Last gasp for 2006

I am an ecstatic mom. I heard from my daughter last night and she is safely back in the USA. Well, relatively safely. These days I don't think anywhere in the world is really SAFE. But she's back where I can talk to her with no trouble. Very good! Double Wahoo.

I am zeroing in on a new art project. My project with my grandson turned out great. We made two artefacts, and they both were acceptable... and he didn't say "this is disgusting" even once! Now I have a new project in hand for me, myself and I. I got some tubes of watercolor for Christmas together with two canvases. I think I am going to try the technique I saw Cal De Ruyter demonstrate of painting on the canvas with water color right from the tube. Should be exciting and a fun time for me. Whether it will amount to anything much is beside the point!

Have a safe evening. And may you have a wonderful 2007.

okayyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Well. I guess I know what's happening. I can do two different blogs now if I want to. Why I would want to is anyone's guess.

We are thundering up upon a new year. What that year will bring is not known. The portents around the world are not good. Global warming, wars all over the place, lies and liars abounding........ Well, if it weren't for the hope that I have in Jesus Christ, I would literally not have any hope. We do need to keep on trucking but how, that's the question.

I believe that it is important to do the good thing that presents itself in front of you each day. I used to call that "keepin on truckin'"... Since I'm still kickin', I guess I can also keep on truckin'. Let's make that one of our New Year's Resolutions! Another one of those resolutions should be to laugh a lot! Wahoo. I can do that!

Take care and keep up the good work at the gym!

oh my

I am writing another little note to see what will happen. If this shows up, to get the new posts you have to add the 2 at the end of the twopairandaspare address. Sigh

wow

Well, we made it. We have been married for 53 years. Today we are sitting in our son's family home with our grandson coughing in the background. He is busily watching cartoons and we are eating breakfast. That is, George is eating breakfast and I am drinking coffee and blogging. John and Beth are off to work.

I have lined up an art project for Matthew and I t0 do. Not paper mache, Barb, but something akin to that. It is called cotton linting. You buy some cotton linting stuff, put it in the blender with water... blend, drain, and put in a cast. Let dry and then take it out of the cast. There are many places where this could go wrong. I found it in Michael's @ with all kinds of further applications we could buy if it works and we enjoy doing it. Time will tell.

Hats off to Naomi who will be back in the states soon. Have a safe trip.

Take care.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Nice relaxed day. Opening the presents around the tree. Breakfast fixed by chefs Beth and John. Open Christmas stockings. All is well.

We went to a very festive and celebratory church service last evening in a very old church here on the Langley Air Force Base. It was a great candle lighting service. Then home to a nice late supper. To bed after watching a roaring fire in their great fireplace. Wonderful.

I miss our own church. I wonder how it went on Sunday. Morning regular church service. Afternoon and evening services. I imagine Pastor just brought a cot to the church and camped out. That would be cool.

My best to you all. Jesus is the reason for the season, fer sure. love ya.

Oofta

Well. I managed to sign up for a Google e-mail account so that I could get this blog into the newest format, or something. John got me started and I hope that I have completed all the necessary stuff to have accomplished this daring feat. We'll see if I can post more efficiently or if a new nightmare has begun. Time will tell.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Take care.

Christmas Spirit

Just picture me! It is evening and I am dressed in my red plaid flannel pants, my white and plaid sweat shirt and a red/blue/yellow/green/white plaid vest. I am the spirit of Kris Kringle personified. If I were at home I would grace you with my photo, but I don't know how to do that here, so you will be spared that horror.

We drove around here and looked at the Christmas lights on the houses. I must say we do equally well in the mid-west, if not better. We have some humdinger lighters in Evansville. There are all kinds of mansions around here and some of them decorate in a tasteful way, some in an extravagant way, but some of them gain the boo hiss award for awful. I imagine it is that way everywhere.

Have you put up lights this year? Which category do you fall into? Go outside and look it over. Tasteful? Extravagant? or Boo Hiss? Or nothing? That is not often the case.

We send our Christmas Greetings to you all. Take care.

Happy Friday

The ham was wonderful and superabundant. The Spanish Creme was not good. I have to visit Carol when I get back home and watch her make it, because it definitely was not successful the way I made it. I want to learn!

Hope you all are doing well.

Now, THAT'S a ham!

We have an 18 pound ham in our oven! It came wrapped in burlap-like stuff with the instructions written on it for various styles of cooking. After being soaked in water overnight, it was placed in the oven at 300 degrees at 10:30 am. We hope by carefully following the instructions, it will be ready for consumption tonight and many a meal to come. Cookbook, here we come. Any fantastic recipes out there?

Speaking of fantastic recipes, remember the recipe I got from Carol for Spanish Creme? Well, I am going to make it tomorrow. Everyone should love it as it is benignly without fat or carbs... besides tasting GREAT.

The new mattress and box spring came today delivered by two very accomodating young men from Macy's department store. They delivered it within the time-frame allowed and were very polite. They were competing for two tickets to the Super Bowl so they want us to call in and say how OUTSTANDING they were. I can do that, as they really were outstanding!

I now have done three different styles of dumplings on three consecutive days. Today was the best and I did the simplest recipe.. the one on the bisquick box. Yummmmm. I am retiring the chicken soup, however, as three days with the same lunch seems excessive. George is exceedingly patient and said the soup was the best today!

Take care. We are having chilly but preasant weather. How about you?

school bus

It has been many years since I thought about school buses. I took our grandson to meet the bus this morning. It comes to the corner just one house away, but he has to be accompanied by an adult, which is a good thing. We meet it at 3:15 in the afternoon, and if his adult isn't there to meet it, the boy won't be dropped off. Such care has to be taken to insure safety these days. I approve wholeheartedly. He ordinarily doesn't get to ride the bus, so he is really excited and glad about it. Grandparents are the greatest! Wahoo.

About the pie we made yesterday. I bought crust already in the pie pan ready to go. It was terrible. The pie "innards" were very good. I called my pal Carol to get basic instructions as I couldn't find the cookbooks here, and it went fine. It will take me awhile to figure out where everything is. Makes life very interesting.

Barb: paper mache is not one of the things I plan to do. Been there, failed at that. I would have to be really desperate to try it again!

I really miss my gym buddies. Hope you are all fine. Send me an e-mail so I have your addresses... I usually use my address book to write to you, and I don't have access to that here. Are you getting excited about Christmas shopping and decorating and food, etc.? Take a moment out every now and then to think about the meaning of the great day!

Running Man

I now live at a place called "Running Man." I haven't seen any men running, only a woman, but if I keep alert, who can tell. I am going to meet my grandson's bus this afternoon and then we are going to make an apple pie from the apples we brought from Minnesota. We have to do it very quickly because at 5 he has to leave to play basketball. Kids have lots of things to do these days. He's in kindergarten and already knows about phonics and spelling, etc. Of course, he's exceptionally bright, etc., etc., And he also takes Tae Kwan Do and showed us a board that he had broken in two with his very own little hand. oofta.

We are having fun learning to know a new place. Where everything is found in the house, but where everything is outside the house, too. I love it. More tales from - not the crypt - but from the ... what? What do you suggest?

Egg on Face

We were busy addressing and sending our annual Christmas letter. I had a whole stack done, and George, very helpfully, took them to the post office. Turns out that the top two had stamps and the rest didn't, plus there were no return address doodads on them. Sigh. I found out about it because Fran mentioned she had to pay to get the letter. She DID say that it was worth the stamp, but goodness gracious. Ah, well. If any of you were the recipients of that letter, I apologise profusely!

Naomi's latest blog is great. Be sure to check it out. I talked to her this morning and it was wonderful to hear her voice.

Readership

Somebody on TV last night said the average number of readers of a blog was ONE. I don't know how they came up with that number, but it made me feel rather good. As I am pretty sure I have more than one reader!

It was hard to come up with a name for my blog that had not been used many times before. I got desperate and used the title of one of my paintings that I had sitting by the computer, and it didn't get challenged, so that's how I came up with the dreaded twopairandaspare title. Not fun, but at least unique. The sub title, Still Kickin', is self explanatory.

I am not still hula hooping or belly dancing, but at least I can still kick, if not very high. The gals at the gym are always teasing me because I don't raise my feet from the resting board. I think part of the reason for that is that then there is no chance I will lose my balance. Even at that, I have lost over 30 inches round my various parts. Amazing.

The best part of the whole deal is that I can still laugh at my self! That's the best exercise there is! May you have at least a good chuckle today!

dinner vs. supper

There was only one response to my question in my last blog. I do thank Karen for her response! When I was a girl, the noon meal on Sunday was always called Sunday Dinner.. later in life I discovered that evening meals that were substantial were also called dinner. In the midwest, I believe that at the present time the evening meal is generally called supper so that you know what time of day you are thinking of.

Check out the menus the next time you go to the local eateries. There are lunch menus and dinner menus. Generally, the dinner menu is referring to the evening menu. Generally the dinner menu is considerably more expensive than the lunch menu.

If you say "luncheon" that seems a bit classier than "lunch." And we all want to be classy, right? Not. Whichever meal you mean, if the food is good, who cares!

Spanish Creme

We had the wonderful invitation to visit our friends Carol and Carl in Ashby last night for the evening meal. (In case you're noticing, I'm avoiding saying "supper" or "dinner"... Which do you prefer, and why?) She had home made bread (made in your gift machine, Fran), a wonderful chicken and rice dish, and yummy vegetables. A tour de force! But to top it all off, there was a GREAT dessert. She says it has been a favorite of her kids for many years. So here it is. Hats off to Carol for this, and obviously she substituted Splenda @ for the sugar so I could eat it.

1 pkg gelatin
3 C. milk
6 T cocoa
3 separated eggs
1/2 C. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 t. vanilla

Soften the gelatin in 1/4 c. cold milk. Beat yolks, then add rest of milk, sugar, cocoa and salt.
Cook until just custard consistency. Add gelatin mixture. Stir and remove from stove. Fold in beaten egg white and vanilla. Pour into a mold. Chill. Serve with Cool Whip or Reddi Whip.

I tell you, I am a fan. It looks great and tastes greater. Wahoo. We don't use much unsweetened and unflavored gelatin now, but this recipe is worth it. Check it out!

Beyond the eating fun, we had our usual fun time talking. Friends are just the greatest!

snow, beautiful snow

We finally got snow yesterday. It was very cold and windy. If we had had more snow we might have had a blizzard... but I do love the look of the white stuff.

It was a full day yesterday. The Advent breakfast went very well. I managed to tell the story to every one's satisfaction and, of course, the food was good. A great way to start off the advent season!

At one o'clock was the funeral of Kermit Zickur. Christina Lake Church was packed both upstairs and downstairs for the tribute to this very active and appreciated man. Then, at 4:30 was the meeting of our Evansville Arts Coalition. We are planning some wonderful events for the new year. I will try to keep you posted. Life is ongoing...

Shout out to Shirley. I got in touch with her after a long time because I saw her son at the funeral and it reminded me to send her an e-mail and I heard back. Always fine to get in touch with old friends!

Take care.

Painting revisited....

I took this painting to the gym (in its old form) and as we all were looking at it, I started to see that I had not yet finished it. So, I took it home and started in, and this is the new painting which I think IS finished. We'll see. The rule of thumb is that once you have signed a painting it is finished, but since when have I ever followed any rule of thumb!

My newest challenge is to learn to use a hoola hoop. They have weighted ones at the gym that look so easy to use. Right. The girls all encourage me, cajole me and generally give me the business because I don't try enough. It's a bit like the belly dancing. My old stodgy body is not very flexible. If I should ever succeed, I will let loose with a yell which will be like the "shula" that the Norwegian girl sang at the concert. A loud and piercing call that can be heard for miles (literally). Of course, that is another skill that I would have to develop then. It should be easier, however, than the hula hoop, which seems to be down-right impossible.

Church today was great. A baptism, communion, good sermon ... and then the choir got to sing a wonderful anthem: "Jesus, What a Beautiful Name." Then George took me for dinner to the local bistro. I have had a great day. Hope you had one, too.

We'll be thinking of Karen l and her husband as they begin their trip to Africa tomorrow. Hope all goes well and they enjoy getting to know a completely different part of the world.

Yes, second try...

On TV there are sad tales of ice storms, snow blizzards, all kinds of severe weather all around the U. S., and here in northern Minnesota, this is the extent of the snow. We do have temperatures in the teens and single digits, but no blizzards. It is pathetic! Will we have a dry winter? I hope not. I await the white stuff.

We composed our Christmas letter today. Later I might include it as a blog, but not quite yet, as it will spoil the impact of getting it in the mail for those of you who will receive it later. It is a masterpiece, of course, so I suppose you will await it anxiously. Right.

First Sunday in Advent tomorrow, and our Advent Breakfast on Monday. Those of you within driving distance are invited. 9 o'clock sharp. Egg bake for breakfast and then, yours truly is giving a program! It doesn't get much better than this. Sad, but true!

The news we await in the advent season, however, really is the best news ever! The messenger may be faulty, but the news.... always the best. We celebrate the good news of Christ's coming into this poor old world. Wahoo and double wahoo. Have a good day!

December's here