Life On The Central Coast

**Chapel in Thanksgiving Square - Dallas, TX** Thanksgiving has always been a special day for me. Getting together with family plus eating a meal fit for a King is my idea of a celebration! My Dad made a very "memorable" stuffing and was usually the first one up on Thanksgiving morning stuffing the turkey and getting it in the oven. The day before he would make two of the world's best pumpkin pies around. His secret ingredient? A dollop of molasses and you HAD to add extra cinnamon. His crusts were handmade, flaky and delicious. There would always be a little leftover to make little flat pie pieces with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on. There was usually a little of the pie filling leftover that he would pour into small glasses for us to savor like fine wine. It's funny, but I think that's why I love Chai tea so much. It tastes similar to that wonderful pumpkin pie potion. Mom would keep us busy cleaning for days making sure everything was fresh, clean and in it&#

We have been in the process of painting and refurnishing one of the kids bedrooms into a guest room. I say process because it has been that. It took my daughter 6 months to move totally out, and totally out just happened 2 days ago. My son and his wife are coming for Thanksgiving and had no where to stay and we said we'd get it all fixed up................ in 8 days! That means cleaning, painting, redoing the wood floors, shopping and furnishing because after Tiffany moved out, there was quite a bit of damage done. You know teenagers! We made a list and every night have something to do with a deadline being Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The walls have been painted a really nice shade of sage green and last night was painting the trim and closet bright white. I worked for HOURS painting and taping off the walls and still didn't get it done. So today, I was going to tackle it. My grandson was over but I thought, "Hey, I can do this!" So I had him bring some toys in the

So you'll remember the "Leaving My Husband" blog post of a few days back. When I was taking pictures of Wes that day, he was joking around and made this kind of "out of it" face. Scott saw it and must have thought it was pretty funny because now he mimics "the face" perfectly. Over the weekend we finally got a picture of him doing it and I made this side by side so you could see. We tell him, "Make the pap pap face," and he goes right into it. 

You are The Lovers Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse. The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made. Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficult

Is this shocking news? While shopping in San Luis Obispo today with 2 of my daughters, it hit me... I need to leave my husband. Leaving him was encouraged by the store I was shopping in. Sometimes men don't like to shop as long and at as many places as women do. It can cause a real problem in some marriages but Wes usually enjoys shopping with me. Could this be the turning point in my marriage? I'll let you decide. By the way...I did go back and pick him up.... heck, he's a CATCH!

Years ago when my kids were pretty small, I gardened quite a bit. Back then, if it didn't feed you, it didn't grow in my garden! We had peas, corn, pumpkins, tomatoes and all kinds of veggies that kids liked to eat and watch grow. When I moved to my current home in 1995, my kids were much older and I finally was able to do what I'll call "decorative" gardening. Plenty of roses, hibiscus, pansies, well all kinds of flowers. We are lucky enough to live in an area that doesn't have really rough winters and farmers around here grow year round. After walking through the Emerson Community Gardens a couple of weeks back, I vowed I would return to my "roots" literally and grow some vegetables even if they had to be in pots! So today was the day. My little grandson and I went to our local Miners Hardware store and picked up some "winter" crops; broccoli, cauliflower, peas and spinach. They all look really hearty and I have some empty containers alre