covid (me, too) so they weren't allowed to visit the rehab facility.  They wanted to order some food for me from outside - you can always count on a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve when everything else is closed.

Christmas Concert

T

What a blessing to watch the Berea College Christmas Concert at Union Church tonight.  Even though I'm not there in person, I still get all the feels.  It's a wonderful annual event, music from many student groups interspersed with scripture, in that lovely old church.

And another feel - they just recognized the midyear music graduates who will be graduating tomorrow.  And I remember another midyear Berea graduation, for my younger daughter, two days after her father died unexpectedly.  We went from the graduation to the visitation.  

We hadn't thought to bring a camera, but her sister asked a random family if they would take pictures for us.  It turned out that the family's graduate had gone on a Short Term camping trip in the Southwest the same year as Sarah.

Final exams were following week, which was a little out of order.  One of Sarah's professors waived her final  And my grad school professor waived my final as well.  People were kind, in so many ways.

Gingerbread Houses

                     

Well, since we know that Nora is 5'8" now, and Aaron is 6'5", this picture was taken a while ago.  During an Asheville visit, at the Grove Park Inn.  

The Christmas tree in the lobby was tall and fabulous, as I'm sure it is again this year.  And I'm sure we saw the gingerbread houses from the Annual National Gingerbread Competition.

This year, though,  the competition was cancelled following the devastation of Hurricane Helene.  However, more than 40 gingerbread artists are displaying their work at various businesses throughout Asheville, with just a few on display at the Grove Park Inn.

It's called the Gingerbread Trail of Giving.  And I've heard that the North Carolina Arboretum is on the list. 

Tree Time

 

I've been laying low these days.  The last eye surgery morphed into unexpected hip pain - don't do stupid gardening things, just saying.  But now I have this lovely tree in the living room and PT appointments twice a week.  Life is looking more hopeful.

Kudos to my daughters and granddaughter for getting the tree up and decorated.

When I was a brat kid I begged to have the tree up early.  My parents always got a live tree that would be planted outside so it didn't go up until about a week before Christmas.  We did have a few decorations prior to the tree happening - does anyone remember those wax candles that looked like choir singers, snow people, maybe even Santa?

My mother made many cut out cookies in the days prior to Christmas and would store them in the big blue speckled canner.  I have her recipes but mine have never compared to hers.  And I've tried many times.

Suddenly it's cold here, like night temperatures in the teens.  I have several containers of outdoor plants inside - we'll see how that goes.