The Simple Scents of Life

The weather here has been oh-so fabulous! The temperature dropped fifteen degrees in just a few hours on Sunday, which meant that we could finally wear our very few and limited winter outfits. :)

After service on Sunday, and after everybody was done eating to their hearts content...(our church is never lacking in food) we had a Psalm sing. Once everybody had their part down, the Psalm sounded beautiful indeed. Around five or six 0'clockish, some of us drove out to The Woodlands where we spent a delightful evening in the sweet company of my dear friends (of whom I can't say enough praise of) Allison family. The WSO (Woodlands Symphony Orchestra) was performing the Messiah, which they do but once a year. The choir could have sang with more gusto, but other than that it was simply fastidious! :) They didn't do the whole Messiah, which was rather disappointing, but what they did do was wonderful. I've wanted to hear and see if live for quite some time now, so this was quite a surprise.

On the way home we stopped to get a quick bite to eat, (which we ordered to go, of course) and I also ordered a milkshake. The Whataburger we stopped at had, oh, about ten people in the kitchen, all tripping over each other to do each other's work. It was incredible! Those of us that work in the tea room, never go out to eat without critiquing all the kitchens/wait service and other such ridiculous things. ;-) I don't think we will ever return to normal life.

Anyway, everybody ended up sharing my chocolate milkshake. The chocolate, sugar and the late hour all combined made us all a bit hyper, and we ended up singing the Twelve Days of Christmas from the beltway to our house. We came up with several different ways to sing it, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, or both combined! When we pulled up into the parking lot at out house, we decided to surprise Mom and Dad and pretend to be carolers. Soooo, we crept around to the front door and started singing the Twelve Days of Christmas and knocked on the door. By the time we made it to the fourth thing our true loves gave to us, I realized my parents were sleeping. So, with a sigh, I unlocked the door, and we all piled into the warm house and clambered up the stairs and went to bed.

Yesterday wasn't very busy or exciting, except that our new ginormous convection oven was installed in the store kitchen. So, our collection of huge things is getting bigger...funny how that happens. We know have a great big orange salad spinner, a huge container of baking soda, enough chicken to last a small family for a year, three refrigerators/freezers, a big sink with a garbage disposal and spray gun....so all we need to do is get a commercial dishwasher! The downside was that we had to completely re-arrange the kitchen, something we have done way too many times lately, but the food service went much smoother today with the new set-up. We have a party coming in tomorrow, a group of 30 girls and eight mother on Thursday, and a party of twenty on Saturday, which is also our caroling party! Whew...this should keep us pretty busy.