This is Emily, Spencer’s Mommy, on Christmas Day, 1983. Who do you think he looks like?
And, because I couldn’t decide which photo to use, you get two! Poor old Santa! Me and Becca in 1990, trying our best to be good.
SnowPeeps
I’ve Been Sewing My Brains Out
Since I’ve been buying so much fabric lately, I figured I better get busy sewing some of it up. After a trip to the Hobby Lobby in Tuscaloosa, the quilt shop that I found, some online fabric shopping, and then the trip to Joann last weekend I finally have enough fabric to complete several projects. (Did you think I was going to say I had enough fabric? A girl can NEVER have enough fabric.)
A dress for my granddaughter
and a blue dotty skirt, too.
and another ruffled skirt with horses. (She loves horses.)
A zippered bag for my daughter, Becca
and a tote bag to match.
Pink and green tote for Emily
with a matching zippered bag.
Becky gets yellow and black
and here is her zippered one, I love this one.
Patchwork in aqua, turquois, and purple for my friend Gaelyn.
and one for the little girl who lives down the lane. Ha ha ha, not really, but for Emily’s niece.
And of course she gets a matching zippered bag, too.
Brown, pink, green, stripey dots for my daughter-in-law, Sarah.
A Christmas apron for my mother
Another tote bag for my sister. I have one more little bag to make, and I will be done with gifts. Then I can sew for fun. Yay!
Check out all the other handmade goodness at Everything Etsy.
Another Benefit of Volunteering
A Trip To My Hometown
We haven’t been “home” in about 18 months, so we were overdue to visit there. Last weekend, we loaded up the truck with computers, suitcase, and sandwiches, and hit the road for the 200 mile trip.
Our first stop was at the mall, because Fabgrandpa needed a new winter jacket. He melted his old one in a commercial dryer when we were volunteering at Unicoi State Park back in 2007. He didn’t need one last winter because we were in a pretty warm place, but, as we have discovered, Alabama is COLD! Oh, and let’s just say that planning a quick trip to the mall two weeks before Christmas is BIG mistake.
After we got out of the mall, we drove over to Becky’s hair salon to get prettied up. She is the best “hair-doer” I have ever known. We always get our hair done by her when we come to town. (Of course, she IS my daughter, and NO I am not biased in my opinion. he he he). FabGrandpa went first.
Then it was my turn. Becky cut off about two inches, trimmed my bangs, and then styled my hair. I always feel like a pampered princess when I go there.
Here we are, all dolled up, and FabGrandpa in his new mall jacket.
This is something I DON’T miss on a daily basis: lots of traffic. It was raining, too. And don’t think that all this is from Christmas shopping–no, it is like this all the time in Douglasville.
Remember last year when I lost that diamond? When Becky came to visit us at the Grand Canyon, she took my rings home with her, and had them repaired, complete with a new diamond. The jeweler cleaned and shined them up, so that they look better than ever! She gave them to me when we were at the shop, and I cried like a baby. She is too good to me!
From the beauty shop, we drove over to visit my mother. That’s her Christmas tree there, and if you look, on the shelves behind the tree is a huge collection of Santas. We had a nice visit, then left to meet Becky and her true love for dinner.
That’s the happy bride to be with her guy, Rafe. He is a very nice guy. We’ll be proud to call him our son-in-law. The wedding won’t be until February, 2011. That’s still quite a ways off, but hey, I still haven’t bought my mother of the bride dress. I’m still looking.
We finally made to the motel, a Holiday Inn Express. The room was very nice for the money. It even had a big screen TV. But FabGrandpa spent most of his time in the room playing Left 4 Dead. He said there wasn’t much on TV to watch, anyway.
The next morning, I got up and went back to my Mom’s for breakfast. My sister came over, too, still in her pajamas. We spent a couple of hours talking girl talk while FabGrandpa slept in at the motel.
After having breakfast with them, I went to Cracker Barrell to meet my daughter, Emily and niece, Nikki for another breakfast. I had not ever met Nikki before, well, except for when she was a tiny baby. My sister “found” her on Myspace a couple of years ago. I have not been in town when she was since then, so we arranged to meet last weekend. It was nice to meet her. She is a gorgeous girl, and smart too, just like my daughters. She spent 6 years in the Air Force and is now in school to be a medical technician. I didn’t get a picture, though, I was so busy talking I just forgot!
After the second breakfast (yeah, no wonder I am so fat! But, honestly, I only ate a little bit at both of them), Emily and I went fabric shopping. I spent a LOT of money, but I had specific projects in mind, and still didn’t get everything I needed. Yes, yet another fabric trip is in the planning.
Emily and I decided we did not want to do any other shopping after the fabric store, so we went to her house and just hung out. My grandson, Spencer, thanked me again for his quilt. He is so cute, don’t you think?
I made this bag for Emily and gave it to her while I was at her house. She loved it!
It is big enough for her teacher self to tote books and papers and pencils and stuff. I made a matching zippered pouch to go with, which of course I have no picture of.
There’s Spencer again, trying to figure out how to take my picture.
And Emily’s Christmas tree, in her living room with her new floors. I love it! She has redone the entire house since I was there the last time. I
We left Emily’s house and met up with FabGrandpa and Becky at Longhorn Steakhouse, one of our favorite places to eat. I had a salad, no croutons, no dressing, a ribeye medium rare, and a baked sweet potato. No gluten anywhere, and it was delish! There’s FabGrandpa with Emily.
And me with my dinner date, Spencer. Spencer’s Dad was there too, but he does not want me to show his face, so I won’t. We had such a busy weekend, but it was fun, and we’ll do it again, soon.
My Two Seconds Of Fame
Yeah, that’s me there in the shades, because, you know, I’m, like, FAMOUS! Patricia Biesen, who writes Chicago Eats Allergy Free for Chicago Now, mentioned FabGrandma in a blog post on November 27, called “Play with Food: One Fab Grandma, FAAN’s New Look and more”
Then, on December 12, she was a guest on a Bill Leff’s radio talk show on WGN in Chicago, and mentioned my blog by name on the air!!! Yes, my hat still fits. Barely.
Remember Whensday: The Christmas Food Box
My post today has no photograph to jog my memory. Way back years ago when I was a divorced mother of three young children, trying very hard on a very tight budget to make ends meet, I was the recipient of a food box from a community organization at Christmas. I was happy to get it, but one of the things I have always remembered from that experience was how many cans of hominy were in it.
I did appreciate getting the food, but I remember thinking “I wonder how many people really eat that stuff?” and wondering why, if you don’t eat something yourself, would you put it in the donation box for others. Do people think that just because we are unable to provide for ourselves for a minute that our taste buds or nutritional needs are going to change? Back then, it was just a matter of tastes. If I were the recipient of a food box now, though, it would be a matter of whether or not I would be able to eat the foods that I received.
I am not alone in this line of thinking. Dee Valdez, who was diagnosed with Celiac Disease 17 years ago, remembers talking to a mother with a sick 7 year old who had Celiac. The mother said she had to choose between feeding her whole family or just feeding her sick daughter the very expensive gluten free food she could find. That distraught mother said, referring to her Celiac daughter, “She’s just going to have to live with diarrhea.”
“There is a great need to develop a systematic approach to establishing Gluten Free Food Banks across the nation.” says Valdez. She is making that happen in Loveland, Colorado, where there was a dedication and ribbon cutting for the new gluten free section of the existing House of Neighborly Service Food Bank (HNS) on Tuesday, December 15, 2009. This location will serve as the test site for the new program Valdez is designing to be implemented in communities across the country. What a wonderful thing for the 1 in 133 of us who can not eat gluten!
I was also happy to read that Pamela’s Products, a dedicated gluten-free company, is a supporter of this effort, and is donating their Baking & Pancake Mix and their cookies to HNS. I discovered Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix early on in my gluten free life–it is now one of the staples of life in the Fab household.
While the costs of gluten free products has come down, and there is a much wider selection of them, they are still more expensive than regular normal foods. For example, you can pick up a loaf of regular white wheat bread for under $2.00 at any grocery store. The last gluten free bread I bought cost me about $7.50 for a 12 ounce loaf. Fabgrandpa and I can afford it, but with so many people losing their jobs, many people who must eat a gluten free diet are finding their budgets stretched to the limits, and facing the choice of whether to eat foods that are toxic to them. Ever since I started eating gluten free, whenever I donate items to a food drive, I always donate gluten free–pasta, bread mix, baking mix, cookies, cereal. Because, what is the point of giving something I wouldn’t eat myself?
For other Remember Whensday posts, click here.
A Simple Pleasure!
We left the trailer behind this weekend to go visit the family in our hometown. It was a 200 mile drive, mostly through the countryside in Alabama. Back in the days when I still ate a gluten filled diet, when we traveled I would make a picnic lunch so we could eat in the truck. Egg sandwiches, with potato chips, and maybe some fruit. But since we stopped eating gluten, we haven’t had that simple pleasure. But guess what? since I have all that Udi’s bread in the freezer, I surprised FabGrandpa with egg sandwiches:
Now that might not look like such a treat to anyone else, but to us, it was wonderful! It just seems like such an intimate thing, for me to make a sandwich for my sweetheart on a trip out of town.