Turning trash into a treasure

I decorated the front in ransom note style

Back in the winter, when our Melanie was struggling so hard and her family were nearly at the end of their strength, I became aware of something that I could do for her.

And that something was a junk journal.

Fashion magazines are a good source of pretty pictures

I just happened to see a reel on Instagram about this art form and was instantly intrigued.

It seemed so clever, using, as it does, mere scraps of paper and cloth and various other materials, to make something new and interesting.

A background page and smaller stuff on top

Now, what you have to know about Melanie is that she has long had a fascination with paper.

Long before I heard of junk journaling, we'd been saving fliers that came in the mail, and putting them all in one place so that when we saw her, we could take them to her.

Try to see the big picture

She would sit for hours just flipping through her papers and looking at the pictures.

Of particular interest to Melanie for a long time has been logos. As in, when she was in the car with her parents, she would point to signs with logos and vocalize with excitement over recognizing them.

I found an old newspaper clipping with TG's photo

And since lots of junk mail that comes to the house features logos of one kind or another -- from pizza joints to pool services and hamburgers to hardware and grocery stores to grease monkeys -- I figured, why not include those things in Melly's junk journal.

Business cards work well in this project

It was my hope that she would treasure it and keep it near her and never tire of leafing through its pages.

So I began to curate papers and ephemera from all around the house and of course from the mailbox, but I also began keeping a weather eye for papers available in the wider world as I went about my business.

In this layout I used a photo of Stephanie with her babies

I collected -- or kept -- paper menus and missionary cards and receipts and used shopping lists and food labels and magazines and deflated mylar balloons and bits of ribbon and paper doilies and aluminum foil and old letters and envelopes and crossword puzzles (finished ones) and postcards and brochures and ticket stubs and stickers and so much more.

(Apparently some people make a whole hobby out of looking for used shopping lists when they go to the store. I found my first one the other day, wadded up and discarded in the buggy. I nabbed it and it's now in line to be used in a junk journal.)

Ribbon and puffs of tulle give added dimension

You can use old photographs if you don't mind parting with them, or make copies of them and use those, making the journal so much more personal -- almost like a photo album together with mixed media, lending an opportunity to interpret and expand on familiar photos.

Adding text in the form of a Bible verse, or a song lyric, or a meaningful quote, snippet of poetry can greatly enhance any picture of anything in any layout.

Postcards can lend a special flair

I began watching reels about junk journaling, so much so that Instagram adjusted its algorithm to offer me more and more such reels. 

That's how I learned that although there are no rules to junk journaling, there are infinite ways to be creative and original in the execution of your journal.

I stuck some generic Splenda packets onto this page

For example, a junk journal can range from a simple collage-like concept -- just grouping random pictures and words together with no apparent established plan -- to carrying out actual themes.

You can do a junk journal (or a page of one) in all one color, such as yellow and have pictures of bananas and daffodils and bumblebees, or in all one idea, such as fruits or flowers or fun facts or fiddles or fluffy dogs.

Don't throw anything away

The possibilities are truly endless and all you need are a few supplies and some junk.

But then you have to decide the physical form that your journal will take. 

The little envelope contains memorabilia

For the first one I made for Melanie, I chose a thin Moleskine-type journal with a brown cover.

I'm not sure how many pages it had but I'm going to go with about fifty, and if I were doing it again I might glue two pages together and then do the same with the next two pages, and so on, to make the number of pages fewer.

Even bar codes are useful

The reason for that is mainly because when you glue stuff to every single page, the journal can get thick and unwieldy, and even begin to come apart at the binding.

Mine was sturdily constructed with string at the binding instead of staples, so I was in good shape but it did get really thick. Also depending on what type of glue you're using, some of the pages can take a while to dry.

Orient elements in unexpected ways

If they are not allowed to dry properly, they will stick together anyway, but not in a good way.

But once they do dry, they take on that wonderful stiffness that will remind you of the joys of gluing stuff onto pages in grade school. There is nothing like it.

Junk journaling will make you see scraps in a different way

As I went along, I learned about the various things I would need, and/or things I could use that I already had.

These included rubber stamps, a set of small ink pads in radiant colors, some paper punches, watercolors, stickers (including the 3D variety, like stick-on jewels and so forth), string, buttons, rolls of tulle and ribbon, washi tape, a label maker, and a scratch awl.

Stickers come in handy for fill-in

(I had to send TG out to buy me one of those. I'll tell you why in a minute.)

Magazines provide a treasure trove of options for your junk journal.

Paper punches help to change things up

I don't subscribe to a lot of magazines but I do have a few lying around with some great pictures in them.

Sometimes if you don't feel like actually working on the journal itself, you can sit with scissors and cut things out of magazines to use later, while you watch a movie or chat with someone.

Pet meds packaging ... why not?

You have to store your scraps of paper relatively flat, but a big envelope or folder is ideal for that.

Then you have to decide what kind of glue you want to use. 

Paper doilies and crosswords have their place

There are many options: glue stick, tape runner, rubber cement, liquid glue, fabric glue, spray adhesive ... and I am probably forgetting some or don't even know about a bunch or them.

The craftier ones among you will probably already have a favorite.

Go big or go home

I started with Elmer's glue sticks -- the kind you get your kids for their school pencil box. The kind that goes on purple but dries clear is ideal.

The only drawback to that is that if you really get lost in your project and are flying along just going nuts on finishing a page layout, depending on how much stuff you are gluing down, you can go through three glue sticks before you can say jack rabbit.

Deconstruct a few greeting cards

It's not like they are expensive, but it all adds up.

And the point of junk journaling -- or at least much of the point -- is that it mostly uses stuff that costs nothing.

Put some color on the edges of your layout

I do have a few tape runners that I bought from Temu because they were dirt cheap, but I haven't used them yet.

After my stash of glue sticks ran out, I replaced them with small bottles of clear glue.

You can buy packets of vintage-looking ephemera

The downside to that, I have found, is how wet it is. If you don't use just the right (small) amount, your pages will be sticky for days and you'll have to prop them open to dry lest they glom together, and it can hinder your progress if you want to do daily work on one journal.

Once I got started with Melly's journal, I enjoyed it so much that part of me did not want to see the end of that book, but part of me wanted to finish it and get it into her hands.

Hang onto those dry cleaning tickets

I felt a need to connect with her, and to let her know that I was thinking about her every day.

But as the book got thicker and thicker and heavier and heavier, I did become eager to complete it.

Turn it sideways and glue on a crocheted flower

And finally I did, and as this was back during the time when we were having such bad weather, I set it aside to wait for when the book could be delivered to Stephanie, who would take it to Melanie.

Eventually TG traveled to North Carolina to watch one of our grandson Andrew's basketball games, and he took the books to Stephanie.

Use stickers for the front of a tiny book of pages

As I believe I mentioned in this post last week, Melanie has not been able to live at home for the last three months.

Stephanie and Joel have been in constant contact with doctors and care workers and agencies dedicated to helping folks like our Melanie, to find her a place to live until she is stable enough to come back home.

Just pile up the papers and make a book

And although they see her several times a week, she is not able to move back home yet.

So when I made the junk journal for her, I was hoping that she would keep it on her bedside table (she has her own room in the care facility), and take comfort from leafing through it from time to time.

Ads and coupons work well

By the way, while I worked on that first book, Dagny was often with me. She got into the spirit of it and made a junk journal of her own for Melanie. 

So now we are both hooked on this hobby.

Once you've added the pages, trim to fit the cover

In the meanwhile, I found out about a different style of junk journal, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to try it.

This involves choosing some material to fabricate a proper cover for the journal.

Receipts and food labels are recyclable

I had stopped throwing away those stiff brown padded envelopes that Amazon uses now.

You can cut these open and fashion a piece of the material into a book cover of sorts. The thick paper is ideal for the purpose.

You can layer things any way you like

Once you have your cover and you've folded it in half to form a book shape, all you do is pick out piece after piece after piece of random paper, and stack it all inside the book.

The pieces can be all different sizes, because you're going to trim it all to the size of the cover that you made.

The cover of this flip-top book is a pink box

Once you have just enough pieces of paper stacked up (it's a judgment call and you'll learn as you go how many is too many or how many are too few), you fold everything over once according to how you folded the cover.

This next part has a degree of difficulty and you can hurt yourself or do other damage if you're not careful.

Just stack up the stuff and tie it together

That's because it involves the aforementioned scratch awl.

What you do is, choose a place about a third of the way down inside that crease your formed when you folded the pages inside the homemade cover.

Dagny made this colorful layout

Then you have to use the awl to pierce a hole there. It has to go all the way through, and you have to be careful to hold all of the papers together so they don't get disturbed too much.

Make a second hole. Be careful not to stick the scratch awl into your own finger when you have pushed it through the layers of paper. 

Old greeting card envelopes lend bright hues

It hurts. I happen to know this because I did it. But just once.

Now, when you are doing the final push of awl through paper, you're going to have to have something to push into that is not your hand.

It's like capturing tiny pieces of your life

You can use another stack of papers, or an old pillow that you don't need, or what have you, but you have to be able to push the point of the awl all the way through.

Now you're going to need some string. I used the awl to push the string first through one of the holes, and back up through the other, and then went down and up one more time before tying a knot on the outside.

Food labels are drool-worthy

Et voilá! You have made a book of random pages and papers, and if you don't want to, you don't have to do anything else.

If you want to, you can decorate those pages, but it's optional.

I used some of Henry's papers found in a drawer

You can also decorate the cover that you made, if it's plain. I made one that was plain and needed decorating, and another that was made from a box that had held disposable face towels, and it was fancy enough.

We eventually sent all of the books to Melanie and although Stephanie did report that Melly was glad to get them, I don't know whether she uses them or if she's forgotten them and will reach for them again someday.

Be as abstract as you like

I do know that I am going to make her another one, because for me it is a satisfying craft. It's not hard, and it's fun and rewarding.

Stephanie told me that here lately, Melanie is happiest when she is allowed to have her mother's phone so that she can look through her mom's photos.

She loves and never tires of swiping through pictures of her family.

Corny but cute

There is one picture in particular that was taken last fall just before Melly got so sick, that she goes back to again and again and dwells on with great delight.

It was taken on a Sunday in late October when Audrey and Dagny and Erica and Rhett and Elliot and I were there for the weekend.

After the service on Sunday night, we all posed for a group photo. I think I'll get a print of it framed for Melly, to put in her room so that she can see it all the time.

This is the picture that Melly loves

It was shortly after that visit when Melly got sick and went into a decline that has partially now been helped with the right combination of medicines, but which was terrifying for many weeks.

So many times, I and many others told Stephanie that we wished there was something we could do for them and for Melanie, to help.

Making her a junk journal gave me a sense that I was helping in some way.

I didn't expect to love junk journaling as much as I do

Can you think of someone who might enjoy receiving a junk journal made by you? Or are you pretty sure that this would not be something you would like to do?

Let me know. And let not your heart be troubled, but be strong and of good courage, until the day break, and the shadows flee away!

And that is all for now.

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Happy Friday :: Happy May

Yes, Virginia, there is a pirate

Before our trip, they took me out for a party

As I mentioned in my post of last week, TG and I went to Charlottesville, Virginia, for my birthday in early March.

Every year I pick a place for my birthday trip that is close enough for a comfortable half-day drive. Even so, Charlottesville was a mite farther away than we usually go.

I found a little stone bearing my initials

But I wanted to see the campus of the University of Virginia, founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson.

It was not at all what I expected. Several years ago we toured the campus of Duke University in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is a campus of breathtaking beauty, set apart from everything around it.

Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda

I pictured the University of Virginia a lot like that.

UVA is interesting, but it is one of those campuses that sprawls throughout a downtown area, its few historic buildings lumped together in a relatively small area.

Sometimes it is polite to point

Or at least that's how it seemed to me.

Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda is without a doubt the most notable structure on campus, and for good reason because it is a stunning example of Neoclassical architecture.

Corinthian columns overlook The Lawn

It was designed by Jefferson himself, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome.

The building stands at the center of what Jefferson named the Academical Village and its famous lawn, which at its time was the core area for scholars attracted to the university.

Lambs symbolize the graves of children

Anyway, TG and I spent ample time at the Rotunda to marvel at the abundant beauty both inside and out.

We walked on the surrounding streets and visited a souvenir shop because I'm always looking for a t-shirt, and a little something affordable to take home to the kids and grandkids.

Check out the eagle motif

It was a warm day and we were tired by the afternoon, so we returned to our hotel to freshen up before dinner.

I wanted to walk the part of Charlottesville called the Downtown Mall, for more shopping and supper. We love a fancy burger joint and I'd drawn a bead on one in that location, named the Citizen Burger Bar.

The rings once held chains

They claim to serve the best burger in Charlottesville, and I can attest that if there is a better burger to be had in that city, I would like to go there on my next visit.

But I don't believe that place exists because this burger was exquisite and heavenly and memorable, and for twenty bucks it had better have been.

This display twinkled with tiny lights as dusk fell

The fries were stellar too, and plentiful, and we sat outside and watched people stroll by as we ate, and the weather was glorious.

The UVA campus bookstore was closed on the first day we were there, but we returned the next day and I must say that of all the campus bookstores I have ever stepped inside, this one is far and away the largest.

Time is undefeated

It's like the Buc-ee's of college bookstores, but without the 150 fuel pumps.

Massive amounts of square footage are dedicated to the display and sale of clothing and souvenirs, and honestly I would not have been surprised to find appliances and furniture in there, and perhaps even a petting zoo.

They kept the Diet Coke flowing

We picked out a few things to purchase and were on our way, since it was my birthday and I had chosen a special place to have lunch.

That place was named Michie Tavern -- and we learned that you pronounce that first word Mickey. And when at Michie Tavern, one dines at a place called The Ordinary.

He was a substitute for his brother Tip

Harking back to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century days when weary travelers stumbled off a stagecoach needing an ordinary meal -- you know, the meat-and-three vibe.

There is also a general store on the property, which we wandered for quite a while and where we made a few new friends and found several nice gifts.

Me on my birthday

The midday meal (as they call it) offered up at The Ordinary is an all-you-can-eat buffet. However, as the building is a few hundred years old and therefore somewhat cramped, once you go through the line and fill your plate the first time, all you have to do is ask your server and you will be brought seconds (or even thirds or fourths) of any given dish.

I always look for these and I always find them

I can hardly ever manage to get past the first plateful of any buffet, and this was no exception because once I'd consumed a huge piece of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes, green beans, and a biscuit, I could not eat anything else.

But I watched TG devour seconds on several things, and then we had dessert, which included some of the best vanilla ice cream I've ever tasted. So I guess I did manage to eat something else.

Enter here for good basic vittles

Michie Tavern: Marvelous and most definitely recommended if you are ever in Charlottesville.

In addition to all of this fine dining and sightseeing, there were cemeteries. After all, it's not a vacation for me if it doesn't include a spot of graving.

There's no arguing with this

A sizable burial ground exists on the university campus itself, named the UVA Cemetery and Columbarium. We visited there twice because on the first day we did not have time to do it justice.

Many university professors are buried there and the place itself has that historic feel that I really go for.

Not Today Heifer ... I did not buy it

We had a singular adventure on my birthday on which I will not elaborate except to say that it involved TG going to get me a cold drink while I was in a cemetery, and locking his fob in the car and my having to summon a Uber to get me to where he was, with my fob.

Which meant that I had to walk out of the cemetery to meet the driver, and ride in a nasty car with a swarthy young male who complained the whole way about the fare I paid not being enough, due to the gas prices.

Lean living

As though the gas prices were my fault. 

Good times.

I think people used to be smaller

On our way home the day after my birthday, we stopped at a historic cemetery in Greensboro, North Carolina: Green Hill Cemetery.

It began to rain before I was really finished taking all of the pictures I wanted to take, but I got a fair number and I hope you don't mind that I rendered many of these photos in black and white.

We can be there in six hours

(The pictures in this post are from all three cemeteries we visited on the trip.)

There's something about black and white photography that renders graving pictures with the amount of poignancy that I think they deserve.

Missing a toe or two ... but I'm lichen it

Before we ever left on our trip, however, the family took me out to supper at Mellow Mushroom. We had scrumptious pizzas and Erica had made a cake, and there were the obligatory balloons and presents.

I would a hundred times rather celebrate before the actual birthdate, than after, when for me a party feels a combination of obligatory and anticlimactic. So I always push for the before-the-date party.

This is in Greensboro, North Carolina

I realize that sometimes it's unavoidable for any number of reasons, to have a birthday party after the actual birthday, and certainly better late than never, but I'm just saying.

When I arrived back home from my birthday trip on Sunday evening and settled in, the next day, at the start of a new week, Andrew sent me flowers. I don't know how he managed that from the Middle East but I guess if you have the internet and an American Express card, you can do just about anything.

This marker is made of metal

(And it was so thoughtful of him not to have them delivered while I was gone. I appreciate details like that, even though we have kind neighbors who would have been glad to babysit my birthday bouquet.)

At any rate the flowers were truly beautiful and I enjoyed them for more than a week.

The shadows know

On my next birthday I will be seventy and I think that will have to involve a more elaborate trip than previous birthday trips.

I'll be thinking about that diligently in the coming months. There are a few places on my radar.

There were so many lambs

One place that Erica has suggested we all go together is St. Simons Island in Georgia, familiar to me because I read Eugenia Price's historical trilogy as a teenager. So maybe we will do that next spring.

I would also like to visit St. Augustine, a doable drive from here, and the month of March not being too hot.

It was a timely and joyous floral offering

We shall see. There is so much more to do.

So be strong and of good courage, until the day break, and the shadows flee away!

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday

What we did last winter

First the white, then the blue

And we are back. Thank you for your patience.

This first fourth third (I began writing this post at least three weeks ago) of Twenty Twenty-Six has been overwhelming for me. I'm just going to state that up front so it's out of the way.

I'm sure there have been overwhelming aspects of it for you too, but I can only write what I know.

precipitation piling up around the pool

Henry went home to be with the Lord in January and left a void that one is not fully aware will be there, until it is there. I miss him a great deal and I wish I'd been a better what-passes-for-a-secondhand daughter, while he was here with us.

No sooner did that painful blow land, and settle, than Andrew was deployed suddenly and without warning, for an indeterminate amount of time, in early February.

(Andrew has been deployed to the Middle East several times in his career as a Boom Operator and Pilot with the Tennessee Air National Guard's 151st Air Refueling Squadron, but the deployments were always planned months in advance and had definite start and end dates, giving the unit members ample time to get their ducks in a row, no small part of which is getting mentally prepared for the ordeal.)

Pretty patterns ... and yes that is a skeleton sitting on my swing

Brittany is working hard to complete nursing school and she needed help with the children, so I spent the last half of February in Knoxville.

It was special to be with Ember and Guy doing the everyday things, and I would not trade those weeks for anything. But, the brutal truth is that it's difficult being out of one's own element for that length of time.

Shortly after I returned, it was my birthday and TG and I took a trip to Charlottesville, Virginia.

My rain chain has seen better use as a snow chain

We had a great time. The weather was beautiful and we toured the University of Virginia campus, most notable architecturally for Thomas Jefferson's stunning rotunda.

We did some graving. I will share pictures in my next post and no, it will not be three months from now.

Once I was back home, it was Erica's turn to go to Knoxville and help out with the children for a week.

We waited it out

As she left town on a Monday, she brought Elliot a/k/a Skippy to me, and took Rhett with her. Rhett adores his cousin Ember and was keen to spend quality time with her.

So there I was full time with a two-year-old, but he's a honey of a two-year-old, so we did fine. Chad came and got him on the Friday afternoon, which worked out great because I had come down with a cold.

When Erica returned the next day, Saturday, she brought Ember and Guy with her since the next week coincided with Ember's spring break from school.

it was grate while it lasted

Guy stayed with me and Ember went to Erica's and then eventually to Audrey's house, to hang with Dagny.

So I had a different honey of a two-year-old boy for another week. 

Brittany came and got Ember and Guy over the weekend and spent one night with us, and we had a spaghetti supper and a nice visit. Then they were gone and the house was quiet.

Rizzo was like whaaaaaaat .... ???

I still miss having Guy around; I don't see enough of those Tennessee grands. He's precious and sweet and has only a few moments where he acts as though he single-handedly invented the concept of the Terrible Twos and is solely responsible for its ongoing reputation of striking abject terror into the hearts of adult caregivers.

Those errant blips notwithstanding, I call him My Sugar and we have a game where I inquire out loud, over and over, Where's My Sugar? and he hides underneath his little soft black blanket that goes wherever he goes, giggling maniacally like it's his job.

And we laugh and cut up and then hug and kiss and play Where's My Sugar? some more.

Now where's that hot chocolate I asked for

All week he ate well and slept well -- including a two-hour nap every single day -- so that in itself is remarkable.

TG was on hand to take him to the park daily, giving me a break to regroup.

One beautiful morning I took Guy for a walk and he walked two whole miles with no complaint. Rizzo ambled along beside us.

How it looked out front during the storm

But as anyone who has done it knows, when you do little kids, all you do is little kids. There's not much time for much else.

So now you're more or less in the know but I've gotten ahead of myself so let me tell you how our winter went.

We did have snow. Well, we had ice one week and snow the next week.

Andrew took this the next day. Click to embiggen.

We missed two weeks in a row of Sunday church, because it was canceled outright, which is unprecedented and unheard of and, I am confident in saying, will never happen again in my lifetime.

It was bizarre. As I said, the first week turned out to be more cold and icy than snowy, but the snow came the following week and kept us cozy indoors for the second weekend.

We got maybe four inches where I live but for us, four inches is a big deal. And it's a big deal too that our power never flagged or failed, which is always a concern at such times.

We buried a bird that hit the picture window and died

Andrew was still stateside at that point and the day after the snowfall, he flew over Columbia in the corporate jet he pilots for a living, and took a picture of Lake Murray, which lies two miles from our front door.

I have drawn a yellow line ending in a dot where our house is, on that photo. No, the pirate cannot see the water from her house but she knows it's there.

And now he is in the Middle East for going on a third month, pilot of a KC-135 Stratotanker flying nearly nightly missions in a war zone.

One of the portraits of Allissa that we'll display at her grad parties

He lost three buddies in the accident which took place in March, and in some ways is still reeling from that tragedy, which hit the whole squadron hard.

He has had a birthday while there, and because of the truly wonderful efforts of the members of his unit who were back at home, we were able to get a large care package to him. He got it a little late, but now he rides each night with snacks from home, and he is grateful.

There is no indication of when he might be coming back to his family. I ask for your prayers for him and all those brave men and women who are doing the work and putting their lives on the line during these tumultuous and terrifying times.

TG and I brought a special balloon to Lissy's 18th birthday party

Meanwhile, our Stephanie has for many months been fighting a battle on her home turf, regarding Melanie's issues. 

Our Melly has not lived at home for nearly three months now, staying instead in a respite care facility where she is helped and monitored by skilled caregivers twenty-four hours a day.

Doctors have worked hard to calibrate Melanie's medications in an effort to get her back from the extreme behaviors she began exhibiting last fall, which led to so much heartache for herself and her family.

Most of us were on hand to see Allissa turn eighteen

I don't know what we would have done without those who dedicate their lives to serving this challenging demographic, because although a perfect solution has not yet been found, Stephanie and Joel feel that they are closer to getting her back home than they have been for many long weeks.

For a significant period of time beginning in late fall and early winter, after suffering a health crisis, Melly was violent and uncontrollable, and it was extremely traumatic for everyone involved.

But there's a glimmer of light now, and we believe that the worst is over. Please pray for Melanie and for all of those who love and help her.

Me and the birthday girl

Allissa turned eighteen last week and we had a party, and she is graduating from high school in a few weeks and we will have more parties. I'll share the details and lots of pictures as the celebrations take place.

Audrey took Erica to Europe for her (Erica's) fortieth birthday, which we'll celebrate as a family over Memorial Day weekend. They've been in London for several days and are moving on to Paris tomorrow for a few days there before coming home early next week.

Dagny has been in North Carolina with her Aunt Stephanie while her mother and Aunt Erica are abroad, and is enjoying her time there.

The girls at Buckingham Palace this week

I want to say thank you to the ones of you who have reached out to me through cards and emails and texts and phone calls. It would be impossible to convey adequately in words alone, how much your concern means to me.

We do the work of our Creator when we support one another in word, deed, and prayer ... and God willing, we will continue faithfully in that sacred endeavor until the day break, and the shadows flee away!

And that is all for now.

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Happy Weekend

Crowned heads of the Carolinas

Joel and Allissa before the ceremony

January has been jarring, so far.

After Henry's short illness, culminating in his homegoing, and our Melanie's illness -- which is ongoing -- we've craved some good news.

And late last week, some happy happenings occurred.

It's uncharacteristic for our area to be threatened with a winter storm of any magnitude, and yet that's the reality that greeted us in the early part of the week.

Ember and Guy enjoyed some snowfall in East Tennessee

In fact, the predictions were so dire that we were convinced we'd be under a nine-inch layer of ice by Saturday afternoon. Power out for days, if not weeks. Freezing to death. Eating our pets before it was all over.

TG will openly make fun of me if I buy into any part of the panic, so the only thing I asked of him was to make sure we had enough propane to cook on the gas grill, should the projected power outages take place.

He smirked but did take the tank to be refilled -- if that's indeed what one does; I really do not know -- only to return home with his smirk wiped off his face because there was no propane to be found within fifty miles.

Joel and Stephanie gave Allissa a corsage

Seems others had the same idea as me. (I never claimed to be a beacon of original thought. It just made sense to me that if the power winked out, I would need my grill in order to boil water for coffee or heat up a can of soup.)

(By the way, the power stayed on throughout our tenth-of-an-inch ice event. We had stocked up on storm snacks. The pets were safe.)

(Yes, the sidewalks and decks and perhaps even some streets, were slick on Sunday. Church services were canceled and we did not attempt to go anywhere and as I said, the lights stayed on so we were warm and happy.)

(The kids sent pictures of their kids enjoying what wintry precipitation they received on Sunday. Dagny's photo looks like something out of a Stephen King novel.)

This was me on Sunday

But, not being able to accurately predict the weather, we did not know any of that last Friday, when out of an abundance of caution, we decided to celebrate TG's Sunday birthday two days early.

It was arranged that we -- TG, me, the Chericas, and the Maudags, party of nine -- would meet at El Jimador for dinner at about six thirty.

We'd never, any of us, been to El Jimador before. I chose the venue and I freely admit that I was hoping to recreate the smash-hit Mexican feast we enjoyed in Greenville on January 14th, the night before Henry's funeral.

TG was surprised by all the attention, but rolled with it

(It almost did not happen on that night in Greenville; we originally chose Red Robin, where you get a gourmet burger and bottomless fries.)

(Like any of us over the age of eleven need to be consuming endless amounts of fries.)

But it was a bust. After allowing us to wait for over twenty minutes, the "hostess" admitted that our chances of getting a table for seven and being served sometime before midnight, were on a par with the likelihood of me prancing around the restaurant waving the Jolly Roger while chanting six seven.

Allissa is known for her semi-regal poise

Which, I assure you, will happen when they are serving icy-cold, refreshing beverages in the bad place.

At any rate, we quickly regrouped and ended up at La Parrilla, where we were treated to ambiance, food, and service which was just about as excellent as those three desirable dining-out possibilities could ever hope to be, all at the same time.

(Trust me: if you are ever in Greenville, South Carolina, at mealtime and you like Mexican? Go straight to La Parrilla. It's not a bad drive for us; maybe an hour and fifteen minutes. We may go there again just because we can.)

Dagny got in on the hat-wearing fun

So yes, choosing El Jimador for TG's birthday party was my idea because I was hoping to approximate that experience.

And El Jimador was good. Not great -- not La Parrilla -- but good. The ambience and service were eight out of ten; the food, seven out of ten. Not a lineup of tens, but no one was complaining. And we were together.

I'd brought the balloons without which we do not consider it a birthday party, so the servers knew that there was a birthday person present, and I'd told them it was the elder statesman at our table.

We ate and we watched and celebrated

And so it was that after the chips and salsa and enchiladas and nachos grande and chimichangas and quesadillas had been consumed, we were surrounded by clapping, cheering staff members who lustily sang Happy Birthday to Señor Weber.

This was after someone had clapped a small sombrero on his head, which he wore throughout the serenading process, before Dagny modeled it.

Then they served him a plate of luxurious whipped cream-topped and cinnamon-dusted sopapillas, which he shared with the grandkids.

TG's balloons floated above the festivities

Erica had made brownies and we were headed to our house next to enjoy those with ice cream and coffee and watching TG open his presents, so we had the dessert thing covered.

And so it was that we settled up and drove the ten minutes to our abode, where the gifts were arrayed and the brownies and ice cream served and eaten with abandon.

Then there was the equally exciting part of the evening.

Allissa posed with her little brother Andrew

Our Allissa -- second grandchild, about to turn eighteen in April -- was up for Homecoming Queen at her school.

Lissy is a senior at Tabernacle Christian School in Hickory, North Carolina.

Normally TG and I would have made an attempt to be present on such an important occasion, but it is a nearly three-hour drive, and the whole thing would not be over until after nine o'clock, and then would have been the drive home, and we're getting too old to contemplate three-hour drives getting us home later than midnight.

He was such a good sport

It's convenient that if you go to YouTube and search for Tabernacle Christian School, you can watch as events unfold.

So we propped my Macbook high on a box atop the table, and all watched from South Carolina while the ceremony was taking place in North Carolina.

Eventually Allissa was indeed crowned Homecoming Queen 2026, and she looked so beautiful and we were thrilled. Stephanie began sending pictures to my phone.

Congratulations to Lissy on her coronation

When we see them again in person, TG can share with Allissa what it was like to be fêted by all and adorned with festive head coverings on a cold January night in the Carolinas. The señor and the senior.

I communicated with Allissa the next day, to congratulate her and assure her that we had all been there in spirit, to share in her achievement. She is truly a lovely young woman, and a leader.

The pirate has never been crowned anything -- you? If so, tell me about it in the comments.

Dagny lurked on her ice-slicked street on Sunday

And that is all for now except to add, we are once again under a Winter Storm Watch for this weekend.

This time, the breathless prediction is for several INCHES -- INCHES, I tell you! --  of snow, accompanied by bitterly plummeting temperatures.

Ah. We shall see, and we shall be prepared with propane. 

Warm-and-safe wishes to you wherever you are, from the pirate, until the day break, and the shadows flee away.

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Happy Thursday

I still say funeral

Henry's son-in-law, Steve, watches at the door of the hearse

It's all memorial services now; they don't use the word funeral much anymore.

But I do.

This obsession with euphemisms is becoming tiresome. Just call it what it is. It's a funeral.

I have a recipe called Funeral Potatoes and you cannot believe the uneasy laughter -- or outright chuckling -- that ensues whenever I say it.

But that's the name of the recipe. It's called that because it's so good, it will gladden the heart of any mourner who puts a pile of it on their plate, or a bite into their mouth.

I was under the impression that I had found the recipe in a cookbook entitled Food To Die For, given to me for Christmas by my daughter Stephanie in 2010.

Cousins Rhett and Ember made the most of a funeral situation

However, having got the cookbook down off the shelf and searched through it for the Funeral Potatoes recipe, and not finding it there, I've concluded that I must've come by it some other way.

But the recipe is all over the internet. Sometimes it's called Crack Potatoes but I'm not about to cave to the trend and start calling it that.

At any rate, in the Pirate's book, a funeral is a funeral is a funeral. 

And this past Thursday, we had a funeral for our Henry.

One wears black and tries not to laugh too loudly, although I find that funerals are a place of uncommon hilarity. Not sure why; I think it may be because the days leading up to a funeral are fraught with so much stress, that the actual day can come as a relief.

Dagny wore it first ... to my mother's funeral in 2020

You have accepted the death and done the myriad things, large and small, and seen to all of the details, and, as we said to one another several times throughout the day, It's almost over.

We were tired.

TG and I, plus Audrey and Dagny in their car, and Andrew and Ember and Guy coming from the other direction, all arrived in Greenville last Wednesday evening.

We checked into our hotels and went out to supper, enjoying a wonderful meal at La Parrilla. 

Back snug in our rooms -- for the temperatures were dropping and it would be bitterly cold the next day -- we tried to rest.

I was awake for most of the night but it was to be expected.

Henry in happier but lonelier days

But back to that cold weather forecast. We weren't twenty minutes down the road on Wednesday afternoon when TG announced that he'd forgotten his shoes at home.

By shoes, he meant his black dress (church) shoes. He wasn't barefoot.

Oh dear, I sighed. Are you going back? Or do you plan to go shopping in Greenville and buy a new pair?

I'm not going back, he said. And I'm not buying a new pair.

Me and my baby brother Shawn

Silence.

Then what? I said.

I'm going to see if Audrey can swing by and pick them up, he said.

Audrey would be several hours behind us but she already had a busy day. I called her.

Many things there were to be considered

She said she'd be glad to go by and pick up her dad's shoes. Sigh of relief.

About a half hour (give or take) after that, I began worrying that I was not going to be warm enough the next day, especially at the graveside.

I'd brought a long-sleeved black dress and my mink vest, and leather gloves.

And that was all.

Who was telling who what, we will never know

I called Audrey back. I asked whether, when she swung by the house on the way out of town to pick up her dad's shoes, she could also grab my full-length black velvet coat.

She said sure and I breathed yet another sigh of relief because that coat is warm and, looking at the forecast for Greenville being a high in the thirties the next day, even with bright sun, I knew I would need my coat.

It had not occurred to me to bring it. So I thanked TG for forgetting his shoes, and he thought that was so funny.

At any rate we got over to the church the next morning a little before ten. Family visitation began at eleven but I had to set up the memorabilia tables.

Audrey, Erica, and Dagny visiting with Rae Ellen

We'd brought some things from home, and we'd also gone out to my mother and Henry's house on Wednesday to pick up more things from Henry's children, who were staying there while they worked to process all of the things that are left after the end of not one but two long lives.

It didn't take long to put out the pictures and books and other things we'd deemed appropriate for folks to look at while they waited in the receiving line, which turned out to be not so much a formal line, as simply all of us milling around in what the church there calls the Fireplace Room.

Henry was there, looking sharp, and for about an hour or so, everyone crowded in to condole with us and pay their respects until time for the ... ahem ... funeral.

Ember is six and Rhett is four, so they were in the room there with all of us. Elliot and Guy, being two-year-olds, were playing down the hall in the nursery.

Henry's girls, hugging it out

It was the first funeral for each of them -- or at least, the first funeral that either of them will have any chance of remembering later -- and they were making some shrewd and observant remarks.

At one point, Ember was telling Rhett (or maybe it was the other way around) that Henry's soul was not with his body anymore. Can't argue with that.

Out of the mouths of babes.

Ember was wearing the black dress that Dagny wore to my mother's funeral five-plus years ago.

Chad, TG, and Steve await the progression of events

(Audrey pointed that out to Erica and Andrew and me later, when we were all looking at the pictures.)

Kay's and my little brother Shawn flew in from Galveston, Texas, to be with us.

The last time I saw Shawn was at our mother's funeral. I guess that's where we are now, in life: every wedding and every funeral turns into a de facto family reunion.

(And we reminded one another that, next time, it's likely to be a funeral/reunion for one of us. We're next! The next generation to go. Our children will perform these same sacred duties for us, and it won't be long.)

My brother-in-law Philippe greets Beth and Rae Ellen

Our Melanie was so ill that Stephanie and Joel and their family could not travel. Stephanie was heartbroken but there was nothing to be done. They need your prayers.

Henry had five children: four daughters and a son. Rae Ellen, Jane, Beth Ann, Laura, and John. His son was not able to attend the funeral, but the four girls, and one of their husbands, were there.

John and his four sisters are precious each in their own way, and we love them. The girls were heartbroken to be saying goodbye to their dad. They did all for him that they could, and he loved them too.

They lost their mother in 1981, when they were all still so young.

Henry lasted four days in assisted living

It was amusing to hear them (not at the funeral, but the day before and even a week before, when we saw them at their dad's house) talk about who was Dad's favorite and who was getting what, and so forth.

Henry's children are the quintessential close-bonded siblings. I've never known them not to be there for one another.

Eventually it was time for the service. Don't you love that moment when the family all file in to take their seats in the front pews? I am into the ceremony of that, but one feels self-conscious.

My niece Gena's husband, Damon, was close to Henry because Damon is good at troubleshooting tech problems, and lives only a few miles away from Henry.

Audrey and Erica and the children visited him two weeks ago

Many was the time that Henry reached out to Damon for help with a computer or TV issue.

So it was that Damon gave a wonderful -- and funny, and touching -- testimony of what Henry meant to him. We laughed and we cried.

It was all tears later when our Andrew sang My Saviour First of All. He made it to the last verse before emotions overcame him and he had to ask everyone to sing it with (and for) him.

It was perfect, though painful. But it was real, and that's what counts. He has sung at all four of his grandparents' funerals.

These are weighty matters, cousin

Once the funeral service was concluded and Henry was placed in the hearse for his last ride, we were grateful for the opportunity to stretch our legs before regrouping for the trip to the cemetery in Travelers Rest.

A tent with three sides had been set up for us, which offered some relief from the cold wind. The same pastor who preached my mother's funeral in October of 2020, said some words over our Henry.

He kept it brief due to the cold, but it was good and at the end we all sang How Great Thou Art before again being allowed to stretch and mill around for a bit before the next event of the day.

That event was the meal that had been prepared for our family and was ready to be served back at the church.

Andrew and TG helped to carry Grandpa

This is done for every funeral of this sizable church's membership, organized and executed by ladies in the deceased person's Sunday School class.

The meal was delicious and we had a great time talking and reminiscing.

Elliot enjoyed hitching a ride with my nephew Michael, who, due to a severe case of Guillain-Barré Syndrome over fifteen years ago, gets around in a motorized wheelchair.

No sooner would Michael set Elliot onto the floor, thinking they were done, than Skippy would say: Again.

And they would do it again.

Leaving Grandma and Grandpa's house for the last time

After the meal, we all went back out to our mother's and Henry's house for the last time.

I had already been and gone and had taken everything that was left to me, and that Henry's girls said I was welcome to take, of my mother's.

But my children had been invited to come too and each of them went away with something that will be a reminder to them of their last set of grandparents to move off the scene.

And that was sad, in the way it is when a house becomes a mere shell of what it once was. My mother kept a beautiful and well-appointed home, and Henry kept it clean and orderly -- and even did most of the yard work himself -- until perhaps the last six months.

Walking away from the site of many memories

No mean feat for a man in his nineties, but then Henry was fighting trim, and spry nearly until the end.

The day was closing then, and it was hard to go, but we did go. The house will be put on the market and another family will buy it and soon they will be living there, and I'll never have occasion to darken the door again.

My mother used to be sitting in her recliner as I arrived, and she'd look over to the storm door -- her pretty, shiny door that she was so proud of when she got it -- and smile real big and jump up to come and let me in.

Never again. As we said several times that day: It's the end of an era.

My sister's family sent this wreath for the Dykstra family

But we "... sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (I Thessalonians 4:13-18)

So that is all for now ... and we will rejoice in the truth until the day break, and the shadows flee away.

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Happy Tuesday

Farewell for now, Henry Dykstra

Henry Dykstra in his boyhood

Our Henry is gone.

He passed from this life into life everlasting on Friday, January 9, 2026, in the early evening.

He was married to my mother from 1983 until her homegoing in 2020. He was the only grandpa on our side, that my children and my sister's children ever knew.

Henry had four lovely daughters and one son, all of whom are loved by our family. They are truly wonderful folks, which, as I have told them, speaks to their careful rearing by their parents, who dearly loved them.

And it is a testament to the grace of God in all of our lives.

TG and I traveled to Greenville last Saturday. Too late to say goodbye in person, which made us sad, but Henry stole away with precious little warning.

Henry's daughters were on their way home when the situation turned dire, but my sister Kay and a few of her children who live locally, were there when Henry slipped away. It was peaceful.

Which is merciful. 

I'll say more about Henry later but now we're planning a funeral and tomorrow we'll be going up to Greenville again, to all be together.

Until then I leave you this link to Henry's Find A Grave page, which I began working on not long after I learned of his homegoing, and which I completed this morning.

The memorial part is his obituary, which I was honored to have been asked to write.

The service will be live-streamed here.

And so that is all fow now ... until the day break, and the shadows flee away.

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Happy Tuesday

People. Let's get along.

Uncanny likenessThere was a great deal of strangeness going on at the UPS store a few weeks ago.

I'd gone there to return something to Amazon. You can do that for free now. It's about a mile and a half from my house, and it's always a pleasant, quick transaction.

Hand over the stuff (you don't even have to wrap it), hold out your phone with the return QR code showing, and wait a few seconds.

And with a cheery thank you, you're on your way to the next errand.

On this day, it was cold and windy. As I approached the door to the storefront, there was a lady just ahead of me.

She was carrying something large, and as I got right up to the door, I realized that there was a line.

That's just never the case, and I was hoping that I could indeed get inside the door and close it behind me, because as I said, it was cold.

As it turned out, I was able to get inside -- just -- and as the door closed I realized that the real problem was developing right there in the store.

Because two females -- both middle aged, one white, one Asian -- were having a noisy confrontation.

Ugh I so wish I'd been there at the beginning of the kerfuffle -- because the Pirate can be so helpful in such situations -- but what I was able to pick up was, the white lady had accused the Asian lady of being rude to her.

Baby Guy on Christmas morning in East Tennessee

It doesn't cost a penny to be nice! she shouted.

Who do you think you are, the President? the Asian lady responded.

You slammed the door in my face! That's just rude! the white lady countered.

So you think you're someone special? the Asian lady demanded to know.

Believe it or not, no one was using their phone to record this fascinating exchange. Everyone in line was staring straight ahead, silently, as though nothing untoward was taking place.

But since it was taking place in front of me, I had to watch it unfold.

Rhett with his Sweet Love in church Sunday before last

And I was praying, Please God, don't let anyone start throwing punches.

And no one did. The Asian lady (who was on her way out) recognized futility as it stared her in the face, decided (wisely) to call it a day, and left in a considerable huff.

I don't know who had the last word.

The white lady with anger issues, still in line, even with her back to me registered intense agitation. She was half coughing, shaking her head back and forth, and sort of twitching her shoulder up and down.

Like at any moment, she was going to blow. Maybe turn around and go after Madame Fang.

Oh mercy, I thought.

My granddog Sybil Ann Porter on Christmas morning

But then, as if a switch had been flipped to the off position, she relaxed. She leaned forward to the person (another lady) in line ahead of her, and began vocalizing in dulcet, conspiratorial tones about something or other.

I couldn't tell what she was saying but her message (to all and sundry in the awkwardly quiet line) was obvious: I am the nice person here. That other lady, she was the mean one. She's the one you should be judging.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Peace on earth, good will to other UPS customers.

Right.

So then the person in front of the confrontational lady had her turn at the counter, and then the lady herself had her turn, and that left one person in front of me. 

That person was called up to be waited upon, and I was left standing about eight feet from the lady who had been going ten rounds with the Asian lady when I walked in.

Audrey's Christmas decor included this terrarium

She had plopped up onto the scale a box that, if taken at face value, contained an air fryer.

The top of the box had been opened.

I heard her say to the cashier, We opened it to look at it but we didn't take it out, and so it needs to be taped back shut. It was a hundred nineteen dollars.

The cashier did not react but just asked where the package would be going.

The white lady who claimed to have had the door slammed rudely in her face started giving an address but then she had to repeat it and I noticed that the cashier had what looked like a hearing aid in her ear, and it was obvious that she had not gotten all of the information.

So the lady who was not having a great day, repeated the information a few more times until even I knew the address by heart.

We attended Christmas Eve service at First Presbyterian downtown

It was in Greenville, South Carolina.

That's where my mother lived, and where Henry still lives, as well as where my sister and several of her children and grandchildren live.

We get up to Greenville about a half dozen times a year; you can be there in significantly less than two hours.

Anyway the lady with the quick temper and loud voice had finally finished reciting the address of where she wanted the air fryer to go, and had moved on to stating her wish that it be delivered "to him" the next day.

The cashier, unflapped, never took her eyes from her screen. Tappity tap tap on her keyboard.

Then she said: For it to be delivered tomorrow will be one thirty-nine.

Dagny and me on December 28th

The lady who was prone to flip out leaned forward at the waist, her chest touching the flaps of the air fryer box, and enunciated in elevated volume: One. Hundred. THIRTY. NINE. DOLLARS???

The cashier never looked up. 

That's if you want it delivered in the afternoon, she said. If you want it delivered in the morning, it will be one seventy-six.

Lady with the short fuse refused to engage. She was fishing in her purse. She produced two twenties and waved them around as though they were magic wands.

I was hoping that forty dollars would take care of it, she asserted.

Lady what dream world do you live in? I wondered, but only in my head.

My Tennessee grands impersonating little angels, only yesterday

The cashier did not take the bait and did not even give those twenties the time of day. You could almost hear her thinking: As if.

Still consulting her screen and tapping on her keyboard, she said, For delivery next Monday it will be eighty two dollars. For delivery on Tuesday will be fifty six dollars.

(I think this was on a Thursday.)

Lady with anger management issues stuffed the twenties back into her purse.

I'll take the one thirty-nine, she said. Just so he has it sometime tomorrow.

? ? ? ? ?

The air fryer cost one nineteen! I'd just heard her say so!

I took this on December 20th ... overall, South Carolina is peaceful

I turned around and looked at the lady waiting in line behind me.

Her eyebrows went up. Way up. And she didn't even know about the immature verbal altercation that air fryer lady had been in, not ten minutes earlier! She hadn't been in the store yet because I was just inside the door!

I said to the lady with only half of the information: She could have been halfway to Greenville by now.

Right? the lady said back to me. Just get in your car and drive there and leave it on his porch. You'll be back home by suppertime!

Or, I said, Zelle him a hundred twenty bucks and tell him, drive around to the Walmart and get you an air fryer!

The lady behind me and I both rolled our eyes. Oh well, we agreed. Bless her heart. (which, where I live, doesn't mean what it sounds like.)

Baby Guy at the park last Saturday

And then it was my turn and since I always like to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, I hustled over to the waiting cashier and within ten seconds, I was on my way to the next errand.

People! Use your brains! Think! 

One: If someone seems as though they are or were being rude to you, it was probably not intentional!

Two: Even if it was intentional, so what? Forgive and move on. It saves so much time and agony.

A young husband and father was shot to death in a Target parking lot over the weekend. Over a parking space.

I rest my case.

When I got home and told TG about the scene at the UPS store, he said, You should have offered to drive the air fryer to Greenville for a hundred dollars. She would have saved thirty-nine dollars and you could have had tea with your sister before coming home a hundred bucks richer.

I thought -- Why didn't I think of that??? 

But I didn't, and I am sorry that I didn't.

I sent this to my kids on New Year's Day

Anyway since I did not take pictures of the nonsense that went on at the UPS store, I've included a few recent photos that I thought you might like.

Audrey and Erica took their children and went to Greenville just today -- no air fryer to deliver -- to visit Henry, who only yesterday got settled into an assisted living facility not a mile from the cemetery where my mother is buried, and where his own grave beside hers is already paid for.

Henry is in failing health and is not likely to get better. TG and I are going to see him on Saturday.

Dagny posed with me on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's, and at eleven years old is beginning to look as though she skipped twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, and went straight to age fifteen.

Rhett is devoted to his mother and even calls her Sweet Love. I heard him do it the other day, while we were out to eat at Cracker Barrel. May I have a drink of your water, Sweet Love? he said.

Ember and Guy, our Tennessee grandchildren, are thriving and we hope to see them again soon.

Elliot A/K/A Skippy at my mother's grave today

Melanie in North Carolina, our disabled granddaughter who turned twenty-one a few weeks ago, has also been extremely sick and has had several hospital visits and a few overnight stays.

Her parents, our daughter Stephanie and son-in-law Joel, are working every day to get her the help she needs. It's a sad situation and we need your prayers.

Are you as busy as we have been? Every year I think it will be different, and every year it is not.

But we will keep soldiering on, until the day break and the shadows flee away.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday

Barking almonds and other news

Merry Christmas, Darlings

We are having a busy Christmas season.

Something tells me that you are too, but I'll go first.

It's funny because this year's was what you might call a short Christmas season; there were exactly four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Not a single almond -- barking or otherwise -- is present in this product

In accordance with that time frame, I got out ahead of everything. I worked at it like it was my job. Which, in fact, it was. It is.

Ninety percent of my Christmas gifts were purchased, wrapped, and situated under and around the tree before Thanksgiving.

On the day after Thanksgiving, I replaced my autumn wreath with my Christmas wreath. It lights up on a timer so I just let it glow there throughout the season.

I made this easy Crock Pot Candy today

I removed everything orange and brown and yellow from the decoration scene and replaced it with green and red and gold.

My regular coffee mugs were switched out for my Christmas mugs. Fall-scented candles were replaced with Christmasy candles.

And once all of that was done, I turned my attention to what we would be eating for the holidays.

I wore my mink vest to the Presbyterian Christmas party

I made list after list. The grocery orders came in tranches: the first wave was basic groceries but the second wave, I went to the Walmart in person to get.

Next, a Trader Joe's opened up about three miles from my house. The girls and I were there on opening day -- December 12th -- and I bought some more Christmas gifts and groceries there.

More lists were compiled: things I needed to make for gifts, for friends at church and for friends outside of church, and for neighbors.

On Black Friday we did our usual photo shoot ... Stephanie and family

(I had already made cranberry sauce and apple butter -- several times -- and bread to give to folks at Thanksgiving, so it was more or less of a continuation of that, for Christmas.)

Lists of what we'd have for our traditional Christmas Eve buffet, this year being held at Audrey's house.

Lists of what we'll have for Christmas dinner.

Loaves of homemade bread for the neighbors

Lists of all of the many treats I will be making for those two occasions, plus gifts for the aforementioned church/non church friends, and neighbors.

At any rate, the last four weeks have involved a great deal of planning, list making, buying, preparing, wrapping, giving, cooking, and so forth.

(Preparing my Christmas cards took an entire day. My list needed lots of work, and I sent out one hundred fifty-five cards. To do that, and do it right, takes time.)

Uncut and under wraps: Carmelitas

(The day after Thanksgiving, we did the traditional all-families Christmas card shoots. In addition to the Mike and Audrey and Dagny subjects, we had Stephanie and her family.)

(The Chericas could not make it that day so we got a shot of them for their card, on December 7th when we attended a Christmas program at Florence Baptist Temple in Florence, South Carolina.)

(Also, Allissa wanted a second shoot for her senior pictures, and we took those on Black Friday. They turned out even better than the ones from the first shoot).

Allissa wanted a second shot at senior pictures

All of that was a lot of work. But still, other stuff was going on without any sign of slowing or stopping.

On the second of December, we partied with the Presbyterians. Columbia's historic First Presbyterian Church -- established 1795 -- is a delightful place to visit and make friends. The girls and I have been there for several events in recent months.

December second was the day they held their Christmas Cheer party for ladies, in the late morning with a light lunch format. There were sandwiches and endless sweet treats, plus hot chocolate, tea, and coffee.

TG and me and the Chericas and Maudags, last Sunday

TG got me a ranch mink vest for an early Christmas gift (I bought it from a wonderful seller on eBay; it's vintage and was inexpensive but looks expensive) and I wore it on that day because unlike this week, which is flip-flop weather in South Carolina, it was nippy around the first of the month.

(A few weeks ago, my sister turned seventy. TG and I went to Greenville for the day. I made Southern Living's Poppy Seed Chicken recipe to pop into the oven when we got there, plus a special meal for Henry, who can no longer eat salt, and my sister's birthday and Christmas gifts.)

(Henry, my mother's widower, age 93, was extremely sick and there was a great deal of concern, but he seems to be doing much better. I'll go back and see him again next week.)

Fresh-baked banana breads for the neighbors

(Our Melanie turned twenty-one on Sunday. It was her golden birthday. All of us traveled to North Carolina on Friday and spent the night in hotels, so as to be there for her birthday party and for our Christmas with Stephanie and her family, who as I write are in Pennsylvania for their Christmas with Joel's family.)

(Melanie, who is disabled, has also been extremely sick for several weeks. She is on the mend and is almost back to normal but it has been a harrowing experience for her, for her parents, for her siblings, and for all of us.)

I had seen a reel on Instagram about the aforementioned Poppy Seed Chicken, and all I can say about that is, you should make it. Soon.

Melanie was feeling better for her party

I'd also seen a reel about making Crock Pot Candy, something I've never done before but which looked incredibly easy and good, so I decided to do it.

One of the ingredients listed in the recipe was Almond Bark.

I'd never seen or bought that product before so I was excited to use it. It just sounded so interesting and delicious.

She had a brief hospital stay last week

When I got to the Walmart on that day that I broke my recent habit of having Walmart deliver all of my groceries, and drove over there to get them myself, I noticed that my package of Almond Bark was the last one on the shelf.

I was relieved when I reached up into what appeared to be an empty box module on the shelf and saw in the shadows, at the very back one lonely slab of what was labeled in huge letters ALMOND BARK.

But it was not until I got home and inspected the heavy, chunky package -- which just today, I dropped on my foot, and trust me you don't want to be doing that -- I realized that it was not almond bark at all.

She will graduate in May

It is chocolate candy coating. And that's all it is. There is not a single thing related to almonds in that package.

It's Make Your Own ALMOND BARK Chocolate Candy Coating.

Have you ever heard of anything so outlandish? The package proclaims loudly that it contains Almond Bark. That it IS Almond Bark.

I call them the Maudags -- Mike, Audrey, Dagny

EVERYONE who uses this in recipes online states that one of the ingredients is Almond Bark.

But it's not Almond Bark. It is Chocolate Candy Coating that you could use to Make Your Own ALMOND BARK.

IF you wanted to.

We girls on December 2, 2025

Which I do not, because one, I do not have an almond and two, if I did, I would not be inclined to make it bark.

Barking almonds is one thing that I definitely do not need, and never will. Simply not appealing.

I did use the Make Your Own Almond Bark Chocolate Candy Coating to make Crock Pot Candy -- which involves said so-called almond bark, semi-sweet chocolate chip morsels, creamy peanut butter, and dry roasted peanuts.

The Chericas in Florence, SC, on December 7th

The pirate is not one of those people who wraps gifts in a box that says it's one thing when in fact, on the inside is something else.

So I don't appreciate being led to believe that I am buying almond bark when in fact I am not.

I have so many other funny stories to tell you, but they will have to wait until after Christmas.

At First Presbyterian, they served red velvet cheese ball

Today I made Carmelita Bars, Butterscotch No-Bakes, Andes Mint Ritz Cookies, four loaves of fresh bread, six small loaves of banana nut bread, and the aforesaid Crock Pot Candy.

Tomorrow I plan to make Christmas Crack, Natchez Cookies, Candied Pecans, Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Pretzel Bark.

I'd like to make Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies but I'm not sure I will have time.

Andes Mint Ritz Cookies

Have you noticed that everything you make calls for basically the same ingredients, but comes out to be something unique when you are done?

I have a tower of brown sugar (both light and dark), pecans, almond slices (the non-barking kind), walnuts, oatmeal, semi-sweet chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, caramel melts, Heath bits 'o brickle, coconut, sprinkles, nonpareils, and sanding/finishing sugars, along with flour, white sugar, vanilla extract, vanilla bean paste, cinnamon, eggs, heavy cream, and flaky salt.

Then there are the crackers: Honey Maid Grahams, saltines, Ritz and knockoff Ritz -- along with pretzels and corn chips (for the queso dip I am making for the Christmas buffet). I haven't even rattled off the myriad canned goods, to include pineapple, yams, green beans, Rotel, et cetera.)

Melly celebrated her golden birthday: 21 on the 21st

These same ingredients will yield countless different treats, each of which will delight and amaze.

On Wednesday, in preparation for Christmas Day, in addition to the Queso Dip for that night's buffet, I am making Sara's Pecan Pie (my friend Sara's recipe -- excellent and so easy; email me if you need it) and a Cranberry Tart in my new tart pan with the removable bottom.

For Christmas Dinner we are having baked ham, Broccoli Casserole, Ruth's Chris Sweet Potato Casserole, Slow Cooker Creamed Corn, mashed potatoes, green beans, Ambrosia (the kind with fresh oranges and grapefruit, pineapple tidbits, maraschino cherries, coconut, mini marshmallows, and chopped pecans), Rhodes Rolls, and assorted soft drinks, teas, and coffees.

It was my first time to make butterscotch no-bakes

It's shaping up to be epic. 

I have so much more to tell you but it will have to wait until after Christmas.

And I hope yours is perfectly lovely, or if not reaching that height, at least passably tolerable.

Centerpiece at the First Presbyterian Ladies' Christmas Tea

I have a new favorite saying: ... until the shadows flee away. (Song of Solomon 2:17 KJV).

We will keep striving, keep working, keep believing, keep loving, keep praising, keep helping, keep looking up, until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

Until almonds bark.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday :: Merry Christmas