Christmas 2018

A Christmas Tea party with appetizers that were too much work

We are getting ready for Christmas. There are pounds of sugar all over the house, or at least it feels that way. I never had to give things to extended family until I got married, and then our first Christmas married it was a shock to discover that not only would we see John's extended family, but would need to give them gifts as well. It's hard to know what to give someone you may only see two or three times in a year, so this year we're doing baked goods. Tasty, consumable, most people can eat them and have fun doing so.

We are endeavoring to do advent with Baby M by opening a door on the paper Bible-verse advent calendar and singing one carol every evening. She's enjoying it, on the evenings she's not already too tired. We're enjoying it too. It's a little more interactive than a Bible chapter and a little shorter too. Simple is good these days. Naps are good; school is out, and that's good. One semester until we're done here, that's good too. Merry Christmas!

Baby M insists that we light the candles during dinner every night

Valentine's Day Approaches

It's hard to appreciate Valentines' Day hype when you're single, and honestly, the whole commercial thing plus facebook significant-other gushing is pretty tasteless and annoying. But it is good to have traditions. The last two years I think what we did for Valentine's dinner was order pizza... which is really pretty special.

One for sure tradition: Adventures in Odyssey! I have fond memories of listening to all the history episodes- Columbus day, St. Patrick's day, Valentines' day- and I want to play them for the appropriate holidays. The episodes about St. Valentine is called The Last "I do":
http://media.focusonthefamily.com/aio/mp3/AIO_562_The_Last_I_Do.mp3

But commercialism aside, any excuse to do something special- now that I finally have a husband- is welcome. Lacking a babysitter, we're looking forward to a nice dinner at home after Baby M goes to sleep. Shrimp. Soup. Fresh bread. Gelato. Yum.

Good Stuffs

I don't get to reenact anymore; while I would still love to, there are several impediments:

One, it's really hot here for most of the year.
Two, last year I was sick and pregnant.
Three, now I have a baby and it's so not worth it to skip her naps.
Four, the earliest you can conceivably enact for this area is 1840. Which I could do, but don't have a kit for. And the dress I started before I got pregnant is still on the manikin.

Anyway, all that to say I haven't done any reenacting since I got here. But I am trying to get back into a few things that I enjoy, like dancing. I've also been trying a bit more to have ladies over. So far I've had ladies several times for tea and hand quilting, and that's been fun. We've also branched into talking about bread making and butter churning a bit.

So before we leave to visit family and get busy with Christmas I invited several ladies over for tea, ladies who have been quilting with me and ladies who I've met at other events. It's always nice to get out my collection of wooden plates and pottery cups. We went healthy with fruit, nuts, coconut chocolate, and whole wheat cucumber sandwiches. It was a sweet time and it made me very thankful that after two years I finally am getting to know some women here.

First Texas Christmas

Christmas was abnormally warm with wind gusts from the South that put out our electricity for some of the night. John graciously accepted his very practical gifts. We're swamped with chocolate and leftover ham(both of which are totally fine). In two weeks we attended three family Christmases, of course Church on Christmas day, and one evening service with carols. New Year's and our Anniversary we have all to ourselves!

A Chair-arm pocket bag

I checked one sewing item off my list this week, a pocket-bag for our gifted glider rocker. I made a pocket for a water bottle, my phone, and a pocket that can hold at least four bars of chocolate(No, I don't plan to lose baby weight!). The purpose being, there's not much room for an end table and I thought it would be handy to have some of those things close during the first months with the baby. It turned out well! It's just a flap of fabric that folds over the chair arm and ties underneath.

Next up, Baptismal gown.

Memorial Day Weekend

The Linen Coat

For our Memorial Day holiday we drove down to the Houston area to visit friends. Houston's been getting lots of rain and high winds, so when we arrived the electric lines in their area were all down because of fallen trees. It was very dramatic and I didn't take any pictures. We enjoyed the company and some good chocolate, despite the lack of full power.

Pocket and back vent

So far the temperature has only barely reached 90 just a few days. Every day it's still in the 80s I rejoice and am thankful for a victorious, climate-changing God. If the Sahara can change, Texas can change too. Every day this week there's a chance of rain! My potted herbs are doing well; I'm cautiously optimistic that they may be thriving. To my slight annoyance, our next door neighbor has been running the air conditioner(It's just loud) for the past two months. We determined to keep ours off until June, at least.

Front buttonholes

I mailed the linen coat this week. I think it turned out well, and hopefully the owner will think so too.

Spring Break 2016

So since John is in school he gets this thing called spring break, which as a homeschooled student I never experienced. We took the opportunity to go on a sort of second honeymoon, since the first was a rather short part of a very busy time.

We reserved a very private State Park cabin which was adequately clean and furnished. The only fault to the cabin was that too many people had already slept on the bed before us. The park had a beautiful garden with man-made lake and waterfall, terraced gardens, massive flower bushes, and lots of walking paths. It was perfectly serene and very pretty.

We spent one day sightseeing in Natchidoches, LA. It's an old, old French town with beautiful homes and several historic sites. Sightseeing is exhausting, so we confined ourselves to see Ft. St. Jean Baptiste and the American Cemetery. We ate Southern fast food for lunch and Japanese for dinner, with a root beer float in between. John bought soap for our souvenir- he has a weakness for soap.

Ft. St. Jean Baptiste

The Fort was a small compound of wooden structures. It was rebuilt some forty years ago based entirely on written records, since no archeological evidence of the buildings remained. Fifty French solders were stationed there, and there were no battles during the existence of the Fort. Apparently they have reenactments just twice a year, April and December.

The American Cemetery was a very diverse mix of tombstones and styles. There were a few older stone and a few stones that looked almost home-made, which I've not seen before. There were more raised beds and more cast-iron gated plots than I usually see as well. The cemetery was pretty, but slightly unkempt. Overall it was interesting to observe how many subtle, historically-influenced cultural differences there were everywhere we went. The French influence was everywhere, with lots of fleur-de-lis patterns for decoration.

Home made?

One of several raised brick beds.

This tree had fallen and uprooted the stairs, but it's still alive.

Hodges Gardens State Park

There were several large hunks of petrified wood.

The Gardens had several layers and lots of little paths.

The Lower section.

The one and only selfie we took on the trip.

The entryway had big old trees with Spanish moss.

Passover and the Resurrection

Having moved, I no longer have all the decorations or traditions that I've always had. Though they were sporadic through the years, most Easter items made an appearance at least every other year or so. We had the purple batik tablecloth, the plush stuffed lamb, and way too many blown-out and dyed eggs. In the vein of starting new traditions, we(mostly me) decided that we would have shrimp for Easter instead of ham. I did buy Easter egg dye for the shockingly high price of $2, so we may yet have dyed eggs for Easter.

Upside-down plants! One flower plant and the rest is all cilantro.

There are plenty of Easter decor ideas online for children, but not so many meaningful ideas for grown-up decorations. I liked this blogpost about gathering symbols. We put out a few this year on our front-room gathering spot. There are certainly thorn bushes in Texas, so that wasn't be a problem for a crown of thorns. Poor John helped me make the crown of thorns and got poked. Hobby Lobby down the street had fake palm branches for $2; I put out a pottery goblet(last supper) and some linen(burial cloth). We still need a donkey and a lamb, but we are on our way!

Four candles for Lent, a crown of thorns, goblet, palms, and linen.

There are lots of plain solid purple tablecloths out there, but the only ones I've been able to find that are affordable and even remotely reminiscent of THE purple batik tablecloth of my childhood are these two here and here, and I'm still debating on whether or not they would give us seizures. The alternative, I think, is sewing my own and having a tablecloth with a seam, which would almost certainly cost more. So what with the waffling back and forth, we probably won't have an Easter tablecloth this year. Oh well!

Giving Thanks

I got home from South Carolina on Monday the 16th and plunged right into my last few weeks in Nebraska. I don't feel like there's so much to do to prepare for the actual wedding as there is to get ready to say goodbye and leave. I had my last day of work, which was a relief. Now I just have to buckle down and actually sew my wedding dress. It's going to be the most comfortable wedding dress ever, and it has a pocket.

We had friends and family staying with us in various increments for the Thanksgiving holiday, overall, roughly ten people staying at different times over ten days. But I spent the most time with one person in particular. A tall, red-haired person. It was good.

We had pre-marital counseling, visited a cemetery, and polished the silver. We made truffles and watched Emma and went to Church. We went to Handel's Messiah and went swing dancing and ate turkey. It was a good visit. I didn't take any pictures, at all.

After the guests all left on Monday, we were all totally exhausted, and are now recovering. Sleeping in is on the docket for this week!

Christmas Holidays

It was so nice to be on vacation and just not have to go in to work for a few days. I did have to work closing on New Year's Eve, though. We were really busy all evening, but still closed early- and even as we were cleaning up people came knocking on the door, upset that we had closed early. Really, you have to buy fabric on New Year's Eve?

A few projects I got done over the holidays: I finally finished this vintage blue wool vest with mismatching silver buttons. It's been in the pile for months. And the Christmas present of a bright yellow skinny tie- Andrew specifically asked for it.

The man with a yellow tie.

Teaching the boys basic sewing. They picked out flannel(it was one sale) for pajama pants.
 

Pajama pants he made himself. Don't tell him I posted this online.

Working with the public can be interesting. Last week at work I cut fabric for an older man, at least in his fifties. Just as a general way to start friendly conversation, we usually ask what the customer is planning to make. This guy said he was making lingerie for his wife, and then I was sorry I had asked and tried to end the conversation. Then when I came back to work on Saturday there was a surprise in the break room: the guy had written me a page-long description complete with an illustration of the lingerie he was making, supposedly for his wife, and mailed it to the store. I seriously, seriously did not need to know, and I hope he never comes back!

Christmas Dress Blog Party

After ten years blogging I'm finally participating in something! Edelweiss Patterns Blog has been on my bloglist for a while, and this year Katrina is hosting a Christmas Dress blog party. I don't do vintage, but I did have a Christmas dress this year, and an event to wear it to.

I wore the green linen/cotton Regency dress I made this fall to wear to the Omaha NE Fezziwig Ball. It closes with hooks and eyes up the front, then has a bib front that buttons over that. More details on the dress here(so glad I made it ahead of time!). I love that it's so much easier to get dressed with  front-closing gown, but I'm not sure that I like the bib part.

Caleb's uniform is so epic. I love uniforms, and wool, and uniforms made of wool.

Every year putting on the Fezziwig Ball consumes vast amounts of my time, but I guess I like it enough that I just keep doing it! Next year, though, I'm definitely recruiting a personal assistant. This year we maxed out the building and almost covered expenses, and everything went well except Jacob Marley got strep throat, and now I know why actors have understudies.

Introducing the cast for the 2014 Fezziwig Ball. 

Every year our volunteer cast of actors improves and wows the crowd with sparkling renditions straight from Dicken's novel "A Christmas Carol." I'm so thankful for these people who give of their time for the joy of others.

Now that the Ball is over, I'm strictly on vacation, which means if I can work up enough motivation to get off the couch I can start work on that long list of sewing for me, which never gets done during the work week!

Christmas Cheer

Last week I attended the Christmas party for volunteers at the Fort. It's always really fun to go to private events at the Fort: the atmosphere of being in a log structure with no electricity and a wood fire is just fun. There was good food(salmon and buffalo, and chocolate pie!) and a great deal of generous partaking in Christmas cheer, of the alcoholic and tobacco type. Now, I am used to drinking in the Presbyterian sense of generally male-exercised Christian liberty, involving moderate to heavy drinking and cigars/pipes only. But the haze over the Christmas party was a bit more than Presbyterian, if you know what I mean.

It was still fun, though. I drank like a Presbyterian and even though I smelled like cigarette smoke afterwards, I'm glad I could make it this year. There was also live music. Sorry, no pictures: firelight makes for really bad phone camera photos.

Saturday I took a day trip with a friend down to Weston, MO. It was a neat old town all decorated for Christmas. We've decorated for Christmas, too: Mom and Dad tend to take an relaxed approach to Christmas decorating(or decorating in general). When we do put up outdoor lights, it usually looks like a fire-breathing dragon threw up on a section of our house.

The shops in Weston were a little high-end for me: lots of clothing boutiques and home decor. There was a nice liqueur store, and a Polish pottery shop, both expensive, but I bought some small things. The gentleman above was in the Celtic gift store. It's not every day that you come across a shirtless painted mannikin wearing a cargo kilt, so I got my picture taken.

Giving Thanks

My Thanksgiving week was filled with amazingly stressful, costly and dangerous car troubles, and several days spent cheek-by-jowl in a tiny apartment with eight other members of my family.

What happened with my car, you ask? The Ladybug tried to kill me. The throttle jammed and the engine kept revving, and so pushing the brakes to the floor wouldn't stop the car. Being a woman, I didn't know what to do, so I called Dad's cell phone(while driving in non-stop circles around a residential neighborhood), which he had left at home. Mom, also a woman who didn't know what to do, called Dad at the office while on the cell phone with me, and finally Dad told Mom to tell me to just put it in park and kill the engine even though it was still moving. It sounded awful, it was smoking, and I was probably closer to complete panic than I've ever been before.

$432 later, I have my car back and the mechanic told me that it should be fine now. Still, I'm afraid to accelerate. What if the car won't stop? I imagine it's something like falling off a horse and not wanting to get back up. Though I've never been on a horse, just a plastic donkey when I was three and that was bad enough to keep me off all quadrupeds for the rest of my life(somehow my parents thought the whole plastic donkey thing was funny).

Anyway, to tie things in with my post headline, I am thankful that the issue with my car was fixable and within the realm of affordability. I'm also thankful for the break of Thanksgiving and not having to work on Black Friday. It's been a year since I started working retail, and with the exception of my two months at Dress Barn, retail hasn't been what I would call my dream job.

The Ten Eyck Coat: I did the buttonholes on vacation. It's getting photographed and shipped early next week!

I'm not Irish and I don't look good in Orange

When Grandma first moved in and we were still working out the kinks she would say "I can't help my temper, I'm Irish!"

Not technically true.

So far as I can tell, all of the ancestors in our direct line have been in America(and thus, have been Americans) for more than two hundred years; and, except for a few random Europeans, almost all of them came from Scotland, and were Presbyterians to boot. I am thankful for the man Patrick, who was such a strong testimony for Christ in Ireland that we remember him centuries later. And I do appreciate the sales on cabbage.

I actually have been working on a green sewing project, a wool tailcoat, but I got distracted by this:

 I stole this Eater egg print from Grandma K when we cleaned out her craft room, and couldn't think of any other use for it than a little dress.

I can see why people get addicted to making only frilly little dresses. They're just so cute.

Holidays 2013

So, I took a holiday from blogging. But now we're firmly settled in 2014 and today is my day off, so a post is in order.

My long break was mostly because I got job shortly after returning home, so I've spent a fair amount of my holidays working. It's a clothing retail job, so the holidays are the busy season. It's part-time, but I still got scheduled for forty hours this week. Since I don't want to reference my job location blatantly, I came up with the code name "Over 21 and Forever Single," which makes the acronym O2FS. My introduction to O2FS was a nine hour shift on Black Friday. Retail is interesting!

The Fezziwig Ball happened, too. No pictures of me, of course, because I kept running in circles, but everyone looked great.

Christmas was good: We were given so much amazing chocolate for Christmas(a perk of Dad being an Church leader). Right now I'm steadily working through the mint fudge. I've hardly had time to do any sewing; I'm just trying to keep up on my own mending and alterations.One simple item I did get done: a brown satin skirt.

Plain, simple bias-cut maxi skirt. Good for church or more formal occasions.

The one thing I really wanted to get done during the holidays(but didn't get to) was lay out my next wholecloth quilt. It will be queen size; I have a pale green linen-cotton for the top and a white sheet for the bottom, and this time I bought real queen-sized cotton batting instead of using my polyester leftovers from Grandma. I'm really excited about it: the quilt will have a mariner's star central medallion and various things around the border, like acorns and pineapples and birds and I don't know what all, and it will probably take me years to finish. So there you have it: my first goal for the new year- Start the Quilt.

Independence Now... Independence Forever

I've finished the first tailcoat, a men's shirt and ladies' shift, and started the second tailcoat. Having a room to myself makes it way too easy to stay up late doing endless hemming and stitching while watching some movie on Netflix. After a tiring week I'm trying to curb that habit. And it's still hot. It's hard to sew wool coats when it's this warm. Tonight everyone else is going bowling, and I'm going to stay home with Grandma to sew and watch a movie with my Bolthouse mocha cappuccino. And that's what I call a holiday.

I was sorely tempted to wear my colonial outfit for Independence Day, but I figured that would be a bit ostentatious, so I settled for wearing my special shoes instead:

 I purchased the imperfect ones in my normal shoe size, and they're just a tad bit snug. But I'm satisfied. I wore them to the Fort last weekend along with my turquoise linen dress and cream silk bonnet.

The Holiday Season

We went caroling with friends twice in one week, and got very hoarse.
We had the Famous Fox Family over for a Christmas dinner. They have such adorable boys. We put the mistletoe to good use.
We visited family friends in town on Christmas day.

And finally Jen and I stayed with the Famous Fox Family over New Year's Eve. Our family traveled to TX for church business without us, so we spent the day out on the town and the night with our friends. We did stay up until midnight and we did drink a bit of alcohol.

And that's how we spent our holidays. Or at least, that's all I can mention publicly.

The Germ Cloud of Doom

Mom caught a cold. Andrew has a cold. Jen really has a cold. My constant prayer is that I would not get sick until after Sunday. I'm sure everyone feels this way at times, when family members are dropping like flies all around: There's no avoiding the family illness. It's just a matter of time until it catches you. But since we have events over the weekend, I'm trying to hold out until Monday.

One way to try not to get sick is to take medicine preventionally: to ward it off, to boost your immune system. But then, if you take too much medicine sometimes you can't tell if you're really getting sick or not. I took quite a bit of cayenne tincture last week. So then you get phantom sicknesses: am I really sick? Is my throat starting to get sore? And can't we all see that black cloud of germs floating overhead? The ratio of sick germs alone is enough to ensure you will get it.

In other news, I cut off eight inches of my hair. It's a New Year's tradition that Jen and I have been practicing for the past few years. It's a relief, really. I've had long hair all my life, and I enjoy having long hair- it's very feminine. But on the other hand, really long hair is a pain, especially in the dry winter season. And not to worry, it will grow back in six months. Jen cut her hair shoulder length and mine is a few inches longer. As good as it feels I don't think I could ever but my hair that short.

Holidays make me Lazy

Holiday fever: when you want to sleep in until the shockingly late hour of 9am and eat nothing but sweets for every meal; when you don't feel like doing anything but be a couch potato and read novels.

I didn't actually spend my Christmas doing that, because we had events on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and Sunday too, to I really spent my time making dozens of cookies and lots of soup and gathering all the mish-mosh of STUFF we just have to take everywhere we go. We went caroling twice, and that was fun, though embarrassing(we're novices at singing in parts). I played my year's allotment of board games out of kindness to my hosts, now NO MORE! I can't handle any more. We had so many cookies and sweet gifts around I feel like I've been living in candyland. I feel fat, too.

It was nice spending time with Church family. For most of our lives Christmas has been us alone at home, which is ok, but when you have the opportunity to be snowed in together every week for the rest of the winter somehow it's just not as much fun. This weekend we have round two: New Year's celebrations all weekend long. I am strongly against sleep deprivation for the purpose of seeing the clock in a certain position, so hopefully we will not collectively be required to do that.

Thankful for:
Only one inch of snow and no more so far!
Church family, even if they make you play board games.
No tragedies(except a cold going around that I haven't gotten yet).

Merry Christmas!

Dwelling on the past:

I will now post about Thanksgiving 2010.

I have very little to say about our actual Thanksgiving day, because it was kind of boring. I guess we are a boring family. We had no family about to come over and no family to invite us over(it's a theme with us: our blood relatives avoid us) and all our church family had already been invited over to various houses. Hopefully Christmas will be more buoyant.

So, now for that seasonal question everyone else has already answered with exclamation marks at the end of every sentence: What are you thankful for?

Two physical differences stand out in a brief look back at the past year:

1. Much more traveling than usual, both together as a family and for me alone.
2. The entire family being so very sick over the summer

Traveling, though eventually exhausting, is always a great learning experience. This year I traveled to Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, Illinois, South Dakota, and Ft. Robinson, NE. I began re-enacting the 1820's at Ft. Atkinson. I attended a dance workshop in Iowa and campaigned in Omaha. I'm not sure I can summarize the widely varied benefits of these trips, so I'll just say they were good for me. I'm grateful that now I can travel more(funds permitting) as the boys grow older and I have fewer of the babysitting responsibilities that used to tie me down.

Being (so terribly, horribly, awfully)sick wasn't in itself perhaps a good thing, but it was providential. Our church family was a huge blessing to us while we were ill and I know we are so grateful for our Church now in ways we weren't before. Joining the church five(or six?) years ago was a huge adjustment; having Dad quit his job at the University this spring and work for the Church was too. And we were blind, totally blind, to the changes it would bring. I think we are all feeling much more accepted and a real part of the church now, and are really enjoying it. And being sick was part of that. So bring it on.

And notice, I didn't use a single exclamation mark.

!