This morning I walked into Olivia's room to check on her and get a Kleenex. She had been playing by herself (well, with Lucy, too) for a while and usually if she doesn't see me for a while she starts calling for me. So I thought I'd anticipate her needs and say Hi.
When I came in she was busy trying to climb into her little wooden rocking chair that had belonged to her Grandpa Mark when he was little. I watched as she climbed into the little rocker all by herself, holding a thick boardbook the whole time. It was a difficult ordeal, not dropping the book and maneuvering into a rocking chair while wearing slippery fleece pajamas. There was a bit of grunting and heavy breathing involved, but she managed it.
As she leaned back in the chair (very chill looking), with book in hand, and looking pleased with herself, I clapped and praised her. Ignoring this, she grabbed my pant leg and pushed it toward the door, saying in her sweet but firm baby voice, "Bye!... Bye!" I was nonplussed but she maintained her stance until I got the clue and started to leave.
Apparently reading time is a solitary activity.
AMENDMENT: I just returned from her room and apparently doing business is a solitary activity.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Christmas Part II
We put a lot of miles on my Grand Prix in order to celebrate Christmas Parts II and III. Olivia was not pleased. She broke down in the car twice, sobbing so hard that she was choking. JB thought she really was choking on something, but I told him that she was just that upset. Poor bird! We had subjected her to several days of parties with no down time. I don't think we should do that anymore.
On our way to Berkley, we stopped at MSU to exchange the sweatshirt that I had gotten, as it was too small. Are college students shrinking or something? I do appreciate that the women's clothing is slim fitting, as to look feminine, but we do need room to fit our bodies into the clothes, people!
So we ended up buying more MSU gear. Our old stuff was 10 years old and ratty.
But even more exciting than that was having lunch at Pancheros.
Best. Burritos. Ever.
JB and I love burritos and have gone to several burrito restaurants. None compare to Pancheros.
Then we hit the road for Berkley, where my Aunt Carol was hosting a Fraser get-together. There were seven people 6-years-old and under there, and it was quite entertaining watching the kids open their presents. But the best moment did not come until Granny was opening her giant gift that everyone went in on.
A little background on Granny: She saves everything. And she loves cardinals.
And her mega-gift was covered in cardinal wrapping paper.
Each piece of tape was carefully pulled away, so that she could keep the glorious paper. The Frasers are used to this. That's why Granny opens her gifts last. My brother has often said that any gifts for Granny should be wrapped using one piece of tape, so that when she removes that one piece, the paper will fall down around the present and her work will be done. No one has perfected that strategy yet.
Well, my cousin's daughter Pepper, who is a few months older than Olivia, was feeling sad about something. As she walked by Granny and the cardinal paper, my Mom suggested, "Hey Pepper, why don't you help Granny open her present?" in an effort to cheer her up. But Pepper was not interested. The two boys, Rex and Ivan, did not hear the part where Mom was addressing Pepper. All they heard was "...why don't you help Granny open her present?"
They roared with excitement and pounced upon the present. We were all laughing our butts off except for Granny, who was not having it. Here is a breakdown:
Ivan and Rex, roaring, roaring, grabbing at the paper: "Aaaggghhh!! Raaaaah Raaaaah!!"
Granny, swatting, "No! Stop! That's MY present!"
Audience members: "Ivan, Rex, stop! Granny wants to open it herself!"
Other audience members: "Go on, help her! You can do it!"
Aunt Carol: "Mom, I'll give you the roll of cardinal paper!"
Granny won the battle in the end (has Granny ever NOT won a battle?), and resumed careful unwrapping of her new large flat screen HDTV.
I think this is her first new TV since the Carter era. Seriously. Her TV is one of those old floor models without a remote control. Uncle TJ said they were taking bets on whether Granny will get a new TV stand or just set the new TV on top of the old one. I gathered that they got her the new TV because she was having trouble with the digital conversion. Aunt Carol told Granny that she won't have to throw her converter through the cable company's window now, but Granny said that she's still gonna do it. Granny kicks ass.
And I didn't take a single photo because I was too busy visiting with people. So you'll just have to take my word for it!
On our way to Berkley, we stopped at MSU to exchange the sweatshirt that I had gotten, as it was too small. Are college students shrinking or something? I do appreciate that the women's clothing is slim fitting, as to look feminine, but we do need room to fit our bodies into the clothes, people!
So we ended up buying more MSU gear. Our old stuff was 10 years old and ratty.
But even more exciting than that was having lunch at Pancheros.
Best. Burritos. Ever.
JB and I love burritos and have gone to several burrito restaurants. None compare to Pancheros.
Then we hit the road for Berkley, where my Aunt Carol was hosting a Fraser get-together. There were seven people 6-years-old and under there, and it was quite entertaining watching the kids open their presents. But the best moment did not come until Granny was opening her giant gift that everyone went in on.
A little background on Granny: She saves everything. And she loves cardinals.
And her mega-gift was covered in cardinal wrapping paper.
Each piece of tape was carefully pulled away, so that she could keep the glorious paper. The Frasers are used to this. That's why Granny opens her gifts last. My brother has often said that any gifts for Granny should be wrapped using one piece of tape, so that when she removes that one piece, the paper will fall down around the present and her work will be done. No one has perfected that strategy yet.
Well, my cousin's daughter Pepper, who is a few months older than Olivia, was feeling sad about something. As she walked by Granny and the cardinal paper, my Mom suggested, "Hey Pepper, why don't you help Granny open her present?" in an effort to cheer her up. But Pepper was not interested. The two boys, Rex and Ivan, did not hear the part where Mom was addressing Pepper. All they heard was "...why don't you help Granny open her present?"
They roared with excitement and pounced upon the present. We were all laughing our butts off except for Granny, who was not having it. Here is a breakdown:
Ivan and Rex, roaring, roaring, grabbing at the paper: "Aaaggghhh!! Raaaaah Raaaaah!!"
Granny, swatting, "No! Stop! That's MY present!"
Audience members: "Ivan, Rex, stop! Granny wants to open it herself!"
Other audience members: "Go on, help her! You can do it!"
Aunt Carol: "Mom, I'll give you the roll of cardinal paper!"
Granny won the battle in the end (has Granny ever NOT won a battle?), and resumed careful unwrapping of her new large flat screen HDTV.
I think this is her first new TV since the Carter era. Seriously. Her TV is one of those old floor models without a remote control. Uncle TJ said they were taking bets on whether Granny will get a new TV stand or just set the new TV on top of the old one. I gathered that they got her the new TV because she was having trouble with the digital conversion. Aunt Carol told Granny that she won't have to throw her converter through the cable company's window now, but Granny said that she's still gonna do it. Granny kicks ass.
And I didn't take a single photo because I was too busy visiting with people. So you'll just have to take my word for it!
Christmas Part I
Since we did so much over the Christmas holiday, I'm blogging about it in a few parts.
Part I is what we did first: Hunt Christmas.
It started on the Sunday before Christmas, with Grandma and Grandpa's annual Carol Sing party. There were around 24 people there, including some talented musicians to accompany our singing. There were a handful of children there, but the one I remember best is a little boy from our church named John. Well, he's not really little. He's like 9 or 10. He was very sweet and really enamored with Olivia. Every time Olivia started to fall as she practiced walking, he would try to catch her and keep her safe. I told her that it was okay if she fell, but he didn't believe me.
John and his brother Lars were shooting a nerf gun type thing and laughing as Olivia laughed when all the balls shot out. John said many entertaining things, best of which were, "Olivia is an awesome baby. Most babies don't like me, but she plays with me." And, looking at me, "Olivia looks like you," and then, turning to JB, "But she doesn't look like you." Pause. "Except for her red eyebrows." (Out of the mouth of babes--she's going to have red hair!! :) )
On Christmas Eve we were back at G&G's for dinner. I wasn't sure we were going to make it because freezing rain had been coming down all afternoon. Many many churches had canceled their evening services and the cars were covered in ice. But we made it! After dinner we hung out while we waited to go the church's midnight service. Olivia provided some entertainment:
The midnight service is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. The chapel is filled with candles and we sing all the good hymns with our awesome choir. We have a great new worship leader at Thornapple and apparently the service this year was excellent, according to Grandma and Marian. I cannot vouch for this because JB, O, and I did not go.
...please pardon me while I wipe the tears from my eyes...
JB and I had to admit to ourselves that we cannot do everything we used to do, now that Olivia is in our lives. She was not doing well by 10:15, even after I had tried to get her to go to bed until we had to leave for church. She was too riled up to sleep in a new place. On top of that I was feeling like crud (I got better!) and JB was exhausted. So we went back to the Hilton and went to bed. We were really bummed about missing the service.
But THEN, we woke up, and it was CHRISTMAS! Jesus had been born in the night and it was time to celebrate.
We celebrated with a hot fire in the woodstove, Mark's famous delicious eggnog, a cute baby in her green velour leisure suit, egg souffle, family, happy dogs, and by singing Joy to the World.
Oh, and with PRESENTS.
Here is the tree. It looked larger when it didn't have presents under it. Then it got dwarfed as we started putting boxes under it.
I love giving presents more than getting. I love taking several months to think of the perfect gift for someone and then making it happen, which often involves me making it. I did a lot of making this Christmas but foolishly forgot to photograph my creations.
I made Austin some recipe cards. For Grandma's birthday earlier this year I had self-matted (double mat with two openings--hard!) a fringed gentian photo of mine and included a gentian poem that someone had written out for Grandma. For Christmas we got it framed and it turned out beautifully. Then JB and I put our creative heads together and made a Spring felt table runner for Marian. It has flowers on it with bunnies jumping over the flowers. And it has a sun. And the flowers have roots and bulbs. Lots of sewing. It's folk-art-looking. JB created the pattern, and then I sewed it. It took 2 months from start to finish. Eee! But it was fun. Maybe one day I'll remember to take a picture of it.
Olivia, JB, and I were blessed with many wonderful gifts. Here is Olivia on her Rody horse from Austin and Lauren, wearing the hat that Grandma Hunt knit for her. I got a matching hat. We're totally stylin'.
Okay, so I'll name some of my presents. MSU hooded sweatshirt (I've never had a nice one!). Custom shades for our front living room windows. Friendly Village pattern tea set. Turquoise earrings. Folksy vase from Colonial Williamsburg. iTunes. L.L. Bean cardigan. Lotto tickets (not winners, but I had fun scratching them!)
JB, O, and I enjoyed ourselves. We went home and packed our bags for rounds 2 and 3 of Christmas, which I'll publish later... :)
(The driveway on Christmas morning:
We were very concerned about Grandma and Grandpa making it into the house safely, so Austin went out to assist. Our elders made it in just fine, but Austin's feet slipped out from under him and he bit it hard. But he's okay.)
Part I is what we did first: Hunt Christmas.
It started on the Sunday before Christmas, with Grandma and Grandpa's annual Carol Sing party. There were around 24 people there, including some talented musicians to accompany our singing. There were a handful of children there, but the one I remember best is a little boy from our church named John. Well, he's not really little. He's like 9 or 10. He was very sweet and really enamored with Olivia. Every time Olivia started to fall as she practiced walking, he would try to catch her and keep her safe. I told her that it was okay if she fell, but he didn't believe me.
John and his brother Lars were shooting a nerf gun type thing and laughing as Olivia laughed when all the balls shot out. John said many entertaining things, best of which were, "Olivia is an awesome baby. Most babies don't like me, but she plays with me." And, looking at me, "Olivia looks like you," and then, turning to JB, "But she doesn't look like you." Pause. "Except for her red eyebrows." (Out of the mouth of babes--she's going to have red hair!! :) )
On Christmas Eve we were back at G&G's for dinner. I wasn't sure we were going to make it because freezing rain had been coming down all afternoon. Many many churches had canceled their evening services and the cars were covered in ice. But we made it! After dinner we hung out while we waited to go the church's midnight service. Olivia provided some entertainment:
The midnight service is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. The chapel is filled with candles and we sing all the good hymns with our awesome choir. We have a great new worship leader at Thornapple and apparently the service this year was excellent, according to Grandma and Marian. I cannot vouch for this because JB, O, and I did not go.
...please pardon me while I wipe the tears from my eyes...
JB and I had to admit to ourselves that we cannot do everything we used to do, now that Olivia is in our lives. She was not doing well by 10:15, even after I had tried to get her to go to bed until we had to leave for church. She was too riled up to sleep in a new place. On top of that I was feeling like crud (I got better!) and JB was exhausted. So we went back to the Hilton and went to bed. We were really bummed about missing the service.
But THEN, we woke up, and it was CHRISTMAS! Jesus had been born in the night and it was time to celebrate.
We celebrated with a hot fire in the woodstove, Mark's famous delicious eggnog, a cute baby in her green velour leisure suit, egg souffle, family, happy dogs, and by singing Joy to the World.
Oh, and with PRESENTS.
Here is the tree. It looked larger when it didn't have presents under it. Then it got dwarfed as we started putting boxes under it.
I love giving presents more than getting. I love taking several months to think of the perfect gift for someone and then making it happen, which often involves me making it. I did a lot of making this Christmas but foolishly forgot to photograph my creations.
I made Austin some recipe cards. For Grandma's birthday earlier this year I had self-matted (double mat with two openings--hard!) a fringed gentian photo of mine and included a gentian poem that someone had written out for Grandma. For Christmas we got it framed and it turned out beautifully. Then JB and I put our creative heads together and made a Spring felt table runner for Marian. It has flowers on it with bunnies jumping over the flowers. And it has a sun. And the flowers have roots and bulbs. Lots of sewing. It's folk-art-looking. JB created the pattern, and then I sewed it. It took 2 months from start to finish. Eee! But it was fun. Maybe one day I'll remember to take a picture of it.
Olivia, JB, and I were blessed with many wonderful gifts. Here is Olivia on her Rody horse from Austin and Lauren, wearing the hat that Grandma Hunt knit for her. I got a matching hat. We're totally stylin'.
Okay, so I'll name some of my presents. MSU hooded sweatshirt (I've never had a nice one!). Custom shades for our front living room windows. Friendly Village pattern tea set. Turquoise earrings. Folksy vase from Colonial Williamsburg. iTunes. L.L. Bean cardigan. Lotto tickets (not winners, but I had fun scratching them!)
JB, O, and I enjoyed ourselves. We went home and packed our bags for rounds 2 and 3 of Christmas, which I'll publish later... :)
(The driveway on Christmas morning:
We were very concerned about Grandma and Grandpa making it into the house safely, so Austin went out to assist. Our elders made it in just fine, but Austin's feet slipped out from under him and he bit it hard. But he's okay.)
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Birthday Goodness
Saturday was my birthday.
I love looking forward to my birthday, and it's not because of presents! When we were little my Mom said that we couldn't start decorating for Christmas until my birthday came (even though this did not mean that we would be getting a tree that soon. Trees were reserved for the last minute of Dec 23 or 24). So for me, celebrating my birthday symbolizes the approach of Christmas.
Then when I married my part-Dutch husband, I learned that for the Dutch, my birthday IS Christmas! Aka Sinterklaas Day. Children put their wooden shoes by the fireplace in hopes that Sinterklaas will leave them a present for being good. Ambitious children leave hay and carrots in their shoes for Sinterklaas' horses, which results in a thank-you treat being left.
(If you want a humorous take on this Dutch holiday and Sinterklaas' strange habits (like summering in Spain) listen to David Sedaris' essay, "Six to Eight Black Men". I promise you'll laugh out loud at least once. There's also a humorous bit on Michigan hunters in there.)
So on this Sinterklaas Day, we went to Meijer Gardens to see the Holidays Around the World exhibit, which includes several Christmas trees decorated the way different nations do it. While they had an England and Ireland tree, there is no Scotland tree. Fail, MG!
Mark and Marian treated us to lunch at the Gardens, where I had never dined before. Who wouldn't enjoy mushroom and artichoke salad? Weirdos. Oh, and JB. So he got something else.
Then JB made me a FAB dinner of a favorite I share with Garfield: lasagna. JB made Emeril's lasagna. BAM! The Hunts came over to help celebrate, and Marian brought me a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Oh, and did I mention that I didn't have to manage Olivia while I ate dinner? Mega bonus.
And the birthday fun just kept continuing.
For there were presents (in addition to the dozens of texts, phone calls, and FB messages wishing me a happy day)!
Top presents:
Toppest present:
Yes, there is a toppest present.
JB said he was going overboard on a Christmas/Birthday present, which totally blows the budget.
Wanna know?
Here are some clues:
I'M GOING TO SEE MIRANDA LAMBERT AND BRAD PAISLEY IN CONCERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love going to concerts and haven't been to see a lot of my favorite acts because it is so expensive. Each summer I cry and cry when the wonderful concerts come to the county fairs, etc., and leave again, while I stay at home.
Then when I learned that my two faves (after Keith Urban and Alison Krauss), Brad Paisley and MIRANDA LAMBERT were coming to town for a show in January, I was quite dejected. They will come and rock out without me.
But not any more! I am v. v. excited.
Thank you, JB!!!!!
I love looking forward to my birthday, and it's not because of presents! When we were little my Mom said that we couldn't start decorating for Christmas until my birthday came (even though this did not mean that we would be getting a tree that soon. Trees were reserved for the last minute of Dec 23 or 24). So for me, celebrating my birthday symbolizes the approach of Christmas.
Then when I married my part-Dutch husband, I learned that for the Dutch, my birthday IS Christmas! Aka Sinterklaas Day. Children put their wooden shoes by the fireplace in hopes that Sinterklaas will leave them a present for being good. Ambitious children leave hay and carrots in their shoes for Sinterklaas' horses, which results in a thank-you treat being left.
(If you want a humorous take on this Dutch holiday and Sinterklaas' strange habits (like summering in Spain) listen to David Sedaris' essay, "Six to Eight Black Men". I promise you'll laugh out loud at least once. There's also a humorous bit on Michigan hunters in there.)
So on this Sinterklaas Day, we went to Meijer Gardens to see the Holidays Around the World exhibit, which includes several Christmas trees decorated the way different nations do it. While they had an England and Ireland tree, there is no Scotland tree. Fail, MG!
Mark and Marian treated us to lunch at the Gardens, where I had never dined before. Who wouldn't enjoy mushroom and artichoke salad? Weirdos. Oh, and JB. So he got something else.
Then JB made me a FAB dinner of a favorite I share with Garfield: lasagna. JB made Emeril's lasagna. BAM! The Hunts came over to help celebrate, and Marian brought me a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Oh, and did I mention that I didn't have to manage Olivia while I ate dinner? Mega bonus.
And the birthday fun just kept continuing.
For there were presents (in addition to the dozens of texts, phone calls, and FB messages wishing me a happy day)!
Top presents:
- Membership renewal at Meijer Gardens for JB and I (one adult admission is $12, so a membership to get in for free anytime is awesome!)
- Art-deco topaz earrings
- Money
Toppest present:
Yes, there is a toppest present.
JB said he was going overboard on a Christmas/Birthday present, which totally blows the budget.
Wanna know?
Here are some clues:
I'M GOING TO SEE MIRANDA LAMBERT AND BRAD PAISLEY IN CONCERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love going to concerts and haven't been to see a lot of my favorite acts because it is so expensive. Each summer I cry and cry when the wonderful concerts come to the county fairs, etc., and leave again, while I stay at home.
Then when I learned that my two faves (after Keith Urban and Alison Krauss), Brad Paisley and MIRANDA LAMBERT were coming to town for a show in January, I was quite dejected. They will come and rock out without me.
But not any more! I am v. v. excited.
Thank you, JB!!!!!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Olive and the Prickly Pear
Those of you who have interacted with Olivia know that she doesn’t cry. Ever.
She fell down the side entry stairs the other day (okay, so it’s only 4 steps!) and let out a cry/yell until I came to her rescue; then she was fine. She stepped off the bench in Mom’s kitchen and hit the hard tile floor. No crying. She climbs onto the dogs while they maniacally wrestle with each other, snarling teeth bared. No fear.
So last weekend when she cried on and off for over and hour, even breaking out in hives, I knew that something was wrong.
We were in Mayville the Friday after Thanksgiving. Dad and JB were fixing my car in the barn. (THANK YOU, Dad!!—I had needed a new pump for my windshield wiper fluid. He just happened to have a spare laying around. Who does that?? My Dad. He’s awesome. Well, it also helps to drive the same kind of car as the rest of the family, too.)
Mom, K, Annie, O and I were in the kitchen. O was standing at the sliding doors, watching the birds, etc. Then she cruises (yes, she’s cruising now!) quietly over to the table on which sits Dad's giant blooming Christmas cactus and a pair of binoculars. She was interested in the binoculars, and as the Christmas cactus isn't that sharp, us girls let her continue to play while we talked. We failed to notice the prickly pear cactus living in the pot, too, which Liv did NOT fail to notice. So she grabbed it with her pudgy little left hand.
A million little fiberglass-like splinters embedded themselves into her hand. In the palm. Between her fingers. All over her thumb. Everywhere.
Sad, sad bird.
She cried and cried. We tried all sorts of remedies. She tried so hard to be brave. She would stop crying, and then reach her hand out for a toy, and it would hurt again and she would cry again. After trying lip wax (getting some of the pokers out) and soaking her hand in warm water (fail—baby uncooperative), I took her to the barn to get some duct tape from Dad at Mom’s suggestion. Dad agreed on the remedy and said to make little balls for her to grab in her hands that would pull the pickers out.
So we did that. A few times. And got most, if not all, out..
Unfortunately her hand was still sore from the poking of the needles. So she still cried some more.
But then Grandpa got out the spinning top and all woes were forgotten. Who can cry when there’s fun to be had in Toptown??
Monday, November 30, 2009
Weekend Update
We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend! Well, I did. JB had a horrible cold and lost his voice. Olivia had a run-in with a cactus. Lucy and I made out all right, though. :)
We spent Thursday-Friday in Mayberry.
Mom got to do what she loves best: play with her grandbabies:
Ten people came to Thanksgiving. We had 5 pies. That's a half pie each. Friday morning there was 1.25 pies left. We did our duty!
We did a Christmas photoshoot with baby Lilian, who is not accustomed to the camera like Liv:
O tried on her first pair of high heels:
Then when nightfall came Mom plugged in her lightshow. Tommy asked if she had called Consumer's Electric to see if they had enough ampage to power her display. She did not, but no power outages were reported as a result of her Christmas spirit. She lit up the whole front of her wraparound porch. And then a LARGE evergreen tree for each of her kids: she has 7 (I didn't count the trees, but it seemed like that many). And then the massive pine tree. And she had run out of time to do her MSU tree with the green and white lights that were sitting on the kitchen counter.
It wasn't until after she lit them all up that she decided she should redo the lights on the massive pine. She reflected that perhaps standing 20 feet off the ground in the bucket loader with a long pool-cleaning stick in one hand and a string of lights in the other, calling down instructions to a deaf old man who was driving the machine and had been drinking his share of spirits, would result more in a Drunkard's Tree than in a Christmas Tree. I am sorry that I did not get photos of this. I do not have a good tripod (it's on my Christmas list, hint, hint!) so it would not have worked anyway.
After returning home, we put up THREE Christmas trees (one for us, one for Olivia, and then we helped G&G set up their decorations). And outside lights. And I enjoyed a great Advent service at church while JB lay in bed, miserable.
We are officially in the Christmas spirit, yo!
We spent Thursday-Friday in Mayberry.
Mom got to do what she loves best: play with her grandbabies:
Ten people came to Thanksgiving. We had 5 pies. That's a half pie each. Friday morning there was 1.25 pies left. We did our duty!
We did a Christmas photoshoot with baby Lilian, who is not accustomed to the camera like Liv:
O tried on her first pair of high heels:
Then when nightfall came Mom plugged in her lightshow. Tommy asked if she had called Consumer's Electric to see if they had enough ampage to power her display. She did not, but no power outages were reported as a result of her Christmas spirit. She lit up the whole front of her wraparound porch. And then a LARGE evergreen tree for each of her kids: she has 7 (I didn't count the trees, but it seemed like that many). And then the massive pine tree. And she had run out of time to do her MSU tree with the green and white lights that were sitting on the kitchen counter.
It wasn't until after she lit them all up that she decided she should redo the lights on the massive pine. She reflected that perhaps standing 20 feet off the ground in the bucket loader with a long pool-cleaning stick in one hand and a string of lights in the other, calling down instructions to a deaf old man who was driving the machine and had been drinking his share of spirits, would result more in a Drunkard's Tree than in a Christmas Tree. I am sorry that I did not get photos of this. I do not have a good tripod (it's on my Christmas list, hint, hint!) so it would not have worked anyway.
After returning home, we put up THREE Christmas trees (one for us, one for Olivia, and then we helped G&G set up their decorations). And outside lights. And I enjoyed a great Advent service at church while JB lay in bed, miserable.
We are officially in the Christmas spirit, yo!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving
Real chefs don't make this just for Thanksgiving...
Happy Thanksgiving, all, and may you truly be thankful for all of your blessings.
God DOES bless America, our home sweet home!
God DOES bless America, our home sweet home!
Read with Me!
Back in 2003 the BBC conducted a poll on reader's favourite books. This list, the BBC Big Read Top 100, has been circulating the internets since it's inception in 2003. As the poll was conducted in Britain, it's no surprise that about 60 of the books are Brittish.
There are scads of "best book" lists out there, but this one had the most titles that I am honestly interested in. Maybe it's because I like British tales.
Apparently the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of these 100 books. When I first received the list, I had read only 14 or 15. I shared the list with JB, who ticked off 35 titles himself. Goody two-shoes!
I am an avid reader but when I tried to read classics in high school, I was BORED. I preferred my detective novels, thank you. So I never gave them another try. I didn't really believe that many people actually liked these stories and that they just raved about them so that they'd look smart and trendy. You know, like people who rave about "classic" black and white movies that in reality have light plotlines and so-so acting (Gone With the Wind excluded!!).
In 7th grade I did read all 1036 pages of Gone With the Wind of my own choosing. I loved it. My English teacher, Mr. Coopes, then assigned me to read To Kill a Mockingbird, believing I'd enjoy another Southern tale. After page 3 I was dreadfully bored and refused to read it. I took an E on the assignment. Nobody tells ME what to read! After that I left everyone else to their classics while I read REAL books, like Nancy Drew.
Then when JB and I were living with Grandma and Grandpa Hunt (during the Calvin restoration) I saw To Kill a Mockingbird on one of their bookshelves. It had a cool cover and I was itching to read, so I cracked it open.
And couldn't put it down.
How had I ever thought that this book was BORING??? Probably because I was a child. I don't think that teenagers can really get most classics.
Ever since then I've been interested in classic books but as there are so many, I never knew where to start.
JB and I are working our way through this BBC list together. Only I'm the only one that has started. Then again, maybe he's just waiting for me to catch up to him.
My sister Annie has graciously lent me several of her classics from this list, dubbing it my "winter reading." Annie, I won't let you down!
Here's the full list, for any of you fellow readers who care to see where you stack up and perhaps even read along with me! (I've bolded the ones I've read. I've started several others, but they don't count until I read the last page!)
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (JB has read this, but I shall not)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Mitch is too self-important, so I'm not reading this one, either.)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
There are scads of "best book" lists out there, but this one had the most titles that I am honestly interested in. Maybe it's because I like British tales.
Apparently the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of these 100 books. When I first received the list, I had read only 14 or 15. I shared the list with JB, who ticked off 35 titles himself. Goody two-shoes!
I am an avid reader but when I tried to read classics in high school, I was BORED. I preferred my detective novels, thank you. So I never gave them another try. I didn't really believe that many people actually liked these stories and that they just raved about them so that they'd look smart and trendy. You know, like people who rave about "classic" black and white movies that in reality have light plotlines and so-so acting (Gone With the Wind excluded!!).
In 7th grade I did read all 1036 pages of Gone With the Wind of my own choosing. I loved it. My English teacher, Mr. Coopes, then assigned me to read To Kill a Mockingbird, believing I'd enjoy another Southern tale. After page 3 I was dreadfully bored and refused to read it. I took an E on the assignment. Nobody tells ME what to read! After that I left everyone else to their classics while I read REAL books, like Nancy Drew.
Then when JB and I were living with Grandma and Grandpa Hunt (during the Calvin restoration) I saw To Kill a Mockingbird on one of their bookshelves. It had a cool cover and I was itching to read, so I cracked it open.
And couldn't put it down.
How had I ever thought that this book was BORING??? Probably because I was a child. I don't think that teenagers can really get most classics.
Ever since then I've been interested in classic books but as there are so many, I never knew where to start.
JB and I are working our way through this BBC list together. Only I'm the only one that has started. Then again, maybe he's just waiting for me to catch up to him.
My sister Annie has graciously lent me several of her classics from this list, dubbing it my "winter reading." Annie, I won't let you down!
Here's the full list, for any of you fellow readers who care to see where you stack up and perhaps even read along with me! (I've bolded the ones I've read. I've started several others, but they don't count until I read the last page!)
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (JB has read this, but I shall not)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Mitch is too self-important, so I'm not reading this one, either.)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Peacemaker
In celebration of JB's new job, I made him a sweet dinner when he got home from his first day. Well, I often make a sweet dinner, because I'm cool like that, but as we had just seen the movie Julie and Julia last Saturday, I was inspired to channel my inner Julia Child and make something super good.
So I donned my pearl necklace and raided my butter stores.
And made Chicken Archduke, with carrots and mashed potatoes on the side. For dessert, I made Chocolate Cream Pie (not Julia's recipe, though--didn't find it).
After a flurry of preparations (because my pie recipe did not include cooking times so I had no idea how long it would take, causing me to make dessert and dinner at the same time), we sat down to eat.
Woah.
That was the best chicken I have ever eaten.
I licked every bit of sauce off of my plate. It was so tasty that I have dubbed it The Peacemaker.
If you have someone in your life who you just can't seem to get along with, or who is unwilling to forgive you a wrong, make this meal for them. I guarantee that they'll fall in love with you and completely forget what they were mad at you about.
Conversely, if you have someone you'd like to see dead, but are concerned that the presence of arsenic or other poisonous substances found in their bloodstream would cast unwelcome suspicion on you, make this meal for them. Every day. For a week. It's that rich. (And if you're lucky, on about day 2 or 3 of your plan, your target will be so enamored with you that they will rewrite their will to give you EVERYTHING and will tell the whole world how AMAZING you are, thus giving authorities no reason to suspect you whatsoever in the untimely death.)
BTW, any chocolate cream pie recipe will do. I had never had chocolate cream pie before, and I loved it so much that I ate the last piece for breakfast the next morning. I didn't mean to. I meant to just have one bite. Until there were no bites left. I love it so much I'm making it for Thanksgiving.
Without further ado, may I present The Peacemaker (it's not as difficult to make as you may think):
So I donned my pearl necklace and raided my butter stores.
And made Chicken Archduke, with carrots and mashed potatoes on the side. For dessert, I made Chocolate Cream Pie (not Julia's recipe, though--didn't find it).
After a flurry of preparations (because my pie recipe did not include cooking times so I had no idea how long it would take, causing me to make dessert and dinner at the same time), we sat down to eat.
Woah.
That was the best chicken I have ever eaten.
I licked every bit of sauce off of my plate. It was so tasty that I have dubbed it The Peacemaker.
If you have someone in your life who you just can't seem to get along with, or who is unwilling to forgive you a wrong, make this meal for them. I guarantee that they'll fall in love with you and completely forget what they were mad at you about.
Conversely, if you have someone you'd like to see dead, but are concerned that the presence of arsenic or other poisonous substances found in their bloodstream would cast unwelcome suspicion on you, make this meal for them. Every day. For a week. It's that rich. (And if you're lucky, on about day 2 or 3 of your plan, your target will be so enamored with you that they will rewrite their will to give you EVERYTHING and will tell the whole world how AMAZING you are, thus giving authorities no reason to suspect you whatsoever in the untimely death.)
BTW, any chocolate cream pie recipe will do. I had never had chocolate cream pie before, and I loved it so much that I ate the last piece for breakfast the next morning. I didn't mean to. I meant to just have one bite. Until there were no bites left. I love it so much I'm making it for Thanksgiving.
Without further ado, may I present The Peacemaker (it's not as difficult to make as you may think):
CHICKEN BREASTS ARCHDUKE
4 T butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 T paprika
4 - 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/4 cup chicken stock (broth)
1/4 cup dry vermouth or white wine
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Chopped fresh parsley for garnish
Heat the butter in a skillet large enough to hold the chicken in a single layer. Sauté the onions until tender but not brown, about 10 minutes. Stir in the paprika. Lightly brown the chicken in the butter mixture, about 2 minutes per side. Place the skillet in a preheated 400° F. oven until the chicken is firm to the touch, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove the chicken and keep warm. Add the chicken broth and vermouth or wine to the skillet and reduce over high heat until the liquid is almost evaporated. Add the cream and reduce until the sauce has thickened slightly. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and garnish with chopped parsley. Serves 4 to 6.
From Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Volume 1), by Julia Child et al, Random House, 1989
Friday, November 13, 2009
Happy Birthday Tommy!
It's my brother's birthday today. Every few years it falls on Friday the 13th. Ooooh! Spooky!
I remember when we were living in the Lapeer house and our cat ran away from home. It was an outdoors cat, so I don't know why we were so surprised when he took off. I was sooo sad about it! For days I waited for that cat to come home.
Then Tommy's birthday came. On Friday the 13th. And we were all getting ready for his birthday party when the neighbor calls to say he found our cat. Or something like that. I was little. I just remember that after Mom got off the phone with someone, she said that our cat was found. So that Friday the 13th was actually a LUCKY day.
Hopefully this was another lucky one for you, brother!
In honor of his birthday, I did a Mohawk photo shoot with Olivia and Lucy for his birthday card. Unfortuately Lucy's 'hawk did not translate well onto film. Oh well!
As soon as I gave my name to the girl at the photo counter at Walgreens, where I was picking up my prints, she said, "I LOVE the mohawk photos! They are so cool!" Then she went on to tell me that she did the same thing with her son (who is same age as O) and how her fiance went bananas over them. He insisted that they be made into 8x10's and framed.
What can I say? Mohawks are awesome.
And mohawks on babies are priceless.
Here are some gems from the photo shoot. I hope you got your card already, brother, so that this doesn't spoil the surprise. But I couldn't wait any longer to post!!:
Getting started:
"Mother, are we doing ANOTHER photo shoot? Seriously. If you make me do another one of these I swear I'm going to feed Piglet to the dog."
"You shall put the camera down and stack blocks with me instead!"
The one baby and dog shot. Lucy was kind of nervous about sitting in a rocking chair. She had been even more nervous at the sound of hairspray being dispensed into her fur. She is so obedient!
Reflections in being a caged baby...
Oh, crap. Now that I've busted all my friends out of jail, who's gonna get ME out??
You know it's hard out here for a punk...
I remember when we were living in the Lapeer house and our cat ran away from home. It was an outdoors cat, so I don't know why we were so surprised when he took off. I was sooo sad about it! For days I waited for that cat to come home.
Then Tommy's birthday came. On Friday the 13th. And we were all getting ready for his birthday party when the neighbor calls to say he found our cat. Or something like that. I was little. I just remember that after Mom got off the phone with someone, she said that our cat was found. So that Friday the 13th was actually a LUCKY day.
Hopefully this was another lucky one for you, brother!
In honor of his birthday, I did a Mohawk photo shoot with Olivia and Lucy for his birthday card. Unfortuately Lucy's 'hawk did not translate well onto film. Oh well!
As soon as I gave my name to the girl at the photo counter at Walgreens, where I was picking up my prints, she said, "I LOVE the mohawk photos! They are so cool!" Then she went on to tell me that she did the same thing with her son (who is same age as O) and how her fiance went bananas over them. He insisted that they be made into 8x10's and framed.
What can I say? Mohawks are awesome.
And mohawks on babies are priceless.
Here are some gems from the photo shoot. I hope you got your card already, brother, so that this doesn't spoil the surprise. But I couldn't wait any longer to post!!:
Getting started:
"Mother, are we doing ANOTHER photo shoot? Seriously. If you make me do another one of these I swear I'm going to feed Piglet to the dog."
"You shall put the camera down and stack blocks with me instead!"
The one baby and dog shot. Lucy was kind of nervous about sitting in a rocking chair. She had been even more nervous at the sound of hairspray being dispensed into her fur. She is so obedient!
Reflections in being a caged baby...
Oh, crap. Now that I've busted all my friends out of jail, who's gonna get ME out??
You know it's hard out here for a punk...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)