Winter Nights

The past few nights, the sky has been bright red when I come home from work.  I took this from the front of our house.

Happy New Year,

Jess

A sleepy holiday weekend

Not much is happening around here this weekend - Shawn is sick, and I just stayed around town cleaning a bit and looking online and in stores for white bookcases.  No luck.  We will try Elder's tomorrow if he feels better - I am striking out completely on Craigslist.

So instead I bring you pictures of Christmas.

Max & Turk enjoying their elf mice.

Another shot of my new ornaments.

The Presbyterian Church, decked out for the holidays.

This little beauty, enjoying Christmas Eve at my Mom's.

Grandparents, getting into the holiday spirit on Christmas Eve...

And Christmas Day!

 

And Turk lounging on my new red throw...

and wondering what part of the tree to snack on next. 

I really think we should bring back the twelve nights celebrations, and stretch out the Christmas parties through January 6th.  Six days is not enough.  : )

Hoping your Christmas is Merry & Bright,
Jess

Merry, Merry Christmas!

In addition to the normal decorations, I did something new with the chandelier this year:

 

And I used the leftover ribbon & ornaments to add some red to our tree.  

 

I really love the red against the blue dining room - I'm going to try to remember to do this next year, too!

 

Jess

Christmas is coming...

And we are ready!

A Thanksgiving surprise

We went to my parents for Thanksgiving - over 20 people crammed into their 1898 farmhouse-style home.  They live in the town where I grew up, in the house that I grew up in, and it is always wonderful to come home and see what has changed and what has stayed the same.   I look around each time, and remember all the years of holidays and every-days before them, with different groupings of people, much of the same food, and different news and celebrations. 

This time there was a turkey in the oven, and another one outside in a deep fryer manned by my brother Matt.  Dad built a bonfire in the firepit I gave them years ago, and people wandered back and forth from the snacks inside to the fire outside. 

Shawn disappeared early, after getting the kids so whipped up that he and they were all kicked outside to play.  I wandered out later to see the bonfire. 

While I was there a small kitten wandered up, crying at the little girls and looking very hungry and very cold.  He jumped up to try to eatthe drippings from the turkey, frozen on a plate, while my dad explained that he was one of the wild strays born under the porch. 

One thing led to another, and soon I was holding the kitten, and then bringing him inside on the porch where he stopped shivering and began purring.  Of course we brought him home. 

The big question was whether Max would accept him.  I have always thought Max is lonely - he trys to play with us sometimes as if we are cats, but we never appreciate the flurry of teeth and claws.  The first night and morning he hissed at the kitten in its carrier, and we kept them seperated in seperate rooms.  Early that morning, he went around to each door, pawing at it to be opened, and I realized he wanted to check the rest of the rooms in case there were kittens in there, too!

Later that evening, he and the kitten began playing together through the door, batting at each others paws and chirping.  A sighting, a meeting, and at their second meeting they began to play, and did not stop for two hours.  They played for 3 hours that night!

Now they sit on opposite sides of the door when the kitten is put away, and cry for each other.

This Thanksgiving, I think we can say that we are thankful for new friends.  : )

Fozzie's Sandwich Shop

Again, no post from Shawn on this great adventure - the one where I tried to balance out Italian Beef with a Diet Coke.  Like that is going to undo the massive amounts of beef on this sandwich. 

This is my first Italian Beef sandwich.  I thought it was really good -the beef had a great flavor, the peppers and giardiniera had a wonderful pickle-y flavor.  Fozzie's is a fun place - kind of a hole in the wall place, with just a few tables pushed up against the wall.  The menu is huge. 

Jess

Strange Donuts field trip

So, Shawn has not posted about all the places we ate last weekend.  Boo Shawn. 

In the meantime, I'm sharing them instead.  He doesn't read this blog, so he won't know. 

Here they are in all their glory:

If he had posted a review, he would have told you how much he loves them.  He got a butterfinger donut, and I got a chocolate cake and an apple fritter (we shared them all).  He loved the butterfinger donut - it was crunchy and sweet.  The chocolate icing on the cake donuts was good - crazy sweet with that thin layer of crunch where the sugar has crystalized into a crust.  The donuts were good, too, but I would stay with the "strange" varieties.  The crumb on the cake donut was dryer than I usually like, and the fritter was too dry in some spots, too greasy in others, and had very little apple flavor.  In all, though, I recommend checking it out.  The storefront in Maplewood is very cute, the staff is fun, and the donuts come in a lot of interesting flavors. 

Jess