Christmas 2008 pics

These are the pics from being at Dad and Dottie’s today. I don’t have pics yet of last night, because other people were taking pics.

Jemma’s Winterhaven Pics

Shortly before Christmas, Jemma, Buz, Jaeden, Dottie, and I went through Winterhaven. That’s the neighborhood that gets all decorated for Christmas, some houses having very extravagant displays. It was a cold night!!

(I went swimming again today, and school is out in less than a month, so Christmas seems like such a long time ago!)

Jemma’s December pics

Christmas Eve, as you’ll recall, I had a ton of people at my house. My brain wasn’t functioning enough to take photos if I remember correctly, but Jemma did a great job!

The cast of characters for these photos: Jemma, Jaeden, and Buz, Donna, Dad and Dottie, Laura, Del, and Cathleen, and yours truly. Oh — and Ginny, who didn’t hide (which I expected her to do) but hung out and even played!

Happy New Year!

Last time I was at Dottie’s I cut out the pieces to Betty’s quilt. I pinned together sets of two small squares, which I hope to sew today before I go back over there! Then I can pin together sets of two pairs to make small blocks. I got the pattern off the internet; I will see if I can find it again! This is the pattern: http://www.quilterscache.com/A/AutumnTints2Block_Page2.html but I’m not using those colors.

This is what the quilt looks like right this second:

And these are the fabric pieces so that hopefully you can see the colors:

More pics:

These are pics of the guest room, that FINALLY got cleaned out. Prior to this it was full of boxes — I wrote about some of those in an earlier post. Originally it was just going to be an office room, but when Dottie bought the day bed I got her guest room bed. The quilt that used to be on the bed was in the laundry when I took this picture. This bedspread was my grandmother’s. It’s not my first choice, but I needed to put SOMEthing on the bed!

The awesome desk chair is Del’s. The desk is one I bought at the school rummage sale, minus the glass top (which would have cost more to move than what I paid for the desk). The tall thing with most of my writing books (I think I have more somewhere!) I got from Lea’s yard sale; it was her sister-in-law’s. It is two pieces, but I love it! The wooden thing with the three plants on it is my sister’s sewing machine from my grandmother. One of these days she and my mother will be here at the same time and we will go through the quilt fabric my grandmother gave me. Then we can divide them up and sew. She had lots of squares and pattern pieces cut out as well as some pieced together.

This next photo shows the kitchen as it is now: After, if you will.

Now these are the “before” pictures. They show post-holiday clutter, but you can see the decorations as well, parts of the computer desk I put together, what the kitchen looked like with two tables in it, and how Donna and I had it set up so we could do our own computer things when we wanted to. I put similar but not the same desktop wallpapers on, which I think looked cool. My sister used the old laptop, which was now usable because I was able to get a new monitor with a gift card from Buz and Jemma (thanks!!!). I can only play Sims2 on the old one, and that’s the only one that Donna can play Second Life on, because the new one has Vista. Ignore the clutter, but enjoy the pics:

That’s it for now! I hope you all have a great and blessed new year!

The Holidays

First, let’s go back in time to Friday’s trip to the mall. They overcharged me by two dollars, so I just wanted the two dollars back. No, since it was on my debit card they needed to void that charge and redo it. But — the end result of that was I am out that money until the bank gets around to putting the overcharge back in my account! It has continued to infuriate me as I check my bank account because that’s over a hundred dollars that I didn’t have access to … which means that I couldn’t do a number of things I had planned to do with that money, including finishing my Christmas shopping. I had alternatives for two of the people on my list and actually that part seems to have worked out better (unless they were just being polite). But I couldn’t get Sue her present and it has to wait until the money is put back into my account, so I felt guilty opening hers! But I will send an e-mail to the store explaining why I won’t be back there. They should have told me that the credit to my account could take much longer than expected, since they certainly took the money OUT right away!

So, that added to my panic for Saturday. But I did get the guest room looking fairly spiffy and kept the door open (we won’t discuss my bedroom). I have no idea how much food feeds ten adults, so I made the first pot roast (the thicker one) in the crock pot Friday and the other (smaller) one overnight in the crock pot. Then I put both in a turkey roasting pan in the oven. The house smelled great! I went by the theory that too much is better than not enough, and if there’s extra then that’s great — minimal cooking this week! I also had corn, two bags of red potatoes (another food that can be nuked once it’s been cooked the first time), corn, pretzel sticks with four yummy dips that I’d gotten from the street fair (spinach, dill, veggie — not my favorite, and salmon). Donna made the dips when she came. I had cookies from various sources for dessert — dessert being one of the things I was planning to buy but now couldn’t. I got rolls in case anyone wanted to turn the pot roast into sandwiches because it was nice and tender and shredded (my brother taught me how to make pot roast). Donna had made dessert/breakfast breads that we also offered for dessert. Del brought a shrimp platter, Dottie and Jemma brought more cookies (I think Jemma brought cookies — I remember the huge cookie plate!) and Dottie brought her eggplant. I love her eggplant, and one of the guests turns out to be a vegetarian, so that was even better! Oh, now I remember! Jemma brought this awesome platter of artichoke hearts, green olives, cheeses, crackers, etc. Dottie also brought this thing she made that I never heard of until a few weeks ago: She takes sausage like from Hickory Farms and sautees it in sweet & sour sauce. It’s great! Donna went and got beverages (she saved the day in lots of ways!) and I made a pot of coffee as well. No one who came in the door went out hungry!

Now, where do you put ten adults to eat? Dottie (very recently) got a new dining room table and gave me her kitchen table this past weekend. I still had John’s former table. Donna helped me stand up Dottie’s and put the leaves in both tables. Then we figured out a way to make both tables fit in the kitchen with the ten kitchen chairs, so everyone got to sit in a nice spot, even if it wasn’t … roomy. I wish now that I’d taken a picture of it! But I had a lot on my mind!

The guests were Dad, Dottie, Buz, Jemma, Jaeden (he’s two and doesn’t count as an adult), Donna, Del, Laura, Cathleen, and Diana. I was there too, making ten adult people! Cathleen is Del’s middle daughter, and I haven’t seen her in decades! But it was just as if time hadn’t passed, which was great! So we all ate, chatted, opened gifts, and had a great time. Jaeden met his first cat — Ginny — who actually stayed in the living room the whole time! She played with Jaeden, which was equally surprising, and his laugh was great! There was also wrapping paper everywhere at one point, and when it was scooped together he played in it as if it were a pile of leaves. Jemma has great pictures of that on her new camera.

Donna’s up — more later!

Christmas Pics

My sister is sleeping at the moment, and I don’t know how much time I have to write. So I will upload the Christmas pics to the blog and then if there’s time keep writing. These are just the ones from yesterday, Christmas. I was a tad busy on Christmas Eve but Jemma took a ton of great pics that I’m hoping she’ll e-mail to me! I’m pretty sure that if you want any of the pics, you can save them by right-clicking and then choosing *save as.* These are pics of Buz, Donna, Jaeden (on train), Dottie, Dad, and I. The posed pics were at Dad’s house in front of their tree (that’s Anthony’s hand on the tree). The other pics were at Buz’s.

Friday

I almost called Sue the other morning but I was driving. There it was on the radio, that song which inspired her to call me last year: Dominic the Donkey. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5rOO2v2dU Priceless memories.

So after working on report cards until lunch time, I am done for the next two weeks. I do have to finish report cards, but that’s about it. It is weird though — this is the first job I’ve ever had (not just schools, but all jobs) that I didn’t get any sort of Christmas bonus at all; not even a card. Then again, the school is huge.

After I got home and picked up my pay check, I picked up my neighbor Arianna as well. We went to the bank and then to the mall. She doesn’t have a car, and I figured it’d be nice for her to get out. I had to finish up my shopping — getting what I needed for Buz and for Dottie. While we were shopping Buz called! We were tentatively thinking about Winterhaven tonight but we’re looking more at tomorrow night now. That works for me. Tonight I’ll work on cleaning up some.

I also need to finish up Christmas cards! I’ve been too tired and sick all week to think about it! I take cold medicine or allergy medicine (depending on my mood) to get through work, but most nights come home and fall asleep. But I’m not totally exhausted at the moment, so I’ll see what I can do!

It’s weird how you get into a routine and it becomes a part of the holiday. Gone this year were classroom decorations, Christmas program, Mass the last day of school, in-school Christmas party … the things I got used to! Also gone were hall Christmas decorations because the pod area doesn’t have any halls! Our “halls” are the outdoors. Nothing sticks to the outer walls, and nothing lasts on the outside of the classroom door. Oh, well. There’s nothing to shovel either!

Sunday morning

Well, the livingroom is decorated and the tree looks lovely enough, although I suspect I have another container somewhere with more ornaments. I think this because I remember not having enough room on the tree last year for all the ornaments, and this is the same tree. So these are probably the ones I used last year and the ones I didn’t are … somewhere. Now, many of my friends have scoffed at another friend who has carefully kept track of her children’s ornaments and where they came from. This year I realize that she’s so much smarter than we’ve given her credit for! I look at my ornaments and think: OK, this one came from a student. Bryant? Kevin? Am I sure it was a boy? But it’s a nice wooden ornament that says something along the lines of Wisconsin Christmas. Stepanie’s mother was smart: she put Stephanie’s name on the back of her ornament! Some are easier to remember: last year or the year before I got to Mt. Horeb early before John got home and I went to the local shops. I found an unusual sort of snowflake ornament and bought two. Betty picked out one and I kept the other. I have ornaments that had belonged to my grandmother. I have what I call “The Tucson Collection” — ornaments from when I lived here before that brought me comfort when I was far away. I have some that make me smile as I remember trips to Cape Cod — one is Santa fishing on a pier. I have one that I don’t know why I keep — it’s a wooden apple with a heart cut out of the center and a little bell there. It has my name on it. I got it one year when I was working at Gingerbread House in Syracuse. It wasn’t a job I remember fondly. I have carousels in glass bells from Carla, ornaments made by Anthony when he was just a little guy and not towering over my head, some made by Ronnie — there are lots of memories on my tree and lots of Alzheimer’s as well!

Alas, I am going to have to feed myself today. Last Saturday when I went to The Folks’, Dottie sent home with me this great turkey pie she’d made as well as some of the great pumpkin bread and applesauce bread that Donna made and brought down. So for supper this week I had the turkey pie most nights (and soup the nights I was sneezing too much from allergies to really appreciate food) and Donna’s breads made a great breakfast all week. Friday was the end of both, though. No fear, though — last night was the party at Buz and Jemma’s and so the cheeses and fruit I ate filled me up enough to count as supper. If you ever want to know what happens if you eat a bunch of different chesses and eat a lot of raspberries and blackberries, call me. I should be out of the bathroom by then.

We’re going to try to go to the Fourth Avenue Street Fair today. It is cold out (40s right now) so I have to find my coat. I still have to get my Christmas cards, and I still have some Christmas shopping to do. Gotta get it together because everything needs to be mailed out this week.

goals

Reviewed December 29th

For this week:

Finish Streets by Friday — I don’t know if it was finished by Friday, but it was finished. This was Rolled-Up Streets, and I needed it finished so that I could make copies and bind it for Christmas.

Decorate tree — well, the tree is still up and decorated, so I guess I’ve done this one!

Clean living room — it needs it again, but it was clean for guests on Christmas Eve. It’s probably safe to say it hasn’t been clean since.

Clean kitchen — it’s still lovely

Clean guest room — and now I’m using it as a bedroom because my real bed is full of clean clothes

Clean bedroom — um, that’s a goal over vacation

Clean back porch — back porch? The whole patio area? Not sure what I was thinking, but it does need cleaning.

Find yule log recipe — yeah, forget the whole yule log thing.
list yule log ingredients — delete

make a yule log by Sunday — delete

bag donation clothes — still not done

bag summer clothes — still not done

get winter stuff from storage room — mostly done. I know there’s a tub of winter clothes in there still. I may grab it today.

make address labels ready — nope, I hand addressed cards until I ran out of cards.

buy new address label sheets — did this, but didn’t use them.

Ice

I got up this morning, did my usual morning things, went out to the car, and looked at the wet windows. No problem. I went to wipe them off — and it wasn’t water. The front and back windshields were covered with a coat of ice. What?? I felt betrayed by this infringement of … “weather” … on my cozy little world. Yes, many of my friends and loved ones spent the weekend scraping and shoveling, but … not me! Not here! So I got out a plastic Ace Hardware card, but the ice was too thick for that! Now I know I own one or two ice scrapers, but I have no idea where they are. I went for the Syracuse method (what I learned there) of using the windshield spray solution and washing the windows, but that wasn’t fast enough. I had to be at work! Luckily I had in the trunk this handy can of some stuff that I never used the five years I was in Wisconsin. You spray it on your windshield, and it is defrosted by the time you get back in the car. Unfortunately, it left some sort of white speckles that wouldn’t go away until I pulled over and wiped down the windows with something from the trunk. It made it a most adventurous trip to work, but I got there at least three or four minutes before it was time to pick up my class from the playground!

I went and saw Enchanted yesterday; what a hoot!! The corny parts were delightfully corny, the casting was well done, and the cute guy was appropriately cute. Loved it. The popcorn was decent too!

I got out some of my Christmas decorations — one tub, and started looking at what I had. Last Christmas was a bit stressful and so I didn’t know what to expect. The tub I opened had my good table cloth and placemats, as well as various other things — Christmas cards from students, a few Christmas pictures drawn by students, and a few things guaranteed to make me smile. I found the two sheep that said Faith and Hope on their side. Then I found a box that looked unfamiliar, and was light. I opened it and it had a note and an ornament that included a pink flamingo. I do miss my friends, but it definitely made me smile! I also had some winter clothes in there, including my favorite light blue snuggly shirt with the three snow globes on the front. At least it’s chilly enough to wear my long sleeved Christmas clothes!