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.

We're back

From North Carolina! Yes, we were total panzes and spent Thanksgiving by the beach. It was great. And I'm tired and cold... mur... it was sooo nice and sunny there. :)

Blessings.

Quiet week

I wished. :) Somehow this not very busy week got really busy, really fast.

We went to Dale and Meg's house for potluck on Monday night... except that none of the other couples could make it, so it was us and Kevin and Tim. Which was a pretty good alternative. :) I enjoyed it. And Meg made some yummy soup and bread pudding for dessert. So good.

Tuesday felt like a crazy day. Somehow we ended up with two copies of the latest RJ book so I returned one after work, and then dropped off all of our Christmas Shoe Boxes. Then, since there's a Kroger right next to Berean I got groceries there. I didn't know where anything was though, so it almost would have been faster just to go back to Morton... o well. It gets dark soooo early and I don't like it! It felt so late when I finally got home. We ate supper really fast and then went to Bob's double great- aunt Nancy's visitation. There was a long line and I am not a fan of visitations and funerals.... long day.

I got up and made a cake for a coworker this morning; then we went to the funeral, which was a blessing, and went straight home after the service. I made it to work by noon so I only missed half the day. woot woot. After work I went to my parent's... in time to grab a sandwich and change to go with them to my great uncle John's visitation. He's the last of my grandpa's siblings... kind of weird that there's nobody left in that generation. He had been at the home with Alzheimer's for a few years... Shelly probably knew him better than all of us. It was good to see his kids (and grandkids) again in person instead of just their Christmas cards. Yeah... some of them even live in t-town and I never see them. :)

Tonight I feel pretty wiped out. I think I will sleep really well.
Blessings.

computer

Well... we had a nice quiet weekend. We hopefully raked leaves for the last time and were pretty lazy otherwise. And now this week is shaping up to be kind of crazy. Woot woot. Much to do and food to make and not much time to do it.

And since nothing exciting happened and Bob refuses to guest blog..... this is Bob's computer while he was busy building it. He's so smart... it would have taken me days to figure all the diagrams out and he barely even had to look at them.


It took over the room for a few days... you can see Bonsai-san in the corner and my poor sewing machine with wiring diagrams on it.

If you look in the middle of the motherboard, I put in the CPU. It's the goldish square thingy. I was terrified that I would break it to bits. But I didn't, and his computer runs just fine.

We raced it against my lappy... shutdown to full start up... his took 30 seconds, my poor lappy was still trying to turn off. Maybe it is time for an upgrade. :)

Blessings.

Veteran's day

I'm grateful.

And I had the day off, which I love! I had big plans to get all kinds of stuff done... I got some of it done. :) I was going to re-caulk around the tub, since it has been crumbling away every time I scrub the floor, and try some cleaning stuff on the mildewy grout... in the process of pre-cleaning everything some tile gave way. Aaaahhh... minor freak out... Bob was in a meeting, so after a trip to Menards and a slightly panicked phone call to the farm for advice I got the hole patched up and hopefully watertight. eesh. I am never ever ever putting tile in a bathroom. I don't care if it is prettier.

The rest of the afternoon I made some cookie dough and relaxed.

OOOOOoooo, AND, there's going to be another 709-Shaker wedding! BJ and Gab got engaged! (finally, haha, Gab you're the one who used to remind me that it was 'yes' or 'no'....) Yay! I'm so excited for them. Close to squealing excited, actually. It just makes me smile a lot.

It's really hard to go back to work on a Friday when you didn't have to work Thursday. Ugh.
Blessings.

Slime and the DMV

Haha, not necessarily together. :D

Monday night I went and talked at the 4-H club meeting... it was really fun, once it was over and I stopped being nervous. Seriously, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders are scary. And some of their parents were there. *grin* Poor Bob, he tried to calm me down... There were a few kids who were doing their demos, so I got to watch them and learned all about making pudgy pies, knitting, making a picture frame, and making cocoa mix. Then it was my turn. Yikes. I talked about the lab a little bit, and about single molecules and polymers and I'm pretty sure I kept talking faster and faster and faster. And then I put on my lab coat and goggles (completely unnecessary, but they make me look smart) and made slime for them. Which I think they liked, the boys kept calling it 'snot'. So lovely. I like playing with the leftovers.

My sort of not stoned drivers license picture is no more... I went to go get it renewed and not only did they make me take the test, they made me take a new picture. While I was there I saw all sorts of people, plus a little dog that was hanging out with the mother of a 16 year old while he took the car on the road test. Inside. um.. ok. And I didn't get lost, which is always a good thing.

So... while I was writing this we had to evacuate the building. woot woot. And spent an hour outside in the beautiful weather while they figured out why the alarm had gone off. And tomorrow is a federal holiday. I love my job.

Blessings.

There are things that I like about fall and winter... the darkness is not one of them. Anyway.

We had a good weekend. Saturday Bob and I raked up some more leaves... woot woot. There's still some on the trees so we'll probably have to do them again. O well. I don't mind a little hard work. We spent the afternoon listening to Trans Siberian Orchestra... it was cool, but very loud and much flashing lights. Bob really liked it; I liked it, but I think I'd rather listen to a CD and not have all the lights and high decibels. My head started to hurt a little bit later while we were eating at Monical's.

Sunday we went to W-ton for a change. It was good to be there... although hearing about how we "never" come gets really old really fast. Such is life I guess, but it doesn't make me all that anxious to visit. I know, I know, it's a bad attitude... but it makes me wonder if they actually like seeing me or just like scolding me. Anyway. And then we went to my parent's to check out the new carpet and for Sunday afternoon snack, which I love. :D

I'm doing a presentation for the 4-H club tonight... I'm kind of nervous.
Blessings.

Friday

I love Fridays. And Thursdays for whatever reason.

And Christmas. However, I refuse to listen to Christmas music or decorate before December 1st. I'm all about living in the moment, or something like that, since I maybe have already sent my family my birthday list and our Christmas lists. There are only 42 shopping days left.... haha. And I've started my list of ideas of what to get people. Hooray! I love Christmas shopping.

So I was browsing around amazon last night looking for cool possible gift ideas.... and as much as it hurts to admit it, I bought myself a ceramic pilgrim couple. I like it. Me, who always said my mom's were cheesy. I will now sit here sheepishly and contemplate the fact that I ordered pilgrims. :)

Oh, and my little sister has a blog. Go check out her pictures of taking piglets to the south side daycare she volunteers at... mkwyss.blogspot.com

We Voted!

Huzzah!

Bob made me wait until after work so we could go together... I suggested we take a camera... he looked at me funny. :)

And then I got to wear two "I voted" stickers for the rest of the night.

Can Chicago just secede already?

a series of unfortunate events...

Ok, so the weekend wasn't quite that dramatic. :) It felt like it a few times, though. Thursday evening, we had one couple call to cancel because of a funeral so I tried to call a few people who we don't know very well, or don't see very often, or who don't have kids that they would need to get a last minute babysitter for... yeah, they were all busy. Which is ok, we'll just have rotating potluck with 8 people... and I'll quick come up with a vegetable. (I was already making meat and rice.) And then one couple called to say they had sick kids so we were down to 7 people. Aahh. It ended up being a really fun evening so all was well.

Bob accused me of wanting to host so I have an excuse to buy flowers. He might be partly right. *grin* What can I say? Fall flowers just look so pretty! I did change the water... some of that fall color must be fake!



Saturday morning Bob got up early and went to help on a ACWR roofing project... and I slept... hehe. Actually, I got up before 8 (shocking, I know) and raked leaves. I filled the truck bed twice and there are still a bunch on the trees.

That afternoon I went and watched Derek and Leann's kids for a few hours. I was reminded why I never babysat... It was ok, we played play dough and played in the yard.

I got to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters Saturday night. The swat team told me to "drop the candy and nobody gets hurt." Other than a kid in a costume from Avatar, there weren't very many creative ones this year. And we were down to four pieces of candy so I turned off the light early. Maybe we shouldn't have opened them before Halloween.... hehe.

Grandpa and Grandma Beutel are letting me keep their beautiful geranium in our sun room until it dies... it looks so healthy next to my poor plants that I didn't bring in soon enough.

Sunday was pretty quiet... except Bob decided he was really hungry for Chinese for supper. I'm not overly fond of Chinese, but Oriental Palace in Pekin has Thai and Japanese food too. So we went there and got excellent service because we were the only customers in the whole place. Which is really kind of weird, but it was fun and the food was good (and fresh).

Blessings.

This week...

Has been pretty quiet. Other than spending time with Sharon & girls, and avoiding getting ready for potluck we haven't had much going on. :)

Although, Sunday night we braved the storm and went to Steak and Shake for milkshakes. And a Frisco melt. After we ate supper. *grin* This is why I must exercise.

Our leaves need raking badly and it's too dark to see when we get home from work. I was hoping the wind would take care of them... no such luck. At least this year they're dry and crumbly and not heavy and wet like last year.

My car is in the shop today getting an oil change and hopefully getting the annoying whine fixed. Hooray for high mileage cars! I'm just thankful my parents taught me to pay cash for old cars... I'll never spend as much repairing it as I would have spent to buy a brand new car (no debt either!). So I'm driving Bob's Dad's truck. Woot. I like trucks. It makes me miss my Dad's green chevy pickup. That thing was amazing.

Blessings.

Whole Egg Country

So I was cleaning out some old files on my lappy... we had a big project in High School to research our family trees and learn about our heritages... this was part of my project. Frederika was my great-great-grandma, and Kari was my great-grandma who raised 14 children and lived on a dairy farm in Lester, Iowa.

Frederika Knoblock woke up to the smell of eggs frying that morning. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Then it all began to come back: the months of planning and packing, and the tearful good-byes when the day finally came to board the ship for America. She had been reluctant to leave Germany, even though her husband Wilhelm could hardly keep enough food on the table. She had been an expert at making food stretch as far as possible to keep her seven children fed. They even had to share their breakfast eggs because farming had gotten so bad.

Wilhelm jumped at the chance when her brother, who was already in the United States, offered to sponsor them so they could start over in America. Her brother bought 80 acres and it was waiting for them in Iowa. They had left early in 1889 to start their new life. The thirteen days on the boat had been crowded and cramped and there weren’t enough beds for their entire family. Her darling two-year old Karoline had slept in the top of a trunk on the way over. She looked over to the bed on the floor where little Kari was still sleeping peacefully. She hoped that she would have a better life here.

All too soon it was time to get up for breakfast. She woke her children and they all went down to the table. She couldn’t believe all the fresh food. She began to help her sister-in-law dish out the food. Out of habit she cut several eggs in half for her children. Her brother couldn’t believe what she was doing. He told her to give every one of her children a whole egg, even little Kari, because “America is a whole egg country!” Frederika could hardly believe it. A whole egg for everyone in the family! There would be no need for her food stretching skills here. What a story she would tell to the people back home and to her grandchildren and maybe their grandchildren would hear it too.