We have lights up, and we have a tree. My parents came to visit on Saturday, and they helped us to set up the tree in the living room.

The cat immediatly lay down under the tree. He is a christmas cat.

Lucy Dog was suspicious, as she is with all new or unusual things. But she perked up when she discovered that the lower branches we had to trim off were bona fide STICKS. We put them outside and she chewed upon them.

It is the first of December, and we’re doing pretty well on the Christmas to-do list.

Chris is leaning on me to write the christmas letter. I should. But I’m sleepy and distracted. We’ve already abandoned doing a photo card, and will have to rely on premade holiday cards. But we will have our Christmas letter.

There are a lot of things I hope to get done as early as possible. I find myself slower and slower and slower with this pregnancy. Yesterday, I only had one thing I had to do: refill the needle prescription for the cat.

I did get the needle refill for my diabetic cat. And I noticed that I only have one more refill available on the prescription. The cat has been diabetic for 3 years now and is doing very well with his insulin injections. We are careful to space his twice daily injections approximately 12 hours apart. Because if we don’t he could go into a coma or even die.

But here’s the thing: the deadly insulin, no prescription needed. The needles, not deadly at all, require a prescription. It has to do with needles being useful to inject drugs–the illegal kind–and insulin is a very mundane and ordinary killing serum.

Skellig Cat hates to go the vet. They are not too fond of him either. But I have to take him once a year for a diabetes test. This fulfills some government mandate that makes sure the cat is alive and using the needles and the needles are not being passed on to nefarious illegal drug users.

It’s such a pain. He is healthy and happy and doesn’t need to go to the vet. And the vet doesn’t need to charge me the fat bill that such a visit requires. It’s a scam.

But, I only have a hundred needles and a refill of a hundred more. That’s 100 days of needles. Child will be newly born in 100 days. So…I should get the vet visit over with before the refills expire. It’s good to think ahead about these things.

I am glad that Chris is a good partner for forethought. We will be very ready, in as much as you can be ready, for the arrival of the first child.

Happy Holiday!  It’s nice to have a day off.

 The goals for today are to wash the dog, do some laundry, gather newpaper and boxes for Grandmother, and make lemon bars

It should be doable.

Grandmother is moving. At some point. She has come to the conclusion that her double wide trailer is too large to keep up with. We fear that it will take some time to sell, but it is more important that she take care of her health.

Daley thanksgiving dinner happens at the usual dinner hour. My family starts thanksgiving dinner at maybe 9 in the morning…but the Daleys are less gluttonous and start dinner at 6. That means I have all day to get other things done.

Chris put up the christmas lights. We are the first on our block to do so. And Saturday I wrapped presents. My parents are coming to visit on Friday, so I have all the little gifts for my family ready to send with them. Wrapped, now.

I don’t like to leave things for the last minute, but this is ahead of the curve even for me.

It is nice to see the cheerful christmas lights

My beautiful friend Wendee came to visit this weekend, and we went to the Pilgrim’s Festival. We enjoyed the rummage sale, perused the jam jars and watched part of the reenactment play.

Later we go home to  walk the dog. For dinner we went to Don Jose, which is large and homey and has blackand white photos of western movies up on the walls.

We stayed up kinda late talking, so I slept in later than usual for me. When I woke up I wanted to make a nice pancake breakfast for Wendee, but I remembered we had no syrup. I racked my brain for what sort of yummy food I could make, and then I remembered:

POPOVERS

We used to make these when I was a kid. The floury dough would sit low and unassuming in their individual muffin pan beds until

POW

they would explode up from their middles, arching into a shell that would crisp while the hollow center would cook into a soft doughy goodness.

There is a trick to popovers; you have to start them at high temp and then lower the temp just before halfways through. I had been nervous to attempt popovers with my old ancient oven, but now with my new and very temperature accurate oven I was ready to try.

Joy of Cooking gave me the same recipe mom had used, and I mixed up a batch. JOC says the ingredients have to be room temp. I let them get warmer on the counter while I waited for Wendee to wake up. The other very important part of popovers it that their deliciousness is greatly enhanced by eating them immediately after taking them out of the oven.

HOT HOT HOT and with butter and jam or sugar.

Wendee awoke, and agreed to the popover experiment. I greased the muffin pan, including a silicone one I got for my weddings, floured it and poured in the batter.

The result:

Perfection

Better even than I remember from childhood. Crunchy, crispy soft and doughy deliciousness with butter, tea and jam.

yum yum