I Don't Care What Your Mama Says, Christmas Time Is Near

SNL Christmas Song

Alan Brady, Alan Brady, Alan Brady, Alan Brady, Alan Brady, Alan Brady, Alan Brady, Buddy Sorrell!

Christmas Songs I Love, Part 2 of 2

Here are the rest of my list of favorite Christmas songs. I may have forgotten a few, but this should mostly cover it. If you missed part 1, you can find that list here. These songs and the ones in part 1 are not in any particular order, but I'm numbering them for the sake of neatness and because I'm just that way.

6. Mary's Boy Child - Harry Belafonte
Hark, now hear the angels sing,
A new King born today,
And man will live forevermore,
Because of Christmas day.

A very simple musical arrangement combined with powerful lyrics make this one a favorite of mine. Harry Belafonte originally recorded this in 1956. I love Belafonte's voice on this - it's a great match.



7. White Christmas - Bing Crosby
I actually didn't experience a white Christmas until moving to Washington state nearly 4 years ago, but who doesn't immediately think of fond memories of Christmas when they hear this song? Interestingly, the version that we know is not the 1942 original recording by Crosby, but the re-recording from 1947 that tried to exactly replicate the original master, which had become damaged from frequent use. The song first appeared in the 1942 film "Holiday Inn," and was later featured in the 1954 movie "White Christmas."

8. All I Want for Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
There's no deep meaning here, just a fun frothy love song at Christmastime. Sometimes Mariah Carey can oversing *just* a tad, but not on this song. It was written for Carey's 1994 Christmas album.



9. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Mariah Carey
This song was originally recorded by Darlene Love in 1963. It has since been done by a ton of people, but I like this version best of the ones I know. Another song where Mariah Carey keeps the melisma under control and has fun with a song.



10. - O Holy Night - Point of Grace
Lots of people have beautiful versions of this song, but I like the ethereal sound of this one. It's hushed and gentle, and the phrases of the verses overlap, then it has soaring harmonies on the chorus. Just lovely.

What are your favorite Christmas songs?

Christmas Songs I Love, Part 1 of 2

Since I last posted about Christmas songs I abhor, I thought I would cover the flip side of the coin today. These are songs that really touch me, that hold nostalgia or that are just plain fun.

1. Here With Us - Joy Williams
Now that I'm a mother, and particularly now that I'm the mother of a son, songs that are written about Mary's role as Jesus' mother just get to me. This one is a gorgeous song that mostly talks about the mystery of God becoming flesh in the form of a tiny baby and talks about how Mary had to "rock her Savior to sleep." Wow. What a thought!



2. Angels We Have Heard on High - Sara Groves
This is a simple arrangement of a song that's so familiar to many people. It takes out the "Glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o...." etc. part and turns it into a lilting praise song.

3. A Cradle in Bethlehem - Sara Groves
Sara Groves' album became my favorite Christmas album when we bought it last year. This song is one that was co-written by Nat King Cole and originally sung by him. "A mother tonight is rocking a cradle in Bethlehem."



4. When Love Came Down - Point of Grace
This is an uptempo song that speaks of caring for those in need and the wish for peace on earth. It's just peppy - what can I say?

5. Christmas Canon - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
You're probably familiar with this one, a Christmasy version of Pachelbel's Canon in D. I love the original song, and this one, too. The video can't be embedded, but you can see it by clicking here.

Part 2 coming in the next day or two.

Christmas Songs That Need to Be Pulled From Rotation for All Eternity

This blog post is inspired by a discussion on a friend's Facebook page. She mentioned how she hates the song Last Christmas by Wham! You know the one, it says "I'll give it to someone speh-shull...." I cannot change the radio station fast enough when that song comes on. I hate the whiny topic of the song and the breathiness of the chorus, especially that last line. Her post lead to other posts of songs people don't like, and I heartily agree with them and am adding a few of my own:

• Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer - I don't care if you think the song is funny. I find it incredibly tacky. I know that's its purpose. Really don't care. I don't like it and don't need to hear it again.
• The Christmas Shoes - This is one of those over-the-top songs that's just begging you to break down in tears over the sadness of it all. I appreciate that they're trying to help people keep the right perspective about Christmas and what's important, but I don't think the way to do it is with a schmaltzy song about a little boy who wants to buy his dying mama some fancy red shoes. This one is by Bob Carlisle, who was also guilty of singing Butterfly Kisses, another one of those songs that begs you to cry because you're so touched with sentiment. It's not that I don't have a heart; I do, I just prefer that it be touched in subtler ways.
• I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - This song has a warped premise. Some little kid thinks their mommy is stepping out on their daddy with Santa Claus. "What a laugh it would have been if Daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night." Because adultery is always good for giggles. Yes, I *know* it's not actual adultery because it's Daddy under the Santa Claus beard, but I still think it's weird to make that idea seem humorous to a child.
• Grown-Up Christmas List - This is one of those peace-on-earth songs that just doesn't do anything for me, and it's been sung by a number of people now, so it seems like it's always playing. I'd rather hear Christmas Wishes by Anne Murray, which I think does a much better job of conveying a desire for peace on earth and love toward our fellow man.
• Songs where professional singers let their out-o-tune children sing along - Yes, it's cute when kids sing and I enjoy hearing them at church or my daughter's school, whether they can carry a tune or not. But when I'm listening to Christmas music and suddenly someone's tone-deaf child is singing the intro to a song, I find it jarring. I don't know their child from Adam and am not sitting there thinking "Aw, isn't that sweet?" It's more like "Make it stop! Make it stop!" (I know, a little Grinchy of me, huh?)
  

On notice:

• Blue Christmas, Jingle Bell Rock, Feliz Navidad - These songs are fine in and of themselves, in my opinion. It's after I've heard them 87 times in 3 weeks that they make me want to become violent.

Whew! It felt good to get that off of my chest. Any songs that you could just do without completely at Christmastime?

It's National Cookie Day!

Did you know that? I didn't know ahead of time, but it just so happens that I was planning to make Chocolate Caramel Bars today for a family Christmas party tomorrow. And I was planning on serving a few of them tonight for a game night with friends. So that works out well.

The bars have a layer of oats, sugar and butter, then are drizzled with caramel and chocolate chips, with another layer of the oat mixture on top. They're very rich, and very good! If you'd like to make them, you can find the recipe here.

I omit the nuts and use the caramel dip found in many stores' produce sections in place of the wrapped caramels and heavy cream. Much easier and a lot less cleanup that way.

Now, what more of an excuse do you need to enjoy a cookie today? Happy National Cookie Day!

Ooh, Fancy Christmasy Template!

Since my blog posts are now appearing on Facebook, most people are reading them there and not clicking on the link that takes them to my blog itself. But you should really go there to read this one and check out my fancy new Christmas template. I found my Santa and Reindeer template on BTemplates, which has quite a few just for the holidays alone. You can search for a particular key word/topic, look at the top downloaded templates or browse by number of columns, style and color, among other ways of searching for what you want. If you're not sure how to add one of their templates to your blog, you can check out their answer in their FAQ section.

I found quite a few other free Christmas and holiday templates at Wishafriend.com and Pyzam.com. It's a fun way to jazz up the look of your blog and to personalize it more.

Amazon vs. iTunes Music Purchases

I wanted to get some more Christmas music this year, and after much debating and reading of reviews on Amazon, I decided on the following albums:

• Celtic Woman - A Christmas Celebration
• Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Andy Williams - Personal Christmas Collection (What? We used to hear a lot of his Christmas music when I was growing up, so it brings nostalgia and comfort. Shut up.)

We usually buy our music on iTunes, but Amazon had just given away a $3.00 credit towards purchase of mp3s, and I'd bought some new songs using their Amazon Downloader. The program adds your purchases directly to iTunes or another program/folder of your choice. It was a mostly simple process, although it didn't add one of the four songs properly and I had to go to iTunes and add it to the library manually. And for some reason, when I close it and then buy more music, I have to re-download their Downloader and run it again. That may just be a PEBKAC error, though. I'm not sure.

At any rate, knowing that it was a fairly simple process, I figured I'd do a price comparison between Amazon and iTunes and go with whichever one was cheaper. The Celtic Woman album was $6.99 on Amazon, $7.99 on iTunes. Point for Amazon. Andy Williams Personal Christmas Collection was $8.99 on Amazon, $9.99 on iTunes. And the Charlie Brown Christmas album was $5.00 (!) on Amazon and $7.99 on iTunes. Amazon won on all three purchases, and so did I, since I saved $4.99 on the 3 albums.

Out of the three albums, Celtic Woman downloaded to iTunes with no problem; Charlie Brown downloaded tracks 3 through 16 (1 and 2 were in the library but not added to iTunes automatically for some odd reason); and the Andy Williams album at first didn't show up in the downloader. I clicked "Download again" on the Amazon screen, and it went just fine and loaded in iTunes, too. So if you're using the automatic downloader, be sure to keep your purchase screens open until the albums show as downloaded there; then they should be on your computer and you can add them from their folder if they don't happen to go straight to iTunes.

I haven't checked other albums out to see if the trend continues with Amazon as the less expensive option, but I will certainly be doing that in the future when I buy more music. It was mostly painless and worth a few minutes of manual work to save that much money.

I Defy You to Stand Still While Listening to This

I'm glad that this special is still broadcast and still watched by so many. On a day where I've found out that Rachel's Clifford the Big Red Dog Thanksgiving book can't be read at school because there are kids who don't celebrate Thanksgiving (because what kind of jerks give thanks, anyway?), it's nice to know that some things remain unchanged. If they ever edit out Linus' speech from the show, I think all hope is lost.

Nearing the Finish Line

Well, it's day 29 of NaBloPoMo, and this is my 29th post. I wasn't sure at the beginning if I could do it, and some days I've had to stretch a bit to come up with something. If I had more spare time, I could easily find things to blog about every day, I'm sure, but sometimes I just need something I can quickly post and be done with it. I'm proud of myself for having kept up with blogging each day. I've been wanting to become more consistent with it for a long time now, and I'm hoping this is a habit that will continue. I don't know if I'll blog every day after tomorrow. In fact, I'm sure I'll miss days here and there, but I'd like to post at least a few times a week, and more when there are lots of things I feel like talking about.

But for now, I need to wind down my brain so that I can fall asleep soon and get a decent amount of sleep before starting a new week. I think Rachel will be happy to be back in school tomorrow and I'm already thinking about ways to keep her busy during the 2-week break for Christmas and New Year's. At least one overnight stay at Grandma's place will be part of that time; not sure what else yet, but I'll think of things.

Have a great week!

Way to Go, American Inventors

Apparently I've been under a rock somewhere, because tonight I found out about "truck nuts." If you, like me, have also been under a rock, here is Wikipedia's definition:

"Truck nuts, also known as truck balls, BumperNuts, BumperBalls, or truck scrotums, are accessories for pickup trucks and other vehicles. Capitalizing upon the association of trucks with machismo, truck nuts resemble human testicles inside scrota of various colors."

Really, America? I mean, really? This is the country that invented the airplane, the phonograph, car radios, chocolate chip cookies (how AWESOME is that?), the digital computer, Teflon, microwave ovens, the mobile phone, video games, the heart-lung machine, compact discs, food banks, smoke detectors, the microprocessor, Post-it notes, the Space Shuttle, the Internet, GPS and TiVo, among other things. And what have we worked up to at what should be the pinnacle of American ingenuity and intellectual capabilities?

Truck nuts.

Well done.

What to Do With Leftover Turkey

If you're trying to decide what to do with the turkey you have left over from yesterday, here's an excellent recipe:

Different Chicken Divan

Turkey is an easy substitute for the chicken in this recipe, which is full of great flavors like curry and garlic and french onions. I use frozen broccoli cuts instead of fresh broccoli, and it's very easy to put together. You may want to add a tablespoon or two of lemon juice to the soup mixture as well.

This next recipe uses not only turkey, but leftover mashed potatoes and dry stuffing mix:

Thanksgiving Leftover Casserole

Here's one that gives turkey a completely different spin, with diced green chiles, corn tortillas and Cheddar cheese:

Southwestern Turkey Casserole

Here's another Mexican-flavored entree, with cream cheese, chiles, jack cheese and chili beans:

Four Seasons Enchiladas

And this list from FoodNetwork.com:

Top 10 Thanksgiving Leftover Recipes

The only recipe I've tried of all of these is the chicken divan, but I'm hoping to have enough turkey to make some of the others as well, because they all sound delicious! If not, I'll be buying a turkey breast or a chicken to roast, since I now have some great new recipes to try.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your day was full of family, friends and good food (even if the food was just popcorn, toast, pretzels and jelly beans). This is the first holiday in a while where I felt like I had plenty of time to get things done and wasn't stressed while finishing up the preparations. Hopefully more holidays like this are ahead!

We enjoyed a nice feast with James' parents and our friends Corey and Gilda, who we've adopted into our family as extra siblings. I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the turkey; the meat itself seemed a little blah to me. I think next year I'll have to go for a name-brand turkey and maybe think about brining it, something I haven't yet tried but which is supposed to give a turkey great flavor and moistness. Everything else was so good, and I loved the double layer pumpkin cheesecake I tried for the first time. That will definitely be going into my repertoire of recipes!

It was a great day to spend time with people we love and enjoy the bounty that God has given us.

Thanksgiving Links

If you have time on your hands today and would like to do some seasonal reading, here are links to sites with interesting information on tomorrow's holiday:

From Mentalfloss.com:
10 Things That Have Deflated the Macy’s Parade

From Suite101.com:
An American Thanksgiving Timeline

The official site of the 83rd Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

From The History Channel:
Thanksgiving Fun Facts

Also from The History Channel:
Thanksgiving Fact or Fiction

From Kaboose:
Thanksgiving Activities for Kids

And finally, if you're desperately searching for a recipe, need tips on cooking a turkey or would like to see some how-to videos related to Thanksgiving, check out the Thanksgiving page on Allrecipes.com.

Odd, But Interesting and Amusing

It's a busy day, so today you're getting a video:



On a side note - why does Dr. Bunsen Honeydew wear a pair of glasses but have NO EYEBALLS/SOCKETS whatsoever? That's just...creepy.

Quit Your Bellyaching Already

I've been watching the HGTV's Bang For Your Buck for the last few months. A designer and a realtor take 3 rooms in homes in one geographic area that have been remodeled for the same amount of money and critique what homeowners have done well and what they would have changed to make the rooms more appealing to potential home buyers in the future. Then they evaluate the rooms to see which buyers, if they were to sell their house today, got the biggest return on their investment, or "bang for their buck." Except they always say "Let's see who got the biggest bang for your buck," which is grammatically incorrect if they're trying to say "Let's see which homeowners got the biggest bang for their buck," but they say it that way to work in the name of the show. Which bugs me.

I'd like to do some remodeling in our kitchen and bathrooms one day, and wouldn't mind turning our kitchen, dining room and living room into a great room area in my if-we-had-a-sudden-influx-of-disposable-income-and-wanted-to-use-it-in-remodeling dreams. So it's been good to watch the show and pick up tips on what brings the highest return on investments and what things are seen as cheap or too owner-specific to be appealing to most people.

For example, things that are positives for kitchens are:

• A pot filler faucet over the stove
• Granite countertops; poured concrete is also considered high-quality and appealing to most
• Spending money on your flooring and not scrimping there, because buyers will notice; also, if you have wood flooring in an adjacent area and want it in the kitchen, make sure it matches, even if it means new flooring in the other area, too
• Adequate counter workspace on both sides of the stove
• Stainless steel appliances
• A classic design style, as opposed to anything trendy or with permanent fixtures that draw too much attention to themselves, like a brightly colored tile backsplash
  

For bathrooms, some things they recommend are:

• Again, no skimping on the flooring
• Make sure you include a roomy tub in a master suite bathroom
• A good-sized shower

In general, they give advice like "don't overimprove for your neighborhood" and "make sure the style of your remodeling fits with the rest of the home." Some of what they say is common sense advice, but it's good to get actual examples of what they're saying, and I like seeing what design choices homeowners have made.

One thing I don't like, however, is how defensive some of them get when their choices are being critiqued. It seems that you should be prepared for some criticism when you agree to be on a show like this. It's rare for someone to make all the right choices in design, and even if the designer and realtor don't care for a particular choice (or several) in a room, if the owners like it and it works for them, great.

Some of the people seem to understand that and say pretty much just that. Others get snippy and extremely defensive, and end up looking like jerks on national TV. I'm sure they're told "Don't hold back, just give us your responses to what you're hearing." But most people have the sense to moderate themselves a little, even if they're upset, when they know they have a camera in their face.

One man got so nasty and rude in his retorts to the video evaluation he was watching that he started mocking how the agent pronounced things with her British accent. I actually deleted that episode because I didn't want to watch any more of him. Most don't go that far, but I can tell that some are getting really uptight about the feedback they're receiving. It always gets me when people expect to just have everything be candy and roses and have praise showered upon them for their brilliant design sense and their obvious perfection.

If you're that much of a baby about constructive criticism, here's a suggestion: don't agree to be on a show where they're going to give you an honest appraisal of what's going to sell and then be upset when they point out things that won't appeal to everyone.

My Thanksgiving Menu

I've been working on my Thanksgiving menu and thought I would share some recipes in case anyone is looking for some good dishes for Thursday. You'll notice that I'm taking many of my dishes from Allrecipes.com, as usual.

I'm starting it with Homestyle Turkey, the Michigander Way. This will be year 7 of using this recipe for my turkey. It's a very simple recipe that uses butter between the skin and the breast meat to give the bird more flavor and juiciness. The drippings give you a good start on some very tasty gravy, too. I have a 21-lb. turkey this year and am guessing it will take about 4 1/2 to 5 hours.

Another favorite is my Sweet Potato Bake, a recipe from the Queen of Butter, Paula Deen. It is by no means a lowfat vegetable side dish; it uses butter, sugar and cream or milk in the sweet potatoes and has a topping that features chopped pecans (or walnuts, but I like the taste of pecans better), butter and brown sugar. Man, is it good! It's definitely worth the indulgence as long as you don't have this dish on your menu every week.

My potato dish is a make-ahead one that comes out really creamy and flavorful without the taste of having been in the refrigerator overnight - Creamy Mashed Potatoes II. The version of the recipe I have calls for a can of chicken broth as well. It may be a little too soupy for your taste with a full can, so try adding half a can first and then add more as needed. You can also add shredded Cheddar cheese, crumbled crisp bacon and green onions to the top if you'd like, but I find the potatoes just as good without the additions.

I'm trying a new recipe for dessert this year: Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake. Not being a huge pumpkin pie fan, I've always gone for other desserts at Thanksgiving. But I do really like cheesecake, and I made some Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins recently that were really good, so I thought I'd give this a try. It's something I've wanted to do for a few years now. The suggestions from reviewers are to use 3 packages of cream cheese (instead of 2), add 1/2 c. of sour cream when you add the eggs and to use more pumpkin if you like a prominent pumpkin flavor. One person also drizzled caramel sauce over the cut slices, and I may try that as it sounds even more delicious than plain!

The rest of my menu is pretty simple: stuffing (I just use boxed stuffing most years), salad, rolls, olives and cranberry sauce. Oh, and I have a Glazed Baby Carrots recipe that is really good for Thanksgiving, too, but I'm forgoing that this year as there is already plenty to eat for only 8 people!

Let me know if you end up trying any of this recipes, and if so, what you thought. Whatever you have on Thursday, I hope it's delicious!

The Craziness Has Started

I went to our local "mall" today. Yes, it has a few good stores like Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret and Macy's, but it has way too many no-name stores and a number of vacant storefronts as well. There are fewer vacant storefronts right now since some temporary stores like Hickory Farms have moved in for the holiday shopping season, but the mall really does leave something to be desired. It does, however, have a Target, and it rules to have a Target at the mall.

Anyway, I arrived in the parking lot only to realized that everyone else has apparently decided to start their Christmas shopping. The only spaces readily available were at the fringes of the lot where no cart-return has ever been spotted, and when I'm going to be bringing lots of bags back to the car, I don't want to park far from a cart return. After driving around a bit, I happened upon someone with their backup lights on, so I lucked out there.

It was definitely much more crowded in there than usual, but I got my non-Target shopping done (I was partially successful with finding what I wanted) and then went to the craziness that is Target on a Saturday in the holiday season. The aisles were crowded and people were clueless and/or rude. I overheard one man call his (I presume) 12- or 13-year-old son a name so crass that I won't even type it here with asterisks to fill in the blanks. I thought "That can't be what I heard," only to hear him say it again. 'Tis the season to be jolly.

I spent way too much time finding or trying to find what I needed, but at least I didn't have to wait that long at checkout. Still, this is the reason why I started shopping early and why I like to do my Christmas shopping online much of the time. I've decided I'm just not going anywhere near a mall again until the after-Christmas sales are done. I don't need more of this. I want to save up my patience to use with my children, and not waste it on situations that I can easily avoid.

Behold, My 20th Day of Posting in a Row

Yep, that's pretty much what this post is about. It's day 20 of National Blog Posting Month, and I've managed to post for 20 days in a row after months of mostly neglecting my blog.

This definitely helped me to get back on track with posting more regularly, which has been a minor goal of mine for a while. If I'm going to have a blog, I want to actually use it and not post 4 times and then tie up the website address forever without ever doing anything else with it. And now I know I can manage blogging along with other things I'm doing. I don't know if I'll keep up with posting on a daily basis, but I think I'll be posting at least a few times a week.

It seems like a few months ago, I was constantly thinking "That would be a good blog post," but I wasn't writing those things down and wasn't making the time to write the posts. Now that I'm fervently trying to come up with things to blog about, I'm drawing blanks.

It's like when I was in college and I had to write a paper or a speech. Pretty much every time, I'd come right down to the wire before I could come up with an idea and run with it. This was pre-Internet, so I didn't have search engines I could use to find ideas that would interest me enough, and the college library's card catalog was a pathetic substitute for coming up with topics. There were probably books around that I could have gone and gotten, but that would probably have meant spending money to buy one, and I was a poor college student.

I guess I don't really have an excuse now that the Internet does exist, so I'll have to start making better use of it when I'm having trouble coming up with something until the inspiration starts to flow again. I could blog about my kids, but we have a separate blog for that, so I try to keep the kid-specific posts on that one. Which reminds me, I have been severely neglecting that blog lately and need to start posting there regularly again. So much has been happening with the kids that I should be blogging about, like Ben picking up all sorts of new words and Rachel just being her funny self.

Perhaps my goal for December should be to post every day on that blog.

SYTYCD

Last night's So You Think You Can Dance had an amazing performance of a Bollywood-style routine performed by choreographer Nakul Dev Mahajan and the NDM Bollywood Dance troupe. I've been looking for a video of the dance because I wanted to share it on here, but so far only found one clip on YouTube that contains a lot beforehand and cuts off before the dance was done.

I've enjoyed the addition of new dance styles to SYTYCD, and Bollywood is one of my favorites. It's such a colorful, expressive dance, and often full of joy. When it's well-performed, it's just a pleasure to watch.

Since I couldn't find that, here's a dance that Mahajan choreographed for season 5's top 10 finalists. I hope you enjoy it!

Good Gifts

I've been having such a good time choosing and buying gifts for those on my Christmas list. I consider it a challenge to find things that I think people will truly use and enjoy. I may not always succeed, but hopefully the intent shows through.

And I especially love picking out things for James, Rachel and Ben. I love them most out of everybody on earth, and it gives me joy to think of presenting them with gifts that I've picked out just for them. I watch for things that catch their fancy or gifts that seem to have their names written all over them.

I'm really looking forward to this Christmas, since we'll have two children who are excited about their stockings and their presents. Last year, Ben was too young to really get into it, although he seemed to enjoy himself. This year, I'm sure he'll join his sister in squealing and screeching and tearing into packages (hopefully not *too* many that aren't his own), and I can hardly wait to see them enjoying the things we're giving them.

Tonight I was thinking about that, and it brought to mind Matthew 7:11:
"If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (NIV)

We as parents love to give things to our children and see their enjoyment and pleasure. But we can't give them gifts every day, because most children would turn into spoiled rotten, self-centered little tyrants who demanded new things constantly. I wonder if God has to restrain Himself in giving us gifts. He delights in giving them to us, but I'm sure that if I got everything I ever wanted, particularly if I didn't have to work for it, I would be just as spoiled rotten and self-centered as my 5-year-old would be.

In looking up the verse above, I found a devotional here. A portion of it says this:
He is the giver of good gifts and He never changes. Never. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. His love is not fickle or conditional, His gifts are showered on us, not because we have earned them, but because He loves to give good gifts to the ones He adores.

Every golden sunrise is a token of Father's affection. He paints the sky with rainbows and scatters clouds simply for our delight. All of creation bears witness to His love and His majesty.

If we begin to understand that all we receive in life comes as a gift from our Heavenly Father, then we will begin to look at even the simple things with awe and child-like wonder.

I aspire to be more childlike in noticing and appreciating all the gifts that God has already showered on me, and continues to shower on me, at Christmas and all year round.

Dare to Behold the Cuteness

Today's post is just this video of a cat and a fennec fox, which speaks for itself:

Too On Top of Things?

Every year as I'm rushing to finish my Christmas shopping and get things shipped off in time, I tell myself that it will be different next year. This year, I actually managed to bring that goal to fruition. I still have a number of people for whom I need to buy gifts, but the kids are pretty much done with the exception of a few more stocking stuffers for Ben, and I mostly just need stocking stuffers for James. My mom is taken care of in terms of figuring things out, although I'm planning to make a gift for her that's going to take a bit of time, so I need to get going on that.

I have gifts or ideas for several other people on my list and now need to figure out what to get for the rest of them, but I'm feeling pretty good. There are two downsides to being this far ahead, though:

1. I have a hard time waiting until Christmas to give them their gifts because I'm excited and want to see them opening up and enjoying their presents. My top love language is gifts, and I think it's very evident when gift-giving occasions occur. I even really enjoy buying things for Operation Christmas Child and items for food drives. I love to give, so it's hard for me to have patience when things are in my possession for that long. It's like they're burning a hole in my closet.
   
2. It's a letdown when my buying is done (especially for the kids) and I don't get to discover and get more things for people, particularly if I find something that would have been a perfect gift but I clearly have more than enough things already.

Still, those are minor in comparison to the pressure of finishing with Christmas purchases. It's a self-imposed pressure since most people are not going to judge me on the scale by which I judge my own choices for them, but it's pressure nonetheless. I would have preferred to have started with the difficult people, but inspiration can be hard to come by for some.

Restaurants I Wish Were in Washington

Washington has a lot going for it, but one thing it lacks, at least in Federal Way and surrounding areas, are restaurants that have become favorites similar to the ones I loved in Southern California. Every now and then, I'll think longingly of one of them and wish desperately that they had one like it here. Restaurants like:

• Aloha Food Factory (Alhambra) - a family-run Hawaiian restaurant with amazing food, a kitschy collection of decor and friendly proprietors who always seemed interested in how we were doing. We visited there last September, 2 1/2 years after moving away, and the wife, Betty remembered us. We got to introduce her to Ben and spend a few minutes catching up. I haven't food that compares to theirs. There's a pretty good one-off Hawaiian restaurant in town, but it's just not the same.
• Versailles (several locations, but the ones on La Cienega and Ventura are better than the Universal City walk-up fast-food version) - Cuban food; they had a garlic chicken that they served with buttery rice, mildly spicy black beans and fried plantains. There are no Cuban restaurants nearby and I haven't made it to any in Seattle to try them out yet.
• La Fontana (Glendale) - Italian restaurant with a romantic setting and fantastic food for great prices. They had a special where you could choose salad or soup, an entree and a dessert for something like $15, and they had a dozen or so entrees to choose from. I always got the Chicken Milanese, a breaded and lightly sauteed chicken breast with a creamy lemony sauce, served with very fine angel hair pasta and fresh vegetables. It was just a few blocks away from our apartment, and we'd go there every so often, including for one of James' birthdays. We went there for New Year's Eve the year before Rachel was born and had a nice evening out. They were busy, but they had piano music playing and it never got overly noisy. Oh, and they had really good focaccia bread, too.
• Papas and Beer (Lake Balboa/Van Nuys) - this is now apparently called Salsa and Beer. I'm wondering if they were unaffiliated with the restaurant of that name in Mexico and had to change it. Regardless, they had such good Mexican food and served it with chips and a warm bean dip along with the salsa. You could get a giant burrito for just a few dollars, and their combo plates were around $5 or $6. I miss the authentic Mexican food that was plentiful in Southern California, in smaller restaurants and taco shops.
• Adalberto's (San Diego, Sacramento) - A really great taco shop. I used to frequent this place in college in San Diego, and then found out that they had some locations in the Sacramento area, too. So whenever I visited my mom while she lived there, and later my dad, I'd be sure to fit in a visit to Adalberto's for carne asada chips and rolled tacos with sour cream and cheese.
• Wienerschnitzel (lots of places, but we went to the one in Duarte) - There are 2 or 3 of these in Washington, but the closest one is just over 50 miles away. And that's a little far to go for corn dogs and chili cheese fries. I miss having one 2 miles from my house.
• Islands (Glendale, Encino, many other places) - A fun restaurant with a surfing/tropical theme. They had really good salads and burgers, plus you could order a platter of endless chips and salsa or a big thing of fries/cheese fries and share them with the whole table. And they had Cherry Coke, mmm.
• Boston Market (Burbank/Toluca Lake, Pasadena) - Another fast-foodish chain, and they used to be all over the place, including Washington. But they've been gone from this state for years. I miss being able to get a nice home-cooked-style plate of ham or turkey, garlic dill new potatoes, cinnamon apples and a tiny little loaf of cornbread. Oh, the cornbread! Sometimes I just want comfort food, and there's nowhere where I can make a quick stop and come away with such a yummy meal like that.
• Rudy's Mexican Restaurant (Monrovia) - We only went to the sit-down restaurant once. Service was horrible. It took a long time to get anything and to even see our waiter, so we never went back. But they had a booth in Monrovia's weekly street fair, and I can't tell you how many times I'd get two of their carne asada tacos. Such tender, flavorful meat and a strawberry Jarritos soda to go with it. Tasty.
  

Now I'm kinda bummed and wanting to visit Southern California on a massive eating tour. During our Disneyland trip last September, Aloha Food Factory was the only restaurant we managed to visit. Hopefully we'll be able to hit several old favorites next time.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Today I bring you a selection of photos from Pixdaus. It's primarily a collection of nature photos but also has lovely pictures of architecture and people, among other subjects. I subscribed to the RSS feed of their daily photos for a time but couldn't keep up with it because they send so many each day. It's well worth a visit if you enjoy beautiful and interesting photography. One warning - you may see the occasional photo with artistic nudity, but I found those to be very rare. Still, if you would prefer to avoid it completely, you may want to visit the website and search for specific subjects rather than subscribe to the RSS feed.

Enjoy a view through the eyes of others:

Last Night's Survivor

I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but - way to go, Russell! He's still a putz at times, but he's stopped doing out-and-out stupid things just for the sake of doing them. He's keeping the game interesting, and you have to hand it to a guy who found not one but two hidden immunity idols with no clues whatsoever. (On a side note - should they be making their hiding places a bit harder to locate?)

I was cheering for him and the Foa Foas and was almost sitting on the edge of my seat last night while waiting for and watching Tribal Council. You knew earlier in the episode that Laura would win immunity by the way they were setting things up, so that was a given. The question was - would the former Galu be uneasy enough about the possibility of Russell having found the latest idol that they would switch their votes to another person, or would they stick with their plan of taking out Russell because they thought the odds were too high for him to have found another one already? Thankfully it was the latter.

Props to Shambo, too, for suggesting that they vote out Kelly because Monica is not well-liked and does poorly at challenges. I think this is the first really intelligent suggestion she's made in the game, and I'm glad she's finally showing some strategic thinking. Plus she was a great actor at Tribal Council, looking shocked without overdoing it, and she voted with her former tribemates so that she could keep up the pretense longer and stay in on their strategy. At least, I'm assuming that's why she did it. I thought she'd vote against Kelly and show her cards too soon, but that didn't happen.

Now we're down to the former Foa Foa + Shambo against the other 5 former Galu members. I'd be surprised if Shambo flipped back at this point, so it will be interesting to see how things play out next week. Will it be a tie vote resulting in a 1-on-1 challenge at Tribal Council? Will Russell find yet *another* immunity idol? (Difficult to do with Laura and John running around after him. Here's a thought - go look somewhere else and find it yourselves.) Will there be a new splintering of the remaining survivors?

This season has gotten much more interesting with the flip-flops and two blindsides in a row. Much better than seeing one team decimated and picked off one by one.

I Think This Line's Mostly Filler

I really need to brainstorm some good blog topics so that I don't keep drawing blanks and having to rack my brain to come up with something. It's not that I never have anything to talk about, it's that I'm not writing things down when I think of them. Although lately the inspiration isn't striking me as often as it was a month or two ago. Perhaps my brain got tired of suggesting blog topics about which I did nothing.

Today, though, I thought I'd talk about Postcrossing. I started doing Postcrossing last month. You sign up with the website and provide it with your mailing address. You can create a profile where you can upload a photo and share info about yourself or talk about what kinds of postcards you'd most like to receive. Then you click "Send a Postcard," and you receive the information for someone else who's signed up with Postcrossing. When you first start out, you can send out 5 postcards. Then you wait for them to be received and registered on the website by the addressee. When a postcard that you've sent is registered, you can request info to send another. As the number of postcards you've sent adds up, the number you can have traveling at one time increases.

My first 5 postcards were sent to Finland, Spain, China, France and Germany. I've gotten 4 postcards back so far, from Finland (coincidence!), the Netherlands, Cincinnati and Yonkers, N.Y. I'm enjoying making connections across the country and around the world and seeing what postcards people use to send. My plan is to put the postcards in a photo album with 4x6 windows so that I don't end up shoving them in a drawer or putting them in a pile of papers somewhere, but can actually enjoy them again as snapshots from all over.

One caveat, though - although postcards mailed in the U.S. are only 28 cents, international postcards cost 98 cents to mail. Ouch. I'm planning to pace myself so this doesn't become a really expensive habit, but I think it's a fairly cheap hobby compared to many, and it's one that builds international goodwill to boot.

Hooray for the Slow Cooker!

My mom used a slow cooker frequently when I was growing up. I remember many a pot of pinto beans and ham, as well as hamburger soup and other kinds of yummy slow-cooked goodness.

Slow cookers have come a long way since then, and so have the foods that are cooked in them. I love using one because it simplifies my dinner-time routine, which is nice because that time of day can sometimes get chaotic. It's also wonderful for tenderizing cuts of meat as they cook, and blending flavors together.

Probably my favorite slow-cooker recipe right now is kalua pig. So, so good, and really easy. It's just a pork butt (or shoulder) roast rubbed with sea salt and liquid smoke, then placed in a slow cooker with water and cooked for anywhere from 14 to 20 hours, depending on how hot your slow cooker cooks. I start it around 11:00 pm, then turn it in the morning when I get up and several times throughout the day to prevent any pieces from getting dry. The meat literally falls apart, it's so tender, and the flavor is incredible. You can find the recipe here.

Two other recipes I tried recently are Slow-Cooked Chili and Beef Stroganoff. Both were made for groups, and both got rave reviews! I made the chili pretty much as is, and I though it was fabulous. To the stroganoff, I added garlic, onion soup mix and sour cream, per the suggestions of others who had left reviews on the recipe. It was really good and creamy, and the meat was tender despite only being cooked on high for 5 hours. I usually prefer to cook chunks of meat or whole roasts on low for a longer period of time, but it totally worked.

I'll be using my slow cooker more as we're heading deeper into fall and drawing closer to winter. It's a great time to make stews and soups and chili and other warm comfort foods like that, but I'll be looking for new types of slow-cooker recipes to try out, too.

Happy 40th Anniversary, Sesame Street!

As I mentioned yesterday, Sesame Street is celebrating its 40th anniversary today. I'm glad that such a wonderful, educational program has been able to keep going and stay fun and interesting for 40 years! I have such fondness for these characters and for the people who bring them to life.

Tributes are popping up all over, and Sesame Street residents have been making the rounds. Here's the first part of an interview that Jimmy Kimmel did with Big Bird:



Big Bird was really charming and funny, and I thought Kimmel did a good job with him. Part 2 can be found at a link to the right on the YouTube page.

Here's Google's logo for today:

More Sesame Street Google logos can be found here.

Food Network Challenge had a competition for cake designers to create cakes for the occasion. Here's the winner, done by Mike's Amazing Cakes:


I love how this show makes learning fun. It helps reinforce learning with kids who might balk at using workbooks or going over their alphabet or numbers - they learn without even realizing it, and they have doing it. And Sesame Street deals with feelings, and treating others well, and teaches other lessons that are so important for kids to learn.

Happy 40th, Sesame Street. May you continue providing quality television for young kids (and their parents) for another 40 years!

C is For Cake Pops

As you may or may not know, tomorrow is Sesame Street's 40th anniversary. Being a child of the 1970s, I love Sesame Street. I learned quite a bit while watching that show and enjoy sharing it with my 5-year-old, Rachel, now. They have a wonderful way of teaching children about topics and making it fun, while also just cutting loose and being silly for silliness' sake.

One of the blogs I follow is Bakerella. She creates all sorts of wonderful baked goodness and is the originator of cupcake pops, cute little decorated cake bites on a stick. In honor of Sesame Street's milestone, she created cake pops of 4 Sesame Street characters, as seen here:


Could these be any cuter? They're not difficult to make, judging by the written directions, but they do require a bit of time. You can find her full post with step-by-step instructions here.

Another place where I'm getting inspiration is from the book Hello, Cupcake! I got it from James and Rachel (and, presumably, Ben) as a birthday gift last month, and I can hardly wait to try some of the designs. I really wanted to make the pumpkin cupcakes for Rachel's class for Halloween, but they didn't have a party and had the last 2 days of the week off for conferences, so that holiday just kind of came and went. I'm kicking around making their turkey cupcakes for her class for Thanksgiving. They also have some fun Christmas designs and just a ton of other creative ideas. I really want to start making them and not have this be a book that's fun to look at but never gets used. Maybe I should just commit myself by e-mailing Rachel's teacher and volunteering to bring in cupcakes. Then I'll have to do it.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

At least if you look at our bill-paying program, where I've been logging Christmas purchases for a while now. Yesterday was a big online shopping day for me and I made some good progress on my Christmas list, but it was for the people for whom it's easy to shop (James, the kids and my mom). So now I'm down to the people who make it more challenging because they either seem to have everything they want and you don't want to just give them junk for the sake of giving them something, people with whom I don't hang out frequently enough to know just what they'd like and people where, when you ask their spouse what they might like, the spouse says "Oh, I don't know, I'm sure they'll like whatever you give them."

I'm totally ripping this off from my friend Adrea's blog, but this, people, is why you need Amazon wish lists. I've had one for probably 9 or 10 years now and just update it before and after big gift-giving occasions like my birthday and Christmas. So does James. I think I'm going to just start harping on other family members to create one and keep it updated so we can actually get them things they want. And here are my rebuttals for arguments they might make:

"I really don't need anything." Tough. You're going to get something, and I'd rather it be something you'll enjoy. Gift-giving is my love language, and dangit, you're making it hard for me to love you if you don't give me some kind of idea of the gifts you'd like.

"I like to be surprised." Fine, then put items that you already own and enjoy on your wish list, and I'll use that to choose other things that I think would be good for you based upon those items. You'll be surprised, and I'll get some helpful guidance.

"It's so limited." No, it's not. Amazon allows people to add items from any other shopping website with a Universal wish list button. It's brilliant, and you don't have to limit yourself to Amazon's choices (which, by the way, are pretty varied - so if you couldn't find even a few things on Amazon's website, too, perhaps you're too picky).

"It seems like a hassle to set up." They make it pretty easy, really. Now you're just reaching for an argument.

So to sum it up, make it easy on everyone who might buy you a Christmas gift and create an Amazon wish list, then make sure you drop hints that you have such a list so that people don't bang their heads into the wall trying to figure out what to get you this year. Or else you might find a Chia Obama under the tree with your name on it.

What I'm Watching

FlashForward is a show that I've been enjoying more and more. It's got a lot of plot points going at the same time, but so far most of them are fairly easy to follow as they unfold. There are payoffs in pretty much every episode, unlike in LOST, where you can watch half a season and only have more questions pile up. (Don't get me wrong - I like LOST, but it can be confusing and difficult to follow, and I can't help but wonder if they're going to be able to wrap up all the questions floating around when season 6 airs next year.)

FF's performances are convincing and realistic. The characters are being fleshed out nicely as the season develops. I liked this week's episode, in which a regular character commits suicide rather than fulfill his flashforward, which saw him discovering that he was responsible for the death of a single mother of two boys. I was disappointed that the character died, because I liked him quite a bit. But while the suicide was a bummer, it showed (I think) that one isn't stuck in a destiny with no choice of changing the outcome. That was the first time we'd seen something not happening as revealed in a flashforward, and it brings interesting new possibilities to some of the other characters' lives.

Two other shows I've been watching for some time that I'm not enjoying as much this season are The Office and Ugly Betty. The Office has, in the past, struck a nice balance between situations and behaviors that make you cringe, and touches of humanity and humor and, now and then, awesomeness on the part of certain characters. Michael Scott is a prime example of a character who can make me cringe, but who also makes me laugh and sometimes really kicks butt with something he says or does to save the day or take a person down a peg. But this season, it seems like there is very little about him that's redeeming. When he tried to help Jim during the wedding reception dinner, I thought "Cool! Michael's about to turn things around!" and instead, he just made it worse. When he went to lunch with Pam, Jim and Pam's mother, Helene, whom he'd been dating, and Helene revealed her age while Michael blanched, I said to James, "Oh, please let him not break up with Helene at her birthday lunch." And that's exactly what he did. He's just become a big turd this year, and I'd like to see him do something good again, but the writers are not balancing his character at all. Dwight is also becoming too much for me to stomach at times. Thank goodness for Andy, who I just love and who they've done a wonderful job of turning around from a totally obnoxious person to one that I like and with whom I can empathize. I'm still enjoying The Office, but I'd like the writers to stop making me cringe so much. I don't like to feel that uncomfortable when watching TV.

In a similar vein, Ugly Betty is a show that I used to really like. It has, over time, become more and more of an overwrought soap opera with a little humor thrown in, rather than a dramedy showing an ugly duckling learning to become a swan. Betty is getting so beaten down this season, struggling to earn respect in her new position as assistant editor, finding out she won out over Marc by a simple coin toss between their bosses, being replaced as Daniel's assistant by someone who seems to be turning Daniel against her, in love with her new boss, an ex-boyfriend, who is taking a friend of Betty's as his date to a work event...and it seems to go on and on. There has always been drama on the show, but there's also been lightness and humor, and that seems in short supply this season. I may end up dropping the show if I don't start to enjoy it more again.

An 80s Flashback

Today, I bring you a video post.



Really, how can you not like this song? I posted a lyric from this on Facebook yesterday and quite a few people responded. Why? Because this song just plain rules. The 80s may have been full of cheese, but it was high-quality cheese, and without all the skankiness that abounds today. Madonna was probably the most scandalous pop culture figure, and even her actions now seem quaint when you compare them to some of the people making headlines these days.

Ah, the good old days.

(Also? Get off my lawn!)

Finding Time to Get Organized

I've decided to try out Remember the Milk, an online to-do list manager, to see if it can help me be more organized and focused. James has been using it for some time now and really likes it. I set up my own account because his has quite a few task lists already, so I figured it would be better for my purposes to keep it simple and easy to find my own stuff.

I'm trying to figure out if I should start setting up my lists right now, or if I should go do some of the things I know need to be done and create my lists later. I think I'm going for the "do stuff now" option because Ben is napping, so it's a good time to exercise and do the things that are hard to do when he's awake, like cleaning bathrooms.

I'm feeling optimistic about being able to tackle more things once I can see them all in one place. It also will give me a specific place to put items like projects to do around the house, one-time tasks that I don't have to keep transferring from one sheet of paper to the next when I get through a few days or a week and need to make a new list, reminders for things I need to do in the future, etc. Some of the things are things for which I'm currently using my Google Calendar, but I can clean that up a little by moving things to RTM.

Hopefully it will be a big help to me and and it won't start to feel like a hassle to keep it updated. I think it will give me satisfaction in being able to check things off and see them disappear from my list. Plus I can always print out my to-do list if I want to be able to take a hard copy around the house with me, or have the sensory experience of actually crossing something off.

It's just hard to make the time to get organized, but I think if I spend a few minutes here and a few minutes there building my lists, it won't take me long before I have things recorded there and can stop saying "Where is my notebook?" when it's gone AWOL.

A Little Overwhelmed

Lately, I've been feeling a little depressed. I think it's because my regular to-do list is long, and it seems like I can't get to half of it on a regular basis. Then there's the "when there's time" list, and I hardly ever get to that stuff.

I need to figure out a way to manage my time better so that I can get more done. I'm not sure how to do that, although setting a timer when I'm on the Internet might help. Now that we have an iPod Touch (Thanks, Corey & Gilda!), I can use that to do some web surfing while doing free step and maybe reclaim a little time there.

When we lived in California and both worked, we had a cleaning lady who came every other week. She stayed for a few hours and got an incredible amount of work done. I need to figure out how she could accomplish so much in so short a time and try to adopt some of her methods.

I think I also need to come up with a better way of keeping my to-do list. James uses Remember the Milk. I may start my own list there or look for another website where I can track tasks. If I can keep my list updated more easily and be able to access it without having to search for a notebook or index card or sheet of paper where my current list is, it may be easier for me to stay focused and keep on track with things. I can get an awful lot done on Fridays, when we're expecting our small group in the evenings, because I have powerful motivation to have my house clean. So I need to dig up more of that motivation so that I can get to other things, too.

It's tough because it feels like we're so busy that James and I struggle to find quality time with each other. Our evenings usually consist of watching TV while we get in some exercise after the kids have gone to bed. At least we're exercising and, hopefully, working our way toward being healthier, but we need to also figure out how to have some good time together just hanging out and talking.

We were busy before we had kids, and now even more so. And as they get older, some of their needs will fall away and we won't have as much to do in certain areas. But their time commitments will probably grow, and some of our time will be spent ferrying them to more activities and helping with homework. So it's not like we can expect a bunch of leisure time to return to us for quite a while.

I need to get my lists down in one place, prioritize them, and look to them for motivation instead of allowing myself to be lazy.

The other side of the coin is that I don't want to spend most of my time working on tasks at the expense of time with James, Rachel and Ben. It's a delicate balancing act. But I'm blessed to have my family and my home to take care of, and I want to do the best job possible.

Writer's Block

Why is it that now that I'm taking the time to try to post each day, I'm drawing a complete blank? Frustrating.

Although I suspect that the Yankees and Phillies are conspiring to make the World Series go on as long as possible simply to screw with my TV watching. So You Think You Can Dance has had to air shows last week and this week that don't allow for viewers to vote. Ordinarily in this phase of the show, viewer votes determine the bottom three couples, and the judges decide on the man and woman going home out of those six people. But because the World Series aired on Wednesday last week (and looks like it will be on tomorrow, too), the judges are just picking *their* bottom two men and women and then sending 1 of each home. They actually put Russell in the bottom two last week. RUSSELL, who is the first krumper to ever make it to the top 20, who is an incredible krumper, and who I thought did a fine job of the foxtrot last week despite the fact that his partner, Noelle, had gotten injured and couldn't dance with him. He instead danced with one of the two choreographers who had taught the pair their dance. Noelle? She got a free ride through to this week, even though she couldn't compete. I didn't think that was fair at all. Tough break, but if you can't compete in a week, I don't think you should advance past someone who danced.

Glee is the other Fox show I watch. It was off last week and is showing two repeats this week, but that doesn't chap me as much as the format of SYTYCD totally being changed because they can't air results shows for the first two weeks of competition. That's just lame.

Day 2

I did not have an easy time getting up this morning. I slept poorly on Saturday night, waking up several times (including once from a nightmare), and then didn't get to bed until a little later than I would have liked last night. I snoozed my alarm an extra time today, but it still went well.

Rachel had gone to bed early last night, so she was awake before me, which meant no having to spend 10 minutes trying to get her out of bed. She was pretty cheerful and mostly did well this morning. She dawdled while finishing up breakfast and had to be asked several times to brush her teeth because she was taking forever to finish chewing up her vitamin, but overall she did a good job. No battles today, yay!

Today will be a busy day. It's my mom's birthday, so after Ben and I pick up Rachel at 11:35, we're driving to Lakewood to take my mom out to lunch. I'm guessing we won't be back here until 4:00 or so, which means I need to be extra-productive this morning. I'm going to go play with Ben until it's his naptime, and then start cranking on my to-do list.

Exciting stuff, my life.

NaBloPoMo

Today is the beginning of National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo. The goal is to post at least one entry every day during the month of November. Nothing specific came to my mind to post just now, but I thought "How sad would it be if I couldn't even make it one day before failing?"

How can it already be November? This year has actually gone by really quickly. It seems just like yesterday that we were working on putting the tile floor in our kitchen and half bathroom, but that was July, and now we're gearing up for Thanksgiving. And just over 4 weeks after that, Christmas. I started working on my Christmas shopping in July during that tile project week, which is what made me think of that (I'm spiderwebbing, people). While I've done some additional shopping since then, I'm not as far along my list as I'd hoped to be by now. Some of the people in my life really need to make it easier to shop for them. Might I suggest Amazon.com wishlists, family-members-who-are-so-hard-to-peg? Of course, I don't think those people read my blog, so that's probably not going to happen.

I am so excited for Christmas this year. I don't know what family members' plans are this year as they seem to be somewhat up in the air for a while longer, but I plan on enjoying a great family time with whoever is around. I think Ben will really be into the opening of gifts and stockings this year, although I do suspect we'll have a time keeping him out of other people's stockings, or unpacking them again after they've been discovered, unloaded and repacked. He may also just start ripping and tearing at packages willy-nilly. But if that happens, I'm sure it will just add to the fun!

I wonder how many more years Rachel will believe in Santa. I don't remember how old I was when I stopped believing, although I'm guessing it was older than Rachel will be. Kids these days know too much, so I think we may have one or two more years, tops. Then we'll have to get her in on the act of pretending for Ben's sake.

It's kind of an odd thing when you think about it. We create this myth of Santa and tell our kids about it and encourage them to believe, only to have to explain that he isn't real when they start seriously asking questions. I wonder if that's upsetting to kids, or if most are ready for that knowledge by the time they have it. I truly don't remember how or when I knew, so I don't think it was anything that scarred me psychologically. And if that was a common problem, I'm sure we'd hear about it.

Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts this evening. I don't know if I'll be posting every day this month, but I'm going to try to post as many days as I can. Hopefully at least some of the posts are interesting!

Ocean by Ten Shekel Shirt

I have so many things go through my head where I think "Hey, I should blog about that," and then I don't. I wish I could just drop what I'm doing and write a quick blog post whenever something occurs to me. I'd probably be much more prolific. I think I need to settle for a goal of at least 1 or 2 posts per week for now.

I've been in a study about the names of God. It's been wonderful doing a deep study of characteristics of God and how they are represented by His names in Hebrew. This week, we've been studying and discussing names that refer to His splendor. We were talking this morning about how nature reflects God's glory, and it made me think of this song.

Why Fall is Awesome

In no particular order:

• The slowing and then cessation of weeds to be pulled in my flowerbeds.
• School starting and providing Rachel with entertainment, playtime and stimulation for nearly 3 hours every weekday.
• No more sweating through temperatures in the 90s and 100s with no air conditioning in the house.
• Getting to wear cozy sweaters again.
• Sitting by a crackling fire, and smelling wood smoke in the air.
• Celebrating my wedding anniversary (which, technically, is still during the summer, but it's after school starts, so I'm counting it).
• Dressing up Rachel, and now Ben, in cute Halloween costumes.
• The start of many of my favorite TV shows.
• Giving thanks with family and friends over a big turkey dinner and relaxing with them afterwards.
• Having one-on-one time with Ben now that Rachel is back in school during the mornings.
• Birthday presents.
• The gloriously vibrant colors of the changing leaves on the trees.
• Enjoying the blowing winds and falling rain while sheltered in a nice warm house.
• Hosting a pumpkin carving party.
• Visiting the Woodland Park Zoo and watching the animals enjoy their pumpkins - especially the big brown bears.
• Soup! Stews! Frequent crockpot meals! Yum!
  
• Not having to worry if it will be too warm to use the oven when making dinner.
• Anticipating the Christmas season.
  

HGTV's Next Design Star

I've watched Design Star since the first episode of season 1 and have always enjoyed the challenges they do. This season has just been a little lackluster to me. The challenges are still interesting and there's drama in trying to complete them in the time allowed, but I think the contestants aren't as appealing this time. There are 3 contestants left, and while some of them are interesting designers, their personalities are lacking. One is really arrogant and pushy and totally hijacked the group project on last night's episode. One seems to have an okay personality, but none of her designs stand out to me and her personality is boring in terms of watching her on her own TV show. The third has had some good ideas and did a wonderful individual room. Each contestant started with an all-white room with a few simple pieces of furniture and had to come up with a concept and execute it only with what they could find in a grocery store. Dan created this room as a deconstruction of an apple orchard:


It was just so well done and looked really striking. Dan is probably who I'd pull for if he makes it to the final two, but I still don't know if I'd find his show entertaining enough.

I hope they do a better job of casting for the next season and don't just look for wacky personalities to fill most of the slots, like it seemed they did this time.

What I Learned This Weekend

I had the chance to attend a simulcast of a Beth Moore conference this weekend. Beth is a phenomenal speaker who has a heart to teach women about Biblical truths. She has a way of connecting with women that is so unique and heartfelt, and I learn so much from her in the Bible studies we've done at church. I went to a live event of hers in Redmond, WA a few years ago, and it was incredible, so I was excited that our church was one of the locations for the simulcast. A little over 90,000 women in 516 locations were a part - awesome!

Beth spoke on the desires of your heart. These were the parts of her message that stood out to me the most:

1. We're so fixated on what we want that we don't do what it takes to get it. Sometimes we ask God for something, and we just keep begging Him for it, when it's something that may be in our grasp. We may already be able to attain it, or we may need to change something about ourselves or our lives to get it, but if all we do is sit around and beg for it without being willing to take action, we can cripple ourselves and prevent ourselves from experiencing fuller joy and our heart's delight.
2. If you've sought something for an extended period of time and you still don't have it, something is up. It may that what we desire will impact our destiny or will stand in the way of God's glory.
3. Delighting in God turns our desires into inevitabilities. Any time you want what is in the will of God for you, you will have it. One thing Beth urged us to do was to pray this daily: "God, grant me a heart to delight in You." If you make yourself available to delight, you will receive it. I do long to delight more in the Lord and to be more open with how I worship Him and how I share Him with others. This is a prayer that I'm now praying, and I'm excited to see Him bring it about in my life. She also encouraged us to pray for a supernatural love for God and His word, another prayer that I look forward to God answering.
   
4. I'm forgiven by a God whose mercy is given with delight. Isn't that an incredible thought? God doesn't forgive grudgingly, as we can sometimes do with others when we aren't ready to forgive quite yet or still feel wounded by their actions. It truly delights Him to lavish His mercy on us and to grant us forgiveness.
5. Nothing external can steal our right to delight. There are 3 things that can deform our delight if we hold onto them and let them fester:

• Jealousy - desire tinged with resentment, whether it's of those who do wrong, or those who do well;
• Anger - anger is the polar opposite of delight, constricting us while delight will free us;
• Worry - our efforts to affect something as if by gnawing on it or biting into it. We need to make sure we're not allowing these 3 attitudes to reside within us, or they will steal our delight.

She also urged us to go out and do good. It doesn't matter if we're right if we don't do any good. It's just being right. Who can you help? What good can you do? We're to dwell in the land God has given us, and truly be a part of it, not just sit above it and feel morally upright.

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The other major revelation that I had this weekend had to do with Rachel. She has for some time had a very strong will and a volatile temper. Her attitude can turn on a dime if she doesn't get what she wants or has to stop doing something she's enjoying, or for any number of reasons. It's been inexplicable to us. It's true that I have a temper myself, but Rachel started displaying hers long before she saw examples of that from me. She is truly extreme, and it can be frustating and upsetting to deal with it on a regular basis. There have been plenty of times when I've asked God why on earth I was given a child who can be so difficult to parent.

It hit me this weekend that at least part of the reason why we have Rachel is because God still has a lot of work to do in me. Patience and self-control have been two fruits of the Spirit that I've lacked in great quantities. They're also things that I've wanted to have more of for a long time. I truly believe that God is using Rachel to put me through a Refiner's fire and burn away those parts of me that can be so ugly. I feel like I've already learned so much about controlling my own attitude and outward reactions, and clearly I'm practicing patience in experiencing the same issues with her repeatedly and going to the Lord about them in prayer. I think I'm also learning about not letting someone steal my delight. I can't control how Rachel chooses to react, but I can control how I choose to let it affect me. I can keep praying for her heart to be shaped by God, and I can model the behavior that I want to see from her.

Favorite Routine of SYTYCD Season 5

I'm not sure season 5 of So You Think You Can Dance grabbed me like the past seasons have. I don't know if it was the contestants, the routines or both. But I did find a number of routines that I particularly enjoyed or that were powerfully choreographed and performed. I think this one is my favorite. In some ways, it's a difficult routine to watch. It's about the hold that addiction has on a person who's trying to escape it, and the emotion is raw and powerful. The routine was choreographed by Mia Michaels and was performed by Kayla and Kupono.



A close runner-up was the contemporary dance done to "If It Kills Me," choreographed by Travis Wall and danced by Jeanine (season 5's winner) and Jason. It portrays a friendship that's on the verge of becoming a romantic relationship. This one was emotional, too, but in a beautiful, sweet way.



SYTYCD season 6 is kicking off on September 9, only 5 weeks after the normal summer season ends. It's the first time they're having a fall season. I actually wish they would have started the season in November or December, during what's a fairly dead time for many primetime shows. It's also nice to have a bit of a break between seasons for a show that's on two nights a week. But I love the dancing they feature and having a chance to see so much talent, and the judges are generally really knowledgeable and helpful in their critiques and their praise. It's one of my favorite talent-based competition shows, along with HGTV's Design Star and The Next Food Network Star.

A System Based on Trust

I was driving home from visiting my mom in Lakewood today and was on the road with a lot of trucks. Some of them were going past me on curves in the opposite direction that I was going, and it occurred to me how much we rely on other people for our safety when we're driving.

If someone behind the wheel of a semi was careless or inattentive, sleepy, angry or suicidal, it wouldn't take much for them to cross a barrier (or no barrier, just a line), and life would be over, or severely changed. That's a scary thought, but it's not one I'm going to dwell on. I think we always need to be alert when we're driving, but our system definitely depends on trusting one another to follow the rules. It's a good thing people generally do.

The Next Food Network Star

I don't remember if I've blogged about Food Network shows before, but if so, you'll just have to deal with me repeating myself. If you know me very well at all, that's not a new thing, anyway.

I like a number of shows on the Food Network. It can be dangerous for the waistline to be a big FN fan, so I'm glad that I've been developing more self-control lately. And now that I'm talking about this, I'm pretty sure that I have blogged about at least some of the Food Network shows I like, such as the Food Network Challenge. So I won't go on about the shows in general, but I will talk about one show in particular, The Next Food Network Star.

The season that just ended on Aug. 2 was season 5 of the show. I missed seasons 1-3 and am hoping that they will be available on Hulu or FoodNetwork.com one of these days, because I'd really like to see the challenges and how things unfolded. I know the winners of the seasons, but I still think I'd find the shows interesting. They put the chefs into such unique and sometimes high-pressure situations, and it's great to see how they deal with the stress, how they are in front of the cameras and live audiences, and what types of dishes they make.

Melissa D'Arabian, a stay-at-home mom to 4 girls who are age 4 and younger, was the season 5 winner. Melissa was the only non-professional chef to compete out of a group of 10, and while she made a few minor missteps here and there, she nearly always impressed the judges with her dishes and her presentation style, and she was always ready to embrace their constructive criticism and apply it. I was really pulling for her and was so happy that she won.

Melissa's show, "Ten Dollar Dinners with Melissa D'Arabian," premiered on Sunday, Aug. 9. I DVR'd it and know that it will be in my regular rotation. I already plan to make the first dishes she featured, which were a Potato-Bacon-Gruyere Torte in a buttery crust, a "cafe salad" with a homemade mustard vinaigrette, and an applesauce granita with a yogurt-maple sauce. The entire thing, not each dish, can be made for $10. In these budget-conscious times, that's a ridiculously low amount to spend for such a yummy-sounding, freshly-made meal.

One of Melissa's trademarks during the competition was providing tips as she went along, without making it seem like she was "teaching" the judges or the viewers. They were just handy tidbits she threw in while cooking, and that has transferred over to the show. Two of the things I learned on the first show:

1. If you freeze your bacon, it will last much longer. The high fat content will prevent it from freezing all the way through, so you can easily cut pieces off or remove strips. If you need a certain number of slices, you can cut along the ends and approximate a strip, then just slice through however many you need. Obviously, you'll need to separate the strips differently if you want to fry up whole strips, but I thought that was a great tip when you're needing to make bacon for crumbling into or on top of a dish.
2. The key to a good, flaky pie crust is to make sure your butter stays chilled. After cutting it into cubes, put it into the freezer for a few minutes. You can use the pulse setting on a food processor to make the dough because it combines it quickly enough so that your crust won't get tough. Once your dough is combined, pat it together quickly with your hands and place it into a bag, then put it into the refrigerator for a few minutes before you roll it out. These steps will help to keep your butter cold, which will give you the nice, flaky layers you want in a pie crust.

My one criticism of the show is that Melissa used a wooden cutting board to cut off pieces of raw bacon. She used a cloth to wipe off the board and then sliced a clove of fresh garlic to put into her vinaigrette. They didn't show her changing boards or using anything to disinfect the board, and it's pretty basic kitchen safety to know that you never use the same cutting board for other cutting after you've had raw meat on it, unless it's been well-cleaned.

It may be that the board was cleaned right after she sliced the bacon, but they didn't show that and it wasn't mentioned, so that seemed like a big oversight to me.

Other than that, Melissa was a natural on camera, and watching the show felt like being at a friend's house and having her talk me through her recipes while we chatted. Delicious-sounding and -looking recipes, and inexpensive to boot. I can't wait to see what else she makes!