His biggest fan...

Dan Fogelberg died on Sunday, December 16, 2007, at 6:00 a.m. He died at his home in Maine...after a long battle with prostate cancer.

I haven't cried but, oh, I am so sad. I woke up several times last night and thought about him. Probably I will cry one day over something as silly as a commercial and then the flood gates will open and I will wail for Dan. That's how it usually happens. Of course I didn't know Dan personally but he was a huge part of my growing up in my 20's......he mended my heart the first time it was broken, got me through many more bad relationships and sang to me and my babies in the middle of the night. When Will was a baby and would get fussy in the carseat, I could play a Fogelberg tape and he would immediately calm down.

I discovered Dan Fogelberg in the summer of 1978...his music was being played at a party and I asked someone who it was. By then he had 4 or 5 albums out and I bought them all and spent countless hours listening to them. I bought albums and played them on a record player....there was no fast forwarding or rewinding or skipping so I listened to every song on every album over and over and over.  I was his back up singer...in my living room or car.

I had had my heart broken in March of 1977 and I don't think I even began to feel again until I started listening to Dan's music. I continued to buy his new records....by then 8 tracks, then tapes, then cd's...but his first 3 or 4 albums are still my favorite. My children allow me to listen to his cd's on long road trips. Chuck took me to his concerts. I even have him listed as a Happy on this site.

I loved him.

CAUTION: Wearing this may cause you to bake.

I received a note on my door yesterday that an attempt was made to deliver a package to me.......and so today I went to pick it up at the post office. I knew it was from Stephanie....my childhood friend from Bryan....and I was so anxious to see what it was that I ripped into it in the car. And I was not disappointed at all....in fact, it could not have been a more perfect gift.

Stephanie is the reason I started blogging....and reading blogs. Once you start reading blogs, that leads you to other blogs, that leads you to even more blogs. And before you know it, you have wasted a good bit of time. But really only time you would have spent loading the dishes or doing a load of laundry, and I have found those things sit back and wait patiently for me.

Anyway, one day on one blog, I saw a very cute apron. Then they began appearing on
many of the blogs. You could order an apron or a pattern. These aprons were made of vintage fabrics and could not have been more adorable. I cannot tell you how many times I almost ordered one. But then I would think, maybe I should try to make one.....I just never got around to it.

Well, Stephanie sent me the cutest (better than any I have seen to date) apron for my birthday! So now I may start cooking again. So Stephanie George Hirschberg, I thank you for the apron....and Chuck and Will thank you for the hot meals in their future.

YOU BETTER NOT POUT

We have almost always had a huge, artificial, but very real looking tree. Mostly because we have gone to Mississippi over the holidays and I hated coming home to a dead tree and carpet full of needles. So after the first 3 or 4 years of our marriage we went to the artificial tree. Several years ago we purchased the biggest pre-lit tree and although it made a great statement.....it was incredibly hard to decorate. It took lots of ribbon, ornaments and ladders to make it look full.

So just a couple of years ago, I decided I wanted a much smaller, skinny tree when our gigantic tree starting losing sections of lights. Much to my family's chagrin, we went out shopping for one. We got in Garden Ridge and Chuck just couldn't do it. He could not buy a little tree. It just wouldn't be Christmas (whatever...)...so I gave in, and we bought a medium tree with lots more lights on it than the one we had. Not as hard to fill up but still larger than I wanted.

But what you see above is the new tree I just purchased on a whim.....a white, tinsel tree.....7 feet tall but still rather small. I love it. I put all cookie and candy ornaments on it. And it is twinkly and sugar plummy. We didn't even get the other tree out of the attic. And the Hackney men are grumbling and pouting. They really want an explosion of Christmas in the house.

But the one who puts the ornaments on and the one who takes them down RULES. And the one who rules just turned 50.