Author: neighborlylife

Familia

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Alex’s mom makes the BEST tamales. They are made with multiple dried chiles, which are soaked overnight, ground, and then stewed with pork, wrapped in masa, and sprinkled with two secret ingredients. It takes three days to make them. Tamales are a tradition of the Christmas holiday for countless families. It’s a tradition for the families because it literally takes an army to make these tasty treats, between stewing the meat, making the masa, and spreading the masa. Continue reading →

The Joy of Holiday Lights

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img_4580About a week before our neighborhood holiday party a few years ago, I got a frantic text from our neighborhood social director Ashley. She had just been told it was her job to decorate our neighborhood Christmas tree (yes, we have such a thing), but nothing had been done yet! The horror! She needed decorators and decorations, STAT. So, Continue reading →

Feelin’ Lazy

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The other night, I was too lazy to go to the store. I’d been running all over town gathering goods for the Thanksgiving feast, however, I had not so conveniently forgotten that we have to eat in the interim. Fortunately, I had grabbed a bag of onions for the feast, and I didn’t need all of them. As such, French onion would be the soup du jour. Continue reading →

Light it up

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December is one of my favorite times of the year in our neighborhood. The holiday lights perfectly highlight the unique features of each of our homes. While not the most fantastic, over the top, display you will see, it is simply beautiful.  The volunteer neighborhood association holds a lighting competition and winners are announced mid-December and a lighted sign is placed on their front yard. We have awards for the Most Whimsical, Most Continue reading →

The importance of a theme…

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I have two holidays that I host: Halloween & Thanksgiving. Halloween is because we get loads of kids and I don’t want to let them down by going to another house. Thanksgiving was a necessity because Alex and I were tired of eating twice (once with his family, and once with mine). So, in taking on Thanksgiving, you kind of have to deliver on the food.  I prefer to do unique things each year.  Try as I may to do something other than Turkey, my family would rebel if the bird didn’t make it to the table in some form. So, in order to get my creative juices flowing, I always have a theme to guide my menu and keep things interesting. I’ve done French, Spanish, Greek, Beer, Wine, Napa… and so on. It’s usually inspired by a trip we went on during the year. I really wanted to do an Indian theme, but my curry phobic mother would not have enjoyed that. So, this year the theme is Fire. Continue reading →

The Bandit

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One night, in the wee hours of the morning, we heard a stir from the laundry room. Not unusual, our dog is a nocturnal eater, and favors his dinner around 2 or 3 am. We quickly found out that it wasn’t our dog that was stirring about. In a moment, my dog, sleeping on the bedroom floor, sprang up, ran to the laundry room, and began violently barking, Continue reading →