in which my faith in the American Public is restored, and what-not

Well, for all the mistakes they made along the way ("they" being American Idol voters), at least the right David won last night. My faith is restored...for now.

In other news, our dear little Monkey has had a cough for seven weeks. (yes you read that right. hey, why is this all underlined? stupid blogger.) On Tuesday we spent the evening at the clinic and came away with a tentative diagnosis of mild asthma. This is not what we wanted to hear. I know that lots of kids grow out of asthma by the time they start school, and I know that there are lots of worse things that could be wrong, but it feels like it's going to be a long haul. On the upside, he was prescribed medication and after only the first dose, he slept through the night until 6:30. This is nothing short of a miracle. The poor thing has been waking up from his cough multiple times per night. But the great thing about my Monkey is that he is always in good spirits.

And in other other news, we got new neighbours across the street. Last night our street was swarmed (I really mean swarmed) with people who had come to help them move in. My guess is that they are here straight from Germany. They had what appeared to be a shipping container filled with pallets of stuff (seriously, stop it with the underlining....) There is a very large German community in this area which is growing all the time. I'm sure their helpers were recent immigrants themselves. I'll tell you one thing, they made short work of the unloading. We weren't able to discern which people would actually be living in the house, but I saw a 7 or 8 year old boy there this evening. I will have to go over next week and introduce myself. (There, I wrote it in my blog, now I'll have to do it.)

Take care, happy weekend. We're planning our first wiener roast of the season tomorrow.

Vive Quebec!

Bonjour! Nous avons retourner de notre voyage a Quebec. Je pense que je veut ercrir c'est poste en Francaise. Bonne idee, non? (Je suis tres desolee. La qualite de mon Francais est mal. Aussi, un tableau c'est merite mille mots. :) )

Monsieur Musique, le Singe et moi s'en aller a Quebec pour une conference de la profession de Monsieur Musique. (en 2007 nous allons a Victoria.) Il as une bonne conference. Sur vendredi, Bren, Monsieur J et le petit chevre s'en faire connaissance avec nous. Nous avons une fin de semaine tres bien. (Allez lire l'histoire de Bren ici)

mmmm. chocolat

l'eglise Saint-Roch

il fait FROID!

notre auberge de jeunese, L'Auberge de la Paix

Merci beaucoup.

(I might get around to writing a post about this trip in English, too. maybe.)

No Faith in the American Public

What were you thinking people? Carly leaving American Idol? That's just wrong. I will now have to stop watching for the rest of the season. Because clearly the best singer is not going to win. Lets look at our options from this week again....

Syesha - She had fun with a Broadway song and sang it well. She's not my favourite, but she wasn't the second worst!

David A. - Thank you Andrew Lloyd Webber for finally telling him to open his eyes. I don't really like him, but at least he did something interesting with the song.

Brooke - Um, I want to like her because she is interesting, but I'm getting a bit sick of her wounded dear look and her need to explain everything. She was okay, but not great, and probably should've been in the bottom two.

David C. - He should win the whole thing. But I was a tad disappointed in him this week. I told the Music Man when I heard it was ALW week, "As long as nobody sings anything from Phantom we should be okay." Hmmm.

Carly - Um, hello people. This girl has a voice. She sang a great song that suited her perfectly and she did it well. My only possible theory is that the Heartland of America was offended by her song choice, being from JCSS and all. (As an aside - There was a girl in my high school who would say "Superstar" really quickly whenever someone said "JC" as a curse. Like that cancelled it out or something. Bren, do you know who I mean?)

Jason Castro - aka Jason Castrato. (well, okay, not really, but eeeeeew. He looks like a girl.) Ugh. Please stop voting for him! He chose a song that is super well known, and has a bit of a reputation for being typical "cheesy musical theatre". And he didn't even know it. And then, he sang it like crap. Come on, America. Get it right next time.

Thus ends my American Idol rant.

thank you.

Here I am. Did you miss me?

It has taken me a week to get around to writing my first post-Lent post. I feel like I'm starting over, and I don't know what to say. Lent was good for me. I missed blogging for the first, um, two days. After that, I almost don't want to admit, I was happy to not be blogging. I am still not sure if I have come to any firm conclusions about continuing to blog, so until I do I may not post that often if at all.

On the other hand, think about everything I missed being away from you all. I don't know very much, because I haven't read (and don't plan to) many "back-posts", but from the few a have read I know that

*babies have been born
*loved ones have been lost
*delicious recipes and beautiful crafts have been made
*babies and children have gotten older and cuter.

And then, if you can bear it, think about all the stuff you missed in my life these past weeks!
We have been

*splashing in puddles (and, on alternate days, slipping on frozen puddles)
*growing up so fast I can barely believe it (my Monkey that is, not me)
*watching lots of vintage Sesame Street on YouTube


*and watching the best movie ever
*doing our taxes
*stressing out about a new volunteer position with our local Festival of the Arts (okay, just me)
*enjoying family and friends

I think that's about it. And soon the snow will all be gone.

Taking a Break

Ash Wednesday is this week.

For Lent this year, I am giving up blogging. I have been having some thoughts about blogging and whether or not to continue, for some time now. I will use the season of Lent as a time to take a break and reevaluate whether it is something that I should continue. I plan to limit my internet use to checking email only. So I will be away from here, and I won't be around your places either. May you have a blessed season of Lent and Easter.


a random picture from our archives. while I'm gone you can entertain yourselves by figuring out/guessing where it was taken.

Visions of Sugar Plums

So, here I am, at the end of January, finally getting around to posting about my Christmas baking. Get your index cards ready, there will be recipes. I don't bake a huge variety, because my Mom and MIL still do lots of baking and, really, we can only eat so much.

1. Sugar Cookies.
(point of interest: this recipe is from the set of Sesame Street Encyclopedias that we had when I was a kid)

Cream together
3/4 cup butter/margarine
1 cup sugar

add
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla and blend.

In a separate bowl sift together
2 1/2 cups flour (this year I substituted one cup whole wheat flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

add to first mixture. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Roll out to 1/4 inch and cut with cookie cutter.
Decorate with coloured sugar or sprinkles (red and green sugar is classic)

Bake at 400 for 6 to 8 minutes.


2. Almond Roca
(This is super easy and delicious. It also makes a great gift, except people often think at first glance that it is peanut brittle.)

Line a cookie sheet with foil.
Cover with graham wafers.

Heat, but do not boil
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar

add
6 oz flaked almonds.

Pour over wafers.
Bake at 325 for 10 minutes.
Cool. Break into pieces.

3. Chocolate Balls
(my mom stopped making this years ago, but it was my favourite, so when I got married I resurrected it. Try to enlist some help. The dough can dry out and become hard to work with if you don't roll them fast enough. It has raw eggs in it, but that has never stopped me. Just make sure you refrigerate them.)

Melt together
4 squares unsweetened chocolate
4 tbsp melted butter/margarine

Add
2 cups icing sugar
2 eggs
2 2/3 cup graham wafer crumbs

Mix well. Roll into balls. Roll in table sugar.



4. Peppernuts
(This is the Music Man's specialty, reflecting his Mennonite heritage. I don't actually have his permission to share this recipe, so I may be retracting it later when he reads this post. Oh, and we don't use the spices exactly as listed, because we don't have all of those on hand.)

1 1/2 cups margarine
2 cups sugar
1 cup syrup
1/3 cup sour cream
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp each of cardamom, cloves, mace, ginger
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp anise powder
3/4 tsp peppermint oil
1/2 tsp black pepper
6 to 7 cups flour

Cream margarine and sugar and add liquids. Mix together dry ingredients and add to first mixture. Knead thoroughly. Refrigerate to blend flavours. Roll dough into thin ropes and slice (the pieces should be quite small, maybe less than two cm) Bake on cookie sheet at 350 for 8 minutes or until brown.

5.Christmas pudding.
I have already posted this "easy four step recipe".
Here is a picture of the finished product. Unfortunately I don't have one of it flaming as I carried it to the table.



Oh, and one more Christmas related thing...
I hinted a long time ago that I was doing a sewing project for Christmas. I couldn't say what it was at the time because the recipients of said project occasionally read my blog. I made cloth shopping bags for my mom, MIL and SIL. They each got two, one red and one blue. I used a pattern that I first sewed in junior high home ec. Luckily for everyone my sewing skills have improved a lot since then.

Can you follow directions?

If you can, then you can watch a funny video clip.
Go here.

On the left hand side choose "Episode 11".
Then choose "Mercer: Last guy to get his own blog"

Congratulations, you did it!


~enjoy