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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Staying Safe and Trying To Have Fun

I still can't show you my progress on the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL, but it's coming along. I can only give you this peek. It has been a busy week, but I've made some progress and am well into Clue #4.

My new iPad hasn't shipped yet, but it should be soon. I'm making do with my old one and my laptop. I've figured out which apps will work and which ones won't. However, I wanted to print another copy of Veronika's Birthday, the little book I printed before I ever started writing the story blog for children.

The copies I had Apple print through the Photo App were just for family and friends. I ended up giving away my last copy, so this week I decided I needed to have another one printed. Since Apple no longer provides this service, I downloaded the Mimeo App and used it to send my PDF to them to be printed. I should have it soon, and we'll see if it looks as good as the original ones.

Last week I said that the Recipe Box app was no longer available for iPad, but I found out I was mistaken. I was trying to find it in the Apple App Store from my computer. When one of the developers told me it was still available, I looked for it using my iPad, and there it was.

They also have a The Recipe Box To Go for the phone, which I added to my phone. Now I have to figure out how to open my recipes in the phone app. I use the app all the time. During the week I made the No-Boil Lasagne and my favorite Easy Corn Salad, which you may remember from a previous post.

I often make this recipe to have with enchiladas, tamales or burritos: 

Easy Rice-cooker Spanish Rice

Servings: 5 cups cooked rice

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, diced

• 1 T olive oil

• 2 cups brown rice (3 rice-cooker cups)
• 1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice
• 1 4-ounce can chopped green chilis 
• 4½ cups water
• 2 boullion cubes or 3 tsp. Better than Boullion
• 2 T. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cumin or smoked cumin
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. cilantro
• Cilantro for garnish

Directions
Sauté onion in the oil.
Place the rice in the bottom of the rice cooker and then add the diced tomatoes, chopped chilis and water. Add the onions and remaining ingredients and stir to dissolve the spices in the water. Cook according to manufacturer's instructions.

It takes about an hour once I start the cooker.

Adapted from Bless This Mess 

I sometimes like to make Dutch Oven Bread, but our Dutch oven is family size, so we ordered a smaller one. I think this will work for half the recipe, one that takes 1 1/2 cups of flour. I'm going to try it out today. (The spoon is for scale.)

We had sort of an adventure with our taxes this week, but not last year's. We received a letter saying that IRS did not have our 2020 tax return, and to please submit it to the address on the letter. They also had a phone number. We both immediately were certain it was a scam, but what if it wasn't? Charlie had the copy of the cancelled check IRS had cashed. He didn't want to call the number on the letter, in case it was a scam, and when he researched the address, he found the entity listed as occupying the location was an office of the IRS. He tried to reach the IRS through their main number, but couldn't get through to a person to talk to, and none of the automated options provided a category that was related to the issue. After some time waiting on the line and giving up, he did some digging. He found this article and this. Apparently, because of staffing shortages during the pandemic (which are continuing), the IRS developed a backlog of 2020 returns that had not been looked at. This triggered the automatic dispatch of letters to the taxpayers whose returns had not yet been looked at, as if they had never been received. Not a scam, but also not a legitimate demand for our return from 2020. In the article, the recommendation from IRS was: "...taxpayers who received a notice now regarding a 2020 return would not have to send a copy of the return if they already filed a 2020 return and know that their payment went through." They have stopped the letters, but not before a lot of consternation on the part of taxpayers. So there was that.

We have had some cold weather, but have managed to walk a few times. Saturday was really nice, so we decided to walk to the dog park, so Dusty could socialize a bit. It was no problem to take the stroller, so Rocky could ride until we got there. He walked around in the park, and Dusty played with other dogs or chased the ball. Then, when we were walking home, Rocky decided he wanted to walk, so we let him out of the stroller, and he walked most of the way home. (The .73 miles was one-way. We stopped the Walk for a Dog app when we got to the park.

The choir isn't meeting in person, as we've had a lot of Omicron cases in our area. I think they're tapering off.  We feel fairly safe, in spite of the fact that many people ignore the mask mandate in stores. First of all, our case numbers seem to be dropping, and secondly, we found this report on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated patients ending up in the hospital.

Of course, we passed 64 some time ago. The choir is meeting via Zoom again for now, but we're hoping to get back to in-person practice and performing soon. People who are vaccinated and masked are still allowed to attend services. Singing together is more risky than sitting in church.

We had a nice Zoom call on Sunday with family.

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 Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL shawl.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: The T-shirt rugs.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole-cloth quilt. No progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In A Bigger Footprint? Part Two, Mandy explains to Jolena what she is already doing and what we all can do to reduce our carbon footprint.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Unthinkable by Jamie Raskin on the Audible app. Fascinating. I wish I had the time to just listen and knit!

What's in my wine glass: Clausthaler Original non-alcoholic beer.

What's my tip of the week: If you have a chance to get a basil plant and you like basil, do. It will be happy for some time on a sunny windowsill if you keep it in a dish of water that keeps the roots wet and protect it from the cold. 

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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Learning New Things

In Common Threads this week, we had a special meeting to view the video, "Learn to Love Needleturn" by Mary Sorensen. 

We gathered at our usual start time at Janet's to have a bite to eat before the meeting. We had eight people, in spite of our first real snowstorm, with accumulation on the roads (see photo, below). Some of our members are new to quilting. 

Here we are, watching the video. 

We started by watching a segment, then practicing what we learned, but we could see we weren't going to be able to finish in the time we had allotted, no surprise to me. I had wanted a full day, but some of our members who wanted to participate couldn't spare the time all at once. "Plan B" was to get everyone started, then watch the remaining segments. That way, we got through the 2-hr. video. Each person will be able to borrow the DVD to finish up at her own speed. Some people are going to work together, and some may end up buying their own copy. 

I continue to be amazed at how many tips and tricks there are to learn on the DVD. I've watched it several times, and I've learned something new each time, as I pick up on things that escaped me in earlier viewings, and that, in spite of having had the class in person with Mary Sorensen several years ago, which was wonderful. This is a great DVD, so worth the price! Mary's a good teacher, with a good sense of humor.

We finished up our meeting with a potluck lunch. It was a fun day. Ellen has to go home to Florida soon, but we have decided to work on our appliqué block together when she comes back next month. 

Update on the llama fleeces: Lynda and I prepared a little of the fiber, pulled out guard hairs and junk, washed it, ran it through our drum carder and spun it up, just to see if it was worth all the work. Lynda has knit up a swatch. I still need to do mine. Both of us found there was more dirt to wash out with the finished yarn. Here's a photo of my share of the llama, spun and plied:

I got 19 wraps-per-inch (WPI), 43 g and 56 yds. It's very soft, but I'm not sure about next to the skin; it might be a little itchy. We may have left a few of the guard hairs in. It took several hours just to get less than 100 g ready to spin, but I think it's worth the effort. Now if the weather will cooperate and give us a few days to get enough done to do something with. Here's a closeup.

We had a special get-together to be able to spend some time with an old friend who isn't available on Thursdays. Susan came and showed off her jacket.

She wove this from Tencel and Silk thread. She says the weaving was easy, but the sewing was a challenge.

Remember that winter storm I mentioned? I wasn't kidding. This is what greeted me Friday morning when I looked out our back windows. That's our hot tub under all that snow. I can't remember ever having "real" snow this early. Most of it has melted now.

We had new technical problems this week, related to iOS7. DH had a return of his username/password problem. Also, about the beginning of the week I lost Siri. (I was afraid she had been furloughed, although I thought she was a contractor, not a federal worker.) We had to stop by the Apple store anyway to help DH with his problem (finally resolved, I think), so I got an appointment with one of the cute geniuses at the Genius Bar. It turns out I had turned her off. (I have that effect on a lot of people.) I wonder where she went while she was gone?

Speaking of computers, this came in from the cold:

I didn't want a computer bug, so I showed him the door (window, actually). My laptop is a MacBook, but I didn't want to take a chance. 

What's on my needles: Dogwood Blossoms, Christmas Waffle inching along, and Green Tea socks with a few more pattern repeats finished.

What's on my loom: Hoping to warp soon for a scarf. (This week got away from me.)

What's on my wheel: Full Circle Roving in "Wolf," barely started.

What's on my Featherweight: Delectable pathways, appliqué panel #3, half of the stems done, but not very pretty yet, so no photo. I've been using my machine to hem pants, etc., but I may have to sew my Delectable Mountains blocks together, just to take a break from appliqué, knitting, spinning, etc.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson-Burnett (author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Secret Garden). Excellent book. The eBook The Hannover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner is on my iPad Nook app for bedtime reading. Listening to the Fiber Hooligan podcast and the Knit Picks podcast.

What's my app of the week: The Recipe Box. There are several apps for keeping your recipes, but this was one of the ones where you don't have to pay extra to get the iPad, iPhone and Mac version of the app. It's $3.99. You can copy and paste your favorite recipes and include a photo if you have one. It will help you make a shopping list. I'm transferring my recipes as I cook them. I especially like that it doesn't turn itself off while you're trying to cook. I've been viewing my recipes in Pages and always hate to have to touch my iPad screen with messy fingers. Note: A couple of weeks ago, I chose a flashlight app as my "app of the week." I've now deleted that flashlight app, because iOS 7 gives you a flashlight, and it can be accessed from the Control Center. One of the amazing new features!

What's in my wine glass: Glen Ellen House Concannon (Glen Ellen Reserve) Merlot, vintage 2011. As in, "You had me at Merlot." Nice wine with flavors of cherry and plum with a touch of spice. Think I'll have another glass....

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 were harmed during the production of this blog post.