Sudie's Day

My Aunt Sudie was interred today in Waco, Texas.

It was a beautiful day, cool and the sun shined on Sudie. The service was dignified and filled with many tributes to this kind unselfish woman.

At 95 years old Sudie looked good.

She was an accomplished college professor and, after her obit was published in the Waco Herald Tribune, we have heard from many of her former students.  My brother-in-law Joe Brooks gave a heartfelt recap of Sudie's life and he had us nodding our heads in agreement many times.  He put in a few funny anecdotes too, calling Sudie 'monkey tail' in Portugese, her first language, as her older siblings would do in Brazil in the 1920s.

Sudie and I got along well.  I remember the first time I saw her.

She was very generous.   She bought Emily a new car, She paid for Joe's debate classes at Baylor, She arranged for Steph's first semester at college, she bought Jennifer an Apple computer when computers were not common possessions, she shopped at Neiman-Marcus and brought dresses for my girls season after season after season.  Paige wore a dress today bought by Sudie Pearl for Steph when Steph was 7.
She gave without fanfare and I'm sure there are lots of members of our family that were recipients of stuff I never heard about.  That's Sudie Pearl for you!

She gave me Reader's Digest every year for 20+ years and I didn't know how to tell her I didn't want it. I guess she figured it was a rightist leaning pub and that I would therefore like it.

Sudie loved to play Scrabble.  She was good.  But as she got into her 90s she eased off a little and would often tell me she knew of a Spanish word or a Portugese word that would fit. Purist me I always chastised her and didn't let her use them.  If I could play with her now, she can use any damn word she wants to.




I am particularly proud of my three daughters and my first granddaughter Anna who paid their respects today with music.

Here are two vids, one in church and the other at the gravesite.

Some Steak!

I was solo tonight and, since I have a B12 deficiency, I thought a big steak was in order.

This bugger does not look as large in the photograph as it actually was.

But here it is.....

It was smashing.  I only ate 1/3 of it and saved some for manana.

Legos

My cousin Geoff and his wife Helen are visiting for a few weeks on their way to San Diego to see their son Mark.

Geoff mentioned to Graham that he was bringing Mark's Castle Legos and had them with him.  Graham was excited and wanted to see them. So Graham and Geoff sat quietly for two hours constructing this castle.
It was great for me because Saturday morning while Graham and Geoff built the castle I had 2 hours of quiet time to do my crossword.

It's My Life

Tonight we did a reprise of a dinner we had here at our pad with the Walker kids last week.  They enjoy it so much last time and we did even better tonight with a few new twists.

We had sprouts, carrots, red taters boiled and in a butter Egyptian mint sauce.  The kids love it. We had 16 lamb chops with a reduction sauce to die for from leftover Zin and buerre with a little stock and capers.....oh my. Shoulda took a pic I know!
 Only 3 little chops were left over.  Then, for dessert, we had Apple pie (peach for Graham) and cheeses.   The kids were delighted with the new taste sensation of blue and cheddar cheeses with a'pie.

Then whilst Nana was cleaning up the mess we went over to see our neighbor Mr Bob.  Here's a vid......

Evie at Lunch

Here is a video that I was prompted to take while having a snack/lunch with Evie.  She was all into this conversation about spicy food and I thought it would be interesting.  Of course, when I got the lens on her the conversation stopped. Still worth a watch though I think because Ev and I have a chip snapping crackling contest!.

New Floors

We've always wanted new floors so we decided to indulge ourselves.....

 Bedroom

Closet

Stairs

Evie and the Chickens

Evie came to my house today for me to walk her to school.  Here she is working her computer....

We visited for 20 mins and when it was time to walk along the path to class she said she had to say bye to the chickens.  I couldn't get my camera out fast enough so I missed the first part of her talking to the birds.  Also, sorry about the sun flaring.