On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

Matthew 2:11 (NIV)

The spouselet is Indian.  Born in Malasyia, raised in Africa (until the age of 15) and then transplanted to Iowa until he moved to Kentucky to join my family.  His parents fell in love in college.  His dad was from a different caste than his mom.

Bad news.

Both families were upset with them choosing to marry.  They left the country.  
Both of his parents were teachers at Universities around the world.  He used to tell me how he was treated differently because of the choices his parents made.

Sins of the father…

I always thought he was exaggerating.

One day we were shopping in Walmart, killing time while the 15 yr old was at soccer practice.  There was an Indian man who worked at Walmart and he stopped to have a conversation with The Spouselet.  I guess if you are from India, you can kinda tell the region someone is from by their color, features and other characteristics.  The talked for about 10 minutes when the man asked why he grew up in Africa.

The spouselet told him.

The man immediately turned so he was no longer facing my husband and diverted his eyes.

He quit looking at him and ended the conversation as fast as he could and almost ran away.

I was mortified.

The spouselet says, it happens all the time.

How awful.
To be shunned by a Walmart stock-boy.

Whole Foods.

My sister and I have a difference of opinion when it comes to my favorite grocery store.

Last week we went on our annual shopping trip with our momaw and our cousin in-law.  Momaw has been taking us Christmas shopping and to lunch for over 20 years.  My cousins wife hasn’t been going with us all those years, because she is relatively new to the clan.

So, we are at the Panera Bread at the local mall scarfing up some good ole soup on a chilly December morning when my sister decides that she wants some Parkay for her bread.

Margarine.

EW.

I mentioned that butter is better for you because it may be a fat, but it is a natural fat.  She didn’t want to hear anything about it, she remembers when Margarine WAS the healthy alternative-but she doesn’t eat it at home, she eats Bummel and Brown*.   She did end up using a small pat of butter because she didn’t know Fleschman’s.  The conversation progressed on the topic of hydrognated oils and how I really never realized how it was in so many foods.

She thought that all trans fats had been made illegal.
God love her.
(and if she ever reads this, I am a dead woman)

I don’t mind spending money on good healthy food.  I am trying to eliminate high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils from my diet and the quickest, easiest and most cost effective for me is shopping at whole foods.  Because none of their food contains those two ingredients.

Sure I can pick up a few items at my local Kroger that are HFCS and/or Hyrdogenated free, but I have to read 20 labels to find them.  That takes me longer than driving the 20 minutes to the closets whole foods and just picking out what I need.  And, while they do have a pretty good natural market section, there are still items that they don’t carry.

I told her that is why I shop at Whole Foods.

“Whole Paycheck!” She exclaims.

“I don’t have as much wasted food, because if I pay that much for it, I am sure to eat it.”

“Whole Fat!” She giggles. “I picked up an item in there once and there was a TON of fat in it.  Just because it is Whole Foods, doesn’t make it Whole Healthy.”

“Nope, but it does make it better than the alternative, for me.”

Once we were done eating we got up to get a refill on our beverages and someone had dumped their tea glass with a nasty stained and squeezed lemon on the grill of the Soda machine.

I said “EW”.  Unfortunatley, it was the same time my sister was pushing the Diet Beverage button.  She assumed that I was “ew-ing” her choice of drink.

“Look sister, I am gonna knock you out if you don’t quit with this health business.”
I wasn’t about to say anything about her choice of drink other than it definately did NOT contain HFCS.  I just pointed to the lemon as I refilled my glass with unsweetned ice tea.

With out lemon, Thank you.

*I am so not telling her that even though it is made with yogurt, it still has hydrogenated oil in it.

As mentioned yesterday the once super secret family recipe, not so secret.  I am sure that my moggie tweeked it, because she only wrote it down once, for me (and I have since misplaced it, because I never lose anything).

For the past few years my mom has made the whole spread including the dressing, but for yesterday, I made it.

Let’s start with a little bread

actually, this is only half the bread, when I got the bright idea to blog this, I was already half done with putting it all together.

Moosh and crumble all the bread (that would be a loaf of white, 12 biscuits and a pan of corn bread. Cook up a little over a cup of chopped celery and another cup of chopped onions in butter (I also tossed in two crushed cloves of garlic which isn’t mentioned anywhere but it worked)…when they are nice and tender toss them in the bread. Pour over the bread the drippings from one cooked (roasted chicken)…which I got from my mom (EW)
Throw in sage (to taste-and I didn’t use nearly enough, because I ran out). IF your dressing is too dry have some canned chicken broth read to go…I needed one cup of that.

Once it is well mixed and everything blended and it tastes good moosh it out in a pan.

I put it in the fridge over night because i didn’t need to bake it until yesterday morning.

My Moggie used to keep the uncooked dressing in a glass pickle jar in the fridge and would only pull out how much she needed, but when she did thanksgiving, she did it probably 4 different times for different parts of the family that couldn’t always get together on THE day.

This dressing isn’t hard to make but it does take a lot of equipment…especially if you make the cornbread AND biscuits.

I had the full glass pan left from yesterday and about 1/3 of the foil pan. We had 3 kids and 13 adults, some had seconds.

Oh, I almost forgot, cook in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes.

Last night I got to have a few glasses of wine with some very dear friends from college.  Over the years we had lost touch with each other-which I guess happens when you have kids and jobs and spouses and all that other stuff we never considered when we were in the dorm.

I have connected with tons of people from my past through facebook but re-connecting with these two women was great fun-and ironic because one lives about 4 miles from me and the other teaches at my son’s former middle school.

SMALL Flippin’ world.

This is K and I. She lived next door to me in the dorm. She introduced me to the girls I ended up moving off campus to live with. She ended up going back home to school and ended up getting her masters with my own real life sister-never knew that until last night.

SMALL Flippin’ world.

This is S and I. She lived on the other side of K. We stayed in touch for a few years after we came home from college. Funny not a one of us graduated from WKU. I think that we had to much fun and had to come back to the “ville” where our parents could keep better track of us.

The only person missing from this party is T. She lives in Ohio and none of us have talked to her in years. I saw her last. We all miss her still.

And I should mention that even though the three of us have some serious big 80’s hair. T beat us all. She had rock star hair band hair…David Coverdale would have been jealous.

Taken over the weekend while I worked the Upward Basketball Games at Crestwood UMC.

To classic to not snap and share!

I knew instantly…

When I saw the subject line of the email, “Fwd: Psalm 2008-2012″ it was not going to be good.

Several factors gave it away.
1.  It was from my grandmother, and God, I love that woman but in the past several months (mostly since my popaw died-or maybe she has always been this way, but he was our buffer) -well, past several months she just ain’t been right.  (Bless her Heart).

2.  It was a forward.  My momaw doesn’t write many emails but she sure as shootin’ forwards EVERY ONE of them.  NO matter if they talk about aliens, or the old lady who will rob you blind in the Target parking lot.

3.  There is a biblical reference-but wait I am no biblical scholar and sometimes it seems like there are 3000 psalms, I know in reality there aren’t nearly that many.

Oh, I get it…thems dates!
So, I open the email.  (Bless my Heart)

And it is a poem about Democrats.  Well golly gee- I didn’t see that one comin’.
And it is a really bad attempt to parody the 23rd Psalm.

Because, well that one really doesn’t Rhyme.

I think I might have to start filtering my momaw’s emails because never once in the 5 years she has had her AOL-has she ever written me an email.

I just knew instantly, it should have been deleted.

My favorite Holiday Meal!

Thanksgiving Day at my mom’s house was awesome.  Everyone brought a dish-I already blogged about mine and can I just tell you that there was not ONE stick of celery left.  I had nothing to clean up-I love it when that happens.

Our family has a tradition of writing down one thing (I know the pressure-only one thing) we are thankful for-and before we pray and eat we pass around a bowl and everyone picks out one slip…so we have to read what someone else wrote.  That’s cool because it is really fun to try to figure out who wrote what.  Sometimes it is easy if you recognize the handwritting. 

My cousin’s always say something about UK (university of KY) athletics.  And even this year they found something good to say!

After we all ate entirely to much, my spouselet put in the DVD of home movies that my grandparents took while we were all growing up.  As it played he recorded what everyone said and is going to over lay our comments.  How cool of a present!

My sister and I are the biggest goober-butts ever.  Neither one of us made it through the day with out missing our popaw.  One thing about my sister and I-we are NOT pretty when we cry and we make noise.  just so you know, there isn’t any of that quietly dabbing your eyes and being misty with maybe a quiet sniffle.  Oh no!  We are the full blown red nose, splashing tears, suckin’ our lower lip, wailing kinda criers and when we TRY to stiffle them-much snot is produced and hyperventalation is highly possible.  However, we very very rarely cry at the same time, to minimize the global impact.

Oh and then my son and one of my sister’s neices (her brother in law’s kid-so no relation to me and mine) were born on the same day, 2 years apart…they have this special connection.  They haven’t seen each other in about 6 years and there was some serious eyeball batting going on.  He will be 14 this week, she will be 12.  Her mama said she wanted to wear mascara and spent alot of time on her hair.  The 13 yr old put on a bit of the cologne and took a shower.  They were so very cute.

When we got home I told him that she thought he was the cat’s pajamas and he said “Gross mom, that is like my cousin.”  Yeah, LIKE your cousin, but NOT.  No relation baby. “Really? (trying not to bounce out of his skin) But she is a 6th grader!”  Which, apparently is WORSE than being related. 

Yeah, we will see about that when he is 17 and she is 15 won’t we!

It was a great day all around, I think even the 13 yr old would agree.

What was your favorite part about your Thanksgiving day?

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Today, I really was the girl in the middle! I had lunch with my mom and my sister-I am not the oldest OR the youngest-how perfect.

We went to Sisters Tea Parlor & Boutique!

I am not normally a fan of pink, but for a tea room, it works.

I am a fan of hot tea. (mine was some kind of chai-and very tasty) Even a bigger fan of hot tea that tastes good with OUT sugar or honey! I am also a HUGE fan of ginger snaps. Ever had a ginger snap with lemon curd? Well, you should. The cottled cream wasn’t bad either-I just love tart!

Aren’t the dishes and presentation of everything just precious?

The food was incredible-finger sandwiches, scones and deserts…to yummy.

We could have dressed up if we wanted-they have a room full of hats, furs and shiney jewelry…I can see little girls going totally nutso over this place.

Check out more pictures on Flickr.

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Coffee

I am not much of a coffee drinker.  It is something reserved for special occassions and always involves some sinful chocolate desert. 

It wasn’t always that way.

When I was younger, no bigger than 4 or 5 my grandmother, on my mama’s side used to let me drink black coffee out of her saucer.  She would get up at 6 before anyone else and have a cup of coffee. 

When I was small and we were visitin’ her in Lexington I got to sleep with her.  My parents were glad for the break, I guess when she woke up, I woke up and that is how I was able to share a few stolen moments.

To this day, when ever I smell coffee-I think of her.
And I still take it black.

However, I have graduated to a cup.