January has certainly been a very busy month for me and my hubby. Just in case you wondered what happened to me the month of January I’m going to fill you in today with this post. Here’s a photo of me and my silky terrier, Chloe, who will be three in June.
The New Year started out great with my husbands alma mater the University of Houston winning 38 – 24 against Florida State in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl Championship. UH has a great football team. Watch out for them this fall! They are ranked 8th in the AFC this season.
News Years Day I made the traditional black-eyed peas, cabbage & collards, cornbread and a new recipe; apple-wood bacon, brown sugar pork tenderloin with an apricot glaze. It was delicious!
Well, once the New Years celebrations were over it was time to pack up Christmas decorations (check out my post on January 15th) AND start decorating for Valentines. Yes, I’m all decorated for Valentines Day! I’ll be doing a post on my decorations soon.
Well, as soon as the decorating and housekeeping was finished I got in the kitchen and started cooking and baking, because all the Hammons family were coming to Texas for my husbands oldest grandsons wedding January 16th. We would all spend Sunday, Jan. 10th till Wednesday, Jan. 13th at Jamaica Beach in Galveston. The first evening we saw this beautiful sunset.
I knew with families flying in on Sunday from CA & AZ we would have some hungry children and grandchildren. There were usually 16 to 20 hungry mouths to feed during the family’s visit. So, I prepared two large casseroles of King Ranch Chicken (my grandmother always called it Ranch House Chicken), Mexican Rice with Corn and my hubby made his families favorite guacamole. I made two quiches, fresh mixed fruit and pigs-in-a-blanket for breakfast Monday, and finished my preparations with a Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake, Deviled Eggs and Hot Cheese Dip with Chips. Here’s a look at some of the food.
Monday was pretty cold on the beach, but the next day it was great to be out on the beach. My theme/cover photo for this post is three of our grandchildren feeding the sea gulls bread. The children young and old were having fun building sand castles. Everyone had fun at night playing cards, watching football, doing puzzles and just spending time together.
Now, when they all arrived at our farm (Wed., Jan. 13th through Mon., Jan. 18th) they were all over our 34 acres riding the golf cart, the horse and fishing. Here’s John by himself, but that soon changed to eight out at the bass pond fishing.
In the evening we visited and shared memories around the cowboy campfire.
When Monday, Jan. 18th evening came my hubby, me and our three dogs were tuckered out and fell asleep on the couch. We dearly loved having the family here but were ready for a rest period.
Now on to the rest of the month. Housekeeping and laundry were at the top on my list but took a back burner, because my husbands office administrator took vacation the week of Jan. 18th with her family so, I came to fill in my answering the phones, etc. On Friday, I worked at our home with a housekeeper I just recently hired, who is a hard worker like me. We got the main house cleaned up top to bottom together in one 8 hour day. Amazing! I’ve cleaned the art studio cottage myself. I still have one bedroom there, that was used by the grandchildren. It’s my John Wayne room. I guess I need to do a post on that one day. I Love JW!!
The following week was dedicated to Lifetime Learning of Brenham, which brings continuing education on topics of interest to Washington County, Texas area through lectures, classes and outstanding speakers. You can check it out on the web – www.lifetimelearningbrenham.org. There was a board meeting Monday and then a lot of preparations to do for the luncheon/lecture on Friday. I’m venue chair so am planning the meal and decorating the tables to reflect the subject of the lecture. This gets challenging at times but seems to keep my creative brain cells working. This particular lecture was “Conspiracy Theory” – JFK Assassination with Zack Shelton. I borrowed books from the local library on JFK, stood them up on black napkins on each table, stuck a small flag in the book and laid other American flags on the table with a flyer I printed of the route JFK took in Dallas, as a visual for the 98 people attending. The event turned out great!!! The next one is in March. My brain’s already working on table ideas for “Firearms & Crazy People”.
We have some warm temperatures right now. It’s 79 in southeast Texas today and the lows are usually in the 50’s. Our roses are still blooming beautifully on this last day of January, 2016. I wouldn’t mind if winter just continued like this here. Well, that hits the high spots this month for me. I feel blessed God has given me the talents, gifts, energy and provided the health that I have. We all have our aches and pains. I’m thankful I can continue to serve Him in various ways. I pray for those who cannot! Until my next post….. God Bless You!
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