The kitchen is mopped, the laundry is rollin', I've given out cooking advice, gone to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, started planning my month-long birthday celebration and got the roast in the oven. It's been a productive day around here! Happy 2012, by the way. I'm looking forward to a new year. I don't know what it will bring, but I know it will be good and I'm ready!
On Saturday our friend Betty (Mrs. A to all you Furman grads) invited us over for a New Year's Eve Communion. That probably sounds odd, but she is an ordained minister and over the years has broken bread with her close friends and family in her home.
Betty is actually one of the coolest women I know. At 80 years old, she's an avid gardener, pet sitter extraordinaire (Betty's Best Doggie Bed and Breakfast and Dinner, Too.) ...and oh, she's a soda jerk. After retiring from Furman University where she taught, ran the student center and retired as the head of the student volunteer corp, she wanted a low key job so she went to work for my mother-in-law at our family's drug store, Slater Drug, which has an old fashioned soda fountain. You can find her there most days making her famous peanut butter milkshakes and chatting it up with customers. Betty knows everyone.
After communion she was nice enough to let us molest her garden. We left with bags of fresh collard greens, spinach, broccoli and cabbage. We will be eating well this week.
On Sunday, while I packed away the last of Christmas, my husband washed and stripped collards, leaf from stem, and boiled them down with garlic, chicken bullion, salt and pepper. I usually douse my greens with mustard but these didn't need one drop. They were fantastic!
I promised to report on some of the really awesome gifts we received for Christmas! I picked four to tell you about, but I can't name a single thing I didn't absolutely love, love, love. I got a cupcake pan and measuring spoon necklace from my husband (a Pinterest find). A Marcel book I gave to my daughter and to my sister. A nativity set my friend Griet made for me (also a Pinterest goodie). And my in-laws gave us a Keurig. Once we discovered we could use espresso ground coffee in the little cup that comes with it and we didn't have to keep buying those little individual K-Cups, we sort of fell in love. I also got some much needed non-stick pans and one of those slate cheese boards you can write on with chalk.
And one more thing.... my step-dad gave my husband a cannon. Sweet, eh? It helped us ring in the new year with a very loud booooom.
That's all for tonight. Going to watch the last episode of American Horror Story on the DVR with my husband (... if he and my daughter will quit playing Halo). That show creeps me the hell out, but alas, I keep watching to see what messed up stuff they come up with next. I'll be back tomorrow with tales of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods finds and the AMAZING roast that just came out of the oven...
Cheers! Happy New Year to you and yours.
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