Christmas has come and gone...another great holiday season is about to join the "remember when" conversations and thoughts that we pull out when feeling nostalgic toward the end of each year.

I think most people would say good riddance to 2008, a year filled with pink slips, financial strain and political in-fighting and loss of "the American Dream". However, I think 2008 has taught us some very important lessons that I hope we will hang onto in 2009 and beyond.

We learned that alternative fuels do not necessarily cost anything or take years to develop... A bicycle or our own two feet will work nicely to pick up a carton of milk at the local grocer's or a few books at the library. 2008 also taught us that turning over a little plot of soil in the yard and dropping in a few seeds can yield us not only cheaper food, but better tasting...not to mention the wide variety available from farmers who only had to drive a few miles, as opposed to that bland head of lettuce that was trucked in from California.

I think we've discovered over the past year that "things" are not what make us who we are. If we live within our means and take care of the people around us, that is a better indicator of our worth than if we live in a half-million dollar, 4000 square-foot home meant to impress, as opposed to a modest home in which we can provide our families with the things they really need. The "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses" culture is no longer in style, thank God!

Most importantly, we have truly come to see our country...often referred to as a melting pot of cultures...as the land of opportunity for all as we elected as our next president a man many of us saw first and foremost as the most qualified, but who also happened to be a black man.

So, amid the setbacks we have moved forward...forward in thoughts and actions. I think we've accomplished a great deal in 2008. I am looking forward to 2009, to a new year of possibilities...but I will take with me the best of the past and try to avoid its mistakes.

Happy New Year!

A White Christmas!!

Winter has arrived!! There is absolutely no doubt about that! Here in Central New York we received around 8 to 10 inches on Friday as a fast-moving storm moved through and wreaked havoc on the area all day. Of course, the husband believes that's the best time to go Christmas shopping...and he was right! The stores and restaurants were pretty empty!

This morning we have awoken to another round of the white stuff. Although it will be much worse north of us today, we already have 4 or 5 inches of new snow on the ground. To add to this, on the backside of the storm the winds will eventually turn into the northwest and send the lake effect snow off of Lake Ontario toward us. Significant accumulations are expected during the day tomorrow.

I wish I didn't have to drive in to work in the morning, but I am very excited to be able to safely predict a White Christmas!!

Four More Days!!

Every year Christmas seems to get a bit more hectic; but I guess that makes the satisfaction of getting it all done on time that much greater.

We got a late start this year with all of our holiday preparations and gift-buying, but with FOUR DAYS to go we are just about ready for the big day!! A few more packages to wrap...a few little things to pick up...pies and cookies and fudge to bake... But that is what makes it so much fun...the rush!! And the morning after, as we eat the left-over Christmas breakfast quiche, we'll wish we could wrap everything up and do it all over again.

But for right now, we can savor the anticipation as we tie the last few ribbons and sprinkle a little more sugar on the last batch of sweets. Everyone smiles a little more and complains a little less, and even the house feels a little cozier.

I love Christmas!!

TRACK SANTA ON CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

http://www.noradsanta.org/

Make sure you're in bed on time!! Track Santa on Christmas Eve as he makes his rounds throughout the world. Don't let him catch you awake!!

Click the Link Above!!

Great Grandma's Christmas Music

The holidays are such a nostalgic time. I've always wished I could have met my great grandmother. My mother had been very close to her, and she talked about her quite a bit when I was growing up.

Great-Grandma was born in England but was sent to an orphanage in Canada when she was very young, along with the rest of the girls in her family. She was adopted by an older couple looking for a boy to help with the farmwork...but they fell in love with her dark curls and bright blue eyes and took her home with them instead. (If this story sounds familiar, I suspect it's because Lucy Maud Montgomery brought to life a similar one with "Anne of Green Gables"!)

Many years later, a young man asked her parents for her hand in marriage and was told that she would not make a good housewife because she had learned to do farmwork and not the usual work of a woman. But, my great grandfather did not care. They married, and after he served in WWI, and their family had grown to include three children, they loaded their belongings onto a wagon and crossed the border into the United States, settling in the North Country...which is where I grew up.

I am proud to own several items that belonged to my Great-grandmother, including one of the trunks that she brought here with her. I also am the current care-taker of her collection of 78rpm records, which I like to think may have traveled underneath the rounded top of that trunk. It is an honor to me to own such a thing...and it is even more incredible to listen to the same sounds, scratches and all, that previous generations of my family listened to...and with the same technology, as I crank up the phonograph!

The video clip above is of "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear", performed by the Victor Oratorio Chorus. It is most likely from about 1915. (Sorry for how dark it is...it looked much better before I uploaded it...)

Merry Christmas!

I Don't Notice Anything...Do You?!

Eat Your Heart Out, Dr. Frankenstein!!

I have created life!! Yes, it's true...and I'm not referring to the people I live with who are affected by a mental illness that incapacitates their ability to change the toilet paper roll (see my blog entry from September 13th below)!!

I have created a sourdough starter that is breathing bubbly texture into my loaves of sourdough bread. This substance that I'm keeping in two jars at the back of my fridge resembles something most of us would frantically dump in the garbage and quickly remove from the house. But in actuality, it is a living, breathing, fascinating little science experiment that I have affectionately named Hector. You can see him proofing in the photo above.

My decision to try my hand at sourdough bread was partly due to the downturn in our economy that has many of us looking to save our pennies. But it also had something to do with my drive to bake and store food away at this time of the year, a primitive behavior that I am certain is present in anyone of the female gender, whether they want to admit it or not.

Bread is about as basic to human society as anything else I can think of. It is a simple food, and you don't need a commercial yeast product to make it. Sourdough is made using the natural yeast/bacteria that exists in the air around us. I will not explain the process here, but highly recommend the following link if you are interesting in trying it for yourself.

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm

After reading instructions for sourdough starter on several different websites I chose to follow S. John Ross' well written steps as they made the most sense to me. A simple direction for a simple process. Nothing could be easier. Some folks try to complicate it, but people did this in covered wagons on the Oregon Trail. It's really NOT complicated.

I hope you will try it out, and wish you many delicious, inexpensive loaves! And now....I have to go feed Hector!

Mmmmm.....Apple Time!!

Autumn officially arrived this morning at 11:44am, but for me it really began this past weekend with our annual trek to the apple orchard!! We headed to Behling's in Mexico, NY on Saturday morning, and picked 49 pounds of big, juicy Jonamac apples. Quite a few of the area's orchards were damaged a few months ago by hail and high winds...but not this one. The apples absolutely dripped from the branches, and we were early enough that the picking was easy...low to the ground!! A good thing for those of us who are a little challenged in the height department!

For the past several years I've canned several jars of applesauce to put by for the winter. It is delicious and easy...and I really do like to can. I think there is some primitive area of my brain that, beginning with the first cool breezes of fall, drives me to bake and store food...not unlike the many squirrels that keep digging up my tulip bulbs and burying them in other, more convenient spots... though I'd like to think that I'm slightly more evolved.

This year I added Apple Pie Filling to the shelves, canning 7 quarts on Saturday evening.One of the jars didn't seal, so on Sunday...along with making the applesauce...I baked this pie to taste-test the new recipe (note the pie bird!). It is really very good! It received two thumbs up from everyone.

Here's the recipe:

4 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup cornstarch

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons salt

10 cups water

3 tablespoons lemon juice

2 drops yellow food coloring

8 pounds apples

1. In a large pan, mix sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add salt and water and mix well. Bring to a boil and cook until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and food coloring.

2. Sterilize canning jars, lids and rings by boiling them in a large pot of water.

3. Peel, core, and slice apples. Pack the sliced apples into hot canning jars, leaving a 1/2 inch headspace.

4. Fill jars with hot syrup, and gently remove air bubbles with a knife.

5. Put lids on and process in a water bath canner for 20 minutes.

A Common Household Irritation.... :0

Here is a picture of what, I believe, is an incredibly irritating phenomenon that plagues untold numbers of households in the world today.

Ever since Zeth Wheeler introduced the world to perforated rolls of tissue paper in the late 19th century there has been an apparent breakdown of human hand-eye coordination upon entering the bathroom, powder room, loo, john, or whatever other name this area generally falls under. Their motor capabilities diminish to the point that they cannot replace the toilet tissue onto the holder, but can only manage to rest it on top of the old, empty tube.

After a lengthy investigation into this problem, I have discovered that it seems to be an affliction that disables all but one member of the household...usually a woman...who then must resign themselves to a lifetime of removing spent cardboard tubes and replacing them with fresh ones.

After interviewing each member of the household, I discovered that whatever it was that damaged the brain's ability to co-ordinate the removal and reinstallment of the toilet paper had also affected their recall of past events, as each and every one stated emphatically that, "Yes, I put new rolls on all the time! It's not me! It must be...(insert sibling's name, or 'Dad')."

Further investigation reveals that the problem is not corrected by the unaffected person's refusal to replace the rolls. It would seem, in fact, that this will continue to be a problem for generations to come...or at least in this household!!

The Sunflowers are Still Shining!

Hard to believe, but I started my fall clean-up in the yard today. We have one tree just outside the back door that always drops its leaves before any of the others, but some years that doesn't start until late September. This year I started sweeping up the orange and red leaves in the middle of August! Is this the sign of an unseasonably cool Autumn?

An August Morning on Dale Hollow Lake

We rented a houseboat on Dale Hollow Lake, on the border of Tennesee and Kentucky a couple of weeks ago. This was the view as we were heading out one morning for some water-skiing.

An Evening of Society Craps

Last evening, with two members of the family gone for the night, my youngest and I were looking for something to do in between listening for the strains of the Jonas Brothers that were drifting over to us from the fairgrounds!!

"Let's play Society Craps!" I suggested. When I was a kid we loved to play this game with my mother, who would sit down at the dining room table with us and deal out the cards.

Society Craps was once a fun way for women to gather together...and gamble!! They would usually use pennies or nickels, as this game was popular at a time when a penny would actually buy something. But I grew up using buttons. My mother always had jars and jars of buttons...something she inherited from her mother and grandmother, both of whom had tins and tins of buttons. Now, I am the proud owner of some of those tins so I brought one out and dumped a couple of handfuls onto the table. Using buttons does nothing to quell the competition of the game. It is amazing how prized certain buttons will become during play (usually the largest, or those with unusual designs), or how concerned kids can become when their stockpile of buttons begins to diminish!!

Besides the buttons, a deck of cards, a pair of dice, and a dish of some sort (for the "kitty") is all you need. Each player chooses a suit and receives all the cards of that suit. Lay out the cards in numerical order in two rows as seen above, face up, but discarding the seven and the king:

2, 3, 4, 5, 6
8, 9, 10, 11 (jack), 12 (queen)

Each player receives a pile of buttons...40 or 50 each is a good starting point, but everyone should have the same amount. Place the "kitty" in the middle of the table and everyone "sweetens" the pot by throwing one button into it. Now each person takes turns rolling the dice. If they roll a number on one of their cards, they flip that card over. If they roll a 7 or a number they've already flipped, they throw a button in the pot. The first person to flip over all of their cards wins the "kitty"!!

If played in earnest, you would eventually want to be the last one left...with all the buttons!! How rich you will be! But, as I have always played as a child or with them, the banker is usually very generous in handing out loans to those in need!

We had a great time last night playing a simple, old game. So much better than watching TV. But having the Jonas Brothers providing the background music added a modern touch, for sure!

A Visit to Monticello

On our way southward to pick up our children from a weeklong visit with the Grandparents, we decided to stop at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville, Virginia. Being a huge history buff, I felt that walking in the footsteps of one of our Founding Fathers would be worth the 1 1/2 hours it added to our trip...and I was right!

We left Central New York at 4:30am and drove straight through, arriving at the ticket booth just after the noon hour. It was gray and misting rain, but we boarded the shuttle bus and climbed the steep mountain on which Jefferson built his home. Arriving at the top, we could see the home through the trees and it was...well, it sounds silly, but it was almost breathtaking. I've seen this structure in so many documentaries and history book photos...not to mention the back of every nickel I've ever owned! Seeing it in person was really something.

We toured the interior of the home with a very pleasant, very southern gentleman who showed us such things as the clock over the door that is run by weights that hang so low he had to cut holes in the floor; twin dumb-waiters on either side of the dining room fireplace that allowed empty wine bottles to be sent to the cellar...and full ones to be sent back up; and a set of Don Quixote books written in Spanish that Jefferson used to teach himself the language on a trip across the ocean.

But more than anything else, we were moved by the beauty of the place and significance of the home, who's owner and designer was such an important player in the creation of this country.

Our visit, which included a guided tour of the gardens and time to wander around and walk down to the cemetery, took about 3 1/2 hours. It is well worth the time....and yes, even with an 8-hour drive!!

To the right is a slide-show of some of the photos I took of the grounds (we were not allowed to take photos inside). For anyone who is interested in visiting or learning about Thomas Jefferson, please click on the following link.

http://www.monticello.org/index.html