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.