Twas the night before Christmas

And I'm making stuffed mushrooms. Hooray! Have I mentioned that I love Christmas?

My mom hosted the Schlipf Christmas on Tuesday... all 12 of us. :) My uncle from California and his family don't come so it's pretty small. But we have good food- potato soup and chili and all sorts of relishes. And many different ice cream flavors (in honor of Grandma) and cookies. So good. We read the Christmas story and opened presents and Christina sang a song for us. She said we needed to clap, and then she'd come around and shake our hands. Funny girl. Jakey got a quartet book... and Renee wanted to hear some quartet music... we all tried... Shelly and I have issues with sight reading quartet music... it was quite interesting. After Steve's went home mom played the piano and we crashed through the hallelujah chorus. Good times.

Speaking of the hallelujah chorus, I maybe have committed musical sacrilege... I got a copy cheap on amazon and ripped it up to make this... I really like it...

I did this to "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." Bob thought I'd gone crazy... ripping up a book... hehe. I think they're cute. :)

So I told Bob that when 1000 people downloaded his mod I'd bake him a cake. Um... yeah, it's December and we've got cookies and candy and no time for baking cakes. But... I did have one layer of a chocolate cake in the freezer (I don't have any idea why) that I frosted with real butter cream for him. It says '1123!' because that's how many downloads he had. *grin* And those are my beautiful birthday flowers in the background.

The wise men are coming.

And the presents are wrapped and under the tree!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Blessings.

Older

I love birthdays... it's probably mostly just a reaction to the fact that my birthday is a week before Christmas and tends to be just one more thing that happens in December... but I still like my birthday. It's also pretty great to get a break from the cookies and eat cake! Too much cake and butter cream icing. Bliss.

Bob brought me flowers Thursday night (so I could enjoy them when I woke up on my birthday- aawwww), they're really pretty and wintry. Grandpa and Grandma Koch asked us to come help them clean their basement and get it decorated for Christmas... I frosted cupcakes for work and was up waaay too late. Did I mention I woke up with a sore throat... ugh, I did this last year too, pushing myself to the very edge of health. hooray for tylenol.

So Friday we had cupcakes in the morning at work, and then my coworkers took me to One World for lunch... and then there was Chocolate Candy Cane cake in the afternoon. :D I like my job and my coworkers. Bob and I went to Sol Azteca for supper and then stopped by the farm for a little bit- and to open presents! yay! I got sharp things from my parents. Haha... pinking shears, paring knives, and a book. Bob gave me some cool books too that I can't wait to read. It was a good day.

Saturday I had a fever.... a low one... woot... so I didn't do much. Which is good because I felt much better Sunday. After church I made rosemary rolls for the Beutel Christmas. They're so amazing and buttery... Bob doesn't like the rosemary leaves because they're 'sharp'... haha. We were there for supper and the evening. I finally got to deliver some not burned springerli to Grandpa. *grin* One down, four to go. woot.

Blessings.

What I'm good at-

Making a mess in my kitchen. So I was going to go to Champaign last night, but Bob couldn't come with me and I wasn't sure if it would be smart to go alone when it's so cold out... and I had a ton of food to make.... and yeah. I was looking forward to it. Mur. O well, such is life.

I spent most of the evening in the kitchen instead. woot. The anise oil that I ordered a week and a half ago and paid extra for faster shipping (ha!) finally came so I made another batch of springerli dough. And I made supper... and started making creamed corn for our work party (which I was in charge of)... and made cupcakes to take to work on my birthday (yes, we still do birthday treats). I think I finally got done around 9ish. ugh. I like cooking and baking, but it's really hard to keep track of which ingredients go in what when there's so many things going on at once. I just know I left something important out...

Our CRIS (don't ask me what that stands for, I have no idea... gov't-ese) was in charge of our group Christmas potluck. There are two PhD's, two techs, two temps, and one student... They're either male or on vacation, which means me. Not that big of a deal, since planning a potluck for 30 people isn't anywhere near as hard or labor intensive as planning a yg invite or something... haha. It went pretty well, there was plenty of good food and people enjoyed themselves. And one of my Chinese co-workers brought spring rolls. Homemade spring rolls. So good. All of my Indian co-workers work elsewhere this year... so no curry or dumplings, which is sad.

Blessings.

Here we come a-caroling

We kept busy this weekend in spite of the snow...

Friday night was adult caroling at church. We went to Timber Ridge to sing. I don't think I've ever caroled there before; maybe I have and just don't remember. This year I ate a granola bar before so I wasn't starved by the time we got done. Our group was small so we didn't try any of my favorites- not sure why I like the hard ones that no one else likes to sing. And we only sang one H.B. song.... thankfully. It was a good time.

My only real plan for Saturday was to sleep in. And I did. It was glorious. And then I got up and cleaned. And caulked some spots in the bathroom that have been bugging me, and touched up the baseboard paint.... I was happy as a clam... or maybe that was just the paint fumes. Speaking of happy, The Happy Man used to bring us out a loaf of some kind of eastern European bread with his Christmas card... we referred to it as "Lukovitch bread." Mom got me the recipe and I tried it out. It's very walnutty. And it made a lot. And it only used egg yolks, so if anybody has any ideas for what to make with 10 egg whites I'll take suggestions.

We braved the storm and went to the big Koch Christmas Saturday night. And then Sunday we barely made it to church... haha... ok, one thing that's nice about living in town is how easy it is to get to church on a snowy, slippery, Sunday morning. They moved the program to the afternoon service which I was kind of glad for... if only because I didn't really want to go home and come back again. *grin*

And then we holed up in our warm house and I read "American Bungalow" and "Arts and Crafts" (my magazine splurge at Barnes and Noble) by the Christmas tree, with a plate of spritz and some Dr. Pepper. And we had homemade pizza for supper. So good.

I was hoping for a snow day today... sigh... but it was bright and clear and cold this morning.
Blessings.

Deck the hall...

I've decided that the longer you clean a house, the more you see its flaws... but, as much as I wouldn't mind a garage, dishwasher, and heated laundry room, I really am content in our cozy little duplex. :) Especially when it's decked out for Christmas!



I love our Christmas tree... these little sparkly metal birds are my favorite ornaments. They were on my grandparent's tree for as long as I can remember.

Bonsai San is festive in his corner. Haha.

Our nativity scene....

The wise men are still in the east. About 5 ft to the east. On the shelf by my copy of Ben Hur, which I found rather fitting. :)

And my lantern... with holly leaves. Someday I'm going to plant a holly bush.

Blessings.

My Christmas List

The probably-not-going-to-happen version:

A garage (it's cooooold)

A dishwasher (I'm lazy)

A more indoor laundry room (thank goodness for long underwear!)

The perfect mix of 4-square and craftsman house in the country to come up for sale (pretty sure it doesn't exist, I can dream though)

Haha... I'm sensing a trend....

Anyway. I don't have all my shopping done yet. I think I know what we're getting everybody though, and some stuff is ordered and should be coming soon. Apparently it was too cold on Saturday for our mail carrier... we got an email saying that 'delivery was attempted' for something I ordered. Um... we were home when the mail came, and then it was sitting at the door when I got home from work on Monday, so I'm not sure why they couldn't leave it Saturday morning?

Bob had a late meeting on Monday so I was a panz and went to my parents for supper... I needed to eat Shelly's point-outs. And help Mom string lights on their pretty tree. She picked a really good one this year! hehe. Then I went home and got our Christmas card ready for mailing by our pretty tree. I love Christmas.

Blessings.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Yay! We had a busy weekend at home.... I got lots of stuff done, which is good, because there's plenty more to do. :)

Friday night I made Springerli, or at least attempted to. The dough was a lot stiffer than it usually is and I barely needed any flour to roll it out. They have to sit overnight before baking at 325... which in my Saturday-morning-still-tired state looks like 375... oops. I've decided to blame it on the circuits. They were up on Saturday. Haha-thank you Harriet. The top rack got a little goldenish, but they still taste ok. Hopefully I'll find some more anise oil and I can make another batch sometime.

We went and got our Christmas tree on Saturday! It turned into a little bit more of a process than I was expecting. We decided to get a tree at Talbott Tree farm- they were cheap, which is good, but they don't drill the trunks for you. Um. Sooo... we stopped and borrowed a drill bit from Bob's parents and then had to wait while our drill recharged to use it. It's kind of hard to get it drilled straight... and we didn't... but, years and years of making real trees appear like they are standing up straight stood me in good stead. Hehe. It looks lovely and smells good and I like it a lot.

I froze cookie dough a few weeks ago so I wouldn't be super stressed and I baked up a bunch of Christmas cookies. We decorated them on Sunday. Well, Bob made it through about 6 cookies and he was done.... haha. I enjoy it, but by the time I got to the last of them it was getting late and I was very tired. And I tasted a few to many rejects- waaay too much frosting. :)

Funny story- we went over to Bob's Grandparent's house after church on Sunday. They had some stuff in the garage that they are trying to get rid of and they wanted everyone to 'see if we needed anything.' So we looked at that, and then as we were leaving Grandma came out with a box of stuff that I think was going to be a shower gift or something, there were a bunch of new dish towels and an old table cloth in it. The tablecloth was hand stitched by one of her aunts for a wedding gift, and so uncle Dave was trying to write the whole story that went along with it down for us... it took about 10 minutes and everybody was trying to explain... when I got home I found a note in the box with everything all written out already. At least if I lose one note, we'll still have the other and we won't forget where the tablecloth came from!

Blessings.

Southern(ish) Adventures

So... yeah, nothing like being crazy busy the week before vacation. We survived and managed to get packed and leave without forgetting too much. Saturday we drove most of the day and spent the night in Asheville, NC. It gets dark way to early for road trips- we missed seeing most of eastern Kentucky and the mountains around Asheville.

Sunday morning we slept in and listened to T-town's morning service online... hooray for live streaming audio and free wi-fi. Then we went to Biltmore for the afternoon. It was decorated for Christmas already so, besides being architecturally amazing and enormous, it was pretty fabulous. We toured the house and then spent some time checking out the conservatory, the formal gardens, and taking in the view. This is the bass pond...

The weather was perfect... I loved it. The estate is huge, so we drove around for a while and stopped in at the winery... they have a gift shop with "Biltmore" food and wine and lots of free samples. We were getting hungry so we maybe had more than one pretzel with cheese dip and tiny cup of raspberry lemonade. They're an hour ahead... I was hungry all week. :) We maybe ate a lot of pizza for supper.

Bob spent three months in Cary, NC for work (2.5 years ago...crazy!) and so we stopped on our way to the coast. We checked out two museums in downtown Raleigh Monday afternoon, the Museum of Natural Sciences and NC History. I love museums... Bob had already been there before so it wasn't quite as exciting for him. We had fun trying to find all the animals on display. I didn't like the spiders or the snakes. Ugh. They're just so creepy.

Tuesday morning we went to the CAT visitor center to visit his old coworkers. They let us have some Dr. Pepper and we got to drive skidsteers around. It was fun...

I think Bob would go back... and then we drove to the coast. I had to document our second ever rest area picnic. *grin* Here's to many more.

We stopped in Wilmington and toured the Bellamy mansion, a big old civil war house that's being restored. They don't have tons of furniture or decorations in it, so they gave us mp3 players and pretty much let us go where ever in the house. Which was awesome. Even on the porches and up in the attic- so cool.

Bob letting me in the front door... I was definitely more interested than he was...

Then we headed down the coast to Carolina Beach...

So, we found this great condo on VRBO... and I maybe picked it just because of how it was decorated... haha... they were all about the same price so I figured if we're spending money renting a condo, I want to stay in a cool condo. It's also the off season so we were pretty much the only people in town... so great. We didn't do a whole lot. We walked along the beach some, I sat outside and read a little bit, basically just relaxed.

It was nice to have a kitchen... I get so sick of eating out... we did go out for seafood one night. We ate at the place that got grand champion for their seafood chowder this year. I tried it. It was amazing. We were pretty much bums all day Thanksgiving, we got a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store and had stuffing and gravy from mixes. I did make real mashed potatoes. We had plenty of Thanksgiving food, even though it wasn't as good as homemade.

Our last day there was a little disappointing, it was 75 in the morning, and then it got cold and rainy for the rest of the day and we didn't get to go hiking. We did go find a post office and wandered through a cheap souvenir store. We didn't buy anything.

So then Saturday we packed up and left around 7:30 IL time... and drove... and drove... we got to see the Blue Ridge mountains, and stopped for lunch in Bland, Virginia. We safely made it through West Virginia (stinking horror movie I watched in HS has ruined that state forever) and it was dark by the time we got to Kentucky. Again. Bob drove for 14hrs because I can't drive his car... he was tired, I was tired, we still had hours to go and it made me really nervous so we ended up spending the night in Indiana. Probably a good thing, but at that point I really really wanted my own bed and pillow and I did not want to stay at another motel and eat continental breakfast again... aah. Anyway. So we got up Sunday morning and, thanks to gaining an hour with the time change, we made it back home in time to change clothes and get to Church for Dale's baptism.

Good times. Blessings.

500

So, if Blogger is right, this is my 500th post. Crazy. Sorry, it's not going to be very exciting. :D

It's Wednesday already... and I still feel like I haven't quite caught up from vacation yet, and I have plenty of stuff to do before Christmas.

My Birthday is in 17 days. Hooray!

Last night Dang came over for supper, and then I left them to do their guy things and went to Amy's new apartment with the Washington girls. We played Balderdash, which is really fun, but I came in dead last. It's always fun to see them, especially since Erin is moving to NC soon... I'm excited for her, Tim will be done with his current tour of duty (I think) so they'll finally get to be married and live in the same place. Good times and much laughing.

Blessings.