This Always Seems To Happen.... AND A Giveaway From "Etiquette With Miss Janice"

Last Thursday I played in my first Club Scramble of the year. When we were broken into teams I ended up with 4 men I had never before met. Now, I love playing golf with men, especially in the scrambles. However, the entire group I was playing with are new members and very young (I'd guess late 20's to early 30's). Since they had never met me, they didn't know what an awesome putter I am. Therefore, once play began, they felt it necessary to tell me precisely where to putt the ball. When anyone does that, my entire game falls apart. I abhor being told what to do, much less when I'm preparing to make a putt that I can sink without anyone's help. It's an entirely different deal if I ask, which I didn't. Apparently, I must come off to them as some sort of idiot who doesn't know the game of golf, but I do. Really. I do.


What resulted was, I could not hit a tee shot to save my life but I don't usually worry about that in the Scrambles because the A and B players can almost reach the green on their tee shots. They always seem to hit the ball really far but you never know where they will end up. Luckily, my short game is my saving grace. I can pitch, chip and putt with the best of them, but the conditions have to be just right. In other words, I do not need someone I don't even know, instructing me during game play!


We ended up with two Birdies and the rest being Eagles and one Par. I sank the two Birdie putts but once they started trying to tell me where to hit the ball, I could no longer sink a putt. Grrrrr! I really prefer playing with *The Old Guard*; the older men at the club. They seem to know better than to try and tell a woman where to putt her balls and they are all very gentlemanly. The younger men... not so much. Bless their hearts, they do have a lot to learn.


So, tonight is another Scramble at the club and I fully intend to go. And, if anyone tries to tell me where to putt I'm just going to say, "Ummm... Excuse me, but I've got this!" I'm just praying I get on a more genteel team tonight. Or perhaps I'll get on a team with someone I actually know. The reason I even started doing the Scrambles is so that I could get over my fear of playing with strangers. I'm not so sure that's going too well...


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AND, Miss Janice from the blog "Etiquette With Miss Janice" is celebrating National Tea Month over at her blog and she is having a giveaway for a wonderful Iced Tea Set, so please go over and sign up. Miss Janice is all things Southern and genteel and she really knows how to set a divine table.

Janice also introduced me to a new product I'd never before heard of. It's called Comeback Sauce and sounds like something I could overdose on. Seriously. Here in Texas we like to top our saltines with good old Southern Chow-Chow or my Balsamic Vinegar and Habanero Tomato Chow-Chow, but I'm always open to change. I'm sure I can come up with at least a dozen uses for the Comeback Sauce. At any rate, give Janice's blog a *look see* and sign up for her giveaway. You might even win! 

I'm In The Throes Of My Yearly Canning Project.... During The Best Golf Week Of The Year

As anyone who reads this blog already knows, I usually have a garden every year, from which I *can* (even though it's a jar) various items to give as Christmas presents. However, since the fox family was just so adorable this last summer, as many of you know, I canceled planting this year in lieu of enjoying the fox pups grow and play. I can honestly say that it was worth it. I see Felicia occasionally now sitting in a warm spot on the cinder block fence, hidden by the overgrown trumpet vine. She seems serene by herself but also lonely in a way.

So, I wasn't even counting on doing much canning this year aside from the hot sauce I made and entered in the Austin Hot Sauce Festival at the end of August. Frankly, I'm growing weary of it after 26 years, even though I have always loved doing it. You can imagine my horror delight when I opened the front door last weekend to find a huge bag of green tomatoes.

Hmmmm.... It was obviously left by a fan of my Chow-Chow, right? So, I spent a couple of days going around to farmers markets buying the other veggies I needed for Chow-Chow and finally got down to business on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I realized that I'd forgotten to buy sugar, so back to the store I went. Thankfully, I remembered that I needed more jars while I was there. Before I made it to the check out I remembered that I also need more canning salt. At this point I was thinking that my brain is functioning just fine, thank you very much.

I then decided that if I was going to be making the Chow-Chow anyway, I might as well make more hot sauce so that all of our Christmas gift recipients can have one of each, so off I went in search of the rest of the items I would need for that undertaking. Good. I was done, so I proceeded to the checkout, paid my money, and headed home.

I knew it was a full moon by the way people were driving... You know. Like they were in a dream or on the FREAKING CELL PHONE. Okay, they were on cell phones, most of them. One was just a complete moron who probably shouldn't even have a drivers license. It took forever for me to get home because everyone was acting like we were in a slow motion movie or a time warp. It was truly weird. They just passed a new law here that states you cannot talk on cell phones while in school zones. I saw countless people on their cell phones in school zones. What good is a law if it isn't enforced, right?

Just as I pull in the driveway I remember that I'd also needed to get more cilantro for the hot sauce and by this time I was getting annoyed as Hell with myself. I promptly turned around, cursing under my breath and headed once again to the store. I went in, got the damn cilantro and headed back home, which proved to be amazingly uneventful.

Needless to say, I got off to a rather slow start, considering my failing *gathering skills*, but picked up steam later on. I've now gotten several cases of Chow-Chow finished as well as two more cases of hot sauce, with only one more case of each to go. I'm hoping to get that finished up Monday. Then I can slap the labels I made on the jars and be done with it.

So, I'm a bit absent during this. However, I am still posting once per day, as promised. Is November almost over yet?