On the Record for 2009

It's 2:30 am and I am not sleeping. Maybe it's knowing that Grumpy goes back to work, the grandkids go back to school, and I have to get serious about getting the rest of the Christmas stuff down and put away. I have been reluctant to de-Christmas the house. Okay, I'm just dreading re-doing the storage room everything goes back in. It's a project and I'm in denial. More of the going through and streamlining and I just need to get it done.

We have a few weeks of Valentine stuff to see at the stores, and plan special stuff for. Maybe I can figure out some romantic thing to do for Grumpy. For now I will concentrate on getting some laundry done so he will have something to put on, and planning a few meals so he can not have to eat out somewhere. He eats out a lot in his travels, so he loves it when he can eat something however simple at home. I have come to understand (again) in the last few weeks what a homemade bread junkie he is. One of the things I vow to work on this month is to make sure he has a loaf or two on hand to chew on. I was not feeling up to par today, so took some time to just rest and do some things on the computer. Papa went out to Rachael and Scott's to see Boss blessed and stayed for dinner. It was so nice to hear about that from his perspective. We had enchilada's here and he had a small stack. Grumpy did a great job, but was not happy with his enchilada sauce. We still have not found a recipe we love for that yet. Jade baked a chocolate cake and needed my help with the frosting. Wow. I'll bet it's a long time before she asks for my help again. Apparently my off day included cooking because I messed it up royally! It tasted okay, but I got things a little out of whack proportionally, and it wouldn't set up. She had made two rounds to stack this time and the frosting in the middle will probably never set up. We decided to call it Granny's special mud slide cake so the kids would still eat it. It just looked awful. Once you get it into a glass and pour milk on it the way we do it didn't matter so much. Oh well, life goes on.

Got two dozen pints of BBQ sauce canned Saturday. I had all the stuff to do it, and knew if I didn't get to it soon it wouldn't get done. I got a bunch of half pints washed and ready to do some butter maybe tomorrow. I can find all kinds of excuses not to get the decorations down. We went and saw “seven pounds” on Friday. The movie was well done and Will Smith is a fine actor, but I am not into depressing movies and don't like the storyline at all. I am glad to know it is not a candidate for my movie library. We saw R.B. and Stacie on their way into the theater to see it, and we told them not to waste their time and money. They went to see something else instead along with Summer and Jamie.

I'm thinking of doing some fondue this month, so if anyone has a recipe for a good, mild, cheese fondue, let me know. We usually do meats and vegetables, sometimes tempura with dipping sauces, but I've never done a cheese fondue. I remember as a Junior in high school, we did fondue on our back patio after one of the formals. It must have been a Christmas formal as Papa had attached heavy plastic all around the eaves to make the patio enclosed so it could be warmer. We had a lot of fun, and I even remember the funny plates we used. They were a yellow/gold color and looked like elephant footprints. Where the toes would have been were the little places we put different dipping sauces. In the big part we put our baked potatoes and the meat when it finished cooking. I think we used the Japanese sake cups Papa and Nana had for yet another sauce. It was fun and unique and I loved that I could always count on doing something a little out of the box where dinners were concerned.

Time to try sleeping again. Maybe with more success this time. I finished my book, I'm not doing laundry this late and I hate to wake up Grumpy with my tossing and turning. Tylenol PM is looking pretty good about now.