Well Merry Christmas to all you good people of America, this Fine Land where Godly People are Right and the Unwashed Heathen all move to Oregon!
It has been a fantastic year for that wacky Toot bunch!

SD has finally stepped on enough heads of the lesser mortals and made it almost to the top of the corporate ladder! Bless him, he has such a heart for the little people, he gave them all a Hickory Farms sausage for Christmas! He figured if he gave them a raise they’d just spend it all on crack so he did it for The Greater Good! My Man, he’s so thoughtful! His golf game has improved! Why, just last week he was giving advice to Tiger on his swing, while he was in Jupiter on business! Next stop…Who knows! The possibilities are just endless! He’s spent alot of time in Central America this year, those crazy Hondurans will work for pennies! And so grateful too!!

OB finally made it through culinary school! Boy that was hard work, all those pastries, but now he has a job at some restaurant in LA (Ha Ha! That’s Louisiana! Ha Ha!) making beignets all day and comes home to his adorable girlfriend (Did I tell you she’s working on her PhD in physics! What girls will do these days for fun! Mindboggling!) all covered in powdered sugar and smelling like grease! How sweet! He’s come so far since the days of popcorn! We’re just so proud of him! Praise the lard!

SB finished up his engineering degree! In just 2 years! He’s such a smart and hardworking young man! No girlfriend yet, but he’s just been so gosh-darned busy with his little physics and engineering stuff (that I don’t even understand! It’s just WAY over my little head!) that he hasn’t had time for the little girls! We’re so proud of him! He’s been interviewing for jobs with all these really important companies but what I hope (oh I just hope for this so bad!) that he’ll get on at the National Nuclear Research Center in Oak Ridge and learn all about radiation! I think that would just be the coolest! I’ve always wanted a 3 eyed dog! Don’t you think that would just be the coolest??

TB is almost finished with High School! *whew* Now he’s driving a race car! yes! A real Race Car! He wants to be like Jeff Gordon and go from driving the dirt track races into The Big Time and have a rainbow car, too! I’ve always thought he’d be a really good driver! And he knows all about the mechanics too! Like pistons and pumps and stuff! Such a smart boy!

FB is in the 5th grade right now and is the smartest kid in the class! All the teachers say so! Every week he reads another book! Right now he’s reading The Count of Monte Cristo and the silly boy is trying to dig a tunnel under the house, so he can have an escape! Last week he read The Brothers Karazamof (Karamasov? Karamasof? Oh I can just never wrap my little mind around that one!) and before that it was the entire Left Behind Series! Maybe he’ll be a preacher one day! He loves to cook, like Will, and has learned the fine art of the phyllo dough! He’s made a big pan of homemade baklava (with nuts he picked from our commercial pecan orchard! And honey from the hives he started 2 years ago! Remember that?? Such a little scamp he is!!)!! It was delicious! But hard on the diet!

Rootie is just the busy little bee at home! She’s teaching a class on reading Biblical Hebrew and is writing her own translation of the Old Testament (Did you know that someone found ancient illustrations for The Song of Solomon?! Yes! And that the laws of kashrut didn’t actually mean “shellfish” but “sell fish”? That’s right!)! She’s also been busy working on cake recipes that feature Absolut Vodka in all it’s wonderful flavors! She has a garden (Oh! We do love living in the South! gardening is so much fun all 4 seasons!) that provides fresh veggies for her family and for the local soup kitchen! How nice that she can help feed the Unwashed Heathen and show them that one day maybe they can aspire to be just as wonderful as she is! Rootie lost another 30 pounds last year! That’s a total of 450 pounds now! Where does it all go! That’s just quite a feat for someone who only weighed 170 pounds!

Well all you wonderful friends and family, I hope your year will be just as wonderful as ours was, and remember: It’s not how you play the game, but whether you WIN! And you’re all just the bestest winners because you’re Our Friends!

With Love from The Toot Family

You know the one, we all get them from some cousin or college pal, and it tells about last year and how fabulous it was, how Hannah Grace made the Olympic Swim Team (at 12! U Go Girl!) and Mac Jr not ONLY made Captain of the Varsity Lacrosse team but took twins to the Prom! And they use lots of exclamations Points! Because life is so gosh darned wonderful!! Well, I’m planning on writing 2 letters this year, and I want the recipients to decide what’s true, and what’s…well…Not.

Hi Everyone!
It has been a fantastic year for the Toot Family, O yes it has! Let’s see…

SDhas been working hard, he dropped from 80 hours a week to 70, that slacker! Ha Ha Just Kidding! He’s not a slacker! He joined the local Mafia and gets to eat steaks and play poker once a month! Just kidding! Rootie doesn’t know what they do but SD’s such a stand up guy she’s really sure he’s not doing anything illegal!

OB is sharing a housetrailer with a friend and is the best gosh-darned popcorn maker in the whole Statesboro Theater system! He has a great girlfriend! And they’re not even sleeping together! He has grown his hair past his shoulders and wear it in an awesome ponytail and he looks like an Italian Candymaker when he has on his popcorn apron! His newest tattoo is one he designed himself! He’s got some mad skillz! It looks like a flaming skull with a fist coming out of one eye and it’s making a finger!

SB was in college for a semester, studying Engineering, but decided that was for losers and now he’s at the technical school learning how to program computers! My goodness, he’s so smart! He stays home all day and plays World Of The Battling Aliens and is at Level 120! My Baby, He’s so good at everything he does! We fixed him a room in the basement, so he can have his little friends over to play and they even clean up the kitchen!

TB dropped out of high school last January, that scamp! He just wanted to try independence on for size, and after living with a 70 year old pedophile for 4 days, he decided that perhaps he wanted to go back to school after all! Then, when he and SD got into a friendly tussle and SD’s arm broke, requiring 5 surgeries and extensive rehabilitation (that’s why he cut back on his hours, bless his heart), TB moved in with SD’s single brother up near Athens, and is going to school there! He has all new little friends, and they love to play in the mud with their little trucks! TB’s just quite the outdoorsman!

FB has learned the joys of the internet, and spends all of his waking hours (when he’s not at school learning social skills from bigger kids) surfing! Rootie just lets him go because he needs to learn to be independant! And she doesn’t want to have that (SECKS!) talk, so hopefully he’ll find what he needs to know from that nice man in Baltimore he’s been chatting with!

Rootie is very busy being a full-time Mom, and is so thankful for Netflix so she can watch all those Indie films during the day, and get fashion ideas! She’s just a busy busy go-getter! She’s been making up recipes based on Absolut Vodka, they have so many flavors! The Peppar vodka makes the best bloody marys you’ve ever had! She got a clean bill of health from the psychiatrist a couple of months ago, and he didn’t even add any meds! Her gynecologists (Twins! So handsome, too!) say that pesky herpes thing will probably hang around, she’ll just have to be careful! After the unfortunate breast implants deflated in that nasty car accident that TOTALLY WASN’T HER FAULT the insurance company agreed to replace them and she got even bigger hooters! She’s one sexy mama now!

Life has been just one big bowl of cherries for the Toot Family! Merry Christmas everyone and May your life be almost as good as ours!

Well, this morning I woke up about 4, like usual (It’s ok! It’s not a bad thing!) and settled into praying for my family, like usual, and started fretting about CJ, like usual. “Dear Lord, please let him pass Science, please let him this that and the other” over and over again, working myself up into a state over the whole CJ situation. I’m skilled at fretting. Years of practice and I’m an Olympic caliber worrywart. Anyway. There I lay (laid, lain, help O Grammer Queen) in the dark fretting away getting into a blood pressure situation and something tapped me on the metaphorical shoulder (Oh Hi God, you’re listening!) and said (metaphorically..I know I’m mentally ill but the voices I hear, I know where they come from)

“Look hon, don’t I know every star in the sky and hair on your head? Don’t I know every sparrow that dies and flower that blooms? When are you going to give that child to Me, and trust Me to know what’s best for him, you and Me?”

“um….but I want to be in control of this. I want to know what’s going to happen, and how, and when, and what to do about it and not have to worry.”

Then He said “I never said you had to worry. I told you not to worry. Trust me. Give him to ME and let me handle this.”

“yes Sir.”

So, am I going to quit worrying about CJ? Probably not. Is it a little easier knowing God’s there, to handle things and I don’t have to rely solely on my own? Absolutely. Knowing I am not alone in this is the most relief I’ve felt in months. I’ve done this before, handed a kid and his situation over to God. I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to do it.

Probably because I really don’t like to rely on others for help, even if they want to give it. Even if it’s God offering it. But there is it, and the relief is palpable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so naive that I think suddenly everything’s going to be roses and peach cobbler where CJ is concerned. He will still make stupid decisions. He’ll still probably piss off Uncle Navy Dude’s wife enough to get the boot and have to live in his truck for a while. He may even not graduate from high school. But, now I know that even then, God will have his back, and mine. As He’s done before, the answers will come, the wisdom will happen, and we’ll all get through this and be better for it. It’s just that the tunnel we’re in is real bendy, and I can’t see the light at the end of it yet.

Yet another good thing about my mother in law:
She’s offered to take CJ in if UND (or wife) gives him the boot.

I made the first batch of hot buttered rum today! It’s cold out there! Well, actually the thermometer reads 50F/10C, which in some circles isn’t cold at all, but its a DAMP cold, which makes it colder, right?
1 stick of unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
cream all this together until completely blended and soft. Put into a container.
Boil 3/4 cup of water.
Put 1 heaping tablespoon of the butter mix into a mug. Add 2 oz of dark rum, and pour the boiling water on top. Stir well until completely blended and sip slowly.

*with apologies to Northerngirl, who thinks my idea of cold is silly and wimpish, but it’s really all what you’re used to, right?

The Cure

Lying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk, I’m not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she’s just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it’s snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn’t been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She’s been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.
If that doesn’t do it, put on a red dress.

–Ginger Andrews (from Hurricane Sisters)

So this Sunday before Thanksgiving, think about Aunt Bert and how she’ll celebrate Thanksgiving! And how about YOU?

1. What is your cure for the “mulleygrubs”?

Good music, productive activity, laughing at something ridiculous

2. Where will you be for Thanksgiving?
RIght here. CJ will be here Tuesday, Terry’s parents on Wednesday, and my brother and family Friday. You’ll be able to find me in the kitchen or playing billiards with #4.

3. What foods will be served? Which are traditional for your family?
Deep Fried Turkey (not traditional at all, first time ever) smoked ham, MIL’s stellar dressing, greens from Uncle Jerry’s Green Patch, assorted other vegs, FIL’s sweet potato pies.

4. How do you feel about Thanksgiving as a holiday?

I think it’s my favorite…good food! No gift-giving obligations! You just eat and spend time with family.

5. In this season of Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for?
Terry’s continued employment, and that in his work, he’s able to provide jobs for about 400 other people. My family’s good health and sound minds, and a nice big convection oven!

Y’know what’s awesome? When someone you respect agrees with you. Not just the usual “oh of course he agrees with me, we have to sleep in the same bed at night” but someone ELSE from somewhere ELSE who doesn’t even have a knife in that fight. I love discovering that a person somewhere, who, to all appearances is as different from me as chalk is from cheese, can think in sinc and help me with a particular problem and not only does the solution happen, it’s in SPADES and suddenly I have something new and fun to work on!

Ok no details, don’t you hate that!

Because I flamin’ LOVE Daler Mehndi!

see more Epic Fails

I’m looking forward to today, and this weekend. It’s the last little bit before Thanksgiving Week, which, for us, is probably even more involved family wise that Christmas. It all starts Tuesday, when I drive to Madison to get CJ, then inlaws show up Wednesday, we eat all day Thursday and more family comes on Friday and we eat some more and by Saturday lunch they all leave and Sunday is Potluck Sunday so I’m predicting there’ll be everyone’s leftover turkey and dressing. I’m thinking I’ll bring leftover greens and maybe corn muffins. While I’m not fond of greens themselves I do love cornbread in the pot likker (for you non-Southerners, pot likker is the greens broth. It’s phenomenally good for you and tasty to boot.)

The deep fried turkey is ordered “Oh baby” said the woman at Uncle Shug’s, “our deep fried turkeys are awesome, and you’d better get you a pan of our tasty dressing too, it’s the best in the county!”

“Oh sorry,” I replied, ” my mother in law’s bringing her dressing.”

“oh honey, I don’t want to step in that mess!” she laughed.

You know what I’m looking forward to? Not having to cook the turkey. Not having to smoke it and baby the fire along, or roasting it and taking up the whole entire oven for a day and remembering to baste it and worrying about the breast meat drying out. No, people, for a mere (get this! Holy cow!) $25, someone else cooks the turkey in a manner that uniformly results in juicy, perfectly cooked meat and a crispy skin sure to start a family war as the vultur…I mean…philistines gather around to pick it off. I want to know what redneck man came up with the brilliant idea of deep frying a turkey in peanut oil, but you can bet many wives in many parts of the Deep South are grateful.

The downsides to a deep fried turkey:
You don’t have drippings and giblets to make gravy. No neck to boil in seasoned water. I’m going to have to punt with the gravy, but I am sure something will come to mind. Maybe I’ll cheat and make chicken gravy…poultry’s poultry, right?
You can’t do fancy things with it like stuff it with herbs de provence or lemons or something. It’s just a deep fried turkey. Maybe, since it will require warming up, I’ll do something with it then. Rosemary or something. Maybe I’ll google it and see what someone else says. Maybe I’ll just wow their socks off with the green beans and potatoes gratin. Or the gravy. If I do say so myself, I can make good gravy.

Now, because a second set of family will be here for supper Friday, and I don’t want to serve leftover turkey and dressing, I’m thinking maybe we’ll go grilled pizza. It’s fun! It’s Make It Yourself! All I’ll have to do is make the crusts earlier in the day and chop up a bunch of stuff!

But, for today, I have few tasks. I need to go to Ellis’s and get a smoked ham. Grocery list needs making, and Terry and I will go in tonight and get everything. I’ll need to clean out the fridge to make room. Maybe it will be cold enough Wednesday night that I can just stick the cooked turkey in the grill and not have to fuss with a cooler.

For any event, whether it’s a 2 week trip through the Midwest or a slew of people coming here, or the birth of a baby, 75% of the fun is in the planning. I’ll spend weeks planning a 1 day event, and love every minute of it.