Pictures By Jan

Hey, Y'all, It was the evening of the 22nd Annual Neighborhood Bennett Christmas Party, and we all came bearing gifts and food, then proceeded to have a dandy time. (As you can see from the photos).

I decided to just mostly let the pictures do the talking for me. Most of them were taken by Jan, who is the lady in the first picture, pictured with her husband, Patrick. Jan is the mother of Amy, my grandson, Matt's, new bride as of this past May. Jan is a terrific lady and an excellent photographer. You may notice several people holding up the same gifts. When we opened a gift, that didn't necessarily mean that we could keep it, if someone else who had not yet opened a gift wanted it. Anyway, some of us wound up with the gifts we brought, including me, which suited me just fine. Had I not liked what I brought, I would not have brought it.

Well, that is about it for today. Enjoy the pictures and know that we all had a great time. The y0ung people in the last picture are mostly neighborhood kids that have been coming ever since they were born, and some were not even born when the parties were initiated 22 years ago. The others are newcomers by marriage, (i.e. Emily's Ben, and Matt's Amy).

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. Much love to each of you, my friends and family. Bye for now. More later.

What We Did

Hey, Y'all,
Well, I know you may have thought I would never get back to you, but here I am, reporting on my friend, Dot's, visit. She arrived on last Friday around six p.m. and we headed on back here to my home. Carol took me to pick her up and then Daryl met us here at my home. We had a good hot supper of tomato basil soup which had been simmering in my crock pot most of the day, followed by a chocolate eclair dessert made with chocolate graham crackers, layered with a jello pudding mixed with cool whip and layers of chocolate fudge cake frosting. Yum!

After Carol and Daryl departed for home, we sat up and talked til about eleven p.m., and then I showed her her room and took her on a tour of the house (that didn't take long, ha). The next morning, after breakfast and sitting and talking awhile, we got ready and left about 12:30 to go to lunch before attending the live production of "Annie" at the Artisan Theater in Hurst. We had lunch at a restaurant not far from the Artisan, called Italianni's and it was delicious!

Then we went on to see "Annie" and it was wonderful! We laughed and really enjoyed the outing. Soon after we came in and were seated at the beginning of the show, a little girl of about four years came in, dressed like Annie, with the red dress and red curly hair (a wig, I am sure), with her mom and little sibling, and sat down in the section across from us. Every program has a slip of paper to be filled out for the person to have a chance to win a pair of tickets to an upcoming performance. At intermission, the owners of the theater come out and speak to the audience, and then have a drawing for several tickets to be given to some of the audience members. Well, they put the slips of paper in a huge drum, and then a child turns the drum and another one pulls out the slip of paper. Out of her seat, comes the little four year old Annie, to pull out the winning slips. She was absolutely adorable.
I took a picture of her in the section where she was sitting.

There were also a bunch of little girls sitting in another section who were all wearing pink. I don't know the significance of the pink, but apparently the group were all together and they enjoyed it all.

After the production was over and we went outside, it was getting dark, and I thought, "UH-OH! Bad, bad, bad", because I have trouble seeing at night, and Dot has cataracts on her eyes, and I had only been that way once and at that time had barely missed meeting my maker by being in the wrong lane. Neither of us could see the street signs, and just had to trust my instincts as to where to turn left to get onto my familiar street of Central. I told Dot to start praying, and the Lord was certainly with us and I found the right intersection to turn.

We got home and I felt like kissing the ground, ha. That night, I prepared the sausage/egg casserole to take with us the next morning to church for breakfast, and the next morning, I popped it into the oven and it cooked while we got ready to go to Sunday School and church. After church, we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch, (which I had never been to before, but I had googled the location so I knew where to find it). We spent about 2 hours there, just sitting and talking and enjoying the ambiance. Sunday evening, Carol and Daryl came by the house and picked us up to take us to the Christmas music that was performed by the Countryside Bible Church Choir, and it was beautiful; we were so glad to have the opportunity to hear it.

I wanted to take Dot to the Antique Store and Coco's Tea Room where Carol quite often took me when Dub and I would come out this way to visit, so I did that on Monday, and we spent quite a while looking at the antiques in the stalls there, and I bought a big piece of furniture to go into my dining room in a big space not yet occupied. It is a 1940's white solid maple kitchen hutch, and a couple of my grandson's are going to get it home for me when they can. After we got through going around inside the antique part of the store, we went to have lunch at the little tearoom in one section of the store, called "Coco's" (see pictures). We had a darling waitress and busboy, who posed for us.

After we finished eating (about an hour and a half of eating and talking - much more talking than eating), we left and went to Andrew and Julia's home, which is fairly near the store, and spent some time with Julia, and the two little girls they have. We had a great time with the three of them. The two little ones had just awakened from their afternoon naps and were ready to play.

We headed on home then and spent the rest of the day just talking and watching some tevee, and doing some computering. On Tuesday, Dot said she wanted to take me to breakfast, so I said "Okay" and we went to LePeep's and had a good breakfast. We had done some searching on the internet for some places that sell turquoise jewelry for men, because she wanted to find some for her husband, Rick. So, we set out to look. The first place had gone out of business, and we never could find the second place, so we gave up and decided to come back to the house and look on the internet and order from it. So we did. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and I showed her some games on facebook and we played those.

On Wednesday, I took Dot to another of those places that Carol always took me when we came to visit, and that is the Container Store, where they have all kinds of containers to "put stuff in" and it is just so much fun to look at all that stuff. For a person who loves to "organize", it is a hoot! So after we had breakfast at home, by nearly noon we were ready to go. (Dot is not a morning person, so there were no early morning excursions from here). I had never been to the Container Store, but I knew where it was and how to get there. It is just one street over from the busiest street in Southlake, where it is located. I turned into the parking area and parked, and we went into the store and spent about an hour and a half just looking and choosing a few items we wanted. We went through the checkout and on out to the car. I saw there was a lot of traffic coming in and out of the street where we came in, so I decided to see if I could find a way out onto the busy Southlake avenue so we could turn left easily. I did, and we got back to the main road I wanted to be on and back we went toward home.

When we got to the Glade road where I like to do some shopping, I suggested we turn onto it and have some lunch. We went to a place I hadn't been to before, called "Freddy's Steakburgers". We went in and ordered, and sat down to wait. We noticed that a couple of the guys working there were sneezing, and we wondered if we dared eat the food. (You know you don't want your food sneezed on unless you are the one doing the sneezing, and even then that is not desirable, ha). But I must say, the burgers were delicious, so I guess they must have been sneezefree. ha ha.

Wednesday evening, we had some young people from the Countryside Bible Church come to my home and sing some carols for our enjoyment. I told them that usually that is done for little old ladies and little old men, and I just realized that I must be in that classification finally. Ha ha. Anyway, we all got a good laugh from that one, and they said they were going to the Pastor's home after they left us, so that must not be true that you have to be a very elderly person to have that honor and privilege. We sang with them, and had a lot of fun with them. They brought me a gift box of candy, yum!

Thursday morning, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast, and we had already arranged for an airport shuttle to pick up Dot shortly after 10:30, so about 10:45, here it came down the street, and she was ready. We said our goodbyes and the van departed, taking my good friend with it and she called me when she got home with the news that it was a good flight and she got home safely. It was a great visit, dear friend, and I will see you again one of these days. I love you, Dot.

Last night, Carol came by and picked me up, and we went to a ladies' tea at the church. It was beautiful. All the tables were decorated for Christmas, with real china and candles, and we had about eight long tables filled with goodies for us to eat, along with all kinds of teas and coffee to drink. There was music for entertainment as we ate and chatted with one another. We had an inspirational speaker that followed the fellowship of tea and goodies. It was a lovely time. I am so glad I got to attend it with Carol.

That is about it for right now, folks. I was busy yesterday after Dot left. I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, stripped beds and then remade with clean sheets, and last night when I came home from the church I did not stay up a long time, and was in bed by 10:30 or so. I actually got about six hours of sleep straight through last night. Up this morning by five to gather up the trash and carry it out to the curb for pickup. It looks like it is breakfast time, and I reckon I will have mine soon.

Pictures:
1. Dot and I at Italianni's
2. At Annie (yeah, I know it is not a flattering picture of me with my mouth open, but the lady who took it for us, caught me ready to say something, and well... I can laugh at myself)
3. Across the way from us at Annie (see little girl in Annie outfit in middle of second row of seats)
4. Little girls in pink at Annie
5. Lunch at Coco's tea room
6. Waitress at tea room
7. Waitress and busboy
8. At LePeep's
9. Nativity scene at Carol and Daryl's home (utter simplicity of backlit cutouts is refreshing when one sees all the lights at other homes)
10.-13 Carolers at my home in living room.

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. Much love to each of you, my friends and family. More later. Bye for now.

Busy Preparations

Hey, Y'all,
Well, I have been busy today getting my house ready for company. Cleaning the dusty floors (laminate wood) and removing dust from furniture, making the house smell good. I use a computer chair to sit in and roll around to mop the floors, since my back hurts to stand and use a mop. It works really well, especially since the floors are wood. I get every thing loose out of the floor and put it on tables (trash cans, etc), and then I can mop without any problem. I use a spray bottle with the cleaning solution and a dry swifter pad/mop and do a section at a time. The bathrooms will be done later today, along with dusting. The kitchen is already clean (dishes, etc).

By the way, I know some of you may have been wondering how my doctor's appointment went on Tuesday. It went very well, and I don't have to see her until three months from now. I do have to go in and have blood work done in a month, to check my potassium and liver enzymes, since I am no longer taking potassium capsules and have begun taking cholesterol medication again, after being off of it for about 7 months or so. My blood pressure was 110/62, which was absolutely great!

As you may know, my good friend from college is coming to visit me tomorrow, for about six days, and I will be making a dessert tonight for our supper tomorrow evening. I am planning on having tomato basil soup along with cornbread or cheese sandwiches - whichever is preferred. The dessert will be a chocolate eclair dessert. I am using sugar free jello pudding mix along with sugar free chocolate frosting, and the cool whip is lite. My friend, Dot, is diabetic and has to be careful of her sugar intake.

It will be wonderful to spend some time with Dot, and we are both looking forward to it. We first met forty-seven years ago and have been friends over the years. We will be going to see a live production of "Annie" at the local Artisan Theater.

My daughter, Teresa, had her second AC chemo infusion today, and I know that for several days she will experience days of intense weakness and inability to care for herself. Please continue to pray for her and Tom as they go through this, and I know they will appreciate it, because we know He hears and answers prayers. How our hearts ache for her and for Tom as he takes care of her and sees her in pain.

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. Much love for each of you, my friends and family. Good bye for now. Bye for now.

Birthday Celebrations

Hey, Y'all,
Today, I am just mostly posting photos that I took last evening when we got together at Carol and Daryl's home for celebration of Carol and Matthew's birthdays. Matthew is Carol and Daryl's youngest son, and was there with his sweet newly-wed wife, Amy. Carol's next to oldest son, Andrew and his dear wife were there with their two adorable children, Carol and Daryl's youngest, daughter Emily and her newly-wed dear Ben, were there as well. And, of course, the family photographer, yours truly.

Needless to say, we had a really great time; the food was delicious, as always; and it was just a wonderful, joyous, comfortable evening.

Pictures: from the top:
I. In Grandpa, Daryl's, Lap
2. In Daddy, Andrew's, Lap
3. Tell me that again?
4. Grandkids
5. Table
6. Newly-weds Emily and Ben
7. Gotcha! Grandpa
8. In Aunt Amy's Lap watching Uncle Matt
9. A Gift Card!
10. Matt said, "I can really use this!"
11. Yay! A movie we can all watch!
12. Julia, Andrew and baby

Well, folks, that is it for today. I have a doctor's appointment in about an hour and a half, so I have to get moving. This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. More later. Much love to each of you, my friends and family. Bye for now.

Disn' Dat

Hey, Y'all,
Yeah, not a lot going on right now....it is pretty cold out this morning. They just said it is 27 degrees in Fort Worth, which means that here in Bedford it is probably about the same. Brrrrr.
Let me see, on Saturday of last week, I went to a seniors' luncheon and tasted Beef Wellington for the first time in my 77 years. Yum! I almost felt like I was in Britain chowing down on an English delicacy. The tables were decorated beautifully, with tall glass vases that must have been about 24 inches tall and very slim, fluted shapes. The flowers that were in them looked to rise about another 18-24 inches above the top of the vases. There were marbles and water in the vases holding the flowers upright. The napkins were huge and folded so as to make three pockets holding cards and silverware. Tealight candles in square candle holders graced the tables as well.

Two handsome young men supplied the music for our luncheon, one of them playing the flute and the other accompanying on the keyboard. It was beautiful and very pleasant to hear the Christmas music as we chatted at our tables. After we were through eating, they sang some songs for us and then we all sang some together. There were about fifty persons attending the luncheon. The after luncheon speaker was Dr. Doug Briggs, who is a medical missionary to Tibet in China. He and his family have been serving in that capacity for around fifteen years (I believe) and he told many stories about their time of service there and had accompanying slides that he shared with us.

We each had a Christmas card at our places that were addressed to people who had either health concerns or were involved in missions work, that we wrote on the inside of and signed. The cards were beautifully addressed in calligraphy so they can be mailed in time for the addressees can receive them for Christmas.

I am so glad I was able to attend that function. It was very enjoyable to spend that time eating with friends, hearing beautiful music, and hearing about missions work in the foreign field.

Well, I am watching the news right now about the cold freeze hitting the southeast and midwest. Makes me shiver and be grateful for my warm place, when I see those people fighting the snow and cold. Been there, done that.

Yesterday was my daughter, Carol's, birthday. I won't tell you how old she is, but I was 19 when she was born. I had lunch (along with her daughter, Emily and her husband, Ben, and Daryl, Carol's husband and Emily's dad) with Carol, and then we played some dominoes for a couple of hours.

Tonight is the family celebration of Carol's and Matt's birthdays. Matt's birthday was on the 29th. We will gather at Carol and Daryl's home and have supper and a great time. I look forward to it. I hope to get some housework done during the day today. Breakfast first, since I haven't had that yet. I'll be taking pictures tonight.

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for today. Much love to each of you, my friends and family. More later. Bye for now.

I Never Thought....

Hey, Y'all,
I found out yesterday that the land here in North eastern Texas is not all flat lands. I went to a lovely brunch with several members of the Bible Study at the home of one of the members who was kind enough to invite us. I had Googled the address so that I could find it easily, and when I was on my way in, I noticed that there were a lot of ups and downs in the terrain. When I arrived, I was on top of a hill (a really high one) and all the driveways were sloped DOWN and I thought, "hmmm.. I'm not driving down in there, I would never get out". Besides, the house numbers were hard to read because the sun was in my eyes, and the numbers were very pale.

I deliberated, where to park...or not to park...I was in a cul-de-sac high on a hill...what to do. I heard a dog barking...did I dare get out of the car...was the dog penned up...would it attack me...I had a hot dish to carry in and I knew I would have a hard time getting it out and closing the hatch back of the car with pot holders, holding the hot dish. After I had determined the house I needed to enter, I saw it had about 25 steps and the walk was flagstone. Oh, my...with my aching back, carrying a hot dish that was heavy...climbing all those steps...I almost lost my courage and went back home. But I didn't leave...I went up the steps and was exhausted when I reached the door. I jokingly asked Teresa, the hostess, if she couldn't have made it more of a challenge. Ha ha.

Anyhow, I went into such a beautiful dwelling, and so beautifully decorated, and so very welcoming, where another member of the group was already there, with her little boy. Before long there were several more ladies and another couple of children, with delicious food that they had brought with them. It was a beautiful time that we had together, and we had a sharing time of telling how much we had gained in help from our study of James in the New Testament.

Of course, I brought my camera along and took some pictures, which you see at the top of today's posting. By the way, my internet has been down for several hours and just came back online a short time ago. I had the technician out today and he said the problem is outside the house and at a huge connection down the street. Someone is supposed to come and work on the connection tomorrow. My internet ws down yesterday afternoon too, and came on again last night. Very strange....I was sitting here watching tevee and looked up and saw the green lights on the modem were lit up meaning the internet was up again, just like last night. It is really weird.. Wonder how long it will be working? Long enough for me to get some stuff done on it, I hope.

I have some packages to take to the post office tomorrow morning, and hopefully, all of my Christmas stuff will be done. I did some housework today, and put up a little fiberoptic Christmas tree, and have another one to put up tomorrow. I need to mop the house and do some other stuff, and by Saturday should be finished with it. The seniors at church are having a Christmas luncheon on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. which I have signed up to attend, and am looking forward to it. I am planning on going to bed in just a little while, after I check on my farm at Farmville.

The picture taken through the picture window shows the incline and also how beautiful it is up there on top of the hill. Rather than name any of the members of the group (and maybe call someone by the wrong name) I'll just say we all had a wonderful time and the food was really tasty. It was pot luck, of course. We had a really enjoyable time and watching the kids play was fun too. The dog was so well behaved and took a real shine to anyone who would pet her. A gracious hostess, Teresa, made it all the more wonderful. Thank you, ladies, for a great time.

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. Much love to each of you, my friends and family. Bye for now. More later.