Tag: christmas

An English Supper

Today started nice and lazy with me sleeping in until 9 and judiang sleeping in until 10. elsaf, however, had been up since 7-something. She assures us she had a restful sleep, so that was good.

Elsa made us a breakfast of pancakes and sausage. It really hit the spot and did a great job of keeping us sated until suppertime. We decided to do our gift exchange then. The presents were all nicely displayed in front of the TV (for lack of a tree – hey, they both start with T). And we began with Elsa’s birthday present from Judi. (For those of you keeping score at home, you may have realized that Elsa’s birthday is in August. So Judi was a little late…) The gift was an iPod transponder for her car. (Hmmm, looks like something someone would buy at Best Buy!)

Next it was time for the Christmas exchange. It turns out I, too, got an iPod transponder. Cool! She also got me a children’s book by Neil Gaiman. Thanks Judi! Elsa gave me the DVD of Ghost Light (What do you mean “don’t you already have that??? OK, so I hadn’t gotten the Region 1 version yet… But now I have it so YAY!) Thanks Elsa! Elsa liked the 3-tiered spice rack and gift certificate to The Spice House that I got her. Judi was excited for the Complete Peanuts 1959-1962 which I got her. Elsa also received a Southern Living Cookbook and meat pounder from Judi and Judi received 2 Sims 2 Expansion Packs from Elsa. A nice haul for all of us. And Elsa gave me my birthday gift, but I shall wait til Monday to open it. Woot! Thanks in advance, Elsa!

We had a few things we needed to get for supper after a quick stop at Elsa’s parent’s house. And one of the places we stopped was the butcher’s shop near Elsa’s house. Now, I dunno about you, but butcher’s shops are something that we still have around my neck of the woods. And obviously around Elsa’s neighborhood. But Judi was surprised. She thought they were extinct and thus had to take photos when we got in there. Heh, silly girl! Hopefully she’ll post at least one of ’em in her journal tonight.

We cleaned the kitchen when we got back and then Elsa began making the steak & ale pies for supper. She also started on the custard for the trifle she was making as well. Judi and I took it in turns to stir the custard and it thickened just when Tom and Ardath (Elsa’s bro and sis-in-law) arrived with the dogs. (They have 2 dogs, Rosie and Casey, and they’ve been taking care of Ollie while Judi and I were here since he gets exited by visitors. Only Floyd has been with us on our trip thus far.)

Tom had made shepherd’s pie and Ardi had brought some home-made toffee. A Wassail mix finished off the meal and we had a nice English supper of steak & ale pie, shepherd’s pie, wassail, and raspberry trifle. Wonderful meal and my hat off to all the chefs.

After supper, Tom took the dogs for a walk while we fixed the technical difficulties we were having with our viewing of The Runaway Bride (the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas special). By the time Tom was back with the critters, the VCD was done and we watched the special. We laughed and cheered and had fun with the silly story. Quite an entertainment for our group.

To finish off the evening, we all pulled Christmas crackers and read the silly jokes and put on the silly hats. Then Ardi passed around the toffee and we munched. Then she treated the doggies to doggie berry cobbler. (It’s canned stuff that they all simply adored and sat patiently for their turn at the spoon.) Lots of munching going on at that point.

At 10pm, Tom & Ardath and the pooches (all but Floyd) headed on back home. Elsa and Judi are cleaning the kitchen. And I’m sitting here writing all of this. And with a “and that’s that!” from Elsa, I think they’re done.

Yay! What a fun day we’ve had!

Baking Day 2006

Mom and I once again locked ourselves in her kitchen all day and baked our little hearts out. Yup, it’s our annual Baking Day! (OK, if you’re picturing us locked into the kitchen with shackles and a taskmaster cracking a whip, it wasn’t quite like that…)

In 2004 and 2005 I reported on those Baking Days. We’ve stuck with most of the usual lot for baked goods. Though we did try one former classic once again – Oatmeal Carmelitas. Think chocolate chip cookie bars with gooey caramel and pecans. Indeed, they came out so gooey that we’re just going to bring them along in their original pan rather than get them out to set with the other cookies.

The list of things we made were as follows:

  • Ice Box Cookies (Butterscotch cookies – a family favorite, great with coffee apparently)

  • Oatmeal Carmelitas

  • Caramel Pecan Dreams (AKA floor sweeping cake – this time with REAL floor sweepings!)

  • Lindy Cookies (mom’s classic oatmeal chocolate chip cookies)

  • Cheesecake Cupcakes (a double batch)

  • Peanut Blossoms (AKA nipple cookies)

  • Candy Buckeyes (using a slightly different recipe and Ghirardelli chocolate chips)

  • Market Day Sugar Cookies (which we haven’t baked yet – we’ll decorate & bake those and the ice box cookies tomorrow)

We’ve tasted most of these and they are YUMMY! Mom and I rock mightily. 🙂 Tomorrow, as I mentioned in the list, mom will be baking the ice box cookies (we made a double batch – that’s 12 cups of flour!!!) and when I get home from work, we’ll decorate and bake some of the sugar cookies. (The elementary school is doing a monthly fundraiser called Market Day where you can buy a number of prepared food items. I decided to try their holiday sugar cookies. And they had cool decorations which I also got.)

Tomorrow evening, we’re off to the Shorts (Aunt Becky et al) for the extended family Christmas. And Saturday evening is the Andersons. It’ll be sad going to the family gatherings without Amy & Rachel, but in a selfish way, it means we don’t have to share them with anyone when they do come. Hee hee! (Well, Aunt Becky is invited to New Year’s Eve – as is Deanna – so they’ll get to share in A&R a little.)

Busy Weekend

This has been a good weekend. I got some stuff done that needed doing and had a nice time with my kitties, which also needs doing. 🙂

Friday we had our staff Xmas lunch. The superintendent had it catered and staff brought in desserts. The shredded chicken was good (as probably was the shredded beef, but I didn’t get that) and the deserts were – wow, let’s just say I had a sugar high that day. That evening, we had a small gathering at BW3s for the first time in ages. I enjoyed the chicken wings and the conversation. Oh, the amaretto sour was good too. 🙂

Saturday, I had a dentist’s appointment which put me in Troy around lunchtime. What better time to check out the new Japanese place? I stopped at Staples on the way to the dentist for some Xmas gift supplies. Was told I had boring teeth by my hygienist (I’ve had her as my hygienist for, like, ever). Had a wonderful sushi meal at the new Japanese place. They have hibachi there was well. Wonder if I can convince the family that we should all go there for lunch one day when the girls are here. 🙂

After a short stop in Walmart for breakfast items, I drove to the Piqua Mall. I needed to get bags for my vacuum cleaner at Sears and thought I’d look through the mall. I was pleased to see there were many folks shopping there. And it was fun looking at the N-scale train they had on display from the Dayton N-scale club. They even had a train’s eye view playing as the train went around the track. I, of course, watched it go the entire distance.

I popped into Home Depot to see if they had the type of wood I want for my bookshelves (Lowe’s ran out last time I got some) and they do, for the same price. I didn’t buy any since I didn’t have dad and his truck to help, but I did buy one of those cardboard tubes used for cement molds. I intend to make a Cat Jungle Gym at some point and needed it for the curved platforms for sitting. Dunno when I’ll make it (most likely with dad’s help) but I will.

The final stop was Meijer where I got the last of my Xmas gifts and some supplies. Then I went home to hang with the kitties. We worked on a Christmas gift for awhile and played and cleaned and stuff. And today, more of the same. I discovered that I have enough underwear to last til Tuesday, so I’ll do laundry then. Heh. I even got to read Linus a book (that I bought when several teachers and I went shopping on Monday). He didn’t look at the pictures, cute though they were, but he did listen. Or maybe he was sleeping? With a cat, who can tell? 🙂

For the most part, I’m done with my holiday shopping. Waiting for a couple of orders to arrive and still have one to finish. However, I won’t be wrapping presents until Christmas morning probably. The closer I get to the actual days of presents opening, the less chance there is for the kitties to unwrap them all.

Chemistry Magic & Christmas Decorating

Well, with December upon us, I’m am making my place all Christmassy (not necessarily with the help of the kitties). To start the month off properly, I took my chemistry & physics students off to a Michael Faraday-ish Chemistry Demonstration Show on Friday.

Wright State University (my Alma Mater) does an annual Chemistry Demonstration Show (AKA Chemistry Magic Show). It’s completely funded by the University now (though they used to have to beg various sources to fund the show) so school’s don’t pay a dime to attend (other than busing the kids there). I took one bus for my nearly 60 students. Now we have a bus or two that can hold 78 comfortably. This was not the bus we took. But the kids managed to cram themselves in, most 3 to a seat. MJ, the HS secretary, was my chaperon. She said she’d looked back and couldn’t see the aisle at all – it was all kids. Heh. But they had a blast getting there and didn’t stop singing on the way back.

I’ve seen the WSU Chemistry Magic Show a few times now – I’ve taken Eaton students, Tipp City Students, and Newton Students to it. (Hey, I like Frrrrrrrrrrrrrrree!) They do most of the same demos each year, but this year added a few “classics” to their repertoire. The new ones were the Thermite reaction, calcium carbide cannons, and one called “the blue streak” which required a 10 foot glass tube that was at least 2 inches in diameter. A blue flame slowly moved down the tube until it reached the glass wool stopper at the end. Oh yeah, and they reacted burning magnesium in carbon dioxide – I didn’t know that still reacted. It pulls the oxygen from CO2! Of course they played with liquid nitrogen, dry ice, electric pickles, alcohol explosions, elephant toothpaste, glow-in-the-dark reactions, etc etc. Very cool show.

Yesterday was a bit of a wash – apart from going shopping with Dad for essentials and having Chinese Food for lunch, I mostly just played City of Heroes and made some ornaments. Today, OTOH, I’ve been busy all day. I’ve been working on cleaning up the house some and getting my Christmas decorations out. Oh yeah, and doing laundry. The tree is up and the lights are on. But I still need to finish making ornaments & the green & red paper chain. I’ve no idea how the kitties will take to the tree & ornaments, so I bought several ornament kits from Oriental Trading to make. And glue dots – I LOVE glue dots! And I’m running out… Wonder if JoAnn Fabrics has glue dots too? (Ah! They do – guess I’ll need to go there this week!) Anyhoo, once I get the paper chain made, I’ll string it on the tree. Then I’ll put up the ornaments I’ve made so far. Several are personalizable, so I’ve got “Linus,” “Lucy,” and “Trina” on several ornaments so far. Heh.

My only regret in this kick off to the holiday season is that we missed the Cincinnati Men’s Chorus last night. It just didn’t work with our schedules this year. We enjoy going to their dress rehearsal they put on for Dayton PFLAG, but this year was not meant to be. Hopefully next year we’ll get to see them again. 🙂

White Christmas

We actually did have a White Christmas this year. But not quite what they had in mind with the famous Christmas tune. Our White Christmas was caused by a snow-thawing fog that lasted until after 1pm. It was quite impressive. And rather calming.

This year’s Christmas was a bit unusual, not least because we opened presents on Christmas Eve. Granny in the hospital also added to the oddness. Thanks, btw, to all of you Granny well-wishers.

It was looking pretty bad for her. She wasn’t eating, and her hospital psychosis was rather pronounced. She remembered us granddaughters when we visited her on the 23rd, but she was confused as to where she was & wanted to go home with us. (No surprise there – I wouldn’t want to be in the hospital either!) On the 24th, dad, Amy & I visted and she was even loopier. She hadn’t been eating (with her intestinal complaint, there really wasn’t any place for food to go!) and was confused as to who we were. Christmas morning, she was just awfully sleepy. But later on Christmas, they finally had success with the intestinal complaint. And when dad & I visited yesterday, she knew who I was and had eaten some breakfast. And later, talked with Aunt Becky on the phone and was feisty. That’s a good sign. Granny’s naturally feisty. 🙂

So, perhaps Granny will finally get back to normal. There will probably be some transition before she can go back to Becky’s house. But here’s hoping she’ll be home as soon as possible.

I’m currently at elsaf‘s place and the two of us will soon be driving to judiang‘s house. I hope to update more about my vacation thus far when I get there. Here’s hoping the drive is smooth & detour-free!

Merry Christmas!

Yay! It’s Christmas today! And in our recent tradition of having nontraditional Christmases, we actually opened all of our presents last night. It was fun opening presents in the evening. For one thing, there was wine instead of coffee. Heh. It took over 2 hours to get everything opened (with occasional breaks for food & stuff). Mom was originally thinking she might have gotten more presents for Amy than anyone (an Amy Christmas), but it turns out it was a Dad Christmas after all. Yay dad! (One of the presents he got, however, was the replacement order of jumping beans from Oriental Trading. Mom said she’d had 2 boxes sent to my place with dad’s presents. And I got 2 boxes one day. And didn’t examine the labels all THAT well – and neither did mom. She wrapped the boxes without opening, and voila! Dad opens a box to find my jumping beans. We all laughed.)

Now, there were rumors that Santa was still going to come around last night, so we did put out our stockings. He even left 2 stockings here for the parental units. Amy will be arriving shortly to help me carry the stockings over (*wink wink*) but also to open Leo’s presents for him. His lack of opposable thumbs does make it hard to open presents.

I’ll probably report in more detail about the day in another post. I just wanted to get my “Merry Christmas” out before the day was over. Hope everyone reading is having a nice End to December, regardless of which holidays, if any, that you celebrate.

Holiday Goings On

Things started off wonderfully this holiday season. Mom & I got up early and headed off to Curves and then to mom’s Weight Watchers meeting. (They had some funny Weight Loss Carols that were played.) Then we popped off to Walmart to pick up two family-sized pizzas from Papa Murphy’s. They make up the pizzas to order, then you bake them yourself. These were for supper. And then it was back home to pick up Papa so we could head off to the airport.

Amy & Rachel arrived in Ohio just fine and only a little late (darn that Detroit airport!). We had a nice lunch at Max & Erma’s and then scooted on home. Mom’s brothers were going to join us for supper (hence the pizza) since the girls head back to Minnesota before the Anderson gathering. Folks all napped and I returned home to goof off (and write my journal entry).

Uncle Bob & Aunt Madeline arrived first, followed by Uncle Doug, Aunt Charlene and finally Patty, my cousin. We all squeezed around the kitchen table for pizza, chips, and popcorn popped in Gramma’s old kettle. (Doug recognized it right away.) We had a nice evening chatting, eating, and laughing. I ate too much (no surprise there).

The next day was our day off. Heh. We decided to spend it shopping. CD Connection to pick up an Amy gift, the pet store for Leo’s present, then K’s for lunch. K’s is a greasy spoon (aka diner) that’s been in Troy since 1935. I got a cheeseburger, fries, and malted milk. Very yummy. And greasy. The way cheeseburgers are meant to be. We then headed off to Kohl’s where I found a bedspread for my winter sheets. It’s flannel and had matching shams & bedskirt all together. I also got a spare set of snowman flannel sheets for when my current winter sheets wear out. Some more Christmas presents were found & bought. And our final stop of the shopping experience was Krogers, for all of the groceries we’d need for the holidays.

Once we got back, I dumped my stuff off in my house. When I got back to the folks’ house, I found out they had a phone call from Aunt Becky – they were waiting on the squad to come & pick up Granny. So mom & dad headed off to Granny’s and followed the ambulance to the emergency room. Granny was having intestinal woes (TMI) but in the process of helping her with that, they found out her blood had gotten too thin and she was bleeding internally. Eep! Had she not had the intestinal complaint, they wouldn’t have found the blood chemistry problem and she probably would have passed away that evening. Yikes!

The good news is that they caught it in time. They were able to stabilize her condition and they admitted her to ICU that night. Mom & dad stayed with her the whole time, finally coming home after 11pm or so. Poor Granny!

Today, Amy, Rachel & I went to visit Granny in ICU. She recognized us OK, but she did have a lot of confusion. She asked about Grandma Lowry (either her grandmother or mother – I’m not sure which). She was convinced that mom & dad were in a car accident and was relieved when we told her that they were both home and fine. It was sad to see her with such confusion, but she is eating and drinking. Not a lot, but it’s something. Her blood pressure is fairly normal now. They still have the intestinal complaint to deal with, so she has that to contend with. But they’ll do what they can for her. When the folks get home from visiting, we’ll find out of there’s anything new.

After visiting Granny, we headed to the Night Sky Cafe for lunch. Grilled cheese on sourdough with tomato & ham, plus a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup, was my lunch. I bought lunch for the girls too. Then off to Wynan’s for coffee (for the girls) and cocoa (peppermint, for me). A stop in The Bakehouse for a chocolate chip cookie split three ways, and we were done with the downtown. We stopped at Krogers once more to pick up something for the parentals, then back home.

I returned home to form the dried beef cheeseballs I made this morning. One for tonight at Granny’s (even though she won’t be there – alas!), one for tomorrow night when we open presents, and two to take along to elsaf‘s. One for the Doctor Who Viewing Party (where her brother and his g/f will join us to watch The Christmas Invasion!) and the other for when Elsa, judiang and I get together in Chicago.

While typing this up, I got a call from CD Connection- the other CD that I ordered is in, so I should probably go get it before the party tonight. Then I can wrap it tonight so it’ll be ready for tomorrow. Yay! I love Christmas!

Granny, get well!

It’s Beginning to Feel a lot like Christmas

I had so much fun recently rereading my LJ entries during last Christmas season, that I’ve decided to try and get as much stuff about this holiday down so that I can remember it as well as I remember last year’s.

Yesterday was our last day of school before Christmas break. As we’ve done for a number of years, we have Spirit of Giving Day. After students make donations to the Pleasant Hill Food Pantry (canned goods or $1) they can sign up for fun things to do during the school day. There are many activities and in my room, it’s Euchre & Card Games. As I love Euchre & other card games, I love hosting this for the high school kids. The first session was mostly seniors & juniors exchanging presents with each other. That was fun to watch. But the other sessions did have games going on. I played Sequence for the first time (a student brought it and Uno) and liked it. Must get that. Played a game of Uno with a group of sophomore & junior (and one senior) boys that looked as though it would never end. It did, right as the session ended. Watched folks play Phase 10 (which is similar to Shanghai Rum). Played spoons with a large group of sophomore girls (and one boy). Finally got to play some euchre, and finished off with a couple of Sequence games. Fun stuff, even if I usually didn’t win. 🙂

Lunch was Papa John’s pizza in the gym (along with some Chex Mix that the FCCLA made for me). And the day was finished with a Pep Assembly that wasn’t too horrible. Well, except for when the cheerleaders pitted 6 male teachers with 6 female teachers to do Pom Pom letters. The men were to spell out NHS with their pom poms. We women were to spell out RED. I kept explaining this to the other 5 women on our team. And they kept trying to make up some new cheer or other. And ended up with some “classic” called Watermelon. I just stood there looking frustrated (well, a bit of overacting for the audience – but yeah, it did annoy the anal retentive person within me) while they did what they weren’t supposed to, but ended up winning anyhoo. I thought the guys did a good job on their NHS, however. 🙂 One of the lady teachers later said “You know, if we’d been graded on a rubric instead of on style, we’d’ve lost.” Heh.

At 1pm, students were dismissed and it wasn’t long after that that our respective principals let us go too. Six of us teachers had plans for shopping and the early dismissal worked nicely into those plans. (The original plan had been to do this the previous Thursday, but the weather had other plans for us.) We all headed off to the Little Professor book store in Troy. I spent lots of money on my little cousins and got a hunk of my Christmas shopping done. Yay! Then onto a little boutique shop on the way to the square. I didn’t get anything there, but it was fun to look around. Once in downtown Troy we stopped in several shops. In the Amish furniture shop, I got more stuff to finish off everyone except Leo. Yay! The Bake House was also one of our stops, so I got a loaf of sourdough bread (sliced on their bread slicer – the coolest thing since, erm, sliced bread). Oh, and some filled croissants for breakfast. Yay!

We finished off our lovely evening at La Piazza, a nice Italian restaurant also in downtown Troy. The food, as always, was excellent. And the conversation with my 5 co-workers (or cow-orkers- a term I introduced to them much to their amusement) was very lively and funny. I really love the people I work with. There were only six of us who went this time, though we’d originally had more planned to go for the Thursday event. Perhaps we’ll get more together in another trip.

So my last day of work in 2005 was a grand day. Full of fun, friendships, and food. And that’s just the start to the holiday. Amy & Rachel are safely home as of 11:45am today. We’ve already had one family gathering and we’ve got more to come. I think I’ll have as much fun this year as last. 🙂

A Tech Christmas Poem

Tomorrow when my users check their e-mails, they’ll see this poem.

A Poem for Christmas by Trina, aged 34

‘Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the school
Several computers were on
And that wasn’t cool.

The computer techs were nestled
All snug in their beds
While visions of Open Source Software
Danced in their heads.

When out in the night sky
There arose such a blast
‘Twas thunder & lightning
Neither of which were forecast

The computers went down
The servers shut too
And several network hubs
All went “boo hoo!”

Some computers when down
Will never wake up
And this costs us moolah
Which we never have enough*

So the moral of this poem
If it isn’t obvious to you
Turn off your computers
Oh, and Merry Christmas, too!

*Yeah yeah, not the world’s greatest rhyme. So sue me!