My Sister

Please pray for my dear sister as she begins a battle with ovarian cancer.  I treasure and cherish your prayers and your friendship.  I know there are great prayer warriors out there in my blog realm.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.... I'll be back soon......

 http://outshineovariancancer.blogspot.com/

Happy Independence Day, TEXAS!!!!!

 

 https://www.facebook.com/TexasStateHistoricalAssociation

Happy Texas Independence Day, y'all! And Happy Birthday to Sam Houston, born March 2, 1793! How will you celebrate?
 HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, TEXAS!!!

 

Denver Visit to Our Kiddos...

Mornin', y'all!  How y'all doin'?  I'm fine as frog's hair split four ways!   If I's any better, I'd be twins!

OK, I'll try to control myself and use good English and grammar.  Don't hate me if I fall back into my hick self...  :)   I write like I talk...  what can I say.

We've been out of town the last few days - went to Denver to see our Kiwi Kids (guess I'll always think of them that way...actually, I should call them gypsies or vagabonds cuz no telling where they're going to land after their stint in Denver...)   Josh and Lindsey picked us up from the airport and we had such fun with them on Saturday!

 We drove around Denver (first time we'd actually been IN Denver proper) and we drove through the mountains and went to Georgetown, which is a cute little Victorian-type mountain village.  It was so cute, and we did some window-shopping and TONS of visiting.  Later that evening, we went to Landry's Seafood.  Mass quantities of crab-artichoke-spinach dip, crawfish etouffee, shrimp fettuccine, steak, fried shrimp/fish were consumed.  We fairly WADDLED out the door.

 

Here, Josh is working one of those horseshoe puzzles and Lindsey is waiting to see if he really can do it!  And HE DOES!  (He used to have one... I wonder if he told her?)

It was SO good to hug and kiss those kids. They probably got tired of all the affection - especially from their mom, but I really don't care.  Actually, they were glad to see somebody from home, too.  They moved up there in November and nobody's been up there yet to see them.  What with the holidays and snow...

 

 

This guy is trying to shovel his car out of the snow...

 

Speaking of snow.  Colorado got it's first and biggest snowstorm of the year while we were there. Yep, that's right!  Came a blizzard on Sunday, and we were trapped in the hotel all day long!!!   12-24 inches all over the Denver area.  I'm telling you, THIS MOMMA was UPSET thinking I wasn't going to see my kids again before we left on Monday!!!  There were many tears shed and much nashing of teeth and stomping of feet and whining going on in room 219.

Never fear - My brave son put on his snow armor and came to his momma's rescue!!!  He waited til after the snow plows had made their rounds many times over late in the afternoon and he came to see us at the hotel!  We did not want them to get out and drive but he did anyway.  He just called and said, "I'll be there in two minutes!"

Boy howdy - was this Momma HAPPY!!!!!   Jumpin up and down happy!!!  I was all smiles after we got that call!!!   More hugs and kisses and some visiting and then we urged him to go home before the roads were covered up again.  Those snow plows ran all night long.  The kids had to go to work just like everybody else Monday morning.  They are getting used to being Colorado residents and dealing with snow and driving...

 

It IS quite beautiful Monday morning here and you can see the mountains in the distance. See how much Denver got?

Excuse me, I love Colorado and it's SO beautiful - been there several times - but I COULD NOT LIVE WHERE IT SNOWS ALL THE TIME.  You cain't take the "Texas" outta this girl.  Give me the heat and humidity any day!  (Ask me again if I still think that in August...)

We went on to the airport on Monday - slow taxi ride which cost us $90 (had to pick myself up off the floor of the car) but we knew that'd probably happen.  I was watching that meter. tick-tick-tick...  The driver was a nice lady but she talked the entire time.  "Hey Lady - could you just step on it a little bit???"  She was being careful and I appreciated that, but there WERE cars going faster than us.  Then we spent the entire day in Denver International Airport with all the Sunday customers that didn't get to fly because of the bad weather. Lots of cancelled flights and delays.  Our flight to DFW was delayed over an hour.  Guess I should count myself lucky.  We were SO GLAD to see that beautiful Dallas skyline after we got our car and headed home to East Texas!

Now I've saved the best photo for last...  It's either a Colossal  "FAIL"  or...

I HAVE A HALO!  (and Tony doesn't)

 

YOU  BE  THE  JUDGE !!!!

Brrrrr..... It's chilly again....And a Recipe to Warm Your Innards!

Well, we've had spring-like temps the last couple of weeks but it got chilly again with an east wind.  Rain heading our way I think...  We had a little sleet or frozen rain this morning.  Now it's just grey and damp cold.

I decided that we better get busy and eat up the frozen veggies in the freezer and get it ready for the upcoming garden season.  It'll be here before we know it!

So today, I pulled out a couple of quart bags of frozen tomatoes and decided, since it was icky and cold, that I'd make some tomato soup with basil and thyme.

 

Here ya go.

There's lots of recipes out there for all kinds of tomato soup but this one is my personal favorite (cuz I took a recipe and made it my own).

Vickie's Tomato Soup

6 cups of fresh or frozen chopped tomatoes (I left the skins on - you're gonna puree it anyway)

2 slices of onion

1/2 tsp minced garlic

a few dashes of ground cloves (or whole ones if you prefer)

2 c. chicken broth

Put these 5 ingredients in a good size pot on the stove and bring to a slow boil for about 20 minutes.  Then, puree and set aside in a large bowl.  In your pot, place 2-3 blobs of butter and a couple of T. of flour and make a roux. Cook til brownish.  Add 1/2 to 1 c. of the tomato soup mixture and whisk well so there won't be lumps when you mix the roux in your soup. OK, add your soup back into the pot with the roux and mix well.

Now, here's what I season it with...

1 t. salt, black pepper to taste,  couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce, couple of dashes of Tabasco sauce, 2 t. sugar to taste, 1/4-1/2 t. Thyme, 1/4 t. basil.  You can also use marjoram or savory herbs.  

All this seasoning is to my taste - you adjust the way you like!  If you want, you can throw in celery or carrot in while the tomatoes are cooking and puree with the rest.  I like it without.  Guess you could put anything in it that you like..... Anyway, season and then heat the soup well and let all those goodies just mesh together!

I'm thinking sandwiches and hot soup for supper, maybe grilled cheese sandwiches..cornbread?  Anybody ever put a tad of cheese or sour cream on top of your tomato soup?

I've got a couple of my garden boxes ready and set out some little collards.  I'm not a big fan but the chickens are and I thought I'd grow them some greens.  Who knows?  Think I'll develop a taste for them?  Nah...

Hate that I missed Vee's Note Card Party today.  I'm popping over there to see what's going on.  If you didn't hear, Debbie at Of His Pasture IS BACK.  Go see her and tell her I sent ya - she just couldn't stay away from us!  Thank goodness - she's always got such great posts - timely, controversial, but sure to ring a chord!  Take care, ladies!!!

My Mother in Law... and New Works

Hello......

Anybody out there?????

How's everybody faring in the snowy places?  Just took a hop, skip and a jump around blog land and there's quite a bit of snow out there!

I think we're going to have an early spring around here. At least I hope so. And I also hope that we don't have a late freeze!  I was going to get out in the garden last week and this week and get everything ready, but we've had a bit of cloudy wet weather for several days, and so it now needs to dry out a bit. Tomatoes will not go out til March tho...

Bad news...  My mother in law, Kathryn, has been in an Alzheimer's nursing care facility for several years now, and we got a call Saturday that she'd fallen and gotten a big goose-egg on her forehead.  She appears to be okay and it doesn't hurt.  Then, this morning, the hospice nurse called Tony after examining her and told him that his mom had a broken collar bone.  Good grief. 

All I'm gonna say is we. are. going. to. have. a. meeting. with. the. director. tomorrow.  This is not the first time, nor the second, that she's gotten hurt.  I believe the ortho doctor is coming to see her tomorrow and see what we need to do. They've already done xrays and stuff.  I don't know what they can do. Will she be able to heal?  I know it must hurt when they move her and bathe her and dress her.

Chickens are laying purty good again. My yard is GREEN. Course right now's it's mostly weeds and those cute little yellow flower thingies that pop up.  The daffodils are blooming as are the tulip trees and the pear trees as well.  Two or three more weeks, East Texas will be getting into full springtime mode.  The famous Tyler Azalea Trails are coming up - I think - towards the middle to end of March.  They will have an art show and sale and I'm hoping to be a part of that. 

I've painted a couple of paintings for Tony's new office.  Since he's in the oil business, he decided he wanted something sort of related to that. We settled on FOSSILS.  See whatcha think...

Nautiloids and Trilobytes

Paleo Fish

 

I've got one more in the works, Archaeopteryx.  It's actually been quite a fun project.  They are both 30" x 40" - Acrylic with lots of texture.

 

Well, off to do some hopping around - hope things are going your way!

 

Keep yer dress down!