Misc. ramblings and resolutions

By popular request, here's a photo of the pasta drying rack DH made for me. As usual, it's larger and fancier than really necessary, but it comes apart completely for storage. With the state of the real estate market, maybe he should go into business selling sturdy pasta racks. This is the last project he completed before we started the complete overhaul of his workshop. Even before the broken pipe incident, I had bought him epoxy floor paint for Christmas. Romantic gift, eh? To use it entails moving everything out of one half, sweeping and scrubbing the floor, then painting, allowing to dry.....that's as far as we've gotten. Crawling around on a cement floor is very exhausting and every muscle I have is achy. It looks great though and it has been a good way to do a thorough cleaning and get rid of a lot of junk.

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I spent most of the day yesterday working at a funeral lunch at my church. A 63 yr. old man had died while shoveling snow with his wife on Christmas day, really tragic. Spending a day in this manner is a good way to put things in perspective. For one thing, you never know when the day will come for you. Not a happy thought I know, but thinking about it can change the way you live your life if you let it.

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As promised, here's the New Year's resolutions for 2009 in no particular order-
1. Lose another 25 lbs. ( I've gained back part of the 25 I lost last year)
2. Don't gain back weight you tried so hard to lose!
3. Exercise at least once a week to start with.
4. Be a better listener, not always thinking of how I will respond.
5. Give more compliments, especially to my kids.
6. Remember when things get tough that other people have it waay worse than I do.
7. Along with #6, be thankful and grateful for everything I have instead of thinking about everything I want.
8. Read more books.
9. Sort my pictures and print off/back up all digital pictures.
10. Be kinder than is necessary.
11. Don't watch so much tv.
12. Go to bed earlier.

Okay, that's it. I realize I'm leaning a little close to the "change your entire life" resolution area, but I think naming several gives me a little more room for success. I'm looking forward to a great New Year's Eve spent with friends and I hope you will have a wonderful 2009!

Pasta Machine Success!

Here's the meal we had last night.....Lemon Pepper fettuccine with Greek shrimp, homemade French bread, and salad. It was very delicious and it was fun to experiment with my new pasta machine. First I made the bread dough in the bread machine, made it into a french loaf, glazed it with salt water and baked it. We made the sheets of pasta and laid them all out on the counter to get them ready to cut. Then we ran the sheets through the pasta machine again to cut it into the fettucinne. We laid the noodles all out on a plate....don't do this! When it was time to boil the noodles, they were all stuck together and we had to run it all through the machine and cut them again. DH is down in his workshop right now making me a noodle drying rack...you've got to have someplace to hang the noodles. While the noodles were cooking, the shrimp part was finishing up in another pan on the stovetop. It consisted of olive oil, lemon juice, onion, garlic, shrimp, parsley, and salt and pepper. When both parts were done, they were mixed together served with a few crumbles of feta cheese on top. Yum! I think we're going to make this again for New Year's Eve. We are getting together with four other couples and each are bringing part of the meal. The others are better cooks than we are, one of the couples even did a cooking class trip to Italy, so I hope this dish will pass muster! I wish I could get my pictures to lay out the way I wanted them!

An Extra Day

We expected to spend about 6 hours on the road today on the way to and from Iowa to celebrate Christmas with DH's family. The icy weather in Iowa prevented the trip, so here we are at home with a free day and no plans for anyone. Nice, Huh? DH and I have been working a little on the remainder of the cleanup from our broken pipe incident of earlier in the week. The kids have been doing various things and are talking about getting together with friends later. Later tonight, I expect we might dive into the giant cheese ball that I made to take along today and probably have a glass of wine and maybe get into the hot tub to soak my back which is still bothering me. All in all I think it will be a pretty nice day. We had temps in the 40's most of the day yesterday, so it was nice to have the streets melted off and the sidewalk and driveway cleared of ice again. We have snow predicted tonight, but that's okay with me.

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I read an interesting post from a blogger named Lisa about New Year's resolutions. Will you be making any this year? I usually do, sometimes I make the "I'm going to change all of my bad habits at once" type of resolutions. Last year DH and I resolved to lose weight. We both did lose quite a bit and I'm still down 25 lbs. from where I was last Jan. 2. We'd both like to lose a little more, so I'm sure that will be on the list. I'd also like to come up with something else in the realm of self-improvement that is specific and attainable. I'll let you know Jan. 1.

Snow Caps

Have I mentioned we have a lot of snow? We've had more than 20 inches so far this month. Today however is a balmy 38 degrees F., so we've actually got some melting going on. Unfortunately, we are supposed to have "a wintry mix" tomorrow, so that may prevent us from going to Iowa to get together with DH's family. I've really gotten into being a homebody the last few days. Today I'm putting away the remains of Christmas wrapping and bows, getting rid of boxes and bags, cleaning, and doing a mountain of laundry. I may venture out later to the grocery store and maybe the bank. Then again, I may start the third Twilight book and stay home with a cup of coffee and a blanket.

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We had a nice relaxing Christmas yesterday with just DH and I and the kids. We didn't go to overboard with gifts this year, but everyone was happy with what they got. I got a pasta maker that looks like it will be fun to use. I think DH was just as excited about it. He and SD made ravioli with it last night and they turned out great. We had the ravioli with a tomato sauce, lettuce salad, and garlic bread and some red wine. Probably the least Scandinavian Christmas dinner ever! DH did make himself his favorite Christmas pudding like his mom makes. It's actually tapioca which I really don't like, but I ate a little even though the texture really grosses me out. We also watched a couple of movies, played ping-pong, and just relaxed.

Merry Christmas to All!

Wishing everyone who happens by a very Merry Christmas! Here's the top of my kitchen buffet with a quilt I made last year, sitting below it is my electric skating rink and a couple of little trees. The skating rink is a little corny, but I've had it for about 16 years and the kids insist that I put it up every year. It plays Christmas music while the skaters go around. It's really kinda fun. Do you have any of those type of decorations you'd rather get rid of?

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We had a nice Christmas Eve last night. We went to DH's brother's for dinner, then went to Christmas Eve service at church, then back to their home for the rest of the evening. Our church service was really nice. SD played her violin with a string quartet for 15 minutes or so while everyone was getting seated. I was really proud of her and it sounded beautiful. The other three were all professional musicians in one form or the other. She and I also played a couple of songs with our handbell group and DH and I sang in the choir while the quartet accompanied.

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This morning the boys got up and did the paper route; it has to be delivered by 7:30 a.m. on holidays. It was hard to get them up and they went back to bed as soon as they got done. Now I've got a couple of butter braids in the oven and as soon as everyone else gets up we will eat and open our presents and have a quiet day around the house. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful day with family and friends!

Please Pass the Peace

Here's another word of peace in today's picture of my Christmas decorations. These new stocking hangers that spell "peace" and the red "peace" and berries in yesterday's picture are the only new decorations I got this year. I guess I've been thinking a lot about needing peace in my life and here it is in my Christmas decorations.

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I definitely needed some peace today or more likely I needed to shout "Serenity Now" like they do in that old Seinfeld episode. DH left the garage door open for an extended period of time last night and froze and burst a pipe in the garage. I think it ran water steadily for several hours. When SD went into the garage this morning there was about 4-5 inches of water on the floor of the garage. The floor drain was clogged with leaves and gunk, so the water couldn't go down. Sooooo......the water overflowed into a hatch we have leading to the basement and under the garage wall into DH's workshop in the basement, so there was an inch or so of water in places down there. The water also somehow got into the ceiling in the finished part of the basement and the sheetrock is looking a little ripply and drippy. We were working on cleaning up the mess until everyone left for various other obligations. I'll go down later and get back at the clean-up, but for now I'm venting and blogging. I'm glad we had done quite a bit of cleaning when the furnace guy came a few weeks ago, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It also could have been really bad if we weren't at home to discover it.

Catch Up Blog

Wow! I've had quite a break from blogging, so I thought I'd better catch up my reader(s) on everything I've been doing instead of blogging.
***I hurt my back shoveling snow and was laid up for a couple of days with back pain. I found that the old "push and scrape move" with one foot on top of the shovel is a sure killer. I missed church and one day of work. When I went back I foolishly demonstrated to a coworker the "move" sans shovel, that hurt too, but fortunately there was no reinjury. I've got to find a new move!
***Baked more cookies. Ate a lot of cookies. Baked more cookies. DH made two kinds of lefse. He's still feeling proud that his kringla made one of my coworkers say she was weak in the knees. A friend tells me that someone may try to steal him away.
***Moved CS home from college late last Weds. night. It was great to get that done and nice to have him home although he spent most of the weekend at his girlfriend's family Christmas somewhere up North.
***Surviving bitterly cold weather and lots and lots of snow. The actual temp was -13 F. this morning. More snow predicted tonight and tomorrow. I mean come on, this is getting a little ridiculous! But we've passed the winter solstice, so the days are getting longer!! Yay!!
***Went caroling to a couple of area nursing homes. Very heartwarming and the old folks appreciate it so much.
***Read the "Twilight" book and DH took me out to eat and to the movie last Friday night. I liked the book, liked the movie better I think. Not fantastic or anything, but enjoyable and I'm reading the second book now. DH has read the entire series already, SD owns all of the books.
***Watched a lot of movies at home, some from TV, some from Netflix, some from our own collection. Watched "ELF" from TV last night. Looking forward to our annual watching of "A Muppet Christmas Carol". I love that movie, the music is great too.
***Had a "Snow Day" from school finally. Last Friday was our final day of school before winter break, so it was a little weird to miss that, but the kids are so excited that day anyway that noone missed much. Some classes watch a movie or play a game, but there aren't any real parties or anything anymore. The high school kids have a huge assembly, so it was too bad they missed that. They spend the month of Dec. raising funds for a particular charity and then have the assembly as a final push and celebration. Each of the high schools in town pick a charity and there is always competition to see who raises the most money. They do all sorts of creative things like selling "Saran Wrapping" where they go into a class and plastic wrap someone either alone or with another person (maybe a potential couple or something) or even a teacher. The person has to pay an equal amount to get out of the saran wrap, so it makes a lot of money.
***I finished all of my decorating and cleaning once. Things are a little messy again, so I need to do a little more cleaning, wrapping a few gifts, and a little shopping to be totally ready for Christmas. We are keeping things a little more low key this year with the amount spent on gifts, traveling, cards, decorating, entertaining, etc. Really the only place we've overdone is the baking.
So, I think that's about it, all has not been wonderful, but I'm focusing on all that is and there's a lot to be thankful for. More holiday cheer later!!

Skywatch Friday and a Good Day!

For this Skywatch post, I'll give credit to my daughter. She took this photo of a summer sunset from our front yard in July. I've been using this photo as my desktop background for a few weeks. The actual temp. when I got up this morning was -3 F., so it's nice to think back to July and a warm summer evening.

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We had a late start for staff training for school today and the topic was CPR and AED (Automatic External Defibrillator) certification. Every school here has an AED, so it was good to learn how to use it. It was surprisingly easy, so if you're ever in that situation, don't be afraid to try to use it. The device automatically calls 911 and gives audible instructions of exactly what to do. In our county they have made a Google map with pin points for all of the available AED's and also lives saved by CPR or AED's. I would suggest that you Google it for your county and see if a similar thing is available.

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It's been kind of tough week with some ongoing extended family issues, but I'm feeling like the worst is over in that I'm trying to be able to let go of what is out of my control. It's important to remember that we can take control of our own attitudes and how we react to difficulty, so that's what I've been working on. There has been good news in that my mom is recovering well from her broken hip and may be going home quite soon.

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Our staff training ended early today, so I went out for coffee with three of my coworkers. It was very enjoyable to have a chance to visit outside of work and catch up with each other. Tonight, SD has a piano recital, probably her last ever, so it will be nice to hear all the Christmas music. She has made her decision on college and will be attending the same one as CS, so we're all happy about that. She bought herself a lap-top this week and is in the process of getting signed up for housing, so things are moving along. Happy Friday everyone!!

No Snow Day

We have plenty of snow today, but it was not a "snow day" for school. Our school was delayed 2 hours while nearly every other school for miles around was closed. I was counting on that snow day darn it! I had the family help me carry down all of the tubs of decorations and DH carried down the tree last night. It would have been so great to have the whole day at home with everyone's help to get it all done. Then this morning when I would have gotten started, my sister called and we talked about an hour and a half about this wonderful (not) family issue we have going on with my brother. The whole reason my Thanksgiving trip was fraught with stress and anxiety by the way. Anyway, there's still this evening, so I hope we can get some of the decorating done. I have a skinny tree for the family room that I left entirely decorated, wrapped tightly with a sheet, and had DH carry to the attic above the garage, so at least I'll make a place for that and get it plugged in. The snow is very pretty, so I hope to get time to take some pictures some time today. Watch for that and my completed decorating later in the week.

Cookie Baking Crazy

Today DH and I hit the cookie baking hard. We have a tradition of making everyone's favorites for Christmas and putting them in the freezer so we can pull them out for cookie trays and to take to holiday gatherings. I started on Saturday by making 12 dozen Christmas tree shaped spritz with green sugar for the youth bake sale at church. I made them with butter and they tasted great. Today, after spending the entire morning at church, we made a shopping run for a few ingredients and then got baking. Not before putting on our oldest sweat pants however. You've got to have an elastic waits to bake cookies. :) I made almond crunchies, caramels, turtles, and chocolate covered caramels. DH made chocolate no-bake cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and Norwegian Kringla. We had a funafternoon and evening and I have a ton of goodies for the freezer. I'm glad that DH likes baking, it is a lot more fun with help and he even helps clean up and wash dishes. Here are some pictures of his kringla, just like his mom makes. We still have a few favorites to make and I realized I've got to make something with a little color since everything is brown or white so far. This week I plan to finally start my decorating and get the tree up, etc. Since we have about 6 inches of snow on the ground I don't think I'll be able to do outside lights again this year. We always seem to be busy on those nice late fall days when we should be putting up our lights.

Skywatch Friday and Surgery Update

I took this picture out of the van window as we were driving home from the visit to my mom in Iowa over Thanksgiving weekend. I liked the way the sky looked, but I didn't realize it had that greenish tinge. There were many birds migrating and I could see large flocks flying from Northwest to Southeast. They must have known there was a storm coming in a couple of days. My hometown is in central Iowa in the midst of some of the best farmland in the country. Now that I've lived in the city in Minnesota for several years I am always surprised by how very flat the land is. You can see for miles and miles. This time of year it is pretty desolate and colorless with farm fields showing black dirt or grain stubble. Then there's the smell of hog confinement facilities which have popped up all over Iowa in the last few years. My husband's hometown is in the county with the most hogs I believe. It is so sad to visit his old farm, now in a state of total disrepair, with hog facilities in every direction and not a single farm with a family living on it in sight. Stepping outside at his parents who live in town was really disgusting. They pump the liquid manure out of the facilities and spray it on the fields surrounding the town so as you can imagine it really stinks! As a former farm girl it is rather depressing to see so many deserted farms and see how the family farm culture we grew up in is disappearing fast and nearly gone never to be regained.

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A quick update on my mom...she came through her surgery on her broken hip okay. She's in quite a bit of pain, particularly when she has to be moved for some reason, but I guess that's to be expected. She'll be in the hospital a few days and then move to the nursing home for the rest of her recovery so she can have therapy, etc. I hope it will all go well, so many things can go wrong along the way.

Bad News

My 81 year old mother broke her hip this morning. She was getting out of bed and fell, I suspect it was already cracked or broken before she tried to get up. Thankfully she wears one of those call buttons around her neck so the ambulance came and got her. She'll have surgery tomorrow morning and then quite a long recuperation I'm sure. I'm glad we got to see her over Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving with DH's parents and then went to my mom's an hour away on Friday. We hadn't seen her for quite awhile, but she seemed to be doing pretty well then. Anyway, I hope her surgery will go well tomorrow, prayers would be appreciated.

My Favorite Christmas Music

Moving right past Thanksgiving (which was okay,but not great) I started listening to Christmas music yesterday to try and get a little Christmas spirit and thought I would share a couple of my favorite Christmas music CD's. I have 234 Christmas songs on I-tunes, so I usually start that up on my computer in the kitchen in the mornings. Some of the songs are the kind you have to be in the right mood for, either too corny, too sappy and sentimental, too experimental, etc. but they're fun once in a while so I keep them. One of my pet peeves is when an "artist" really butchers one of my favorite Christmas songs. We have an all Christmas radio station which I enjoy, but some of the songs are really out there. I can't get into the metal version of many Christmas songs for instance. Anyway, these two are my favorites right now. I've loved A Charlie Brown Christmas since I was a kid. We also have the piano music, so I also have the memories of my kids playing the songs on the piano. DH got me the Josh Groban CD for Christmas last year and that is a great one too. Enjoy and if you have a favorite, leave a comment.