Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday

Growing up, it was tough having a birthday the day after Christmas. First of all, my father was a minister. That meant that by the time my birthday came along each year, he was exhausted and didn’t want to do anything but sleep. Then there were the Christmas presents that said, "Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday," no special presents on my birthday. Add to that the fact that the family was always ready for a party on July 9th, when my brother’s birthday came around. It really sucked when I was a kid. After I had my own family, though, they always made a big deal out of my birthday, and when they had grown up and left home, someone was often visiting for Christmas, so I got to be with them for my birthday, too. The only think still missing was the birthday blessing at church. Somehow they never seemed to happen on the Sunday around Christmas. This year, I decided to make sure it happened. You always get the option of having a blessing instead of communion by crossing your hands across your chest instead of putting them out to receive the bread. So, after two services Christmas Eve, where I sang with the choir, I showed up at church on Christmas Day (coincidentally Sunday this year) to get my birthday blessing. Fr. Jed greeted me before the service and told me that a service without the choir needed some help, so I supposed that meant to sing out. I let him know I was hoping for a birthday blessing and would plan to get it during communion. I had already had communion Christmas Eve. This kind of blessing turned out to be very private and all the more special because of that. It wasn’t even my birthday yet (that’s today), but it has already made my birthday special. All the family members are elsewhere this year, so Charlie and I are alone. 

Christmas Eve was lovely. The music was special, as is often the case for Christmas. We are lucky to have such a great music director and organist, and another person who plays the flute and violin. I especially enjoyed the later service in Trinity, the old church. It’s so lovely, and the acoustics are great.

Earlier on Christmas Eve, we had dinner. We had salmon pie, rutabaga casserole, green beans and corn salad.

Here’s the salmon pie. It’s called Lohipiirakka in Finnish. The crust turned out great this time. I used this YouTube tutorial, which I've used before. 

The rutabaga dish is also a Finnish recipe. It’s called Lanttulaatikko. We had it left over from Thanksgiving and kept in the freezer.

For dessert, we had chocolate pie, using a store-bought frozen pie crust and my silken-tofu pudding recipe (super easy).

Earlier in the week I made more Pulla (Finnish cardamom braid). We've had some for breakfast and tea time.

We had cooked a very large acorn squash and only been able to eat half of it, so I made squash/banana bread. We've been eating it for breakfast, too. 

On Christmas Day, after church, we had our traditional egg nog with rum. Yum! We watched a lot of football.

I got a turkey ham from Whole Foods and fixed it with the kind of glaze I used to use when I cooked such things. It's uncured, so no bad chemicals in it.

We had roasted vegetables, Dutch-oven bread and salad.

Then more of the chocolate pie.

The Wisconsin grandkids were going to the Texas grandparents this year. Because of the big winter storm, their departure was postponed until Christmas Eve. They stayed overnight in a hotel about halfway. Doll fans will appreciate this photo from Christmas morning. (The doll was birthday present from the last birthday.)

I think the funny glasses were stocking stuffers.

The arrived at their destination safely in the early evening.

We had a pleasant Zoom session with our older son and his wife. He has to work today. The Oregon grandkids went to the nursing home to visit Great Grandma and sing Christmas carols. We will zoom with all four of our younger grandkids today. Maybe all of us together or in two sessions. They will all still have presents to open.

Christmas is turning into the Twelve Days of Christmas! However, we did open some presents. One of my favorites:

Another favorite was a selection of artwork from the grandkids. Daphne is definitely in the Pointillism school, whereas Zachary is floating between Realism and Surrealism. 

These will go on the wall. There was also a mouse pad and two quilt blocks with their artwork. (I'll have to think of something special to do with those.) I got a bread knife long enough to use with my new bread slicing guide. We gave and received presents that are really donations to worthy charities...the best presents of all!

(Did I mention that my birthday is a postal holiday this year? Enjoy not getting any mail and think of me.)

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our other books, Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Hinterland Pullover (some more progress made on that second sleeve) and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Pauly's First Christmas Eve. Pauly visits his friends, who are celebrating Hanukkah AND Christmas Eve, and finds out that they don't always come at the same time.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Plan for the Worst by Jodi Taylor. Not much progress this week.

What's in my wine glass: Egg nog laced with rum.

What's my tip of the week: When I use plastic wrap, I always end up with a tangled mess. When I was making the crust for the salmon pie, I decided to wrap it over plates, then put the dough for the top crust on one and the dough for the bottom crust on the other. It worked much better. The edges of the plate kept the plastic wrap open. 

Addendum: A better idea, and one you can use when you aren't using a plate. You can keep your plastic wrap in the freezer. It gets rid of the static electricity until the wrap warms up again. (Kudos to my friend Eugenie for putting me on to this!)

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Performances

Not much crafting happened this week, although I did knit a few rows on my pullover, but it doesn't look much different. Here's what I did instead.

Monday I spent most of the day writing Friday's story. (See The Doll's Storybook, below.) I also fed my sourdough starter and baked some bread, sour rye with caraway seeds. You can see from the two jars of recently fed starter, they are still performing well.

Tuesday we went to get our second booster shots, since we were both recovered enough from the flu we had, and we were about already three months overdue, because our initial shots had been so early. We were able to walk to the recreation center, where the clinic was taking place. (It was just as fast as taking the car, because we could get to it on the trail.) We had to wait in line for about 45 minutes to get our shots.

After the required 15-minute waiting period to make sure we weren't going to have a problem with the vaccine, we walked home. Neither one of us had any side effects other than a sore arm. Mine lasted barely 24 hours and wasn't all that sore. I wondered if it was because we still had some immunity from the previous shots.

Shortly after we got home, we had our biweekly online meeting with fans of Madroña Vineyards and the owners. Needless to say, a lot of wine was drunk.

Wednesday I took the photos for the story, all except for the ones where Mariah was wearing her judges robes, which I took the next day. That night, we had choir practice with a lot to prepare for the big weekend.

Thursday, Dusty went to the groomer. The appointment didn't start until 3:00 PM, so I knew he wouldn't be ready until about 6:00, so I arranged to have a ride to church, so DH would have the car to pick Dusty up. (Our call time was 6:00 PM.) Our anthem is here, at 52.11, if you want to listen. (I'm hiding behind the flowers on the altar the whole time. 😆 You can admire the beautiful church, though.)

We didn't sing for Good Friday, but Saturday night we had the Great Easter Vigil, which is a very long service to usher in Easter. To listen to our anthem from the Easter Vigil, go to 1:43 here. (You can see me this time. I'm the little one in the front row.)

We weren't done. We still had two services Easter morning.

Daphne had a performance Wednesday. Here she is with a friend, one of her fellow dancers.

There were some good comments on the performance.

Of course, Zachary is dancing too. I think this photo was from his last competition. I think he looks great! (He's the one on the left.)

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the emPower Kerchief and the Hinterland Pullover, not much progress.

What's on my loom: No progress this week.

What's on my sewing machine: Doll clothes. No actual sewing, but the pattern pieces for several items are set up.

What's in my hoop: No progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Who's the Boss? Mariah and the boys discuss who is more important: a president or a prime minister. Mariah has other ideas. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone on the Audible app. 

What's in my wine glass: Madroña's El Tinto, a red table wine, one of their basic selections, which varies from year to year, but a favorite each year.

What's my tip of the week: I've been cutting parchment-paper circles for pizza, which we have nearly once a week. Then it occurred to me that someone might actually make these. Well, they do. I found them in the size I need here. 

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Pulling Things Together

The T-shirt quilt is coming along. We went out on Saturday for "Shop Small Saturday" and picked up two lovely batiks for the rest of the top. The dark one will be the sashing and border blocks, and the lighter one will be the cornerstones and the border. I hope to get this done this week.

I cast on for Jackson's sweater. I found a little super wash yarn in DK weight in my remnants. It's Knit Picks Swish in Lava Heather. I used it a few years ago for a pullover for DH. I had quite a bit left over and had made a couple of sweaters for Rocky with it and had used it in an outfit for Daphne. The other yarn I'm using in Jackson's sweater is the same multi I used in Parker's.

Speaking of Parker's sweater, here he is in his completed sweater.

As you may know, Thanksgiving was on Thursday. We stayed home to make things easier for Rocky and us. Here's the table. We had a fancy salad, faux and real turkey (behind the water pitcher), gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, bread stuffing/dressing (in the big casserole), asparagus, yams with apple and Lanttulaatikko (Finnish rutabaga casserole), sparkling wine, homemade pumpkin pie and decaffeinated coffee. I set the table so we sat across the width of the table from each other, to make it easier to hand the food around. 

We remembered that last year, DBIL was with us for Thanksgiving, no one was vaccinated, and so we had to sit at opposite ends of the table from each other. We have so much to be grateful for this year!

One of those things (Johan) is now binge-reading Harry Potter.

We had our first 10:00 in-person service at Trinity this week. Everyone who could be vaccinated was, and we all wore masks. The seating was set up for people to be distanced by households, and people were asked to drop a slip in the offering basket at the front to say that they had been at the service, in case that information was needed for contact-tracing. If you want to have a look, here's the link. The anthem was at 1:01:16. We had a good-size choir, and I think it went well. This was the first Sunday in Advent.

Johan and his brother got their second Covid shops on Sunday.

The Wisconsin family members were getting ready to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah, and everyone else in the family was busy with various things, so we skipped the Zoom meeting for this week.

People have been sending me photos of their children reading Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook  or my first book, Mariah. For privacy reasons, I'm not posting them here, but it's really rewarding to me to see them. I just found out that the person who bought my first book in the silent auction for Therapy animals of Utah donated it to Children's Primary Hospital in Salt Lake City, so lots of children will be reading it there. Another writer of a blog that uses dolls as characters gave my new book a cameo appearance in a recent post.

I love seeing my books out in the real world. If you have one, please share a photo with me.

Wishing every one a happy Advent and a happy Hanukkah, and any other holidays you might be celebrating. Don't eat everything in your Advent Calendar the first day!

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: The second Bright Lights sweater, this time for Jackson.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs. No progress this week.

What's on my sewing machine: Still its cover, but the cover will be coming off this week to finish the top for DH's T-shirt quilt!

What's in my hoop: Still the whole-cloth quilt (sigh).

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Giving Thanks, three friends spend Thanksgiving weekend visiting each other's places of worship. They decide to make a list of all the things they found were different and were surprised by what the list told them.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Listening to State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny on the Audible app. Just getting started.

What's in my wine glass: Two Vines Merlot-Cabernet 2015 from the Columbia Valley. Nice.

What's my tip of the week: Don't wait until December to start shopping for Christmas. Hurry up! 

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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All Warped and Ready to Weave

We finally got the warp wound onto the warp beam and warp roller, so I was able to thread the heddles and sley the reed. (That means it's all set up to weave.) 

I threw a few picks with a dark green after weaving the border with grey. The pink warp is stretchier than the other colors, so it makes a wave in the pattern. That may go away when it's taken off the loom, but if not, it will just be a design feature. These will be rugs for the trailer anyway, so I doubt anyone is going to be that picky. The "decor" in our trailer is in dark and light shades of blueish green with touches of pink/magenta and a little beige, so I think these colors will work well (if anyone cares about a color scheme when they're camping). The fabrics I'm using are black (lots), turquoise, magenta, grey, green and beige.

The doll clothes I sent the grandkids arrived on Tuesday, when Daphne was already out of quarantine and Zachary just had two days to go. Daphne sent me a photo of each outfit being worn by a doll. I'll just show you two. This was our daughter's Baby Ann wearing a hat and overalls I made many years ago:

Here's Rebekah wearing a hat and dress that came with one of the Fisher Price My Friend dolls that belonged to our daughter.

Their mother will arrive here on Wednesday. It will be great to see her again. The last time was Christmas, 2018. We were supposed to have Christmas here in 2020, but you can probably guess what happened. Maybe this year.

As you remember from last week, Rocky had been having a difficult time. He is doing better, as you can see from this photo of Rocky cleaning the oatmeal pot for me.

He'll never be a young again, but he's back to enjoying his life again. We've enjoyed some walks this past week with Rocky mostly riding in his stroller.

Church was supposed to be in-person this week, but the Delta Variant has become rampant in our area, so we're back to using masks and vaccinated people, only those people necessary. However, the choir planned to sing, and sing we did! 

Here we are singing "All Praise to God." I'm on the far left, in black. It went well, and we plan to sing it again with the whole choir when we can get everyone together safely.

The video is here. Go to 49:50 for the beginning of the music, if you like.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook will go to the publisher today.

Coincidentally, we got this photo of our grandson Johan reading in his bed.

Everyone please stay safe, and get vaccinated if you are able to.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Coasters

What's on my loom: Trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: Resewing Velcro onto Pippa's shirts.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. A little more progress this week. (Yaaay!)

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In "Life on Wheels," Emil and Charlotte learn about a special program for children to learn what it's like to use a wheelchair to get around all the time in a letter from Holly about Come Roll With Me.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to His Lordship's Pleasure by Marion Chesney on the Chirp app. I've really only just started. I had the music for Sunday's service running most of the time I had a chance to listen, but I always enjoy her novels.

What's in my wine glass: Apothic Dark 2014. O.M.G.! I love this wine!

What's my tip of the week: Maybe this is the second time around for this tip, but you might have missed it. Need some "emergency meals?" It's easy to put aside some TV dinners. This one is all frozen food except for the "gravy," broccoli, corn, hash browns and faux chicken cutlet with some mushroom gravy. You can also use any leftovers, like lasagna, enchiladas, burritos, mac and cheese, etc. To heat up, set oven for 300ºF and cook for 50 minutes to an hour. (It takes an hour at our elevation.) Great for camping, too!

Where's my book: Mariah: Stories from the Doll's Storybook is available from booksellers worldwide. If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop. Royalties go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment, and that's 50% of the price when you buy there. Other bookseller take a much bigger cut. The three stories in the book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. The stories (and links to them) are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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