Want
to know how one gets moved into a new house and unpacked (for the most part) in
2 months? The following photo will provide a clue:
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| Ol' No. 7 to the rescue |
No, the answer isn’t "throw back a few belts of Jack Daniel’s"! The answer is:
volunteer to host a brunch for 10!
Whew.
What was I thinking? I don’t know, but when the suggestion was made at our
October supper club dinner to make the November gathering a brunch, somehow or
other my hand went up when the leader of our group asked “so, who wants to host
a brunch the Sunday before Thanksgiving?”
(That
reminds me of something my Daddy used to say about his Army basic training days:
if someone asks for volunteers, take two giant steps backwards! Of course, he
rarely followed his own advice. Need someone to head up the Dixie Youth
Baseball League? Sidney will do it. There’s no one to be president of the
Ripley High PTA? No problem...Sidney will do it! But I digress.)
I
honestly thought that this was a time-delimited incentive to make the mountain
of boxes in the main living areas disappear and all the stuff contained inside
get in its proper place. And, since I have neither a wand nor a book of spells,
I didn’t really believe the stuff would magic itself to the most logical location...but
wouldn’t have minded one bit if Hermione Granger had popped in any time during
the month-long ordeal.
Actually,
we had 5 weeks and two days to get our house ready to receive guests. Piece ‘o
cake, right? Right. First things first: make a list...one each for Mr. T and
me, and one for things in general. Soon, each list had a sub-list, which
spawned sub-sub lists, and...well, you get the picture. Each morning over
coffee, we would discuss what we needed to do that day...and then have another
cup. And another. Hey, they are now saying there are definite health benefits
to drinking 3-4 cups of coffee a day, right? Right!
But
I digress...again. Oh yes, so many times...in so many ways. You see, having
deadlines was bumping into one of the things we are enjoying about retirement:
NOT having deadlines.
Anyway...
I am
pleased to report that we actually managed to pull it off! Boxes were cleared
out* (for the most part...if you don’t count Mr. T’s office), pictures were
arranged on walls, and personal touches appeared here and there...and before
you could say ‘wingardium
leviosa’** stuff seemed to be flying into the proper places.
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| 7-Up Biscuits |
Mr. T cleaned the outside, front and back, of all the leaves that our trees were now contributing to the landscape, along with sprucing up the siding near the front door. We moved furniture around (I know, I know...we haven't been here long enough to be moving furniture!) as we wanted to accommodate 10 people in our cozy house: the Library gained a table and shed its comfy reading chairs to become the Dining Room (which is what it was originally designed for) and the Great Room became the repository of all the chairs so everyone would have a spot to sit and sip their mimosas.
The
hosts usually provide the beverages (we set up a mimosa bar for starters, and
then had strawberry-mint infused water along with coffee for the meal) and the
main course (we had Bourbon-and-brown sugar-basted ham***...hence the Jack Daniels!)...and because breads
are kinda my thing, 7-Up biscuits****.
Others brought an egg casserole, grits
casserole, fruit salad, and a dessert. Then we popped some Fall Crackers (you know, like the Brits have at Christmas...only these had a Fall theme), read the riddles, and wore the paper crowns. Thankfully the meal was tasty, the day was loads of fun, and we introduced Loganville to several Athens-area
couples who hadn’t ventured this far out “in the country” before.
Here are some photos Mr. T snapped of the house before the guests arrived:
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| Mimosa Bar in Foyer |
 |
| Coffee Bar in Kitchen |
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| Table in Breakfast Room |
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| Table in Dining Room (aka: Library) |
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| Great Room (aka: "Chair Room!") |
After such excitement in our lives, we were more than grateful to be able to spend a quiet, non-traveling Thanksgiving in our new (and newly-unpacked!) home. Missy M and grand-dog Ella Rae spent a couple of nights with us, and it was just about perfect...the warmer than usual weather being the only odd thing of note.
And
now, we can relax, right?
Wrong!
With Christmas fast-approaching, we have unpacked many of the remaining boxes
in the attic in order to decorate the house. Candles are in the windows, Santa
Nutcrackers are at their posts, and the Christmas china that Daddy gave me 30
years ago when he was working at Central Hardware is on the table. We sold our
five-year-old 9’ lighted tree, and then bought a 7 1/2’ one for 75% off in the
after-Christmas sales last year...it was still in the original box even, making
it easy to set up in the great room...along with a smaller one for my
traditional Sheep Ornament tree (which is now set up in the window of the
floored-but-unfinished attic room over the garage...looking for all the world like we
set it up in an upstairs den!). The outside light display is more subdued (as
we seem to have shed ourselves of many strands of lights), but we still have
Mom ‘n Pop Reindeer on the lawn. And, although our nutcracker collection was
greatly diminished by being such a popular item in our NC moving sale, we have
enough “mens” left to populate the mantle...and then some. I'll upload those pictures into my next blog post.
Oh
my, can I say that it looks a lot like home here now? Our home. Where our
hearts are...and our boxes aren’t...for the most part.
And,
to think, it’s all because I volunteered to host a brunch.
====================
*Most
of our boxes will live on in our soon-to-be-constructed kitchen garden and compost
bins. Cardboard is like gold to a gardener!
**the levitating charm from
Harry Potter.
Ingredients
- 1 (6- to 8-lb.) fully cooked, bone-in ham
- whole cloves
- 1 (16-oz.) package light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup spicy brown mustard
- 1 cup Coca Cola soft drink
- 3/4 cup bourbon (or in the case of a Tennessee native...sipping whisky!)
How to Make It
Step 1: Preheat oven to 350°. Remove skin from
ham, and trim fat to 1/4-inch thickness. Make shallow cuts in fat 3/4
inch apart in a diamond pattern.
Step 2: Insert cloves in centers of diamonds.
Place ham in a lightly greased 13- x 9-inch pan (I used the large Le Creuset roaster). Stir together brown
sugar and next 3 ingredients; spoon mixture over ham. (I reserved 1/2 of the mixture to serve heated with the ham.)
Step 3: Bake at 350° on lowest oven rack 2 hours
and 30 minutes, basting slowly with pan juices every 15 to 20 minutes.
Remove ham from oven, and let stand 20 minutes before slicing, basting
occasionally with pan juices. (I cooked the ham the day before, cooled it enough to refrigerate overnight, then heated it in the oven on 275).
==========
Ingredients
-
1/2 cup butter
-
4 1/2 cups baking mix (such as Bisquick (R))
- (I add 1 T baking powder for a high-rise biscuit)
- 1 cup lemon-lime soda (such as 7-Up(R))
-
1 cup sour cream
Directions
- Preheat oven to 425
degrees F (220 degrees C). Put butter in a 9x13-inch baking dish (I use round cake pans) and
place dish (pans) in the preheating oven until butter is melted.
- Mix baking mix,
lemon-lime soda, and sour cream together in a bowl until dough holds
together and is sticky. (I add the extra melted butter to the bowl of my cuisinart with the dough blade, then put the wet ingredients in first followed by the baking mix along with 1 T baking powder). Turn dough onto a floured work surface and roll
into 1-inch thick circle (NEVER overwork any biscuit dough, this one included: turn it 4-5 times in the additional flour then pat it into the circle). Cut circles out of dough using a cookie cutter
or the rim of a wine glass (dipped in some extra flour) and place in pan in which you melted the butter.
- Bake in the preheated
oven until biscuits are golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove dish from
oven and let stand until biscuits have absorbed all the butter. (I brush butter over the tops of the biscuits for softer crusts).
