Musician’s Widow

I debated doing this as a Weekly Winners post (posted on a Friday versus Sunday), but since it’ll be easiest to wrap-up my last week in photos… I’m going with it.

Started by the lovely Lotus, Weekly Winners is a fun little thing bloggers do to showcase some of their favorite photos from the previous week.

Visit Lotus’ site and check out her various entries, and find other participants. See some amazing photos brought to you by bloggers around the world. Leave a little love when you do — its like food for the soul!

Photos taken using my Droid Razr, Nikon Coolpix L20 or Sony DSLR A230.
View all of my photos on my Flickr stream.

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Winter arrived finally, the same day we arrived in Texas for Christmas. It warmed up briefly, then another front brought another cold blast. Frost on the windshield was just a small piece of evidence of the cold.

My high school played in the state championship game at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, TX. I couldn’t believe I got to go!! And on top of it all… WE WON!!! First state championship win since 1981. GO BIG YOE!!

Yoe Pride Never Dies!

I love Nashville so much, but when you are born and raised in Texas… it holds your heart for life.

I got to visit Texas A&M campus this trip… I love getting to “touch base” any time I can. Ironically, this was the first time I ever noticed the statue of Pinky Wilson, who wrote the Aggie War Hymn.

Close-up of a portion of a bonfire statue/display.

Welcome to Aggieland… Home of the 12th Man.

Christmas tree at Mom and Dad’s… ready for the family to gather and enjoy the holiday!

My nephew played his saxophone for us before we opened Christmas gifts. He did a great job, and it made me remember when I was the one playing for MY grandparents… and it almost made me want to get my flute fixed and pick it up again. (Almost)

Grandma’s nativity (with one addition)… Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, and I never want to to lose sight of that.

Christmas may be technically over as Dec. 25th drew to an end, but holiday treats don’t have to stop!

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Something a little different for #DrinkUpLinkUp! I made my own Candy Cane Vodka. Oh okay, I didn’t MAKE the vodka, I infused it with candy canes. It just sounds more daring to say I made it and leave it at that.

I wanted to surprise my co-workers with something special… something handmade. I noticed infusing your own vodka on Pinterest, and I figured it was perfect for my fellow Saturday-night bartenders. So I set out to make it happen.

I used this site to help me out. (Betty Crocker site… who knew Betty was a drinker!? hehe)

Candy canes purchased. Handle of vodka purchased. Glass jars had been collected over time. Here we go…

I was pretty surprised the candy canes all dissolved within a couple hours, but I let it sit over a week nonetheless. Then the fun of filtering using a coffee filter. THAT was the most difficult part, simply due to how slow it went. But it made a HUGE difference. The vodka went from cloudy to a clear pink. So pretty!

My addiction to Parrot Bay rum this last summer netted me two pretty bottles to put the vodka in. I painted the tops and made a label.

For anyone curious… its yummy! Definitely drink it chilled – which I don’t know anyone who drinks vodka any other way. But warm its a little like, well, Scope. lol But chilled, it just tastes like liquid candy canes. SO YUM. I’m going to try Skittles next time I infuse vodka… mmm…

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A few years ago, we started taking a “family photo” at the bar Christmas party. Over the years, its had to become two photos that I later Photoshop together. This year, I even had to Photoshop myself into it.

Ahhh…. good times and precious memories with a great group of friends.

The last several years, my husband and I have not put up a Christmas tree. In fact, in our almost six years of marriage, we’ve only had a tree once, and that was just because we were having a small housewarming/Christmas party.

We’ve always traveled for Christmas, and we are on the run so much during the week, that we just figure it isn’t worth putting it up. We won’t be around to enjoy it anyway.

So, since we don’t put one up ourselves, we enjoy decorating the tree at the bar where I work. And the family tree wherever we go is our tree as well.

But I’ll be honest. I miss having a tree of our own. I have a box full of beautiful ornaments, collected through my life, just sitting in the basement. It remains boxed up year after year. Last year, we had a little basement flooding, and I did lose a few ornaments when the box they were stored in got wet. So I did at least get to go through them last year, reminiscing over when I got each one.

I look forward to the day we put a tree up again. I don’t let it get me down that we don’t put up a tree. It doesn’t upset me, as I know logically it just makes sense to skip it. (Plus our house is small and I’m not sure where I’d put it anyway!) But, it IS a special piece of Christmas decor that I can’t wait to do again.

I look forward to this night and every year. It’s the Fiddle & Steel tree decorating party soon.

It’s a little gathering all the Fiddle family. We all bring in little bottles of booze — the kind you get on an airplane — and we make our own decorations. Well, you drink your ornament. By the end of the night we’re all a bit decorated ourselves, and the bar looks beautiful.

It has very little to do with the drinking; it’s about the camaraderie. It’s the laughter and memories. Its watching badass guys pull out a glue gun to decorate a little bottle of Crown or Jack. It’s the ladies helping hang stockings on the edge of the stage. It’s knowing that for the rest of the year there will be a gentle pretty glow to come see every night together with our friends who are more like family.

I love this night! I better get back to decorating…

We made it home to Nashville from Texas yesterday morning. The 13 hour drive seemed longer than usual, and I attribute that partly to our lack of being in any hurry to come back. We just had that fabulous of a time!

Our plans to head to Oregon for Christmas were canceled thanks to budget concerns and the crazy-high prices of flights at the holidays. So we instead headed to Texas to spend the holiday with my family. Amusingly, the weather, for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, was all Oregon. Misty rain and cold. But our visit ended with warmer temps and sunshine.

I have to say… there was just something about this Christmas. It was so relaxed! It was just filled with this wonderful peace and joy. Its impossible to explain, but it was a special trip for sure. And while my husband and I knew we had to make the trip back home to Nashville to work this weekend, we just couldn’t get motivated to actually leave. We put it off as long as we could before making the long drive back.

Now, any time I am back in Texas, I have this little (okay maybe its kind of long) list of places I’d love to visit and things I’d like to do. I usually do good to knock one or two of the items off the list. This trip? I knocked off more than my fair share of things!

I got to see family, of course. Quality time with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew is priceless, and always at the very top of the list. I have cousins I’d really like to get to spend time with as well, but those visits tend to be rare just due to time constraints. I got to see one of my girl friends to do a quick gift exchange. But friends’ visits will have to wait until I am down for an extended period of time for tax season. And that’s okay… we can spend more time than the rushed visits of the holidays.

Food: Whataburger! Freebirds! Mexican food in general! Green’s Sausage House! Czech Stop! Hiway 77 Cafe! Blue Bell and Dr Pepper! (Granted I can get both of those in Nashville, too, but they just taste better when actually IN Texas.) Places: Aggieland! Frenstat, where my husband and I got married, and where my grandparents are all buried. Cavender’s Boot City!

I got to do all of these things! Crazy cool, I gotta admit. Oh, I always leave things left undone. We wanted to go for a drive in my old truck from high school. There are various people we would love to go visit. And there are locations we always want to take time to explore, but we rarely have time to do so.

But you know, that’s a good thing. I would hate to ever leave not wanting more time.

Time visiting Texas is precious to me. Nashville is definitely home, but I’m a Texan at heart for life. And a Texas Christmas? Well… that’s just something super special to me. Now I look ahead to a planned trip to Oregon in the next couple of months. Ready to go experience my husband’s home with him and embrace his list of things to do. Bring it on!