I Resolve

It's that time of year when we take stock of our lives and resolve to do better....... a ritual of sorts. Here are mine; I resolve to.......

1. be more patient with Jim..........and store clerks..............and telemarketers.............well, maybe not telemarketers. And I'll be more patient with myself. Having occasional goof-off days is not a sin, necessarily.

2. lose 10 pounds. This is the same 10 pounds I've been losing since I was 30 years old. It comes and goes. Mostly comes.

3. spend less time on the computer, right after I check who's on FaceBook, answer some emails, transfer some money to PayPal, play for a while in PhotoShop, watch a movie on NetFlix, place an order on Amazon.com, check my bids on Ebay, post in a few forums, do a little online research, and finish this blog.

4. exercise everyday. Well, I can take weekends off; 5 days a week would be good. But you know they say to alternate days of exercise, so every other day would work even better. Tuesdays and Thursdays.............definitely Thursdays.

5. spend less money, unless I get depressed and need some shopping therapy, or Dillards has a great clothing or shoe sale, or if I see something I simply can't live without at full price.

6. be less judgmental of others unless they're obviously idiots or evil or in politics or on TV, in which case they've got it coming.

7. spend more time with Jim. I like watching him sleep in the recliner.............. it's a bonding experience.

8. stop giving advice to my family; they've never followed my advice, anyway; I usually don't either.

9. let my hair grow out. I'm married to the only man on the planet who likes short haired women; he'll have to adjust.

10. give up a habit.....let's see, I don't smoke; alcohol mostly just makes me feel bad. My generation doesn't do drugs. I can't have sugar or chocolate because of the migraines. Maybe I'll take up a frickin' habit in 2010 so I can give it up next year!

Fa-la-la-la-la, La-la-la-la

Christmas is almost here! And the weather has turned off wet, windy and bitterly cold......well, bitterly so for the mid-south. We don't do cold very well. With the first half-dozen fluffy snow flakes, schools close down, and Wal-Mart sells out of bread and milk, as if we expected to be snowed in for weeks. If we get any accumulation at all, it's usually gone by noon the next day. I only remember one White Christmas in my whole life, and I'll tell you about that soon. It was magical, one of those Christmases we keep in our hearts for life.

But I'm still adding little Christmasy touches around the house, haven't put up the tree yet (except for the Charlie Brown tree, a ficus hung with gold balls, the ceramic tree, 3 wire mesh trees, and 3 tiny green trees decorated with miniature ornaments on bathroom lavatories) or wrapped all the presents, but Lord willin' it will all get done. And I'm praying that this isn't a snowy or icy Christmas because we're having the family at our house this year, and it's about a 2 hour drive to get here.

Jim brought me some live mistletoe from the ranch were he hunted in Texas. He always touches my heart with the little gifts of plants, rocks or branches he brings me, and the fact that most of the leaves blew off in the back of his truck made me love the bedraggled little green clumps even more.

Decorating with Friends

Rita asked Sybil and me over to help decorate her house for Christmas. (That's them in the pics.) Amid all the goofing off, silly talk and laughter, we actually did get a lot accomplished, and then she took us out for lunch and a quick trip to a local florist (note the lovely turquoise wreath) where I stole, or uh borrowed, a few ideas and bits of inspiration. That's why God created pocket cameras, for goodness sake.

Not much to report in the way of technique, but I promised I would share photos. Behind the house is an old red barn, trimmed in white, built by Rita's grandfather, and we made a huge green wreath with a red bow for it, but then we wimped out on climbing the long wooden ladder to hang it. That's why God created husbands.

Here's our front door, all decked out for Christmas. First, I hung a lighted garland over it (Actually Jim & I hung it; he's such a gentleman that the sight of me on top of the ladder with a hammer in my hand disturbs him.) Then I began attaching the floral mesh to it by gathering bunches of it and securing them with the wire fronds of the garland. Finally, I attached the big balls. I'm not sure how stable they are. I just hope friends or family don't get conked on the head when they come to visit.

I'm getting together with Sybil and Rita to play some more with the floral mesh, this time making wreaths. I'll post a photo of mine, however it turns out. We went to a Christmas decorating workshop the other day at a nursery open house. The only tip I learned was to begin at the corner of the fabric in order to get a bias pouffiness (I wonder if that's a word...) from it.

I've also hung quite a few lights. If I get any good photos of them, I'll share them, too, red ones on the front porch and green in the back, so many that Jim said planes may mistake the deck for a landing strip.........

Rusty Stars

I bought this rusty star garland in Canton, Texas last summer. It's one of those decorator elements that looks interesting any time of year, and for Christmas, I added a few blue balls. It just makes me happy looking at it.

I have a friend who has lots of free time on her hands and a gorgeous, big new home that she wants to decorate herself, but she doesn't trust her own abilities or taste, and I was thinking about what it takes to create home decor, or any art for that matter. There are some professions where the licensed, trained practitioners want us to believe that what they do requires a special commission from God, and they've sold that notion to many of us. The most valuable thing I inherited from my mother was the belief that I can do anything I set my mind to. Now mind you, this bravado has taken me down some long and winding roads where I floundered and eventually decided that I wasn't committed enough to devote the time to learning that it required, so I was on to my next adventure, but I honestly don't recall ever thinking I couldn't do something.

One of my favorite quotes says, "Creativity is allowing ourselves to make mistakes; art is knowing which ones to keep." So, I s'pose that believing I can do most anything frees me to see my mistakes not as failures but as additions to my garland of things that won't work......yet another learning experience, another rusty star.

Deck the Halls

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I started my Christmas music Playlist today, hope you like the songs. I love Christmas decorations, and I've begun adding Christmasy touches here and there. I would rather decorate a little at a time than try to do it all in one day, and I'll share some of it with you as I go along. Then maybe you'll come help me undecorate after Christmas. Right.

My friend, Bonnie, gave me my first glass block gift, which I thought was simply gorgeous, and since then I've made 2 others, with at least one more in the works. You either have to drill the hole in the side where you insert the lights or buy pre-drilled blocks. I've bought a glass drill bit, and the block on the right side of the mantle is waiting to be drilled........If I don't get around to it this Christmas, chances are there will be other Christmases. It's best to frost the 4 sides of the block so that the lighting wires don't show so much; I used etching cream, but there are lots of ways to frost glass. Then tie the block up in some beautiful, wired ribbon, and you're done. I've bought a few actual Christmas gifts, but they're not wrapped yet. Don't you just love this time of year??

I Can Cook Lobster!

This is a quickie blog post about cooking that I wanted to share with you. Jim doesn't care for lobster, and we don't have to eat the same things, but it's easier, so I've always passed by the big ol' lobster tails at Sam's till this week while Jim is at camp. On a whim, I picked up a package and brought it home, then began to have second thoughts because I didn't know a thing about cooking them. Here comes YouTube to the rescue! There are several videos on the subject, but this one really appealed to me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmkeWSnxkzY

It's super easy to follow, takes about 30 minutes from start to finish, and my tails came out perfect! I ate one for dinner with a baked potato, fresh asparagus, and a Cesar salad and saved the other one to go in a salad tomorrow. They had been frozen but tasted really sweet and fresh. Who says you gotta go out to get great seafood?