PONDERING THE PAST

Made a kettle of vegetable chowder for supper.  When I use the word 'kettle,' it reminds me of daddy calling it a kittle.  Start my chowder with a roux of butter, flour and milk.  Then saute celery, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, green onions.  Add  whole-kernel corn, creamed corn and cheddar cheese, salt and pepper. Sometimes use bacon and other times cut-up wieners. Dale loves my chowder, and that's why I fixed it.  Full of vitamins.  Soup will stay on the stove for a couple of hours till it's time to eat.  The taste gets better the longer it rests.

Fuzzy One

The fuzzy one is here.  Learned today that he'll be staying with us from the end of December into March.  Blessings abound.

Stayed up last night until 3 a.m. watching YT Christmas movies.  Had me a mini movie marathon.  Cuddled in my recliner with a fleecy blanket (Christmas present from my niece) and shut out the world.  Am a fan of Mr. handsome Christopher Russell, and he starred in Christmas Unleashed.  Am a sucker for rom-coms.

Snorkel

The city crew put up Christmas decorations downtown this morning.  Best to get the wreaths, white lights, and garlands of evergreen in place before the sleet, snow and frigid temps.  Am a sucker for the ambience of falling snow.  When we were younger, we'd bundle up and go for walks in knee-deep snow amid falling flakes.  We wore snorkel hooded jackets.  That's when winters were harsh, temps sank to -40 chill factor, and snow was measured in feet, not inches.  Now, we get weather alerts on our phone if there's a shower with thunder and lightning on its way.   

Darkness is now setting in.  Electric fireplace adds cozy.  That, too, reminds me of when we were young and had a wood-burning fireplace.  Went to the woods, cut down a tree, revved up the chain saw, cut up into chunks, loaded em in the pickup, hauled the load back home, had to unload the pieces of wood and put em in a pile.  Then we carried the wood in the house, put in the fireplace, burned, and finally carried the ashes out and dumped 'em.  Now, we have a remote that turns the fireplace on and off and controls the flame level.  Who says it's tough getting old?

A nice surprise came to us as we were leaving the eye doctor's office this morning.  Each of yesterday's thirteen cataract surgery patients received a cup of fresh-cut fall flowers..........a random gesture of kindness.