she's just saying...

When Cultures Collide

We spent Christmas at my parents' in Hendersonville, NC, which is somewhere south of Asheville  somewhere in western North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge mountains. A beautiful area of hills and hollows, Appalachian mixed with southern lite.

One of my tasks was to procure and set up the Christmas tree (my second of the season, but who's counting?). On a cold rainy morning Henry and I dashed out to make Christmas happen. We needed a new tree stand first as well as the tree to put in it. We weren't up for dealing with box-store parking and crowds, so went looking for a local tree lot. Unlike Oregon, they're not on every corner in NC. But there was an ancient hardware store next to a little garden nursery down the road and I stopped in, hoping to get both errands done at one shot.

I ran into the hardware store first. This was the kind with an ancient wooden ride-on horse on the porch, wood floors, bins of nails and deer heads hung on the walls. It came complete with three menfolk hanging around the stove discussing an old car. I asked the young man at the counter if they had Christmas tree stands.

Unfortunately they didn't, so I asked where I might find one nearby. He called to the men: "She's looking for a tree stand - do you know where she can find one?" They looked over and checked me out. They seemed confused, concerned and doubtful. One said: "She's not really dressed for it," as they looked at each other with some alarm, taking in my suburban mom ensemble. Another said to the group: "Well, isn't there one down the road a few miles?" "Yeah, Harry's got one at his place..."  I said "Is that a store?" We all stared at one another. The young man of the group said "No, a Christmas tree stand! To hold a Christmas tree!" Light dawned on their faces. "We thought you was going deer hunting!" "We didn't think you was dressed for it!" They all laughed and looked relieved. My turn to be confused.

Turns out that a tree stand in western North Carolina refers to a structure in the woods from which to shoot deer. I noted that I didn't have my gun with me, we all guffawed awhile and they directed me to the nursery next door where I got the needed tree stand, threw a tree into the trunk, and headed home to produce Christmas.

The forest was safe for another day...

Animals + alcohol = trouble

By popular demand (OK, my brother), this week's Friday Frylet will reprise one in the series of Melissa's Pet Disasters with the Eggnog story. Enjoy, and remember, don't let your pets drink and drive.

Christmas card

Disclosure: this pic is from last Christmas, but since I'm not home to take another, this will have to do.

Merry Christmas, all! Hope yours was wonderful, or at least you weren't throwing up.

Ours was wonderful anyway, and I'm feeling much better, thanks.

the cookie list

Sorry for the delay in posting. Some holiday or something intervened. As well as the intestinal flu.

But before I ended up prone and moaning for the last 24 hours on my parents' couch, I was busy knitting presents (mostly done - more on that at another time), shopping, cleaning up, making dinners, wrapping and most importantly, baking cookies.

Due to not being home for the holidays, I didn't get to the usual 5+varieties. Here's the final tally:

• Russian Teacakes
• Cocoa Rum Balls
• Peppermint and bitter chocolate frosted brownies
• Lemon Coconut Squares, not technically a Christmas cookie but by demand from MyBigBro

 Aunt Hattie's Squash Rolls made an appearance, plus your usual oyster stew, seafook paella, roast beef, chicken pot pie, apple crisp and go-withs.

Today we're snowed in, which is pretty cool actually in North Carolina, so we are canceling the one chance we had to go out to eat and are cooking at home again tonight. We're throwing in the towel and having waffles with chicken gravy.

Photo of something interesting here when I feel better.

 

 

The Knitmas tally to date

In the tradition of knitters everywhere, I cling to very optimistic views of what I can produce on deadline. I've been on the Knitmas train since early October, and here's the tally of finished objects so far (identifying details have been removed to protect the surprise):

• 2 hats (plus 2 more orphan hats that I rejected as gifts)
• 2 sets of fingerless mitts
• 1 pair of footwear
• 1 sock
• 1 cowl
• 1 scarf
• 1 bag
• 1 chapstick cozy
• 3 mini Santa hat ornaments (my version of procrastinating)

 I still have to finish: 1 scarf (halfway done), 3 hats (2 started so far), 1 sock and 1 set of mitts. There are six knitting days left until Christmas. Piece of cake, right?

I've already informed several recipients that they're not getting their gifts til after Christmas, so that buys me a little more time. Meanwhile, I won't be blogging, or doing much of anything but knitting with grim determination and focus. Other than taking four planes to North Carolina, setting up my parents' tree, baking cookies, making meals, doing errands and shopping and trying to keep Henry entertained. Should be a fun week! Really.

Note: this is not happening again next Christmas. Target gift certificates for all!

How are you all doing on your Christmas lists?

Knitmas mania

There's a knitter's blog titled "I'm knitting as fast as I can!" and I so relate right now. Due to the confluence of my deepening knitting obsession and being broke, I've decided to produce all my Christmas gifts via the needles this year. Since everyone in my family still gives a present to everyone else (despite vowing for years to stop the practice), that means 11 gifts right there. Then there are friends, co-workers-who-are-friends, special teachers and neighbors. Actually, many of those are getting canned goods, i.e. lovingly-homemade jams, sauces and chutneys that were my September obsession. Still, that leaves a lot of knitting to be done.

Things I'm making: berets, watchcaps, fingerless mitts, scarves, cowls, slippers and if I panic and run out of time, a washcloth or two, and possibly a few more felted mice and coffee cozies. I'm about halfway through, and if I'm averaging one gift every five days, I should just make it. I can't show you anything I've made as you may be a lucky recipient, so I'll just flash my stash, as we say in the knitting crowd.

All of this will be knitted up, within my lifetime. Really.

Cranberries go Tex-Mex

This is my all-time favorite cranberry sauce. I bring it to every Thanksgiving gathering, mostly for me. It adds a surprising and welcome contrast to the typical Tgiving menu, and goes great on cold turkey sandwiches as well. Warn the children, however - it's spicy.

TEX-MEX CRANBERRY SAUCE

INGREDIENTS: (approximate)
1 bag of cranberries
cup of sugar
cup of water
up to 1 chopped jalapeno, or about 1/4 cup canned, chopped
1-2 scallions, sliced
1+ tablespoon cilantro
1+ teaspoon cumin
2+ teaspoons lime juice

DIRECTIONS:
Combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil; add cranberries, return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, gently stir in all the other ingredients and modify heat to your taste. This keeps forever in the fridge.

Jumping the season

Sure feels like time for a Friday frylet, those little tasty remnants at the bottom of the french fry bag. A little salty nibble at the end of the week!

 

 Remember this? The Weebles reenacting the creche scene in a snowy Jerusalem? (Last time I posted this it generated some fascinating comments about the weather in the Mid-East, I recall.)

Anyway, you're warned. The countdown has begun...

Knitting countdown starts now

Starting tomorrow, I'm putting aside all personal knitting (sob!) and working on Christmas presents. Once again, with no money and lots of yarn, I'm setting the goal of knitting all presents for family and friends. So, no talking about what's on the needles or showing works in progress on the blog sidebar til January, assuming I hit my target dates...

So, the perennial question: would you rather ask for and receive exactly the gifts you want or would you rather be surprised by the imaginative choice of the giver? For me, this becomes the dilemma of whether to choose a pattern/yarn/color I think the recipient would like or whether to ask them beforehand, which isn't as much fun. I've thought of choosing a few options I want to knit and having them pick from those, but that's a lot of work, frankly.

It's not so hard with my sisters as I know their tastes, but for nieces/nephews, it gets tricky. Those twenty-somethings can be very choosy. Of course, I know what they really want and probably need more than any knitted item: cold hard cash.

 

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Taa-daa! The finished objays

Now that all the recipients have opened their gifts (except BigBro), I can reveal the results of my knitting marathon (except BigBro's).

First: felted clogs:

Next, many headbands ("Calorimetry" for my Knitty and Ravelry buds):

The ever-popular knitted mitts:

an apple cozy (THIS WAS BY REQUEST)

and a little gray mouse.

Gee, it seemed like I made a lot more than that. Of course, this doesn't show the items that were ripped out, abandoned, half done or just begun. Now to get to them... (January birthdays coming)

PS: the answer to this riddle can be found in the first photo.

Instant tree

Seriously, I did not mean to offend with that last card. It's a blog! It's supposed to be rude and irreverent! (Isn't it?) Anyway, back to appropriateness.

Christmas greetings! Naughty or nice?

As I mentioned, I don't send Christmas cards. Or, I do send them, just virtually: a blog post to all!

First, the family-friendly card:

  My Central Oregon readers will note that this is a Western-Oregon-centric card. The Bend version would have to include cyclists, burning buttes and roundabouts.

For the rest of you (you know who you are),

Apologies to my Christian readers. Do I even have any?
(Don't answer. Rhetorical. Really.)

Soft ball and hard crack

Q: What do those phrases stand for?

A:  Stages of sugar in candy-making. It's what the mixture does when dropped into cold water. If you're new at it, or not, it definitely helps to have a candy thermometer.

I like to make candy -- it's an adventure. I especially love to make real fudge so I can eat it. NOT the recipe with marshmallow fluff: the real candy-thermometer fudge. It's a messy process and a little tricky, as it crystallizes easily and then you get that gritty mouthfeel - sign of an amateur candymaker.

I may or may not make fudge this year. However, every year I do make nut brittle for my dad. It's like peanut brittle but with cashews, hazelnuts, pecans, brazil nuts, etc. instead. Very decadent. And murder on the fillings.

Here are some pics of Nut Brittle in the making. Recipe available upon request (I'm too sleepy to post it right now)

The set up:

Approaching the hard crack stage (300 degrees)

You stretch it while it's still hot (it's not as dark as it looks here)

Done. Yum.

The more things don't change, the more they stay the same

On knitting deadline right now, so I'm going to repost from last year. Same story, different projects:

Must. Knit.

First posted Dec. 15, 2008:

I decided this year to make ALL my Christmas presents (with the exception of the necessary plastic electronic junk I'm giving Henry). It's fun, actually - I feel I'm really making Christmas happen instead of buying it. It's a little weird not to be shopping right now, but it's also pretty cool.

The present-finishing countdown has begun in earnest. I have three projects left to complete, so I'm juggling them based on shipping dates, how late I can knit on Christmas Eve, who I won't see til after Christmas (gaining a precious day or two), and so forth, bouncing back and forth between projects. I'm going to be knitting morning, lunchtime and night to accomplish it all. Barring a possible carpal tunnel attack, I should be in good shape.

editor's note: HA.

You don't need to card me. Really!

As a single mom with a full-time job, some things just have to go.

(Note: this is a terrific excuse to get out of just about anything. Who would question it?)

For me, one of those things is Christmas cards. I know it's wonderful to send (and receive) a personal holiday greeting, but it's just not going to happen from this house. I don't even send my garbage bill by mail -- either it's on-line or it doesn't get paid.

Since my primary means of communication with my friends is through this blog or facebook (even those who live a few blocks away), it follows that those are the vehicles I'll use for my Christmas messages. It's not called social media for nothing.

When I was a girl, I remember my father sitting in his study every December, smoking his pipe and working on our Christmas card list. Adding those folks who sent us one the year before, removing long-forgotten acquaintances, typing it all out on his (now collectible) manual typewriter. It was a responsibility taken seriously.

As a result of course, I now carry guilt about not sending out cards myself. For many years, I bought cards with all good intentions, and maybe sent out 4 or 5, but one of the things that come with getting old is the wisdom of knowing yourself, so I no longer attempt the effort.

So, though I love getting your cards, I really don't mind if you take me off your list. It lessens the pangs of regret I feel around the mailbox this time of year. Not to mention being more environmentally-friendly: another quite useful justification for not doing things.

Just some of the cards you won't be getting from me...

I just got a lot more creative

I use Flickr to store and post my photos. Within Flickr there's an editing app called Picnik. It's a terrific, flexible editor that quickly crops, resizes, corrects color, red eye, exposure, etc.

Yesterday I clicked on another tab in Picnik titled "create." That function allows you to add text and images and effects to photos. So to play with my pictures, I don't have to open an involved photo editing program - it's all in one place, for free.

For example, it can do this:

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The Naked Tree

Well, we hauled in the tree finally. We held a vote and it was 2-0 against walking down the three blocks to the tree lot and carrying our tree home like we did last year. Hey, it's 4 below! So we wimped out and drove.

The same guy was there selling trees, which pleased Henry who added him to our Christmas tradition narrative. Henry had a tree picked out from driving by the lot every day on the school bus, but it turned out to be a Noble costing $50. So we went to the rear of the lot and got a Doug fir for $25.

It's so cold that the tree was all closed up and let off a brisk cold draft once we got it home and put up. It's now opening up and shedding wildly. It smells really weird - Henry said it's like an orange, and to me it's a little like a sulfurous natural gas smell. The primary reason I get a tree is for the wonderfully evocative scent, so this is a major bummer so far. Hopefully it will get in line and smell the way it's supposed to.

I love to have a tree in the house. First without lights - just a natural tree there in the corner. Then with the lights on, then all the ornaments. I love to sit in the dark next to the lit tree, sipping eggnog with something in it and enjoying the soft glow.

The lighting and trimming are scheduled for this weekend. This tree is so bushy and dense that it might be hard to decorate. The ornaments will look like they're stuck to it with velcro. Maybe I'll just leave it au naturale this year. More time to knit! If you look closely you can see the cats in their customary position each time we get a Christmas tree. Not sure what they're waiting for but they sit there all day...

Nativity

OMG. Thank you, Kathi D, for pointing out this blog.

This is my favorite pic so far...

Nativity

Now it looks like Boxmas

I just downloaded Christmas from the attic. This is what our holiday looks like, pre-assembly.

This is only missing the tree. It's still down at the tree lot on the corner, waiting to be chosen.

Now to assemble the season...

 

Christmas time in the city, briefly

Ahhh - business trip. I've taken an informal poll (of three) and have concluded that moms who work love business trips. Time alone to relax, luxuriating in the bathroom without little hands trying to open the door, no one saying "I'm hungry!" every half hour, someone else cooking, cleaning and catering to your needs. Plus a little shopping between meetings. It's not all bad.

I miss cities, especially old cities. Portland reminds me of Boston a little as do Seattle and San Fran - old cities with rich histories, old architecture and interesting people. We're staying right in the heart of town and it looks beautiful right now - lights on the old building cornices, in the trees, stores all bright and shiny.

This hotel is one of the new trendy urban models, sleek and arty. The building was the old Meier & Frank department store and Macy's is now on the first floors. I imagine that my room used to be in the ladies' lingerie section.We're right on Pioneer Square across from Nordstrom's and an upscale mall. It's all eye candy for a gal from a small town on the other side of the mountains.

I only have one complaint: why can't fancy hotels use soap dishes?

I know it would mess up the super sleek zenlike bathroom, but it's annoying. As a mom, I fret about having to wipe up the counter constantly. Though of course it's not me doing it this time.