Yikes K3 glad you are ok how scary,bet you will be stiff in the am.... and that dumping syndrome is a real pain.. I have it..anything more than 5 gr of sugar and I barely make it to the brm..ugh not worth it but if I do eat stuff like cookies etc I make sure im going to be home.she will find by trial and error what works for her,some things I ate right after surg where sf jello and popsicles,instant mashed potatoes,broth, and baby food,i wasn't allowed real food for 6 weeks which wasn't a problem becuz I wasn't hungry..ttfn rosey

Hi Everyone,

I have made the cranberry sauce, gravy, and dressing. I think we are having Christmas dinner tomorrow. Christmas Eve, my DD is making 7 fish (an Italian tradition) for her husband. Christmas Day, we are going to Bush Gardens in Tampa.

In case I do not get back before, I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Christmas!

Lynn

Some of our Christmas plans are still partially up in the air as I'm waiting for family to let me know when we can get together, but other than them, we are going to our dd's house on Christmas Day evening. Christmas eve our gc are singing in their church choir so we will try to get there for them and we also have three services at our church to choose from so hopefully we can make one. I have most of the gifts wrapped, still waiting on a couple small things to come from amazon. I got a great buy on a Laalaloopsy (not sure I got that right?!) doll from amazon and it came fast. So now I have two, but couldn't pass it up, it was such a great deal. So now my gd will have two to be friends. I've always gotten a little carried away at Christmas!

Lynn - I like the way you are doing your holiday. Busch Gardens should be nice on Christmas Day!

Karen3 - Glad the young man was close enough to help you. Hope you aren't too sore. I hate to fall or even sorta twist myself because I can be sore for days. Never used to be that way...another way my age is showing I guess.

Rosey- I snagged a lot of recipes from that site. I remember you recommending it a long time ago but I'd forgotten about it.

Went to church this am. I was tired from not enough sleep and hurting but it was still good to be there. Came home and took a long nap. The motirin had finally kicked it. Feel like I need some more now. Our son is coming over soon, haven't seen him for about a week so will be good to see him. Now tht he's near, I really miss him after a few days even.

You all have a wonderful Christmas season....the big day is almost here!

Hello ladies. This morning I got up and came home from the camp. I had a lot on my mind and couldn't hunt comfortable. I went to wal mart and got all the foods I needed to prepare my dishes. Dh stayed at the camp with our oldest son. I'm a little overwhelmed right now. I have to work tomorrow and figure out how in the world I'm going to make 3 cream cheese pies, 3 pecan pies, fruit salad, macaroni and cheese casserole, candied yams, hot crackers and a dip. Phew. It's too much. We also have a pork roast and turkey to stuff. But dh is going to be home tomorrow afternoon to help with that. I'm off Christmas Eve so I will have a little time to get some of those things done for Christmas Day. Thursday I have to work and pack for 10 days at the camp. We are having a party for New Years at our camp. Some friends are coming that play the guitar and sit around the fire and relax. Several hunters and their family's are supposed to be there. Both my boys and their girls will be there. No one has to get on the road for anything. A lot of them are piling up in my camp. For New Year's Day we usually get up and cook breakfast. Clean up and start cooking the New Years dinner. We usually don't eat until about 3 and it's clean up and they all leave. That's when I crash dead tired. That's my holiday plans. How well I remember the day I went thru the holidays with nothing to do but open presents and eat. Ha them days are over now. I'm the mom that's doing it for my mom and mother in law because they can't do it anymore. Oh well it's a blessing that they are still here with me.
If I can't come back until after christmas I want to wish each and everyone of you a happy holiday filled with lots of love.

Hugs cajun

ladyinwaiting - tell me how Christmas Town was at Busch Gardens in Tampa! The one here in Williamsburg VA is supposed to be awesome!

On holidays --- My husband is a pilot, which is a seniority based job. So, for years and years, he was always working the holidays. Which, in hind sight, is a tremendous blessing, because I never cooked anything special. He wasn't home!

Over those first two decades, we proceeded to not associate with cooking with the holidays, even as he became more senior. (Mind you, I cook all the time because I can't bear to think of him subsisting on airport food. I keep it healthy for him. I tell him to get any cookies or pie on the road!).

So, now, even though he has all the holidays off, we might make a roast duck and a nice veggie side, but none of the other trappings.

I remain thankful for our aberrant behavior, as it helps me avoid temptation!

Hi everyone.. I was suppose to do my shopping today,with my dd however she got stuck in her driveway and we have to be plowed befor we could go any where either..awww Alaskan winters so it is plan B now.. Christmas eve we are going to the candelite service and come home and have pizza. both my girls and their familys will spend the night here. one yr we had 4 genaerations sleeping and waiting for santa. Christmas day we are having a potluck for all our friends and family.. if every one comes there should be about 26 of us. I will cook the ham and turkey and the potatoe casserole. everyone else will bring the rest. wishing each of you the best holiday ever. rosey

Good evening GG’s,

It has been a pretty nice weekend.

We had Maddie unexpectedly again on Saturday ~ so Mommy could finish up the Christmas shopping. What was supposed to be a couple hours she said ~ ended up being 6 hours. It must have been rugged out there

Maddie had made pretend snowballs (paper wadded up) and we had a snowball fight ~ that was fun. I called them Texas snowballs. Even more fun, because they weren’t wet or cold ~ no mess to clean up afterward.

I finally sort of feel like I am not so lost (after losing my job and other stuff). Things feel like they are kinda falling into place ~ like a routine. I think it helps also, that I am finally feeling better than I was for a while there. I got to tackle my mending pile and worked on shortening the sleeves of some tops. I have to shorten everything ~ legs, sleeves. I got my sewing threads sorted out and organized ~ spool and bobbin with matching color thread ~ each in one of those snack sized zip lock bags, then in large zip lock bags I got the threads grouped together by colors ~ light blues, dark blues, reds/pinks, etc. That makes it quicker and easier to find which thread I need to work with. I love getting stuff accomplished. Because of work, I had let a lot of stuff go, I am so glad to finally be able to get to work on this stuff that has been bugging me for a long time.

I had kind of a frustrating thing and feel silly now that I got so upset about it. I have this shirt l like to wear for Christmas, and I thought it was in my closet, but when I looked, I could not find it. I searched all over the place and felt like I was going crazy ~ could have sworn it was in that closet. Felt like I wanted to cry. My husband said ~ calm down ~ it will turn up. It did ~ I had taken it out to use it as a guide to fix another shirt, and had both shirts together in a bag near the sewing machine. I just didn’t remember that part. Maybe it bothered me, because my mom has Alzheimers and I don’t always remember things as well as I want to ~ I think I am sorta scared that I might end up like Mom.

We have Maddie every day all day ~ Christmas vacation. What is that saying ~ hang onto your seats it might be a bumpy ride. ???? There is never a dull moment when she is here. Keeps up on our toes ~ but tires us out as well. She wanted to play yet another game one day ~ I said to her ~ Maddie ~ you need to think of a game that tired people can play. DH got a kick out of that. I am glad we can help Sara and glad to get to spend time with Maddie ~ I just need a fairy to wave her magic wand and zap me with a big dose of extra energy ~ LOL.

Well, this has gotten long enough. Thank you all for letting me share. It has helped to keep my hands busy and not give in to the munchies.

Hope you all have had a nice weekend.

Take care

A picture of the shirt I lost and found and a picture of the Texas snowballs.

Bobbi I'm baking at home. Dh stayed at the camp with our sons to hunt. They are all off. I am working today. :-(.

Hugs
Cajun

Up early today as dh has his colonoscopy this am. We had a nice visit with our son last night. I love listening to him talk and realizing much he knows now. I feel like I am finally getting to know him again. Maybe even better than before all the years of rarely seeing him. I told him how I miss him now when I don't see him for a week and he said yeah, he told someone he has to visit us at least once a week or we will go into withdrawal. Yeah that's about right! I don't know how long before he'll have to transfer due to his job or the military sends him somewhere so I really cherish this time. Not sure we will get to have "Christmas" with him though until after the holiday as they think they are having company.

Bobbi/Glynne - I have memory problems already so Alzheimer is a concern for me too. I wonder since we are online so much we may keep our minds more exercised and that may help to prevent it. You know, like some people do cross word puzzles.

Cajun - You'll get a lot done with the guys gone. Remember to take breaks though and take care of yourself.

Well, I need to finish getting ready so will close this now...

It's been a long day. Dh had a routine colonoscopy as part of his Medicare checkup. He's had a couple of them in the past, and everything was fine. This morning he was scheduled for 10:30 but didn't get taken in until noon. Of course he hadn't had anything to eat since the night before and that was only clear liquids all day. The procedure didn't start until almost 1:30 pm and he was back 2:30 but he had so much air in his intestine which was causing him pain and the doctor took so long getting back to him (I suspect he went to lunch after dh's procedure which is understandable) so he didn't get released until 5 pm. This time they found 2 polyps, which they partially removed...couldn't get quite all of them for some reason. Plus the prep did not clean him out completely so he has to have it done again in six months to be sure there are not more and maybe to remove more of the ones they found. You can imagine now much he's looking forward to that! Also they found he has diverticulosis so after a soft diet the next two days, he has to go high fiber. That is good as I'm always trying to get him to eat more fiber, but it will be fun as here I am on a LOW FIBER diet for my diverticulitis and he's HIGH FIBER for his diverticulosis! I feel like I'm almost over the the "litis" though so hopefully I'll be able to work more fiber back into my diet soon though. Hoping the surgeon agrees. Easier if we can eat the same diet. By this time he isn't having pain and seems to feel ok, but I was so tired I wanted to cry on the way home. I so glad I took Motrin before we left and also took Tylenol with me just in case. I definitely needed it. It would have been terrible driving home if my pain had been in full force! This morning I was going to do some grocery shopping when we got home....LOL that will have to wait til tomorrow now! Dh and I have been pretty healthy all these years but I guess our age is finally catching up with us as this year we have started to get all the things I have heard other people were having. For several years now I've been trying to eat high fiber so I don't know why I developed diverticulosis anyway as that's supposed to be what prevents it.

Funny...after all those years of doing so much for Christmas and having to fix the big meal myself, now i always feel I must be forgetting something and that I should be doing more esp when I hear and see everyone bustling around getting ready for it. As I said I do need to buy a few groceries and I think I may need to get a couple large gift bags for the dolls because they are hard to wrap but that's all.

Jess we did the same thing up here..not just decriminalizing it...we made it legal.....stupid, stupid imho...alcohol is causing enough tragedy. Maybe if they all stay home (and away from their children!) and smoke instead of driving, it would be better than drinking and driving but somehow I'm pretty sure they aren't. We've already had one pot related traffic fatality. What has happened to good ole common sense?!! One day on the news they showed young people laying all over the local campus smoking weed. People just had to walk around them. A lot of children accompany their mothers on the campus too.

Good evening GG's,

Well, for some of you ~ good morning (is 11:15 Central time here).

Kind of a sad evening for me ~ a little teary eyed here. I was looking for a recipe that my mom had used to make ~ wanted to make it to take to Sara's tomorrow.

I found the recipe, but along the way, came across recipes I had gotten my dad to write down for me (in his own handwriting) and the same for my mom (some in her own handwriting) and my grandma (mom's mom) in her own handwriting. I remember at the time thinking I would be glad some day, that I had gotten them to hand write them ~ it would be a treasure for me some day. Well, sadly that day is here. Grandma has been gone quite a while. Dad, just in October. Mom is still here, but has alzheimers and doesn't remember stuff. One recipe I came across from Mom she had sent by e-mail. She used to be able to do that and we had so much fun.

I guess ~ sadness for what once was and is no more.

Do any of you know how would be the best way to preserve those hand written recipes? Laminate them or what?

We are having our side of the family gathering tomorrow at Sara's. Maddie has tried all day to give me hints about what my Christmas present is. I told her I don't want to know ~ I want to have a surprise. She made me something and insisted that I open it today and not wait until Christmas. She had made me a doll house out of paper. She is so creative.

Ok, guess I had better get off to bed here soon so I can get that cake baked tomorrow.

Take care all