Summer

Summer is here full blast in Central Texas. Sooo hot!!!
My kids were here from Mississippi.Got to see my granddaughter for the first time in about 3 years. Don't want it to be that long ever again. She is so smart and fun to be around.

We took a trip to Kansas to let my kids get to know my brother and his family. We had a blast. Managed to get to Waco once and to the movies to see Angels and Demons, but other than that we just hung out here at the house.. cooked and ate and computered.

I have not knitted a stitch, painted a stroke or pottered a bit for ages. I do however have a sort of garden. But it's so hot I only manage to water. I dug some taters and carrots yesterday and we ate them for dinner last night.

Hoping to keep up with this a little more..

Ostara

(Picture ripped from theceltblender.wordpress.com/)

Ostara:
March 20 approximately

Ostara, the first day of spring, takes it name from the Goddess Eoster. She is a relatively unknown goddess of spring and/or fertility, rebirth and the rising sun. Her name is connected with east and the word for shining; glorious. The Christian feast of rebirth and renewal was given the Goddess’s name-Easter- due to the Ostara worship in Germanic lands being so strong.
Easter Eggs have their beginnings in ancient rites as well.
Eggs are an ancient symbol of fertility sometimes being thrown in front of plows during planting season, sometimes colored green and planted in the fields.


Quoting from Wikipedia:
The modern English term Easter developed from the Old English word Eastre, which itself developed prior to 899. Bede (a Benedictine monk) states that the name refers to the fourth month of the year, eostremonath, which was named for a goddess named Eostre, who was celebrated at the Spring equinox.
Jacob Grimm recalls Bede's account of Eostre and states that it was unlikely that the man of the church would simply have invented a pagan goddess. Comparing the Anglo-Saxon eostur-monath with the Old High German term for Easter (ôstertagâ, aostortagâ and variants), he reconstructs an Old High German equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon theonym, ôstarâ.
Bede:
15. The English Months.
In olden time the English people – for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations' observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's – calculated their months according to the course of the moon. Hence after the manner of the Hebrews and the Greeks, [the months] take their name from the moon, for the moon is called mona and the month monath.
The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Sol-monath; March Hreth-monath; April, Eostur-monath; May Thrimilchi...
Eostur-monath has a name which is now translated Paschal month, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.

Christmas Dinner

We went casual this year. We put out the fancy table setting for Thanksgiving so we just decided to go easy for this meal.
First up is my rib roast that was the most delicious thing I ever put in my mouth. I left it in the fridge just wrapped in cheese cloth like Guy says to do, for three days. I'd have left it longer but I didn't have it that long. It was black angus.
Then I took it out of the fridge to warm up to room temp before I cooked it.





Next is the made from scratch green bean casserole. We like our green beans more done that the cook books tell you, so these are done really nicely. Behind the gbc is the apple/pear and walnut salad. It was good yesterday but actually it's better today. It also has raisins in it. This one I got from Food TV too. Sunny Anderson.


Home made dinner rolls. Got the recipe off of all recipes. These are like the ones they used to make in school cafeterias. They don't look very brown, but they were cooked just right. I also made some french bread but for some reason it didn't rise enough.. funny too because I used from the same batch of yeast.

Fingerling potatoes and baby carrots. They were washed and then dried. After that I coated them with Hawaiian red sea salt, fresh black pepper, olive oil and a little butter. Now the purple potatoes are really pretty but they never seem to get as done as the white and red. Next time I'll cook the purple ones first and ten wait till they are are done before add all the oil. Maybe add some parsley and garlic.



Last is the giant Cooks ham. 18 pounds of ham. I cooked it from 12:30 am to around 8 am on between 175 to 275. My mom went in and turned it way down at one point.

So it gets cut up, sliced, chopped etc to put in the freezer for use later. That is the lid of my new stainless steel roaster.(two years old). We got it free after buying about 1000 dollars of groceries from Brookshires. But. I really like it.


I am going to post the recipes on my message board site Cooking Obsession Food Group

Christmas cookies and Proud Yardbirds.

The following are my chickens. The adult hens, the rooster and the new biddies. They are over a month old now, so I will probably be letting them out in a week or so.





Then the next one is the Back portion of Carrie's Sweater, and a portion of one of the side pieces. Yes it is a different color. Two front sections will be the green as well and the arms and sides are orange. The long neck section is the center of the hood.

And one kind of Christmas cookies. Almond/raspberry tarts. Under them are the gingerbread cookies, but I'll take another pic of them later after I've decorated them. I still have more of the same left to bake but I will do that tomorrow.

The drama continues. Alex is having to scrape all the grout out of the shower and re-apply it because the guy did not do it right. But of course he has not come over today and it is almost 3 pm. I want my SHOWER BACK.
I am so frustrated what with the bathroom and the ongoing crap (pun intended) in there. The toilet will not stop running no matter what we do.

So Sunday my mother called our good friend Fred over and we cooked him and Ed his son dinner in exchange for Fred looking at the toilet. Well he fixed it. For a few days..

It was good to see Fred and Ed as we had not seen them for about 6 months. The did so much work around here for such a long time. We feel as if they are family.
Monday morning I got a phone call from Ed at about 5 am. Fred had a heart attack and died. I am positively devastated about it. He gave me a big hug on Sunday and said HEY Sis.

I just can't believe that he was in this house walking around one day and then a few hours later.. will never be here again. Never.

We went to the viewing last night. There were not a lot of people there. But the one's that were there really loved that man. He was such a good guy. Helped everyone he could. Practically adopted a young woman, her husband and children as his own. Everyone who knew him knew that they could count on him. And now he's gone.

The night before Fred died, my daughter was mad at my son so she took it out on me because I was trying to soothe things over. I cried for hours, finally went to sleep to wake to the news about Fred. And then to have all this bathroom construction dragging on for MONTHS. I am not doing very well. I love Alex and his wife. They are also like family to us, but he is doing us wrong about this bathroom. Out of the over a month that they have been working on it. probably two weeks of that could have been avoided if he would have gotten here at 8 am to start work and/or just shown up. I am so upset I can't even articulate how upset I am.

Alex putting the knob in to adjust the water.

Proud of yourselves? Happy with your Christmas gifts?

MINEOLA, N.Y. — A worker trampled to death when customers stormed a Wal-Mart for bargains on the day after Thanksgiving had no experience in crowd control and waplaced at the entrance because of his hulking frame, police and a lawyer said Monday.

The details about the deadly stampede came out as police pored over video surveillance provided by the store while considering possible criminal charges. Lawyers were also preparing to sue over the episode. Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey noted that the worker, Jdimytai Damour, was 6 feet 5 and 270 pounds, making the trampling all the more stunning. He was killed when a crowd estimated at 2,000 strong broke down the electronic doors infrantic pursuit of bargains on big-screen TVs, clothing and other items.
"Literally anyone, those hundreds of people who did make their way into the store, literally had to step over or around him or unfortunately on him to get into the Wal-Mart store," said Mulvey.

Mulvey said an autopsy found that Damour, 34, died of asphyxiation related to his trampling, and he conceded that it would be difficult to file criminal charges against any of the shoppers.
Related "It goes beyond identifying specific people to make a case," Mulvey said. "You have to establish recklessness or intent to harm, which led to his death."

Attorney Jordan Hecht, who represents Damour's three sisters, said the family declined to make any public statements about the man's death. Funeral arrangements were pending, he said.Hecht said Damour had been working at the Wal-Mart only for about a week and was hired through an employment agency that provides temporary staffing. Damour had not been trained for any security assignments and had no background in crowd control, he said.

A call seeking comment from the employment agency was not returned.Wal-Mart Stores Inc., in a statement Friday, called the incident a "tragic situation" and said it had
tried to prepare for the crowd by adding staffers and outside security workers, putting up barricades and consulting police.

"Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred," senior Vice President Hank Mullany said. A company spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday on Mulvey's remarks.

Hecht said that he was considering a lawsuit but that no decision had been made. Two other injured shoppers filed a notice of claim Monday, the first step toward proceeding with a lawsuit.At least four other people were treated at hospitals and released, including a woman who was eight months pregnant.

Mulvey said while investigators are still piecing together details, it is apparent that the Wal-Mart store lacked adequate security to handle the crowds of shoppers that converged on Friday morning.

"In fact, security was inside the store and not outside organizing, arranging and planning for this anticipated opening," Mulvey said.

Police officers had been called to the scene at about 3 a.m. but left after about a half-hour, he said.

The crowd — then estimated at about 400 — was not unruly at that time.

The National Retail Federation, the industry's largest group, was unaware of any other store workers ever dying on the job in the post-Thanksgiving rush.

Shoppers around the country line up early outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving in the annual bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically

been the day stores broke into profitability for the full year.

Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a retail-consulting firm, said retailers quickly learned they can attract massive crowds if they promise amazing savings and limit the inventory or availability of the sale items to a few hours.

A number of retailers have opted to distribute vouchers or organize the sales in other ways to "cut down on the tsunami of shoppers entering the store all at once," he said.

"There are so many retailers doing it the right way, it seems senseless there wasn't strategic and operational planning here," Flickinger said.

In addition to not knowing how much inventory may be available on a sale item, shoppers often don't know the exact location where the merchandise is kept, he said. "They get in early and run the retail racetrack," Flickinger said.
"It is a recipe for disaster," the police commissioner said. "And that's what happened here."
FOXNY.com


OK. this is an open letter to you people who killed for your own gain.

Shame shame on you. I hope that every single second of every single day of the rest of your lives, you feel that shame.
You should all be trampled.
And then to try and blame it on the guy.??

I am disgusted and horrified at this.