Monday, December 1, 2014

MONDAY MUSINGS—WHEN JACK FROST GOES GUERRILLA





This morning my house came under attack from Jack Frost’s guerrilla soldiers with a little help from the Old Man Winter with his north wind. No fanciful painting of frost. These were sprites on steroids. They had out the big gun and pelted ice balls at the house and windows. It was loud enough to wake me up at 4 a.m. wondering what was going on. Even the dog started barking. 

No sunshine and coffee outside this morning. We've got freezing drizzle pellets falling with enough ice accumulation, about an inch and a half, that they closed the schools. Saturday and Sunday it was in the upper 60's and sunny. I had all my windows open to the warm breeze and spent as much time outside soaking up the sunshine as I could. By late Sunday afternoon the wind was rising and the temps dropped over thirty degrees in three hours. Tuesday and Wednesday we'll be back up in the mid 40's and sunshine. This has been a crazy week of weather. But that's Missouri.

How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was nice but smaller than usual. Most of our family Thanksgiving meals have a minimum of thirty-five and some years we've had all my siblings and their families, which is considerably more. Those years we do buffet tables set up in Pop’s finished two-car garage (actually he can get a truck and two cars in there). The garage is right off the kitchen so bringing out the food isn't difficult. We decorate and set the tables up along three sides of the garage and seating in the middle. Most Thanksgivings are mild here so we open one of the garage doors to the sunshine and concrete drive with various lawn chairs set up nearby. Lots of room for the kids to play and the adults to sit and gossip.

This year, it was only one of my brothers and his wife, my niece, Deanna, her husband, and their two little ones with my family. We ate inside since there were only 11 of us. Steve baked the prettiest 24 lb turkey I've seen outside of a magazine. He did up the sides to go with it and I did a pork roast and a complete meal with sides. I enjoyed the cooking of it early morning with music playing and my husband and I talking as we working on everything. He was teasing me about how I had everything cut and lined up for each dish prettier than Rachel Ray. I don’t know about that but you do have to keep all the ingredients separated. J

On the home front, we got a lot done during the warm spell. A dark cloud of ‘oh, no’ came to us on Friday afternoon when realized our twenty year old chest freezer wasn't freezing. Acck! So it was a mad dash to transfer what we could to the bottom freezer on the fridge and a quick run to the store to buy ice bags to pack in the freezer. Found another chest freezer, just a little smaller, on clearance, Yay! They couldn't deliver until Monday, boo. Then with this ice and nasty roads that’s been delayed until tomorrow afternoon.


But hey, all things considered, life is still pretty damn good. J   

So, how are things in your neck of the woods? Any news to share? Good movies seen or books read? C’mon, share the gossip. Laughter of it all will make the day less gray.


Meanwhile, me and my cup of coffee will be sitting here, feet propped up in front of a warm fire and supervising the kid and his fiance put up the tree and lights. It's good being boss, lol!