Bread ...

I have no idea how I was able to come up with a post every day last month.  I am trying to do two a week now and am struggling.

It's 10 days until Christmas and I am, as usual, nowhere near ready.

I just started making bread on Wednesday night this week.  I made two batches, both for the office but with two loaves for us to enjoy  -- one from each batch.

My OD is going to be here for about 10 days beginning tomorrow night.  I'm taking off work and hoping to spend some quality time together.  I'd like to try some new soups and breads while she's here.

Christmas 2017 - Grandpa's 90th Birthday!

For my father's 90th birthday I asked folks to send videos to me to create a "Happy Birthday" video for him.  Here's the video...  oh, it's really long so you might not want to view (six minutes)...

Old Pictures ..

I was looking for pictures on my niece's flickr (don't remember why I was looking) and ran across these ...

This one was taken in Eagle Harbor with my father's parents - Melvin and Muriel Kelly.  My grandma (Granny) was 65 when these pictures were taken.  She always seemed to old to me, but she really wasn't that old -- just in my 6 year old mind.  I never thought about whether my grandpa (Big Grandpa) was old or not.  He was just Grandpa.

 

The same picture but from a different angle ..  the Eagle Harbor Light House is behind us on the right -- too bad you can't see it.

 

This is a picture of me and my cousins Jeff White and Stephen Deshler.  Stephen and I are the same age -- he lives close by now and we get together every now and again.  This picture was taken at my other grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary.

This is another picture from Michigan -- taken at Fort Wilkins (I went there this past summer).  This was in 1983 because my #2 son was just a baby at the time.  The others in this picture are Atsumi (a Japanese friend of my grandparents), my oldest, Paul, who was 2 1/2 at the time, my cousin Dave Kelly and his wife Sue, my dad and mom, me and my middle son, Mark.

Here's a much later picture taken on the National Mall in Washington DC -- must have been summer of 1989 because my younges is the baby in the 2nd picture below.

I don't remember the day, but these pictures are kinda cool.  From left to right, back row, my youngest son, Michael, held by my sister Anna, my niece Katie, Paul, my youngest, Robin, held by my husband (who was very young and thin at the time); front row, my older daughter, Kelly, Jonathan (now known as Jones), JJ, and Mark. 

(I decided that my kids can have real names now -- if they want me to change them, they'll have to let me know.)

Deck the Halls ...

or rather, decorate the house.  We have the lights on outside,

The tree is up and decorated.  The Night Before Christmas books are out .. No pics of the tree, but I'm liking my nutcrackers ..

and here's my update on my step goal ...  59 miles to go and only 18 more days ... I need to average 3.3 miles per day.

December and Pillows

I finished the pillow cases and got them to my daughter; this is what they look like.

So the thing I am try for the next 30 days is to meet my 10,000 step goal every day this month.  (I just realized that to meet my 1,200 mile goal for the year I need to walk at least 4 miles a day for the rest of the month so those two things work together.)

I want to start sewing 15 minutes a day too, but that will need to wait -- to achieve a greater chance of success.

The Last Post of November

So I made it through the month, posting every day except one (and then there was the one where the date changed :().

This isn't something I'll try to maintain, but I should be able to post 2x a week.  I think that will be one of my goals next year.  Not sure what I am going to do for my new 30-day challenge for December...

Today is my cousin Sara's birthday .. so Happy Birthday Sara!!

 

The baby in this photo (the 2nd one from the right) is the father of the little one that Sara is holding in the other picture.

Total Eclipse of the Sun

There was a solar eclipse across the U.S. this past summer on August 21.  We were in Michigan at the time.  We hadn't planned to view it, but the weather, although iffy, was holding up, and the park service was giving away glasses ...

So we went to Quincy Hill in the shadows of the old mine shaft.  We got there, stood in line for our glasses, and then waited.

 

They have this really cool old train there.  I wished my grandsons had been with us because they could have climbed all over the old train.  They would have loved it.  Usually, when you see an old train like this, you can only look, no climbing.

Building with the mine shaft in the distance ..

Us with our glasses .. too cool.  It was impossible to see with them on so I just had to wing the selfie.

 Pictures of the sun through the glasses.

Very cool, but you can't see the eclipse.  We left there and drove back to the harbor -- we stopped a few places along the way and shared the glasses.  It really was cool to see -- if we'd been where it was 100% we could have taken the glasses off and gotten some great pictures.  Maybe next time.

Another cool thing -- our kids started sending us pictures a couple hours before we saw it so we did the eclipse across the US -- first in California, then Michigan, and finally in Buffalo NY.

Here's a picture of the Quincy Mine Shaft.  My father would know which one ...

Post-Its and Pillows

So this past weekend, I was watching the grandkids and taught Cooper how to draw stars.  He left a few post-its on the fridge with stars ...

thirty (30) of them to be exact .. I think he's got it down ...

and I finished the second pillow.

Pillow #1

got the first one finished!

just five more to go .. actually, the rest should go quickly.

29-days 'til Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas .. at least in the stores.

Went to JoAnn's yesterday with my YD.  She wants me to make some pillow covers, and two smaller pillows.  Here's the fabric.

Looking forward to making these.

Disney's Aladdin

Nevada came to visit this week.  She flew in Saturday morning so that we could go to San Francisco to see Disney's Aladdin at the Orpheum Theatre.  We drove to the BART station and took the train from there.

As per my current normal, very few pictures.  The above is a picture of one of the benches at the BART station.  There were some interesting statues that I didn't photograph.  I will go back some other time and get pictures of them.

We got there early so went across the street and had a couple of glasses of bubbles and then walked over to the theater.

Aladdin was great! The colors were amazing and the singing and dancing as well.

A relic of a forgotten time .. at the theater.  I rarely see these anymore and had to snap a picture.

Turkey Trot 2017

Here are some pics from the Turkey Trot - November 23, 2017, our pre-Thanksgiving dinner 5K.

bib and shirt - blurry.

Nevada at her first Turkey Trot!

My husband with two grandsons.

 

 

The crows, only 24,000 this year.

A shoe shot..

I love you!

Gifts?

Earlier this week, I came home to find that an Amazon package I had order had arrived! There was also another package addressed to me -- it was the following.

Since I hadn't ordered it, I checked with my daughters to see if either of them had ordered it, they hadn't.  I asked a couple of friends, it wasn't from them.  There are a couple of others I will ask, but if any of you know anything ....

Souffle Girl (#5)

One of the items on my list this year (#5) was to make a souffle.  This was basically because of a Doctor Who episode "Asylum of the Daleks."  Here is a brief synopsis of the story, taken from here.

The Doctor, along with Amy and Rory who are headed for divorce, are kidnapped by the Daleks. They find themselves before the Dalek Parliament and the Doctor is quite surprised when he learns why: they want him to save them. A ship has crashed on the one place they will not go - the Asylum, where mad Daleks are sent to spend the rest of their days. Once there, they are assisted by the only survivor of the crash, Oswin, who has been there for a year awaiting rescue and making soufflés to pass the time. Which leads the Doctor to ask the most important question of all: where does she get the milk?

Later on in the story, close to the end, he also wants to know where she got the eggs .. she responds eggs, eggs, eggs, eggsterminate, of something like that.  Anyway. I got the ingredients to make a cheese souffle (recipe from here), so that Nevada and I could make it on Saturday after seeing Aladdin (did I talk about that at all?).  Anyway, I had the ingredients on hand, but totally spaced and didn't make it.  However, since I had the ingredients I  decided to make it on Monday night.

Ingredients:

• Butter, room temperature, for greasing the souffle
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
• 1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 1/3 cups milk, hot
• 4 large egg yolks (2 1/2 ounces by weight)
• 6 ounces sharp Cheddar
• 5 egg whites plus 1 tablespoon water (5 1/2 ounces by weight plus 1/2 ounce water)
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar 

The first thing you do is prepare the dish, with butter and the parmesan cheese (the ingredient list called for grated cheese - the video says ground or something (so that the cheese is very fine). I used the grated and it was good.

Then you make a white sauce with the rest of the butter and the flour and other dry ingredients.

Then you add the hot milk, slowly. and then the shredded cheddar cheese.  (Which I had not yet prepared so that didn't go as smoothly as I wanted.)

Then after it's smooth you whip up the egg whites and cream of tartar.  When that reaches a hard peak stage (?) you fold it into the sauce.

No picture of that.  Then you bake it for 35 minutes and voila ...

After taking the souffle from the oven, I let it sit on the counter.  I had no idea how to eat it since I had never had one before.  We waited at least a half hour to try it, by which time it had fallen, but it was still light and tasty.

A couple of recommendations for those making a souffle with this recipe.  Have all your ingredients ready ahead of time (I didn't shred the cheese until I needed it).  Read all instructions.  Watch the video at least once.