I have seen the future and 2013 will be a busy year resplendent with opportunities for education, personal growth, meeting new friends, and experiencing both the good and the bad. Babies will be born and loved ones will pass...it will rain, sleet, hail, and snow...there will be tornadoes, hurricanes, 100+ degree days. There will also be beautiful blue skies; tulips, daffodils, and crocus will bloom in the spring and the grass will be green in the summer. God will paint the mountains in the fall with the most beautiful colors and photographers will hunt down the best places to photograph them. Isn't life grand? 

  Along with looking forward to the new year think about honoring those that have faced mountains of challenges in years past.  Whether the mountains came in the form of illness, accident, personal tragedy or triumphs let's celebrate the beauty of life in all its forms. The celebration I am referring to comes in the form of a photo shoot or what I call a "Tribute Shoot."  This all started just a few years ago with a friend of mine who had faced years of challenges and after knocking on deaths proverbial door she emerged a new and stronger person, and I wanted to honor her struggles and achievements by showing her and the world how beautiful she was inside and out.

   A tribute shoot comes at no charge whatsoever to the honoree and lasts about two hours at a location of their choosing (within a two hour drive of the  Front Range of Colorado).  The goal is to have a fun day of photographing with the result being 10-25 photos set to music, given to the honoree as well as posted on this website and available for prints.  The only thing I ask in return is that should you nominate someone for a tribute shoot you help cover some of my expenses for gas etc, there is no set amount so I leave that up to your discretion.

  Think about who you would like to honor, it could be a well planned celebration of life or a surprise gift for a long suffering hardworking graduate.  No matter what you would like to do I will do my best to honor the person!  (Please note, this shoot is for the honoree only unless previous arrangements have been made. This is not a free photo shoot for an event or for any other reason other than to honor the person.)

  So on this New Years day morning, whether you are recuperating from a late night, watching the Rose Parade or planning to watch football all day also be in thought of who you would like to see honored for their extraordinary accomplishments.

  About 24 1/2 years ago as a new Navy Wife I was subjected to various forms of culture shock, and I am not just referring to landing on the island of Guam at 6 AM only the have the ship's chaplain (who had my husbands pick-up) arrive an hour late with the cab of the truck covered in newly exploded Dr Pepper and no gas in the tank.  Looking back there was of course the military in general, and as a wife we were classified as a "dependent wife" aka DW (referring to the fact that the military looked at us as a life sucking force that drained the active duty personnel of valuable time and energy and if the Navy had wanted you to have one they would have issued you one with your sea bag) and we were persona non grata without our husbands Social Security number or at the very least his "last four."

   Everything has a procedure from the check-in at the clinic to the check-out a the commissary (grocery store), in fact the first time I had ever stepped foot in a commissary I did it wrong, yes it's true I was shopping incorrectly (I didn't know that was possible but I soon found that out after all the well seasoned military wives glared at me and TOLD me that I was doing it wrong). For those unfamiliar with the "old" commissary layout please try to envision a Quonset hut circa World War I or II filled with every food and non-perishable food item the military believes you should need, plus copious amounts of cigarettes  squeezed onto tall shelves creating narrow isles and then another isle filled with fantastic delicacies from around the world and available only to military personnel in said commissary. The isles were wide enough for only one cart at a time making it virtually impossible to actually pass another DW if you, for example, forgot something on a previous isle or just wanted something from the World Wide Delicacy Isle to serve at the always popular wives club meeting.  Well the commissary being a part of the military was run, well militaristically, and in so doing and knowing how unruly dependent wives can be ( insert sarcasm here) they had a plan to keep us in order in the form of arrows painted on the floor.  That's right, and I am not making this up, there were arrows not unlike a parking lot at Wal-Mart,  painted on the floor so when you arrived and grabbed your government issued grocery cart you just got in line and followed the arrows up and back winding your way through the store, regardless of what you needed or how your list was written (it didn't take long to learn to write a list that followed the arrows, because Heaven help the DW who forgot something and had to get out of the line and start all over because she forgot the Cherrios but did not realize it until she hit the cigarette isle).

  Another type of culture shock came in the form of the Military Wife (DW) herself.  It was a rare woman who did not, in one way or another, wear her husbands rank on her own sleeve. Early in this journey I met a woman, who lived just a few doors down, would wear one of her husbands 14 kt gold dress medals (a SWO pin to be exact) because she thought it was "cute."  Later I met (and became close friends with) a woman who lived near us in Lualualei, HI and referred to the "food chain" of military wives who wore their husband rank, I couldn't agree more and we laughed about that and them many times.  Yes, I wore my husbands rank a few times and I am not ashamed to admit to the fact that when the wives would get together at the O' Club (officers club) also known as Top O' the Mar on Guam; I would, with great pride, drive up in our full size green Chevy pickup, windows down (it had no aircon), and Alpine stereo blaring and park in the very front spot reserved for "Any Ensign" (for those unfamiliar with Navy rank, an Ensign is the most junior of all officer ranks and all ranks higher typically look down on the lowly Ensign). Hey, I didn't care who laughed because I was parked up front while the rest of the ladies had to park much farther away, and in that oppressive heat and humidity I would take advantage of that parking spot every time it was available.

  What truly sticks in my mind  when looking back to those early Navy years for me was one woman in particular whose husband had risen from an Army E-1 in Vietnam to a Navy O-4 (no small achievement by any standard), she had seen it all.  She was younger than he and older than me by more than a few years and looked sweet as could be, but make no mistake when dealing with her she was as tough as they came.  One of her many 'policies' about life was in regards to sharing her recipes with other DW's;  when complimented on a dish she brought to a wives club meeting or event she would give gracious thanks but once again, Heaven help the lowly Ensign wife who dared to ask for the recipe! Her policy as she put it, was to NEVER share a recipe with anyone for any reason as long as they were stationed at the same place or could possibly be invited to the same event because after all, they could possibly make it better than she and how embarrassing that would be.  She later told me that if she stalled long enough the offending Ensign wife would either forget or give up asking therefore ensuring the safety of her prized chicken-pimento-rice-drenched-in-cream-of-mushroom-soup-casserole legacy.

  With all of that being said please let me continue to My New Favorite Chili Recipe.  Should you chose to make this please be assured that I will neither hunt you down nor throw my husbands rank at you, and if you enter this in a competition and win please give a nod to this old Navy wife and all of the arrows I have had to follow in order to purchase the ingredients and perfect this recipe over the years.

  While cooking I tend to shoot from the hip, that is I rarely follow a recipe regardless of whether I am baking bread, making chicken soup or chili.  I do however wish to share my latest batch of chili with you because it turned out to be one of the best I have ever made and if for no other reason, I don't want to forget what I put into my favorite pot. These measurements are approximate at best:

1/4 pound ground beef

1/4 pound sausage

1/2 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic

(combine meat and cook until brown with onion and garlic)

Add to that

1 can pinto beans, drained

1 can black beans, drained

1 can chili beans with liquid

1 can stewed tomatoes

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 small jar White Girl Salsa (yes, that is what it is called and I purchased it at Whole Foods)

4 small or 2 large tomatillos diced

1/2 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, smashed or diced

1/4 cup uncooked grits (or corn meal)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1-2 tsp salt & pepper

1/4 cup Merlot or 1 bottle amber ale

Let simmer all day and serve with cheese and sour cream.  

  As  military family holiday traditions become a relative thing, because face it...the relatives are rarely nearby, and my children have not grown up with the same traditions that either my husband or I did.  I grew up with a grandmother who lived about 30 minutes away and some cousins who were about 3 hours away (while the rest were quite far) so getting together for the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter etc) was not difficult and as the youngest of the bunch they were typically quite fun for me!  

  There was one year that one of my male cousins, who happened to have shoulder length blond hair (it was the 70's after all), showed up to Grandma's house sporting a new perm.  Yes, that's right, a PERM!!  I think we all laughed until we cried at his beautiful golden locks and somewhere I have a picture.  We had an uncle (a great uncle actually) who was a small Mexican man, a hugely talented artist, and one of the funniest people I knew. His name was Mario Larrinaga  but we just called him "Uncle Maury" and one of his many quirks was to wear his sunglasses in the house, and why would that be? Well despite all the ruckus caused by my cousins, my uncle and my father...he would be asleep on the couch and he thought no body would know because he was hiding behind those glasses (but of course we did!).  The location of these family dinners varied, from my grandmothers home in Camarillo, CA, my aunt and uncle's home in Ridgecrest, CA and my family's home in West Hills (then called Canoga Park), CA.  That is until we moved to Colorado and about 7 years later I married my husband (who also grew up in Canoga Park) and the Navy then dictated our whereabouts.

  Our first Christmas together almost wasn't; we were living on the island of Guam and he was at sea 19 months out of a 26 month tour, so no matter how you sliced it we were not together very much (I joke that I was stationed on Guam and he was stationed on the USS White Plains). The ship was scheduled to be out at sea November through April  so we would not have been together for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years or Easter, but for some reason (I do not recall why) they came in for 3 days at Christmas.  Our first Christmas together and our only new tradition was to survive!  I had put up our beautiful fake tree in October so that he could enjoy it when he was home and yes the local newspaper came to my house and did a story on me and I even had my picture on the front page (it was a slow news day for sure!). 

  Many families, I know, have traditions tied to Christmas Eve meals which must be eaten at a certain time like pizza at 6 pm or take out "Chinese Food."  Some of the traditions exist for reasons unknown other than that is just what they have always done so they will always continue to do it.  Other exist because of church related activities and meal time needs to be easy. My family has no Christmas Eve traditions, some years we let the kids open one gift and other years they had to wait until morning. There was one year that my husband had the "duty' on Christmas Day and would not be home until the morning of Dec 26th, we were living in Hawaii and my father had flown out to be with his grand kids.  We had a traditional dinner on base with my husband  then my father and I took the kids for a drive to see the "pretty lights," I was grumpy because my husband could not join us but looking back it was one of the best memories I have of my father with our children. A few days later we all went water skiing at Hickam AFB...after all it was Hawaii! My father passed five months later and I am so thankful to have had that time!

  So today, December 24, 2012... with all of the recent shootings across this country and the 'fiscal cliff' looming please take a few minutes and hug your children, kiss their precious faces until they giggle and scream...call your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and long lost friends.  Tell them all how much you love them...cherish your family traditions whether tied to Christmas, Chanuka, Kwanza, or the Winter Solstice.  And here's a thought....if you know of someone who beliefs are not the same as yours but you know they will be alone in the coming days invite them over for dinner...maybe that can become a new tradition for both of you!

Blessings!