ferris wheel at the Christmas fair

 driving to Zilker Park for a walk around

driving home after the walk 

the dinner ONE recently cooked for us

spicy garlic soup
amazingly delicious cashews with bacon
charcuterie and assortment of cheese



edamame glass noodle salad
with a red chili dressing
recipe was something like this


orange honey bourbon
and molasses glazed ham
fried shishito  peppers (kinda like okra)
buttermilk cheese biscuits
(which I also enjoyed for breakfast this morning)

roasted vegetables with rosemary salt and pepper olive oil
splashed with molasses before serving
very tasty

things I got to enjoy today

view from the back deck

Egret fishing

Blessed to get to enjoy this view and how it changes through out the day

piano guts

back in the brush on a five acre lot we walked today

never know what you're gonna walk up on

one of my little gingerbread pound cakes

four more to go today

was/is (venting - you may want to skip this one!)

...and one panda

Yesterday ... shopping with my 15 year old - V, aka Five.
Today ... shopping with my 20  year old - C, aka Four.

And baking a couple of those (I hope they will be) cute cakes.

  
We are trying to get tickets to see the new Star Wars movie at one of those swanky theaters (meaning, I think, they serve cocktails).  It's my husband's idea.  (I think it's a great idea ...and I think the drinks will be crazy expensive ... I am the DD for this type outing) As it stands now, tickets are a week out if we want a decent seat (and they are assigned)!

I know I should be reflecting on Advent. 

Hope Love Peace Joy
What I do find myself struggling a bit with is wishing "things" could be better between my deceased brother's wife and me.  
I think I understand "it" a bit better than I did, but it's one of those things that needs time has to soften and blur the rough edges of.  I think it was hard for her to make room for me as a care giver to him.  She didn't like that he wanted me with him as much as he did.  Our closeness annoyed her even as she needed the help.  He needed the help ... his battle was intense.  Another major factor was she is the sort of person who usually finds herself the center of everything she is involved  in.  The cancer was pretty much about him.  I think she found the sidelines a difficult position to be in because life hasn't given her many opportunities to be there.  I heard him tell her several times that as "sucky" as the experience of CANCER is for her, that in fact, she is (was) not the one dying here.  Tommy could be a bit of a diva himself and ... CANCER did demand a main character in that "story of our lives together".  It did suck.  It still does.
I believe she thinks I was "mean" to her because I was unable to feel sorry enough for her as soon as she thought it should be her turn for attention.  I just didn't have the capacity at the time.  I wanted, truthfully, I expected, her to put her time in the "this really sucks for you" place on hold until after he died.  She did pretty good at managing that until he became mostly unconscious.  I needed her to wait just a bit longer, or go to someone else for the "loving" but she was unable to.  I really don't judge her for that.  I feel that it was unfortunate.  I also wish she had been able to extend a bit of compassion towards me rather then just expecting me to absorb/soothe whatever she felt she needed during a time that was very difficult for both of us.  It's also probably that she just never really liked me anyway - we had very little in common, maybe even only (our different relationships) with him.  I was happy for them to be together and a strong advocate for their relationship.
It's on my mind (too) so much now because ... this is the time, a year later.  He asked me to go out on Christmas day and find some things, some happy things, that we could do together this year ... this week.  I did that. C helped me do that and I'm pretty sure our family will make that a Christmas tradition - we would include her.
I have reached out to her several times this year.  Mostly she snubs me.  Once she did begin to enthusiastically text about the various ways Tommy is "manifesting" his continued presence.  It didn't bother me, it is just how she is.  We believe differently and I do respect her right to that.  
This year I have realized that she made things more difficult for me all the time, every time, last year.  
I think God "places" people in our lives for His own reasons.  Once I recognize that a person is in my life I make every effort to let them be in my life. Even if the relationship we share is difficult, I try to participate fully, I try to make it easy for my people to be at home with me. There are people who I would choose for myself all by myself.  I think I feel guilty about her because although I don't dislike her, I would not have chosen her to be in my life ... and I am relieved that I have no continuing obligation to honor a relationship that is dysfunctional.  
Does that make sense?  I feel guilty for hoping to be "off the hook".  I wonder if I get to choose to move away from that relationship.  Maybe people who divorce have a knack for ... dismissing.  My husband says I don't have to continue to reach out to her.  He says every time I do it leaves an open wound on me and doesn't seem to do any good for her.
She didn't have her own people around her helping much during the time of his CANCER.  I have no reason to believe that has changed ... that's why it's heavy on my heart.

I'm doing a guided seasonal meditation on Hope Love Peace Joy but ... it is not at my center as I wish it to be.  I am stuck in the mire of unresolved grief.  Not grief for my brother.  I'd like to be "working" through that more as I would naturally be. I'm just stuck on what I'm supposed to do about her.  The other (wakeful) night I thought this residual pain, or grief, is like a cancer in that something unseen is acting in me and it's not for my good.  I check myself to see how I can get past these feelings.  Is there something I can do?  "Throwing her away" is how it seems to me - it seems very unkind. There does not seem to be anything I can do.  
I have to accept the fact that there is no chance of a "better" past or future.  It was/is what it was/is.  

"Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change.  Don't worry whether of not they finally understand you. Love them and release them.  Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time - just like it does for you and me." ~ Sara Paddison 

It's not that I've been too busy to write, it's that I have nothing to say.

This cyclamen is on the kitchen counter top.  Definitely one of my all time favorite flowers. I love the purple throat which gives way to coral and rose. I love the delicate shimmer of the petals.

Mostly on my mind is a to do list, a list of loving things to do for my people.  I bought one of those Gingerbread Bundt Pans for making little cakes for the neighbors.  That will be fun.

C was here with a couple of old friends the past week, now she is away at a camp job. It was great to have them here for a few days.  I enjoy company and these kiddos are for all intents and purposes, family.

My V works today.  She has finished her first semester in Texas with a perfect report card and I think the best attitude about "stuff in general" that I've ever experienced on a fifteen year old.  Perhaps it helps that I don't hear as well as I used to.


Christmas shopping just about complete ... !

Colleen's Cinnamon Rolls, aka ... "My Favorite Cinnamon Rolls Ever!"

I asked Susan, who has always baked beautiful scrumptious treats, for roll recipe, something easy, something even a novice baker like me could bake.  She emailed a dinner roll recipe (which I baked and delivered straight out of the oven to the deer on Thanksgiving day) and this, a breakfast cinnamon roll recipe.  Susan said she has been using this recipe, a gift from Colleen, since our school days together.  I've  successfully "re-created" these twice now. I do add pecans ... and a vanilla infused glaze once they come out of the oven.  These were topped with pecans and the rest of the cinnamon sugar.



Here's a pic of Susan and Colleen and Dolly.  They are beautiful aren't they?  It amazes me that they all three still look almost exactly like they did here on Colleen's wedding day in (I'm guessing) 1980.

Here - Susan and me probably a year later (on the TAMU campus).  It's funny to see this picture ... I still wear mostly white shirts (or black) with jeans and boots.  I thought my fashion sense had evolved, but clearly it hasn't.

I made the cinnamon rolls again while my daughter was here this week with her very best friends.  I sat with one of them, I've known her since she was young enough, still in diapers, to be in big trouble with her momma for constantly flipping her dress up at church.  She said she actually remembers that (I bet she does). Now they are around the same age as the four of us pictured here ... and I'm passing along Colleen's cinnamon roll recipe to them (and to you, they are that good!).

These friends have really supported me this year.  This year has been lots better because they have taken time out of very busy lives to remind me that I am loved ... and I'm not alone.
We've been loving each other for a long time now.

Now those cinnamon rolls become part of these three's sweet life story.

It is slightly less delightful to sip my nice hot coffee with these two watching my every move

Sammy's begging for an early morning walk ... the cat is just noisy

Yesterday we hit the Farmer's Market bright and early - well not so bright, it was OVC and gusty. I like to go out there for breakfast tacos before we shop. Mostly, I buy fresh cuts of local proteins and eggs out there - the local grocery stores have beautiful produce (and fresh tortilla!)

It is good to be back in Texas.

Later I tried to wrangle the glitter stampede in our living room. Decorating this year has been harder then I expected. Our things don't look "just right" here, but I'm working on it. That sled is from my husband's childhood in Germany where is dad was stationed. I've almost finished the mantle - pic later.

Most importantly, C, aka IV, arrived not a moment too soon last night with a couple of her friends. They are sound asleep now, and probably will be for a while yet.  I love having them here. (That location share option - rocks!)

This may be my December/end of year picture, Snapped this week.  I think I'll look in "photos" for one taken this same week last year when most of December was spent in a hospital room.

Well ... that was not a good idea.  Apparently a breaking heart is clearly visible on one's face. 

Other than that ... more grey in hair, and bangs added this year ... and I look happier now.

just pics from today and yesterday

egret
hiding in his fishing blind
while I hide behind my "bottle tree"
hoping he doesn't see me

little ladybug helper
(it's December!)
making the trellis to hang Christmas lights
over the fire pit
for a smore night next week

yesterday's sunset
at the low water crossing

last night's appetizer
(yes the sausage is over crisp!)
(Louie Mueller's jalapeno - still delish)
this is roasted pumpkin squares, bacon and sausage,
with a drizzle of maple syrup
on a twig

steam fog

“Man finds it hard to get what he wants, 

because he does not want the best; 

God finds it hard to give, 

because He would give the best,

 and man will not take it.” 

~ George MacDonald

Heron Pic on San Gabriel yesterday's walk

“I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.” 
~George MacDonald

Was looking for a different GMD quote and came to this one worth the thinking time.

The Light Switch

 That's Shadow ... He came to us with his two brothers when his eyes were still shut.  Kitten formula, found at Walmart, and a little heating pad from the same place saved his life.  For a while they snuggled in a laundry basket full of soft old towels.  I'd lift them out carefully always mindful of their fragile skeletons, gosh they were tiny. Over the next several weeks I basically fell in love with them.  Sammy didn't seem to mind at all.  He tolerates them okay and it's funny to see how casual they are around him.  Shadow is.  I should say.  One was lost to a freak accident, another to a snake bite just before we moved back to Texas.  It's funny how it is with Shadow.  He's a real stinker, tumping over the kitchen waste basket ... he even has the audacity to leap up on to the counter tops with me watching.  We do this dance, he jumps up to see what might be available, I shriek at him, "GET DOWN", he gracefully acquiesces and struts towards the  out door.  He knows how it goes.  Tomcats who can't mind their manners best be outside.  If I'm home, Shadow frequently spends the day inside "lording it" over the other cat (also black, also a rescue, but an entirely different  moment of grace brought him to us) but prefers outside at night.  He hits the back door in time to come in for breakfast.  Lately, he's been coming home with a "sick" eye, which I tend to for him, yesterday I noticed another "notch" in his left ear.  I don't know what sort of trouble he finds for himself.
When I snapped that picture I was wondering, "What is Shadow getting up to now?"
He could sun on the back porch glider all day long, later he could bask in the moonlight filtering through the trees, yet he has things, mysterious cat things to do.

He wants for nothing, yet he wants something.  We are a bit like that too.

Today I am looking a bit deeper in to "The Engineering of Consent" ... Why do we want what we want.