Category Archives: Holidays
A haunting I will go…
Posted by doggonedmysteries
I’ve already started trolling the Halloween sites to check out what’s new in props and costumes. My neighbor and I might not carve as many pumpkins this year as we usually do so I have to fill up the porch somehow. Besides, I’m always up for a hauntingly good time and if we’re going to wow the kids again this year, it’s time to find or build the perfect props. I like to add something new each year.
Every year I do some changes to my costume but it stays somewhat the same. I did see one I think I might buy for a complete change. If I don’t buy the costume that caught my eye there is a fantastic wig I may go for to dress up my old costume.
I can’t help it it’s my favorite holiday. Dear Hubby seems to get a kick out of my delight in my Halloween props. He often brings a few small animatronics home that he’s found just to get me going. After all, they don’t hold up forever and we do lose one or two a year to wear and tear. Now if I can only get him to sit in that cardboard box with the tabletop on it and have his head on the platter…
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Brains and fireworks? I don’t think so…
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Gun powder smoke hangs heavy all over the city. Which is strange because for a state where fireworks are illegal and the city even has ordinances against the use of sparklers we saw plenty of them going off tonight.
I don’t mind the free shows, I rather enjoy them, but I do get angry when some people are dumb enough to set them off close to homes. It seems to me that that these people don’t have the brains they were born with once they have fireworks in their hands. All night we heard fire trucks going past—we live near two fire stations—you can bet that some idiots somewhere set a roof or two on fire.
Give some people fireworks and their brains take a walk without them. Many years ago, I saw an M80 with a short fuse peel the meat off three of my father in law’s fingers, his thumb, and half his hand, right to the bone, the damage to the nerves was severe and the resulting scars were a horror to behold. The following year I was at a picnic where a fool tossed M80’s underneath people’s chairs and thought it was hysterical. At least he did until he threw one under my MIL’s chair. At which point I grabbed the culprit by the front of his shirt and threatened to set off a few in his pants. The whole idea of roasting his chestnuts (and not by an open fire) put a damper on his high spirits.
Unless you live way out in the country and you know what you are doing, leave the fireworks to the professionals, and don’t give them to children to play with. Ask anyone who works the ER on the fourth; they see all the bad injuries.
Posted in Holidays
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Happy Easter!
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Posted in Holidays
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Top O’ the marnin’ to ye
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Happy St. Patty’s Day everyone!
Every year, my friends send me Irish jokes. I wear green. I cook corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes. My house bounces to the rhythms of Irish/Celtic music all day long. Dear Hubby is a true sweetheart and puts up with the second of two days a year where I kick up my heels at home.
To top everything off we’re supposed to have lovely weather for the day. The next day is supposed to be even better which couldn’t please me more since it’s my birthday.
(On a private note, Happy Birthday Cuz! )
Posted in Holidays, Misc, My blog
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Happy New Year Everyone!
Posted by doggonedmysteries
My wishes for the New Year are:
- Dear Hubby’s health stabilizes.
- We all find our bliss.
- You and yours have a healthy year.
- We all stay out of the poorhouse.
- I finish my books and my agent sells them in short order.
- We hit the lottery.
- Karma catches up with those who deserve it.
- The new administration actually does something to make this country great again and it wasn’t only election rhetoric.
- An end to world hunger.
- World peace.
Love and hugs to my dear Aunties, Cousins, and friends.
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Christmas Eve
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Rain has poured down on us all day and yet the icy snow remains in the yard. Last night’s freezing rain coated everything in a thin sheet of ice. I stepped out on the porch to look at the neighborhood Christmas lights reflected from every surface our block. It was a festive sight.
I’m happy to be snug at home this Christmas. I spent too many of them in the past far from my home. Where I was, I didn’t feel all that welcome and I missed Dear Hubby something terrible. A couple times, I was stuck in some distant airport waiting for a flight home.
So tonight, I’ll count my blessings while I snuggle with DH and the pups and we enjoy our movie marathon and pop corn.
A younger sister who was the strongest person I ever knew blessed me with her love every day of her short life.
A father who was loving, kind, and compassionate blessed me.
A mother who understood and always told me to be myself and be proud of who I am blessed me.
I will always love and miss them.
My Dear Hubby is a blessing to me every day.
My wonderful aunties and cousins are truly a blessing.
My dear friends old and new are always a blessing.
Have a wonderful Holiday dear readers for you too are a blessing to me.
Posted in Holidays, In memory of..., My blog
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Cookies, friends, and comfort
Posted by doggonedmysteries
My closest friend stopped by today to schmooze and bring us a container of Christmas cookies. She does this every year. I stopped baking my usual ton of cookies several years ago. (I limit us to a few pies, brownies, and fancy loaf breads most of which I give away.) Dear Hubby and I don’t need too many baked goods around and our dear neighbor’s kindly treat is just enough.
Tomorrow I’ll bake my traditional pecan pie for Thursday’s dinner. If it hadn’t been for another dear friend, I wouldn’t be doing that.
Christmas Eve DH and I will snuggle in with the pups and treat ourselves to a couple of new DVDs, eggnog, and pop corn. The pups will go through their repertoire of tricks to try to beg some pop corn off us. They’ll get some, but they’re not spoiled or anything.
Christmas day we will sleep in late and then enjoy some fresh coffee and sweet rolls. We don’t do gifts. Each day we have together is gift enough for us. The pups will get their new Nylabones, they like presents, and we wouldn’t think of depriving them.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday.
Always check for uninvited guests
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Many years ago, when we still put up a Christmas tree, we’d go to a local tree farm and cut down our own. Getting a tree at a Christmas tree farm guarantees that you get a fresh one. However, every now and then, you might bring home some uninvited guests.
Almost everyone remembers National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. One of my favorite scenes is when Chevy Chase tangles with the squirrel that had stowed away in the Christmas tree. We didn’t have a crazed squirrel but we did find some uninvited guests in our tree one year.
While hanging the lights on the tree I came across two odd looking things stuck to two of the branches. I showed them to Dear Hubby and he knew what they were. He clipped the twigs off, took them outside, and tied them onto a couple of hedge branches. “People pay for those egg casings,” he told me when he came in.
“They what?”
“Those were Praying Mantis eggs.”
“Oh, neat!”
Had those objects stayed in the warm house, several thousand, tiny Praying Mantis would have hatched out of them. It’s definitely not as dramatic as a wild and crazy squirrel stowed away in your tree.
I’m glad we didn’t have thousands of teensy bugs running around the house for Christmas.
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The procrastinator’s tree
Posted by doggonedmysteries
A conversation I overheard this evening while I had the dogs outside made me wonder how many other Christmas tree procrastinators are out there.
The smallest of three children asked, “We’re getting our tree tomorrow aren’t we Dad?”
“The wind chill is going to drop the temperature to zero degrees tomorrow and there’ll be wind gusts of forty miles per hour. I’m not taking you kids out in that for a tree.” The father tugged on his dog’s leash and dragged it away from a telephone pole.
His wife shrugged. “We can better put it off for another day it’s supposed to be nicer on Tuesday.”
“But, you promised we’d go TOMORROW. All my friends have their trees up already.” The eldest of the three children whined and kicked at a chunk of ice.
“Oh, yeah sure. We’re going to go hunting for a tree in that kind of weather. No way. The tree can wait another day. I don’t intend to be found frozen to some pine tree, ax in hand, at the tree farm.”
The middle child said, “But MOOOOM, tell him Christmas Eve is Wednesday.”
The mother said, “Why don’t we go buy a fake tree tomorrow? Then you won’t need to go chop down a tree and the kids will happy.”
The man wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “But it’s a tradition. I’ve done it since I was a kid. I want them to have the same traditions.”
Santa’s elves didn’t have kids
Posted by doggonedmysteries
You can blame the Lipstick Chronicles and Harley’s last post for my blog tonight. It made me remember the things Dear Hubby and I used to do during the Christmas holidays.
We didn’t have children. However, we did celebrate Christmas in our own way. Each year we’d buy toys and drop them in the Toys for Tots bin. (We still do that.) We’d put up a Christmas tree, decorate the house, and I’d bake cookies and fancy breads. Our neighbors would bring their children’s gifts to our house. We marked each household’s gifts and stored them in the attic.
Every Christmas Eve we’d go to one neighbor’s house for a small party. (We were their second child’s Godparents.) Around nine we’d go home. They’d put their two daughters to bed and wait for us to return with Santa’s gifts. For the next couple of hours, Dear Hubby and I would run up and down the street delivering Santa’s gifts to the other neighbors. Our last stop would be back at our Goddaughter’s. Usually, her mother and I assembled the toys well before Christmas Eve. However, on occasion, DH and I were the elves who put them together Christmas Eve.
When our Goddaughter hit the Barbie doll and bicycle age, we in some way turned into the elf assembly team and Dear Hubby and I put together the Barbie townhouse-a flimsy affair. We then carried it three doors down the street in ten mph winds and snow. Upon arrival inside our friend’s home, we all sat down with a bottle of wine and spent another hour rebuilding it.
The next year we had the construction of Barbie’s car and the application of gazillions of stickers to it. These stickers were so teensy that they required an electron microscope, tweezers, and the hands of a surgeon to apply them.
In the year of the bicycle, our Goddaughter’s father and DH spent two days putting it together. I hadn’t heard language like that since I’d worked construction.
Late at night, every Christmas Eve after all the gifts were distributed, I put small strings of sleigh bells on my dogs and walked them for several blocks. The dogs loved the walks and I think they got a kick out of the bells because they sure would make certain they jingled a lot.
What’s the worst gift you ever received?
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Dear Hubby and I no longer exchange wrapped gifts. He doesn’t have the energy or strength to go shopping and I hate to shop. Instead, we think of things we like to buy or do and we go out together and buy or do whatever.
On our first Christmas, DH surprised me with a pair of diamond earrings, they weren’t large, they weren’t fancy, but to me they were the crown jewels and I loved them. To this day, I’m seldom seen without them.
I think it was our second Christmas where he made a mistake. He listened to his mother about what gift he should buy for me. Maybe some people would love to receive a new vacuum cleaner, but cleaning items have never ranked a place on my Santa’s list. Cleaning is work. DH never made that sort of blunder again.
Since that second year fiasco, he has managed to buy me brilliant and insightful gifts, gifts that have brought tears of joy to my eyes. The best of them weren’t expensive they were the gifts that proved he’d been listening to me during the year.
Now you tell me what was your ‘worst’ gift ever?
Sure, give me a down filled robe
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Dear Hubby was leafing through a catalogue tonight and managed to come across a few items he knew to be completely unsuitable for me right now. Things like Doctor Dentons made of fleece, down filled robes, or wraps made like electric blankets…the perfect gifts for a woman whose inner child plays with matches. Yeah, right. This man had the nerve to giggle as he showed them to me, certainly not a safe thing to do.
I told him, “Go ahead, and laugh mister. You have to sleep sometime. Keep in mind that I write murder mysteries. I also do all the cooking around here. Mwahaha!”
In this house, my hot flashes are legendary. Dear Hubby swears that if he could hook me to the furnace in some way we’d save a fortune on fuel bills. (Gee, thanks.)
Another thing, he’s always cold and cranks up the thermostat and I turn it down. “Are you trying to roast me alive?”
I’m telling you it’s not Global warming that’s screwing up our climate, it’s all us baby boomers hitting menopause.
Doggonedmysteries 