You know when you are running around the house, still in your jammies, much too late - and the doorbell rings - and there stands just the person you don’t want to know that you are still in your undies after noon…

Well, thats me. I officially started my “real job” as Project Manager for my beloved blogging network global new media network, b5media, last week - and they decided yesterday that they wanted to add our personal blogs to the Team channel, so here I am. Welcome, and try not to be too bored here. I am putting my clothes and makeup on as we speak.

Bad pic, but, oh well. The girl dog needed some appreciation too.

Things like this get drug up to the house:

It was much grosser yesterday, but I missed the photo op.

I wish I had thought to take a picture, this looks SO festive just cooking.

1 package fresh cranberries

1 cup orange juice

dash of lemon zest

1.5 cups sugar

dash or two of ginger

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan, and let the mixture boil. The cranberries will pop, and the smoother you want the sauce, the longer you boil it. I boil mine for about 10 minutes, and have a pretty chunky sauce. Serve at room temperature. This is delish with your turkey, and tomorrow I am going to plop some on top of a package of cream cheese and serve it with crackers, and I KNOW it is going to be MARVELOUS.

Happy Turkey Day!

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What a week (or 4). After a long battle with lung cancer and goodness knows what else, my dear Mother in law passed away last Saturday night, and finally she is resting easily in Heaven. I had spent a lot of time with her over the last month especially, sitting with her at home and in the hospital, and I feel so blessed to have been able to be there and to be a part of her last times on Earth. Besides truly being “hot stuff on a stick” in her younger years (her words…lol), she was a spectacular older woman with a brilliant mind, a fierce wit and wonderful, imaginative, personality. At just a few days short of 69 years old, she died much, much too young.

One of the things I will remember most is how I always showed my dumb blonde around her - she would try to be subtle about asking me to get her some cigarettes - she smoked Sports - and she would always slip some silly comment in about sports (I just hate sports), and I would never get it. Over and over - time after time - I never would I get it, and she would always have to thump me on the head each time and say “duh - get me some cigarettes!!” She was very special to me. We have lived here for 4 years, and above everyone else, Jeanette made me feel like a real, long term, part of the Jones family. She confided in me, she loved me, and I loved her so much.

I sat with her for about 4 hours on Friday morning, and I am so honored to have had that time with her. She was laughing and joking and even ribbing me about my dumb blondeness, all the while gasping for breath worse than I had ever seen. Less than a day later she fell asleep (after 2 sleepless nights) and never woke up again. She frequently mentioned how she believed I saved Marshall’s life, and I know she knows how deeply I love her son and he loves me. My heart breaks for the loss of her in my life, as she is one of the few female friends I have here - and makes me so very thankful that my mother has now moved here.

Marshall spoke at her funeral today, I don’t know how he managed it. He and his two brothers stood up in front of everyone and Marshall was the spokesman - he spoke of the things she loved in life (games, family, crossword puzzles and Art Bell), the important roles she had to so many people, and how beautiful she was. And she really was. I have never been so proud of my husband - he brought much needed laughter and tears of loss in the memories he shared of his mother. The service would have been incomplete without him, and with his eulogy (eugoogley?), the service was absolutely perfect.

Her family is so special - she is one of 8 sisters and 2 brothers, and is the 3rd of the group to pass on. Much of the rest of the DeLeon’s were there, and they are just all so very special to me - they have, just like their sister, made me feel like a real and loved member of the family. They all live out of town, and part of the heartbreak of Jeanette’s death is the fear of losing touch with them - Marshall and I both are horrid at keeping in touch, we will absolutely have to make the effort, as that would be a loss worse than death.

Rest in peace, Jeanette - we surely do love you and will miss you desperately until the time comes when we are all together again.

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If you are including us in your prayers tonight, please also include my friend AT, whose wife is battling an infection, very similar to the one Marshall went through. She is in Oak Ridge, and her circumstance is possibly even more dire than Marshall’s was, if thats possible. Reading AT’s daily diary about what they are going through has become somewhat therapeutic to me, as her situation has been so similar to Marshall’s and her husband’s bare naked feelings so mimic the ones I had at the same time but never wrote down. BJ is having a trach tube put in very soon, as she has done the maximum time on the ventilator. Thankfully Marshall’s lungs worked just before he had to have a trach put in. As I have been praying for my own family, I have been keeping BJ and AT and their family right there in my heart and mind too, and I hope you will as well - they are going to have a long, tough road ahead.

I used to be a great griller - but I don’t know what has happened. A couple of months ago I ruined a grill full of food - came out with some tongue-numbing lighter fluid nasty taste cooked all the way in to some lovely steaks, chicken and sausage. Aargh. That was terrible. But, apparently I forgot about that experience and last night put on 30 of my rare and prized Dove Diablo’s.

That is some work getting those together, you know. First you have to shoot them, then clean them, then store them. Then, on my favorite day of the year, of my choosing (last night), I get them out, cut the breasts off the bone, stuff them with yummy jalapeno’s, wrap them with bacon, then very carefully and with very much love, tend them on the grill, basting them with butter and garlic, my mouth watering the whole time. There is no better food on earth.

I did remember enough about my prior experience to NOT use any lighter fluid. I had a hickory wood fire. Marvelous, no? No. NO! OMG they were ruined again. Lighter fluid taste - I guess there is something in my grill giving it that atrocious flavor. I am depressed, and I officially quit grilling last night.

Image: TexasHunts.us

Here are my little spooks:

This is from a few weeks ago, when Noah won the Raven Award for his class. The Raven Award is given to the student who exemplifies the characteristics of a Sam Houton Raven - character, kindness and several other attributes. In years past, the teachers gave out the awards, but this year, Mrs. Agnello is letting her students choose the Raven Award winner, and apparently my sweet Noah won by a landslide. Here Noah is with a couple of the starting players from the Bryan Vikings HS Football team, who presented the award to him:

In reading a post today from Suzanne at BlogHer, I both agreed, and was a little alarmed (can you do that?):

So why do we have corporations jumping all over each other to show that they support women by donating to breast cancer charities when they can really do more good by working to prevent heart disease and strokes? The sick truth is that breast cancer is a sexy illness to exploit for fun and profit. Do women want to look at pictures of fatty hearts and clogged arteries when they shop for soup, yogurt, make-up, umbrellas, BMWs, Cartier watches, gym shoes, umbrellas or any other of the many fine products that donate during October to breast cancer causes if you buy it? Does anyone? Not so much. Is it easy to fit “Help fight chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the #3 illness killing women every year” into a marketing campaign? Not so much. However, the words “breast” and “cancer” sure catch the eye quickly, especially when marketers can add a curvy silhouette next to it. (Subliminal message: “Don’t let hot women die!”)

I certainly have noticed, this year above all prior years, the massive marketing campaign for pink products. And, well, I am a sucker for pink stuff, and if I can use that little voice in my head to rationalize buying that little thing - well, I will. This year, I have bought pink labelled Campbell’s Tomato Soup (which I buy and eat regularly anyway), some pink handled Kitchen Aid kitchen shears (which I was in the market for anyway - darned kitchen gremlins always stealing my shears), and some pink hot rollers and a pink straightening iron (was in the market as well - after all, I am a beauty writer). I somehow have managed not to toss my perfectly good Kitchen Aid mixer and go out and buy that precious pink one - but I have thought about devious ways to get away with it, I will admit. So anyway, back to the original topic - Suzanne has a good point there - the corporations are definitely increasing their visibility and their bottom lines by offering a percentage of profits towards breast cancer whatever (research, support, blah, blah, blah). However, breast cancer is one of the few cancers that does not seem to reflect someone’s lifestyle, and therefore those people who are victimized it are not much more than that - unknowing, unwilling victims. Fatty hearts and clogged arteries are things that are a direct result of ones lifestyle, and are preventable (for the most part). Lung cancer, a HUGE killer, is mostly related to your lifestyle as well (not always, I know this). Breast cancer appears to be a genetic problem - it runs in families, and if your mother had it, you are darned likely to have it too. Breast cancer kills - it is not just a little lump that you can lop off and you are all good. For these reasons, breast cancer deserves some support. I do not believe, as Suzanne apparently does, that it all boils down to “not letting hot women die.”

Besides my (yeah, maybe unhealthy) fetish for pink stuff, one of my dearest friends is a breast cancer survivor. She got sick right after my husband starting to mend from his battle with MRSA, and due to the fact that he needed so much care, I was unable to help Selina out as much as I would have normally. She has been through a long and painful, stressful, and emotional battle with her cancer, and 2 years later she is weaker in many ways (although stronger in others) and flatter chested (a staph infection ruined her chances of reconstruction), but she is a champion with a sunny disposition that you would be hard pressed to find in the healthiest person around. She and her husband were role models for my husband and I before she got sick (you have never met kinder, more helpful people in your life), and they are still the same people today. Weaker people would have let their problems defeat them, but not her. I offer my support of breast cancer research and support in honor of Selina, and in hopes that I can help repay her for the kindnesses that she continues to show to me and my family day after day.

So, it is with that spirit that I will continue to support and promote companies that support breast cancer causes, as I truly believe, that for me, it is the right thing to do. Pink out!

This was in Malibu, and apparently they are doing it again in Detroit and Nashville (and somewhere else I didn’t catch). Maybe we can make it to the one in Nashville. Suz?