Angels among us

Today my husband pointed out something interesting in the snow on our deck. It seems our dog was having some fun in the snow. He made a snow angel !!!

Hoppin' into the New Year

My husband and I were talking tonight about what we would eat on New Year's Eve. We've decided we are staying home. Last year we had French Onion Soup and Seven Layer dip and we are going to have the same thing again this year.

We have a lot of food traditions in our family. We have the same meal on each holiday each year for Easter, St Patricks Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We've sometimes had seafood on New Years Eve but it's never become a tradition like corned beef and cabbage on St Patricks Day; ham, cauliflower salad, and hot cross buns on Easter; prime rib, spinach salad, Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes and cheesecake on Christmas; Turkey on Thanksgiving and appetizers on Christmas Eve. We do everything the same down to the side dishes for our holidays. I've tried to change things occasionally but everyone seems to want things to stay the same. It is a nice family tradition.

This year we are having Hoppin' John for New Years Day. I understand it is a southern tradition and is made with black eyed peas and rice. I'd not heard of it until last year someone mentioned having it on New Years Day. When I looked up the history of Hoppin' John I found this old southern saying:
"Eat poor that day, eat rich the rest of the year. Rice for riches and peas for peace."

I found Hoppin' John is that it is supposed to bring luck for the rest of the year.

Apparently it is tradition to serve the dish with a dime mixed in with the peas before serving. The lucky person who got the coin was assured good luck for the rest of the year (assuming the Heimlich worked). I'll be leaving the coin out.

It isn't known why the dish is called Hoppin' John but several theories are told around the south. One interesting story is that it was originally sold in the streets of Charleston, South Carolina by a crippled African American man who was known as Hoppin' John. The dish has African or Afro-American roots as the black-eyed pea is the seed of the cowpea which is treasured in North Africa.

The Hoppin John I'm going to make will come from the allrecipes site; it's a soup. I've copied it below. While I don't believe it will bring me luck for the year, it looks tasty so perhaps it will become our newest food tradition

INGREDIENTS
1 pound sage pork sausage
1 (6 ounce) package uncooked long grain and wild rice mix, with seasoning packet
2 (15 ounce) cans black-eyed peas, drained
2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes, with liquid
2 (14 ounce) cans chicken broth
2 cups water
salt to taste

DIRECTIONS
Crumble sausage into a skillet over medium heat and cook until evenly brown.
In a large pot, mix the cooked sausage, rice mix with seasoning packet, black-eyed peas, tomatoes, broth and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 20 minutes, or until rice is tender. Season to taste with salt.

Clean Slate

Every year, right after Christmas, I have this overwhelming urge to clean and organize. It’s not so much a New Year’s resolution as a conviction that my life has slipped onto the slope of sloppiness and I can’t take it anymore! I need to start my year with a clean slate, so to speak.

The moment that I opened a drawer in my bathroom, the one in which I store my makeup, I knew that it was the time of year I feel like purging and organizing. I have a couple of dividers in this drawer but absolutely nothing was in a proper place. I took everything out of the drawer and it took me less than five minutes to go from this:

To this:

(I'm not sure why I need 18 different, but very similar, shades of brownish eye shadow but I've been told it makes my eyes look bluer so I keep buying it )

I need to keep reminding myself how easy and fast it is to organize and clean the little spots that drive me crazy.

I did some laundry and took it to my closet. When I put clothes in the correct spot, organized by color, it possibly took ten seconds more for the whole load than if I’d hung them willy-nilly.

I like the projects that stay neat and organized for a while. Keeping my closet organized by clothing type and color is easy to keep up.

Keeping my dog’s nose prints wiped off the windows, not so much.

Frogs for Breakfast

I was at Barnes and Noble last weekend and I found a book on DVD titled "Eat that Frog" and in reading the case found that it was about overcoming procrastination. I did not buy the book but from reading about it, I've made an improvement in my life.

The book's theory is based on an old saying: " If the first thing you do every morning is to eat a live frog, nothing worse will happen to you all day." I have started looking at my tasks a little bit differently this week. I've gotten some things done that I would not have had I not looked at the tasks as my "frog"

My bedroom closet is completely cleaned. I feel so good about it and I've been putting it off for a long time. It really was a lot of work and took a good portion of my day but it feels like such an accomplishment. My "frog" for tomorrow is to get the clothing that I bagged up dropped off at the thrift store. I know it doesn't seem like much work and it won't take too long but I know that I'll put it off. I'm not sure what I dislike so much about the task, it really makes no rational sense. I've got a few other tasks on my (long) list of things to do. I haven't been able to wear a great jacket all winter because it has a loose button. I've got needles; I've got thread; and that will be a "frog" this week.

Can't Sleep

I'm getting really tired of not being able to sleep.

I can fall asleep easily, in fact, I fall asleep on the couch or chair well before bedtime sometimes. Other nights, I go up to bed, turn out the light and fall asleep immediately. I just wake up so darn early! 3 am. 4 am 5 am 6 am (which is fine for the days I work) I want to be able to sleep in.