the last of the lemons

Before the big freeze hit this weekend, I picked the last of the lemons off the Meyer lemon tree in the backyard. These beauties are as big as oranges. Here's what I'm cooking with a small part of one tonight. Since I'm using just 4 pieces of chicken (thighs), I halved the marinade ingredients. I'm going to broil the chicken. Next week, when the boys are home from college, I'll make these. Looks like they'll be yummy.

it's that time of year again!

The last of the Thanksgiving turkey is in the soup pot, and this Grammy is left with memories of another Thanksgiving come and gone.

One thing I'll never forget are the rolls that were almost a disaster. There was an unlabeled plastic bag of canning salt in the cupboard next to the sugar canister (I won't tell who was responsible for that, but it wasn't me).

While mixing up my traditional holiday rolls, I ran out of sugar, and replenished the canister from that plastic bag (it looked just like sugar). I was wondering why the sugar wasn't dissolving as it usually does while on the stove top with the butter and milk...wondering why the dough seemed a bit weird.

While stirring the sugar, butter, milk mixture for the next batch of dough, and noticing the sugar still wasn't dissolving, I stuck my finger in the sugar clumped on the bottom of the pan. YUCK! Then I tasted the first batch of dough. DOUBLE YUCK! Tasted worse than the Dead Sea. My taste buds were ruined for the rest of the day. . That canning salt is powerful stuff. Luckily this happened early enough in the day, so I was able to start all over again, and was very thankful I did a taste test. It took a while for my taste buds to forgive me for that one.We had a houseful of little cousins having so much fun together and creating memories. Their laughter and chatter fills the house. They get along so well. The only crying is when someone gets hurt or a baby is tired.

Today, I'll put up the Christmas tree. What a day to do it! This morning, deep in the heart of Texas, the rain turned to snow ... for about an hour the biggest, fattest flakes came tumbling down. It stopped for awhile and now snow flurries are coming down again... freezing temps. tonight.

Happy Thankgiving!

Lauren's recent blog post reminded me of when she and her siblings were little, and came home from school dressed as pilgrims or Indians. (Jessica--married and teaching Kindergarten, Emily -- now a mom of 4, Philip -- college student)

When the kids were little, Thanksgiving was always at Aunt Donna's. Here's Lauren (now a mom of 4) enjoying the Thanksgiving weekend at Donna's home in Austin.This picture's for you Donna. Here you are with the finest video camera of 1986. We're (Donna with toddler Kristyn, Me with baby Jeremy in stroller, Granny holding toddler Jessica's hand) enjoying a Thanksgiving walk by the river in Austin. (This picture was taken 23 Thanksgivings ago!!!!!!!!)

Tomorrow finds us home with several of our children's families. Three of the boys are off in Utah. Last Thanksgiving, we were in San Antonio for the birth of grandson Colby, who is now in far off Minnesota with his parents. We'll be missing all of you who are away tomorrow. I'm so thankful for all of life's many blessings, and most of all family.

fall harvests

The satsuma orange tree in our backyard is ridiculously overloaded with oranges. Last year, during hurricane Ike, a large branch bearing dozens of oranges got destroyed. This year, the tree produced with a vengeance. This is what we get to enjoy each day. The best tasting fruit, as well as juice, ever ....
My favorite fall vegetable is squash, any kind. Got some growing in the garden, but this is spagetti squash I bought at the store. Fix it like this for a seriously delicious dish (Grandpa and I like it even better than real spaghetti.)

• Cut the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise (easier to cut with a rocking motion of the knife). Scoop out any seeds.
• Cook in the microwave (or you could bake it, but would take longer) cut side down (I put it down on a sheet of parchment paper), for 13min. or til tender -- it won' t get mushy (test by poking it with a fork).
• When done, rake it (lengthwise) with a fork , and it will automatically produce these spaghetti like strands.
• While squash is cooking, prepare the sauce. For just the two of us, I browned up 1 gourmet chicken/ spinach/feta sausage (you could crumble up some tofu, or a bit of lean hamburger, or whatever), with diced garlic. Add a lo-salt pasta sauce or marinara. For a really great taste and lowest sodium, I used Classico "Spicy Red Pepper" Pasta Sauce. (only 300 mgs. of salt). It has just the right amount of zip from the red peppers. Enjoy! It is soooo good and you feel so healthy after eating it.
  

prayers and paperclips!

Yes, that's how we made it to Utah, driving an old car out to Philip (Carl had worked on the car all summer). In an obscure little town (Quanta?) in the Texas panhandle, we broke down. I was at the wheel, preparing to stop at a red light. When my foot reached for the clutch pedal, there was none! So I just had to brake it (clunk, clunk, clunk!). Carl thought I'd forgotten how to drive a stick shift.

The clutch pedal was lying useless, flat on the floor of the car. The pin which secured it in place, was missing. After several hundred miles, it just fell apart. While Carl was examining the situation, I stood in back of the car directing traffic. It was empowering in a weird way to be directing the traffic around us. Truck drivers sure are nice. Two of them stopped to offer assistance. Carl, who has the ability to fix just about anything, asked me if I had a paperclip. Of course I did. And that's how we made it the rest of way to Utah, with a prayer and a paperclip. The little red paperclip, which I used to mark my place in my reading material, was used to fasten the clutch pedal onto the pedal holder.

Early the following morning, the city of Albuquerque lost electric power. In the middle of taking a shower in the hotel room, we were plunged in darkness, and had to fumble around to get ready. Then, as we were driving past Gallup, snow showers started. At one point, we got caught in about 20 minutes of a mini- blizzard where we had almost zero visibility. This picture is the calm before the storm. It was unusual to see snow in Gallup in October. (There was none in Utah.)

No snow or ice on the mountain roads into Utah. We breathed a big sigh of relief when the car made it to Provo .

Jeremy and Philip took us for a drive on the Alpine Loop.

Jeremy put the final touches on his Halloween costume in the engineering lab.

BYU students dressed for Halloween for classes on Friday. Jeremy with unknown student.This was one of my favorites on the BYU campus. (from the movie "Up")

We attended a Tabernacle Choir rehearsal. The ambassador to Spain sat in front of us (far left).

While Andy and Jeremy ran the Skyline trail in Orem, training for future marathons, Carl and I walked it.

We visited with sister Beverly and her family in Layton. I asked Beverly to model the hat she made as part of the beautiful costume, which she also made, for a local Halloween festival.

Happy Birthday to Brian (from his very favorite mother-in-law)

Today is Brian's birthday. I remember the first time he showed up at our door (tall, dark, and handsome -- not the door, but Brian) for his first date with Emily.

They didn't seem to hit it off on that first date, so I thought we'd never see him again. Now look who's in the picture 9 years later, not only Brian, but four beautiful children. Brian is a kind and loving husband and father and we are very thankful that he is in our lives. We love you Brian.

an exciting find!

Last week, I was so excited to finally, after many years of searching, find the birth and death dates and grave of my great great grandfather (on the Nye side), Joseph Sears. When I was a little girl, my grandmother showed me this little teakwood carving of a New England sea captain. She told me it is a replica of this grandfather, who was the captain of a clipper ship which sailed to the Orient. Since he was gone for long periods of time, he had this carving made for his wife to remind her of him. My searches on census records found him and his family (wife Hannah (Lincoln) and two daughters, Lydia and Mary Josephine -- my great grandmother) living in Provincetown, Mass. The next census record, shows Hannah, as a widow, with her two daughters. I was never able to get more information on him, until now..........because, just this year, a volunteer with "findagrave.com"took photos of graves in the cemetary pictured below. Because of previous research, which gave important pieces of the puzzle, I know that it definitely is his grave. And from this picture, I learned for the first time, that there was another daughter, Olive, who died as a baby, and is buried next to him. Joseph Sears was born in the Azores in Portugual,as was all of his crew, who boarded in the same house in Provincetown. My father remembered how his grandmother (Mary Josephine, daughter of Joseph Sears) hated foreigners -- probably from memories living around all those Portuguese sailors. (A geneologist, who uses the same geneology search engine as we do, had run into this branch of my family tree. Even though he discovered he isn't related to my line, he kept the infrmation he found and e-mailed me, telling me where to find the grave photo on the web, and the site at which he found Joseph's death records. I am so thankful to him. (He's from R.I. too)Joseph's grave is in the Winthrop Street Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Provincetown.

Here a painting of the cemetery from the 1800's. It'll be exciting to visit that cemetery when we go to the Cape on one of our upcoming retirement trips.