packing

Every time I pack for a trip longer than two days, I can't help but hear my nephew's voice as he helps unload the van..."This is like moving!"  Oh dear one, you have no idea just how much stuff your Aunt Monica has!

But it does sometimes feel that way.  Clothes (both church and everyday), medical supplies, Christmas presents, a bag of things to do/read on the way...it adds up fast! And this time there's the extra unusual things: a rabbit cage, a huge bag of food & bedding. Needless to say, our little van is often full!

This trip will be one of the two we've made in the last 12 years where I've NOT been overly stressed or exhausted before leaving, and I'm looking forward to it.  Traveling is so much easier (in my mind anyway) when I'm not already exhausted before we even leave.

So tonight I'm rejoicing that this trip has the potential to be so much easier, and that 38 is FINALLY over! Broken bones, overcommitment, pain, disaster, I bid you adieu!

a birthday story

What do you get when you combine Christmas caroling in the back of a pickup with a very pregnant deacon's wife?

Me.

They say the other deacons and the pastor followed the trail of hay to the hospital.
Somehow they convinced the nurse to carol in the nursery with "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear".
They claim I screamed through it.
I'm still not crazy about that tune.
The words, however, are lovely.

I don't miss that story being re-told every year at church. Some things are worth hearing just once or twice.

cookie bake

 This last Saturday afternoon Mary Booth and I had the privilege of having a "cookie bake" with the girls from the oldest Jr. Church class. (Kimberly had already left by the time we started the photo shoot.) We had a good time, even if I was exhausted when it was over. :)

 This is one of our two mishaps. My Mom's recipe calls these "russian tea cakes" and they are a very caky-type sugar cookie. There was a miscommunication on which container had flour and which had powdered sugar, so we wound up with almost 5 cups of powdered sugar in this recipe. :) Needless to say, they were super-sweet, a tad chewy when they came out of the oven, and next to impossible to get out of the pan. None of the girls wanted them. By the time they cooled, it was impossible to get them out. Thankfully Mary had the bright idea to soak the whole pan, cookies and all, in hot water. After a few minutes, the whole sheet came out. We had a good laugh over it. Note to self: next year label all containers.

 Gingerbread man.

And a plate of cookies I saved for Bobby. 

My favorite comment of the day: "Let's make these cookies REALLY big, so if Mom says we can have one cookie we can obey but have what we want."  When I went to get the pan, I realized they were NOT joking! One chocolate chip cookie recipe only made about 12 cookies. Yes, these girls know the meaning of supersize! :)

Mary suggested next year we bake gingerbread and sugar cookies in advance, and then just have a decorating party (we didn't have time to decorate anything).  I'm thinking that might not be a bad idea.

May your holiday baking days be joyous and filled with laughter!

the NC Governor's Mansion

My camera batteries died while were at the Open House, but here's what few photos I did manage to take.

 This pic is a little blurry, but the eagle supported tables in one of my favorite things in the Governor's Mansion.

 The first tree you see upon entering.

 And a close-up of the dogwood flowers that adorned it.

 The stair case has always impressed me, even though it's heavily masculine-looking. I know such detailed work in wood was not easy to do during that time frame, so that makes all the ridges even more impressive. The finials at the end of the staircase have Raleigh's oak symbol craved into each side, and for some reason, that always makes me think the staircase resembles nutcrackers.

 From the NC room...(again, sorry for the blurriness) a wreath made from dried tobacco leaves.

 The mantel in this room is covered in dried flowers and cotton balls. Notice the North Carolina trees below instead of the poinsettias that graced the rest of the mansion?

 And the table centerpiece...made from an Apex bakery, the gingerbread house is in the shape of a tobacco barn (and looks like wood!) and is placed on top of a burlap (tobacco) bag.

 Not sure of the schedule, but various school groups were singing (and they sounded good!) A new group was coming in to look around before singing as we were leaving.

The poinsettias were HUGE...the largest I've ever seen. At first we thought there were several plantings in one pot, but it wasn't. This is ONE plant.

I hate I missed getting photos of the dining room and front room. The dining room was done in an apple/lime green color. They had those tall cylinder vases all along the table, filled with assorted green ornaments, then the next one would be a different type of green ornaments, followed by green apples. The mantle there was also decorated in the same shade of green.  The front room also had a huge tree (matching the other tree in height) but was decorated in majestic colors of gold, silver, purple, and mauve...very ornate.

Oh! I forgot the sunroom....it's tree was covered in ornaments made by children of parents serving overseas (the ones stationed at Ft Bragg and Camp LeJuene).  It was very patriotic, bright, and cheerful.

And outside? Next to the entrance/security gate was a winter-garbed tree (void of leaves) covered in red ornaments. I told Bobby that must be their Charlie Brown tree.

If you've never been to the Governor's Mansion, you can either schedule a tour or watch for Open Houses in the spring or at Christmas. I think it's something everyone would enjoy. Granted, you don't get to see the actual living corridors upstairs, but it's still quite impressive.

the Wicked Chicken Auction

Every one in a blue moon we head to a small town called Wilson's Mills, where the Calamity Jane's store has a Wicked Chicken Auction every Sunday afternoon. Bobby's geese (we have 4 females left) have started fighting lately, something they've not done in the ten years we've had them. Even the chickens and rooster get upset and try to separate them when it happens. So we headed to the auction in hopes of finding a male goose. They actually had a goose that matches ours, and when the held it up before the bidding started, I was unable to see the tell-tale pouch (females have a saggy bottom on one side after they've laid eggs).  We got the goose for a VERY good price, got home, and realized it was a GIRL.  On the bright side, the four original geese are now so busy trying to keep away from the new goose that they are forgetting to fight.

While there, someone had brought in several boxes of 6 week old animals. Every pair had gone for at least $2 (some as high as 25), so I laughed and told Bobby I was going to bid $1.  I did, and the person behind me bid $1.50.  I thought I was out of the running, but after I turned from laughingly saying something to Bobby, the auctioneer pointed at me and asked for my number. I NEVER in my wildest dreams anticipated bringing these home, but we now have them. Bobby's now threatening to return my birthday presents since we have our new "pets". The first night they slept in the brooder box, and yesterday afternoon I got them a cage as we'll most likely take them to Alabama with us. After we got home last night, I fixed their cage and brought them inside. They keep us up most of the night. And now that Bobby has left for work, they're calm.

I have a feeling I may be in BIG trouble when we get to AL. 8 of the 10 items on my niece's wish list were animals. One of those animals was a rabbit. If it weren't for the fact I want to keep the relationship with my sister happy, I'd put two ribbons on this cage and two tags with the names of her two children and stick it under the Christmas tree. But I have this strange feeling that we might not be quite so welcome at their house if we did that.

At least life is never dull.

a happy exhausted

For those of you who don't live near us, the property adjoining ours was sold about 6 years ago to our county for the purpose of building an elementary and a middle school. The town of Garner denied the building permit on the elementary school because of a political issue, then politics got VERY ugly around here with the school board getting a Republican majority that behaved very rudely and the NAACP came in full force and responded just as rudely back. Numerous lawsuits and newscasts later (plus a downturn in the economy), the plans for both schools are no longer even listed on the county's website as future school sites. Meanwhile, the county has leased the land to the city of Raleigh as a place to dump storm debris (trees and such) from government locations during the next five years. Our discussions of "what we want as a fence" on the property line stopped being discussions and are now 95% reality.

After evaluating prices and dreams, we finally ordered trees from the National Arbor Day Foundation. Granted, these are seedlings, so it will take at least 5-10 years before they actually look like real trees, but we were able to order ALL of them for the price of one grown tree from a local nursery. The downside? We have to do the work. Needless, to say, I'll be barely moving at the gym tomorrow (if I make it all!).

However, and here's my happy dance coming:

Our property line now consists of 6 hydrangeas, 6 forsythias, 6 crapemyrtles, 4 dogwoods, 1 Japanese maple, 1 smoketree, 1 sassafras, 6 rose of sharon, 1 red maple, and a weeping willow.

5 giant steps away from our property line is 16 southern magnolias (for a natural fenceline) with 10 red cedars on the way. I figure if the county is going to take their time about building, and their "buffer zone" between us and the school was only going to consist of 4 dogwoods and some shrubs, then I could spend $20 and help them out and plant trees in their buffer zone for them. By the time they ever get around to building/or selling, I should have a semi-decent tree/privacy fence in place on the buffer zone they promised in the plans. And if they tear it down, I'll only have lost $20 and one day of my time.

If every thing lives, I should have cool pictures in the spring! :)

FYI: And if you ever wondered, chickens are almost as bad as dogs for digging in the spot you just planned.

use your imagination

I'm at the public library where the computer screen tilts down at you in the most unfriendly fashion and am REALLY missing the comfort of my home "library".  We fried our internet modem Saturday, so it will be Thursday, at the earliest, before you can expect any more posts. I had planned to upload a few pics from our trip to the Governor's Mansion Open House on Saturday, but that will clearly have to wait. Meanwhile, I expect to get quite a bit done this week without the lure of checking e-mail biting into my free time. Hope your holidays are moving according to schedule and that you are remembering the reason we celebrate like crazy. :)