Ordinary Time

Yesterday was the big tamale making day. It was proceeded by the big tamale filling making day on Saturday. Actually making the tamales was more fun, though, because two friends joined me. We worked from about 1:30 until 6:30, and churned out probably close to 300 tamales. There were chicken with a green tomatillo sauce, pork with a red chili sauce, and a filling made of jalepenos, onions, and tomatoes. Of course, the best part was getting to eat them afterwards. Good friends, good food, a sink large enough to clean the pots... What could be better? All the pots were filled like this, and there were three of them.  We were just missing M., B., and TM Thank you, friends, for cooking with me for five hours!

Leaving my old kitchen and coming to this one was one of the most difficult aspects of our move two and half years ago. Oh, how I miss that kitchen! Especially when the one we moved into was not even close to being functional. We have continued to work to improve it. First was installing the refrigerator I bought before we moved because I knew I couldn't function with the one that was in the kitchen. Then nearly immediately I ordered a rolling kitchen island because the little bit of counter space just wasn't enough. These two things helped... a bit. In a month or so, I realized that the range, which I didn't love at first sight, was even more horrible than I had thought. I discovered this when I kept routinely ruining food. So, off to the Habitat ReStore I went to find a new one. We then discovered that the kitchen didn't have a 220 line , so the P. Family came out one weekend and we fed them while the P. Family dad did the electrical work for us. (It is handy to hav

First the menu as I planned it this morning. Friday (We enjoy celebrating a night of Hanukkah... telling the story of the Maccabees and the oil in the temple, eating good food, and playing dreidel.) Latkes Jelly donuts      Bought from the store Saturday Butter chicken (in the crock pot)      I'm using the recipe I linked to Naan      From the store Basmati rice      I always keep this on hand as well as Jasmine rice Sunday TAMALES !!      Some friends are coming over and we'll be making them from scratch. I'll make the fillings the day before. I'm planning pork with red sauce, chicken with a green chili sauce, and peppers and onions Monday Ninth Night Lamb      For Christmas, M. got me a cook book called, The Italian Country Table . I had checked it out of the library before, and several of my favorite recipes came from it. We were talking and I mentioned I would love to own a copy of it since I remembered there being so many other good recip

We've just had a wonderful holiday. Fun, relaxing, enjoyable, and the fact it was in the upper 50's and lower 60's certainly didn't hurt. Not terrribly Christmas-y, but I'm not going to complain. There was a Christmas Eve seizure from R., but her rescue medicine continues to work. For J. and I, it was pretty much a Christmas miracle, because a few months ago, this would have sent her into a three day psychotic non-sleeping cycle. That would not lend itself to a calm and enjoyable Christmas. It makes those two ER trips completely worth it. The day or two before Christmas always involves a great amount of baking. These were part of Christmas breakfast. I always forget exactly how much butter these cinnamon rolls require. I was also able to finish G.'s Easter dress which became her Christmas dress. I needed to change the sleeves a bit, but she ended up liking it which meant she would wear it. She was not overly excited by playing model, if you cou

From our house to yours

So I'm still catching up it seems, though really only on the blog because everything else feels under control. So that's something. We had our good friends the M. Family and the W. Family out for dinner tonight. We got to catch up and see people we don't get to see very often. It was great fun. This is the worst part of moving away... not being able to see good friends more regularly. Except for gift wrapping, I think I have everything under control for Christmas. I have never felt this relaxed this close. Either I have finally hit my stride or I am forgetting something pretty significant. I'm going with the former. G. has made stockings for the horses. The only thing I did was to help make the pattern and write out the names so she could embroider them. She did everything else. They are now hung up in the barn waiting for Christmas morning. Because of how our church structures Christmas services, we didn't go to church this morning since we Will be

Everything is all off schedule. So I'm backing up and catching up on this because maybe people still need to do grocery shopping before Christmas? Thursday Pizza with caramelized onion and crispy bacon      The sharp-eyed reader will notice that this was on last week's menu. This is because there was some difficulty about making the dough, so we postponed the dinner a day. The previous night, when we should have had it, we had pasta with jarred sauce and a salad instead. Always have pasta and jarred sauce in your pantry. It's far cheaper than ordering pizza Spinach salad Friday Kung Pao chicken      This is from a combination of recipes and I kind of make it up each time. It is part of my ongoing (and as yet unsuccessful) attempt to recreate a dish we had in a funny restaurant near the Great Wall outside of Beijing. The restaurant didn't really look like one like someone's house they served food in. We were told the dish was 'spicy chicken' which

It's funny, but J. and I have noticed that ever since we moved, we've seen a lot more theater productions than when we lived closer to Chicago. It's kind of the opposite of what one would expect. We used to go to quite a bit of theater. Heck, we were the people who took a three year old and a five year old to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It seemed sane at the time because both M. and B. were excellent audience members. (Would I ever even consider again? Probably not.) By that time they were both experienced theater goers , having seen their aunt perform in As You Like It at a Shakespeare festival. Well, M. did. B. was an infant. It was an outdoor theater and the three adults took turns pacing with him far behind the audience. Anyway, we've all seen a lot of theater. And then we had a lot of children, and didn't see so much theater. Time... money...  you know the drill. So, it's nice to be back at a time of life when it

I got to do something that was crazy fun to do today. Hence the title of the post, which I realize could be construed to mean fun that is crazy as opposed to fun that is so fun it is crazy. Clear? Probably not. We'll move on. I have always wanted to learn to drive a horse. That would be learning to have the reins and steer a horse attached to some sort of cart, not the driving in a car kind of driving. I do enough of that as it is, thank you very much, I don't need to add to it. Well, last week after a conversation about this, a friend connected me to someone who drives and was willing to teach me. I've had two lessons now, and it is great. Trotting is particularly fun. I'm so excited to learn this skill. Maybe someday I'll be able to check off my ultimate bucket list item of 'driving a sleigh'. (Am I the only one a little obsessed with sleighs? They are just so cool!) I love how God works things out sometimes. He can take an item in your 'never im

I think we may be ready to celebrate Christmas on time. I still have a few gifts to buy, but the majority are either here or on their way. What I have left doesn't feel overwhelming. I have been told (repeatedly) that I need to set up the gift wrapping station, so that will probably happen in the next couple of days. Amazingly it all seems manageable. This is not always true at a week away from Christmas. I'm enjoying it. One thing that has made a huge different, I think, is changing the amount of gifts we are giving. In the past, J. and I have given each child three gifts each, plus stockings and Christmas pajamas. I know that seems rather modest to many people, but when you multiply that by 12, it's a lot. A lot of planning, a lot of shopping, a lot of wrapping. I looked at the budget a couple of months ago, and realized that something would have to give. Since truly no one really needs anything, I decided that we would drop down to two gifts per person, one of those gi

You want to know the next best thing to libraries? Library book sales. I realized today that I hadn't been to a library book sale since we moved. In Evanston, I was at the book sale nearly every time the library held it. I might only get a couple of things, but it was fun to look and see if I could find any good additions to our library at prices that fit my budget. It was just by chance that I happened upon a really good library sale in the town next to ours. I was a little pressed for time or I would have probably come home with more, but I did pretty well as it was. A couple of Christmas gifts, some craft books that I wouldn't normally buy but at $1.00 or $0.50 per book, I will get them for patterns or reference, a cook book, and some books on CD. The books on CD were the true bargain find. They were middle grade chapter books and I found quite a few titles that I know the youngest enjoy. Both G. and L. love to listen to books as they do other things, when they are not a

And here we are at Friday again, with Christmas hurtling towards us at a fantastic rate. Today would have been my Father's birthday. I miss him. B. spent Thanksgiving digitizing more of our family photo albums. This is from the last batch he did. This is my dad with B. and A. L. and G. have become a little obsessed with writing reports, particularly L. We are now officially on Christmas break and the two of them have decided that they will continue their education on their own. Unsurprisingly, G. is doing her report on horses, which I think is just an excuse to get out all the books on horses and look at them. L. has chosen American history. All day yesterday she sat and watched a multi-disk documentary on American history, taking notes for her report. While her spelling is improving, when she is taking notes, it is still pretty imaginative. L. knows this and wants it corrected so that in her report she has her spelling correct. This all sounds fantastic, doesn't it

I have no idea if people find this helpful or interesting, but it's an easy blog post, so here it is. This was an easier week than usual to plan because so many of our weekly activities have stopped for the holidays that it gives me more time to prepare more time intensive food. Thursday Roasted fall vegetable soup      This is a favorite of the whole family, and pretty much is just a huge bowl of vegetables. If you haven't tried it, you should. Even my people who don't like squash have seconds. Garlic bread      I was going to make French bread to go with this, but discovered some French rolls leftover from the Italian beef sandwiches we had last week. So, they got repurposed as both garlic bread and croutons for the soup. Friday Pork stir-fry with snow peas      This is a new recipe. I had frozen pork tenderloin and knew I could get snow peas at one of the stores I shop at, so seemed worth a try. Looking at the ingredients, though, I can tell it will be bland.

A reader saw a picture of our nativity dolls and asked about them. Since I am fresh out of ideas to write about, which you probably guessed by there being no blog post yesterday, I will happily clutch at any little straw that comes my way. First, so you know what I'm talking about. These dolls. It's not a great picture, but there are three kings, a camel , Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and a donkey. I started making them, oh, about 25 years ago when M. was a baby. The pattern is CreaNativity, and though it is out of print, it is still fairly easy to find copies of it for sale on ebay. I am still missing sheep, shepherds, and an angel. I have the patterns; I have just never made them. Every year when we unpack them, I think, "Huh, someday I should finish these." And then, because it's December and there are always 2000 things that seem more important, they don't get made. Yes, I could make them in July, but that would require me thinking about them in Ju

Every so often I come across an article that I just need to respond to. John Piper's article, Parents, Require Obedience of your Children , was one that had me grinding my teeth. It's either write a response here or be on the hook for major dental work. Go ahead, click the link and read the article. I'll wait. As most long time readers of my blog know, I was the poster child for this type of parenting for a very long time. Up until our first adoption and then some, I would have been probably the biggest cheerleader for this type of thinking. I get where Dr. Piper is coming from, I really do. If you have only parented easy, emotionally healthy children, it is a pretty easy trap to fall into. I was the queen of thinking I had this parenting-thing all figured out. I've written about my transformation extensively . I will also be the first in line to admit how terribly wrong I was . Adopting a child with a hard past humbled me, and God used that experience to show me

We had our tree trimming party today. Here are pictures of the results. I'm sure I'll have more pictures of the party itself once we sort through all the photos that were taken.

I keep falling asleep at the computer, so I guess I should go to bed. But this is what I want to make this month. https://www.needlenthread.com/2018/12/holly-evergreen-details-free-patterns-and-more.html Click the link to see the picture. Isn't it pretty? I think I even have all the supplies in my studio closet.

And here it is Friday again. How does that happen? The big news is that our new couch and chair arrived! Two weeks earlier than predicted, I might add. I really love them and make the living room look like a real room. I want to change the pillows eventually to more dark blues and rusty reds, but these work for the time being. Plus, I didn't even know the extra pillows were included! It was a happy surprise. The chair and a half is a little bigger than I thought it would look in here. First we tried it on the other side of the room. It didn't work so well. So the very nice men who delivered it move it around for me. As you can see, the tree is up and ready to be decorated on Sunday. It is up because J. cut off about a food of tree from the bottom because we failed to do any measuring at all when we picked it. I'm going to make swags for the front doors with the extra branches. Everyone is getting a little (okay, a lot) excited about decorating. S