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Blustery Day

Blustery Day

Whew, what a night we had!
For the last week or so the weatherman has been telling us about this cold front that was coming, but I never expected quite such a dramatic change. It was 80 degrees here in Austin yesterday, and in fact I had my ac on for a little bit during the day. I decided to get myself more in the mood for the holidays by decorating for Christmas. I put up the tree, the lights, and the whole thing; and then at about 9 last night the weather warnings began. Tornado watch, strong wind warning, and severe thunderstorm warnings ticked across the bottom of my television as I was just finishing hanging all my lights. I decided to take a step outside. It was still quite warm out, but off in the distance I could see huge black clouds rolling in with lightning shooting out at every angle. The weatherman then said there would be freezing wind and rain coming. I had to act fast- I had to save my plants!

I keep a ficus tree on my front porch, not a huge one but it is pretty good sized. I carried that thing up my stairs all by myself, and it was heavy!!! So I now have a tree in my office. If I had thought about this sooner I wouldn’t have put up my Christmas tree, I would have just decorated the ficus! It’s actually a nice addition to my gloomy computer room; I think I may keep it there (I also don’t want to carry it back downstairs!)

I walked back out into my backyard and noticed my neighbor with her plants bringing them all in the house, there was no way I could bring all my plants in- I have no room! So I remembered what mom used to do in the winter, cover them all with sheets. I gathered them all up and placed them on and under the bench I have on my back porch and the rain started to come. Great! I covered them all with a sheet and made sure it wouldn’t blow away. The ferns are too huge to even move so I covered them where they were. Then there’s the vegetable garden. I have this four foot tomato plant growing up a wire trellis that I have to save, but as soon as I covered it this enormous gust of wind came and knocked it on its side. Pulled the trellis right out of the ground! I thought I was going to get blown away so I grabbed Cody and we ran into the house.

It was a little scary; the rain was torrential and the wind was just amazing. I’m really surprised the screens are still on my windows. The thunder and lightning was exciting, I was almost hoping the electricity would go out…I love storms. But this was a tad bit scary. The temperature dropped so fast the tornado warnings lasted until 2am, and I was still awake because I couldn’t sleep with all the noise (and I was scared) I made Cody get up on the bed with me ha ha. I think I finally fell asleep at about 6am and it was still windy and raining.

I don’t even know what time it was when I felt Cody’s wet nose nuzzling under my hand. He was really excited about something and wanted me to get up. Then I heard chirp… chirp…chirp and I think I saw my breath when I opened my eyes. It was literally freezing in my house. I lay there listening to the weird chirp noise while Cody ran around the room like a crazy dog trying to figure out where it was coming from. I realized it was my smoke detector telling me I needed to replace the battery. Ugh, of all mornings!

Cody really wanted to find that chirp so I took him downstairs to let him out. The yard was a mess! Leaves everywhere, the patio furniture was now overturned and blowing around on the porch, the sheets were soaked by the rain and were frozen (the plants were ok though) the tomato plant was rolling back and forth in the wind and its sheet had just completely blown away. The Christmas lights I hung were all over the place now. What a mess. I yanked the smoke detector off the ceiling and I went back to bed…I had only been asleep for an hour.

I also took a little movie, but it doesn’t do the wind justice. The wind will literally knock you over outside right now! When I was filming, the chairs blew all the way across the patio. You can also see the drawstring from the hoodie I was wearing blowing in the shot ha ha.
Winter is really here now- Yay! Now I need to figure out how to keep the Christmas lights on the house in the wind...Off to do more damage control!
-Dorothy and Toto

Are we There Yet?

Are we There Yet?

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving;
I know Cody and I did!

The drive there was nice, dad bought me a new cd player for my car so this was really the first time I could listen to a mix cd on a long trip. I think Cody was perturbed though because I sang the whole way! He hates it when I sing, normally he will bark at me until I stop but in the car he just kept poking me in the ear with his whiskery wet nose from the back seat. Trying to tickle me to death I think. He loves trips in the car, so I think the ride there and the ride back were the highlights of his trip.

Mom and I were baking from almost the minute I got there but it was nice to get to talk to her while we prepared for the big day. I got there on Tuesday so we made the pies that day and cooked the breads for the stuffing mix. Mom had this whole meal envisioned in her head from a Martha Stewart magazine she read so the magazine was sort of our instruction manual this year. Instead of making the usual pecan pie, we made a Nut Torte with chocolate morsels and nuts soaked in brandy. And instead of using pre-made piecrusts, we made them from scratch! It was quite fun actually. I made a cinnamon crust for the apple pie that turned out incredibly. I will have to get the recipes next year.

Dad bought mom and I some Cointreau so that we could make ourselves our “drinkies”, we love to drink Cosmopolitans and pretend to be Carrie Bradshaw you know. I made a double batch in a pitcher and by the time we each had one, we were pretty relaxed! Cosmos have become our signature get together drink these days.

The next day dad took me and Gramps out to the lake to see the new house that his sisters (my aunts) will be moving into soon. I have since named it “Casa de las Tias” which translates to The house of the Aunts. It will be nice when it is finished; they basically built the house around their two little dogs. There is even a permanent doggy door built into the back of the house, you have to see the picture. They are both in their mid 60’s and have both recently retired so this will be their dream house I think. Aunt Janie has her workshop, and Aunt Pat has her plants and her art pantry. They will be happy there.

On the drive back Gramps was a bit chatty and told us one of his Gramps stories; we passed a cotton field and he remembered that his father and his uncle were given a bale of cotton every year for Christmas by their father (Gramps’s grandfather). They would then sell the bale for $500.00 and back in that day that was a lot of money! He remembered his uncle would love to go into the city and spend some money on a tailored suit. I thought that was interesting. He has some neat stories sometimes, and other times he just wants to talk about football. Dad was getting worn thin by the time I got there because Gramps had been there already for a few days. Gramps requested we go to the Collin Street Bakery downtown, and I think dad expected Gramps had a major reason; when we got there all he wanted was a couple of cookies. And for anyone who knows about the bakery, you know that this time of year is extremely busy, so to go there for just a couple of cookies on Thanksgiving week is an event you don’t want to try. Ces’t la vie, it was an adventure anyway and Gramps got his sweet tooth satisfied; even though dad wasn’t happy.

Thanksgiving day started early, even after mom and I were up late preparing casseroles, sauces, and cranberry sauce. Mom used the blue and white china that was my grandmothers once, and it looked almost just like the cover of our Martha Stewart manual. We used my grandmothers silver flatware as well, who knows how old that stuff was; but the table was beautiful. This year mom draped the turkey in cheesecloth soaked in butter and white wine to keep it juicy while it cooked, I think she needed a bigger oven though because the cloth burned on the top of the oven and smoked up the house for a bit, but in the end the turkey came out wonderfully. The family began to arrive that morning, but soon disappeared out into the back of the property to help my dad with a project he decided to start that morning for some odd reason. He disappeared right after breakfast, and we soon discovered he was pulling the cover off the old greenhouse in the backyard. What he thought would be a partial day project by himself turned out to be a two day project even with the help of his sisters and brother! So much for everyone helping us in the kitchen! Mom and I pulled it off without a hitch (except for the turkey taking a bit longer to cook) Everyone was stuffed, and went home with leftovers.

Gramps and I mostly watched football the entire time I was there. I figured out that if you want to have a conversation with him, it had better be about football or the conversation will be one sided. We watched the Texas game; which was very disappointing, the Colorado game and on Saturday watched the Florida game. He and I were rooting for opposing teams and my team was winning, I got up to visit the bathroom and when I got back the channel had changed. That’s one reason why dad gets so mad when Gramps comes to visit- he takes over the remote. Anyway, I think my team won, but I didn’t get to see the end of the game!

On Friday the Tias came over and brought my cousins and all us girls went out to the Galaxy drive in theater to see Happy Feet! That’s one good thing about Texas; there are still some of the old-fashioned drive ins left. It has changed a bit, they don’t charge by the carload anymore so no one had to hide in the trunk, and you can listen on an FM radio station instead of hanging the speaker in your window. It was another adventure let me tell you. Mom couldn’t figure out how to turn off her lights which were timed to shut off after she turns the keys off. However, she wanted to roll her window up right after the movie started- blam! her lights went on…people were not happy with us. She pulled out the keys and I called dad because she was afraid to put the keys in again- he explained how to shut off the lights and turn the radio on. It was so embarrassing! People were actually yelling at us from other parts of the parking lot! But by the end of the movie, everyone had forgotten how annoying we were with our lights. However, we couldn’t figure out how to get the interior lights to come on when we left so we were driving blind, not knowing how fast we were going. We also lost my aunt on the highway, and missed our exit- having to call my dad once again to rescue us from the evils of the outside world. Sigh, it was an adventure.

Yesterday I drove back to Austin with Gramps. That was interesting. He didn’t speak for almost the entire three hour trip! I thought I would make him more comfortable and turn the radio to a light rock slash oldies station and turned it way down so he could still hear me talk, but still- I got nothing out of him. I tried to talk football at one point, but he didn’t respond; I don’t think he could hear me anyway. Cody was good on the way back, he just laid down most of the time, but when we made stops at lights, he jumped up thinking we were there. Just like a kid, I swear. Mommy are we there yet?

Well, that’s all the stories I have from Thanksgiving! Hope you all had a great one and would love to hear your stories as well. Is anyone else decorating for Christmas yet? (I think I’m going to put up the tree tonight! YAYYYYY! I love Christmas!)
-Jenni