An Early Christmas!

Today has been great. This morning at 7:45 I called Harley to do his popular radio show and it was a lot of fun. Harley's Pet of the Week was Little Sister, the adorable little Chihuahua four-month-old pup that we have since renamed Peggy, because she is the size of my pretty, pink Princess Phone, that Eileen gave to me a few weeks ago.

This morning when Ben walked inside The Cabin, his jaw dropped when he saw the wood on the walls of our old trailer. "Wow, this looks beautiful..." After he had admired our pretty Swedish pine walls he complimented us on our woodworking skills, then he started unpacking several bricks of  Miles of Chocolate and three homemade pies that he had baked for us, "Merry Christmas, y'all."

"Thank you, so much Ben," Tony and I replied. "We love the pies you make and of course your and Miles chocolate," Tony said."How much do we owe you for Sandy and Jon's brick of Miles of Chocolate?" I asked.

Ben shook his head sideways. "Nothing. Don't worry about it." Then we had a brief argument or what Libras like to call "discussion" about wanting to pay Ben for the brick of chocolate for the Wolfmuellers. Within two minutes we were all laughing and that's when we gave Ben our Christmas present to him—iTunes cards to buy more music.

Before the men went outside to do the chores I told Ben all about discovering Daddy Jim's Quality Meats, from Sandy and Jon and that we were grilling their rib eyes and that I was cooking the Reata Restaurant's famous Jalapeno Soup and then I warned him about me possibly needing him to help me with the soup. Then they went outside to work and I started gathering the ingredients for the soup recipe.

Then I did some paperwork for about an hour. When they walked inside the trailer I had already started preparing the fairly simple soup recipe and I'm proud to say that I only needed Ben to help me with the Cilantro.

While the soup simmered on the stove top, Tony went outside and started up our grill that we haven't used for at least six of seven months or longer and that's why I don't blame him for what happened ten minutes later.

Six minutes after T. had put our rib eyes on the grill to cook, we were inside catching up with each others news, with too much laughter involved, when Tony suddenly runs outside to the front porch. "What's that about?" I asked. "He isn't supposed to turn them for two more minutes." Ben started to laugh.

"The steaks are on fire," Ben casually says. "He's taking them off of the grill right now. I bet he forgot to turn the flame down." Then he and I go outside to check on the flaming-fire-damaged-steaks.

"The steaks are ready to eat," Tony says. "They're cooked on both sides, but this one is a little burnt, but not bad. I guess that I forgot to turn down the heat when I lit the grill." Then Ben and I teased T. about us not wanting to eat the burnt one, etc. and Tone was a good sport about it all, because he ate most of his blackened steak, while Ben and I washed down our crispy, crunchy steaks with our delicious Jalapeno soup. And, by the time we had finished our laughter-filled lunch, we had all agreed that Daddy Jim's rib eyes were juicy and delicious—even if they were burnt. So, T. and I decided, right then and there, that we will now only buy our meat from Daddy Jim's Quality Meats.

This afternoon, the three of us went to Kerrville to run several errands. First, we went to the Post Office and then we stopped by Wolfmueller's Books, so T. could buy me an expensive book, The Tao Of Willie:A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart, by Willie Nelson with Turk Pipkin, for my Christmas present, which Carol had turned me on to, which I love and spoke to my heart and the front jacket cover was signed by Willie and Turk signed the inside of the book!

When the three of us walked inside Wolfmueller's Books, Sandy and Jon greeted us from behind the counter. "Merry Christmas!" Tony said, as he handed the Miles of Chocolate brick to Jon.

"Y'all, Ben wouldn't let us pay for it, again," I said. "So, Merry Christmas from Ben, Tony and me." After they thanked us for the delicious chocolate, Jon excused himself, so he could go put it in their refrigerator and after we had a short, but fun visit with them, we headed to Herring Printing, the best printing shop in Kerrville.

When we walked inside Herring Printing, Joe Herring, our good friend who is an extremely talented and fabulous writer, columnist and published author, greeted us and we had a fun visit with him as he helped Tony and Ben load up Buttermilk. Then we headed back to the rescue ranch.

On our way back home, I called Carol to ask if we could swing by her ranch, so Ben could see her beautiful home and check out her kitchen, because I am thinking about doing a cheaper remodel version of her kitchen and she said, "Yes! I'm heading back to the ranch right now and I am at Upper Turtle Creek getting to get on 16."

"We're about five miles ahead of you," I told Carol. "We will wait at your gate. See you in a minute. Bye." A few minutes later we arrived at Carol's ranch and a few minutes later she showed up and we drove up to her house.

Even though we couldn't stay long to visit, we still had fun and when Ben saw Carol's beautiful kitchen, he said, "Do it, Nancy. You should definitely try to make y'all's trailer look like this."

Around 4:30, I went over to Kinky's Lodge, to get him to sign a David Woo, limited edition print, that Alfredo had bought on e-Bay, to help out our rescue ranch. It is the beautiful black and white picture of Kinky with Arnold, one of our beautiful pigs, that David Woo photographed for David's book about famous Texans and their pets. After Kinky signed it to Alfredo, in his office, he and I had a wonderful visit and caught up with each other's news. Here are a couple of pictures I took of Kinky signing the print to Alfredo, which I will FedEx tomorrow. "Thank you, Alfredo!"

Y'all have a great evening and thank you for praying for us to get some rain! Tomorrow, Ben is grilling for us.