Pantry Envy

I go to a lot of beautiful houses to teach Mah jongg. And really they are all wonderful, but recently I taught at a house that had the most fabulous pantry I have ever seen. The house was lovely, but the Pantry was drool worthy.

It had places for appliances to live plugged in. It had the perfect storage for everything you would ever need in the kitchen. It also enabled them to not make the kitchen so large because you could store all the dry goods, and extra dishes and serving pieces out of the way.

I wasn’t able to stand there long and study it, but I knew it was impressive when a man in the class said to his wife, “Have you seen the pantry?”

If I were to build a house I would start the design with two things I don’t have, a killer pantry and a Christmas tree storage room off the room where I would want to display the tree. It would be my dream to open a secret door and roll out a 14 foot Christmas tree already decorated. I don’t care that I would have to wire the ornaments on to the tree the first time.

Sadly I have no place to create a dream pantry unless I tear out my kitchen, and turn it into a pantry and put my new kitchen in the breakfast room. There might be a way. I just have to win the lottery.

No One Was Dressed Up

Last night I finished teaching the cutest group of twenty-something’s. They learned quickly and were great listeners. One student came into class with a new haircut. I asked if she had gotten it all cut off and she said, “I wanted to be like you.” Her hair cut was similar to mine, but trust me this darling girl was not trying to look like me. It was just a very sweet answer.

They asked me all kinds of questions about myself that were sometimes a little off the Mah Jongg topic. Being me I told them some off topics things which led to more stories, like about previous jobs.

They wanted to know where I was teaching Mah Jongg next and I told them that today I was going to go the the Colonial Dames house in Downtown Raleigh. “Do they dress up there?”

I immediately understood that she was thinking they were like re-enactors, like in Williamsburg. “ No,” I said, disappointing them. They are just dressed in regular clothes. I thought it was such a fun thought of these women dressed in Colonial dresses learning Mah Jongg.

When one of the twenty-something’s texted me today about a future class I told her that I was at the colonial dames and no one was dressed up. She responded that her friend was going to be disappointed. I love twenty-something’s.

“Lady, February Never has 31 Days.”

I got a text while I was teaching tonight. Fraud Alert on my Amex. Turns out some bozo tried to spend $2,065 at some Pet Store. I clicked the button that said it was fraud.

When I got out of class Amex wanted me to call them. I did and sat on hold for 20 minutes. Amex fraud needs to improve their hold music. I never got any annoying voice during the entire 20 minutes telling me, “your cal is important to us, please stay on the line.”

I thought I might have gotten in some death loop and hung up and called back. Same horrible music, but only 18 minute hold. Got a rep who after talking to me two minutes the line went dead. Thankfully she called me back. I was not about to hold again.

In good fraud protection she said they wanted to change my number and send me a new card. Been there, done that. I knew this drill, even though I hate learning a new card number.

“When will my new card get here?”

“February 31.”

I just about lost it. “A month!”

She repeated the same date with a YES. Wait a minute. “Lady, February never has 31 days.”

The line was quiet for a minute.

“Oh, January 31.” Not a laugh, or I’m sorry.

Fraud protection is not a laughing matter.

My Favorite Actress, Megan Ketch is Coming to NC

One of my favorite parts of Church is catching up with my church friends. (Sorry clergy who get mad that we are talking before church starts, but if we can’t then I might as well watch church in my PJ’s at home.)

So today, catching up with Susan Ketch I learned that my favorite actress is coming back to North Carolina to perform. My favorite actress just happens to be Susan’s youngest daughter Megan. Megan was Carter’s longest Nanny and important member of our family.

Now that Megan lives in LA with her husband Max and their darling son I don’t get to see them much. Susan and Jim just returned from a visit to LA and had lots of cute news to report on Leo. The best news was that Megan will be in a Playmakers rep play called The Game April 10-28.

The first show I saw Megan in was one she wrote, directed and stared in at the Forest theatre in Chapel Hill called Alice all the Way, a take off in Alice in Wonderland. It was a fabulous comedy so I am thrilled for her return to Chapel Hill in a new comedy written by another UNC Alum Bekah Brunstetter.

I think about three year old Carter sitting in the forest Amphitheater watching Megan with me and now Carter is seven years older than Megan when she did that. We can’t wait for this performance and just to get to hug Megan!

Apparently I’m Safe

For years I gave blood regularly because I have O negative, the universal donor. Then we lived in London during the mad cow era. I was banned from giving blood for the fear that mad cow disease was laying dormant in me, waiting to make me crazy and anyone else who got my blood. After the spread of HIV in the early days from tainted blood transfusions I completely understood the better safe than sorry attitude.

When cows were falling over in the fields in England during the early 90’s it was a scary sight. I gave up eating any ground meat in the UK, just in case. See, they thought that the grinding of beef from a sick cow was the way to spread mad cow to humans. The UK cleaned up the system that let sick cows get in the food chain and now it is probably the safest place to eat beef.

Sometime last year the American Red Cross stopped the ban of blood from people who had visited the UK in the late 80’s to late 90’s and suddenly my blood was desirable again. I donated at a church blood drive in the late fall and as soon as eight weeks after I started being bombarded with messages, “Please donate blood.” Phone calls, texts and emails came in with force. Just to stop the phone from ringing I gave blood again today and so did Russ in solidarity.

I think I am going to have to be proactive and sign up every eight weeks just so my name does not come up in the database to bother me. It’s not hard to give blood, especially since the donation center is five minutes from our house. I arrived at the time of my appointment and I was out exactly one hour later.

It appeared that every giving slot was full and they were pumping the people through. I hope that all these people giving will fill the supply back up after the big lull in donating during the holidays.

I am just happy that the likelihood that I have Mad Cow is so low. I would hate to lose my mind that way.

Making My Own Mah Jongg Aids

Today I learned that a class I am teaching soon has ballooned to twice as many students as I normally have in this class. It is a Mah Jongg strategy class so the students should be fairly good players. I have taught classes this big before and they are lots of fun, but I need bigger visual aids to make the class successful.

I have had an idea for a while for that I could use some big cards of Mah Jongg tiles to show students hands. I searched the internet to see if anything like this existed and could not find anything close.

I considered what it would take to photograph each tile and print them on card stock. My biggest problem with that is the card stock was not as stiff as I want for cards to be able to stand up against a white board. I decided I would paint the tile faces on water color paper and get exactly what I want.

Mah Jongg tiles can be very intricate so I started by painting the North, South and East winds, which are only red letters and Black Symbols. It helps that I only needed a kids water color set.

I love the way they turned out. It’s going to be a busy weekend of painting. I am not looking forward to doing Jokers. I might not copy my intricate Jokers Tiles, but just write Jokers diagonally across the card.

I envision lots of uses for these cards once I have them, but I am also going to have to come up with a traveling rack for holding them to display when I don’t have a white board.

Now I’m in search of strong magnets. The arts and crafts projects never end.

My Mom is the Youngest 86

Today is my Mom’s birthday. I think once you get past 80 they are all big birthdays. She is a cool young 86 and doesn’t look a day over 68.

She wanted a new quilt for her retirement bedroom that went with one of her paintings. Thankfully I got it done right on time for her birthday.

She is very appreciative of all the quilts I make her and this one was no different. It brightened up her room and she says it makes her very happy.

I’m so glad she loved it, and I love her. Happy 86!

My Daffodils Don’t Deny Climate Change

It’s January 20 and it’s 70°here in Durham NC. My daffodils are coming up and I’m wearing a summer dress to go teach.

To all you climate change deniers can you please keep my spring plants from coming up too early? Maybe those of you who hold tight to beliefs that are clearly wrong in the face of nonpartisan evidence can get Mother Nature to side with you and not screw up the growing season.

Daffodils are not a crop or consequential, but they are an harbinger of what we have done to the planet.

For those of you who have ice and snow right now and you use that as an example that global warming does not exist, that is just the wrong name. It is climate change! We have it and we need to do everything we can to slow it down. Not because of flowers, but because of growing food and having clean ground water.

Dash Cam Video Saved Me

For some reason my Facebook feed has been giving me a lot of videos of dash cams from trucks on highways. I am not sure why that has been happening, but I have watched them. The videos show stupid drivers doing lots of crazy things like changing lanes at high speed only to crash into a slower vehicle in the lane they changed into.

One video theme in my feed has been cars or trucks towing a trailer that gets out of control. I have never liked to drive anything that was pulling a trailer. I could never figure out how to back up and get the trailer to go in right direction. I have also seen trailers that were not secured correctly to the hitch and that is a $hit show about to happen.

The consequence of watching these videos is I look at other vehicles on the highway for potential dumb ass hazards and tonight I am glad. I was driving to Alamance County to teach Mah Jongg at their country club. It was an evening class so I was driving during rush hour. I noticed a U-Haul truck towing a car and the car seemed to move slightly more to the right and the left than the truck.

I decided I did not want to be behind them so I passed them and just as I got ahead a couple car lengths I looked in my rear view mirror and I noticed the trailer with the car on it was off to the side a lot and the truck was in the middle of the lane. I didn’t want to slow down to watch this turn into an accident so I sped up a little only to hear a crash. I was far enough away that I just kept going, but I saw an additional car too cozy with the U-Haul.

I am not sure if I would have moved away from that U-Haul in such a deliberate manner if my Feed and not been showing me all these dash cam crash videos. I know some people think social media is horrible, but in this case I am thankful.

My Ad-less Blog is Un-American

I was contacted today by some business who noticed that I had a daily blog for over 13 years. He wanted to sell me stuff. First thing he wanted to sell me was Search Engine Optimization so that more people could find my blog. Second thing they wanted to sell me was advertising placements on my blog so that I could make money on my blog.

The presentation seemed backwards. He should have said advertising and then search engine optimization, but I was not going to tell him how to do his job.

When I said I wasn’t interested the man gasped as if I was crazy. “You are leaving a lot of money on the table.”

I explained that I did not write this blog to make money, although I am not opposed to making money. I just don’t want to annoy my friends with ads junking up my blog.

He promised me they would not be annoying. I brought up the issue that I don’t want to appear to endorse something I have no idea is advertising on my blog. He said they could tailor the ads to have something to do with my blog.

“What in the world could that be?” I asked. He asked me what my blog was about. Of course he never looked at my blog before he called to sell me anything.

I told him blog was about me. “Really?” He said in a shocked kind of way. “Are you someone?”

“Everyone is someone.” I explained.

See this is why I don’t want anyone getting into my blog other than me. I am not looking to specialize in one thing. I want to write everyday about whatever in the world I want to write about. I don’t want to sell anybody anything that I have personally seen and tried. And if I recommend something I am not making any money off it.

I don’t have affiliate links so you can buy things that I hawk. If I tell you about something good I discovered I might tell you how to find it and that is the end of my involvement. I will give links for my friends and family’s site if I know their stuff is good, but that is once in a blue moon.

This man who was trying so hard to put ads on my blog could not believe that I had kept it going for so many years without making money on it.

He did not understand that this blog is now my life’s history, so it is all just for me to be able to have a record of what was going on on any given day. The fact that I share it seemed pointless to him. He didn’t say so in so many words, but he certainly intonated.

I don’t really care how many people read this. I am not looking for more eyeballs, as he called them. This is for me and my friends and the people who become my friends by reading me. You either like it and get it or you don’t read it. This is not a competition and I am not going to make money off of you.

This guy thought I was unAmerican by not trying to make money. I think he was just pissed I was not willing for him to make money off of me. Next time, read my blog before you call to tell me how I could do it better. You might find out I am a waste of your time before you bother to call.

Memories Via Apple

If you have an iPhone or IPad and take a lot of photos you probably get these reminders of old photos when your device makes you a random slide show on some theme, location or date. Sometimes these little shows are welcome. Today I had one based on this date in 2005. Carter and her classmates of first grade were in a musical show at school. I don’t remember the exact show, but I can still tell you the names of all the kids in the photos. That slide show was sweet and welcome.

Sometimes I feel like my iPad is taunting me by showing me beach photos from years past when it is 25° here now. Or showing me photos of trips to Italy where I have not been in a few years and wish I could visit right now.

What I really don’t like is when I get a photo reminder of people I can’t seem to place. Sometimes I take random photos of people in places I am visiting and the people are just part of the atmosphere. Carter got particularly mad at me on a trip to Barcelona when I took photos of random dogs without the dogs’ permissions. I promised Carter I was not going to exploit the dogs, but I digress.

The reason I get upset about these random photo memories is I think I should know all the photos in my library. Why I feel I should know 100’s of thousands of photos is just because I normally have a good photo memory.

If a random photo is displayed and I don’t recognize it I can look at the info on the photo, date and place and look at other photos taken just before and after it and then I usually can place it. What I have finally started to do is to delete these unimportant photos. It is helpful since space is ultimately limited, but also that if not tied to me in some way, they will be unimportant to others in my family when I am gone.

It would take me years to label all my photos. If I started doing that I would mostly likely delete most of mine as time to label would not be worth most photos. But then I come across a photo that is unimportant to me, but perhaps would be nice for the subject to have.

So from now on when something pops up, before I delete it I might send it to someone. I may not tell you I am deleting you and now you can be the holder of your own photo, but at least I won’t just get rid of it all together.

I wish I time to make photo books of all my important photos. Perhaps when I retire again. For now I will look at the random iPad memories that are sent to me.

Almost Finished

Last summer my Mom asked me if I would make her a new quilt. Making a quilt for someone else is a big deal. The amount of time that goes into making a quilt is hard to calculate, but my quilts are very intricate so let’s just say it’s over 250 hours. For the record, my Mom already has three quilts I have made her in the last six years. So wanting another one is big.

Her reason for wanting a new quilt is she did a painting the she was going to hang over her bed and she wanted a quilt to go with it. When she showed me the painting I loved it instantly so I agreed to make her the quilt. My only rule is that I get to make all the decisions as it is my art.

I finished the top of the quilt in November, but my long arm quilter Tina, who does the actually quilting, was tied up with Christmas present quilts so mine got a January finish slot.

I just got it back from her yesterday and I love the finished product. Tina is a fantastic quilting artist and I give her lots of latitude to come up with designs that add to the piecing I have done.

I am happy it is a cold weekend because I have been stuck inside making the binding for the quilt and sewing it on by hand. I can’t show you the whole finished product until I give it to my Mom because I want it to be a surprise, but I am thrilled with how it turned out.

My mother turns 86 on Thursday. I can’t wait to give it to her. I am going to tell her that she is going to have to wait until her 91 birthday before I make her another quilt. Four quilts should be enough for one tiny little woman.

Siamese Mah Jongg

I had a great week with 70 different students in four different classes. There is nothing better to do in January than learn to play Mah Jongg. (Sorry if you want to learn the next available opening dates are March, but realistically May.)

Once you know how to play Mah Jongg with four people the next best thing is to learn to play Siamese Mah Jongg with two people.

My beyond Beginner class this week wanted me to write down the rules for them so I promised them a blog post.

Siamese Mah Jongg uses the NMJL card and each player gets two racks in front of them. The purpose of the game is to make two mah jonggs, one on rack before your opponent does.

You do not build the wall and there is not Charleston in Siamese. Sitting across from each other you mosh the tiles between you and decide who will be East. East takes 28 tiles and the other player takes 27.

You may arrange your tiles any way you like on your two racks. The goal is to make two different winning hands so pick your hands carefully so that you are not competing with yourself.

East starts by discarding. The opponent then either calls the discarded tile or picks a new tile from the mess of tiles between you. Then that player discards, naming the tile like normal.

You may call tiles to make an exposure just like in regular mah jongg, but you must put exposures that go with one hand on one rack and the the other hand on the second rack. You may not move exposures back and forth between racks. You may also exchange jokers in exposures until you call mah jongg on that hand.

Once mah jongg has been called for a hand those jokers are now frozen and no one may exchange them. So it is to your advantage not to call mah jongg on a hand you just make by picking from the mess. If you have to call a discard to make mah jongg so be it.

There is only a winner when one person has two mah jonggs.

Enjoy the game no matter how many people you have to play with.

Thanks be for Table Four

Some days when I am teaching two classes a day I eat lunch alone because I just don’t have much time. When I do I really enjoy eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. Come on, I know you do too. It’s not like I am purposely trying to listen, but with tables close together and people talking loudly I just can’t help it.

This week the one day I ate alone I was situated between two tables who were discussing two different Bible studies. Lord, those were the least interesting conversations to be stuck between. I already knew the scriptures they were discussing and had my own point of view about them. Sometimes I wonder how people who “study” the Bible can miss the main idea to take care of the people who have the least.

Thankfully for the last two days I had lunch dates with some of my favorite people. Most of them came to class this week so I had double fun with them in class and at lunch. There were no Bible verses discussed at lunch, but a lot of fellowship was had along with great laughs.

Thanks to the girls at table four. I adore spending time with you. You make my job the best job on earth.

What A Deal — Limited Time!

One of my sister Janet’s lines of scarves and Pashminas were featured on the Tamron Hall show today. The deal is you can buy them for 40% just for a week. They are the coziest scarves and I adore them.

Click on this link if you want to look more closely at them and to purchase. https://shoptamfam.40boxes.com/collections/youzey

The solid color ones are double sided in two colors. If you want to feel what they feel like call me and come by my house.

They make excellent gifts to have on hand.

Top Ten Reasons I Like Being a Mah Jongg Teacher

10. Getting to make young and not necessarily young new friends

9. Sharing the love of the game

8. Having a captive audience for my jokes

7. Having people actually laugh at my jokes

6. Traveling to New places

5. Traveling to old places again and again because I keep getting asked back

4. Seeing the light bulb go off as people get to be better players

3. Creating new communities of people having fun

2. Watching people getting younger as they get to be better players

1. Hanging out with friends like these

Life is Not Zero Sum Game

I am tiring of reading posts where people who have so much think that giving people who have very little hurts the people with so much. Life is not one pie, where if you take a giant slice that leaves only a little slice for me. Zero sum is a pie.

But let’s look at things slightly differently. If you make pies to sell and there are only 10 people out of 100 who can buy your pies because they are the only people who have enough money to buy pie then your earnings are limited.

If you helped educate some of the 90 who can’t afford pie so they could get a better paying job then after a little bit of time of the number of people who could afford to buy your pies increases, which gives you the opportunity for more money.

If after time the population went from 10% who could buy pie to 99% you would be better off as a pie baker and the pie buyers would be better off because now they could have pie too.

Helping the 90% did not mean that the 10%, who could have pie at the beginning could not have pie, but helping the 90% not only helped them, but it helped the pie baker and the flour Miller, and the apple farmer and the box maker and the sugar importer because now the pie maker was able to sell more pies.

It works conversely too. If there are only 10% who can afford pies there is a chance that the pie maker can’t earn enough to bother selling pies and might go out of business so none of the 10% will have pie.

Henry Ford understood that if he paid his employees a good wage they could afford to buy his cars.

At first Ford could have kept wages low, but then he would have sold fewer cars in the long run and selling more cars over a longer period of time earned him more money. The more people who drive Fords the better an advertisement it was for Ford.

Investing in making all people better helps everyone. The people that make and sell things have a market to make more. The people who had nothing to start get to have something, which is what people need to get started having more.

Having well educated, people who have opportunities helps a whole community. Having a good community makes a place more valuable.

Having a community where there are very few people who have enough and a lot of people with nothing makes the value of the community as a whole go down and it is hard to turn around. So investing in your community is not a hardship, but an opportunity to make it better for yourself and everyone else.

Someone having less does not give you more So why would you not want everyone to have more?

Create For Yourself

After months of Basketweave it’s nice to be creative. I finished chair seat number two yesterday. In 2023 I made two chair seats our of the most boring stitch of basketweave. It is tiring to stitch, but the strongest stitch with great coverage for a chair.

Today I had the opportunity to stitch a small nutcracker ornament that is mostly white. Being one color means that I could change up the stitches in the different sections to add interest to the little canvas.

Getting a chance to be creative is what I love most about needlepointing. The chair seats are creative in that I designed them myself, but the stitching is rote. Stitching an ornament that someone else has painted means that choosing the fibers and stitches in my chance to put my mark on them.

Everyone should have a creative outlet. Be it flower arranging, cooking or painting doing something creative is good for your brain as well as your soul.

Save the Date?

When I get a message from someone asking me if I am free on a particular date I always give my answer the same way. First if I am not free, that is an easy answer. If I am free, I tell them so,with the caveat that I am free right this minute. If the inquirer wants to invite me or book me for something right that moment then I can respond.

Most times I get an inquiry about when I might be free in the future and I give a bunch of dates. I always say that I can not guarantee that I will still be free on those dates say next week or next month. This seems like a reasonable answer.

I had someone this week wanting to schedule a class. She needed to find three days. I gave her perhaps twenty dates to chose from with my caveat. She replied that she had so many people to coordinate and asked if I would hold all 20 dates just for her for a month. She acted surprised when I said I could not do that.

I explained that there are lots of other people inquiring about dates. Nothing is set in stone until a class is scheduled, holding 20 days with the idea that only 3 are going to be booked means I am potentially not scheduling something on the 17 other days. And even 3 might never be booked.

This person still did not quite understand. I went further, and told her she was welcome to pay for all 20 dates and only use 3. She said that was crazy. I agreed, but in essence that is what she was asking me to do for her.

Most people I deal with understand that if they want a certain date they need to book fast. Please be understanding if I told you a date was free two months ago and you called today to book that date it is most likely already gone.

Can’t Wait for April

If you play Mah Jongg you know that April 1 is our big day. It is the start of the new Mah Jongg year. Every year I get the new card and I analyze it and play it like crazy to discover the good, the bad and the evil of the new card. Then I create a 60+ page power point to teach everyone what the secrets, strategies and foibles of the new card are.

April has me all over teaching new card orientation classes which gives my students and big leg up on learning how to win with the new card.

As of right now I have a Day of Classes at Carolina Country Club April 10 for their members. I am teaching a class in Durham open to anyone, a class at Kinston Country Club April 18 and one at Benvenue Country Club in Rocky Mount April 24. I am happy to add more New Card classes in other locations, but they need to be scheduled soon as I am booking other classes for April right now.

To sign up for the Durham Class please contact me. That class is going to be held at Westminster Presbyterian Fellowship Hall on April 9.

Don’t let your friends learn all the tips and beat you. If you have questions feel free to contact me.

Art Take Me Away

Some days you just need to escape from the real world. Tired of politics, trials and the weather I went today to the Nasher Art Museum to listen to Ruth Cacavale talk about art in two different exhibits.

The first was an exhibit that the Nasher created using AI technology. It was an experiment to see if ChatGPT could be a curator. The assignment was to first suggest some themes for art exhibits. From the suggestions the Nasher chose Utopian and Dystopian Visions. From there ChatGBT was tasked with combing through over 14,000 in the Nasher collection to find works to fit the theme. Then Chat wrote didactics, normally the job of the curator, to describe the works beyond the information contained in the label.

The works chosen were not all perfect for the theme and the descriptions written by the computer were definitely questionable. Real human curators wrote rebuttal didactics.

As with so many things computer related, the work it produces is only as good as the data base it gets its information from. Even with perfect data it still is only regurgitating information it has scrubbed from other sources. The reliability of those sources is often questionable.

It was an interesting exercise. I think we are still going to need humans when it comes to art.

The other exhibit we looked at was Love and Anarchy. It was much better art than the AI exhibit, in my opinion, and was much more interesting to talk about as art, something the Ruth is great at leading groups to do.

The bottom line is that while looking and talking about art I did not think one bit about the unsavory things going on in the world today. For this reason I continue to think that art is important.

Bad Weather Chicken Sausage, Bean and Kale Soup

Last night as I was driving home from Raleigh around 9:30 I came upon an unmanned road block on Hope Valley Road alerting me that the road was closed. It wasn’t lit and it was just over a hill so I am happy I was not going very fast. We had terrible weather yesterday and I was just happy I was able to turn around and go back home via Garrett rd. Russ was in flight on his way home from NYC so I texted him about the road block.

Yesterday’s cold and rainy day got me in a soup kind of mood. There was no time for cooking yesterday, but today I had a bit of time and thought Russ might like me to actually go to the store and cook something fresh for him. It worked out well to make a soup in advance as I had an evening meeting.

My original idea was a white bean, sausage and kale soup. At Trader Joe’s I found some fresh chicken sausages and thought they would be a healthy option. The only issue was they did not have many spices in them. So I amped up the spices in the soup to mirror the ones I might find in pork sausage.

1 lb of chicken sausage, taken out of the casing

2 T. Olive oil

1 large sweet onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic mashed

2 carrots, chopped

4 Yukon gold potatoes about the sized of duck eggs, diced 1/2 inch

2T. Smoked paprika

2 t.ground Fennel

1 t. Ground sage

1 t. Thyme

1t. Garlic powder

1t. Onion powder

1 t. Cayenne pepper

1 Bay leaf

Black pepper

3 T. Knorr chicken bullion powder

6.cups of water

2 cans drained great northern beans

12 cups of chopped de-stemmed kale

3 T. Corn starch

3/4 c. cream

Put the olive oil in stock pot, add sausage, onion and garlic and cook on medium heat stirring often for five minutes. Add the carrots and potatoes and all the spices and stir. Add the chicken bullion powder and water and bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Cook for fifteen minutes.

Add the beans and the kale cook another fifteen minutes. Put four tablespoons of the liquid from the pot in a cup and add the corn starch to that, stir making a slurry. Add back to the soup pot and stir. This will thicken the soup slightly.

Add the cream and just heat through. Taste for spices and add anything needed.

User Error

In my rush to get back to stitching last night I did not check to see if my blog posted after I wrote and published it. Thankfully so many friends texted me this morning to see if I was still alive since there is no chance I would not post a blog.

Well, I am alive. I don’t know what technical problem took place, perhaps the blogging gods deemed yesterday’s blog too boring to be worthy of internet space.

I have had a busy day with Garden club this morning, then lunch and Mexican Train game at a friends. I am home now keeping Shay calm during this storm. Tonight I am teaching in Raleigh so I hope the storm is past by the time I head out.

Please stay safe everyone. Know that if I don’t post a blog it is most likely a technical glitch on my part and I am still here.

Thanks for the well wishes.

Needlepoint By the Numbers

I am currently working on my second seat of my game table chairs. Each seat cover is 23 inches by 25 inches big. In needlepoint terms, that is massive.

I finished my first seat in August. I set a goal to finish the second one by New Years and missed my goal. I am now frantically stitching to try and finish as I am sick of just doing basket weave.

I calculated that this canvas has a stitched fire lid of 575 square inches. As I am doing it on 13 count canvas there are 169 stitches in each inch. Making the total number of individual stitches I must make at 97,175.

According to my measurements I have 31.5 square inches left to go or 5,323 stitches, all in white, technically a color called vapor, that looks white to you. I’m in the last 5% and that is the hardest part.

So no more time spent blogging. It’s back to stitching.

Note Tuesday Morning:

For some reason this did not post last night. Thanks to all the friends who checked on me this morning to see if I was still alive

Work at What You Love

Christmas is my time of year. There is nothing I love more than decorating and entertaining at Christmas. Consequently I do the bulk of all my party throwing at Christmas. Why not? My house is at its best, it is festive and so bright it looks clean. After Christmas I also take a week to recover.

Well all that is behind me now. It’s back to work. No Sunday scaries for me when you love what you do. Also no Sunday scaries when you work on Sunday.

Today was my first class of the calendar year. It was lovely that it was a small group of bright young women. Easing into it, but I fear I will be paying for taking so much time off.

The demand for Mah Jongg Classes is over whelming. On December 26 alone I booked three different classes. Right now my first openings are in March and those are going fast.

Summer is also booking up. Before I know it I will be booking fall before I even get to Easter. I am not complaining, just worried about disappointing people who are clamoring to learn to play. At least I know that I will be taking time off for Maine and Christmas.

I am already planning next year’s parties. I need to do that now while I have a moment to think about it. Full speed ahead on the tiles.

January 6, Still the Saddest Day

I went back and read my blog on the days around January 6, 2021. Below is a copy of my post on January 4, 2021. I am no prophet. What I wrote about two days before January 6 was public knowledge to anyone watching main stream news, NOT FOX.

I watched January 6 play out on live TV because I knew this could happen, based on the news leading up. The fact that the national guard was not already there standing by is one of the things that shocked me. This was all anticipated. Why else would there have been so many reporters waiting. I watched ABC new and saw Martha Raddatz being threatened as insurrectionists destroyed news equipment on their way to breaking into the capital and assaulting Capital Police.

We must never forget what took place on that day. Pay attention to the signs of someone trying to end democracy. It was all said in public. Stand up and stop that from ever happening gain.

Stop Supporting Temper Tantrums

First Published January 4, 2021

I know many of you hate when I write political posts. Stop reading now. Don’t complain to me about what I write about, for I have warned you this might make you mad. But I am mad and sick and tired of the toddler in the White House and worse yet the sheep who keep enabling him.

I truly believe that the psychological make up of 45 is one that can not accept reality if it is not of his liking. As a bully he has been use to changing reality. Unfortunately for him, he can not change the reality of a fully vetted election. This appears to have pushed him to the edge and he is on the verge of a full blown psychotic break. None of that is new. He is who he is and it will be up to his family to live with him in that state.

What I really object to is the people who surround him who continue to coddle him in his delusions. The phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State was not surprising to me, but the fact that there were two Republican lawyers and Mark Meadows in the rooms allowing that to happen makes them complicit in 45’s felony to encourage election fraud.

Then there are the legislators who are willing to stand with 45 in questioning the certification of the electoral college votes. What reality are these people living in. So far none of the Pennsylvania Republican Congress people who were elected at the same time are saying that their elections was fraudulent even though they are saying that 45’s was on the same ballot.

The emperor has no clothes and not only are these people not saying he doesn’t, they are stripping down naked and joining the crazy parade.

I understand that people are upset when their candidate loses, but that is what happens in democracy. Someone wins and someone loses. You don’t get to intimidate people, or gather with weapons and threaten people if you don’t like the outcome. Or at least that is the way America was supposed to run.

45 encouraging people to protest with potential harm on January 6th is the worst crime of all. That is tantamount to starting a civil war and I pray it does not happen.

The news reports that upwards of 80% of 45’s supporters believe that the election was stolen from him. Why? Because 45 tells them that without one bit of evidence. Talk about sheep. It is time that we speak out and support Biden and democracy and overwhelm the sheep with truth. No fraud took place. Biden won far and square and no amount of temper tantrums from the spoiled current office holder will change that. Stop enabling that brat because it is bad for America.

Disappointed Weather People

When you live in North Carolina weather is mostly moderate, except if we get a hurricane. It has been almost two years since we have had any measurable snow in our town. That alone is not too unusual. Snow is just not that common. We are much more likely to get an ice storm.

When the national news is all about a big winter storm crossing the whole country heading to the northeast, our local news desperately wanted in on the story. Tonight the local news was overly weather heavy, with no actual story at all. We are predicted to get a half inch of rain.

What did the news do? Send a reporter out to a dark street to talk about what to do if you live on the downhill side of a hill and get water runoff on your yard. This poor dolt of reporter knew this was a non-story story and had a terrible time trying to make one out of it. It didn’t help that the camera person kept panning across the black of a neighborhood we couldn’t see, yet alone know if it was on a hill.

I know that weather is what local news is all about, but if there is no story don’t try and make one up. Good luck everyone, it’s going to rain a little tomorrow and be in the forties. It’s January, that’s not a story.

It’s Time to Order your 2024 Mah Jongg Card

The National Mah Jongg League is the mothership of the American Mah Jongg world. They are an amorphous secretive organization, but they are the best show in town when it comes to Mah Jongg. Every year they create a new Mah Jongg card and we all wait patiently to see if they have done a good job or not.

All my students know my feeling about their editing and lack of modernization, but it is the game we love so we roll with it when it comes to what hands they dictate to us.

The new card starts being played on April 1. The window to order the new card does not open for people who want to order their own cards until January 1. So now is your chance to go head and order the new card. Don’t wait until closer to April 1 because you are not likely to receive your card in a timely manner then. I know people who have ordered on April 1 in years past and did not get their new card until the middle of May.

The NMJL sent out the yearly bulletin in December, (It used to be October) and the most anticipated pages in it are the questions and answers. This year they had a question about taking tiles when playing three handed. The answer was written incorrectly causing a great stir amount Mah Jongg experts around the country. The league was contacted and said, “Yes they made a mistake.”

The correct answer to this question when playing with 3 people is that each player takes four tiles until everyone has 12. Then East take one tile, the next player takes one and the third player takes one giving everyone 13 tiles. East then takes one more tile as their fourteenth. The reason East has to wait until everyone else has taken their 13th tiles is the tile which East gets as their 14th tile is on the bottom of the stack.

I will be teaching New Card Orientation classes in April. I will be at the Carolina Country Club on April 10, morning, afternoon and evening sessions & Kinston April 17-19. I am scheduling a session in Durham and will keep you posted as other cities schedule their Class. If you are interested in the new card class please contact me. It is a lecture class with slides where I teach you what’s new on the card, new patterns and hands, best strategies for the new card, easiest hands and the pit falls. It is a great short cut for getting up to speed with the new card.

Happy Playing.

Your Best Companion

Russ listened to a Bloomberg article about the business side of the Barbie movie and it finally peeked his interest in watching the movie. He wasn’t interested enough this summer when Carter flew home just so she and I could go to see it together, but Bloomberg was enough.

So while I was at a church meeting tonight Russ and Shay started watching Barbie. Apparently Shay was most interested in it. Girls and pink you know. Russ stayed with it because Shay liked it so much. Boys and their dogs you know.

Speaking of which, it could be boys and their cats. My friend Warren lost one of his four cats, Stan yesterday. Stan was only five, but had a terminal illness. Warren the tender hearted took great care of Stan for months as he was his favorite cat. Sadly the day came where Stan was ready to cross that rainbow bridge and it almost did Warren in. I knew something bad had happened when I got four missed calls from him with no message.

Losing a pet is the saddest day. No one brings you a casserole or sends you flowers. You are left alone at home without your beloved one.

When my friend Lynn had a sick dog years ago and I talked to her about what she might have to do she said, “I’m not ready to let her go.” My response was, “You are never ready to let them go, but sometimes we must.”

Cherish your pets every day. They means so much to us, but to them we are their whole world. I know that Russ is Shay’s whole world. If I had wanted her to watch Barbie with me I am not sure her attention would have been as rapt. She’s a daddy’s girl.

No matter what I can guarantee your pet is your best companion, with a few crazy dog exceptions, (you know who you are.) Give them a big hug tonight and say a prayer for those who are missing their pets.

The Godfather of Non-Profit Leadership

In 2011 I received word that a man I had never met was going to pay to send me to Harvard for a course on Governing for Non-profit excellence. I was thrilled, but could not imagine what a huge impact he would have on non-profits in the triangle for more than a decade.

Chuck ReCorr was a stock broker who used his own fortune to send over 140 non-profit leaders to Harvard. His vision to create a well trained body of leaders who would then get to know each other and work together was bold.

He convened these leaders under the banner of the Harvard 100, since his goal had been to send 100 people, but he blew that goal out of the water. I have personally been the beneficiary of his generosity, brilliance and ingenuity.

One highlight has been working with other Harvard 100 Alums, Danny Rosin, Staci Barfield and Phil Kowalczyk in the leadership of Harvard 100. We were all tapped by Chuck and none of could possibly say no. Chuck has retired from his 50 year career at Merrill Lynch, but his dream of improving the leadership in the non-profit world in the triangle continues. If you are a non-profit leader and are interested in being invited into our collective please let me know. I am aging out and want to pass the opportunity to connect and learn on to the next generation.

A Man With A Big Stick

There is nothing sexier than watching my husband wield a big stick, with a feather duster on the end, whisk away cobwebs. He found those cobwebs while up on a giant ladder removing the fan blades from the ceiling fans to clean them. This man really knows how to woo me.

While others might still be recovering from a New Years Eve bash, mine was ensuring we start the new year off in the cleanest way possible. All the while Shay kept her eye on him supervising his every move as she does daily, be he at work on his computer, on a zoom or doing the dishes.

I declare that 2024 is the year I am most appreciative of my husband Russ. No complaining from him as I needlepointed most of the day as I have missed my self-imposed deadline to finish this chair seat by January 1. I am doing my best to finish it as fast as possible and then maybe I can do something nice for him. No matter what it is it will not beat a big stick with a feather duster on it.

PS. I read what new laws were enacted in NC today and one is a ban on a pornography. This is a test to see how widely they are enforcing that law. This of course is not pornography, but a true story about cleaning.

Say Goodbye to 2023

2023 felt like a more normal year than we have had in the near past. At this point in life I am happy for normal. I feel lucky to have my family doing well, Shay still ruling the roost, my old friends hanging on and all my new friends and students wanting to learn from me.

There are plenty of things in the bigger world that are troubling, but in my smaller world not too bad. I am concerned for the whole world and the I pray everyday for people to come to their senses, but the only thing I can control is how I act.

So farewell ‘23. I make no predictions for ‘24 because I don’t want to jinx anything and there are some big things to bet on. I hope for kindness, justice and fairness and for the mah jongg wave to continue.

Have a peaceful New Year’s Eve. Stay safe and get a good night’s sleep. I think we need to be well rested for 2024.

Don’t Be A Good Actress

As I was vacuuming the last of the glitter and sparkles from the front hall way I noticed two giant boxes on the front porch. I inquired of Russ if he was putting the recycling on the front porch.

He said, “No, those are for you.”

He carried in these boxes and I looked at the shipping label. They were from a company I recognized because someone else I knew got something for Christmas from the same place. I opened each box and they were a match of a gift someone else got.

Russ and Carter thought that I Iiked those gifts, so they ordered me some of the same, thankfully on sale. I did not want those gifts. I was just being polite making the giver feel good about them. The receiver liked them and I should not have said anything, especially if it gave others the idea I would also like them.

It was a sweet, albeit unwanted surprise, done with the best intentions and love. When I say I don’t want more stuff, I actually mean it. If there is specific stuff I want I will probably mention it or buy it for myself. I feel ungrateful, but I have learned not to react to other’s gifts, unless I really, really want the same thing. Now I have made Russ feel bad because I was acting polite.

Half Undecorated

Sadly today is Carter’s last day in Durham. Tomorrow she is off to visit Claire’s family in Connecticut for New Years. No matter what they do for New Years it will be way more fun than what we are doing.

Carter has been so productive while she was home. She cleaned out her whole closet and the closet in the sweat shop creating four giant bags for donations and two bags of trash. As she was in such a helpful and friendly mood I took advantage of her and got her to help get the Christmas boxes down.

Taking Christmas down is not half as fun as putting it up, but it also takes half the time, if you don’t count the cleaning that you have to follow up with. I got almost all the ornaments off the tree, in the thousands, and Carter stepped in to go up the ladder the last three trips.

After dinner she suggested she and Russ go ahead and take everything associated with the tree and the platform and get it down the stairs put away. Oh my goodness, this was the best gift I was given this year.

I still have the dining room and half the living room to undecorate, but that will take no time tomorrow and it will all be done. The sparkle and lights will give way to clean and sparse like a winter day after a fresh snow.

I am thinking of leaving some decor in the attic and changing things up a bit. Looking for the opposite of holiday. Perhaps it is the sadness of Carter leaving.

Unadvertised Fun

There are just some words that are so much better than others. Today Carter and I took a little field trip to Fearington village and I heard a combination of favorite words as soon as we walked into Dovecote. “We are having an unadvertised sale and all our shoes are 50% off.”

Usually those words are met by disappointing choices and tiny sizes for the season that is ending, but not today. Dovecote had some shoes I had been wanting and was looking to get at full price, but got at half price. We were going for half priced Christmas stuff, which we did get, but I did not expect shoes.

Surprises like this just don’t happen too much and when they do they make me very happy, especially since these are shoes for spring and I can use them when I am off to Lyford to teach.

To boil it down, favorite words today, shoes and half-price.

Lazy Day

It’s that wonderful week between Christmas and New Years when nothing really happens. That is if you don’t count all the people who got Mah Jongg sets for Christmas and now are desperate for classes. (The bad news is that January and Feb are already full. Think March for Mah Jongg.)

Back to the Lazy day. Two of Carter’s dearest friends, Ashley and Estelle both came over and we spent the better part of the day catching up. Estelle brought her new dog Josey who was quite comfortable here. Shay was not much interested in her, which is an embarrassment as a hostess.

I should have done something like vacuuming after they left, but opted to finish the puzzle Hannah brought us for Christmas. Carter kept me company while I did it. 1000 pieces in three sittings was a very fast puzzle. It helped that it was one divided into little sections. But completing it was very exciting. The table I worked it on was just slightly too small and Carter and I laughed about carpenters 200 years ago not fortune telling how big puzzles in the future would be.

We are having Thai take out and snuggling down tonight. The perfect rainy holiday weekday. It was so much more fun than cleaning up the wrapping and boxes in my office. I am dreading taking Christmas down, but I see it in my near future. Life will have to start back again soon.

After Christmas Movie Time

Now the parties and presents are over it’s time to relax. That means Movies! We have gotten out of practice about going to the movies since the pandemic. Last night we stayed home and rented The Holdovers. It was the story of a boy who has to stay at boarding school over Christmas break and the teacher who has to supervise him.

Since I went to boarding school I can not imagine anything worse than staying at school over Christmas. I counted down the hours until Christmas break with a pack of hour cards on a ribbon. I carried it with me everywhere the last three days of school and flipped the number one lower every hour. Don’t get me wrong, I loved going to boarding school, but going home to sleep in your own room, not have classes and have a kitchen was needed by Christmas.

The movie is set in 1971 and does a great job of portraying boarding school life, at least for boys, at the time. Paul Giamatti plays the teacher and is fantastic. We give the Holdvers two thumbs up.

Today we ventured out to go to the movies. We unanimously picked The Boys In The Boat. When we arrived at the theatre I heard my name called and we discovered the most rowing family we know, the Beischer’s were also there to see the movie. It is the story of a boy who went out out for the rowing team at the University of Washington during the depression because then he got a bed and some help on his tuition by making the team. I won’t give anymore of the story away, but it was a beautiful movie, even though it had to pared down from the book.

We all loved this movie. Nick Beischer, who crewed at Williams, deemed the rowing very believable and liked the movie as well.

Two movies in two days. I can’t think of the last time we did that, even though one was at home. I would love to know what else you have seen. My friend Janet said Ferrari was OK. Has anyone seen The Color Purple or Wonka? Wondering which movie is going to be the big hit of Christmas.

Its Come and Gone

You would think I was four by the way I can’t sleep on Christmas Eve. We had a big day yesterday and I just got to writing my blog at 11:30 and turning my lights off after midnight. Someone near by was celebrating with fireworks so I didn’t go right to sleep.

I did wake up multiple times through the night and finally at 6:30 just got out of bed to start Christmas day. I baked the Christmas breakfast casserole while Carter opened presents brought by Santa. We got a big laugh out of the monogram on her new iPad. That personalization will certainly keep anyone else from considering stealing it from her, that is as long as they carry a big magnifying glass around.

My family came at 10:30, instead of 10:00, thanks to getting stuck in the elevator at my Mom’s house. Thankfully they got out safely.

We had a big game of our gift exchange and I ended up with two gifts I bought, as well as a karaoke microphone, which everyone knows I don’t need, or should not use. I am my own loud speaker system.

We had a yummy lunch and the most popular dish was the chicken Marsala I threw in at the last minute in case people didn’t want tenderloin. You just can’t beat a chicken thigh.

Carter made us individual cross word puzzles which were our most fun activity and before we knew it was time for everyone to go. Russ and Carter did all the dishes for which I am always grateful.

We talked to relatives who were not with us and wished them all a Merry Christmas. In the blink of an eye Christmas has come and gone. We still have the sparkle and light for a few days more, then the darkness of the winter becomes apparent.

Only eleven more months until I can put all of Christmas back up and do it all again.

Christmas Eve in Six Lines

It was a full day of cooking, puzzles, candles and brass. We could have given lessons on Christmas with class.

The beef needing trimming, potatoes were baked, chicken Marsalaed, and cookies to take.

Christmas puzzles were worked with great speed and precision, which one was best now that’s the decision.

The Toms were coming for dinner tonight, but Lynn called at five, and illness to fight. But we got Ellis and Logan for sure, we had cannelloni that was our lure.

Off to church for the lessons, carols and brass, that’s the thing that keeps Christmas from being too crass.

So with Santa to come I must bid you goodnight, looking forward to Christ’s coming with new morning light.

Not the Mama

Today was a big prep day. I feel like we got a bonus extra pre-Christmas day with a whole weekend before the big day. This meant I didn’t have to cook all day, although I was instructed to add another dish to Christmas Day.

I made Cannelloni with crepes for Christmas Eve. It was a labor intensive dish and after covering every counter in dirty dishes I decided I needed a break. Carter took over kitchen duty making tart shells and I went to watch TV and work on my Santa Puzzle. I was in the middle of bingeing season one of Reacher. This is about the least Christmasy show to watch with lots of bad guys being killed in every episode.

After dinner Russ suggested Carter and I watch a Christmas movie. Lord, there are so many Christmas movies to chose from and all would be less violent than Reacher. Carter suggested The Family Stone with Diane Keaton and Sarah Jessica Parker whom I love.

So we snuggled with Shay on the big sofa, needlepointing and watching this movie. It has a great cast and good sound track, if not a very quirky plot. Diane Keaton was the mother and a little difficult as a she has five adult children and one brings home a girl for Christmas. You think the movie is going one way and suddenly it serves and after spending 90 percent of the film on one Christmas Day you are at the next year’s Christmas and Diane Keaton has died.

Through our tears I look at Carter and she says she is so sorry to have picked a Christmas movie where the mother dies. Reacher, with ten killings in fifty minutes was less emotional. I made Carter promise no more sad Christmas movies.

Merry Christmas all you mothers. Hope to see you again next Christmas.

Cousins Christmas

All kinds of merriment happens because Carter comes to town. My sweet cousin Sarah invited us, her sister and family and her Mom for dinner so they could see Carter. It’s nice that Russ and I get to come along with Carter and spend time with the cousins.

It is crazy that Sarah and Mark are just in Raleigh and we hardly see them. Their son Sam was there, but Jane was off performing in the Nutcracker and we missed her.

Mark, who is a judge, had heard many cases today, but came home and cooked us a yummy dinner. Leigh and her family came from Durham too. We don’t see them often enough and they live literally ten minutes from our house.

We used to see each other more at the farm, but now that neither of our father’s are living and our mothers are in retirement communities we are not there anymore. There is hardly enough time to keep up and that makes me sad, but we had a great time tonight.

Sarah and I promised we would see each other more. It’s not like I’m not in Raleigh all the time, but when I am there I am working, and they all work and have kids and life happens.

In the car on the way home Carter lamented her lack of cousins close by who are close to her age. Sometimes it is hard to be an only child and the only grandchild on one side. I do love my cousins and find them to be some of my favorite people who I have so many shared wonderful memories with. Thanks to Sarah for getting us together.

Jammed Packed Day of Christmas Fun

I could hardly sleep waiting for Carter to come home this morning. Turns out she had the same problem sleeping, but it was probably because of her fear of missing her very early flight.

I picked her up from the airport and we went for brunch at Snooze in Chapel Hill. If you haven’t been it’s lots of fun. A chain, but well done.

From there it was off to Chapel Hill Needlepoint to see Nancy. We lucked out that we were the only ones in the store for a while so we had quality time with Nancy. Carter finished her big pillow project and we had to get a few Christmas goodies. Carter should have stitching for a while now.

From there it was off to see our financial advisor for some education. We had the bonus of seeing Dave Pottenger while we were there. Carter is a good financial student.

Finally we stopped at home for an hour and picked up Russ and set off for the Koko Booth Amphitheater to see the Chinese Lantern Festival. We were guests of our finance group which was a fun Christmas thing to do. We had twilight tickets which opened at 4:30, but we didn’t get there until just after 5. The place opens to the regular crowd at 6, so we lucked into a lull in the attendance. It was a very fun outing. The lanterns were beautiful. We finished walking through the whole exhibit just before they were letting in the giant gaggle of 6pmers in.

Back to Chapel hill we went for dinner at Jujube and home to needlepoint and watch SNL skits. It’s great to have Carter home, even if I am exhausted.

Unheard Of

Today I purposely allowed nothing to go on my calendar so I could finish anything related to Christmas presents. Although I am notoriously a Christmas Cadet, that applies mostly to decorating and entertaining. The presents part of Christmas is my least favorite part.

Acts of service are my love language. I think we all have way to much stuff, which rules our lives. I don’t like taking care of stuff, unless it is a Christmas decorations, then the more stuff the merrier.

I love my family and do want to show them I love them, so I do buy Christmas presents, but the wrapping, etc is last on my to-do list. Usually I am wrapping on Dec. 24 and I hate that.

So this year I made a pledge to have it all done and dusted in the present department by today. I have bought presents all year. The problem is not the buying. The problem is the finding where I hid them, the taking stock of how much I have and for whom and the wrapping.

Last year I sprung a little surprise on my larger family and we had a Chinese Auction, some call it a Dirty Santa. So I bought a bunch of universal gifts and we had a great time stealing gifts from each other. My sister Janet loved this and suggested we do it again this year, but she and my sister Margaret would also contribute some gifts. This makes my life so much easier.

I set up a wrapping station in my big room where the tree is and it took less than three hours to completely gather everything and wrap. I somehow had in my mind that this would take all day, but with the paired down giving it was a cinch.

Since I had the wrapping put up, I took advantage of the table I was using and worked a Santa Puzzle Jan brought me. No guilt. I’m ready for Christmas, if you don’t count the food shopping and cooking. I couldn’t do that this early because I don’t have room in my freezer to keep anything anyway.

Carter flies in first thing tomorrow so all my time will be spent with her. This early prep is unheard of around here. I think I will make it the new normal.

Give Mah Jongg Classes for Christmas

In the last few years I have had people contact me about wanting to give their child or spouse Mah Jongg classes for Christmas. This has proven to be a big hit with the recipients. My favorite was the mother who gave her daughter a class for 16 and she invited all her friends. It was really a nice gift to the friends.

It is hard to purchase a seat in a class as most of my classes are full upon creation, but you can always give a whole class and charge your friends to join as you would be the creator of the class.

You can also purchase private lessons if you want a real leg up. For those husbands who have not thought about Christmas or ones whose wife already has everything, message me. I know I can help you out of your predicament.

To set expectations most classes will have to be scheduled starting in March unless you have a very flexible schedule. Private lessons can happen faster.

Merry Christmas all you mah Jongg lovers and the ones who love you.

Thank You Lunch

Making new friends teaching Mah Jongg is not just a side benefit, it’s the real reason to do it. My Kinston crowd has been a joy, which other cities envy. The first time I went there I met a new person in my class and she asked where I was staying. I told her the Mother Earth Lodge because that is where I was told to stay. She said, “Why aren’t you staying with me?”

“Well, I’ll stay with you next time, but what is your name?” That turned out to be Jane Brothers who I came to love and adore, along with her sweet husband Warren.

I stayed with Jane twice and then other people told Jane that they would like to have me so I stayed with Becky and Debbie and Kristi at the beach. It’s a lot to have me come stay. These women don’t just give you a key, they make meals and throw parties and make it a vacation.

I wanted to have a special Kinston thank you for my hostess friends so I invited them for lunch at my Christmas cottage. It is so much better to come to my house at Christmas than any other time I think I may stop having parties during the year and have like 20 parties in December.

It was so wonderful of them to make the big drive here and back just for lunch, but we did have fun. They all brought gifts which makes me mad because this was a thank you to them and you don’t bring a thank you to a thank you. Now I have to write thank you notes for the thank you of the thank you.

I know I have other hostess I need to have for lunch, (Scottie, Marty, Reba and Kate I’m looking at you). I can’t wait until next Christmas, but maybe I come up with a better idea than lunch at my house.

It was just fun to have the friends who have had me to their house come to mine. If I wasn’t away teaching so much I would have people come for lunch two or three times a week, but if I don’t go away I don’t have as many friends who I want to come for lunch.

Thanks for everything you hospital bunch. I do adore you all.

My Life Watching the Crown

Sadly I have watched the last episode of The Crown. The eight year journey to watch the fictionalized life of Queen Elizabeth has been a joy to go on. The first episode aired on November 4, 2016 before the election that year, which turned us up on our end. It was a moment before the loss of innocence.

I have faithfully followed, consumed, watched, rewatched the episodes of The Crown, preferring to live through the life of Elizabeth. Waiting long stretches of time for new episodes to be released. Waiting to learn who would play the ever aging Queen. Loving learning history, if even just slightly fictionalized.

Having lived in London twice, the first time from 1979-1981 and second from 1994-1998 I recognized the changes in Britain as an ex-pat. I felt how the love/hate relationship for the monarchy ebbed and flowed. Russ and I were there the day Diana died. Watching The Crown was like going back in time for some of my own life because we all knew where we were when major things happened in the royal family, life Charles and Diana’s wedding or the death of the queen mother.

So I am very sad to have no future new Crown episodes to take me away from my commoner life. They were a great escape from the reality of what was going on in this country.

I feel the last episode was a great work of art (spoiler alerts) to foreshadow the Queens future death without getting close to it and to bring back Olivia Coleman and Claire Foy as the younger versions of the Queen to close out this last episode.

Unless you are a Queen you will never know how accurate the depiction of daily life was, but I feel that The Crown did a great service to the Monarchy to give us the feel of the weight of the Crown. It was a job well done.

Christmas Carousel Connection

Russ and I started out today with a trip to our friends Angela and Ian’s farm. We had such a great time catching up and seeing the chickens and the dogs. Russ was a particular favorite of Ollie’s who snuggled up with him during coffee.

Ian told us that a trip to my father’s farm years ago had inspired him to find a farm in North Carolina. My father would especially like their farm as it is perfectly kept and every view is more spectacular than the last.

Carter would like that it had been a horse farm and they still have the arena and exercise area for horses. While we were out walking Ollie found a deer scull and proudly brought it back to Ian as a prize.

Farm life is perfect for them and I can’t wait to go back in the summer when their vegetable garden is in full production. Today we were lucky to get salsa and 9 pepper jelly as a lovely parting gift.

Tonight we went to the big Christmas Party of the season at our friends. Yesterday, as Kathi was preparing she called and asked me if I had any candles for her Christmas Carousel. I went to look and laughed when I found them.

I had two boxes of 48 candles each of these four inch red candles in a chest of drawers in my living room. The boxes had a date of 1999 on them. Put this in the category of things I have that no one would ever know I had, let alone where they are.

In the small world of Christmas Carousels, Angela and Ian had one on their living room coffee table. I remarked about their beautiful gold candles in theirs and Angela told me that I had given them that Carousel in about 1999 and she had never forgotten that I had given it to her. I had no memory of giving it to them, but so glad it has brought them so much joy all these years.

I guess it was a Christmas Carousel kind of day.

Big Hit

This May Russ and I will have been married for 32 years. That means that my poor father -in-law, Marty, has been searching for gifts for us for that many years. He is a man who loves to find the right gifts, wrap them with great precision and send them for early delivery. He asks for advice secretly, but really hates if the answer is a gift card.

For me, the best gift in the last ten years has been a gift certificate to Chapel Hill Needlepoint. I know it pains him to give that to me, but he does. Rather than have Nancy at Chapel Hill Needlepoint just give it to me or even have Russ pick it up, Nancy sends it to Marty and he wraps it in a beautiful box with many bows.

True to form this year’s presents arrived last week in a giant box. I took the wrapped gifts and put them around the tree since they are the only wrapped gifts we have so far. I did not shake any of the boxes or even look too closely at the tags.

Then to my surprise and new small box arrived today. Russ said he had gotten a text from his father who has been tracking this gift. “Open it right away,” were the instructions. What could it be, a tiny live mouse?

Using the requisite pocket knife as the only way to pry the tape from the paper Russ revealed a white box with an “S” on it. What is this logo he asked me. “Swarovski,” I exclaimed.

The white outer box enveloped a beautiful heavy green box. Russ gently pried the thick lid off to uncover a green foam covering with a small finger hole on one side. Tendlerly lifting the green foam Russ exposed a crystal star to first light that sat nestled in a green foam nest.

He handed me the box so I could lift the little star up by the ivory ribbon it hung from. It is without a doubt the most beautiful ornament, almost too special for my chock-a-block tree.

After 32 years Marty has come up with his own perfect gift, one that he needed no advice on. So a star will lead us on Christmas Day. Thanks Marty. You done good.

Best Gift Givers

No one gives a middle aged woman a gift like another middle aged woman. Our friends know us best from the point of view of what we like at “this” age. Our spouses think they know, but sometimes they think we are younger than we happen to have gotten too. Our children want us to be hipper than we are. So it’s friends of the same age and stage who know best.

I have gotten some excellent puzzles from friends. The funniest one came from De, a mah Jongg Rubix cube, but harder. Not only do you have to get all the green dragons on one side, and red dragons on another, the cube has dot, bams and cracks that you have to also get in the ascending number order on the same side. I am certain I can spend my whole life trying to do this puzzle and never get it back to the right order, but it is the perfect gift for me.

Christy gave me a dozen puzzles in an advent calendar form. So perfect because they are each small and I have no guilt working a puzzle for 15 minutes a day.

Mary Lloyd gave me a Ho Ho Ho hat, not calling me a Ho, but knowing I do think it’s fun and funny.

If any husband wants to know what to get for their wife, they should ask her friends. For years I advised my friend’s husband about jewelry since he did not even know what color an emerald was. After years of private tutorials he finally graduated to being able to pick his own gifts.

I’m not in the market for anything extravagant or indulgent. This year a nicely worded heartfelt letter is what I want most from my family. My girl friends have already satisfied the fun of something unexpected and perfect.

My love language is not gifts, but acts of service and that is something that my husband knows very well. I am much happier with him doing the dishes every night than giving me any kind of gift.

Back to Cooking

I had the day totally off so I went ahead and made the soup for my garden club friends who paid too much for it. It has been so long since I have done any kind of production cooking, but it is like riding a bike.

I offered two quarts as my garden club item to one person, then I doubled it. So I really only had to make four quarts. A third person met the original bids and wanted two quarts. No problem, until she said she wanted a different soup. I had already bought everything to make a big pot of soup that would be between 14-16 quarts. So I gave the original bidders a little extra.

Russ and I had it for dinner. I packaged up the rest. I will serve some at a luncheon. Carter can have some when she gets home.

I will do some more production cooking tomorrow to make the second flavor. I just won’t make my biggest pot. I have no need for 16 more quarts. It did feel productive to make good soup. I just don’t want to fill the freezer and then not eat it out of the freezer.

I guess this is what happens when I take the rest of the year off from teaching. Maybe I should do something like clean out a closet. It would be getting rid of something rather than creating.