Month: December 2017

I haven’t written much lately; just haven’t been inspired by much of anything. The flu has kicked our behinds the last three weeks, with my mother in the hospital for one of them. It snowed while she was in the hospital. It was like a giant baker had taken his sifter and sprinkled the whole area with confectioners sugar. Driving home from the hospital that Friday afternoon, I thought I had taken a wrong turn and wound up in Narnia. White was everywhere. Beautiful and cold. I didn’t take a single picture.

My mother’s health has not improved much since we’ve been home. Saturday I listened to Christmas carols, while I baked sugar cookies and fought the dog, trying to keep her away from the bowls of icing.  She managed to lap all in the green. No, I didn’t use it. I made more. Bad dog.

I had thought about sharing a recipe for sugar cookies and decorating sugar cookies, but it’s late in the Season and really, do I need to add my trivial offering to the plethora of cookie traditions?

This was as far as I got on documenting my baking yesterday. I finished them, filling them in with tinted icing to look like reindeer. They taste good- small bob of the head to acknowledge my accomplishment.

I mentioned the bad dog. Early yesterday morning I had her on her lead in the back yard. She slipped said lead and disappeared for a couple hours. The animal control officer was about to pack her in when I found her. Back at home, she acted a little off. She disappeared into the hallway and upchucked… Twice! Yeah…. Called the vets office. She’s fine and back to her normal self. Bad dog.

Not much in the mood for Christmas this year. Well, the commercial side of it, anyway.

I lost a sweet friend a month ago. Scrolling through my contacts today,  I saw her number and the heart emojis she had typed in answer to a text I had sent back in August.

Also yesterday, in between batches of cookies, I washed a quilt that had been given as a prize at a family reunion a few years back. Each family member present had signed it.  As I pulled it out of the washer to put in the dryer, the first name I saw was of my cousin Homer. He passed away in January of this year.

I guess I’m just sad this year and missing many people from my past. My Daddy. My grandmothers.  My cousins. My friend. I’m glad, thankful, that one day I’ll see them all again.

We get caught up in the hustle of a secular Christmas. Hey, folks, it’s not your birthday! It’s the Savior’s birthday.  Remember what is important.

Christmas Blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.