New Year's Eve

We're still in shirtsleeves today. The temperature at night dips into the thirties or high twenties and we need the fire on in the morning, but so far the sun is out every day and I don't even need a hoodie by afternoon. This is traditional - New Year's Day has been around 75 degrees each of the last few years. That's tough on the years I've flown home from Utah after Christmas.

Becky and Michelle come over in a while to take down my Christmas tree. Yay! Don't you wish you had this arrangement? You could give a project of putting up and taking down the tree every year to one of the young women in the ward who need a YW project, right?

Heck no! Not if you have kids!

I got prunes out of the fridge and a bag of baby carrots for a midday snack later. They look sad compared to the chocolate Dove bar I had yesterday (the very last of it); but maybe they'll look glad to me in a few hours. It reminds me I wrote down goals already for eating healthy after reading the cookobook The Diet Solution: Weight Loss, Wellness, and the Word of Wisdom. Nothing I've never heard before for sure; every bit of it good. It gets my head in the right place about shopping and cooking, and watching my intake. The tips on my scrap page below are from the book. I had to leave off "don't count fat grams," "turn off the television," and "eat out less often." Not enough word strips. I love the Lentil-Barley Soup recipe in here which is how come I got the book off the shelf to begin with. If any of you ask for it I'll type it up and post it. Gotta finish getting Christmas storage boxes out for the girls to put the ornaments in.



Oh, made this for Jen last night while Kent watched Bowl games. Love the sparkle! Love the girl!



OH! and I made mayonnaise yesterday! I wish I'd had Alton Brown from the Food Network over my shoulder the whole time - it took four tries to finally make it since I was determined to do it with my stick blender. You know?

Stick blender. Stick blender.

You're supposed to make homemade mayonnaise with electric beaters or a blender, pouring a minuscule stream of oil over an egg yolk and lemon juice (about 1 cup oil to each yolk) while it's furiously beating; a drop-by-drop stream only. You can even do this by hand, using a whisk!!!That's an emulsification process all food scientists agree on, including Alton.

I wasn't going to do it that way since on YouTube I saw how to do it this way, with the stick blender in like a tenth, no a thousandth, of the time:

You put the ingredients in the beaker. You pour all the oil (a cup or so per egg yolk) into the beaker and let the egg and stuff sink back to the bottom. You put the wand in the cup straight down, pulse it at the same time you come up slowly, and voila! Mayo.

I did it! It was messy, and after each failed try (three, which left me with a globby goop) I went back to YouTube and to other places on the Internet to see what I did wrong. I had to let everything come to room temperature. I had to have not a drop of water in the beaker or on the wand to start. I had to hold my mouth just right. I prayed on the fourth attempt.

So making mayo is iffy, at least at first. It'll keep soybean oil (labeled vegetable oil) out of our dressing which is a good thing we think right now, and I've got to fine-tune the taste a little, but overall I'm elated! You should just see oil and egg and acid emulsify into the white cloudy stuff we call Hellman's!

The best

I'm so sorting things on my computer this morning. Remember my computer's only a couple of weeks new - it's like when I get new shoes and I don't want them to get dirty, but then I do and now they're a couple of weeks old and totally comfortable. I'm getting comfortable with this computer. I'm sorting media files that have been on Dad's laptop, and CDs I downloaded a couple of years ago for my MP3 player - a scary mix! Brenda Lee and Teresa Brewer, and of course Johnny Mathis (Dad's favorites) in the line up with Sugarland and Il Divo and I'm embarassed to say. It's like going through excerpts from my from last year's journal (which I did earlier), themselves little "sound bites" only with .doc (or in my new computer's case .docx) extensions.

It's all nostalgic. I've got Johnny Mathis pouring out his whole heart and soul while I sort. I moved over to the Internet a while ago looking for scrapbooking freebies and on this lady (Cathi's) blog I found what she calls the best spaghetti and meatballs she's ever had. I copied and pasted the recipe into my Nat's Recipes file for future perusal, and here's the link for her blog. Here. (It calls for grams of some things - can I make this?)

And the recipe, in case you don't want to have to open a new tab on Internet Explorer and hit the link for Miss Cathi's and all that. Making the meatballs could be easier, right?

THE BEST SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS I'VE EVER HAD (serves 4)

Sauce:
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small brown onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp tomato paste
400g can diced or crushed tomatoes
2 cups beef stock
300g dried spaghetti pasta
Parmesan cheese, finely grated, and small basil leaves, to serve (optional)

Meatballs:
500g premium beef mince
1 small brown onion, grated
1 carrot, peeled and finely grated
1/4 cup flat-leaf (continental) parsley, finely chopped
3/4 cup fresh whole meal breadcrumbs
125g feta cheese, finely crumbled
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup plain flour

1) Make meatballs: Combine mince, onion, carrot, parsley, breadcrumbs, feta, egg and salt and pepper in bowl. Mix well. Using clean hands, roll heaped tablespoons of mixture into balls. Roll formed balls in the plain flour to coat well.

2) Heat 2 tbsp oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook meatballs, in batches, for 2 minutes, or until browned. Transfer to a plate. Wash and dry frying pan.

3) Add remaining oil to pan and heat over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes or until onion is soft. Add tomato paste. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

4) Add tomatoes and stock to pan. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for 15 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly. Add meatballs to pan. Spoon over sauce to coat. Cover. Cook 15 minutes or until meatballs are cooked through.

5) Meanwhile, cook spaghetti in a large saucepan of boiling salted water, following packet directions, until tender. Drain. Arrange spaghetti in warm serving bowls. Spoon over meatballs and sauce. Top with Parmesan and basil leaves (optional).



ENJOY!!! Wonderful served with hot crusty garlic bread. Any leftovers can be used to make yummy meatball subs! It’s a great way to get one or two veggies into the kids without them knowing. I PROMISE that you won't regret making it. Fiddly making the meatballs, but totally worth the effort!

A good yarn

Sarah, thank you, thank you for The Christmas Sweater (Glenn Beck)! It's being so great! I say that because another book, The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs that I was halfway through a couple of days before Christmas, and really enjoying, stopped being great when the author used profanity suddenly a few chapters in. Sad. Because he, Richard Yancey, is a writer I really wanted to give a shout out to when I was done with this book and it's prequel. Catty, comical, incisive, strategist, right on . . . ascerbic . . . yeah, what does that mean, ascerbic? I'm surprised I can spell it - see where I'm headed? And should it have, hmm, been my first clue?

Oh, right, I can't spell it, it's acerbic; just went to the dictionary. And he's not that, sour, harsh, severe as of temper or expression; no way. Just cutting, and to the point and shrewd. I said incisive, didn't I. He made me laugh, honestly. Until he didn't in chapter four or something with bad, bad language. Not just a weevil among our vast wheat storage. A COCKROACH waving it's antennae at me in the straight middle of my dish of ice cream!

I don't know. I dumped the book in my car in the garage and it's not worth it to go back out there and get it to be right about where the junk came in. And why? Why? It was filthy.

(small visual)


Mm hmm.

But back it up . . . thanks so much for The Christmas Sweater. I saw it on store shelves all during December and thought I don't know anything about Glenn Beck really, and, well, whatever. So I didn't buy it. That was a good thing because you did! And I love it. I recommend it, though I'm just near the beginning.

How can you do it, you say?

Well the beginning, titled The Way it Ends, is a fair start to the story and got my complete attention; so I went (I did) to the end to The Way it Begins to get up close and personal with the author before I go on. I think it'll be okay. I like Brother Beck's style. (Of writing. More than that about him I don't know; Laura and you listen to him on talk radio, I don't. You tell ME.)

I scrapped about it. If you like, 2x click on the image to read. I want to like this book all the way through - it's made me wonder and laugh and cry already, and there's more to go. It'll be fine I think.

Cookie Baking Tips

From a blog called Just Miss Kim. I do about three of the things she says in this "my cookie baking tips" post:

~real butter;

~real vanilla (though I wouldn't have thought to triple it! Mmm!); and

~the paper towel under the mixer and surrounding area, then wad up and throw away - this is what comes of getting old you guys, and figuring it out as you go. Getting tired of wiping up messes. And man, sugar and flour bits get everywhere;

~oh, and I love the idea of setting my oven five degrees cooler cause mine bakes hot too. Okay, here's the post. And the link to it if you'd rather go there.
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If you haven't noticed, I'm a little obsessed with cookie baking. 



It started when Dan gave me a KitchenAid mixer for our 18th anniversary, and I've just kept on baking. About six weeks into my baking odyssey, I thought I'd share some tips I've picked up along the way. It's getting close to holiday baking season, and maybe you can use one or two of them this year.

First, use quality ingredients. I always use real butter. I'm picky that way. Buy it now while it's on sale. It will keep.

Vanilla. I love vanilla. Currently I'm using Mexican vanilla (I bought it on ebay. I can find anything on ebay.), but Watkins vanilla is great, too. When the recipe says 1 teaspoon, I use 1 tablespoon. It seriously makes such a difference. It's the secret to good cookies. Real butter and extra vanilla. It's worth the splurge.

The baking process -- I always chill my dough. OK, not for the very first pan in the oven because I'm impatient and can't wait for it to chill, but as soon as one tray goes into the oven, the rest of the dough goes into the fridge.

I use three cookie sheets when I'm baking. One goes in the oven. One for cookies that are cooling. And a cooled sheet to scoop dough onto for the next trip into the oven. Oh, and speaking of scoops, I really use a cookie dough scoop to be sure my cookies are fairly uniform in size. I looked at mine in preparation for writing this, and discovered it's Pampered Chef brand. That means it was a gift from my mom, because I would not buy a PC cookie scoop. Until six weeks ago, the only way I baked cookies was if we bought some premeasured dough from a fund raiser. Now, that cookie scoop is a necessity. I also spray my cookie sheets with Baker's Joy spray (nonstick spray with flour) before I put the first round of cookies on them.

I clean up as I go. I put paper towels under the mixer and for a good perimeter around the mixer before I start. After the dough is mixed, I just roll up the paper towels and throw away all those bits of flour and sugar that get all over. Wipe down the mixer and I'm done with that piece of clean up.

Unless a recipe says differently, I let the cookies cool for two minutes on the sheet before putting them onto some aluminum foil to finish cooling. I do the three-sheet method with the aluminum foil, too. When all three sheets are full, the cookies from the first sheet I filled go into a freezer bag (if I'm freezing them) or some type of air-tight container.

One last tip -- know your oven. I know mine runs a little hot, so I usually put my temp five degrees lower than the recipe states (so 345 degrees for a recipe that says 350). This gives me cookies that are perfectly done. I know my oven through years of experimenting with it, but if you don't you can buy an oven thermometer to check the actual temperature in your oven.

Hope these helped some of you. Happy baking!
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Back to Nat: Here's one of my favorite cookie recipes ever, from mom. I put it in my recipe book last Christmas so some of you already have it. Anything mom bakes is loaded with flavor and TLC - zounds! they're good.

Double Chocolate Rebels

1 1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sifted flour
1/2 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. cocoa
3 cups rolled oats
6 oz. pkg. chocolate chips (Nat divides white and milk chocolate)



Sift dry ingredients together, cream butter and sugar and vanilla. Add beaten eggs in thirds. Mix in dry ingredients and water in between. Add oatmeal and chips. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 350 (degrees F.) 10 to 12 minutes.

*Raisins may be substituted for the chocolate chips.

Merry Christmas

You're wearing a groove in the table

This was in the Sunday paper, did you read it?



So the countdown's over and I'm finally, finally, finally excited for Christmas. I think it's because I know that wherever you are, you are too and maybe by now the stress of getting ready for it is off and you're, well, baking pumpkin pie or something. Jen, your voice last night on the phone as you told me Grandma and Grandpa had arrived started it. I even heard Grandpa in the background and Chris talking over him, laughing.

I wrapped a few things for Kent this morning thinking, now where can I hide these til midnight? I lingered as I turned on the Christmas tree lights, knowing the effort the kids have put into buying, wrapping, and shipping our packages here under the tree. O Holy Night is playing softly in the other room, a classic on piano. I'm sorting Christmas cards from yesterday's mail and updating return addresses in Outlook, a little thing that makes me happy. I heard from Julie my hairdresser who moved to Layton in August - she and her husband are with their children and grandchildren again and are celebrating the newest snowfall.

I can finally go across the street to Jean's and and visit since I don't feel sick. Today's Regina's first day off work for a couple of weeks, and I know you're ecstatic my friend! Kent gets home at 3:00 this afternoon - I'd go window shopping with him if he asked, in, of course, bumper-to-bumper traffic and a crush of people. He probably won't, but I'd LOVE him to buy himself whatever he wants for Christmas. He says that's a candy-apple red Dodge Charger (with a Hemi) and, like I said, he probably won't! He he.

I'm finally excited for Christmas because I imagine you're excited too. Jingle bells, jingle bells! Be happy!

Eating right

Running to the grocery store today. I'm better, but want a nap. Glad to come home in a while and sit on the couch. I know - who gets to do that two days before Christmas?

Writing a food list makes me totally think about stuff I (as of a year ago) do mostly without, stuff with MSG in it or any of the 24 names that goes by, tomato-base foods, dairy and most other things Eat Right 4 Your Type suggests banning (grrr) for blood type A's, which Kent and I both are.

And now soy milk.

While I was in Minneapolis Kent found articles warning against eating soy products (and alarmingly, babies drinking soy formula) and we've stopped using it. Oh brother!!!!!.

I hate the see-saw. We'll probably keep looking for assurances about soy since it's touted by Eat Right 4 Your Type as absolutely the ideal substitute for dairy and meat for us, and is promoted by other sources as a good estrogen replacement for ladies like me. Even (falsely, it appears now?) as a terrific support of heart health.

But stuff's showing up in reports that throws doubt all over that - there's a fly in the ointment. Or, as I used to say to the kids when they were eating at my table, a bug in the oatmeal. The reports are to me alarming as much for details of the industry and history of soy production (why soy is even in our food at all - who decided that, when it had been being used only in a chemical process to bind pigment to paper. Money?) as they (the reports) are about recently-studied effects of soy on rats, cattle and newborn baby boys.

Just follow the Word of Wisdom Kent says - reducing a lot of talk. He's frustrated. We've tried to make good choices. I know, I know. Exactly! Follow the scriptures! It's exactly what we need to steer us through these silly food pickles. Kent had me look at a verse in the Doctrine and Covenants we rarely remember in relation to the commandment about the Word of Wisdom: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation...

Roughage, fruits and veggies and grains, meat sparingly. Though if our Type A bodies really do stay susceptible (as ER4YT suggests about Type A's) to systemic congestion by consuming dairy products, we're up a proverbial creek. Wheat for man, the Word of Wisdom says; no mention of cow's milk in particular, for or against. Or soy, for that matter.

Well.

I told Kent at breakfast I can't wait for "the movie" in the hereafter - What Was Absolutely Perfect and Essential and to the 'T' for Man to Eat on Planet Earth - Nothing More, Nothing Less. I'm adamant; there'll surely be an Omnimax event we can stand in line for and settle into on the other side, a comfy chair in the dark surrounded by friends and family where we can have demonstrated there point by point all we never could have known or foreseen (not in a lifetime or an eternity) here.

I'll be there, I told Kent. I winked. With a large popcorn and a box of Raisinettes.

Sunday

I've listened to Brother Derek Fay (Student Activities at BYU-Idaho) speak for half an hour now on the BYU channel, a university Student Devotional. It's been a very good half hour, and I'm changed. Here's how:

I got up very early in the morning after a whole lot of sick-sleep. Alone for two hours before Kent woke I read my e-mail, downloaded scrapbooking freebies and figured out how to enable the Java Standard Platform in Internet Options on this new computer to let me into Yahoo Literati game lounges. Until 10:10 when Kent left for church meetings I schlepped around in sleep pants and a sweatshirt and socks, hair in a clippie, sad and sick. And hoarse from coughing.

I called Linda around 9:00 to say I wouldn't be at church and please tell the choir. Of course today's the day the choir sings the Christmas program and I've been staying after church an hour extra with everybody for two months to learn it, and have a soprano solo on the last song. (I was actually so chicken to sing it alone since it goes to a high A-flat and I strangle at the top, that last week I begged Nataliya Kearl to sing it with me. More is more!) So I have, technically, a duet. Merrilee Rowland said it sounds good, very good, and we were ready. Until I got sick Wednesday. Yesterday after lunch I vocalized, running scales (Kent paid no attention), and hiccuped on C which brought Kent's head right up. "That's no good," he said. Where the note should have been right after B-flat there was nothing.

Kent left this morning and I played a couple of games of Literati. Checked my e-mail. Not only did I not feel good, I did not feel good about what I was doing. Okay, I'll fix my hair. I heated the curling iron and had the thought to turn on the BYU channel to see if Music and the Spoken Word was on. It was a good idea and I listened to the whole thing while I primped. I didn't want to change clothes because I'm only going to sit on the couch all day and don't want to lay around in a skirt. (I said.) The program ended with the Hallelujah Chorus and I left off doing my hair and stood in front of the TV lip-syncing every part with the choir, feeling moved and teary. Finished my hair and went to the closet to pull out my black skirt I always wear on Sundays and a fresh top, and changed. Looked in the mirror and looked better, just.

I gathered up a few things laying around since yesterday and then fully cleaned up Seminary clutter. Wheeled the chalkboard out of the room, stashed books, papers, pencil-holders, charts, etc. in the closet; took away the dishtowels that cover my wood tables where these things normally sit. Wow. Now Derek Fay is talking on the BYU channel and I guess I don't care, but his talk does sound interesting so I sit down, in my skirt on the couch in my clean living room.

He's a good speaker, obviously good with his subject "Become a New Creature." I'm thinking about stuff I want to do now that I'm better - Literati, or scrapbooking; I don't know - read John Quincy Adams?

Not this, really. The first program was awesome, and I'm glad I turned it on. I'm turning it off though. Not really interested. I sit on the couch and wrestle, absolutely wrestle with myself.

I keep this day holy every week only by turning my thoughts away from everyday things and toward things exactly like this . . . Natalie. GET interested.

I want to do what I want to do and I don't like giving it up. It's a long day, and I'm not at church and I'm sick and it's a day off.

You tithe your money, your increase, to the Lord; why don't you give normal things for better things on Sundays?

Ugh. (On the couch.)

Brother Fay is saying . . . "I knew [my daughter] was starting to discover the challenge that will be hers, mine and yours for the rest of our lives: to develop feelings, thoughts and actions that are compatible with our knowledge of what is right. To become a new creature requires putting off the natural man. She was starting to think, 'Wow this will be a lot of work.' And it is. I wanted my daughter to also know that we don't have to do this on our own. When we look further into this scripture we find hope and optimism in two very small words: yields and through."

"The word yields in Mosiah 3:19 [Book of Mormon] shows the encouragement of our loving Heavenly Father. The scripture says: The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. "One definition of the word yield is to ‘give up and to cease resistance or contention’. Another is ‘to give way to pressure or influence’. By both definitions, the scripture suggests there are influences already being applied to us. Perhaps the only obstacle in letting the Spirit have full sway in our hearts, is our own either stubborn or even unconscious resistance. At times perhaps our inability to perceive the enticings of the Spirit isn't because they are absent, but because our desire to them to yield to them, has not been fully developed... "

(Says Brother Fay.)

I'm still sitting on the couch and the five minutes I've spent arguing with myself and half-listening have left me inclined to listen and see what happens now rather than get up and go-do-or-be-anything else at the moment. Brother Fay's talk gets better and better and finally, (I can feel the changes) finally, the enticings of the spirit overtake my self-talk and I'm drawn into full acceptance of my own desire to absolutely do what is right, with breathtaking - what - aid, help? I'm being carried because, on my own, earlier, I didn't feel like it. It's not a big deal, I'm not being carried up or away or anywhere, I'm just "giving up and ceasing the resisting," as Brother Fay teaches his definition of "yield."

I'm changed. Like that! This'll need to happen over and over again like Brother Fay says it must for all of us; for sure for me because I know one thing: The more spiritual I want to be, the more help I need (just like this; just like this) developing spiritual "reflexes," what I need deeply ingrained in me over my life to cause me to give up the natural man and "become a new creature."

Like the Savior.

It's been a very good half hour, and I have the whole day to go.

----
p.s. One more paragraph from Brother Fay's good talk (link)

Learning to yield to spiritual reflexes will help us in our journey to become a new creature. As with anything that is practiced, the more we do this the more we will find our spiritual reflexes becoming stronger than our natural tendencies.

We will yield to being charitable when we naturally feel angry or feel like gossiping.

We will yield to being forgiving when bitterness may seem justified.

We will yield to serving others when meeting our own needs seems important.

We will yield to purity when inappropriate media or pornography is readily available.

We will yield to honesty when a perceived advantage could be gained by bending the truth.

And we will ultimately yield to Christ when the glittering but hollow enticements of the adversary inevitably present themselves to us and to our families.

Christmas Magic

I love you all! Love, Mom

Decorate

Sick, sick, sick today. Third day and so far the worst. My get up and go has got up and went. Thank goodness today is the last day of Seminary til January.

Three weeks ago my laptop died and we bought a desktop to replace it - got it up and going this week. It's doing better than I am. I'm little by little bringing files on - found a scrap page I made in November in Minneapolis and didn't post it, I guess. And made a winter page of Joseph.





I was SO not going to put up the Christmas tree, but Becky begged me at Seminary. Michelle, a senior last year, organized a party. Kent got the tree out of the attic and Michelle, Anna and Daniel (her sister and brother), Brandi, Saleah and of course Becky came over Monday afternoon. First things first. Food.



Stuffed in the dining room so there's room in the living room still for Seminary.



Saleah tackles the top with a doll ornament - uh, not so much.



Brandi tries with a wooden star w/nativity and sticks it.



Michelle faked out (right?) by the s'mores snowguy and goes for a bite. Hi Becky!



Saleah and Brandi left a little early but the tree is done, with red bows. Daniel decorated while the girls ate lunch and cookies, then they all worked and cleaned up. Kent took pictures.



Yay Michelle! Thanks for everything.

Under the sink

It's too many days since I wrote. I'm under the kitchen sink this morning with a hand-vac taking up lint, dirt, crumbs and gunk. I hate the way my dishtowels and washcloths and Scotch Brites wad up under here in their plastic storage container, so I fixed that; and how I scrape my hand every time (every time) on the cabinet frame if I reach for detergent or to empty the trash or something. I get blood, and I get mad. Nothing I can do about that; but I stuck another container with drawers under there for brushes, plant food and the sink strainer, and a whole cleaning caddy. Bunches of stuff went in the trash. The scouring pads have their own drawer. And there's Bandaids under the sink.

I got a Christmas CD of Yoyo Ma yesterday and put it on while I worked. It's the most eclectic thing I've ever heard and I listened to it twice and I like it. (It definitely took me twice to decide.) After twenty tracks it went off a while ago, and the house is in silence; except not, because there's wind banging around outside. The temperature will drop twenty degrees by evening. Leaves on the back porch at the doorstep have swirled into a pile almost to my knees.

A minute ago in the kitchen, I cut the top off a sample tube of Cascade powder, poured some in the dishwasher and rolled the top of the tube down and clipped it with a chip clip as big as, well, my wallet I guess. My kingdom for a mini-chip clip around here!

While I write this the doors to my bathroom cupboards under the sink are wide open and all kinds of junk is spilled out on the floor. That's where I stole the caddy from for the kitchen, so this is just a break for a minute before facing the next project, my bathroom. There'll be more in the trash. I wish I had so many places to go and people to impress that I would use the spritzes and gels and sprays and lotions I've accumulated over a few years, but the truth is I really don't want either: the places to be (and, it goes without saying, folks to impress) or the spritzes, etc.! I want my few little things and less under and on the counter.

I thought about taking a picture of the chip clip on the Cascade tube - it made me way laugh - but, well, you get the picture. And who cares? It's one of a hundred little things.

Little things that make me feel festive

I thought this scrap page might come close to saying it all, what makes me feel festive, but it doesn't as I think about it. What about the smell of pine? Or such brisk cold wind outside that your nose turns red? I should have put Rudolf in here! Speaking of which, how about the Christmas show with the Abdominal Snowman and Rudolf? (He, he.) What about that?  It's different for everybody. Josh Groban's NOEL definitely puts me in the mood.

--


Wanna know what doesn't make me feel festive? Got to choir practice a week ago and found out the person the choir director asked to conduct the Cantata that we've been working on for two months for our Ward Christmas party (w/solos and speaking parts) can't make it. Rhonda, the choir director, is playing the organ for this performance, with someone else on the piano - it's going to be gorgeous. Now we had no one to conduct. I said I would. But I haven't been at practice for three weeks so of course I feel like an idiot. I had come in my clunkiest shoes (comfortable Birks) and pantyhose (baggy argh! from being on me all day) and skirt and a layered top, and felt - well, I was, indeed - fat! I swallowed my pride and swallowed it and swallowed it as we rehearsed. The choir sounds very good and the organ and piano came right along, it being the first time Rhonda had sat down to practice with us ever. We sing it Saturday.

Is your party on the 13th too? Hope you get to go and just enjoy! I'm making a jello salad and heating a ham or turkey and bringing these to the church for dinner - and not eating a bite. No one in the choir is eating before we sing. "Only salad and dessert (no chocolate or milk products) and keep a plate in the kitchen for later," Rhonda advised us. Good reasoning. Then we can keep our stomachs sucked in.

Gifts

I'm thinking about gifts I've gotten in the past for Christmas. When I was a teenager I got a set of hot rollers and a tape recorder, and I used each until they broke; when I was younger and we lived in Mission, I got a bike. On Christmas day that year Marcia and I rode our new bikes around and around the property - it was hot and very sunny and I wore bright green pants - and I rode on our dirt road in front of the house. Don't remember if I wasn't supposed to. . . I didn't find out for a long time that Dad bought them used or built them from parts for us. Mine was everything to me.

I made a mental list a few minutes ago of some gifts I've gotten in the recent past, and what's become of them. Not in any order:

Scrabble Dictionary, hardback, 2007: Kent was more like a kid than I've ever seen him on Christmas the year I opened this because he said he KNEW I'd love it. I do. It's in plain sight by the computer and I use it every day at least once. Like my toothbrush - ew.

Trip to New York, 1993. I was gobsmacked by this gift from Marc. I guess the kids knew about it, they were twitterpated! Not only plane tickets, but play tickets, several nights in a ritz hotel, and babysitters. It's a bittersweet memory far back now. I spent virtually all of Christmas day cleaning for the babysitters to come stay with the kids and packing a suitcase. Marc's and my relationship held deep sadness by then. New York itself was unbelievable - the sights, smells, sounds, and freezing cold. World Trade Center, Museum of Arts, Phantom, Les Mis, Times Square, taxis, vendors, restaurants, concrete, rushing people, Statue of Liberty. A whirlwind trip on a grand scale, an end-of-the-year invitation I think to start fresh. I've never forgotten this and am utterly amazed and thankful.

Photo book and calendar, 2005. Brad and Dana gave me a 12-month calendar with pics of the whole family on each page, and I (being by Christmas day very sad about going home to Georgia the next day) burst into tears. The kids were betting on whether or not it would make me cry and laughed right out loud. Practically the next gift I opened was a photo book Amy put together of the kids and grandkids, with journal entries, a real project from all of them. Just what I wanted - and needed. The calendar I saved after 2006 under my bed and recently threw away, used and well-loved. The photo book I look at occasionally - it can quickly bring back tears and the happy feelings of that day.

Kitchen Aide mixer, 2002. On Christmas Eve day Kent couldn't keep this a secret any more and since I had potatoes to mash, he gave it to me early. How cool! I use it constantly - when I made cookies for his birthday in September the bowl went wonky, got wrenched out of its locked position on the stand as the paddles churned and got horribly stuck. I thought I broke it, and panicked. Took a screwdriver out to start taking it all apart, then told Kent who calmly twisted the bowl back into place and went back to his football game. Yeah.

George Foreman Grill, 2004. A gift card from Mom and Dad bought us this, perhaps our most used kitchen appliance except for the bullet and the toaster. I stop short of cooking waffles in it. (Kent bought me a heart-shaped waffle iron last month.)

Miss Potter, Paul Potts, Andrea Bocelli, Jordin Sparks and MoTab, 2007. YES! Heavenly stuff. Last time I had Paul Potts (from Scott) on the CD player I sang along to my plants at the tippy-top of my voice; goofy I know - it's like I can sing opera too. I watched Miss Potter (thank you, Jenny) last year and this year both. And there's no better sounds than MoTab's Christmas music (Brad and Dana) which I've had on every day since December the first. And Bocelli (Dan and Amy)- beautiful, makes me cry! Jordin Sparks wowed us on American Idol year last year - so (from Erin) my 2007 media gifts were complete.

Hamsters, 1988? Several. In an aquarium. Under the tree. The kids were delirious with joy. There were cute and then they died natural deaths. Peaches didn't die a natural death - Dan threw him up in the air and tried but didn't catch him.

First Aid Kit, 1980. Grandma McKasson roped Grandad into helping her put together five (at least) full-on First Aid Kits for Christmas for their children. They bought large metal tool boxes and taped red crosses on them. For months they made lists of things to include in the kits and were constantly shopping for them and organizing. It was one of the coolest gifts we McKassons ever got on Christmas day. It contained medical supplies out the wazooooo, and was full of their love and time and patience. It was taken from us when we moved from Utah to Texas in December 1984 by someone in the moving company; packed, but never arrived.

Back pack and wind chimes, 1996, 2003. Most Christmases lately I've burst into tears over something or other. Except for in 2005 (when I had to fly home the next day and I had an all out meltdown), mostly it's over a gift that I didn't expect to get, or that fills a need, or that has "I love you" all over it, and it's a happy thing! The kids laugh at me if they haven't started crying too. I bawled bigtime over my new school back pack the kids gave me in 1996 (I was 40 for heaven's sake, first year back in college) as they howled with laughter, and in 2003 over windchimes I unwrapped from Dan and Amy. I loved those. Amy, being only six months married to Dan, hardly knew what to make of it. Kent too, probably. Everyone laughed right out loud and waited to move on unwrapping things. Anyway, sometimes Christmas feels overwhelming.

Trip to San Antonio to visit Grandma and Grandad McKasson, 1999. Our Quest was crashed into in the fall that year by another car; one side bashed in pretty good. Insurance money came and I used it to buy plane tickets for me and the kids to fly to Texas on Christmas night. I don't remember the gifts under the tree that year, just the excitement of catching the plane out of Salt Lake, landing and renting a car in San Antonio and arriving at Schaedler's. For a week, between Schaedler's house and Grandad's in Boerne, McKasson children and grandchildren and in-laws visiting from all over (happily including us for once) partied. Mark (changed to Marc after we divorced) was there; I spent mornings transcribing Grandad's personal history from a recording he had made. Mom was ill and continuning to weaken overall, but was with us often. On New Year's Eve the boys and I tossed a football in the street between the houses. Someone threw a pass and I caught it, but broke my little finger. The pain was constant; it was bandaged and splinted from then on, and when I had it looked at days later in Utah the doctor described an avulsion fracture at the joint where a piece of bone was chipped out. At midnight we gathered outside with fireworks and noisemakers to ring in the new millenium. Some of these memories are faded; mostly I feel like it was just yesterday.

A Christmas gift often comes with memories that last much longer than the thing itself. That changes and shapes more and more what I want to give at Christmas. I hope you enjoy wonderful memories in the days to come!

----
Brady and his windbreaker

Love, and Kent in Georgetown

Class today was generally a discussion on love. I started with a lesson plan outlined and ready, but that got thrown to the wind into the class period as the kids most candidly discussed how to love friends, family or anyone. First they drew pictures of romantic love - chocolates, hearts, love notes, diamonds, hugs and kisses and hand-holding, etc., which brought forth twitters and scowls; with 18 pictures abroad, we labeled these "Expressions of Love of the Worldly Kind." But as I said, we were aiming for "Expressions of Love of Family and Friends and Even Anyone." (We were most truly aiming for "Expressions of Love of the Savior," but didn't get that far. Tomorrow.)

Eyebrows raised at anyone. "A random person?" Peter asked. The expressions of love we could identify are:

Be nice

Make someone happy

Help (without having to be begged or dragged or slapped)

Karma (someone said, to which I immediately responded that's not doctrinal). NO (they waved me off), that thing where what you give comes back to you

Give warm fuzzies

Give gifts

Give self

Give hugs

Hold hands (Jason, who drew hand-holding earlier and may have had a block here. I heartily supported it as it tends to comfort and lift.)

Listen

Compliment

Be there

Be patient

Say "Hey" (Peter)

Laugh or cry with someone - know them.

I remarked about the last one that we are all walking around with "Know Me, PLEASE!" signs around our necks, though they're invisible. I said some of us want people to know us so bad we do everything we can to HIDE! Anna remarked "that's deep."

Seminary is a blast.
----

Kent in Georgetown, Labor Day 2008

Windy and cold, and gettin old

I look out outside and anything I'd take pictures of and post here would be a repeat of last year at this time. The sky today is just as brilliant blue as it was on Thanksgiving Day last year after a rainstorm in the night, with the trees as scarlet and gold - though one in the very corner of the yard lost its yellow leaves in a wind last week before I got home from Minnesota and is ragged. It would all be a repeat and I know it, and don't feel like taking the same pictures. But the same happiness is in me looking around and seeing the wind rise and fall; you can't belive the shimmer of light on these trees - their leaves are cellophane in the sunshine. I'm seeing that the year is dying - I hope you have such beauty where you are.

Saw pictures of Brady and Garrett Jen took when she was at Brad and Dana's for Thanksgiving.

The big guy and Scotter.



Isn't Garrett changed? July to...



November (Garret's the little guy.)



Not long and Noah will be chubby.



Every November or December I write a Christmas poem. This is not it, but enjoy!

Getting Old

“Getting old,” so says my dad,
“Is not for sissies.” (Must be bad.)
“It must be bad,” I sympathize.
“It is,” he says, and rolls his eyes.

“Then this,” I say, “is NOT for me.
I won’t get old. I can’t. Cannot.”
That state of mind I shall not be!
O wicked, bold, impertinent thought.

But, aagghh! My parts are wearing out
And breaking down. Without a doubt,

In no time quick, I’ll come undone!
If “getting old” is what this means,
Then, (so says Thomas Jefferson)
Upon my word, then our machines

Have now been running, lo, these years;
We must expect some worn out gears.
(Ohm, clearly this is how I quote it –
It won’t rhyme the way he wrote it.)

Worn as they are, I truly feel,
Here a pivot, there a wheel,
Now a pinion any day –
Next, a spring will give away.
However we may tinker them,
A little shine, a spot of grease,
The inner works will time condemn. . .
At length, all motion is surcease.

“No, this is NOT,” I say, “for me.”
A sissy I would rather be.

But I’ve no thoughts that do not halt –
And I’ve no parts that do not grind.
And any sissy worth her salt
Knows “old” is NOT a state of mind.
December 1, 2008

Jen and Dana, here's the answer:

You'll like this.



Shortly after, Abbie with a sad face was found to be washing the white cupboard in the corner, the glass door and the yellow wall with a wet washcloth while Nana scrubbed the table and more of the wall and discarded several chocolate paintings. Landon was to be found nowhere near the cleaning activities (very likely in front of Kung Fu Panda downstairs safely away), that is after he himself was scrubbed top to bottom in a quite chocolaty bath.

---

Good food at the Hales' last night for Mike and his two pals that came to watch the BYU/U of U rivalry. I had a headache when the game started, which was perfect: I stayed upstairs with the baby and Erin went downstairs with the guys and had meatball sandwiches and chips and dip, etc. Mike's a good cook and party host; got everything ready himself. Abbie and Landon each had a friend over, so at one end of the room downstairs the kids were rockin' and rollin' and on the other end (I heard distincly through the floor and through my headache and above International House Hunters on HGTV) the adults were alternately cheering and booing. At halftime eats were ready - I think hopes were good at that point that BYU could get its act together in the second half, and the guys and Erin had a hearty time. Most of the way through the third quarter though I heard not much from them (of course) and when I turned to the game, I saw the party was over.

The food was great, though. Landon poured water in the M&M's bowl.

Playing

Yesterday we took the kids to the rec center to play - it's just above freezing outside, so this is a great thing for bouncy, bouncy kids and a nervous Nana (Erin'll tell you). Every pic I snapped of Abbie and Landon there was blurry, so here's the baby.



This morning, everybody in jammies.



Having a good time and a little overwhelmed. I think this month for Erin's going to be a blur (and me too), and she'll say in a few weeks did you even come to Minnesota, Mom? Every day's amazing and difficult and rewarding - and Groundhog day, the same. It'll be weird when I get home not to hear the baby squeaking or crying, or the sounds of many (just two) children in the house.

At Erin's

Got to Minneapolis as the sun was setting and the temperatures falling to 28 degrees. Just in my hoodie. Brrr!

The first thing the kids wanted to do after dinner and baths is do my make up. Abbie got some of her mother's old make up and started doing my eyes and lips all pretty, then Landon got into it and they both went crazy! Abbie's learned to wink.



Bunny ears, and baby Noah.



Abbie and Noah



Landon



I slept on the couch, the closest bed to the one bathroom in this house. By 9:00 I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open. Everyone but Mike went to bed. Landon called for water from upstairs and later, "Mommie, I'm scared," and then "Mommie, owie chin." I did the water run for him and Erin the two other fixes so it was 10:00 before Landon settled down and she could. Through it, I dozed and didn't; Mike was downstairs with the LSU/Troy college football game, late. The baby woke three times in the night, and once after Noah and Erin got back to bed, a giant truck with police escort pulled up two houses down from Erin's and began making grinding noises. I thought, for heaven's sake, the trash is collected at 2:30 a.m. around here! Maybe it was a mulcher grinding tree limbs. Anyway I finally looked, which is why I saw how big the truck was and fully lighted along the flatbed, and the police car behind it; soon it started up and rumbled past the house with a hatchback car on the back end. Police followed. Mike and Erin slept through it. I woke when the heater came on, when the baby squeaked and cried, when the outside light came on, or for no reason at all - or, well, at 3:00 because for my body that's 4:00 a.m. Georgia time, and it's usual for me to be sleeping light then. I had to really tuck in to go back to sleep until after 5:00. Erin came to the couch with Noah then and we talked awhile. The only mother-daughter time today, I think.

Signs of the times

Well Sandra must have gotten home last night, and I'm sad for her to leave Noah and Abbie and Landon and her own child Michael. And Erin - I love that Sandra loves Erin - this girl really has two mothers, and it's such a good thing. I'm coming to Minnesota Saturday after 15 and a half long months. Getting very excited!

I'm pooped this morning. Seminary's over for me for a couple of weeks til after Thanksgiving; we just have the waffle breakfast for in the morning. I'm kind of used up - we covered signs of the Second Coming this week.

We discussed the three parables in Matthew 25 about the ten virgins, the talents, and the sheep and goats, looking for ways we can be prepared for the Lord to come again. Then I had the kids yesterday draw one sign each (they had to pick a folded piece of paper from a bowl with the sign typed on it) and cut their drawing into a few pieces and put it in an envelope. Today we traded envelopes and put together the drawings and guessed what each was - using the scriptures. So were were all over the map for two days using Matthew and the Doctrine and Covenants as our guides as we "puzzled" over the signs of the times. The kids are creative and can be almost cryptic so we had some real doozies, but in the end we got them all listed and remarked on. The bottom line - our safety is in our personal righteousness. You know, I've been taught this from childhood, but only now is all that I've learned being "imprinted" in me enough to really change me: a combination of studying it to teach it, and the signs of the times being far more advanced now than when I was a teenager. I hope and pray our youth and my children and their children will look up and not fear.

My new grandson!

Here's pictures of the baby! He was born today about 8:00 or so Minnesota time. Noah Michael Hale. I'm in love.