Happy New Year!!!!

Happy New Year!

Then out through the gates of the midnight—
      The door of the past was ajar—
      His robe like a shroud wrapped around him,
      The Old Year vanished afar.
And as morn with her soft rosy fingers
      Flung open the gates of the East,
      The New Year looked out from its chambers
      With a smile and a blessing of peace.
~Eliza A. Wetherby Otis

At This Year's End

There’s a fire burning outside my window

With leaves of red, orange, and gold.

There’s a fire burning outside my window

That tells me the year has grown old.

There is a coldness in the morning air

Bare limbs mark the pale blue sky.

Fruits and flowers of the summer fair,

Have withered brown and finally died.

And I am melancholy, heart and soul

Paralyzed by this year’s regrets, mistakes.

I cannot shake their strong grip and hold

Mired down in doubt, with time too late.

But with Christmas and Christ’s sweet birth

Comes the chance to start all things anew.

With His forgiveness, love, and worth

The old year I can bid adieu.

Lord, do not leave me; hold me tight

And by Thy mercies guide my steps

Into this new year, dark as night

Made crystal clear by Your precepts.

And when the fire outside my window

Burns again at this year’s end

Help me with certainty to know

I was in your path, your purpose, dear Lord, Amen.

Love ya'll,

Shelli

Sweet Christmas Tradition

Everyone has Christmas traditions. My dear friend, Lisa Cheramie, bakes decorative iced cookies with her daughter, and now grandchildren, each year. Many families holiday traditions center around football games and tailgating. And then there are hunting, caroling, church services, and more. One of my favorite Christmas traditions is captured in Truman Capote's fruitcake saga, A Christmas Story.

My dad was recently invited to participate in a tradition held this time each year in his neck of the woods that echoed back to the old days....

Dad was instructed to meet friends at an area outside Florien, Louisiana known as Devil's Branch. Directions led him down to the end of Jungle Club Road to a field of freshly cut, stripped sugar cane.

Next to the field, a Christmas syrup-making tradition was in full swing. Modern technology, a riding lawnmower, had replaced the mules of yesteryear, but the process was still the same.

The cane was  ground down to fill two 55 gallon drums of juice. The juice was then poured into a metal cooking pan.

Wood had to be chopped to keep a steady fire burning. If the fire was too hot, the syrup would scorch; if the fire wasn't hot enough, the juice wouldn't thicken. During the cooking process, wood was constantly being added or removed from the fire to keep the syrup at the optimum temperature.The syrup made that day took about five hours to cook, which was about 1 1/2 hours longer than the day before because the weather was much cooler.

As the sugar cane juice began to boil, a foam formed on the surface and had to be skimmed from the top.

As time passed, the juice began to thicken and its color began to darken. Then it was time to pour the finished product into half-gallon jugs.

When Dad broke open the seal on one of the jugs, I was instantly transported to Grandma Wig's kitchen where butter was melting on a pan of her homemade biscuits that were about to be swimming in delicious pure cane syrup!

The best thing about this sweet Christmas tradition is that on Christmas morning we will all sit down to Oakdale biscuits, Pleasant Hill sausage, and Devil's Branch syrup. It doesn't get any better than that. Thanks, Tom!!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

Christmas....

that magic blanket that wraps itself about us,

that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance.

It may weave a spell of nostalgia.

Christmas may be a day of feasting,

or of prayer,

but always it will be a day of remembrance...

a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.

-Agusta E. Rundell

We Gave Thanks!!

We had a fun Thanksgiving here at Turkey Creek Garden.

The weather was perfect

and

    we... 

Love ya'll,

Shelli

What Happened to October?!!

Wow!  I last posted here on Growing Branches October 2nd and I woke up this morning and it is Halloween........  What happened?!! Where did the month go?

My friend, Kathy, says that October, with its promise of cooler weather, gets everybody motivated again, and that's why every group you belong to has some event planned for that month. Add on homecomings, football games, and fall festivals and ,well, you can see what happens. But isn't it all fun; full of friends and family. I wouldn't change a thing!

We started this busy time with a quick trip to Dallas for Ella's homecoming football game. It was our first chance to see her in action as a Talennette for Allen High School.

Ella is such an awesome girl and we were bursting with pride!! The entire game experience was such fun because if you went to school at Many High, this is NOT what your Friday nights looked like...

...but what fun to see how they do it in the city!! It was homecoming and as the band marched into the stadium, I was able to catch a picture of this student with her homecoming mum pinned to her uniform.

Now whether homecoming mums have just gotten bigger in the 40 years since I graduated or if this is a classic case of "everything's bigger in Texas" I don't know, but it was impressive to say the least!! Jamie says that the Texas homecoming mum has a life of its own so you may want to peruse the web for more on this subject because let me assure you, this mum isn't the biggest or most outlandish!

Later that weekend we enjoyed dinner with our sweet nephew, Thomas, who is a student at TCU in Fort Worth.

When we got home, I immediately started packing for James and me to leave on our fall trip to the Historic Triangle. Between this trip, the Master Gardener Fall Plant Sale, CCA's Soup for the Soul, two new Bible studies, and, of course, a trip to NOLA to be with Olive, it is no wonder that October passed in a blur.

I will love sharing some of those things with you, but am plagued by a little niggle in the back of my mind that something is not right. We'll talk about that too!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

From the latter weeks of October to Christmas-eve... is the period during which happiness is in season, which, in my judgment, enters the room with the tea-tray...

~Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859)

Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heartstrings that play soft and low...
~Van Morrison, "Moondance," recorded 1969

Count Me Out

The first presidential debate is tonight and I am opting out.

I recognize the importance of this election and take my right to vote seriously, but if choosing between these candidates is like going to the dentist (painful, but necessary), then watching the debates is like going to the dentist and refusing Novocaine! Why make it worse than it already is?!

Instead, James and I are going to The Fabulous Equinox Orchestra concert at Tech.

At the end of the night we'll be happier :-)

Love ya'll,

Shelli

We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate.

~Kin Hubbard

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President;

I'm beginning to believe it.

~Clarence Darrow

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country — and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians. ~Charles Krauthammer

If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.

~Jay Leno

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

~Ronald Reagan

We have plenty of Confidence in this country, but we are a little short of

good men to place our Confidence in.

~Will Rogers

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.

~George Jean Nathan

Blue Apron

James and I will have been married 35 years this November. That means that for 35 years I have been a lucky girl living with a man I love and admire, a man who is fun, funny, steadfast and true. He is a great dad and great granddad. But that also means that for 35 years I have been deciding what we will have for dinner.

I don't mind cooking dinner or even cleaning up afterward, but deciding what we will have for dinner is a pain in the neck and after all these years, I'm over it!! Enter Blue Apron or as we call it, Blue Bayou, because at our age your mind sort of has a mind of its own and my mind immediately replaced Blue Apron (the food service) with Blue Bayou (the water park in Baton Rouge), and when that happens at my age it is easier to just go with it. 

  
Blue Bayou (Apron) is a meal delivery service- not prepared meals, but meal ingredients. Nothing processed- all fresh. There are two meal plans, one for two people and one for four. Our plan sends us three meals for two people. We choose the meals online. There are six to choose from each week. If we don't want to receive meals on a certain week, we just cancel online for that week.

Each Friday we get this box delivered to our front door. We chose Friday as our delivery day because it fits our schedule, but you can choose the delivery day that works best for you.

The box is packed with ice packs to ensure freshness. Last Friday I was working in the garden when the FedEx guy drove up so I met him at his truck. There were a gazillion Blue Bayou boxes in there!! He told me that he delivers about 40 per day!

I remove the ingredients for our meals and store them in a plastic container in the fridge- a tip from my sister. I freeze meat, chicken, or seafood that I am not going to use immediately.
(James was telling me that a sports radio personality that he listens to was recently talking about his Blue Bayou experience and that he had really enjoyed it until they sent him rancid chicken. Then he admitted that he had let the chicken sit in his fridge for over a week. Men!)

When it is time to cook, I choose a recipe page and take its ingredients out of the container. Everything needed for the recipe is included- EVERYTHING!!! Well, that's not true, you have to use your own olive oil, salt, and pepper. Everything else is included. The recipes are easy to follow and aren't too involved. Last night bok choy was one of the ingredients and I have never cooked with it. That's one of my favorite things about Blue Bayou, the variety that it has given us after being stuck in a culinary rut.

James, who was a bit skeptical of the whole idea, has really been impressed with the meals. He has declared them tasty and ample. They are easy enough for him to prepare when I am gone to Bible study on Wednesday nights, an endeavor I believe he secretly enjoys. The three meals work perfectly for us because James plays tennis the other two nights a week and we just Lean Cuisine it those nights, then usually eat out on the weekend.

This past weekend, James and I went to New Orleans to help Katherine and Collin move into a new apartment. When we got home late Sunday, it was so nice to know that my meals for the week were planned, purchased, and waiting for me in the fridge, and I hadn't had to do a thing!! Thank you Blue Bayou!!

https://www.blueapron.com/

Love ya'll,

Shelli

If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don't.

~Michael Pollan

Paper Cuts

My awesome sister, Carole, who is always up for an adventure signed us up for a paper cutting event at her public library. Now you may think that's not much of an adventure, but when you hear that this event was for graphic designers from the Mobile area and that we were the only two nongraphic nondesigners who attended, well, then you understand why it was adventure!!

You see, everyone loves Carole - neighbors, church friends, hospital coworkers, everybody!!! She is so well liked that she gets invited to random stuff like graphic designer club workshops, but the best part is she goes!!! And this time I got to go too!

The workshop was conducted by Suzanne Sarver, the author and illustrator of the book Birdie. The book's picture is at the top of this post. Her illustrations were made of 3d paper cuttings, and they were just so cool! 

She had assembled the basic tools we needed for our first foray into this art form, and after a power point that gave step-by-step instructions, everyone got busy. Paper cutters use Exacto knives rather than scissors. This almost drove me mad! The pictures are built from the background up to the foreground, and a 3d effect is created by using foam tape between layers. 

By the end of the afternoon, we had each completed a project.

Carole, a pathologist/cytologist, recreated cancer cells as they look under the microscope. My photo does not do the 3d effect justice.

I made a Turkey Creek Garden greeting card.

Although Carole and I were pleased as punch with our achievements, it was obvious that the people sitting around us were true artist.

For paper cuts that will take your breath away check out this link:

http://www.designsponge.com/2013/02/25-amazing-papercut-artists.html

Love ya'll,

Shelli

All art requires courage. ~Anne Tucker

Purses or Handbags?

Do you call them purses or handbags? Maybe the word you choose depends on your age; maybe it depends on the price. Recently, as I was scrolling through the Yahoo feed, this headline caught my eye.

Women have abandoned a longtime wardrobe staple — and that's terrifying news for Michael Kors, Coach, and Kate Spade

As I read the last designer's name a distant memory was suddenly triggered in my mind and I was transported to the streets of New York City. My sister and I were running down a side street away from Times Square where undercover policemen were blowing whistles and the bootleggers that we had just bought our Kate Spade knockoffs from had gathered up their bedsheets full of illicit merchandise and were running for the hills. 

Later that summer I was purchasing something from a little upscale boutique, and because I rarely enter upscale boutiques, I was overcome with the need to prove to the clerk that I was worthy to shop in her fancy establishment.  I proudly set my "Kate Spade" bag on the counter to remove my credit card when the Kate Spade name tag (which should have been sewn on, not glued) fell off and landed gently between the two of us. The clerk looked down at the tag and up at me. Her eye brows rose up to her hair line and her eyes slowly glazed over with a haughty look that said FAKE.  

Maybe that's why I was so excited yesterday to buy four purses/handbags for $20. That's $20 for all four!!!

They're reversible!! The one on the left is black with a brown reverse, and the other is taupe/nude with a grey reverse. Now because they are reversible, they have no pockets for storage and that may kill the deal for you, but because they are from Wal Mart I just ran over to the school supplies and bought me a couple of pencil bags to store stuff in. 

But most importantly they're legal and won't give me nightmares about being chased down the streets of NYC by the police or strangers with bedsheets.

Love ya'll,

Shelli

Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like.

-Will Rogers

Quick Road Trip

 James and I took a quick road trip a few weeks ago up to El Dorado Arkansas for an antique show. While there, we passed the courthouse, a classic example of art deco architecture. We pulled into the parking lot so we could take a minute to admire the building's details when this sign caught my eye.

 Their adoption of the courthouse's landscaping reminded me of all the projects our Master Gardener group has implemented here in Lincoln parish and the fun we have getting together to weed, plant, and improve on those projects- not to mention the pleasure our projects bring the public. 

As I scoped out their efforts, I could hear the echo of discussions about plant selection and see the impression of gardening friends meeting in the early morning hours on the day of installation. What fun!

                                                               Love ya'll,
                                                                 Shelli

While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many.

 ~Lady Bird Johnson

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. 

~George Bernard Shaw