Reflections of 2015

As 2015 comes to an end, I can't help but reflect back. It's been a good year, nothing exceptional. It started out with a bitterly cold winter. The snow turned to ice on our drive and even though my nephew plowed, it remained ice.

 We have a gravel drive, and I swear the ice was several inches thick. I could hardly walk on it. Needless to say, we stayed inside for the most part, only going out when necessary. I even missed church several Sundays because of the ice. If I couldn't walk on it, I surely wasn't going to drive on it.
My nephew even slid off the drive with his truck and got stuck. I'm sure he wasn't anxious to plow our driveway, but he did it every time it snowed. I don't usually mind the cold or the snow, but this winter was brutally cold. The poor dogs ran out and didn't take long to do their business. I felt bad about having to let them out.





I became a great grandmother for the third time in May. My granddaughter had a beautiful baby girl, Michaela. Precious little beauty, but of course I'm prejudiced. Pictured here with her proud mama, (Allison) great grandpa, and a proud auntie (Alexandra). God has blessed us abundantly.


Spring took forever to get here. At least it seemed to and summer - well I'm still waiting for it to arrive. Not that I'm complaining about that. I dislike the hot, humid summer days as much as I disliked the cold. Only difference is, I was able to stay inside and keep warm in the winter. I hate staying inside in the summer. I like my doors and windows open. I'm not crazy about air conditioning and keeping the house closed up. It's closed up enough in the winter. This past summer was much more to my liking. We only had to run the air a couple of days.

 In fact, we only put one of our window air conditioners in. No, we don't have central air.
We did, however, buy a motor-home - an old one was all we could afford. 1989. But in fairly good condition. Doesn't look like much, all faded and such, but I love it. So we did quite a bit of camping this year. Our state parks offer half price during the week to seniors and we took full advantage of it. Although we still camped with the kids on weekends when they went. It's always fun

to camp with the kids and I even went tubing with them. Loved every minute of it. Granted it took a bit to get me in and out of the tube, but once in, we floated down the river and it was so relaxing. Something about being on the water is calming.

Fall was beautiful and lasted well into December. It was 60 Christmas Day. However, the temperatures have now dropped and returned to normal. I guess winter has finally arrived. We've seen a few snow flakes but so far no accumulation. It's supposed to be a milder than normal winter with less than normal snow. Doesn't bother me a bit.
Two of my grandchildren got engaged recently so weddings will be forthcoming, probably in 2017. We are also expecting a great grandson in June so it looks like 2016 is going to be a good year.


Funny, I hadn't meant to talk about the weather, but I guess it gives you a general idea of how uneventful my life has been this year.
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But I did publish a new book, All's Well that Ends Well, book 2 in the Family Affair Series. You can find it at Amazon.


Wishing everyone a healthy, Happy New Year.

Christmas by Roseanne Dowell

 Our Christmas celebration begins tonight. Every year my siblings and I get together to celebrate. A lot has changed over the years, what started out at my parents soon got taken over by us kids. As my parents aged, and our families grew, it got to be too much for them. Between us six kids, there were 23 grandchildren. Quite a crowd. What started out

as a traditional Christmas Eve dinner soon turned into snacks like potato chips and pretzels.

Each of my siblings and I took turns hosting, which wasn't too bad actually. We only had it once every five years - one of my siblings wives opted out. I guess the idea of 14 adults and 23 kids was too much for her to handle, but the rest of us participated.

Of course our families grew, the grandchildren married and one by one dropped out, having in-laws to visit. Soon there were just me and my siblings and a few grandchildren whose in-laws lived out of town. Alas, now it's just my two brothers and one sister. My parents have  passed on as well as one brother and sister. This year we're down to just the eight of us.

What started out as a joke many years ago soon became a tradition in our family. Joke gifts. We decided early on since there were so many of us not to give the traditional gift, other than for my parents who we bestowed a real gift. Not that my mom was excluded from the joke gifts. Far be it from us not to include her. I think we all get our sense of humor from our mother. She loved to play tricks and jokes on people.  

Every year my sisters and I would get together a week or two before

Christmas to come up with ideas to give my brothers. Often our gifts would include letters composed by our three minds put together. Often our gifts consisted of something to wear. 

Once the group shrunk to just my siblings, we began giving serious gifts also. Many times my gifts were homemade, quilts, embroidery, photos my husband took. After all, finding something for people who virtually had everything was quite a feat. Eventually, that became too difficult and we stopped, but the joke gifts continued. 

At least they did until this year. One of my sister in laws and my sister ran out of ideas. So this year, there won't be any joke gifts. 

In fact, this year will be the last with my oldest brother. They've purchased a house in Florida and next year will spend Christmas there. It saddens me to think we won't all be together, but at least my younger sister and brother will still participate. We'll be down to six.

No matter how many of us there are, it'll still be a fun evening. 

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. 

Merry Christmas

 Our Christmas celebration begins tonight. Every year my siblings and I get together to celebrate. A lot has changed over the years, what started out at my parents soon got taken over by us kids. As my parents aged, and our families grew, it got to be too much for them. Between us six kids, there were 23 grandchildren. Quite a crowd. What started out

as a traditional Christmas Eve dinner soon turned into snacks like potato chips and pretzels.

Each of my siblings and I took turns hosting, which wasn't too bad actually. We only had it once every five years - one of my siblings wives opted out. I guess the idea of 14 adults and 23 kids was too much for her to handle, but the rest of us participated.

Of course our families grew, the grandchildren married and one by one dropped out, having their own in-laws to visit. Soon there was just me and my siblings and a few grandchildren whose in-laws lived out of town. Alas, now it's just my two brothers and one sister. My parents have  passed on as well as my oldest brother and older sister. This year we're down to just the eight of us.

What started out as a joke many years ago soon became a tradition in our family. Gag gifts. We decided early on since there were so many of us not to give the traditional gift, other than for my parents who we gave a real gift. Not that my mom was excluded from the joke gifts. Far be it from us not to include her. I think we all get our sense of humor from our mother. She loved to play tricks and jokes on people.  

Every year my sisters and I would get together a week or two before

Christmas to come up with ideas to give our brothers. Often the gifts included letters composed by our three minds. Often our gifts consisted of something to wear an funny outfit. Last year we gave my older brother a suit decorated with glitter glue and poinsettias. 

Once the group shrunk to just my siblings, we began giving serious gifts also. Many times my gifts were homemade, quilts, embroidery, photos my husband took. After all, finding something for people who virtually had everything was quite a feat. Eventually, that became too difficult and we stopped, but the gag gifts continued. 

At least they did until this year. One of my sister in laws and my sister ran out of ideas. So this year, there won't be any joke gifts. 

In fact, this year will be the last with my oldest brother. They've purchased a house in Florida and next year will spend Christmas there. It saddens me to think we won't all be together, but at least my younger sister and brother will still participate. We'll be down to six.

No matter how many of us there are, it'll still be a fun evening. 

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year. 

My Favorite Time of Year

Christmas is my favorite holiday. If you follow my blog, you probably know that by now. I can't help it, I love it. I love the season. The Lights. The Tree. The Hustle and Bustle. Shopping. Yep, I love everything about it.
This year is special to me. I'm hosting Christmas dinner here in my house. It's been years since I've had Christmas. The kids took it over many years ago when we moved. An apartment is hardly large enough to hold my big family and it's growing by leaps and bounds as grandkids get married or have girl friends or boy friends. This year my adult shopping list went from ten couples to fourteen couples, leaving only  six younger ones to buy gifts for.
So, not only do I get to host Christmas this year, I'm also hosting our annual traditional Christmas Eve dinner, which I host every year. I no longer do it on Christmas Eve for a variety of reasons - 1. Everyone can't come Christmas Eve 2. Some people work Christmas Eve. 3. I celebrate Christmas with my siblings on Christmas Eve, leaving no time to have the dinner.
So, we do it a week before, which gives us another day to celebrate. It's also fun because there's no hustle and bustle of opening gifts. We have a leisurely dinner and fellowship.
The past couple of years, my sons and sons in law made the pyrohy (perogi) for this dinner. If you've ever made p, you know it's a lot of work. Not difficult to do, but time consuming. However, my sons and sons in law think it's fun and a big joke to make the pyrohy darn near the size of footballs. One pyrohy would suffice for three normal size ones.
Not that they weren't good because they were excellent. But I much prefer the smaller, traditional ones. That being said, isn't the reason I decided to make them myself this year. The real reason is I've turned into a couch potato and I needed something to do. One batch of pyrohy takes a good part of the day to make if you're doing them alone. So needless to say, I've spent many days making them. I actually had them done, but someone turned off my freezer and 4 dozen potato pyrohy had to be tossed.
Praise God, other than a couple packages of fish (that my hubby didn't like anyway) nothing else had to be tossed. I probably could have used the fish because they were still cold as if they were in a refrigerator. But I tossed them just to be on the safe side. The only reason I had to toss the potato pryohy  was they were all stuck together like a big pile of mush. So I had to remake those 4 dozen. All total I've made 14 dozen potato pyrohy and 6 dozen sauerkraut ones, but only reaping the benefit of 10 dozen potato ones. I'm debating if I need to make another batch of potato ones, but I really think I have enough. It's not the only thing we're eating. We're also having our traditional mushroom soup and balbaki (little dough balls with either poppy seed or sauerkraut).  A very filling meal. Some of us will fill up on soup.
I just chopped 10 packages of mushrooms and froze them for the soup. One of the things I love about this meal is everything can be made ahead and frozen. Of course, there's a lot of last minute preparation also. The pyrohy have to be boiled and fried with onions, the soup has to be made with potatoes and zaprashka  (a thickening made with butter and flour and browned to the color and consistency of peanut butter some people call it a rue).  The balbaki have to be steamed and then mixed with butter, poppy seed, honey & sugar, or butter and sauerkraut. If you over steam them they turn to mush. You bring a big pot of water to a boil and throw the dough balls in. Pretty much you push them down to make sure they're all in the water and then you drain them immediately.
I still have to make the balbaki. Usually I'd make them by now, but my freezer doesn't have room for them, so I'll wait until next week to make them. I think I'll have to make 3 batches of 6 cups of flour  each or maybe 2 and half - one batch being 9 cups of flour.
Needless to say all this prepartion and cooking has kept me extremely busy, but it's also brought back memories also. Memories of my early years and my mom baking and preparing for this special meal. Memories of my the years when I first started preparing it for my own family.
It was always a family affair. I remember so well helping my mom make the balls. She made the dough and after it rose, she'd take a section and roll it between her hands like a long skinny snake. Then she'd cut them into bite-size pieces and we'd roll them into balls and put them in the pan. After they baked, she turned them out onto a clean sheet on the dining room table. We'd take turns taking the pan and emptying it. Of course, we always grabbed a couple to eat. Nothing better than warm bread straight from the oven. We listened to Christmas music and sang as we baked. It was a fun time. However, if you dropped three of the balls while you were shaping them, you were out. I think my brothers always dropped three on purpose.
Back then my uncle, aunt, and cousins came to Christmas Eve dinner and then we went to visit my grandparents. Christmas Day we always spent with my uncle, aunt and cousins. Yes, the same ones from the night before. We followed the same tradition for years. Until two of my brothers and sisters married. Then we didn't have dinner with my uncle any more. For several years we had dinner with my parents, but it got to be too much for them. My sisters and I started preparing it for our own families and my parents usually had one of my brothers' families for dinner. After dinner, we gathered at either my house or one of my siblings to celebrate Christmas. Christmas day, we always went to my in-laws.
Now our parents are gone and we celebrate with our own families. My brothers, sister and I have carried on the tradition of getting together Christmas Eve. One brother and sister are gone now and we miss them dearly. Next year another of my brothers is bowing out as he has a place in Florida and will be celebrating Christmas there. It'll only be my younger sister and youngest brother (he's older than I am, but he's the youngest of the three boys). It won't quite be the same, but we'll continue the tradition for as long as we can.
It'll still be my favorite time of year.
To all of you, I wish you a blessed and Merry Christmas.