Retirement Party, Cook your Own Dinner and Spending time with Family in Santa Maria, California

     

    

    So yesterday, my sister Lisa and I were honored to attend the retirement party of our cousin Vera, short for Elvira, she was named after our grandmother and her dad and my dad are brothers. So we are sister/cousins, kind of sisters, kind of cousins. The party was held in Santa Maria, which is about 2 1/2 hours from where Lisa and I live, so we left work at noon so we could take our time getting there.

      The party was held at the Santa Maria Elks Lodge during their Friday Night "Cook Your Own". Now this is one of the most unique, scary, dangerous cookouts I've ever seen. You purchase what type of meat you want, Rib Eye ($30), New York Steak ($25), Fish ($25), Chicken ($25), Pork Ribs ($25) or you can get just the salad plate ($15), no meat. They gave us a ticket for our meal, Lisa and I both chose the New York Steak...GO BIG OR GO HOME, right?

    We had our own private party room and it was set up with a  full bar and tables just for our party. Lisa and I both had a glass of wine and enjoyed the appetizers which consisted of 7 Layer Dip with Chips, Spinach Dip with Bread and/or crackers, Chips and Salsa, and Chicken Salad. We could have been satisfied just eating that spread!

Picture of the Guest of Honor, our cousin Vera and her daughter Anna

    It was so nice to see Vera so happy to be done with the daily drudge of going to the office and having to deal with the drama and stress of a job. She's got great plans in her future to do more gardening and yardwork, to go camping with her children and grandchildren and hopefully to spend some time visiting me and Lisa!

L-R: Lisa, Me, Vera and Anna

    We met several of her coworkers and they all had wonderful things to say about her, they are truly going to miss having her around.

    Finally it was "Cook your Own" time and it was confusing but next time we will do better. First you stand in line with your ticket by the table that handles what your meal is going to be. We were having New York Steak so they had this huge tray of the most gorgeous steaks I've ever seen and you get to pick which one you want and they put it on a foam plate for you and give you a glass plate. We asked them at this table if we really and truly had to cook our own dinner and they said yes! But they gave us a tip, they said look for one of the guys in a red shirt and let them know it's your first time and they will help you.

    We found a very handsome and sweet man in a red shirt, I wish I had gotten his name but he was just the best. The photo below is of the "seasoning table". This is the first step, they have a spray bottle with brine and shakers with salt, pepper, something that just said seasoning...we added a lot of everything!

Red shirt Hero!

    Mr. Red Shirt then took us over to the grill which you can see in the background behind him. I was lucky that Lisa decided to man (woman) the grill, here's a shot of her standing there watching our steaks.

Brave Lisa standing next to that burning hot grill!

Dangerously hot! You could feel the heat!

    Since Lisa was doing such a good job at the grill, I decided to go and get her a Margarita and they had a very friendly bartender that was really sweet and gave me a free drink to try, he said he had just invented it. It was delicious with the flavors of peach, very tasty and refreshing!

Lisa's Margarita in the background and my free Peach Drink

Friendly bartender, gray haired man in the black shirt.

    On the walls they had several plaques with names on them. I'm not sure what they signified, but as I was standing there sipping my drink, I noticed the one below and had to get a picture because I follow a YouTube channel called Arne and Carlos. They are two knitting and yarn designers living in Norway, absolutely love them and how weird that the name on this sign is almost the name of their channel!

Arne and Carlos sign

    Finally our steaks were done and we made our way out of the grill room to the next station where they had several side dishes, baked potatoes, chili beans, salad, macaroni salad, French fries, garlic bread and various salsa and sauces. I loaded my plate and it was all delicious, so delicious that I didn't even think to take a picture. 

    We were stuffed and I only ate 1/3 of my steak. Luckily they give you bags to take your steak home. We continued to visit with cousins that were arriving late and finally it was 9pm and Lisa and I had planned to leave no later than 8:30 pm as it's a 2-hour drive home, but it was hard to leave as we were having a good time.

    We arrived home safely and we had a fabulous time and we wish Vera every happiness in the new chapter of her life. We love you cousin!

Crocheting While Watching TV

     My mom has always been a very crafty person and we grew up on a ranch with only a few channels on TV and not much to do, so she kept us entertained by teaching us to crochet, embroider, quilt, sew, almost all the fiber arts. 

When I was growing up in the 70’s, the big thing was embroidery on our jeans and blouses. It was the era of the love child and I can remember embroidering flowers and little birds all over my jeans! 

Embroidery on Jeans - Flower Power

I also remember taking Home Ec (Economics) in high school and one year Mrs. Watte had us sew a dress from the very beginning, choosing the pattern and fabric and pinning it down and cutting out the pattern then sewing it. As a grand finale of the project, we had a fashion show in the school cafeteria and our parents were invited. I had made the most gorgeous dress. I called it my Gypsy dress and it fit me beautifully. I wish I had a picture, but it looked like the white dress is this photo only it was not white. I can’t even remember the color of the dress, but I remember how it fit and how beautiful I felt wearing it!

My Gypsy Dress

When my daughter was born, I did a lot of sewing and when she started Kindergarten, I made dozens of dresses. I always made her Halloween Costumes and one year I went totally crazy and made her the most beautiful Snow White costume. It took me weeks to get just the sleeves right. It looked very much like this one only the skirt was a much brighter yellow. But after a while, she didn’t want the clothes that I made and wanted store bought so I quit sewing.

Those sleeves are hard to make!

Off and on I would start a crocheting project, I even started a Blue and Gold blanket for my daughter when she started high school as those were her school colors. She finished high school, her younger brother finished high school, all her cousins finished high school and that blanket never got finished. I finally donated it with all the yarn to the Goodwill…hopefully someone really did finish it.

Recently I wanted something to do at night while watching TV because I found that for sure “idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.” Eating while watching TV became a problem for me because I was becoming a snackaholic! I was putting on weight and I was not happy about it. I decided I needed to do something to keep my hands busy while watching TV and one day on YouTube, I found channel called Jayda In Stitches and she had done a year long project of crocheting what’s called a Mighty Mile-A-Minute Calendar Blanket. Here's her video if you want to check it out. 

I had quite a bit of yarn I had bought at The Dollar Tree, didn't know why I was buying it, but just thought it would be a good idea to have it on hand. I didn't quite follow her directions and did each strip with the same crochet stitch and she showed a different one every month, but it still turned out beautifully!

Mile A Minute

        That was so fun and I got so many compliments that I wanted to do another project. I remembered that I used to do a lot of crocheted doilies, so I thought of doing one but using yard instead of cotton thread, which made a bigger doily and then I turned it into a Wall Hanging and I love it!

First Mandala Wall Art, although mine is on a door.

Mandala Close Up

            

I had a lot of fun making this and it looks beautiful on my door in my bedroom. I'm working on two other ones now, but you never forget your first!

What crafts do you do and who taught you?