Bean Soup and a Porcelain Christmas Tree

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

• We have sunshine and 48F degrees. That's almost t-shirt weather. In fact, my children run out in t-shirts and flip flops now. They do have real clothes for winter, but those are saved for real winter, such as below 0F. It's all I can do to get them to dress for the weather, so I just don't push it too much, except to make them wear sweatshirts when it's lower than 40F. They've stayed healthy, thank you, Lord.

• As I was making the bed today, I wondered why I fuss with a bed skirt. What is the point of it except to prolong housework? HGTV isn't coming to do a photo shoot of my house. I don't have any answers except that it's just the thing to have and straighten all the time because it shifts all over the place.

• I'm cooking a pot of beans to go with a ham hock. We've eaten ham in all sorts of ways since Saturday when we cooked up a spiral-cut ham. I'll probably just dice and freeze what is left after today.

• By the way, if you want your beans to be less musical, try throwing in a dash of baking soda while they are cooking. It seems to work for us.

• Working on the second cup of hot, fresh coffee for the day. Quite unusual for a mom.

• Hmmm... How about a mayonnaise cake today? Don't know what a mayonnaise cake is? I'm guessing it was one of those cakes developed during the Depression. Anyway, since the base of mayonnaise is eggs and oil, it serves the purpose of both in a cake. Mix in some flour, sugar, cocoa, water, and vanilla, and you have a wonderfully chocolatey cake. Yum!

• Kara mixed marshmallows with popcorn last night. I guess there's always a new way to choke down a marshmallow.

• This little porcelain Christmas tree is one of the happy sights around our house during Christmas and on into January. Grandma Slack gave it to me years ago. It holds a tealight candle that shines through the cutout stars all throughout the tree. Lovely.
  

Little piece of porcelain happy

• It only takes about 10 trips to CVS to have enough receipts to wallpaper a room. The receipt today was 4' long using a nose-to-fingertip measurement. This was for 3 items.
  

4' minimum receipts from CVS every time

• I noticed an unmanned Salvation Army bucket at Kroger today. I usually give something when I pass one. I didn't today, but I thought of the power of guilt in making people give. I'll bet lots of people walked right by it who normally would have given out of guilt if someone had been standing there ringing a bell. I know guilt is the wrong motivation for giving. Just an observation based on personal experience.

• My kids are outside video taping themselves doing hiney bounces on the trampoline. I just love seeing them playing together peacefully outside! Naturally, they're dressed for August even though it's December.

• Back to the bean topic: Kris and Kal both commented about how much beans stink while cooking. Oh, well. Eat up, boys! It's what's for dinner.

And that's it for today. The day is far from over, but I'll set out now to make the beans smell slightly better by adding the ham to it. Maybe some carrots, too.