Archives for November 2006

Favorite Holiday Recipes

1. Anything pumpkin. For years I made a quadruple batch of pumpkin bread for anyone I had ever met at my kids’ schools. (In addition we always gave fat mall or bookstore gift certificates to the teachers. Be generous to the person who is teaching my child was always my philosophy.) The thing about the bread though is that it is nerve-wracking trying to bake a ton of the loaves, monitoring them to make sure they bake through with out burning. School presents are no longer an issue, but we like to give to neighbors too. This year I think I am going to make Sheila’s (Musings of a Mommy) Pumpkin Muffins. I have already made a double batch and they are delightful and so much easier to bake.

2. Spritz cookies – Paul grew up with these and I learned to make them to please him. It took some doing to figure out the cookie press, (Is it 3 1/2 turns or 2 3/4 turns? Every year there is a learning curve.) but once I got that down they are easy to make. We make pretty pale green trees. They are pleasing to the eye and the tongue. Delicately bite from the tip of the tree to the trunk. Each section will gently break off – a sensory delight.

3. Frosted sugar cookies – I would not do this if it wasn’t for my sister Torey but she loves this so through the years we have developed a system that is fun for all. We do not use homemade dough, rolling and cutting out the cookies ourselves. We are all about the colors. We buy pre-formed cookies at GFS (Gordon Food Service) which come in trees, stars and Santas. Torey mixes about 10 colors – grass green, sky blue, pale pink, deep rose, bright yellow, soft yellow, purple, soft green, and more. I think we use prepared frosting too. (I know, gasp gasp!) We have tons of things to sprinkle and accent. One year we did portraits of each other. The two of us and all the kids sit around the table, talking and laughing and we have fun! The quality is poor, but the experience is wonderful and the results are delicious. This is revolutionary for us as we were raised to use only the best ingredients, make everything from scratch and keep the children at bay.

I am at a librairy that sits on a lake. For some time I have wanted to come here during my writing time. Something in my blood begins to hum at the sight of water.

There are huge windows all along this side of the building. Walking in, I had a few things I needed to do at the back but I kept looking to the windows, eager to settle in and stake my claim on the water. Some tables were in use or too close to others that were full. I wanted distance from people and proximity to the view. A table right next to the window in a section that was empty seemed just the ticket. Only once I got there did I realize that getting so close I was overlooking the parking lot and my view was mainly, some heating units, a bike rack and the boardwalk. The lake was right there, but was nolonger my focus. And then I noticed some comfy chairs with handy little trays attached several feet behind me. I sat down in the first. It was comfortable and the lake now dominated my sight, but a bit of the pesky parking lot remained. There was another chair only inches away. I shifted over to it, dragging my bag and pushing the stack of books with my foot. And now the lake, it’s boundary of trees and the great grey sky are all I see.

I am trying to tell my story and I don’t know how to do it. In theory, I know I need to shift, pull back, relax and just let the new view come into focus, but I don’t know what that means practically. Maybe I don’t need to know. Perhaps I just need to do whatever it is I think is moving back and lowering myself down, trusting that a comfortable chair will be there when I am ready.

But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
thought often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize foam’s twin is blood

-Barbara Ras

from You Can’t Have It All

Am up far too late but I just have to tell you why: I have been sitting in bed searching for a cute laptop bag.

That would be because my laptop is here and we now have wireless.

I know that doesn’t mean much to most of you, “Well of course you have a laptop and wireless, who doesn’t?”

In which case you do not know me and my husband and our propensity to never buy anything sexy, hip or even convenient when it comes to technology. Ipod shmipod, I’m surprised we own CD’s. If crank radios weren’t so expensive we would probably limit ourselves to that.

True story – but I am a writer and I can rewrite it.

And I will, on this laptop.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2006/11/838/

Awoke with a bit of a sore throat this morning. Things could go either way. I just don’t know. Trying to drink water, take vitamin C and wanted to have a nap but got caught up in a cooking storm.

Christopher broke his glasses a while ago and I need to get them in to be repaired. The kids are begging to go to the librairy. I would prefer to stay home, but I think I am going to load them all (including a Bean who nolonger takes naps – God help us) and go.

If one of you would nip over and pick up my living room, do 100 loads of laundry, spruce up the kitchen and clean the bathrooms, that would be great and I would definitely remember to say thank you.

Of note, I was feeling bad because of all I have not gotten done and then I reminded myself that I educated two children while minding two toddlers, bathed the wee ones, fed all of them and made a big pot of chili and a huge batch of sauce. Why do I live focusing on what I have left undone instead of celebrating what I have achieved? Something to notice.

As well, Paul and I are praying about serving on the team that will put on a marriage retreat in February. We both want to do it and are simply waiting to hammer out the details of a big trip that Paul needs to make in January but is not yet scheduled. Kids, this means the Marriage Vigilante I have become is going to be fully unleashed. Posts will follow. Hear me roar.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2006/11/839/