I made something really yummy

a few weeks ago I was reading my friend's blog and she was talking about this recipe she tried and her husband loved so much that he had to take a picture of her plate of supper. she posted the recipe and I had to save a copy, as I am always on the look out for new and wonderful recipes.

I posted the recipe on the recipe blog that I contribute to occasionally and kept it in mind for when I could budget for it.

Tonight I cooked it.

this old broken record

Winter has it's beauty but it is so very difficult to see, especially when freezing wind and snow is blowing in your face.
that's why I love Summer and those first three weeks of Fall - the most wonderful time of the year. as long as you have a light breeze to keep the mosquitoes away you can soak in the beauty of nature at your leisure.
Oh, how I crave succulent green plants and delicate blossoms ~ charming little bees and real ladybugs ~ warm, moist air and soft skin on my hands ~ the smells of trees and freshly cut grass and dirt. How I long for my part of the world to come back to life.

who'd have thought

this year, in school, Timothy started playing Tim's old trombone. he got chapped lips almost as soon as he started playing it and I just thought that he has chapped lips.
today I got an email from his band teacher and she suggested that he is allergic to the metal of the mouthpiece.

WHY didn't I think of that??? It makes perfect sense, but he never wears any jewelry so metal has never been an issue for him. Erica is allergic ~ at least sensitive ~ to nickle and I figured that out when she was little and used to wear a necklace. she got a rash only where the chain touched her skin, so easily figured out.

Now Timothy has had a bright red rash around his lips for the last 3 months and it never dawned on me before. I feel so bad!

but there is hope for band yet - a plastic mouthpiece. Timothy says he still wants to play and this is a terrific solution. Next week we will get one for him.

now that makes one more on the list of Timothy's allergies. nothing life threatening - thank goodness - but irritating.

I'll be glad to see his face again. I'm sure he will be glad to have his face feel better and have us stop telling him to quit licking his lips

and now we wait

I filed our taxes this morning. I had worked on them here and there for the last week but was not able to file them until the site I used updated a particular form.
So now they have been sent and I anxiously await my email letting me know that they have been accepted and then we will be expecting our refund very shortly after.

I was kind of stressing out about getting them done. I don't really know why, but it really was bothering me that I was going to do it all wrong. But the program I used assured me that it was correct. Now that's a weight off my shoulders.

geography

My Erica is a very smart girl. sometimes she doesn't try too hard to prove it but I know better than her lack of action would imply. (she knows it too, but she's overly modest about it and gets embarrassed when it is brought up)

Today she is taking part in a contest. she is one of the few kids in her grade (and the school) who qualified to take part in the Geography Bee. I had never heard of a geography bee before until she came home a few weeks ago and told me that although she did answer a few of the questions incorrectly on the test she passed with a high enough grade to be in the contest.
I'm not sure yet if I will be able to make it to see her; I don't know who to ask to baby sit the boys.
If you happen to read this before 12:30 central time today, wish her luck.


update:

She tied with a few others in 3rd. She finished in the top ten (but I don't think she was tenth). I think 3rd place is pretty respectable. I would have failed miserably - I'm only sure about most of the towns around me to a radius of about 25 miles and after that I am lost without a map.
but to do it all in your head; impressive.
I am very proud of her.

wonderful jam

when my dad and his wife moved into their permanent home last spring, their home came complete with a gigantic raspberry thicket. my jealousy ran wild!
but in their kindness they took pity on those of us who do not have such a treasure and they made jam ~ lots and lots of wonderful jam ~ for Christmas presents. Our family, alone, graciously received 7 pretty little jars of the precious preserves and I have greedily saved it until saturday night. I opened a very small jar and the kids gobbled it right up! then they begged for another jar. I made more bread (not great, but made from yeast and flour so I will call it bread) and they are half way through the next jar. at this rate it will be gone in a matter of a week and then we must wait for next christmas and hope that Leonnie will again give us jam.

I have instructed the children that they must repeatedly thank grandma for the jam and we will give her the cute jars back so that she will have something to put more jam into so that she may give us more jam.

nummmy

our saturday of woe

kind of the short version
with the weather being so nasty on Friday I decided that it would be a poor idea to go shopping with the weather that bad, so we stayed home on Friday and I let Tim sleep until he woke up after 3:00... I figured he had the right. it was going to be the last time he would get to sleep like that.
Saturday rolled around and children being what they are (ravenous monsters) had gone through all of the milk we had in the house and I needed a couple of things to fix supper as well. Tim and I were going to run quickly to the little store across our highway (only a two block distance from us) and because of the wind that had been blowing all day long mingled with the fact that our town didn't plow our road, there was an enormous drift across our street. our neighbor has a very big truck and he had gone through before and we had hoped that we could stay in his tracks and make it through.

we got stuck.

we did manage to get backed up and Tim tried shoveling the drift enough for us to get out, but he froze his lungs for naught and we were stuck for good.
I had tried some pushing while Tim tried driving through and I tried some shoveling and deicer and I then hurt my wrist ~ not a break... more like a sprain ~ so I have had to do things gingerly with it.
I'm sure Tim wondered what the heck I was doing since I didn't tell him I where I was going until I got back, but I turned around and knocked on our neighbor's door. He and his son have lived next door since the first week in September and we never have introduced ourselves. I am ashamed to say (but will admit) that I'm a poor neighbor.
I figured that with us stuck in the middle of the road he wouldn't be able to leave and his son wouldn't be able to come home, so I asked if he could nudge us out with his great big truck. He happily came and helped us. We were freed after about an hour and a half after we left for the store.

Sunday we stayed home. Tim was still not feeling up to par with his lungs and my wrist hurt and I was feeling vexed and we were cold.

after all of that I have decided that I need to be a better neighbor.

a long time ago in a town not far away

this morning I checked my email and found this from my sister. she apparently read my blog and sent me a scan of the picture I had mentioned the other day.

the end (of sorts)

tonight is Tim's last night at work.
Tim is usually the last one in the building and he makes sure that everything is shut down and the lights are off before he leaves. most likely he will be the last one in the building tonight.
what a sad night it is for him and I must admit that I am feeling a little emotional for him right now (as I have for the last 10ish days). His job isn't something that is saving lives or making peace in the world, but it has been an big part of his life for many years. He has spent almost his entire adult life working in that building. in many ways that place is his, and though he is still working there, he is losing an important part of his life. it's almost like experiencing a death.
none of my words will ever do justice to the way he is feeling and I'm not sure if he would be able to adequately describe his feelings about all of this either.

I'm just sad for my husband. I wish I could fix everything - I don't like being so helpless.

snow day

yesterday the kids had a snow day from school. I didn't realize that the snow was as bad as it was until I had sent the kids out the door to wait for the bus. I usually get an email notifying me of school cancellations or delays but for what ever reason, it didn't get to me until the kids were already out the door and down the road. So I quickly grabbed my jeans and threw on my shoes without socks and went to retrieve them.

it was my favorite kind of snow - thick, falling slow and gently because there was no wind. it was so still that the snow made almost a hissing sound as it fell through the trees. I don't like cold, but I love fresh snow.

continuing on a Ronan theme

when I was little (probably only one, like Ronan) I used to climb through the kitchen cabinets. There is a picture somewhere of me poking my head out the cabinet door in a somewhat similar fashion as this.

picture I meant to post before

I was just looking through my pictures that I had compressed and shrunk to post on the blog when I came across this one of Ronan. I had intended to put it in with the Christmas pictures but for some reason (I can't imagine why) I forgot to upload it with the rest.

I just think it's so cute. He was saying 'cheese', sort of... it was more like 'cheeeeeee'

what a ham

Birthday Birthday!

Yesterday was a special day but it was a busy one so pictures didn't get put up. It was Connor's birthday! Hooray!

This was four years ago. Time flies. look how tiny he was. that little head compared to my hand. But he wasn't a tiny baby - he was 8 lbs 11 oz. (not my biggest baby, but not my smallest either)

in the morning before church he did allow me to take his picture, though he was grumpy and tired. He's so big.
as soon as we got home from church he was out of his clothes and put on his footy pajamas. he loves them so we let him wear them since it was his birthday.
we had pizza and pop for supper because he is four and that is his favorite.
Then we waited for Gramma and Grampa to get to our house. Connor was about to burst he was so impatient. He wanted cake and he wanted it now. But he survived the wait. Then my sister came over to wish him a happy birthday and she brought presents too. so he was kept occupied with them until we were all ready for cake and ice cream.

then it was time to get down to business. he had the same cake and frosting as he did last year and I didn't realize that until I was scattering the sprinkles on the cake.

But there's more than just Connor's birthday that makes the day great, it is also Gramma's birthday. for the last four years she has come over for Connor's day and I was thinking that she should have a cake too, because we couldn't figure out what kind of present to get her.

so we made gramma a cake, too. she got to have some candles and Ronan helped blow out the candles for gramma. (she had one boyfriend)

because he is such a grown up, Conn wanted to cut the cake all by himself. he did a great job. yes, we all love to have perfectly symetrical cake, but he did a wonderful job for his first birthday cake cutting job. even now at the ripe old age of 34, I still cut crooked sometimes. so he's right up there with the best of us.
the corner in the top where the sprinkles are missing is where Ronan helped himself to some frosting.

I don't know how late he stayed up, I went to bed around 9:30 or 10:00. Daddy was awake and so Connor stayed up playing his new DS game and wearing his new head light. this morning I found him curled up on the couch with his head light and his DS.
it was a good birthday

the economy's effect on us

for the last couple of months at Tim's work they have been putting into effect a couple of different strategies to save them money. it started with a wage freeze across the corporation and then they let the temp people go. they planned to cut hours down to a 36 hour work week, but that was not enough, it seems. the other day Tim got the bad news that they are closing his shift. several people lost their jobs and the rest of the people on Tim's shift are being moved into jobs on the day shift.

Tim is still working.

it has been bothering him quite a lot. I can understand how he feels. he is loosing his shift differential and the bit extra he was getting for doing not only his job but his supervisor's job while he has been on leave for the last 10 months. so that way we are going to have to figure out how to stretch our budget better than we have been for a while. but we have lived on that before so we'll be alright. but the list goes on why he's been angry. He's getting a short end of the stick and so are quite a few others, but for the most part the day shift people remain unaffected.

We didn't say anything to anyone right away because we just didn't want anyone to worry about it.

on one hand I am angry right along side Tim. I know how much he has put into that company and I wish they would have offered him something higher up the ladder than they did, but I'm grateful that he still has a job, especially when some of the people that were let go have been working for the corporation longer than Tim has. I'm glad that because he will be working in the day time we will have more opportunities for a more "normal" family life. but I know how hard this is going to be on him physically since he has been on nights for 15 years. So maybe that kind of disruption in his schedule and what has been normal for our family from the beginning just wont be worth it, but I guess we have no choice but to see how it goes.

Tim and I have been saying it for years now that we will have to start doing more in terms of exercise to get healthier. maybe this will allow us the time to get out and do some of that.

the coolest sight ever

Mere moments ago in our yard. I wonder what the odds are; I just looked out the window just in time to see this wonderful bird fly across our yard and into our tree. I scrambled to get my zoom lens on my camera all the while checking to make sure he hadn't flown away and was very fortunate to get relatively decent pictures.

isn't he beautiful?

I'm still trying to decide what he is. He more closely resembled a Nothern Harrier according to my "Birds of Minnesota" book, but I don't think that it is a Harrier since they are supposed to be gone in the winter time.

This looks like a job for Tim's aunt or my brother in law.

addition: upon further investigation I am fairly sure it is a Harrier. My sister and I were talking and she says that they have Harriers that hang around in the winter down by their marsh. So I am fairly sure that is what he is.

thinking summer

now that it is January, we have had quite enough of the below zero temperatures so I have pictures of summer on my desktop and I thought I would share..



there's simply nothing better than a field of tall grass and dandelions. I love them. I really don't understand why so many people don't like dandelions, they are so cheerful!

a late christmas present for me

I really don't like my kitchen. it is small and nearly useless. Tim bought a work table for the kitchen and it pretty much doubles my counter space and will make cooking a lot easier.

before

after

finally some christmas pictures

I don't have a lot of pictures of Christmas and even fewer 'good' ones. I can't apologize for that because if I spend the whole day taking pictures of the day I miss out on the day.