Sunday and the Shortest Day of the Year

Ten hours of daylight. Just ten hours today. And it is cold! Our first day of winter is very wintery. Wintry? Twenty-one degrees this morning, and windy. Blew the clouds away...there was this blanket of clouds last night on our drive to North Dallas (Frisco) to see Bob's siblings and their families. I was assigned the salad, which was easy thanks to that lettuce in a bag cut the thing open and pour it in a bowl. I brought salad dressings, but I don't think any got used. We piled the lettuce on the burritos. I made one of the Tastefully Simple Gingerbread mixes, but I put way too much molasses in it, and they were VERY chewy and the corners were VERY overdone and dry---like hockey pucks. I need to be careful cooking brown food to not over do it. The icing was very easy. And it made the house smell so nice and Christmas-sy.

I must confess I was not looking forward to going. I just wanted to stay home and hybernate. Know what I mean? I had put off going to the grocery store for a couple of days. And was just too lazy for words. No excuse, but the weather here on Friday was PERFECT. We sat in the front yard and ate a picnic lunch and watched our pretty green rye grass grow. Bob wanted to mow it SO bad. But, I suggested he just mow the back yard. Which he did--and he bag mowed it, and that sucked up all the pretty dandelions and dandelion seeds, and henbit purple flowers, and leaves. Now our compost pile is taller than the neighbor's shed. Then Bob opened the gate and said he would just mow by the fence and tree to show me how mowing the rye grass made it stand up even prettier, but I said, no, it would leave tire tracks. But, I wasted my breath. He mowed it anyway. Now we will have rye grass growing on our compost heap soon. (visible from space--or google earth)

Bob got part of the east side of the terraced walls weeded, and the frozen Lantana cut back for winter, filling two whole humongous trash bags for pick up yesterday. We are so funny to have a pretty yard in the winter. Can't get anything to grow under the oak trees in summer, but in winter, the rye grass likes it just fine.

Since our church (Arlington Community Church) was just putting on a music program for church this morning, Bob did NOT have to teach Sunday School, so we attended with James' and his Lady Love, and saw some cute kids do their play, and heard a good sermon from Mark 15: 42-47. Then James and LL went out to lunch with us, and we ate some good Mexican food, and they even had a couple singing requests. "How Great Thou Art" in Spanish and ten renditions of Feliz Navidad. Too funny. I wonder if they get tired singing it?!

Bob helped me go to Walmart---which was jam packed with shoppers but we purchased a frozen turkey for Thursday, and enough victuals to last the next cold snap. We made it to Braum's last night just before they closed to stock up on milk and eggs. We are keeping Walmart and Braum's in business!!! Everything we need, we find there. If you can't find it at Walmart or Braum's, well...you must not need it. Most days I look down and everything I am wearing is from Walmart. I bet you did not know they stocked pants this big.

I don't think I had ever seen the base of the towers on Cedar Hill. Whenever you approach the metroplex, you can see them afar off. And we have driven around them on I-20, but today we took the scenic route home from James' LL's church. Right after the towers, it IS (like Bob warned me) a steep drop off to the west down to Joe Poole lake. We were amazed at all the new development. I had not been down there in years and years. Bob said he had not been down there since scouting for microwave towers and that was before Ben was born.

Aunt Mona relieved me of all the dishrags and hot pads I had knitted up. Her mom loves them, and she was headed toward two other nieces to share colors she did not want.

http://www.servecast.com/opw/211208/archive150.html (Newgrange)

Has a neat story about the solstice in Ireland. They think these tombs are older than the pyramids, and older than Stone Henge. For twenty minutes, two or three mornings a year on the solstice, the sun lights this special, line-up floor and wall carvings.

I did feel a bit like a fish out of water last night talking about things we read online, and funny blogs. But, I will save that for another post. When folks ask, "what have you been doing?" I take them literally. Bob says its just a conversation starter. I am so tempted to snark, "improving my mind" or "blogging" but how do you compress laundry, meals, Scrabble, and reading stuff on the computer into an interesting way to justify my existence? Living?! Living high on the hog!! I am very blessed, and very spoiled. Bob will never know (until he reads this) how much I appreciate him helping me shop, and haul it all home, and put stuff away. We live like kings and queens. The house is paid off. The boys are all grown, and flown the nest. And it is time to beat Bob at Scrabble!!!