View of Vesuvius from the bus to the support site.
Sorry no posts on this for some time. Coming back to real life brought real life responsibilities – work, jewelry show, house cleaning, pet care, snow shoveling, etc. Actually two of those collided thanks to Mike and Paula for manning the booth at a craft fair while I worked at the J-O-B. Oh then Mike went off to Europe for his civilian job. The truck got a flat and AAA couldn’t help. We got our first snow. And I worked….
Bread from my visit to the Buffalo Mozzarella factory. Sorry fresh Italian Bread was so good I couldn’t wait for you…
Any way Happy November 17th aka Homemade Bread Day.
So we left off with my arrival to Naples and checking into what was known on the bases as the Capo Inn (Navy Inn on the main base, which is the smaller base but has the work offices). This was yet again supposed to be Mike’s swan song last two week active duty in the Navy. (the last one was to be that and when we got back found out there’s a chance there might be more). Any way I was in a holding pattern on plans until he got his schedule then I’d build around any time he had off. If he had any.
So if Aaron’s done it Mike can’t be out done. That’s the rivalry between father and son. Back some time ago, Aaron went to Buffalo Wild Wings and took the hot wings challenge. He beat it and got his picture on the wall just after completing it – a smiling sweaty snotty saucy mess but victorious. Since then, Mike has wanted to go to the same place (the one here in Kenosha) and beat it to at least tie Aaron.
Well Saturday, February 16, 2013 was the day! We went to lunch there before grocery shopping. He decided it was time. The challenge is 12 wings in 6 minutes, one napkin, no drink, have to remove the meat with your mouth not your fingers. Here’s the photo post of the challenge.
He starts out well with a full basket of 12 Blazin’ Hot Wings
What I found most impressive is he wore a white shirt AND KEPT IT CLEAN!
Even his face was fairly clean…
They POURED on the sauce a lot more heavily than they do the normal order. Mike said it wasn’t that spicy (this from a man who eats habaneros raw) but the temperature hot got him more.
Here’s his victory!
Afterward he started turning pink as the spicy heat hit him. That stuff builds ya know…
What did he get for his victory? A great new T-Shirt
There are traditions in areas of the country that don’t translate nationally. Just like there are words that are regional – a knit cap can be a toboggan, toque (my favorite word for it), bob hat, sock cap, tossle, cora cap, stocking hat, or beanie all depending on where you are in the US. I’ve enjoyed adopting various traditions of areas we have lived.
One that I was raised with was the tradition of black-eyed peas and hogs jowl for New Year’s Day meal. The tradition goes – if you keep count of how many black-eyed peas you eat that day each will turn into an extra dollar in your pocket the following year. Sadly, I could never keep count. Don’t freak out about hog jowl it’s just like a thick cut bacon. Honestly when I’ve needed a substitute living where that’s not a tradition I’ve gotten thick cut bacon and couldn’t tell the difference. So if you want you can do that.
Mike had no traditional New Year’s Day food. Only tradition he had was to mock the other tradition my family had – watching the Rose Parade. Since I’ve married him, I’ve never watched a parade on TV in peace. Still I could make the traditional dinner for New Year;s Day and we’d toast the year in with champagne back when we stayed up to midnight.
Then we moved to Charleston and the traditional New Year’s Day meal was expanded. There it was Hoppin’ John you ate. That’s black eyed peas, rice, and salted pork. Debb over at Sunshine Factor posted a great recipe for the traditional meal. This was a more flavorful way to do the tradition than just beans and bacon. So I adopted Hoppin’ John and tweaked it to be a bit healthier – used lean cuts of ham or turkey ham, upped the veggies and enjoyed getting the fiber of the peas.
Actually we’ve had Hoppin’ John every year since. We’ve introduced people to the tradition complete with the challenge of counting peas for dollars in the new year. I have to say even the skeptics walked away Hoppin’ John lovers. It’s a tasty dish, that just fills you up and has almost a comfort food effect. I think we might have started a new tradition in a few homes along our moves since Charleston.
Now Hoppin’ John is a beloved dish in the Low Country (Charleston area of South Carolina) much like She-Crab Soup and 7-Bean soup. It’s a warm meal and Charleston summers are very hot and humid (It’s said you shower in April and dry off in December). So making the beloved dish in the hot summer doesn’t suit. However, when we lived there the morning newspaper in Charleston (then they had two) solved the problem by posting a Hoppin’ John Salad recipe for the summer months -a cool tasty dish based on the beloved recipe. I make it every summer and we enjoy the heck out of it. It’s become a tradition at our house for cook outs in the summer months. Since Debb shared the basic Hoppin John I’ll share the salad…
HOPPIN’ JOHN SALAD
2 cans (14.5 oz each ) reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup uncooked long grain rice
1 can (15 to 16 oz) black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
1 cup diced red and/or yellow bell pepper
1 cup thinly sliced celery
3/4 cup thinly sliced scallions
1/2 cup herb or Italian vinaigrette salad dressing
In a medium saucepan, bring broth and 1/4 cup of water to a boil. Stir in the rice. Cover pan, reduce heat to medium-low and cook until rice is tender and all broth is absorbed, about 20 minutes.
In a very large mixing bowl combine black eyed peas, bell pepper, celery, and scallions. Add warm rice and vinaigrette. Stir gently to combine. Chill for 12 hours to allow for marination. Serve.
Yields 6 main dish servings or 10 side dish servings.
Now you’ve got two recipes for a New Year’s Tradition be you in a cold climate or a hot one. Let me tell you that Hoppin’ John has many variations – each home puts their own spin on the dish. The main core of it is a flavorful black eyed pea and rice dish usually with pork, but in some homes it’s not. I’d suggest taking the basic recipe to follow for the first time then add what you think would make it better for your family. True Southern Cooking isn’t about following recipes but instead about cooking flavorful dishes that vary from cook to cook. If you’ve ever been to a covered dish dinner south of the Mason Dixon you know what I’m talking about. There maybe four green beans there and each one is different and delicious. So customize! It’s expected. The recipe is only a starting guideline not an absolute this isn’t chemistry!
Now the question is how did it get its name? Honestly no one knows. The origin of the dish is American but there are strong African, French, and Caribbean roots to it. At least that’s what the food historians tell me and from tasting variations with pineapple and tomatoes in them I’d agree. Some forms definitely have a strong Creole flare. The tradition is the first man to hawk the dish in the streets of Charleston was a Freeman called Hoppin’ John due to his peg leg. Another tradition is that to share a meal the African family would tell you to Hop In and John is just the John Doe fill in for a name. Finally the last one I’ve heard is that children would hop around the table in anticipation of the tradition and to get the luck from it as it was served.
Ahh the luck – I’ve shared my family’s tradition of counting the beans. Another variation is to serve it with greens (Collard, mustard, turnip doesn’t matter) and the more you eat of greens with the beans the more greenback and coins you’ll get in the new year. Still another tradition that’s more toward Louisiana than South Carolina is placing a shiny dime in the dish. Whoever gets the dime in their serving gets the best luck in the New Year. No matter if you count beans, eat greens, hide a dime, or just eat Hoppin’ John it’s said to bring good luck for the year. So I figure what’s the harm the new year can use all the luck it can get and I love seasoned beans and rice!
Ours this year will be vegetarian but served with greens, cornbread, and thick cut bacon. Pictures will be posted at Flickr, G+ and thus feed to Twitter and Facebook. So keep an eye out for our good luck!
It’s hard to cook a 20lb turkey when you can only lift 10lbs. Also time on my feet was limited. I started by making the Broccoli Salad. It’s a layered salad that marinates for twenty-four hours in the fridge. After that my guys lived up to their promise and joined me in the kitchen. They were a great help in all the chopping to make the stuffing (I do stuffing with apples, veggies, sausage, nuts…). They were also the heavy pan lifters. Mike was the official Turkey Baker of the house. He did as well as I could.
There was a mix up about Thanksgiving dinner time so we didn’t conflict with Aaron’s obligations at Sara’s family. It was okay we went over for dessert at Sara’s house then came home to have our dinner. It all worked out just fine.
I liked having help so much that I’m going to make family preparation of the dinner a NEW family tradition. I’m all excited for it and gung-ho for next year. The guys don’t seem to be embracing it so much. I can’t see why they wouldn’t love it too instead of sleeping in while I cook or watching football while I cook they get to get up and be a part of the holiday preparations!
So here’s our day in photos:
My start on the broccoli salad.The start of a new family tradition or at least my sous chefs of 2012.The meal progresses…The guys goof off at the table. It’s my family tradition to take pictures of holiday table before anyone eats. We have 3 generations of them. However my group no longer does good china nor do we take it seriously any more.The final result – a wonderfully delicious plate!
Until next time! Hopefully the new tradition sticks – I’m sure they will come around to it.
One of the Summer things I look forward to is fresh Gazpacho made from Mike’s garden. So far this year we’ve made and consumed gallons of the stuff. It is WONDERFUL! So here’s the basis of it. I never cook by a recipe (much to my mother-in-law’s chagrin) I tend to cook by feel, taste, available ingredients, and health requirements. So this is the source of my inspiration when making Gazpacho but the results always vary a bit depending on how many tomatoes, peppers, onion, etc. are coming in from the garden.
Gazpacho
1 ½ pounds tomatoes peeled and diced
1 medium white onion chopped
1 medium cucumber peeled seeded chopped
1 cup green bell pepper seeded chopped
2 cups tomato juice
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1/8 cup lime juice
2 large cloves of garlic peeled and finely minced
Seeded chopped jalapeno to taste
½ teaspoon of Nature’s Seasoning (or ¼ teaspoon each of salt and black pepper)
Combine all ingredients in large bowl refrigerate for several hours before serving. Serve each bowl with 1 Tablespoon of fat free sour cream on top.
It’s a team effort to make it. There’s a lot of chopping and peeling and seeding involved. Sometimes when there’s lots of tomatoes I puree tomatoes with salt and pepper to use for the tomato juice part. The nutrition information was estimated by my MasterCook program. I usually don’t use that much olive oil, about half that. I at times I add a bit more lime juice just so the color stays bright and I like the kick it adds. It’s really better if it sits in the fridge over night before eating. Then enjoy! It’s worth the effort!
It’s that time of year in Wisconsin where the tomatoes and peppers flow! Here it’s not like in the South where tomatoes come in from May to September. They all roll in in a big juicy red & yellow flood. Though we didn’t plant any yellow ones this year. Peppers of all types are tumbling into the kitchen in plastic grocery bags full!
Mike is freezing them daily. I’m eating them so much I’ve got a mouth ulcer from the acid. I LOVE them but I do wish we’d gotten some yellow ones since they have less acid. We’ve made salsa, we’ve made gazpacho. Mike’s hung peppers and chilies out to dry by the yards. Still they roll in faster than two people can eat them.
We always have chili on Sundays in the Winter. We feel good as we cuddle with bowl to watch NFL while the snow flies outside. It’s extra good to know the goodness came from Mike’s garden that summer before. He’s the chili master of the house from start to bowl. I just have to persuade him one habanero per pot is enough sprinkle on dried habanero if he wants it hotter. I love spicy I don’t like painful! So our daily work with the garden harvest pays off all year long!
We have an apple tree in our yard. It bears every year but the apples have never been good. The squirrels love them except one year. That year the squirrels threw the apples at us. I’m not making that up of exaggerating. They’d sit on the awning over the back door and drop the tiny rock hard apples on us as we left. I think it was their way of protesting the bad harvest.
This year the apples look good from a distance. Then when you get up close where they are apples and not just red peaking through the leaves they are spotty and deformed, not good at all. However the squirrels are enjoying them but dropping the rotting parts all over the yard, garden, garage, driveway, walk, and vehicles. I’m thinking of taking up throwing the rotten parts at the squirrel in protest. Turnabout is fair play right?
Flowers didn’t get much attention this year in the drought. We don’t water grass and flowers. We do water food bearing plants. Some flowers get the over spray being just over the fence or path from the vegetable garden. The morning glories benefited from that.
A few more shots to enjoy the bounty of Mike’s gardens.
The Wisconsin Dairy food stand’s paint job made me laugh.
Our day at the fair was more than just gawking at livestock while they gawked at us. There were demonstrations by the Sheriff (tazed a rookie for us!), winners of competitions, midway, food (only got a diet coke but gawked at the offerings), crafts, sales, static displays, and concerts. All the stuff that makes a local county fair – a local county fair.
We decided not to wait around two hours for the mud racing (in South that’s be racin’). I think Mike kinda regretted that but our day in the sun left us pleasantly tired and hungry. We stopped by one of our favorite Mexican restaurants to split our favorite burrito before heading home to watch movies and enjoy the lake breeze blowing through the house. All in all it was a fantastically relaxing day out.
Long break again but at times real life gets in the way of blogging life. I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes (type 2). Which with other issues put me into poly glandular failure. I’m now being treated by the endocrinology pavilion of Froedert Hospital in Milwaukee. I have to be honest they have improved my life immensely so far, many issues I’ve complained about for years are improving with their management.
Which leads us to why I was in the kitchen I have to eat breakfast. It is one their requirements and has always been a personal bodily requirement of mine. However I wake up hungry NOW and/or too groggy to cook. I have dropped my carbohydrate intake due to diabetes (it’s not just sugar but ALL carbs not having a sweet tooth my sins were bread, rice, potatoes, peas, corn, etc.) I looked around for recipes I could do in advance that were low-fat, high protein, and low carb. I came upon one – Spinach Quiche Muffins and thought of one bacon & egg cups. Today was the day I hit the kitchen and tried them.
First up are the Spinach Quiche Cups
low-fat, low carb, high protein Spinach Quiche Muffins
First thing I never do a recipe as written I monkey with it. This one I replaced eggs with egg substitute, regular cheese was replaced by non-fat, chopped onions were replaced by dried minced onions. Why the changes? One obvious reason was to drop number of fat grams. The onions were because sometime ago I made some spinach omelets and froze them in single servings when thawing out I had to drain them. I knew I needed all the help absorbing spinach moisture as I could so dried onion would do that. Also instead of making 12 small ones I went for 6 regular muffin sized. In the original recipe a serving was 2 now it’s one.
Okay you’ll need foil baking cups. I found a light spray of non-stick spray before you put the cups in and in the cups after putting them in the pan added in removal later. Sometimes a bit of it bakes out and the spray on the exterior of the liner helps with that.
10 oz of frozen chopped spinach thawed and drained well. I put mine in a bowl and let it thaw in the fridge sitting on a corner to drain. Then when I opened the package I took out the spinach and squeezed it into a ball with my hands to get out as much moisture as I could. It wasn’t dry but it didn’t drip and when torn apart in the bowl with a fork it was still leafy.
Add to the flaked spinach in the bowl 3/4 cup of egg substitute (if you want real eggs 3 eggs well beaten), 3/4 cup of non-fat shredded cheese (I used cheddar), 1 small bell pepper chopped, and 1 generous tablespoon of dried minced onion. Mix all of this together and divide into your 6 foil cups. I could put it in with a fork it’s that thick. Bake at 350 F for 20 minute until firm. If you are going to eat them right away let stand 5 min to firm before eating. Yes they do freeze and I’ll let you know about thawing tips when I get there.
According to my MasterCook program (I don’t know how accurate but it does for me, it’s up to you to decided if you want to use it. I’m just sharing what information I have) a serving’s nutritional data looks like this for one serving: 66 calories, 1 gram fat, 4 grams carbohydrates, 10 grams protein, and 2 grams fiber.
Next up was my idea of Bacon & Egg Cups from various pictures I’ve seen about. Here’s my versions of them.
Bacon & Egg Cups fresh from the oven
Here I used low-fat Turkey bacon. I stood in the meat department comparing nutritional labels of the turkey bacon and settled on Jennie-O out of what my store had to offer. I used large eggs for six of them and I used 1/4 cup of egg substitute for the other 6. I didn’t spray the pan as it was still greasy enough from the run of Spinach Quiche Muffins. However next time I will be sure to give it an even coating of light spray there was a bit of stickage. I first put a slice of bacon lining the edge of each cup. The I used half a slice to line the bottom. I found if I tore the half into half again (two fourths of a slice) I could position it better to cover the bottom. Then with the real egg I just broke the egg into the cup now made of bacon. For the egg substitute I poured in the quarter cup into the center. I salted and peppered the tops of the eggs and baked for 20 min at 350 F. Here’s what they looked like when they came out.
Bacon & Egg Cup – with real eggBacon & Egg Cup with egg substitute
Aaron ate two regular egg ones and one egg substitute one for lunch pronouncing them good. He wanted instructions for his kitchen in his house this fall. I told him to which he said “I’ll need a muffin pan.”
Okay again according to my MasterCook program here’s the nutritional data per serving. Using an egg it is: 125 calories, 9g Fat, 1g carbohydrates, 10g protein, and 1g fiber. Using the egg substitute it is: 76 calories, 4g fat, 1g carbohydrates, 8g protein, and 0g fiber.
As always I love to hear from you. If you try these let me know how they turn out and what you did to make them your own. Until next time!
I often see people do a list of “10 Things You Don’t Know About Me.” I always find at least one thing I have in common with them that I didn’t know about. Since I’ve not been posting for a while (health issues, improving thanks!) I thought a good post to get back into this would be a 10 Things list. So here is my 10 Things You May Not Know About Me.
I love comic books. I always have and always will. **Let the Geek Flag Fly** Actually I have a pull list mailed to me monthly. For those of you not into comic lingo a pull list is a list of comic book titles to which you subscribe. The big companies DC and Marvel aren’t great at managing subscriptions nor do they offer all titles for subscription. The small companies like Dynamite don’t offer subscriptions nor do Indies like Zenotrope. So if you have a local comic shop you go there fill out a pull list and they make a mailbox for you pulling those titles as they come in. Our local comic shop burned so I use Midtown comics for my pull list and they mail them to me monthly. If you want to read my comic book reviews I post them over on my Google+ account.
As a rule I don’t like chick flicks. I’ve never liked goody-goody sappy things. I hated Little House on the Prairie and the Waltons. I did like Hot L Baltimore and All In The Family. Just an example from my early days of not liking the sappy movies.
I didn’t like My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This doesn’t mean I don’t like love stories or happy endings, I do. I just like a story with meat and realism to it. I find these movies shallow and insulting to women.
I worked in radioactive waste processing. Yep, I was a Regulatory Compliance Specialist. I helped with NRC rules, RCRA rules, EPA rules, OSHA rules, and so on. I taught courses on RCRA compliance. What heck did I just say? Well I worked doing internal inspections of the various processing of radioactive waste for the alphabet soup of laws that applied. Just so you know I went into that job supporting the use of nuclear energy. I left years later thinking until we know what to do with waste beyond make it smaller and leave it sitting in the desert to watch it for thousands of years – we shouldn’t be making radioactive waste for anything except lifesaving medical reasons.
Created using Printshop
I love the paranormal and fringe stuff. Now I don’t buy all of it nor do I discount all of it. I find it fun to read or listen to radio shows. This is a pretty wide topic to me it can be anything from ghosts, aliens, crypto creatures, time travel, conspiracies, and anything weird. Some of it astounds me people actually believe that stuff. Some of it makes me think about what DO I believe and why. Some of it makes me wonder just how much do we know about physics and such. All of it helps me come up with story ideas.
Licensed image from Printshop
I don’t like chocolate or sweets in general. Honestly I’d rather have mashed potatoes & gravy, a good au gratin potato or more steak than dessert any day. I don’t like ice cream and for my birthday want to impress me take me out to a Mexican or Sushi place. You won’t see me posing with a cake. I’m all into savory and my aversion to sweet goes as far as not caring for most fruits. Ruby red grapefruit is my favorite with salt is my favorite!
I’m sodium deficient most of the time. Yep I salt heavily but when it comes time for my routine blood test I’m deficient. It has to with adrenal malfunction – my body doesn’t absorb salt very well.If you eat dinner with me and see me salting don’t fret my blood pressure when I checked in for surgery last week was 118/62 and I was stressed for surgery but had taken no medication yet. So my heart can take it and my body needs it to avoid pains in my legs and general body pain due to malfunctioning nerves that don’t have enough sodium.
Image licensed from PrintShop
I love true crime/missing person stories. I find nothing fascinating that a good mystery and the best ones come from life. Sure it’s great to learn the end but the others fascinate me too. I’ve read all the books by John E Douglas a famous criminal profiler. My most frequently recorded channel is Investigation Discovery.
My favorite channel. Image reproduced under the Fair use doctrine for commentary and criticism under US Copyright law
My heart breaks for the victims and their families. Still I can’t help but be fascinated with how cases are investigated not just the forensic side but all aspects. I’m always intrigued about why someone does such crimes. Why does A react to the situation with crime while B in the same situation doesn’t? Also good plot twists are based on things that can really happen. The plot turns I want to write are inspired by the real twists of life.
No animal creeps me out, none. Mike doesn’t like big bears (Kodiak, Grizzly, etc.). Aaron thinks orangutans are creepy. Sara finds Aaron etymology collection gross and creepy. I can’t say any of those things bother me. Sure I respect big bears and hope to never meet one face to face. I find Orangs fascinating as they are one of our closest genetic relatives. Bugs – heck you’re reading the writing of a girl who used to love to play with bugs, especially those roly-poly ones you find under damp rocks or in rotting trees. So no I don’t find rats, bats, snakes, bears, big cats or anything creepy. I do have respect for wild beasts and venomous critters but don’t find them any creepier than people. Actually I find people creepy occasionally.
I can read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. I took classes for two years to get the basics of reading it. Why? I figured if it was so important to them to write all over everything the least I could do is read a bit of it to see what’s going on. I’m a writer the biggest thrill for me is to be read I don’t see that being any different 4,000 years ago. I studied Middle Kingdom glyphs and can muddle through the basics of an idea that’s written, stumble through Old or New Kingdom stuff. I love history and I love the beauty of ancient Egyptian designs even their writing was beautiful art. So I satisfied my curiosity about the very lean basics of how to read their hieroglyphs.
I enjoy solitude. I think I need more alone time than most people. Not that I’m not a social person, I am, I can be. Yet I love quiet days alone with my thoughts. I think that’s the root of my love of reading, photography, and writing. Those are all things you do alone, just you and your thoughts. I’m not a hermit by any means but for me to travel alone, have dinner out alone, to stay home alone, isn’t a bad thing to me. I just like time to myself to process and create things. I just always enjoyed going my way. Maybe that comes from being an only child raised in area where I didn’t have playmates except in school hours. Maybe it’s just my personality. Either way my good friends concur that I do need more alone time than most people. Too much interaction time makes me grumpy, I feel overwhelmed and become annoyed. I guess it goes without saying I don’t like being in crowds…
So there you go. Did ya learn something about me? Do we have more in common that you knew? Am I an odd bird as they say down South? As always I appreciate you reading and any stars, shares, and/or comment are greatly appreciated. Until next time!
Many people paint a rosy picture of their childhood Christmases. In hopes of being a bit more practical I will admit there are many things I don’t miss about my childhood Christmases. Not that they weren’t great Christmases but there are some things I’m thankful I DON’T have to do any more.
I don’t miss getting dressed up to sit around the house. Yes, my Nanny (what I called my maternal grandmother) required everyone to look like a Norman Rockwell painting but better dressed. Didn’t work, I was uncomfortable in a dress or skirt and knee socks trying to play with my new toy. Give me jeans any day and I’m a happy camper, better yet sweats to just wear about the house enjoying myself.
I don’t miss having to make my bed and display my gifts. Well I didn’t HAVE to but my Nanny liked it. It did make writing thank-you notes much easier. Besides it’s easier to play with Barbies on a bed when you are in a skirt than in the floor.
I don’t miss the good china. Yeah it’s nice and I carried that stupidity to a new level when I was a young married woman by having specific Christmas dishes (well we used them all winter because they were winter themed). No really the meal tastes just as good on every day dishes and is much less stressful to do.
I don’t miss all the stupid school stuff. When I was in 5th and 6th grade our class went about singing to different places and putting on some odd variety show. We wore orange-yellow shirts with our names on them in fuzzy purple letters (our school colors were purple and gold but gold was expensive so orange-yellow stood in). I’d “blossomed” to a C cup by the 5th grade and they had to shorten my name to fit on the shirt. It looked like one of the girls is named Mary and the other Lou. I don’t miss that.
I don’t miss the oyster stuffing. I like oysters steamed or smoked. I don’t like them in stuffing. Enough said.
I don’t miss the cut up stuff in the gravy. Why my grandmother insisted on chopped boiled egg and chopped turkey giblets put in the gravy is beyond me. I like my gravy plain like my coffee. They’re both beverages right?
Really, this time of the year many people wax nostalgic about their childhood Christmas. However being the cynic with a good heart I don’t want to gloss over the stuff I didn’t like (besides Mary and Lou are still hanging around, albeit a bit lower now).
Yes, there are things about my childhood Christmases I miss. They can all be summed up by one miss—I miss the anticipation. I miss the build up to Christmas. The excitement was so much I felt was going to burst and squirmed with delight at that feeling. It built so much until on Christmas Eve night I couldn’t fall asleep and my parents would take me on car rides to get me to go to sleep . I’d be in my pajamas with a blanket watching the dark sky and Christmas lights go by until I fell asleep.
No for me it’s gone. I get glimmers here and there of the thrill. The closest sustained anxious feeling like that is when I race from the car to the bathroom in Target wondering if I’ll make it in time. (Hey there’s anticipation and squirming involved with great joyous relief when I get there). No the anticipation isn’t the same.
Still looking on the bright side, I get to wear sweats, not wear the girls names about in public, enjoy a plain gravy while eating off my every day dishes, and skip making my bed that day. All in all life’s pretty good.
Mary Louise Eklund 