Christmas 2021

Early Family holiday brunch at the Farm. Lovely day. Just a small group of us. Paul and Tom made their custom blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes and egg strada. We had a very nice day, even managed a game of croquet despite the cold weather. We ate and exchanged gifts and had a really nice time. It was lovely.

CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Tim has been baking cookies like mad. Paniers, fruitcake shortbread, crackles, caramel covered shortbread, double stuffed oreos dipped in white chocolate and peppermint, pistachio apricot rugelach, and homemade pignolis. They are all delicious and we started wrapping them in Christmas printed parchment and loaded them into boxes and started our first round of shipping on Friday. We did the second round today. I hope everyone likes them. Tim worked really hard to make them. The fruitcake shortbreads are my favorite.

SLOWING DOWN

We were driving over to Delhi and all of a sudden had to stop because this pasture of cows had escaped and were all over the highway. We couldn't go anywhere and were worried that someone would get hurt coming over the hill or the cows could be hurt as well. We sat there and moved very slowly with the car as they meandered around the highway and eating grass along the side of the road. We drove down to the nearest home off of the highway. No one was there so we ended up sitting on the road waving down cars to slow down so that no one would get hurt. Someone eventually came along and moved the cows back into their pasture. It was nice to slow down and just get preoccupied with something else other then work and the holidays.

ATTICUS AND ME

I love living in the Northeast. Growing up in Texas is so different. However, the snow upstate can be a little overwhelming. The winters can feel a little long. Atticus suffers from boredom and we moved a stand in front of the bedroom window and hung a large bird feeder on it. It keeps him preoccupied lying there watching the birds feeding. However, it won't be long before he is looking for something new to do. I took a pic of him looking out the window and it reminded me of me looking out the window and wondering how long the winter will be. Together, Atticus and I are going to keep each other amused. We will get through this.

BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE CHRISTMAS

It's kind of late but we are slowly getting ready for the holidays. The tree is up but not complete. Some of the outdoor lights are out. We still have Christmas cookies to ship. However, slowly it happens and it is over before we know it.

Journal Week December 5-11

Thanksgiving 2021

Thanksgiving 2021. We had a lovely day at Tim's parent's home. The grandchildren are all grown up and out of college, Jean's sister and son's could not be there and his brother Jeff's family was working so it was a smaller more intimate group this year. Still, we managed to eat like pigs and have a lot of fun. Tim and his mother always do an incredible although exhausting job and they didn't disappoint this year. Friends of ours from San Antonio had been visiting a week prior and sent Tim's mom beautiful flowers and candles for the table, thanks Michael and Rita! We played a great game of croquet and it was the perfect afternoon for it. Afterwards, we watched movies and had dessert and collapsed. It was a lovely day.

CAT LIFE

Despite being cooped up in the house, they seem to enjoy themselves.

GORGEOUS FALL DAY

Tim and I took a drive today and it was just so gorgeous out. Took lots of pics but the valley at the end of the street was particularly amazing.

BEAUTIFUL SUMMER

It was a strange wet summer. Not quite what we wanted and very different from last summer. Tim made it beautiful.

ANDES BBQ

We have been reading about pit BBQ happening in Andes and decided to check it out. Not the most organized place but the food was delicious. I lived in the Philippines as a kid and one of my favorite things was pork pit BBQ. This was really good. Unfortunately, the second time we went - it wasn't the best experience. Oh well, great evening.