Live Nativity

The Presbyterian Church in Montclair displayed a live Nativity scene on their lawn.  It was beautiful to see and the weather was quite agreeable, a little cold but no snow or rain to dampen the activities.

Christmas in Manhattan

I went to New York City and took a few pictures along Fifth Avenue.  Here are some of them.

Window display at Lord & Taylor

 Window display at Lord & Taylor

 Window display at Bergdorf Goodman

 The tree at Rockefeller Center

 The tree in Bryant Park

Pumpkin Filled Wonton Dumplings

This is my favorite pumpkin recipe because they are so easy to prepare.

• Pumpkin Filled Wonton Dumplings

 

The Purple Heart

Here's a brief history of the Purple Heart awarded to members of the military.

 The Purple Heart is a military honor awarded to those wounded, killed or have died as a result of wounds while serving in any branch of the United States Armed Forces after April 5, 1917.

A Purple Heart is awarded automatically for wounds received during combat by enemy fire or action.  Before presentation can be made, a chain of command review must be done to validate that the wound or death was a result of enemy action.  The wound or death is not limited to battlefield combat.  i.e. if a member of the military is injured in a vehicle accident, and the accident was caused in any way by the actions of the enemy, that individual is entitled to a Purple Heart.
Next of kin is entitled to receive the Purple Heart for a deceased veteran after a report of death has been issued ensuring the requirement of death by enemy.
August 7 is National Purple Heart Day.

Some well known recipients:

Charles Durning
Lee Marvin
John McCain
John F. Kennedy
Colin Powell
James Garner
Pat Tillman

Margaret's 40th Birthday!!

The Traveling Plate

Here is a nice poem to use when taking a plate of food or goodies to a party:

The Traveling Plate

    This plate shall have no owner for its journey never ends.  

It travels in the circle of our family and our friends. 

 It carries love from home to home for everyone to share. 

The food that’s placed upon it is filled with love and care. 

So please enjoy what’s on this plate, then fill it up again,

and pass along the love it holds to family and your friends.

 

Inexpensive plates and bowls can be found at your local thrift shop.

Monkey Found (she came in thru the bathroom window)

Good News!!  Monkey the cat has been found.  Once again, my brother-in-law Charlie came to the rescue of a cat.  The flyer above is what Charlie used to identify Monkey.
Charlie was standing at the sink on the second floor of the Manse at the Bloomfield Presbyterian Church on the Green when he looked out the window and saw a cat on the roof.  He noticed that it looked a lot like Monkey, the cat on the flyers that were taped to trees in the neighborhood.  He immediately ran downstairs to get one of the flyers, a can of cat food and a bowl of water.  Back upstairs he opened the window and made the identification.  Monkey raced inside, grateful to be fed and safe. She was missing for two weeks.
Charlie called the phone number, and Monkey's Dad said that he was at work but would be home in an hour.  When Dad arrived he called Monkey's name and she came running to him.
Monkey has been to the vet for a check-up and all is well.
You might recall from a previous post when Suzanna didn't feel well, it was Charlie who told me what to do.

Featured on Redgage

Yesterday RedGage featured my Cats On A Plane story.  I got a nice bonus for it too!!  $4.90.  Here's the featured article Cats On A Plane.  It's really easy to earn money on RedGage, click here to sign up.

Julie & Julia

My new favorite movie is Julie & Julia!  It's the true story of 2 women; Julie Powell and legendary chef Julia Child.
It starts with Julie Powell, a young woman who likes to cook for herself and her husband.  To improve her culinary skills, she obtained (stole from her mother) a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.  Julie's goal was to prepare all 524 recipes in 365 days.  She also blogged about each recipes' success and failure.
Julie's blog became extremely popular.  She was inundated with calls from book publishers.  She wrote a book about her experience and a movie was made with Amy Adams as Julie Powell and Meryl Streep as Julia Child.  Bravo! 

Feed the Hungry Dinners

It's been a while since I posted about our monthly Feed The Hungry Dinners at the Bloomfield Presbyterian Church on the Green.  Nothing has changed.  We still hold the dinners on the 3rd Monday of every month.  I'm still on kitchen duty.  We have the same volunteers and picked up a few new ones.

The dinners usually consist of:  Fruit cup, salad, main course and dessert and coffee.  For the main course we've served pasta with meat sauce, bread and butter; homemade chicken pot pie; corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and bread and butter; turkey breast with stuffing, vegetable, rolls and butter.