Brunswick Stew at Barney and Jackie's House

Every year right after Thanksgiving, our sweet neighbors Barney and Jackie have the entire neighborhood over for a Brunswick stew lunch.  They stay up the night before with their cauldron, stirring the concoction.  Their kids and grandkids take part.

Barney cooks the hushpuppies.....

 

He's a sweetheart!

And Jackie just runs around and keeps everything on schedule!

The crowd gathering before we ate!

 Other neighbors were there - Dottie (and Ramsey)

And Gretchen.....Dick and Lindy were there also but I didn't manage to snap a photo of them.....I'm really slipping!!!

Oh, you might have noticed not Duane photos.....he's been really sick with a cough/pulled muscle the past couple of days and stayed home.

Beautiful but nippy day!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a nice family dinner on Thanksgiving afternoon - this is the only photo!!!  In addition to the boys and Miranda, Sharon & Buddy and Randy, Sue & Steven Jones joined us.  Great food and conversation!  I guess I was just too busy to bother with the camera....gasp!!!

Night out

Just a quick night out with Sharon and Buddy!

Amazing....we got a photo of Duane too!

An amazing milestone in the World of Karen

You're probably not going to believe it, but we've finally gone over to the "dark side" and got ourselves some "Smartphones"!!

Good bye to my trusty flip phone.....huge amounts of time were spent over the past 4 or 5 years on this very phone.....

 

I spent about an hour at the Verizon store with this nice young man -

And I'm pretty happy with it so far!  Fun, useful toy!

I'm being a bit naughty today!

I see that I've been neglecting the World of Karen lately!  There is a post from the weekend over at McCraw Sails in case you missed it.....

Busy, busy - I've been holding down the fort at the Asheboro Airport since I have an employee out for a few days.  So not much going on in the WOK!

At Asheboro, we have an "airport bum" (Hub!) that occasionally brings us treats.  Today it's "SUPER DONUTS" from a local bakery. 

See, I'm being naughty - 8 seconds in the microwave and they are heavenly!  Taking the chill off the 17 degrees this morning when I pulled out of the garage!

Painting Garage Doors

Our garage doors have never been painted.  Almost 20 yearrs in the house and they're still the original white/grey prime color from when they were new.   I got an idea that they would look good painted the "Rustic Red" like the other doors.....

I had to use a small paintbrush to work around the edges and the creases where the door folds open.

And then used a roller to do all the remainder.....

I actually need to do another coat to make it look really good....but I ran out of paint and daylight!  

Chilly weather = Chilli (meatless)

I was feeling the chilly weather....and "hankering" for some chilli and cornbread. I remembered that I had picked up a bag of "meatless chilli fixin's" at the Seventh Day Adventist store when I visited with my sis back in the summer. I just didn't remember where I had stashed it! Luckily, it apparently has a long shelf life - it's just TVP (textured vegetable protein) and flavoring. But, I located it at the back of a shelf.

Fried up some onions, celery and fresh jalapeno's ---

I was being lazy...so I used all canned goods - just open and dump in a big pan.  Add the chilli mix and some additional cumin, chilli pepper and garlic.

Oh, and bake a fresh cake of cornbread using some more onions and a can of corn (and a spoonful of sugar!) 

And it was absolutely delish!!  Duane enjoyed it too, so I know it was super good!

Destin, FL Trip Day 5 and homeward....

Forgot to mention that the previous night, we all went to McGuire's Irish Pub.  It was fabulous!  I didn't take my camera, so I nabbed a photo from the web.  They have 1.3 MILLION dollar bills donated and autographed by customers hanging on most every surface.

Really fun - they have the 18 cent Senate Bean soup - and lots of fun Irish Dishes.  


So, on to the next day....Dave invited us to his place for a luncheon with his sister Jean and her husband John.  Neat folks!

While Dave was getting things settled for lunch, Lindy took me on a tour of Dave's condo.  15th floor - this is the view from his bedroom setting area.  Wouldn't you love to wake up to that view every morning?

Jean and Lindy chatting - did I say they were nice folks???

It was John's 83rd birthday the next day, so we wished him a happy birthday!  And no, he didn't get to eat the whole cake!

The view from the 15th floor!  

I may have gotten the photos out of order, but you get the idea....many walks on the beach.  This one at sunset.  Lovely Dick and Lindy!

And a young group of adults asked me to take a photo of them with their camera.....and the obliged by doing the same for us!  Robert tried to Photoshop this to lighten up our faces, but he said the "data is just not there"....lovely photo anyway, even if I did have to drag Dick over into the frame!

If you can't tell, in order left to right -  it's Dave, Lindy, Duane, Karen, reluctant Richard!

 And this is un-retouched.  This is actually what the sunset looked like!  Beautiful!

But our time was limited and the trip was almost over. Back to the Destin Airport the following morning for the flight home. The "dualing Mooney's"!




A lovely day to fly home - this time without too much headwind.

Looking more familiar?  Close to Siler City the trees are starting to turn their fall colors.

And taxiing in for fuel, I spied this hawk perched on a thin post.  He didn't budge as we taxied by.  Lovely trip!

Destin,Fl Trip Day 4 - Habitat Work Day

Dave is retired and volunteers quite a bit....one of his causes is Habitat for Humanity.  He told us a month or so ago that he'd be busy on Saturday at a Habitat workday.  So, we asked him if he could include us!

A fun "work day" on vacation!

Here's the house - simple but functional.  It's 4 bedrooms - the new owners are a fairly young couple with "one on the way", plus two mother-in-laws! The family was there working side-by-side with the volunteers.  They seem to be really nice folks!

  Lovely old trees in the neighborhood.

 Lindy and I first got assigned to do baseboard molding.  Lindy marking studs so I could use the nail-gun to attach the molding.

First piece installed!

Other volunteers doing their assigned work.  The molding was all stored in the living room, so we just would take a piece outside as we needed it to be cut to length/angle.

Another volunteer, Dick, manned the chopsaw all day.  We took him our measurement and angle requirements and he cut the molding (almost always a good fit!)  There were several folks working on molding, so we kept Dick busy!

My turn to get a piece cut!

First finished corner!  A little caulk and it will be perfect!

And so it went, all day long for me.  All around this room, closet, into the hallway and all the way around the living room!

Lindy helped other volunteers throughout the day - this time helping install door knobs.  This volunteer told us that this is his 75th Habitat house!

Hard at work measuring!

Meanwhile, outside the boys (and a few girls) were busy digging a new driveway by hand!

They were forming the entire area for concrete later in the week. Here Dave is actually working with a shovel in his hand... he's  in the dark vest....

Here I think Dave is lazing around, just being the inspector...haha!

Duane and Dave hard at work!

Lots of hands digging thru the roots and grass.

Amazing what so many hands/backs/shovels can accomplish in one day.  They dug out the entire area to about 6" deep.

At the end of the day, the finished driveway form.

And Lindy/Dave getting some last-minute adjustments made for the sidewalk form.  A fun and fulfilling way to spend a vacation day!