Happy Winter Solstice Y'all!

Although it's the first day of Winter today, it actually looks more like fall at the moment, than it did when it was Fall.

 See? Fall colors!

Oh well, it's the south, they're a little sloooow around here ...

       

We've had a whole lot of rain last week. It turned everything around here into thick red mud, which is especially nasty since we're basically living at a building site, where trucks and other heavy equipment turn the place into a big mud hole!
The temperatures are unseasonably high at the moment (where did I here that before), and together with the rain, it made these little flowers take a chance and pop up ...

The B&B passed it's fire inspection, besides a few minor issues that can easily be fixed, and tomorrow is the BIG building inspection, so everybody is crunching to get everything done.
Despite all the goings-on, we made time to go and see the Amite Christmas Parade, last Thursday.

Amite is a small town and we didn't expect much, which was a good thing, because it it was probably about the smallest parade we ever saw. Talking about small-town America!

They did their best-est though, with the High School marching band, several dance groups, a Queen and her court, several local businesses and the obligatory fire-truck.

Afterward we met a colleague of James, Mike, and his wife Catherine, at a local Sushi place.
They live in Amite and had wanted to get together for a while now, and we just never found the time, but now we finally made it work.
I wasn't too impressed with the Sushi, but the company was good, so we ended up having a good time after all.

Like I said in my previous post, I've started my holiday baking. After last week's Gingerbread men, I made my personal favorites, Hungarian Butter-horns ...

And the notorious Chocolate Crackle Cookies that have such horrible sticky dough, its 'enough-to-drive-you-stir-crazy' and than some ...

 

But Gawd ... they are so good!

Laura and Jeff, the owners of the B&B, called us over one morning when they were up at the house, and surprised us with a big bag of Laura's homemade Christmas cookies and candies, and a $100 gift certificate for a good steakhouse in Hammond! Sweet!

And James Boss Ronnie has invited us again, just like last year, to have Christmas lunch/dinner with his family at his house on Christmas Day, how nice is that?

So .. we're enjoying the season, and are making a cozy, sweet time of it .. life is good!