Ready for some football!

This New England girl is soooo ready for football tonight!

The rain is pouring where I live, about 45 minutes away from Gilette Stadium.  My house is like the calm before the storm.  Friends will be here soon, 

I am hydrating now cause there is gonna be some drinking and eating up in here!

One game at a time in the post season.  I am so excited we have made it this far.

The kielbasa is ready...

and we couldn't have a big game without these(thank you pioneer woman)

It is a little strange playing the Colts with no Peyton Manning.  Have I said how much

I hate really dislike Peyton Manning.  I really don't like any Mannings for that matter.  I even have a 

neighbor called Manning and I don't like her either. 

Now I know I sound like a hater, but we all have our own idiosyncrasies and 

this is just one of mine.

Here are more...

I am waiting for friends to get here.  Not too many, it takes away from the game and I miss stuff with too many people over.

Commercials are the time to talk.

None of my extended family will be at my house.  The Pats seem to lose when we are all together and they are all too superstitious to come over.  

I don't like beer but I will drink beer when football is on.

My kids don't like football but I make them watch a little with me anyways.

I really don't like the Saints (though I have a deep affection for the city). Their coach has

sneaky eyes.  Don't trust someone as far as I can throw them with eyes like that.

That's my story and I am sticking to it!

All I can say is Go Pats!

Glogg...it does a body good

Yes, it is freezing!  We luckily have not had the snow in Massachusetts that other places have gotten, but it is freaking freezing!  On days like this, there is only one thing to do and that is drink and I love to drink Glogg.  It is the Swede in me.  It connects me to my family.  The recipe was handed down to me from my grandfather.  It is the sure thing to send you off for a nice winter's nap and it doesn't hurt that it is so yummy!

I down loaded the app A Beautiful Mess

and turned the above picture of my Glogg into this...

Love!

The Crawleys & the ill-fated reign of Queen Wilbanks

Oh Crawley family... I have missed you so.

I am just hooked and have been since the beginning.  Downton is just another world that I love to visit.  

I can't wait to see where this season takes us. 

Watching Downton last night reminded me of a little 'royal' drama I had this past August.  I began bee keeping this past year.  We went on vacation in August for 2 weeks.  Everything looked good before we left but there was succession afoot!

Long story short, it appeared that my bees tried to make a new queen and offed the old one, poor Queen Talulah(rest her tiny little bee soul).  However, offing Queen Talulah is fine if there is a new queen laying eggs, but there was no sign of a new queen and my hive was in danger of dwindling and not making it through the winter.

Enter Queen Wilbanks...

She was beautiful and as lovely as her name implies with a Tiffany blue dot on her back to mark her.  I was warned to keep her extra safe.  The worry was that there was a queen in the hive, although not being productive.  I was told I would know or should know pretty quick.  What my bees told me was that they were 'all set'.  They didn't need no hoity toity Queen Wilbanks coming in.  They made their own queen and she was going to start laying in her own sweet time, which of course she did... 2 days after I paid the $25 for Queen Wilbanks.  There were a few bees that just plunked down on that queen cage and tried to sting her.  It was fascinating and here is how it went down...

What this past year of beekeeping has taught me is to trust my instincts.  My bees were never aggressive but I noticed a hugh change with them once Queen Talulah was gone.  They were calm as could be.  When I would open the hive they were like, "Oh, Hi" and then just go about their business.  That is the sign of a happy hive and a hive is happy because they are happy with their queen.  

Queen Wilbanks was passed on to another bee keeper in need of a queen.  Now I have Queen Lucy.  A little scrappy and knows her roots.  She is a queen hailing from the great state of Massachusetts.  I am hopeful she will pull the girls through the winter and we will have a happy hive come spring.

back on the blog... and a question of "Sponge worthy"

It has been a long time, but I am back.  I have thought a bunch of times about jumping back into blogging, but where to start, what to say? Blog the good? Blog the bad?  I again thought about this last night while playing pitch in only the crazy rowdy way my family plays cards.  There were 12 of us.  It gets a little loud and gets a little crazy! Since it is still the holidays, my mother had this table cloth out on display.

It reminded me that life is all of it, the good, the bad and the ugly (along with a many other adjectives, but you get the point)

This table cloth was started by my grandmother in 1953 and continued by my mother after my grandmother passed.  Christmas and New Years my grandmother would have family and friends sign it.  Then she would embroider over the signature.  Immediate family included pets names as well(obviously).  There are our young signatures as kids and our adult signatures all grown up and some with our married last names.  Our children have shown up once they were old enough to sign it.  They are the great grandchildren of the woman who started it all.   After 60 years the table cloth has seen many changes with people who have come in and out of the lives of our family members.  There are the ex-wives and ex-girlfriends of my cousin and uncle.  There are friends so dear and some friends not so much.

The conversation over cards then turned to 'Who is signature worthy?' and it reminded me of Seinfield and Elaine's classification of men.  Either they were 'sponge worth' or they were not.

Now,  I know there are a few signatures I would rather not remember but, we all came to the same conclusion.  The table cloth is a true history of us.  The ex's, the friends not as dear as they once were and then the treasure trove of signatures of all the special family, friends and pets who have touched us and left their imprint on our hearts and souls.  

My grandmother didn't judge who was signature worthy, she just had them sign and thankfully so as we are left with a true family treasure and a unique view of our history.  In blogging or scrapbooking,  you can omit and overlook things you would rather not recall.  Remembering the not so good can be just as important as remembering the good.  It tells you where you have been and shows you where you are going.

Happy New Year!

my heavy heart...

Our city and our people were rocked on Monday, Patriot's Day by an unspeakable act.  It is so surreal. Growing up an hour out of Boston, there are just some things that are institutions...one of those being the Boston Marathon.  We saw the pictures, scrambled to check in with people we know who run or watch the marathon every year.  Everyone I know is alright but we are not alright.  In the past day I have been in disbelief, sadness and now I am just mad.  Who the fuck did this? Children dead or maimed.  Adults dead or maimed.  There is no way to make sense.  I pray for those injured.  The responders, the spectators. The horrors they saw and will live with.  I just don't know.