TRGX4!: First Week of the Year

12/29 - Girls, even when they are over age 20, still giggle and giggle and giggle. It has tickled me this evening hearing giggles from the next room instead of the loud cursing and screaming and obscenities that I usually hear from a room full of loud boys on video games. Tonight they have mixed company over for a movie. They CAN behave when they want to. Good to know.

12/30 - I enjoyed filling in on piano at a small baptist church this morning. It was the same church I got married in 22 years ago. It's a nice church with space for probably a couple of hundred or so. But there was a congregation of maybe 25, and that's if I include the preacher. I had heard some years back that there was a split in the church, for some unknown reason. And that the church was barely hanging on. And that did appear to be true today. Sad. The young man leading the music, who asked me to fill in on piano, is a former student of mine. He was a senior my first year at the high school and such an awesome kid. He is finishing up his degree in church music at the local baptist college - Mississippi College. So it was a real treat to work with him and see how awesome he is doing. I was paid a little, enough to get some groceries at least and it was money that was much needed. But I've determined that small baptist churches pay way less than medium sized Methodist churches lol. I also got the pleasure of listening to an old fashioned, old school, yelling hollering and sweating Baptist preacher. And I'm not being sarcastic, I did enjoy it. Took me way back. So many churches these days have "progressed" into all the new styles of services and preachers "discuss" more so than "passionately preach". I do prefer to NOT be yelled at, but I did truly enjoy the nostalgia of the whole experience. If was fun.

12/31/12 - today I was patting myself on the back over my recent discovery that if I bought a gallon of buttermilk I would ALWAYS have milk when I go to make cornbread. Since milk is such a hot commodity in my house and we always run out no matter how much I buy. Then it occurred to me that my discovery was not unique and I am certainly not the first. As I was hit with the memory of making cereal at mamaw Gin's house as a child and pouring the only milk I could find on that day. Which ended up being buttermilk.

I've spent most of today cooking New Years food because I don't want to spend my last day off tomorrow doing cooking. Pork roast, with turnip greens, green beans, okra from Mamaw Gin/Papaw Jr/Papaw Pat's garden. Corn, blackeyed peas, cornbread, and some crappy leftover stove top stuffing that ive hopefully dressed up enough that people will eat it and make it worth the money I gambled on trying it for the first time ever. Rusty has been on vacation this last week and a half also and has been heavily involved in a computer video war game of some sort. So I've had the TV to myself for a few days and I've been able to watch hours and hours of DVR'd true crime shows. Or, as Rusty calls them, "How to Kill Your Husband" shows.

Happy New Years Eve everyone.

1/1/13 - planning ahead is smart. I was very happy to simply warm up the food instead of cook for hours today. Happy new year everyone, and may 2013 please bring us all some financial relief and some personal happiness and inner peace!

1/3/13 - I had to return to work today. An entire day of meetings, then straight to Aladdin rehearsal til 8:30. I'm not really looking forward to this month. It's going to be a hard month. All the way around. Seems things just always get harder and harder. But I guess sooner or late something will give. But as they say, things could always be worse! But I do find myself already looking forward to summer lol.

I'll close with a few pics from recent times.