...Make Cornbread Dressing Like My Mother-In-Law

Merry Christmas!  I love this time of year when we gather together to celebrate our Savior's birth.  It's so much fun to shop for family and friends, to go to church for special services and for the regular ones, and to eat.  I've been making fudge like there's no tomorrow this Christmas season.  My aim is to make everyone fat for Christmas.  I think I may succeed!  But the thing that I really hoped to master this year is my mother-in-law's cornbread dressing.  She always made the best dressing and we all love it.  I've tried in the past, but it just didn't measure up to hers. 

Since the kids will be home for Christmas this year and I'm doing the cooking, the dressing is a necessary part of the menu.  Mim, my MIL, isn't able to stand in the kitchen and cook for long periods of time, so she told me how to make it the other day.  I wrote down the instructions and gathered all the ingredients and decided that today was the day.  As she said, it will be better after being refrigerated for a couple of days to let the flavors marry.  Also, it gave me an extra day in case I really messed things up. 

This morning I woke up early and laid in bed thinking about what was on my to-do list today.  That's when I remembered the dressing, and then I remembered the cornbread.  I had to get that cornbread made so it could cool!  I got up and made three pans of cornbread and let them cool.  After Frank woke up I boiled my chicken breasts to make broth.  I waited until he was up so that he wouldn't smell boiled chicken first thing in the morning.  That wouldn't be fun.  Then, I got out my other ingredients and the instructions from Mim, and prayed. 

Guess what!  It turned out good!  Frank did an official taste test and pronounced it not only edible, but quite tasty.  I was so excited that I called Mim and told her that I had done it!  She was proud of me.  Now we'll see how the rest of the family likes it on Christmas day.  That will be the test.  Frank already has plans of me making it with a roasted chicken sometime that's not a holiday.  If he wants me to make it again, that's confirmation that he really does like it.

I can't wait to have some dressing with a huge dollop of cranberry sauce, with some turkey, peas, kale, and sweet potato casserole on the side.  And let's not forget the rolls. 

I'm going to try my hand at a coconut cake for dessert.  This will be Jesus' birthday cake.  Y'all pray, because I'm not a baker.  But, since I've done the dressing I'm feeling brave.

May God bless you and yours with the merriest of Christmases ever, and may we all remember that Jesus is the reason we celebrate.

...Breathe

I've had sinus surgery twice in a year and a half.  My family has suffered from sinus problems forever and my daughter had terrible allergies when she was growing up in Baton Rouge.  Everyone there has sinus trouble because of the air pollution.  When we moved to Oxford fifteen years ago we hoped that would all end, but it didn't.  It's just different.  Can't tell you how, but it is.  We don't have the pollution from factories and heavy traffic, but we do have a lot of trees here.

My sinuses got so infected last year that medications didn't help at all, so I had to have surgery.  This was to rid my body of the infection so that I could have both hips replaced.  That's another story.  I had the surgery and it was a success.  For a while.  I still had to take medicine, rinse like crazy, use a nebulizer to keep from taking oral antibiotics, and it cleared up for a few months.  Those few months felt like a reprieve.  Then it started again. 

In July I went outside.  I should never go outside.  I got a sinus infection and nothing worked to clear it up, so in October I had surgery again.  This time, all my sinus cavities were filled with polyps.  The doctor got all of those out and told me that polyps are usually caused by allergies.  Nice.  I'd been tested for allergies twice before, but we thought it was worth another shot at it in case I had developed them since the last time I was tested. 

Last week I went for the allergy tests.  They did scratch tests on my back - 20 for pollens and 20 for foods.  Then they did intradermal injections - 12 of them - to test for dust mites, molds, dogs, cats, and some other things I don't remember.  I didn't react to a single thing. Then I had to have blood tests.  The nice lady at the lab took nine vials of my blood and sent it away to get it checked.  The doctor called me today to let me know that I'm not allergic to anything at all.  Nada.  Zilch.  I could have told him this and saved a boatload of money.

So, we're back to the same old, same old routine.  Medications and rinsing.  It's my life.  I'm glad those options are available. Now that it's cold weather I feel like I have cotton up my nose because of going outside in the cold and back inside where it's warm. 
One day I'm going to breathe freely again without taking sinus medications or using an inhaler to clear my chest.  I know this because I have faith that God is going to heal me.  In the meantime...sniff, sniff.

...Have Fun Like a Toddler

This weekend our daughter, Jen, and our grandson, Dean, came for a visit.  Marcus had to work, so they decided to get out of the house and come see Grammy/GoGo and Papa.  (The jury is still out on my official grandma name.)  We had such a wonderful time going to the park, out to eat, playing in the yard and in the house, going to the Arts and Crafts Fair at our church, and visiting Santa Claus at a local store.  But, the most fun of all came on Saturday night when a friend of ours who is playing Santa this year at parties came by our house to surprise Dean.  We were all surprised! 

We had just come back from looking at Christmas lights around town and were in the kitchen making faces at each other.  Judging by Dean's laughter, I make the best faces.  Through all the laughter, we heard a loud, "HO HO HO!" from the living room, went in there, and saw Santa Claus right in our house!  Dean was a bit shy at first.  I wonder what was going through his mind. He sat in Santa's lap, but he wouldn't look straight at him for a few minutes.  But, Santa talked to him and Dean quickly warmed up to Santa.  They gave each other high fives and fist bumps and it was so much fun to see them interact.  Santa told Dean that he'll be visiting him at his house and at our house this year.  Wow!  What kid wouldn't love that?

The visit was as much fun for the adults as it was for Dean.  We got some great pictures so that we can hold on to this memory.  Thank you, Santa, for making our Christmas merrier this year.  We love you.