MEA CULPA

Don't be a hater .
It is easy to keep yall updated on the minutia when it is just that, but add old friends and new friends and family and shopping and cooking and driving ( it is Atlanta ) into the mix and the blogging gets scarce. We are having a lovely visit. As always the Lovell-Spencers are wonderful hosts and it , again as always , has been wonderful seeing folks.

It's now 12:45 am, New Years Eve 2012. I really should do some " year in review" cause it seems like a lot has happened... we will see.

Things are winding down, go with the champagne tomorrow night, my FAVORITE part of the whole trip - New Years and food at the Day-Lawson's ( this year with UGA FOOTBALL ! ) and it's back to Winder to figure out how and when we get home with Winter having come to the Finger Lakes in our absence. Plans are right now, for a Thursday departure.

Hopefully updates to follow !!!

I love you , very very much

What I said to Neil as I took my first bite of DAMN good burger in a very long time.

We have done pretty well on our healthy lifestyle ( it's not a diet ) but sometimes a mans got to do what a mans got to do, and I needed a GEORGE's Cheese Burger and Fries tonight.

I was not drinking ( DD ) so it was George's not Moe's and Joes

God Bless America

Neil had a bacon blue with onion rings.

while you were out

MAINE GOT MARRIAGE!

Daily Koda

boys night

Ok, I totally have lost track of days..... BUT!  I think that Friday night we got our gay and grey on as Kyle, Neil , Chip and Rick hit the gay bars and then the GAYEST spot in town : 

The Colonnade

I , sadly , was too busy having fun to take pics but one did come out of it.

Neil's annual heaping platter of chicken livers!

I was tried and true with Turkey and Gravy, Chip did a seafood combo - you know all fried, and Rick did the Friday Night Prime Rib.

A Holiday Trip to the Exurbs!

 Neil, Paul and I go visit the always fun Bass - Moseleys!

Chicken Cream Cheese Crock Pot Chili!
very good

1 can black beans
1 can corn, undrained
1 can Rotel, undrained
1 package ranch dressing mix
1 tsp cumin
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 8 oz package light cream cheese
2 chicken breasts

Drain and rinse black beans. Place chicken at bottom of pot, then pour out whole can of corn (undrained), rotel, and black beans. Top with seasonings and ranch mix. Stir together. Place cream cheese on top. Cover with lid and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Stir cream cheese into chili. Use 2 forks to shred chicken. Stir together and serve.

A most merry time ! AND, the birds did not eat our bread crumbs!

good for the soul

KylenTodd

Ok, #1 I am SO much happier in this pic that I look, really.

All hail the mighty Zuckerburg and the power of getting old friends back together. Just an all around lovely way way to fast and sober lunch with Todd and his family. I think we all let go of things and people that are important to us too easily, thinking that with all the time passed that it's better to just not. Great to find all of Oconee is doing well...

Just a little shot of some pure old school happy and hopefully the first of many to come

Goose is getting fat

or

All of Cobb's legions have Christmas in Winder.

best package ever

Twenty people with five under five, 

yet oddly a MERRY time was had by all.

Christmas is Coming.

I am lost.
Time has seriously just skipped out on me, up is down, right is left, wet is dry - Making me a very bad blogger. I will do my best to fix this in the morning.

Les Miserables

Neil and Freta and I went to this tripped out theater in WINDER! Seriously, a nice , very clean - state of the art movie house right there in Barrow County!
The movie is getting somewhat mixed reviews, which I don't get. Yes, if you did not like the musical - aka are a hardened Soviet - then I can see how... but we loved it.

My Family

Christmas......

JOY TO THE WORLD

 This year we were back at out old haunts 

Christmas Eve at St. Bart's

It was a very nice service with just amazing music

 and you get champagne afterwards

 Neil and Rick

Two very well churched, WELL smoked - very happy 

to see one anther boys!

Our Christmas Photo

Christmas Eve with the Lovell-Spencers

God Bless Us All -

 Everyone.

 A most lovely time was had by all!

S,P,L,R braved the fog and went to the early service at their Midtown Methodist Church, all kid friendly and all. I had Christmas Eve dinner waiting for them when they got back. Well sort of, it was a whiz bang of a service, so they were not gone long

 SHRIMP and GRITS

 A VERY MERRY SUSAN

 ETON MESS

( a big hit )

This was the best of the ones I took

BLANK/DULL/NUMB

This is just up on Lake Ontario......

I may or may not post more about this, I'm sure you saw it on the news.... Christmas Eve and all... monsters.

Eve, Eve, Eve.....

Our first full day in Atlanta after what was a LONG trip down. The pesky little Winter storm that is swirling around out there had us come due South instead of the usual go to Cleveland and turn left. Seemed like we were in Virginia for three days. No really bad weather to speak of, but I was just fried to a crisp for that last half hour or so .....

A good nights sleep broke to a beautiful day 

Got a few reports of a white Christmas settling in over Mendon,

Bright sunny and not too cold here.

 We were shocked , SHOCKED! I tell you to find the Christmas tree selection so very limited

but at such a bargain

 The Spencer meat 

( and some Lobster dip )

 Koda out walking his boy

 Merry was made by all.

Susan and Paul put up their tree

 Reid and Paul

 Then off to Chubby Sumo to celebrate Logan's b-day!

We think out chop chop guy was sort of new, as we only got the one tier 

onion volcano.

A very nice day and evening to start off our trip.

I'll be home for Christmas

BING

BARBRA

FRANK

KAREN

As always the blogging may run hot and cold over the next couple of weeks

Proper way to dispose of your fantastic pumpkins

Squirrel Buffet

d.k.

 Our last real morning out , as we are out of here tomorrow.....

Hoping ONCE WE GET SAFLY BACK,

 that there is a little more Winter to be had...

My boyfriend is ever so dreamy.

... and I feel fine.

NEWTY ♥'s the Gays

( fairly sure this is what all that Mayan mess was talking about )

I am, I am , I am Superman

"There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the "reading specialist" — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, seemed to have performed bravely. According to reports, she activated the school’s public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death. Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms. But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza," - Charlotte Allen, NRO.

Happy Birthday!

OR 

HERE

dinner

Broiled Haddock

carrots w/

a tamarind glaze

haricot verts

today

 I'm dreaming of a white Christmas....

 This is just all the rare for these parts this time of year.....

 We are still swimming ....

Warmest December on record... 

sneezeless

This is Neil sitting in front of Jack and Linda's lovely Christmas tree. Nothing shocking about that except that it is a live , real Christmas tree and I WAS IN THE SAME ROOM!
Shocking! A Christmas miracle?
Turns out NO! It's is some sort of special tree for folks like me. Jack told me the type of tree it was like 20 times , even spelling it once and I still can't remember. The trees are marketed to people who can't be around regular Christmas trees. Neither Jack nor Linda have this issue, they just like the shape and cut of the tree....

I will find out , again, what its called and let yall know....

Not Winter yet

This is yesterday, today was bucket loads of rain.

Rain, in the Finger Lakes of New York , the week before Christmas.