2022

No, that is not a mistake, it really is 2022. When did they change the length of a month, from four weeks to one week. It can’t be more than 12 weeks since I wrote the January article for 2021. Oh well, here we go again.

We began this year at the home of Shirley and Bob Huffman. We entered Shirley’s cozy living room filling it with hugs and hellos. With that done we drifted into her warm and welcoming kitchen. At the December gathering we decided to change our hostess’s workload by lightening up the menu. Shirley got to be the inaugural chef. She started with a cinnamon roll breakfast cake. It seemed a little skimpy until we realized no one left the table hungry or under fed and boy was it tasty.  This might just work. 

The conversation became the side dishes and a fun accompaniment for the meal. We talked about how cold it had been and how you had to leave the chickens in the hen house to keep them from getting their combs froze off. Shirley told about a time when they lived on the farm, it was so cold she had to go get the eggs several times a day to keep them from freezing. There was also a pretty, heavy snowfall on the ground. She bundled up and headed for the hen house. She collected about six eggs in her basket and started back to the house. As she stepped over a snow bank, of course, her feet went out from under her and down she went. When she landed, the basket was in the air and her behind was in the snow. When she set the basket down to get up, not one egg was broken or cracked. She was very careful walking the rest of the way back into the house.

Speaking of snow, there were two snowmen standing by the road. They had their masks on, one said this mask feels really tight. The other looked over and said man I guess it is, feel the back of your head. When the first one reached back, he felt his carrot nose sticking out the back of his head. Ha! Ha! Who has time to think this stuff up?

Of course, we talked about Covid. They now have test kits you can use to test yourself at home. Now, however, you can’t find them in the stores, and if you do 70% of them are wrong. I guess we should just get our booster shots and continue as normal. Whatever that is now.

Bob stuck around the house and hung out in the basement. He decided he was going to go to the store but we had his car blocked in. Some of us started checking whose car needed to be moved, but before we could move any of them, Bob had decided he was going to walk. That boy knows better than to cause a fuss during sisters’ day, even if it is at his house. Smart Guy, huh! Good job Shirley.

That got us talking about how cars have changed. Lucy told us a story about a dream her brother-in-law Vance Branson had. He dreamed that all the cars in his dream were flying. There were no roads or traffic jams the people just flew were ever the wanted to go. Vance told Vic, Lucy’s husband, and they both about got down laughing and carrying on about it and that it was a premonition. Back then they didn’t even have push button windows. Now they have cars that can drive themselves and Norway has invented a car that does fly and it only cost $90,000.

We talked about our brother, Norman. The day before sisters day was his birthday and our Aunt Maude was the same day. She was 23 years older than Norman and they died 2 days apart. We have all kinds of quirky like that in our family. Pam was born two months after Lois and I. Mom and Georgia both have grandkids born on their birthdays. Katie had her boy the day before Lois and my birthday and her youngest daughter the day after. Do you all have things like that in your family? 

Between breakfast and lunch we played a marble game using a board Bob and his cousin Joe made. We couldn’t agree on the name of the game to begin with and it went downhill from there. Besides everybody calling it by different names, everybody had different rules and by the time we were done playing we had changed the rules as we went along. Everybody but Mary Jo had played some version of the game before and we all had trouble with the rules but poor Mary Jo had to learn how to play it as we fussed about the rules. She must be a quick learner, Mary Jo won the game. We laughed ourselves silly by the time we gave up, but, nobody got mad for real, even if we did carry on like we were.

We talked about what’s going on in Vienna. We discussed religion and dieting and when you should be dieting. Next thing we knew It was lunch time. Shirley set the table and placed a huge pot of Beef stew and hot biscuits. We filled our bowls and buttered our biscuits and feasted on the best beef stew with fresh made broth. It was delicious! For dessert Shirley brought out peach and custard pies. A perfect ending for the meal.

We called Betty in Arizona and all talked to her. Speaker phones are so handy for times like that. She is doing fine. She complained about the weather there it was 70 degrees and supposed to be 80 the next day. We complained about it being in the single digits here. She is keeping busy and mostly out of trouble. Love you, Sis!   

We continued our discussions about: deer hunting, how hard it is to quilt when they are rolled to tight, everyone is entitled to their opinions even if their wrong, giving money away, college vs trade schools, Covid vaccine and booster shots, windows cost so much, if you sleep with the window open or closed, reviews for products on computers, St Anthony’s church decoration for Christmas was the best in the area and a Covid song by Ronda Vincent on a thumb drive shaped like a guitar.

Another wonderful day has come to an end but will forever live on in our hearts. Thanks for sharing our day and have a blessed and prosperous year.

Thought: Your terrible job is the dream of the unemployed. Your house is the dream of the homeless. Your smile is the dream of the depressed. Your health is the dream of those who are ill. Don’t let difficult times make you forget your blessing…

Keeping a Positive Attitude: Overthinking destroys your happiness and your mood. It’ll make everything worse than it is. Take a deep breath, exhale, and have faith. What is meant to be will be.