eMom

Pi Day

My husband always gets excited about Pi Day, March 14.....you know, Pi, 3.14??? A group at his office (probably the whole office) always celebrates by bringing different varieties of pies and eating until they can't hold any more. They delayed their celebration this year for some reason and tomorrow is the big day. So, today I made pies so that he will have something to offer. Each year it's the same request, Three Layer Raisin Pie. If that sounds odd to some of you, then you haven't tasted Three Layer Raisin Pie. The ingredients sound like a shopping list from the dairy case.....sour cream, cream cheese, whipping cream, eggs, butter.....all those good things that increase your cholesterol level and add several layers to your fat cells. But on Pi Day, who cares!

This year I made two of these delectable pastries. One for them, and one for us! Neither will last very long, I'm sure.

Is Insomnia Contagious?

It's 2am and I'm wide awake. Maybe insomnia's contagious. After all, Gwen's room is right across the hall from mine and she had trouble sleeping a few nights ago. At least tonite the house isn't shaking.

Maybe it's the java shake I had earlier. I ordered decaf but maybe it was caf instead?

Or, it could be the snoring cat who was asleep on my feet a few minutes ago combined with the snoring husband sleeping right next to me. The two of them never snore in unison and the cat's getting louder and louder as he gets older.

Actually, I think it's probably residual adrenaline in my system from the first day at a new job. Yep, another new job. This time I'm doing something fun. I broke out of the office mold and went to work for our local Fresh Market as a Front End Assistant. A more concise description of this new job would be bagger/cashier/shift-leader/closing bookkeeper/mom. Plus a few other things mixed in. Not a job that will make me rich but if today was any indication of what this is going to be like, I think I'm going to love it.

The people who work there are great and the clientelle is wonderful. Especially in the early morning. There is a group of elderly folks who shop every day. More for the social aspect of it than anything else. They get their little complimentary cup of coffee and stand around in the bulk area of the store and chat. Some of them get their coffee and then sit on the bench in front of the registers and chat. They know every employee and make sure to speak to them all. Talking with them was great fun but I don't think that's the reason I'm awake right now. I think it's more because of all the produce codes running around in my brain.....I remembered a few from my Hannaford days....4011s never left me (bananas), but the 4072s and 4017s had to be resurrected before they started to stick. Add to that the 6750s (gourmet coffee) and the hundred or so candy codes and the bazillion different kinds of trail mix with exotic names like California Delight, Banana Split, and High-Energy Mix (that one I don't need right now!) and you get a jumble that would fry even the best of brains.

Ahhhh....maybe by writing all this down it'll remove it from my brain cache and I'll be able to sleep....and....maybe the cat'll stop snoring, that would help too.

techno-savvy...at last!

Hah! I have finally done something with my computer without the assistance of either husband or child......I took music from three different CDs and burned it onto a fourth!!! This may not seem to be a huge deal to most of you, but for an old lady, it's a really big deal!

OK, why is this so important to me??? Well, I have finally developed the ability to run. Yes, run. I've lost enough weight that I can now run on my treadmill without feeling like I'm going to fall over from lack air or from cardiac arrest. However, I cannot run without something to motivate me and jiggy music seems to do that best. For a while I watched videos but I can only watch the same thing so many times. And videos don't move. On that same note, I can only listen to the same music for so long without getting sick of it...so, I took three of my favorite CDs and chose tracks from each one and I now have a variety of things to get me moving.

Hah! I am now queen of the treadmill......I might even be able to crank the speed up a little!

Endings

The semester's over, to my great relief, the year's rapidly coming to an end, and today is my last day as an employee at this particular place of business.

I really do like endings. I like the feeling that something is finished, that all the loose threads are snipped, the last button has been sewn on, and the pattern is put away. It gives me a great sense of accomplishment and opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for the future.

After the holidays I'll be going back to temp work, which I enjoy immensely. Being a temp is a great adventure and I'm really looking forward to doing it again. Maybe I'll be able to fit in more time between assignments for all those things I really like to do like cutting out, sewing up, snipping loose threads, and sewing on buttons. And maybe even weaving another basket or two. Meanwhile, I hope that everyone at Ben's Friends will have a wonderful holiday season focused totally on Christ. He is our gift, we need no others.

You HAVE to try this...

I just happened to be downtown this afternoon killing a little time before a job interview and I just happened to visit Port City Java....well....their Blackberry Viennese has to be one of the most wonderful beverages I have ever tasted. Blackberry, espresso, chocolate, and whipped cream.....try it, you won't be disappointed!

Cats and Christmas Trees

Many of you on this blog are familiar with our cat, Jasper. He's 21 pounds of cat fat surrounded by a very cushy striped coat. He's very friendly, his favorite game is "bite", which he learned as a young kitten, and overall he's a good cat.....except during the Christmas season.

Our Christmas tree was assembled and decorated on Thanksgiving day. It's a lovely tree, eight feet tall, nice and full, and covered with ornaments that have been collected over the years. We have baby shoes, kid pictures, ornaments from all over the country/world (depending on where we were stationed) and the usual ornaments handmade by the children during their elementary school years. Generally a very eclectic collection and we love them all. Jasper especially loves them.

On the morning after Thanksgiving, the lower string of lights on one side of the tree was on the floor, along with several ornaments, and the tree skirt, which is really just a white bed sheet, was ripped away from the trunk and wadded up into a heap. Jasper was sitting nearby admiring his handiwork.

Every morning since, there have been ornaments strewn around the room. This year the preferred toys are the small, embroidered felt stockings that are hanging on the lower branches. The bright, shiny red apples that usually get batted around the room were placed a little higher on the tree out of the reach of the cat. They're quite old and can't take a lot of use as soccer balls.

I always enjoy the Christmas tree. It's so pretty when the lights are turned down in the room and the lights on the tree reflect off the shiny ornaments. In the late evening they may also be reflecting off the yellow-green eyes of a fairly large cat, sitting under the tree just waiting to do his mischief.

Pumpkin bites the dust

Each year toward the end of September our family goes apple picking and at the same time we ALWAYS choose a pumpkin to use as decoration for the holidays. This has been going on since we moved to Vermont in 1993 when we used to visit Chapin Orchards in Essex each fall. The weather was usually clear, crisp, and occasionally pretty cold, but we always had a wonderful time, came home with more apples than we could ever eat, and a pumpkin that had character.

Since moving to South Carolina, we have frequented Sky Top Orchards near Hendersonville for this annual event. Sometimes it has been the four Egolfs, at times, when one was away at college, there were only three and this year we added our beautiful daughter-in-law and one of Gwen's friends to the group so there were six of us. As Mandy put it, it's a real cultural experience!

The chosen pumpkin always has had a place of honor in the living room until sometime in mid-winter when it would inevitably begin to get soft around the bottom and would be relegated to the deck for the squirrels to dismantle. Vermont squirrels were always very good at removing the seeds and leaving the outer shell to collapse. When the snow disappeared each spring, we would have a large orange splotch on the corner of the deck where the remains of the pumpkin had been. South Carolina squirrels are not quite as efficient, maybe because they are too well-fed and don't really need the seeds from a derelict pumpkin to make it through the winter.

Our pumpkins have always been chosen for their character, not necessarily because they were perfectly shaped, but maybe because they had an interesting stem or reminded us of Aunt Mildred or some other benevolent relative. Last year's specimen made me think of Ichabod Crane every time I looked at it. It was rather tall and thin and had that Sleepy Hollow look about it.....it was also a very long-lasting squash. "Ichabod" sat on the hearth until late April of this year....a record, I think, for squashes. This year's pumpkin was more rotund and jack-o-lantern-like and, although it has been a rather jolly looking character, it's longevity just has not made the grade. Last night when I was blowing out the candles next to it, I noticed with great sadness that our pumpkin has become very soft around the stem. In fact, it's grown quite moldy and will, in the next day or so, need to be removed from it's current resting place to the deck for the squirrels to work on. The unseasonably warm fall has taken it's toll on our annual decoration. Fortunately, this year we have a backup!