Ten Things of Thankful

When our family used to take trips to see my grandparents who lived where snow was never something that would be on the ground at Christmas, I remember thinking how strange it seemed to me to have sunshine and blue skies at that time of the year. Now having roads free of snow and ice is what I prefer, especially if I am traveling on curvy and/or hilly roads and in high elevations. So while certain parts of the country are dealing with the heavy snow, we are seeing sunshine, although with lower temperatures. Christmas Day is fast approaching, paying no heed to the temperatures. This year I kind of wish I could insert an extra week in the calendar before Christmas Day.

I am thankful for Josie Two Shoes blog hop and her reminders to share a post at her site Ten Things of Thankful. There are weeks when even with the reminders I mostly ponder possible entries instead of writing and sharing them, so I'll try to not let that happen again this week.

My TToT

The last of the dental appointments for my Mom, at least for another six months, but my husband is up to the plate this week. Merry Christmas to our dentist. All kidding aside, he really is a great dentist. I recently learned that not all dentists and hygienists are as willing and able to do X-Rays, cleanings, and treatments for  patients who are wheelchair bound. I'm so thankful that my Mom's dentist is able to accommodate her situation. (If she had to have any drilling, etc. she would most likely need to that done elsewhere, i.e. hospital or ?.) Seriously, this is a topic that needs consideration. As people continue to live longer and with dental care having improved drastically and people able to continue to have their original teeth, there needs to be a way that people can receive dental care even though they may be wheelchair bound. This is also a concern of people who become disabled much earlier in their lives.

I'm thankful that what apparently was a little tendinitis on the top of one of my feet most likely came about because I hadn't quite matched my desires for increased fitness, and the energy I felt to get into gear, with my body's capabilities of doing so when I started going to the fitness club. After skipping a class at the fitness club and admitting to myself that it was okay to  take a different pace when I returned, my foot is getting back to normal.

Hair stylists who are willing to tackle cutting curly hair and all its quirks.

The natural curls that just keep appearing on the back of my head, apparently a gift to me in my mid seventies.

Did you know that there are some composers who offer downloadable free sheet music? It has been a while since I went to the site of one composer who does this. Today I printed off a few pages of her arrangements of Christmas music to play on the piano.
Understandably, one must adhere to the guidelines of how the 
music is used.

Real life experiences that remind me of the Savior and what he taught and how he lived. These happenings also remind me that there is so much goodness in people of all faiths and beliefs and good acts often promote a pay it forward action.

Date with my husband to see the movie, Wonder. It is an inspirational movie!

Discovering another way to increase my knowledge of the Spanish language by viewing some You Tube Spanish classes and listening to children's songs sung in Spanish on Pandora. The following songs sung by Jose Luis Orozco on this YouTube video would be fun to learn and sing with my great grandchildren.






Trying new recipes but revising them a bit to suit our tastes. We once in a great while have artichokes to eat and have always dipped the leaves in melted butter. Since I'm watching calories a lot more now, I searched for a less fattening dip and found one that uses yogurt, lemon juice, and a little garlic powder and dash of salt. Delicious! After recently cooking pork loin chops a few different ways, I found a recipe that we really like using apple and onion slices and pork loin chops. They are so good. I'm not sure I'm going to want to cook them any other way.

Scales, whether they are to weigh oneself or to weigh the food you are preparing, are beneficial. I suppose that with time, I will get to the point when I have an idea of how much certain portions of food items might weigh, but in the meantime, I'm weighing some things, like meat. Celebrating new numbers (good numbers)! For those of you who have a battle with numbers, whatever your particular battle may be, I think you can relate.

Wishing you all a very wonderful week.


  

Six Sentence Stories - Mate

With another holiday season approaching, and most of all the reason for the season, I've decided to use Zoe's blog hop to step right up with a story that I'm linking to Six Sentence Stories - Mate. Many stories are repeated year after year as families come together around the table to feast. Stories unite us to one another and that is a beautiful gift.

With the holidays approaching, she began making a list of certain items that she needed to buy to make their normal plain food taste extraordinaire, perhaps following in the footsteps of her own creative mother.

Green beans that were typically served alone with just a dab of butter and a little salt would be served at the Christmas meal after it had been baked with cream of mushroom soup. Many years later it was considered quite an odd pairing by some of the children who survived that taste only because it had some crunchy canned fried onions as a topping to disguise the taste of the mushrooms. The aroma of boiled and then baked carrots which had been drizzled with butter and ample brown sugar sprinkled on top until they were the color of cinnamon toast, just short of being burnt, was much more palatable to the youngsters.

At Christmas it was a tradition for the family to crack walnuts to be stirred into fudge and into the creamy divinity, which was the consistency of a soft-boiled candy, just the way her mate preferred it. Some of the walnuts were always saved to stuff inside some large dates which were then rolled in powdered sugar and served on a platter full of candies, but in her immediate family there was no Risalamande, a rich Danish rice pudding with an almond hidden in it waiting to be found, but who knows, perhaps a grandchild would someday have that experience.