Merry Christmas 2021

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

This was a decent day overall. I'm a little blah with the weather. I had a nice day nevertheless. And I am grateful for that.

I finally put a Christmas decoration today. 

A wreathed on my front door. I meant to put it up a couple weeks ago, but I kept forgetting to bring it in from the garage. But better late than never, right?

Right. 

Christmas Dinner 2020 Revisited

 I meant to post my Christmas dinner for last year.  It has been on my mind because it was unusually simple.  

And I was alone.

I made two pans of dressing. 

I only wanted a small side of dressing, but I don't know how to make a small amount.  Those are 8 inch pans, and the dressing is only a half inch thick, so I guess that is small. It was chicken and sausage dressing. I gave some to a friend, and froze the rest. It was SO good. 

I had baked chicken and a salad. 

This covid season, I have loved what I call a "juicy salad". 

That is a salad made with baby salad greens, blueberries, blackberries, diced green apples, and nuts and dried cranberries. I squeeze the juice from half an orange over it. It was so good. I really enjoyed it. 

That was my meal on Christmas. Alone. I say that because I remember Christmases with family, and due to covid, that's not possible. I enjoyed it, nevertheless. I don't remember much else about the day. I think I worked on one of my crochet projects and watched television. I think I watched the new Wonder Woman movie. 

I remember it being a nice day. 

And I am thankful for that.  

Merry Christmas 2020

 

Who would've known that this Christmas would be so full of pandemic and uncertainty?  

Yet here we stand. 

So keep standing. And enjoy the day.

Merry Christmas! 

Semi-Wordless Wednesday: A Good Christmas

My nephew Justin is at that strange age where he may or may not know that it was Christmas. But he knew he had a lot of new toys.

And he played so hard that he fell asleep, right there on the floor, in the midst of his toys.

Then he had to get sharp so he could go visit his grandparents.

That's what I call a good Christmas.

Merry Christmas/Happy Kwanza... etc

Merry Christmas

Happy Kwanza

Happy Winter Solstice

Happy Hanukah

And whatever else I forgot.

LOL.

I had a great Christmas. I hope you did too!

My sister and my nephew spent the night at my house. She got up and fixed a large breakfast.

There was some patty sausage and polish sausage hiding under that bread.

I am not sure who she was trying to feed with all that food.

And you know what I realized? The last time I ate breakfast food was a year ago in Dubai. Wow.
I must have eaten some real breakfast food since then. I just don't remember. And that's a good thing, I suppose.

And it reminded me of what my grandfather would do for Christmas: make breakfast on Christmas morning. We didn't have Christmas dinner when everyone got together. And that made for a good memory.

Anyway, it was good. So good that I didn't eat anything until noon the next day. Killed my whole entire appetite, it did. I had the 'itis something terrible.

I made cookies for my sister. That's a cheap gift, and it's what she really wanted.

Oatmeal cranberry raisin walnut and Oatmeal chocolate chip.

She was waaaay excited about that. More excited about the cookies than about the $50 Visa gift card I gave her.

She gave me a $50 Best Buy card. Whooo weee... I can't even think straight about what I'm going to buy with that! She also bought me some earrings and gloves. Love those too, even more!

But it was nice to wake up and have a Christmas morning together, just like we did last year. Christmas is not a holiday in Dubai, so it was odd to be in the mall or driving around the city and everyone's working. And last year, we had breakfast at the highest restaurant in the world, at the Burj Khalifa.

And this year, we had breakfast with Justin.

Who would've known that he would be here with us now? Life sure moves fast, doesn't it?

I bought a swing for him. I still have to put it together. I will do that this week sometime, before they come back over to my house.

But it has been a good Christmas season. Very good.

And I am hoping for a great New Year.

A LadyLee Christmas 2015: Christmas Gifts

I would be remiss if I didn't post my Christmas gifts!

As always, I don't expect to get anything.  So I was pleasantly surprised to actually get gifts.

I gave cash and gift cards this year. That was all I had the presence of mind to do. I just wanted to get through the holidays, as it is not the best of times for me. This was a surprisingly good year though in that regard, though. And I am happy for that.

So on to my gifts

A Christmas mug from one of the maintenance guys at work:

It is just the right size for coffee or tea. I will be using that at work.

LadyTee gave me some storage containers.

She uses those type for her storage, and I admire them everytime I go into her refrigerator. So she bought me a set.

Serenity23 gave me a Book on Prayer and a journal.

I will be reading that book for the month of January. And I will use that journal as a prayer or gratitude journal. I haven't decided on which yet.

LadyTee gave me a set of sheets. And her mother gave me a selfie stick.

"What's up with this selfie stick, LadyTee?" I asked in a low voice so her mother, who was in another room wouldn't hear me. "I rarely take pictures, let alone selfies."

"I know, girl," she said.

Her daughter showed me how to use it. It was interesting enough.

"Thank you for the selfie stick, Bobbie Jean," I hollered.

"You're welcome,": she yelled back.

LadyTee also gave me a comforter set.

As you can see, Mitch and Sista Callie Jo are very nosy about it. Anything I bring into the house, especially something that big, they must investigate... and conquer it.

Those were great gifts.

I will get great use out of them.

****Merry Christmas****

My Favorite Christmas Gifts 2014.

Christmas gifts!

I don't do well with picking out good ones. I am more of the type who does better just doing things for people and giving things to people I care for year round. My sister Kentucky is the best at listening intently and remembering to get something the person really wanted or needed. I want to be that way. I am not right now. I better hear you talk about it plenty of times before I remember to make sure to get it as a gift for you.

One of the security guards at work, Ms. Nora, gave me miniature shopping cart. I filled it with candy.

I'm going to be rolling that around on my desk and crashing it into stuff. My coworkers on the other side of the cubicle will be wondering... What the world?

My bestie LadyTee gave me a really nice soft blanket. Really nice... and a bottle of sparkling pomegrante cider.

"The cats gonna love that blanket," she said.

Well after I opened and felt it... uh no. They will NOT be getting on this blanket. This one is great. Great enough only for me.

I saw that bottle and I thought it was wine. Or some Cristal. LadyTee said "Uh, no."

So I will be popping a bottle of sparkling cider! Pretending it's champagne!

My friend and cubicle mate Cowgirl Cre gave me some of my favorite water... and a slice of cornbread.

Water in Glass! I LOVE WATER IN GLASS! No plastic aftertaste. And this is Voss, a Norwegian brand. It's from the top of the world. Very clean taste. Best water in glass of all.

And my piece of cornbread. Whole foods has some good cornbread. That is all.

I'm making some green beans for New Years Day. That cornbread will go with them just fine. GLORY!

Finally, my sister Kentucky gave me an AWESOME wok.

It is huge. It's sitting there on the trunk of my car, so you can tell how big it is. She bought it at a flea market for $20. But online, it retails for $100. The thing about it is it is HEAVY. I know it has to be a good 20-30 pounds. It's out in the garage for now. I'm gonna have to get rid of a couple of my big pieces of cookware before I can even bring it in the house.

I don't know what kind of steel it's made of. Maybe some space rocket bullet proofed compressed steel.

I can't wait to make a stir-fry! It's gonna be kickin'!

Now the best gift I gave this year was to our custodial staff at work.  I bought each a gift card to one of the nice eateries near our workplace. It wasn't the gift card that made it a good gift. It was that I sat down and wrote a short note in each card holder, telling them how much I appreciated them, and thanking them for a job well done. A couple of them have been there since I started the job, some 13 years ago. I even included some funny story where I could.

That was my favorite gift to give. I wasn't the creative handmade thing I like to do, but I REALLY enjoyed writing those notes. I must do that more often.

I picked that up from Serenity23's new blog, Living My Faith. She did a whole month of posts on thanksgiving and gratefulness. And there was journalling, and exercises for us to do all month. She has increased my awareness of being thankful for people in my life. Thanks gal! You don't know it, but that was your gift to me!

So that's my gifts post in a nutshell!

A LadyLee Christmas Dinner 2014

So the holiday season is here...

And we are all getting our eat on...

This could be a good thing. Or not. I am fifty-fifty on that. I am making sure to get my fruit and vegetables, but I could be doing better.

So I did something a little different for Christmas. I'm not all that interested in the whole traditional turkey dinner. If it was just me I don't think I would've cooked anything. But I wanted to make sure my sister had something she liked, especially since she cooked for Thanksgiving. (I wanted her to cook for Christmas so I wouldn't have to, but that would have made me a BAD big sister).

So I decided to bake some fish. I found some flounder at a good price. So I baked that with a little salt, pepper, paprika and lemon.

That is simple enough. Can't mess that up. At all.

But then I got fancy. I baked some shrimp. I've never done that before.,

I also got the notion to make stuffed flounder. I stuffed it with a mix of pureed shrimp, peppers, onions and celery. That was interesting enough. Nothing to write home about. I suppose I have to work on the seasoning of it. But I don't see that happening no time soon.

I also bought a parchment of cod fish topped with cranberry sauce and winter root vegetables. That was good. I wonder who came up with that. It is more than a notion. I'm not that creative.

Then there is rice. I bought a little biryani rice and some wild rice.

The wild rice had pecans and cranberries in it. The biryani rice is a very flavorful indian rice, made with curry, peas, raisins, cinnamon and other spices. Both were very good.

And then there are the traditional parts of our meal. Cornbread and dressing.

That's that bootleg, i.e., make a pan of cornbread and use some of it for dressing. Save a little bit of the cornbread. Lord knows I didn't want to make another pan of cornbread. Unnecessary.

And then there were the beans.

I tell you what... Kentucky made some GREAT green beans for thanksgiving. She gave me the recipe. I carried it out in a crock pot and it worked well. A bit too much meat for me, though (used a smoked turkey leg). So I had to flick a lot of that out of the way. But my goodness... they sure were seasoned well. I'm gonna try it again just with an onion. I am sure they won't taste as good, but oh well.

I had a lovely fruit bowl!

I topped that with some chopped pecans and some sauce made from vanilla almond milk. Good stuff. Still eating on that these mornings.

Roasted Brussels sprouts are AWESOME. That is all.

I baked cookies for a few of my coworkers. These were the few leftovers I still had at home.

Kentucky likes chocolate chip cookies. I like oatmeal raisin pecan cookies.

And Kentucky had the nerve to make another million dollar pie.

Ugh. Don't get me wrong. It is very good. But she just wants to make a pie, eat a slice, THEN LEAVE THE REST WITH ME.

Just ugh. I start having issues if I fool around with too much dairy or white sugar.

UGH.

I have some small aluminum pans. She is going to have to make individual ones and freeze them. Or keep it away from me.

So that's my Christmas dinner. And it was pretty good because it wasn't heavy.

Thank goodness for that!

***MeRRy CHrisTmAs***

Merry Christmas to you all. I hope Christmas 2014 is good for you.

I don't have any Christmas decorations... but here are the decorations from work that I meant to put up earlier this week.

Enjoy!

The decorations from the next building over...

Look at the candy canes... When I first saw that I thought, dang... when in the world did they start putting licorice in candy canes?

It is a falcons candy cane! Go falcons....

More decorations...

Stay tuned for food pics tomorrow!

My Favorite Gifts (Part I)

I'm kind of funny about Christmas.

I don't care for the commercialism of it all. As a result, I like to give homemade gifts.

When my brother and sister were teenagers, they would ask "Lisa, what you want for Christmas?"

This would irritate me something awful. "Just go find a nice rock and paint and glitter it up and paint my name on it."

My sister Kentucky would roll her eyes. My brother Milk and Cookies would offer the *blank stare*

Likewise, I like to give homemade gifts. And my budget for Christmas is a mere $100. Gotta get creative when I'm dealing with that amount.

So I have gotten some interesting gifts from folks at work. I got lotion from Lady M, and oranges from Sushi.

You see the lotion bottle in the picture. That's not what I am talking about. Well, Lady M gave it to me a couple of years ago. I remember her saying one day, "Girl, you're ashy," and handing me the bottle of lotion on her desk. She then left it to me when she left for Africa for a year. And as you can see, she placed "No Ash" on the bottle.

It is rare to hear of Caucasians who know what "ashy" is. She is quite passionate about it. It is hilarious, but I am glad for it.

But what is of interest here is the lovely creme flower in the palm of my hand. Lady M made those and gave those to her coworkers. They are her special concoction of cocoa butter, coconut oil and beeswax, and I tell you, a little goes a long way and they smell sooooo good.

Lady M is my "African American" friend. She lived over in The Motherland for over a year, so she gets a pass.

Now to the oranges. Sushi gave me those. She is the youngster our group. There was some fundraiser downstairs in another department, and this is the second year she's bought a bunch of oranges.

I peer at her curiously over all this. "Why they don't sell chocolate candy like everybody else?"

But they are her oranges. And she gave me a couple.

"Christmas Oranges!"

Long ago, one of my late coworkers told me that as a child, he and siblings received oranges for Christmas.

"And if there was more money, we also received nuts."

I laughed at this. You give a child a piece of fruit for Christmas, and you might get it thrown back at you.

I also read that the slaves got oranges for Christmas from their Masters.

I thought about all that as I grabbed a couple of oranges out of Sushi's box of oranges.

And I thought about how far we have come.

And how far we still have to go.

Because, you know, life just won't be right if you don't get that new iPhone or 60 inch TV for Christmas. Your Christmas just won't be right.

And we all will have to hear you complain about how horrible your Christmas was.

Just terrible. Horrible!

Sigh.

Just give me my nice homemade gifts. Made by hands with love.

Just give me some fruit. Something to give me the vitamins and hydration I need.

As long as it's from the heart.

That's all that matters to me. 

My Christmas Gifts

Here are my Christmas gifts from my sister...

A 4 pack of Voss water. She knows how much I love "water in glass". Best water in the world.

An Amazon gift card. I haven't used it yet. I want to use it on something special.

Some mason jar labels. She must've been listening to me when I mentioned that I was going to do some canning soon...

Thanks Kentucky :)

Christmas Outfit 2013

I know Christmas is over, and 'tis the New Year and all.

*throws glitter*

I still have Christmas on my mind, though.

Not really. But I have one last Christmas post in draft. And I don't want to leave it there in the draft Wastelands.

Now, I posted up my Christmas tree. It wasn't my tree, but you know how I am.

 And I also posted up my Christmas dinner. Yes, that was mine.

And now I want to post up my Christmas outfit.

Well it's not my outfit. I turned the furnace up to 85 and wore shorts and a t-shirt on Christmas day.

But that doesn't keep me from picking a Christmas outfit that someone else wore.

The outfit belonged to one of our managers, "Runner C".  We call her Runner C because she runs like she is the female Forrest Gump. Running and running and running.

If you can remember back, she wore the nice Halloween outfit.

She broke out her festive Christmas outfit.

Now you may not think that is festive. But it was indeed. Because the rest of us were in "fake it til you make it" mode.  We are scientific people. Just be happy we showed up at the Christmas party, honey. Just be glad.

Runner C wasn't having it. She was going to have some workplace morale all by herself if she had to.

Really though.

Runner C leaped out of bed that morning, threw open her closet with glee the morning of the Christmas party.

She even had the hot boots.

That looks like that's that real leather, not the fake leather we get at the Discount Mall. She paid a little money for those.

Go girl. I said, go girl.

Runner C was dressed like she was not only attending our 10:00 am Christmas party, but she had to hit the Christmas party at the real estate office on the corner. Followed by the Christmas party down the street at the dentist office where I took my Grandma last year to get her dentures looked at.

Followed by Happy hour at the local bar.

I am only guessing at all this. Whether true or not, she was dressed comfortably and very warmly.

She even broke out the Santa Claus hat.

Go girl. That's a nice hat. She snatched that hat off of Mrs. Claus head when they were competing in a half marathon race at the North Pole.

Get down, Runner C. Complete your outfit. By any means necessary.

Now, when the party was over, someone said we should get leftovers. As you can see Runner C is in line. I was right behind her. I had my eyes on the collard greens she's shown getting above.

Runner C took most of the greens.

"Dang, you taking all the collard greens," I hollered.

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry."

"N'awl, that's alright," I said.

I couldn't hate on her. I figured she remembered that she had volunteered to bring the collard greens to the Christmas party at the real estate office on the corner.

Or to the dentist office down the street where I took my Grandma to get her dentures looked at.

Or to Happy hour. Collard greens would go well with hot wings, sliders, and $3 drink specials.

Or maybe not.

Anyway, Runner C is always a good sport and will pose for pictures.

I can't wait to see her holiday outfit for the Flag day or the Fourth of July.

*Runner C prancing down the hall in her American flag dress and white go-go boots... and a Statue of Liberty crown high upon her head*

Whatever she wears, it will bring lively conversation... and much joy to us all!!