Merry Christmas!

Christmas Simmering Potpourri

I'm a sucker for anything that smells good. If I had invested in Glade sprays or Yankee Candles, maybe we could have retired early on profits! Fragrance is one of those things that's very personal though. This time of year when all the perfume inserts come in the ads, I have to open them and take a whiff. Jessica McClintock is my favorite, it's description are "top notes of cassia, basil, ylang-ylang, bergamot, black currant and lemon; middle notes are jasmine, lily-of-the-valley and rose; base notes are musk and woody notes"... hmm, that pretty well covers all smells known to mankind! But we know what we like and this time of year we all love for our homes to be welcoming and smell like Grandma's house! Even if you haven't had the time to put one single cookie in the oven, you can have that delicious aroma swirling around if you make either one of these potpourri's.  

Simmering Christmas Potpourri #1

Shared from Estelle's Kitchen at The Maine House

Sliced apples

Sliced lemons

Sliced oranges

Water

Bay leaves

Whole cloves

Cinnamon sticks
In a slow-cooker, combine fruit the way you like. Cover in water. Top with bay leaves, whole cloves, and cinnamon sticks. Leave slow-cooker on. Makes your house smell like Christmas Memories!

Simmering Christmas Potpourri #2
1 Quart Pineapple Juice
1 Quart Water
1 Quart Apple Cider
3 Sticks of Cinnamon
16 Cloves
1 Teaspoon Allspice
2 Teaspoons Pickling Spice
Simmer over low heat, until the house smells delicious. Add more water as needed and you can reheat this mixture for days. If you have an electric potpourri pot, all the better! This is just wonderful!

PRINT RECIPES

The Christmas Album

The year my Dad passed we were expecting our first Grandson Jackson. It was a long winter to go through, depression and anticipation are an odd mix. I decided that keeping busy was the best medicine for me so I began putting together a Christmas Album. Up till then, the various years were scattered from album to envelope to the "Picture Box." Every night I'd set down to watch TV and go through the pictures, 1970-1994. Years of Christmas mornings spread out before me to be placed in the pages of an album that I hoped would mean something in time to the Grandchild waiting to be born.

As I went through the pictures, the memories flowed back. Stephanie was 2 when we were stationed at Biloxi, Mississippi in the above pictures (1972).

Stephanie and her Daddy under the mistletoe...Sacramento, California 1974

1981, Amy was 2 and Stephanie 10

Many, many Christmases at our parents houses. We were lucky, they lived across the pasture from each other so when we went it meant TWO Christmases!

1987 at Mom and Dad's

1988, the next year Stephanie graduated from High School

When you look at a picture you see many things, the look of surprise on someone's face, the excitement of opening the gifts and you remember the feelings you had at that moment of being with the ones you love the most.

It was the perfect project for me to work on. I relived the many happy years that my Dad enjoyed his Grand Daughters. His greatest joy was when we were all together. Whether it was Christmas, or digging potatoes out of the huge garden he grew each year, or at the table laughing and talking all at once...he loved every minute. I think that's probably what I inherited from him that I value the most. It's those moments in our lives that add meaning and joy and make each Christmas something so very special...

Libby's Favorite Pumpkin Roll

1/4 cup powdered sugar (to sprinkle on towel)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup pure pumpkin puree (Libby’s)

For the Filling

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper and spray with non-stick cooking spray, or you can use a Silpat. Sprinkle a clean tea towel with powdered sugar. Set pan and towel aside.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat eggs, vanilla and sugar until thick. Add in pumpkin and mix to combine. Stir in flour mixture. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.

Bake for 13 to 15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. Immediately loosen and turn cake onto prepared towel. Carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. Cool on wire rack.

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract until smooth. Carefully unroll cake; remove towel. Spread cream cheese mixture over cake. Re-roll cake. Wrap in Saran wrap and refrigerate at least one hour. 

Store Pumpkin Roll wrapped in Saran Wrap for up to a week in the fridge or you can freeze it and store up to a month. Allow the roll to come to room temperature, about an hour before serving.

Nothing but Blue Skies...

Our grandson had the opportunity to realize a dream yesterday. From the time he was a little boy, he's talked about being a pilot. Not a huge surprise since he spent so much time on airplanes from the time he was very young flying to far away places like Shanghai and Belgium to visit his Dad. 

It's been awhile since he has allowed himself to dream big. Since his Dad passed away, his life has been in limbo. Not planned, not unplanned... just in a holding pattern. Up in that Cessna yesterday, he began to think he could do this, make this his career- fly for a living. After all his Uncle David has done just that for years with Southwest Airlines.

All along we have it inside us the ability to achieve greatness. It lays dormant for years until someone or something lights a fire in our hearts. Never far away, our Guardian Angels are there to cheer us on. It's not going to be easy, nothing worthwhile ever is. But one flight and then another, he'll reach that dream. Holding patterns in the air mean circles, not a good thing. We're seeing Blue Skies ahead!

Terry's Secret Recipe

Today I'm sharing a secret family recipe. This one is a keeper, put it where you can get to it easily if you've had a busy day or a "Mom's Night Off" or  "Dad's Cooking!" Easy, but oh so good and it's Super Bowl perfect too. My SISTER in law's recipe, it's famous in our family. It's probably the only recipe that I had that the daughters left home with... they didn't want to be far from the secret recipe!

OK, are you ready? It's not one of those recipes that has a lot of ingredients or a lot of steps. In fact, it sounds too easy to be considered famous or secret... just trust me on this, it is!

Terry's Secret Recipe   PRINT RECIPE
2 lb. hamburger
1 lb. brick chili, this isn't canned chili (it's next to the hot dogs in most groceries, a rectangular brick of chili meat that is condensed)  I like the Famous brand or 4 Star ... they look like this:

1 lb. Velveeta, cut in chunks
2 cans chili beans, undrained
1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes, your choice...blazing hot or wimpy mild!
8 oz. sour cream
shredded iceberg lettuce
shredded Cheddar cheese
tortilla chips

Brown hamburger and drain. Add beans, chili, Ro-Tel and Velveeta. Simmer over LOW heat until melted. Add sour cream and serve in bowls topped with shredded lettuce, shredded Cheddar cheese and serve with tortilla chips. I didn't say it was healthy, did I?

Proud to be an American

This picture was making the rounds on Facebook last Friday. I've seen it before, but each time I do I get a big lump in my throat and my heart feels very sad. I feel a deep hurt over what's going on in this county right now. We have lost direction, we've forgotten how to overcome.

I still have it in me to be a proud American, I'm not beat completely down yet.

In the 60's there were demonstrations, marches that spoke to the unrest in this country. I'm not saying we need riots or violence, but have Americans just given up?

We need change for the better,

...not just change for the sake of change.

When I looked around today, it seems I'm not alone.



Failure is Not an Option!

I had some amazing teachers as a child who inspired me. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Hayes immediately comes to mind. Oh, how I loved that woman! She was kind and patient, guiding and directing the 30 impressionable lives for the 9 months she had us. We learned how to add and subtract, all about the World in Social Studies and how to write in Cursive. But we learned so much more from Mrs. Hayes. We learned trust and responsibility and that honesty was the best policy. I'll never forget Mrs. Hayes or that feeling when she would have me collect the milk money each morning. It was good to be so young and trusted to do an important task.

The famous people below overcame that feeling of failure and reached for the stars. They struggled with disappointment and criticism, but somewhere along the way in spite of discouragement... they excelled.

Abraham Lincoln, former US President first went into politics at the age of 23 when he campaigned for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly and failed. He then opened a general store which failed after only a few months.

Harry S. Truman, former US President was rejected by the US Military & Naval Academies due to his poor eyesight. At one point he was a clerk in a newspaper mailroom, and also an usher in a movie theater.

Michael Jordan, the most famous name in basketball was actually cut from his high school basketball team.

John Wayne - Before his successful acting career he was rejected from the United States Naval Academy.

Steven Spielberg - This household name dropped out of high school and applied to attend film school three times but was unsuccessful due to his C grade average.

Beethoven - His music teacher once told him that he was a hopeless composer.

Babe Ruth - This baseball legend struck out 1,330 times.

Henry Ford - The Ford Motor Co was Henry Ford’s third business, the first two didn’t work out.

Winston Churchill - This former British Prime Minister did poorly in school and had a speech impediment in his early years.

Walt Disney - He was fired by the editor of a newspaper for lacking in ideas.

Soichiro Honda - The founder of Honda was turned down for an engineering job by Toyota after World War Two.

Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita - These two were the founders of Sony, but one of their first products was an electric rice cooker. They only sold 100 or so of these cookers because they tended to burn rice rather than cook it.

Charles Darwin - His father told him he would amount to nothing and would be a disgrace to himself and his family.

Albert Einstein - He learned to speak at a late age and performed poorly in school.

Thomas Edison - As a boy he was told by his teacher that he was too stupid to learn anything.

John Grisham - This best selling novelist’s first novel was rejected by sixteen agents and twelve publishing houses.

Isaac Newton - He failed at running the family farm and did poorly in school.

Henry Ford said,
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

Fireflies

It's easy to close my eyes and think back to the long hot summers of my childhood. After supper we'd play outside until darkness took over the sky, Hide and Go Seek or Mother May I until the Fireflies came out. We'd try like mad to catch their little flashlight bodies and place them in an old Ball jar, but mostly it was running and giggling!

The fireflies flew just out of our reach, inspiration and wonder just beyond our fingertips. That's kind of like life, what we want sometimes is out there but it seems almost fantasy... what we want is just too hard to "catch." If we're not careful, we let the "I can'ts" into our hearts and then we forget how to be children again. Every Summer my Grandchilden teach me how to be young again. They leave fingerprints on the glass doors, they scatter toys in the living room and they delight in a simple ice cream cone.

Not a banana split, not a sundae... just a plain, ol' ice cream cone! 

Magic Carpet Ride

 

via

Lots of changes in the last 44 years, it was a first having my better half post anniversary wishes on Facebook this morning! We have tried our best to change with the times, not stay back in the 70's. When we first married he was in his second year of college and I was barely 18. I imagine many of our friends and relatives thought our marriage was doomed from the start. Those first few years were very hard, disappointments when our life didn't go as we had planned. That was the first mistake, thinking life would go as planned!

 via

I got out my wedding dress a couple weeks ago, it's stored in a zipped garment bag now and has turned a cream color over the years. It has the smell that all antique things have, it made me a little sad to see it. It looks so small, I didn't even attempt to put it on! No one ever arrives at 44 years the same, physically or 

                      emotionally. I like to think I've grown in character as well as inches!

Nothing prepares you for marriage, it's one of those things that you just jump into with both feet and hope for the best. No rule book out there, everyone has to work through the hard stuff and appreciate the good stuff! Somewhere around 5 years (or kids, whichever comes first) we have a tendency to forget why we married in the first place. We forget that delicious kiss that took our breath away and it's all work and kids. Too bad we have to go through several more years until we realize that having that person in your life is so much more important than work or meetings or soccer games. 

44 years, and today I'm remembering how it felt going that aisle. It was thrilling in a sick-to-my-stomach kind of way, the excitement of a roller coaster and Christmas all rolled into one! That's kind of what happened in the years that followed... it wasn't always smooth sailing, but for the most part we have had beautiful sunsets every single day.

via

I'm glad I chose you Honey, let's keep the magic going!

Magic

 Do you ever just accidentally do something, but for the life of you not have a clue how you did it? Technologically challenged, it doesn't prevent me from buying Smartphones and iPads to improve my life. Somewhere along the way I do learn a new trick or two, repeating it may be the problem! 

 The photos that popped on my iPad were these 3 gifs, is that what they're called? Well, I don't know how it made existing still shots move magically but I had to share! It's been a stressful 3 weeks, Mother's Day was the start of our run of bad luck when a limb fell from outer space and pierced our roof. 

It went all the way through the roof into the attic space above the garage. We're still waiting on the roofers and it's rained every. single. day. since this happened. Murphy's Law I guess.

Then Tuesday we were headed to Walmart when my car made a funny noise, kind of "chug ker-plunk." A quick call to the dealer and they sent a wrecker to come get it. One car down, but we had another in the wings to make the trip. If we'd just known a Dodge truck was going to back into us, well... we'd have stayed home.

Some days are just like that, not much you can do but smile and go on. A little lipstick on that smile doesn't hurt either!

Homemade Hummingbird Nectar and Cherry-O Cheesecake

I see the Bluebirds are back and busy making their nests in all the birdhouses around the yard. My father-in-law made all of our's and they are beginning to show their age. Birds aren't too picky about the condition of the house, but it needs to be free of last years' nest and have a good roof that will keep the eggs and mama dry while she's setting. Think about location when you place a birdhouse, a secluded area at the edge of your yard is perfect. Depending on where you live, consider the sun and whether it will warm the birdhouse on chilly mornings or be too hot for the new family growing inside. We keep our feeders up year round, it's fun to watch the many beautiful birds throughout the year.

It's time to put the hummingbird feeders out again. I love watching the little hummers each morning as they crowd the feeder that hangs just outside our kitchen window! They arrive in the South as early as March. You can see where they are right now by looking at the map here.

Hummingbird Nectar:

1 part white cane sugar

4 parts water

Store unused syrup in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. This is the best recipe since it closely resembles the nectar of many wildflowers. Don't try to use honey or brown sugar and it's not necessary to use red food coloring to attact the birds. Keep the feeder clean, wash out with hot water- no soap- each time you refill.

                       In the kitchen this week, Grandson Gavin's favorite...

Cherry-O Cheesecake

from EagleBrand.com
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (8 or 9-inch) prepared graham cracker or baked pie crust
1 (21 oz.) can cherry pie filling, chilled
BEAT cream cheese until fluffy in large bowl. Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Stir in lemon juice and vanilla.
POUR into crust; chill 4 hours or until set. Top with desired amount of cherry pie filling before serving.

TOPPING VARIATIONS
BLUEBERRY: Omit cherry pie filling. Combine 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon cornstarch in medium bowl; mix well. Add 1/2 cup water, 2 tablespoons lemon juice then 2 cup fresh or dry-pack frozen blueberries, thawed; mix well. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes or until thick and clear. Cool 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Cool 15 minutes. Spread over pie. Chill thoroughly.
CRANBERRY: Omit cherry pie filling. Combine 1/3 cups sugar and 1 tablespoon cornstarch in medium saucepan. Add 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold water and 2 cups fresh or dry-pack frozen cranberries; mix well. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Spread over pie. Chill thoroughly.
FRESH FRUIT: Omit cherry pie filling. Just before serving, arrange well-drained fresh strawberries, banana slices (dipped in lemon juice and well drained) and blueberries on top of chilled pie. Brush fruit with light corn syrup if desired.
AMBROSIA: Omit cherry pie filling. Combine 1/2 cup Smucker's® Peach or Apricot Preserves, 1/4 cup flaked coconut, 2 tablespoons orange juice and 2 teaspoons cornstarch in small saucepan; cook and stir until thickened. Remove from heat. Arrange fresh orange sections over top of pie; top with coconut mixture. Chill thoroughly.

PRINT RECIPE

New Beginnings

Christmas is over for another year, the last tree came down today. As happy as I feel putting them up each year, I have pangs of sadness when I pack away the ornaments. Forty-three Christmases packed away in less than a dozen boxes. Many of the ornaments so old or so tacky they don't even make it to the branches, yet I hold onto them. They've made their way to the bottom of the the storage boxes like the Land of Misfit Toys, they have lost their place on the trees. 

I did pass along some ornaments and decorations this year to our oldest Grandson. His first apartment is decorated with hand-me-downs, he never says no to anything we offer! He inherited Papa's old but much loved recliner and most recently a sofa and loveseat, a little worn where I set and and blog! I noticed today as I read his Facebook post, on the counter in the kitchen set Mom and Dad's salt and pepper shakers. You've seen them in every Grandma's house since the 50's, clear glass shakers with aluminum tops. I love that he uses them, the tops are pitted from years of salt. They set on Mom's stove in the house on Summit and seasoned a million meals with ♥

The first day of the new year seems to be a good starting point for new beginnings. Last year was filled with extreme happiness and extreme sadness, but that's life in a nutshell. Wishing everyone a Happy and healthy New Year!