In Memory of Mommom

I lost my grandmother this month.  Ms. Alice Claire lived a whole 92 years on this earth can you imagine!? She had the best laugh – always from her belly and never faked.  She raised three wonderful children, my mom the best among them.  She was a great penpal. Made the best tuna salad, and taught me to love camping, crafting, and Tab soda. For 42 years I was her favorite granddaughter which is both factual and just barely untrue enough to make her laugh, which is all I ever wanted to do.  It’s hard to lose someone who has been part of your life for all of your life but here we are, with a heart full of memories and traditions to carry on. 

I’ll go back to California next week to celebrate Mommom’s life and laugh with my family telling stories about her this Christmas Eve.  Gosh she will be missed but  I’m thankful for all of it, really. 

How are YOU?  I hope you’re easing towards the holidays and the end of the year.  It’s been enough of a year, wouldn’t you say?  Let’s go as gently as possible into these next few weeks. I feel like we’ve earned that much.  The offering this week is below.  I’m so glad you’re here – just take whatcha need. 

•   Life is not measured in just years, but is surely measured in eras.  Eras I Regret, and why I regret them. When I look back I can see my life in eras of varying degrees of embarrassment.  As I’m thinking about 2024, I realize that I’m not just ideating goals for a new year, I’m working on a whole new era OOOOKAY let’s see about it! (Substack)

•  I wanted to love this list of 52 Things I Learned in 2023 but the author just seems like the “Well, actually….” guy at the dinner party.  I think the more apt list for this year is simply taking advice from women 52 and older.  (Medium, TikTok)

•  Last week Amy mentioned curbing impulse buying and I’m in the same boat.  Technology is stacked to make it easy for us to give away our hard-earrned dollars.  I loved this series from Vox:  Buy Less Stuff.  This article Getting Dressed 101 the Influence of Allison Bornstein combined the dizzying every-five-minute fashion trends on TikTok has me feeling like I’m going to wear the straight leg Levi’s in my closet… forever.  I’m just going to stick at my current fashion state from here on out, good luck to meeee! (Vox, Vogue)

•  I love this list of The Ultimate Italian Food Crawl Through New Orleans.  I took my family to Mosca’s in the first few years I lived in New Orleans and still think about that chicken. (Savuer, Mosca’s)

•  As soon as I figure out where to buy chestnuts, I’m going to take Kaleb’s advice on how to roast the dang things.  I think that holiday tradition didn’t make it all the way west to Los Angeles. (Instagram) 

•  Highly recommend spending part of Christmas Eve morning making these Christmas Morning Orange Rolls so they can rest in the fridge overnight and bake fresh after church.  I mean, right!? Also we’re putting eggnog in our coffee all week – those are just the rules.  (Joy the Baker) 

•  I’ll admit I haven’t been much of a reader this year but I plan on devouring Ann Patchett’s new book Tom Lake over my holiday time at home.  It’s a find from Kim’s fiction book recomendations. (PS sign up for Kim’s newsletter if you haven’t already and yes this blog is now an Ann Patchett fan site.) (Parnassus, Instagram, Sunstack) 

•  Food52 says that The Best Vanilla Extract Substitute is any dark liquor you have in the bar cabinet but especially highlights dark rum. My trick?  I top off vanilla bean paste with dark rum to get every last bit out of the jar.  (Food52, Amazon) 

•  I’ve dubbed this  Gingerbread Swirl Bundt Cake The Cake of December because of the flavors, obviously.  But this cake also stays soft and tender for weeks on end so it’s a perfect little cake to just have around.  (Joy the Baker) 

•  I have our friend Timothy’s Vintage Christmas Playlist queued up for next week. (Spotify) 

•  I’m singing My Favorite Things at Will’s holiday family singalong this Sunday, and well… it’s a good thing I can’t be toooo embarrassed in front of family. I’ll give it my best Julie Andrews, but I can’t help but think that they way my neighbor avoided sharing an elevator with me the other day was because she’s heard me practicing. HA!  (Youtube)

Enjoy you Sunday.

My love to you.

xo Joy