Making My Mark

Happy Birthday:

I had the best birthday weekend with most of my family. Alan was in town with the Jets playing the Texans. We got to have dinner with him at Pappasito's on Saturday night before his team meeting. It was really fun - great food and lots of visiting time.

Sunday we watched the Jets dominate the Texans - Go Jets!! Yes, I am a Texan fan, but not when they are playing against Alan! We had several people sitting around us that we knew. Alan's college room mate and his son sat a couple of rows up (we wondered who the little boy was that was wearing a # 66 Faneca Steelers jersey - so funny!).

And directly behind us were some of Daniel's friends that he went to high school with. In the entire stadium - we sat directly in front of them!

And yes, even though we were at the very top of the stadium, someone in the family actually yelled loud enough for Alan to hear on the field! That person does not need to be named!

My dad finished a replica of a very old Sugar Chest that I have been wanting for a while. What a great surprise when he walked in with it completely built! My dad has been teasing me with emailed photos of bits and pieces of the chest as he was making it. Wow! Love it! I have added a picture - so beautiful. I will actually do the finishing and will have to post another picture when I am done. My nephew Collin wants to know when I am going to put sugar in my chest!

A little history lesson: Sugar was a prized commodity to the settlers of the South. Shipment of goods were infrequent and few seemed to be willing to live without sugar. Shipments of sugar, most often molded into hard cone shapes, arrived in Nashville approximately every twelve months from New Orleans. It is little wonder that a sugar chest was owned by most of the southern backcountry settlers.

Those early chests are often little more than locked boxes, sometimes with a ledger drawer, for it was said that the good wife knew to the teaspoon how much sugar was on hand at any given time. And well she should have, since before the advent of the steamboat there was still land in the backcountry that sold for less per acre than a pound of sugar.