ALPHABET SOUP FOR YOU!!

Morning Glory from Seeds From My Garden posts Alphabet Soup Day every Wednesday and invites us to share. I am just catching up on blogging today, so here goes:

The Letter today is N. When I started thinking of things in my life with the letter N I kept coming up with words and not things. So let's start with the words I thought of:

NAMBY-PAMBY - Wishy-Washy. Actually I looked up the definition and it has a literary history.

NUANCE - I like this word. It has a delicate sound and meaning.

NEVER NEVERLAND - Where we all want to go at some point in our lives. Hopefully, Peter Pan is there.

NICE - Well, it is always nice to be nice, but even better to be IN Nice.

That is my take on the letter N today. Have a good one, dear bloggers.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Here I am back in Massachusetts with Beth and Dale and my grandsons. I flew up here yesterday. Yes, the airport was packed and the flight was delayed a few hours. But here I am! This morning they all got up early and ran the local "Feaster Five" race. Grammy was allowed to sleep in. They got home with medals and ribbons and giveaway apple pies.

A highlight last night was that the boys are teaching me to play chess. What fun! They are so smart I can't get over it.

Dinner will be ready in about an hour and it smells wonderful. Have a beautiful day, everyone. I will include all of you dear blogging friends in my prayer of thanks.




P.S. Today is my birthday!! I think I am officially old -- ha ha!

SECRET SANTA GIFT EXCHANGE

Have you ever taken part in a Secret Santa or Secret Pal Gift Exchange? Litblogger Nymeth at Things Mean A Lot is organizing a Blogger Christmas Exchange this holiday season. Be sure and stop by her blog for details! The deadline is November 23rd.

It looks like lots of fun!

HOLIDAY PLANS

The weather today is unbelievable. It is sunny and about 63 degrees. I went down to the boardwalk and took these pictures for your enjoyment (lol).

Even the frozen custard stand was open.

I just realized it is 41 days until Christmas. I never start shopping early and this year will be no exception. Every year the gift giving dwindles for some reason. Now that my parents are gone and some of the family don't exchange gifts anymore -- well, that's why. However, the spirit is as strong as ever. I always love Christmas Eve the most. I try to get to church for candelight service, have a light dinner and then a larger dinner on Christmas Day. What are your Christmas plans? I know, I know, it isn't even Thanksgiving yet.

Santa's house on the boardwalk. He wasn't home, though.

As you can see, I am rambling on, blah, blah, blah. But I did want to say hi, how are you today.

We will be heading up to Mass. for Thanksgiving. This year we are driving so that we can take Beau along. That should be interesting. Beau is not a very good passenger. He wants to sit on my lap, actually stand, while we are driving. God forbid it should rain because he hates windshield wipers and just about goes through the windshield trying to get at them. I think whomever is not driving will have to sit with him in the backseat. I will celebrate my birthday on Thanksgiving also. Yes, I was actually born on Thanksgiving. My father used to say that I was the turkey (Dad's sense of humor)! The day after Thanksgiving is our 15th wedding anniversary. Sometimes I wonder how we made it, but it looks like we are in it for the long haul (smiling).

Take care, everyone.

MONDAY'S FAVORITE

The little house with green trim was almost as familiar to me as my own house a few blocks away. The girl lived there with her parents. She was an only child and had a bedroom to herself. At that time my sister and I shared a room and I considered this girl's bedroom status as one to be greatly coveted. We met each other in sixth grade although she was in a different classroom and it wasn't until later that we became friends. I admired her because she was just plain COOL -- and this was before cool was used in our eleven year old vocabulary. She wore bobby sox with tiny little colored clothespins clipped to the cuffs. How I wanted some of those little clothespins. She was from Philly before she came to our school. That was why she was cooooool. By junior high we were best friends.

There we would sit after school and weekends in her bedroom playing the 45's -- Jimmy Charles' "A Million To One" was one of our favorites. We talked about boys, boys, boys -- what else? Her Mom used to make us Chef Boyardee Instant Pizza which was just as good as what we got from the pizza shop. The girl was the best dancer around and she labored for hours trying to teach me the "mashed potatoes" and "the pony." I know we both can still do them. We went to summer community dances, dances at a nearby rollerskating rink, school dances. Everything back then was about music and boys.

Through crushes, boyfriends, girlfriends and the interruptions of high school, we still maintained our friendship. After high school we attended the same school to be medical secretaries and then we slowly drifted in different directions until finally we lost each other.

Enter, stage left, classmates.com. many years later. I checked out my graduating class and saw her name on their list and if I wanted to get in touch, I could pay $25 to join. There was no question. The girl lives in Georgia and I am in Delaware and we are once again, best friends. We are both married and are grandmothers now, but we will always treasure our history during those wonderful years.


Who is this girl? Scroll down to see my Monday's Favorite - my Best Friend,



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Our fellow blogger - Lynne at Lynne's Little Corner Of The World.!!!!!!!!!!





Me on the left, Lynne on the right. 40th High School Reunion.



I hope you enjoyed my post today. Remember, if you ever get the chance to meet up with your best friend from years and years ago, you may get lucky like I did.

THIS N' THAT

Hi, everyone. I have been catching up on your blogs and WOW, it strikes me that Thanksgiving is upon us. There is some nice decorating going on out there from what I see in your photos. I was looking around my house for some decorations, but can't find anything that looks like Thanksgiving or fall harvest, other than the Halloween things. This really surprises me because I seem to collect so much stuff. I have a wonderful rustic French country farmhouse table which I still have not used except to spread out business things, scrapbook things, etc, etc. Get the picture? We acquired this not that long ago, but we don't seem to entertain much -- mostly because my husband has been building an addition on our house for the past five years and I never want anyone to see the upheaval. While I was away, he did finish quite a lot which has made me very happy. If any of you are married to a builder -- you understand. Remember the shoemaker's kids? Same thing.

This Sunday there is a local auction which I love to attend. I may not always buy anything, but I love to sit there, eat hot dogs and watch the show. I like to stay to the very end when they sell what is left over in lots for very little money. You can get some really good deals at auctions, but you really have to be careful. Don't get caught up in the moment (like me) and end up with a collection of Russian lacquer boxes and a collection of Native American dolls and not know what to do with them. I guess they will go to E-Bay heaven. However, I did have an experience today that proves I am not always so irresponsible. I had bought an oriental rug at the auction a few years ago for a few hundred dollars. I sent it out for cleaning last week and they brought it back today and asked me if I knew what it was worth. I said "no"and the fellow said it was worth about $3000!!!! I told my husband and he said "SELL IT"!!! Men!

Have a good weekend everyone. I'll let you know what I bought (or didn't) at the auction.

MONDAY'S FAVORITES

Once again I am shocked that another Monday is here.

Today I am going to include a book as one of my favorite things, because I just finished reading this and enjoyed it so much I have to share it with you. This debut novel by William Lychack is "The Wasp Eater" and the author and his wife are friends of my daughter and her husband. They teach at the same school. I heard Bill read a portion of this at a "reading" at the Andover Bookstore earlier this year. The novel essentially expresses the emotions (happy and tragic) of a ten year old boy when his parents separate and his desperate attempt to repair his family. The writing is so poetic and sensitive that you could actually take portions, set it up in a poetic form and there it would be -- a poem in its own right.

From the book jacket:

"..........Graceful and magnetic, this impressive first novel insightfully
charts the raw emotional unercurrents of a broken family through characters whose human foibles are artfully drawn."

I hope you will add this book to your list and give it a try. I know you will enjoy it.

That's it for tonight, folks. Take care of yourselves.

BEE MOVIE

Nor'easter Noel has arrived in the Boston area today so it has been a pretty miserable day, weatherwise. A good day to spend at the movies which is what we did -- us and a few hundred other kids (of ALL ages).


Bee Movie was excellent, funny for everyone. The animation was good, fast moving and creative. Jerry Seinfeld's voice identified him as the hero of the story. There has been a lot of marketing hype out there to promote this movie, including MacDonalds kids meal giveaways, but it certainly holds true that the movie is fun for everyone. The last movie I saw with my grandsons was "The Ant Bully" and I have been careful ever since about stepping on ants. Now the bees. I have been into honey lately anyway and have been using honey products in handcream.

See this movie with kids or see it alone -- I'll bet you'll enjoy it.

I fly out of Manchester, NH to Philly tomorrow. I hate to leave here, but I'll be back for Thanksgiving.

Take care everyone.

DON'T FORGET ME!

I am still enjoying my stay here in Andover with Beth and Dale and my grandsons. The weather is beautiful - leaves are lovely. The boys had a good Halloween and got a nice haul of candy. I am including this photo that 11 year old grandson Cooper took of their dog Ohbee retrieving a ball in a lake where they hiked a few weeks ago. Isn't this the best picture? He is taking a photography class in school and is into it now. Do I see a future National Geographic professional photographer?

I am trying to get used to their Apple computer and haven't been online much since I have been here. I will catch up with all of you when I get home. Tomorrow we have soccer games and we are going to see "Bee Movie". I'll give you my review afterwards.

Have a lovely weekend !