Monday after Christmas 2014

OK, just relax, and breathe… breathe… breathe…

I am coming off a round of holiday hostings that has, despite the enjoyment they brought, exhausted me to no end!

My sister visited for a week at Thanksgiving.

Less than a week after she returned home, my sister-in-law and her husband dropped in for a weekend visit to deliver and pick up the annual Christmas gift exchange for our families.

Then a week ago, my daughter Maya and her boyfriend arrived from Oregon to spend Christmas with us.  As always, Maya’s visit was packed full of visits to local restaurants and re-connections with her food and beverage industry mates in Charleston.  We were fortunate enough to go along on and share some of the meals, but we declined on the late-night antics (one night they were out til 4 am!).  We ate at new (to us) venues, and it was, of course, wonderful.  She and her boyfriend also cooked a sumptuous Indian meal for our Christmas dinner…  Goan fish curry, butter chicken, saffron rice, wonderful sourdough bread from lentils and rice, mango-coconut-cilantro chutney, roasted butternut squash with yogurt, and halwah with carrots and golden raisins for dessert.  She’s used to cooking restaurant-sized batches and tried really hard to scale things down, we now have a good supply of the left-overs in the freezer.

We also had numerous opportunities to sit around and discuss families and family history.  I was curious about Maya’s boyfriend’s family…  he was born and raised in Portland, but both his parents attended the same NC college as Susan and I.  I wasn’t able to glean much information from him, but at least started a dialogue that might lead to more discussions in the future.  Some of our discussions touched on my mother’s family, the Abernethy’s from Catawba County, NC.  But mostly we talked about Susan’s mother and her family.  We had some good discussions, and now I am preparing an attempt to get a 1962 death certificate from Massachusetts.  From what I can find online, it is going to take a while to do so.  But it may give us some insights into the illness that caused her death.  Another discussion is necessary before I can place the order, so that is forthcoming.

So I am just trying very hard to come back into focus with my client work and with all the other various projects I’m involved with.  Did I mention that my other daughter Sara, who also shares our house, is having guests arrive for a few days in a couple weeks???

Well, at least I have a few days to sit back, evaluate where I am, and breathe… breathe… breathe…

Time for a cuppa coffee  [_]7