Up in the Air So Blue

Our Christmas gift to the children this year was an airplane ride, the four of us together, with our friend a pilot. 
It was perfect. 
It was breathtaking. 
I thought we might die, but fortunately I kept the drama in the closet and see! we came back fine. 

 

The plane was so tiny - like riding in a Chevette that sounded like a lawn mower - and we skimmed under the clouds, looking at all the little Matchbox cars and dinky buildings beneath us.

 

I did fill up stockings with little treats for Christmas morning, but the real gift was the airplane ride. Ben had never been in an airplane before and had begged for a ride, and then one of our friends wanted to keep his license in practice, and thus, the gift materialized! Our friend could not accept payment for the ride because of the kind of license he has, so we are planning to thank him and his wife with a meal. 

I would really like to move in this direction for gifts, instead of accumulating more things.  The children were so excited, and being the only grandchildren on both sides of the family, they received plenty of loot, too, which is still laying around waiting for me to figure out where to put it.

 

 



preventing the birds from nesting in the engines

I took the post title from this charming poem which my children love by Robert Louis Stevenson. Genevieve especially loves to swing.  I find the words apt for our Christmas plane ride, too!

 

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

 

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside - -

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown - -

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

A New Journal on the First Day of the New Year

I read this yesterday:

"'Unless a person has a lot of psychological tools at her disposal, the mind is not a pleasant place to inhabit,' says Germer.  'We have evolved for survival, not happiness, and thus we have a natural tendency to focus on the negative.'  When the brain is at rest, he adds, it tends to get busy revealing problems from the past and anticipating problems to come.  Once we scanned for predators and poisons, now we fret over the unemployment stats and what our mother-in-law had the nerve to say at dinner."  (quoted from Real Simple, January 2013, page 92; Christopher Germer is a clinical psychology instructor at Harvard Medical School and the author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion)

To counteract our negative fretting, the article goes on to recommend paying attention to what's around us with our senses.  Touch the flower.  Sniff the baby's hair.  Taste the bread.  Look at the sky.  Listen to the violin.  It's also called mindfulness, or living in the moment. 

For the first time in my life, I get it. 

And for the first time in my life, I am starting a new journal on the first day of the new year.  My old journal is actually filled up; it's got ranting, crying, poetry, prayers, and touchstones.  But my intent for this new journal is to fill it with gratitude, to make lists of where I notice God's mercy in my life.  I noticed Christian and Beth doing this - I finally caught on! 

The old journal on the left; I made the collage on the cover.

These last few years have been difficult years for me - this blog was born out of some of that difficulty as a way to take note of the good things in my life, to gently discipline myself to focus on the good.  The flip side of that discipline is that, unless you know me in real life, you may not know of my difficulties and bad days.  Please know that my life is not perfect because nothing damages our sisterhood more than pretend perfection; however, the public forum is not the place for me to tell every negative thing that passes through my heart and mind.  Face-to-face, oh yes, I'll tell you!

So, my gratitude journal is what amounts to a New Year's resolution for me.  I'm pondering some more resolutions, too, but although I am a goal-oriented person, I do not take them on lightly.  I'll report back if I add some more goals. 

The new journal had no spiral to put a pen, so I made a little sleeve to hold one.

Happy New Year, my friends!  I'm so grateful you're on this strange, joyful journey with me.

The Only Homemade Gift This Christmas

When I asked my sister-in-law if she had a Christmas wish list, she tentatively suggested a traveling silverware roll as one option.  She wanted something for a weekend trip - nothing too big, preferably made with black velvet and bright accents.

I studied some jewelry rolls online.  I nixed the velvet - once I tried to make a ruffle scarf with velvet and it slid and twisted so horribly that I threw it away.  Yes, away.

 

I was dubious I could get the jewelry roll done for Christmas, but one evening an hour presented itself and in a twinkling, the jewelry roll came together.  I am quite pleased with how it looks.

Fasten necklaces in the loops and let them down into the pocket.

 

The long ribbons have snaps at one end: slide rings, hoops, or bracelents onto them and snap closed.

I hope my sis-in-law finds it just as functional as it is pretty. 

Did you make some Christmas presents this year?  Happy with the results?

Christmas with My People

I made one Christmas gift this year.  One.  I will show it to you in another post. 

 

As I scrolled through the photos I took very randomly at Christmas-time, I realized that they were all of my people.  I'm so glad.  Maybe I do have my heart in the right place, focusing on what matters, living in the moment. 

 

Honestly, this Christmas has stressed me out with work deadlines combined with more socializing than we've had at other Christmases.  But tonight as I post my favorite Christmas photos, I am grateful and peaceful. (linking up with Leila and Rosie's pretty/happy/funny/real)

 

school Christmas party

Daddy tries to explain how to tell time to Ben; Ben was much more interested in the backlit face on his new watch.



New headlamps for the children and the husband - everybody needs more light in the winter!  Actually, a few days after Christmas, my husband's best friend told me that guys always want lights and knives.  And sure enough, my husband is wanting a new pocketknife and I didn't know it!  Next year.



ohhhhh, we had FUN with the deluxe English crackers and their paper crowns that Aunt Mel brought.

 

A treat:  ice cream with dear friends who moved to Kansas this summer and came back to visit.

 

A cousin spontaneously gives Great-Grandma a hug, a sweet moment in a boisterous, joyful gathering.

 

And you, dear readers, are my people, too.  I hope your Christmas was merry and full of wonder and all your favorite people.  You're one of the big reasons I enjoy this bloggy business. xoxoxo

A Kimchi Report

We tested the kimchi a few times and found it ready 12 days later, Christmas day.  It's fabulous.  Very garlicky, gingery, spicy, and with that delicious fermented flavor.

Here's the recipe as I made it, modified from Sharon Astyk's book, Independence Days.

Kimchi

Combine and stir to dissolve salt:
6 cups water
2 Tbsp. pickling salt (or non-iodized salt)

Mix together in a large bowl:
1 lb. cabbage or other greens, chopped/sliced
2 carrots, grated (I left the skin on)
1 lb. thinly sliced daikon
10 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. minced fresh ginger (I left the skin on)

Pour the brine over the vegetables in the bowl.  Set a plate on top and weight the plate with a heavy can or jar or canister - something that can get wet.  You want to hold the veggie mixture beneath the brine.

Let that arrangement stand for 24 hours on the counter.

Remove the plate apparatus.  Add and stir in:

1 Tbsp. cayenne (or Korean hot pepper) - this is to taste, so consider how spicy you like things
3 tsp. sugar

Use a slotted spoon or your hands to pack the veggies in a glass half-gallon jar.  Pour in enough brine to cover the veggies.  Really pack the veggies in there firmly.  Then hold them beneath the brine with a smaller, lidded jar filled with water (or something).  Some people even suggest a clean stone.  Set the jar in a shallow plate because as the kimchi ferments, the brine will bubble up and over the rim of the jar a bit.  We set our jar in the basement where there's a dirt floor, so it's cool and humid down there; in a heated house, the fermenting will go faster.  Astyk recommends a week, but at a week, our kimchi just tasted like cabbage salad and I wanted to taste the sharpness of fermentation, so we left it almost another week.  When the kimchi is done, remove the weight, screw on the jar lid, and refrigerate.

Astyk follows the kimchi directions with a recipe for Kimchi Tofu soup:  stock, ginger, dried mushrooms, soy sauce, scallions, tofu, and kimchi.  Oh yes, we are going to make this.

Patching Over a Logo

I pulled this red Staples bag out of the closet last week and said "humph."  I'm not a fan of toting free advertising unless it's for some little place that I love.  Sure, I sometimes buy office supplies from Staples, but I'm not in love, you know?

But their bag was made so nicely with twill tape-bound seams and a little interior pocket.  The cotton canvas was sturdy and soft.

So I got the idea to cover up the logos and the advertising with patchwork!  I did this block of patchwork in high school or college, intending it to be a pillow top, but it mixed around in my stash ever since.  I think I must have rooted through Grandma Weaver's scrap bag for the fabric. 

I handquilted it onto the bag with blue perle cotton.  The vortex of the quilting is the navy patch with the flowers, a scrap from my mom's fabulous 70s dress in this photo on my photo wall.  I'm guessing this was 1977.

 

 

"That was easy."  Yes. Yes, it was.

Christmas Cookies with the Children - updated with recipe

I really like to have Christmas cookies around; other desserts take second place in December at our house.

We got around to baking Christmas cookies over the weekend.  My goal was to involve the children as much as possible, make specifically Christmas-y cookies, and have a nicely balanced cookie plate when we have guests.

We made Almond-Toffee Bark using saltines that Ben laid out for me.  Jennifer Jo wrote a post comparing this stuff to crack, and she's right (I used my aunt's recipe which is similar).  The ironic thing about my batch is that I used the only crackers I had on hand:  whole wheat saltines.  So this is healthy crack, ok?

I mixed up the gingerbread dough and handed it over to the children.  They did all the rolling, cutting, and placing on cookie sheets.  I was nearby making Russian tea cakes, but I didn't intervene much. 

 

 

After supper, we made a cookie-decorating station at the table and all four of us sat around icing and decorating cookies. It was fun!  I made a cream cheese icing because I wanted a little more flavor than the average powdered sugar icing, but it was too goopy, really.  Do you have a good recipe for white frosting that is firm enough for cookie decorating and handles freezing?

I'm still considering making pinwheels, especially this recipe.  But I'm only doing it if it's fun and adds to the merry-making!

updated with recipe:

Russian Tea Cakes - from Mennonite Country-Style Recipes by Esther Shank

Place about 1 cup powdered sugar on a plate and set aside.

Beat together:
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp. almond flavoring
1tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar

Separately, stir together:
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

Stir walnut/flour mixture into butter mixture. Dough will look crumbly, but then you should be able to squeeze it together into 1" balls.  Roll balls in powdered sugar, and place on ungreased baking sheet.  Bake at 360 for 9-10 minutes - do not overbake!  Roll again in powdered sugar if you wish.  Allow to cool.  Freezes well.