"Country ham" is overrated. It is fancier and more expensive than the stuff I usually get. But they didn't have the prime rib out yet when I did my Christmas feast shopping so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I got a packaged selection instead of an entire ham because man, it's salty.
After I did my Christmas feast shopping, the neighbor invited me to her family Christmas brunch. I tried to beg out of it but she insisted, but one of her sisters has stage 4 lung cancer and is on chemo so she wanted to know if I've been vaccinated and boosted and if I could wear a mask for the car trip. Since I hadn't, I begged out, but somehow I didn't get that text until my first attempt at country ham. Apparently you can soak it half a day to sort of "de-brine" it, so that's what I'm trying now (it came pre-sliced into thin ham-steaks). Be nice if I had some pineapple to put over it. Ah well, such is life. I do like the '50s style ham where you stick pineapple rings all over the outside, with maraschino cherries in the centers of the rings, all held in place with cloves, but you kind of need a whole ham to do that. I guess I could just lay them on top of the cutlet, but that somehow wouldn't seem right.
In other news...where to begin? I started decorating for Christmas in Oregon, when I got my first house. When I got it, for some reason the garage interior was lit with Christmas lights. There were perfectly good outlets that I got lightbulbs for and I kept the Christmas lights to remind me of my first house purchase. The front porch had white supports, so I'd wrap them in red ribbon for a peppermint stick effect. And there were big old evergreens in all the parks that I'd walk The Dog to. In the fall winds would blow down big boughs and every time I'd walk The Dog, I'd drag/carry a few home to make wreaths with and lay onto the top of the fence and a few other places. I also had a holly tree out back that made for nice decorations.
We don't have that in Kentucky. We've got a few evergreens, but nothing like Oregon, and we've got holly, but I don't have a holly at present. But this year I decided to decorate. Nothing fancy, just lights around the street-facing windows, hung from the inside, and maybe ornaments on the 2 little scrub evergreen shrubs I dug out of spots where they set themselves up and potted for my front porch. So far it is just the lights, because that involved enough fighting and cursing as it was.