~ Happy New Year ~

Hope you all have a great new year! This is what we eat to make sure the year gets off to a good start. I found this recipe in the Dallas Morning News a few years back and it is pretty tasty.

One Pot Quick Hoppin' John

1 lb bulk sausage (Hot or regular)
1 c. chopped onion
1 c. chopped green pepper
1 c. chopped celery
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 (14 oz) can chicken broth
1 c. converted rice
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
2 (14 oz) cans black eyed peas

Saute sausage, onion, green pepper and garlic in a large pot on medium high heat. Drain and return to pot. Add broth, rice, seasonings. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat simmer 15 minutes. Stir some.

Drain and rinse black eyed peas. Add to pot. Simmer an additional 5 to 10 minutes until liquid is absorbed into the rice. Makes 8 servings. Enjoy with cornbread.

Christmas picture

I usually send a photo of my kids in with my Christmas cards, but this year, I did not have a current picture to send.
This photo was taken at Joe and Joyce's tonight where we all met for a nice visit and lots of yummy food. Ryan and Kara posed for this shot before they left for a movie.

I need to read the book that came with my camera to learn how to get the red eyes to go away.

Bein' Green is not just for Kermit anymore

"It's Not Easy Bein' Green" is a quote from Kermit the Frog. I never really thought about "being green" until all the news about conserving came to light. Being a child of Depression Era parents, I was always taught to conserve, "Turn out the lights" and reuse (even bathwater when we were kids, yuk!) and to recycle. I also wore hand-me-down clothes. Other than having new clothes on Easter Sunday, I think I was probably a teenager before I ever had any "new to me only" clothing.

I kind of like the idea of being green. It sounds better, than tightwad, parsimonious, stingy and the other various similar words that have negative connotations. Being all of these things means something positive now. I can hold my head high as I turn off unneeded lights, reuse plastic bags and as I grab the gift sack that my son is about to smash up and throw in the garbage, "that's reusable!" We need to help out the environment. We need to be green.

Kermit, it's really not too hard to be green, especially if you have had years of practice like me!

Merry Christmas!

Deep down inside we know that the best gifts don't come from catalogs or shopping malls
They don't come in brightly-colored packages or fancy envelopes and they're not sitting under a tree somewhere...
The best gifts come from the heart. They come when we look at each other REALLY look at each other and say 'You mean a lot to me'or 'I'm so glad you're a part of my life'
A gift like that will never go out of style or be forgotten or be returned for a different size. A gift like that can change the world."

Ron Atchison of Inspiration Peak www.inspirationpeak.com

Oklahoma Freeze

Finally after more than a week of no electricity, Uncle John has power and was able to send these pictures of the damage.

Memories of Christmas Past

I was reminiscing how we celebrated Christmas when the kids were little. We didn't like everything squeezed together in a few days, so we decided to have Santa come to our house Christmas Eve morning. The kids were little and didn't know that it really wasn't Christmas day. That way, Mike's Mom, Dad, Mema and Uncle John could come over and watch the kids open their gifts. We loved it, Mike's Mom enjoyed it because then she could take time Christmas morning preparing for our Christmas lunch and not be rushed.

We never considered what our neighbors would think of this situation. Imagine telling your children that Santa was coming on Christmas day and they look outside on Christmas Eve morning and the neighbor kids are out playing with their new Christmas toys! Ryan and Kara proudly shouting, "Look what Santa brought us!" and pushing and riding their new Little Tykes fire engine or riding their new bikes, etc. I am sure they had some explaining to do. Oh well, didn't you know that Santa comes early for the best of children!

Baby, it's cold outside ......and inside too!

Mike's Uncle John who lives in Midwest City, Oklahoma has not had electricity since last Sunday when the ice storm came and froze up everything. He has lost several trees and his big pine trees so far are saved but only because they are leaning against the house instead of breaking in half. Some of his neighbors had a tree fall through a window into their house. How scary.

I talked to John last night and he said that it was 41 degrees in his house. He has a studio in the back and it is a newer building and better insulated and it was about 65 there, so he thought he would spend the night in his art studio last night. He was thankful to have a gas water heater so he can still take a hot bath, but he did mention how hard it was to get out of the tub into the cold house! Hopefully he will get electricity soon. Please pray for everyone in the area as more cold weather and snow is predicted. Brrrrrrrrrrr!

~Strike a pose~

Kara has been published in some hairstyling magazines. On the top page, Kara is in the middle photo modeling a style by her friend and co-worker, Amy. The bottom page, (the photo with the pink background) shows her client, Constance.

It is too a word!

Omigod, I was glad to see that there is an updated Oxford dictionary, even if it is full of crapola. Unibrow, wasn't a real word before now? (This article is from an issue of People magazine.) Next time we all get together, maybe we will have this dictionary to use for our fricking Scrabble games, not the bogus one we used at Thanksgiving. I am sure that this one has "blinky" in it since it has these other "new" words, especially since http://www.dictionary.com/ does list it as a word. Maybe I can smoosh Tim in a game for once and he won't be such a buzzkill. Nyah!

Omigod, my spellcheck does not have these new words yet! It shows them as all misspellings!

Jessica, my niece at her baby shower. Mike's talented mother, Kay knitted the baby afghan. Jessica is due the end of January. She is not very big, it just looks like she swallowed a basketball!

Little Braydon James will be the first great-grandchild for Ray and Kay.

New recipe?

I decided to thaw out some leftover tortilla soup for dinner tonight. I took out two containers from the fridge and dumped them in the pot, turned the heat on and went to play on the computer. When I went to stir the soup, I realized that only one of the containers had tortilla soup in it. The other one had chili! Oh, well, we will see how this tastes.....

Actually, it was REAL good. I may have invented a new recipe. I didn't even tell Mike what it really was at first. He said it was real good, but pretty spicy! I may learn to label my frozen food, but usually, I just freeze food and throw it out a few months later. I am not too good at actually reheating to eat.

I am sure I have the same theory with plants. If I get a poinsettia for Christmas, I usually get tired of it before it dies. Am I able to throw it out directly to the trash? No, I have to set it outside and let it die of "natural causes" first before I toss it in the trash! Does this make sense? No, of course not! I may need counseling!

A Little Christmas Cheer

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1231593862