Surviving the freeze Florida style

We had a hard freeze the last two evening (that means 30 degrees). No snow of course. Here is how we survived Florida style--roasting wieners, playing games outside and playing with the roosters.

The power of cabbage and black-eyed peas

I'm sure you know that in order to be rich in the coming year, you have to eat cabbage and black-eyed peas as soon as the New Year starts.  Some think that is just a foolish Southern superstition, but I'm a believer now. Right at midnight Caroly had delicious fried cabbage with ham and a pot of black-eyed peas for us to eat. I had another bowl of both in the morning for good luck.This afternoon Sage was looking though the books in our library to find one to  take home to read to her children, You'll see below the surprise stash of money that she found inside one of them!

I'm now a billionaire several times over--at least in Hungarian Pengös from after the Second World War!! We collected them when we lived in Hungary in 1990 after the Berlin Wall fell. We had forgotten where we had stashed them for safe keeping.

The moral of the story. When you wish for riches by eating cabbage and black-eyed peas at New Years, be sure to specify what kind of money you want to get, The Pengös are worthless except as a souvenir of the power of post war inflation. They use the more stable Forint now. But technically I'm still a Pengö billionaire due to the power of cabbage and black-eyed peas. Click on the picture to take a closer look if you don't believe me.

Surprise for Grandma

Grandma was sure she could quietly become 75 with no one noticing. Grandpa remembered to serve breakfast in bed (farmers omelette, toast, yogurt, and orange juice) and give her a mushy card and a small cake to make sure she thought that someone remembered. But at six that night there was a knock at the door and half of our grandkids rushed in with a surprise hug, a helium birthday balloon, flowers, lots of fried chicken and lemonade and a cake covered with horses. Grandpa had kept the birthday surprise a secret for a week. She didn't suspect a thing. The pictures should tell the story.