WINTER DREAMIN’

Winter is near and I am starting to become excited.  Yes, we still have a few weeks left until the official start of winter, but it sure does feel like it's here. It gets dark outside early enough that I am always driving home in twilight, after enjoying the lights downtown, which are already lit. The heat pump has been running constantly for days on end, even when I nudge it down to 67 at night, which makes me wonder if there is even any point to lowering it if it runs all the time anyway? I’m even wearing socks—sometimes to sleep. We are craving stews, soups, roasts, and other comforting foods. I’m chasing light around the house when I am here during day, and, like a cat, sitting in a sunbeam if it presents itself. Lights are popping up on homes and businesses around town. I’m even thinking about putting up a tree this coming week, and I usually wait until closer to Dec 10. It feels like the holidays here. After so many years without distinct and very different seasons, I admit I forget simple things like: sunshine doesn’t mean warm, and my hands are dry and red… and I sometimes scurry across the street from parking to the lobby at work regretting not wearing more layers…

Here are a few more things that i am looking forward to as winter arrives...

eating / reworked leftovers: ham, mashed potatoes, collards, green beans (Bun’s fave veg), stuffing, biscuits
drinking / gallons of pumpkin spice coffee (me), egg nog (the kids, especially Carter), cocoa (all of us)
mastering / real deal Christmas cookies
learning / how to *really* can, but maybe wimping out and using the freezer
playing / in the snow if/when it comes (I keep hearing this year will be a heavy year, but maybe that jinxes it?)
finishing / setting up our home, thus ending the world’s longest (feeling) move
reading / All That Is, a book I found on a critics’ best of ‘13 list and reserved at the library
slathering / lotion onto my red, dry hands (THIS kind at night; THIS kind at my desk)
walking / through the neighborhood in the evenings and looking at the lights
wearing / warm sweaters and corduroy, boots and woolly socks
cooking / my way through a book I got from the library, and making food gifts
traveling / here and there, but mostly to close-by places to explore with the family
wanting / a happy, healthy holiday season full of smiles
dreaming / about a warm weather getaway this spring, perhaps camping in a key in FL

p.s Otis only put up with this getup for a split second. I couldn’t resist it, though. This—and cuddles—are what you own pets for, right? I call it fair trade for all the scooping.

Lunching Ladies (AKA T-Room: Check!)

Our final day in my hometown Bunny and I had a mission to accomplish. We needed to check another item off the fun-do list, and this is a gastronomic delight that I believe you must be raised on or at least consume regularly before adulthood to tolerate it… as if you must be inoculated by a certain age or face consequences.

The Texas Inn, AKA Tea Room AKA T-Room. I could go on and on about the colorful patrons with which you share your meal at the dinged up stainless steel counter… and this day was no exception. My favorite was the lady of undeterminable yet advanced age wearing the kind of headwear you’d see Laura and Mary Ingalls wear to bed. Seriously, it was a blue bonnet with elastic all around creating a ruffle of eyelet lace. Still, she eyed me suspiciously. Rock on, Toots. Rock on.

Though I am not a full octane soda gal, usually, when at the T Room you must get a small Coke. I think it is a rule because I never went with one soul who did not drink that with their meal. I suspect the sugar helps bolster the stomach to help survive what comes next. I always heard the reason these increasingly hard to find small cokes are so good is that the same amount of syrup is used in a small one as a regular sized bottle. Whatever the reason, they’re awesome and worth every calorie.

Behold the Cheese Western, plain, cooked to order. It was even better than I remember, paired with ‘a bowl,’ otherwise known as a bowl of chili beans.

The girl gave the Cheesy two thumbs up and asked me to order her her own ‘bowl,’ since I added Texas Pete to mine to give it a kick she did not desire. Atta girl.

All told, we sucked down 2 Cheese Westerns, 2 Bowls, 3 small Cokes, and a Chili Cheese Dog, then I gave Bun a quarter for a handful of Chicklets out of the machine in the corner, which probably has had the same Chicklets in them since the 80s.

Everyone with an interesting hometown has a dive or three they simply must return to in spite of good judgment or doctor’s orders. To me, when in the Burg, the mother ship is this joint right here. Yum, yum, yum. Pass the Tums. (Kidding – my stomach was happy during and well after the meal.)

P.S. The tab was only $15 for all that. What a steal.

P.P.S. A ‘funny’ is a chili cheese dog minus the hot dog. So, basically chili and cheese on a bun. When you’re starving and have about $2 to your name it helps to have a $0.62 cent menu option, haha. I think they have jacked the price up about 10 cents in the past 20 years, the money grubbers. ;)

Biscuitville: Check!

Oooh Baby.  Bunny has been initiated.

I told her on the way home from the DRIVE THRU—making  it possible for Bun and me to enjoy biscuit goodness while not forcing the boys to also endure it--that it would be okay if she liked their sausage gravy biscuit more than mine… because I sure like it more.  She said she still loves the way I make ‘em, but yeah, theirs is “even better.”

Fire flies: Check!

We caught about 6 or 8 lightening bugs yesterday… some may or may not be free range inside right now. :)

Adding to the list…

A good list grows.

Biscuitville. 

I need some of that.  I know Bunny will enjoy it with me, and assume Cole, too.  They have fried chicken tenders, so maybe even Carter will eat there.  Score.

Otter Pops: Check!

Love checking things off my fun-do list.  :)

Also, not on the list, but something I have been wanting to try for a long time: bubble pearl tea.  It’s really weird, but good.

Next week I hope to cross the T Room off that list.  :)