Happy New Year to all. I know this photo has nothing to do with 2010, but I just wanted to post a couple more holiday pictures, as last week's post was getting a tad picture-heavy. I love these Christmas trees that I got on clearance from the West End catalog, but we have a dickens of a time keeping them standing. Must find a better way to anchor them for next year. Hey, maybe that could be one of my New Year's resolutions. This last Christmas pic is of our 2009 Christmas card. It's the third (and probably, final) year that I have drawn a winter scene and then had Kinkos print Christmas cards from the drawing. I called the series, "Bird and Berries," as all three featured a red cardinal and some little red berries. So, here it is for you all - to wish you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Kickin' Kwanzaa, and Happy New Decade.

Bob and I sat here like a couple of big loser lumps on New Year's Eve. That can be another resolution for next year: "Find something to do on NYE so we aren't sitting here like a couple of big loser lumps." On New Year's Day, though, we loaded up and drove down to meet the Smith's who were celebrating the holidays with their children inside Buckeye Cabin, a cozy abode that sleeps twelve and is located on a hill in the woods near Hocking Hills, Ohio. It was cold and snowy outside, but warm and merry inside. The holiday get-together also appeared to be some kind of Smith family cook-off. (Since we're in the woods, insert Dueling Banjos song from Deliverence here). We were fed lunch at 3:00 and dinner at 7:00 and there were tasty snacks in between all prepared by various Smiths. Here are a couple of pictures from the afternoon. We left the Buckeye Cabin about 8:30 and drove to Indy, where we planned to spend the night with Brent & Lindsey and then help them install a new dishwasher on Saturday. But, Lindsey, who had been under the weather, called to say she was feeling terrible and didn't want us to risk getting sick, so we opted to stay at the Hilton, instead. The next day, we did go over and put in the dishwasher. Brent took Lindsey to a doctor who diagnosed her flu as "possibly the H1N1 - no work until Wednesday, at the earliest - go to the hospital if you experience shortness of breath."

Here she is on the couch. Even her favorite sweet tea from McAlister's Deli didn't seem to perk her up. Also, Brent presented Bonnie the Barbarian with her Christmas bone in hopes of keeping her occupied during the dishwasher installation. Mostly, she carried the bone around, making little frantic whiny noises, while looking for somewhere to bury it. Lindsey's sick bed seemed like the ideal spot. She reminded me of the dog in the Traveler's Insurance commercial. You know "Trouble, trouble, trouble trouble..."Here she is with her precious bone.

Finally now, to those New Year's Resolutions. Let's see, we've got two now: 1. Find better way to keep trees up and 2. Find something to do so we're not Loser-Lumps on New Year's Eve. That's a good start. If you check Lindsey's blog, you'll see that she has posted several lists of goals and accomplishments, starting in 2002 and building. Many of them are lofty and ambitious and some of them she has already checked off her lists. (Although, I don't believe I saw "Survive H1N1 in 2010 on any of those lists) She's very brave and she inspires me to be brave and try new things too. So here goes my big resolution. 3. Get something published this year.

The stockings are left hanging, empty again. Christmas 2009 has come and gone. (insert big mournful sigh here). In the old days, I would perk myself up by going right out and buying valentines, but for some reason, valentines just don't have the appeal that they once did. Hmmm. Well, just to recap the holiday, Bob and I were alone on Christmas Eve. We went to the 11:00 PM service at church, and although it was icy again this year, I did not fall down in the parking lot. On Christmas Day, Rob and Candace, Brent and Lindsey, and Brent's parents, Larry and Diane, all joined us for dinner. We had a beef tenderloin, the apple/walnut/dried cherry salad with maple dressing, twice baked potato casserole, carrot souffle, melt in your mouth yeast rolls and for dessert, creme brulee and carrot cake. Also, Diane contributed a delicious sweet potato dish and some cranberry muffins to the meal. Recipes can be found on past blog posts. After we ate, we opened our gifts. For me, it was the year of cameras and purse holders. Not only did I receive a power shot camera, I also got a cool pix one. Maria Sharipova or Ashton Kutscher - so hard to choose. I guess I'm going with Ashton. You'll notice that I'm experimenting with it here on this Christmas post. I'm not very good with technology.

I'd say that getting two cameras is proof of the following: 1. My family isn't communicating very well when it comes to what to buy for good ol' Mom, and 2. They really all must have been truly horribly embarrassed by my old camera - often referred to as "The Zack Morris Camera." I know it was big, but I understood how it worked.

I didn't even know what a purse holder was and I received two of them. Lucky for me, my dear friend, Stormy, gave me a new purse. And now I'll have something attractive to hang it on. Here's a picture of them. One of them is Lindsey's.

It looks like Brent is really pleased with this new shirt we gave him. That's his dad, or rather, half of his dad on the right.

Rob and Candace are engrossed in the unwrapping of their gifts.

The pups also enjoyed getting together for the holiday. Here, Bob helps Little Roxanne show off her Christmas attire.....

..... snow falls on the Amazing Barking Dog, who also celebrated a birthday on Boxing Day, the 26th. She turned ten. H.B. Maddie.

...and Bonnie, the Barbarian was so tired from Christmas frolicking, that she just couldn't keep her eyes open for euchre.

How about a Recipe of the Week? This very rich dessert is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Land O Lakes Treasury of Country Heritage Meals and Menus. It's pretty heavy-duty stuff. The caramel sauce is delicious.

Chocolate Caramel Truffle Torte

Crust

1 & 3/4 cups very finely chopped pecans

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

Filling

16 ounces high quality semi-sweet real chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 cups whipping cream

Caramel Sauce

3/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/3 cup butter

2/3 cup whipping cream

Garnish

1 & 1/3 cups whipping cream, whipped

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In bowl, stir together all crust ingredients & firmly press on bottom and up sides of 12-inch tar pan with removable bottom. Place on cookie sheet & bake for 15 to 18 minutes. Cool. In a 2-quart saucepan, cook 2 cups of whipping cream over medium heat until just comes to a boil. Remove from heat; stir in chocolate until melted. Pour into cooled crust. Refrigerate until set (2 hours). Twenty minutes before serving, combine all caramel sauce ingredients (except whipping cream) in a 2 quart saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture comes to a full boil. Remove from heat, cool 5 minutes, then stir 2/3 cup whipping cream into sauce. Garnish torte with whipped cream and serve with warm caramel sauce.

Christmas with the family in Effingham, Illinois - at least part of the family. Here we are at lunch at the Hilton Garden Inn after church. Well, most of us went to church - not my youngest brother sitting next to me in his favorite deer shirt. This is only about half of us. Our kids were not present, and of course, niece, Megan just had the baby and didn't make the trip, and my brother, Brian and his family were not present. After lunch we went back to Maw-Maw's and opened gifts and played some games.












My nephew, Michael, protested that he would like some input into just what became a family tradition, as we, once again, performed The Twelve Days of Christmas, this time with some little signs. I told him that next year there would be costumes and interpretive dance.





Once again, we tried to do some caroling, but only Lori, Baleigh, and I ventured out. Last year, if you recall, it was raining, and this year , there was snow. Like last year, we went to my cousin Lisa's house and like last year, she had a bad cold, and like last year, we sang at their house, but we could not get anybody to come to the front door. Like last year, we went to the house of Baleigh's second grade teacher and sang, and like last year, she was not at home. However, there was a fat black and white cat on the landing of their stairs who truly seemed mesmerized by our performance. No really, the cat liked our singing.


Icy roads on Sunday evening kept us and my sister's family from traveling, so we did not get home until Monday afternoon.








I know I have not been posting recipes in recent weeks, but hope to remedy that in the future. I do have some ladies coming to the house tomorrow afternoon for a sugar cookie baking and decorating mini-class, so that should be fun. Here is the lovely Christmas bouquet that came from Verso Paper. I hope they last until Christmas Day.

Book Babes of Kendallville break in new table and make merry at annual Christmas wing-ding. Yes, the Book Babes, sans Cindy and Paul, dined with us on Sunday evening. We ate a lot of food and then went around the table and reminisced about our most memorable Christmas gifts and we laughed quite a bit, and had a good time. Now, I know you're probably all sick and tired of reading about our new dining room, and I don't blame you a bit, so bear with me as I post two last pictures, because we got the granite countertop on Saturday and Bob put up the molding and trim. But after this we will speak of it no more.

I'm trying to recruit a few more Salvation Army Bell Ringers, as the kettle drive wraps up here on Christmas Eve. People have been very generous with their kettle contributions, in spite of TET (tough economic times, for those of you who are new to this blog). I've also done quite a bit of subbing and just signed a contract today to teach high school English while a teacher is on maternity leave. I'm looking forward to another go-round with To Kill a Mockingbird and some Dante's Inferno too. Here's the picture Bob took of me to show the school board. Of course, he cropped it, as we would not want those board members to see the hole in our basement ceiling. (Bob's misadventure of a couple weeks back - I don't believe I blogged about it then, but time heals both scraped legs and wounded pride.

I couldn't resist pilfering a couple of pictures from Megan's blog. Of course, you can always click on the Kutscher blog here and read about their adventures, but just in case you don't have time to do that: Here is Landon hugging one of his nurses after his LAST CHEMO TREATMENT. They gave him presents and sang to him - so very sweet. I love this picture, taken by his Grandma, Chris.

This other shot is of Landon holding his new baby brother Grant. Landon introduced his brother in a video clip on the blog. I also heard that he announced that he was giving Grant a toy to take home with him. Grandma Connie told Landon, "He is home. This is his home too," and Landon, with pensive face, said, "Oh."

Finally, and still on the subject of babies, future father of twins, Emmet, in Cleveland, practices being a fun dad. Hey Emmet, you may or may not know this, but you can also get Easter bunny ears for that thing.

Show us Your Life Friday:

Show us your Christmas Cookies.

Here they are getting ready to go out to the church narthex for coffee hour last Sunday morning. These cream cheese sugar cookies are easy to roll out and delicious, but they are loaded with butter and brown quickly so keep a close eye on them. Here's the recipe:

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup butter

1 egg yolk

3 ounces cream cheese

2 & 3/4 cups flour

Mix ingredients and chill dough. Cut cookies and bake at 325 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.

On a late-August day in 1986, I pried this little punkin' out of my car and trotted her up to the door of Kox Kiddie Kollege, which was the name of a preschool in Mt. Vernon, Illinois. She didn't want to go. She didn't ever really want to go. She never really liked school. However, she was a co-valedictorian of her senior class and she went on to Manchester College and earned undergrad degrees in both economics and accounting. And this summer, she passed her last CPA exam (of course, you already knew that). And on Tuesday, this punkin will attend her last class before securing an MBA. After 23 years of school, you are finally done, Sugar Pie. How does it feel?











Lindsey - Ask not for whom the "Mad" Dog barks. She barks for thee. Here's your five-woof salute:



Woof, woof. Woof, woof woof.









In an effort not to irritate the hairdressers or cart ladies at Wal-mart, I devised this clever (or maybe lame) noiseless Salvation Army Bell. I did some slow-ringing. I did some fast and furious ringing, and nobody seemed to mind. One of the store managers passed by me and said "Here I thought I was just doing a good job of tuning it out." I made about four times more money with this bell than I think I would have with the real thing.









We are all looking forward this week to Landon's last chemo treatment and also to the birth of his baby brother or sister on Wednesday. Big week for the Kutscher's. We love you and we're thinking about you.




Recipe of the Week:

I used to make these biscuits in my early days of catering breakfasts, especially before I switched over to the cake mix cinnamon rolls. They are really good biscuits, and made even better when you serve them with strawberry butter, which is just made by mixing softened butter with a little powdered sugar and fresh, or thawed frozen strawberries. This recipe came from Borgman's Bed and Breakfast in Arrow Rock, Missouri.




Angel Biscuits


1 package dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (115 degrees)
5 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup shortening
2 cups buttermilk

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Mix together all dry ingredients; work in the shortening. Add the buttermilk, and yeast water mixture and mix well. Place in a greased pan; chill. Use as desired. Makes 2 1/2 dozen biscuits.

Well, it was one busy week what with subbing, and covering for the body toning class and going to a literacy workshop, and trying to recruit Salvation Army Bell Ringers. And on Tuesday night, I was throwing utensils and towels and pots and pans back into the kitchen drawers and cabinets at break-neck speed, so I could make pies on Wednesday night. Somehow, we were able to put the kitchen back together well enough to host a Thanksgiving dinner - although I have to confess that the pumpkin pies I donated for the church Thanksgiving dinner were from the grocery store. I know. People would be shocked and disappointed. I was teaching that day and I asked Bob to wear a disguise and just leave them in the church narthex and run, but I don't know if he did that or not. Here's Bob carving the bird which he declared to be"very juicy."

Nick took this picture as well as the one below. Please note that Stormy is wearing a dress recommended by the dress club, although she had it shortened.

These next photos I "lifted" from Lindsey's blog and I'm sure she won't mind because I was a little too busy to be taking pictures and they're such great shots of the kids: Brent and Lindsey (with unfinished wall behind them) and.....

...Candace and Rob....

And tired pups, Maddie, the Amazing Barking Dog, and Bonnie the Barbarian
.

We were up at 3:15 the next morning for Black Friday shopping. Yes. Stormy, Lindsey, and I rounded up the sale fliers, although I swear we must have made two piles of fliers - the "take withs "and the "leave at homes," and I picked up the leave at home pile because we never seemed to have what we were looking for. Plus, it was windy and our Macy's ten-dollar coupon blew right out of the car and Lindsey had to chase it in the parking lot. Our motto for the morning was "Aggressive but Friendly," and I'm thinking maybe next year we'll have that motto printed on the back of some matching sweatshirts. Wouldn't that be fun? But no antlers, we draw the line at antlers. We saw some women wearing antlers at JoAnn's Fabrics, but they looked angry. I think if you've got antlers on your head, you'd better look like you're having a good time or it isn't going to work and you're just going to look stupid. I didn't last very long that day and had to come home and take a nap. In fact, I haven't been worth a hoot this whole weekend.

Recipe of the Week: Some recipes are just classic and this is one of them. You can't go wrong with a lemon bar. They're quick, easy, and you most always have the ingredients on hand. The flaky, shortbread-like crust nicely compliments the lemon filling. Everybody loves lemon bars!!

Lemon Bars

2 sticks of butter

2 cups flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

4 beaten eggs

2 cups sugar

4 tablespoons flour

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel

sifted powdered sugar

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Blend butter, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Pat into ungreased 9 X 13 pan. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes. For filling blend together eggs, sugar, lemon juice and peel. Pour over first layer and bake at 325 for 20 minutes. Loosen around edges, cut into bars and sift confectioner's sugar over the top while warm.

Finally, a picture of Bob reading the newspaper at the new table and waiting for me to say it's okay to eat the lemon bars.