Snowshoe hike

Due to last winter's lack of snow, we did not get to snowshoe at all last year; we were, in a word, disappointed. After the foot or so that we received on Thursday night plus the few inches more since, we were excited to see that there is now enough snow on the ground to go for a snowshoe hike. Yay!

We drove out to Beaver Lake Nature Center this morning and chose the Southern Exposure trail, which is about 2.3 miles in length. It wasn't long before we got our snowshoe "legs" back and started moving quickly and easily down the trail:

The snow was falling and the temperature was cold but not biting - perfect conditions.

James and Aidan found a little shelter made by a tree. Here is the photo taken before they shook the snow-laden branches:

And here is the "while they were shaking the snow-laden branches" photo:

Avalanche!

Holiday food

It is probably no surprise that one of my favorite aspects of the holidays - and any holiday - is the food. What better way to celebrate anything than with yummy food?

I made our traditional favorite goodies: chocolate fudge, peanut butter Buckeyes, Chex party mix and sugar cookies. The Buckeyes are time consuming and a bit of a pain to make, but they are so delicious and so much a part of my heritage that I can't imagine not making them; besides, it's the one time a year that I use my double boiler and the only reason I justify keeping it. The Buckeyes are gorgeous, as always:

 
The fudge makes a large amount and I can't figure out a good way of halving the recipe, so we gave away some of the extra fudge to friends and neighbors, along with a few Buckeyes. The components in the Chex mix vary from year to year; the 2012 version contains Rice Chex, almonds, cashews, pecans, Cheese Its and sesame sticks. And although I do like chocolate, it's the salty Chex mix that sings my name like a siren every hour of the day.

James suggested a new treat this year and when I saw that it combined chocolate and salt, I was in. It is a simple dark chocolate bark with potato chips, pretzels and peanuts - it sounds so wrong but it tastes so right. What's not to like about dark chocolate with potato chips?

We don't have traditional Christmas Eve or Christmas dinner menus at our house and this year we are trying some different items. Tonight's Christmas Eve meal will consist of all snack foods: summer sausage, cheese and crackers; chips and dip; sausage twirls, which is biscuit dough spread with sausage, rolled up, sliced and baked: hot Buffalo chicken dip; and party pizza bread. The last two items are new recipes to us and are both from one of my favorite food bloggers, Foodie with Family - girl knows her food. I have made a version of the Buffalo chicken dip previously but her recipe sounds so much better.

For dinner tomorrow, I am making Beef Wellington for the first time. Why? Why not! As I said, we don't have a set menu that we replicate each year and we wanted to try something new, and how can beef tenderloin encased in puff pastry not be delicious? I am not using just one recipe, but an amalgamation of a recipe sent to me by cooking mentor, Jennifer, along with various Food Network versions. It will certainly be a bit of a challenge and new cooking territory for me.

The one holiday that does always have the same menu is New Year's Day, one of my absolute favorite days of the year. Dinner is always pork roast of some kind, served with Hoppin' John and cornbread. Now that is a delicious way to start the new year!

Through different eyes

We were at Aidan's school this afternoon, looking for his glasses. (He told us yesterday that he had not seen them - no pun intended - since Friday. Although he told us he "thoroughly" searched for the glasses today, we took him back right after school let out and did our own search. The glasses were found by James in the art smock bin in the classroom. So much for being thorough, son.) As soon as we walked into his classroom, I immediately looked around and wondered where he might hide from a gunman. And when I realized what I was doing, it was all I could do not to cry right then and there.

What becomes of the broken hearted?

I have sat down to write about last Friday's shootings in Newtown, CT, several times and only get a few words in before realizing that I simply don't know what to say...and anything I say will have already been said by someone else in a far better manner. I am horrified, I am angry, I am heartsick, I am truly at a loss for words.

I do not know how those parents will endure their loss. I hope that the grieving parents have dear people in their lives who will hold their hands, cry with them, listen to them, ask them how they are doing and sincerely mean it; that they will ask those parents about their deceased children by name and listen to their stories and their memories, and look at the photos of their beautiful children who will forever be six or seven.

A work in charcoal

Elephant in the wild
By Aidan

Deck the halls

Yesterday morning after breakfast (pancakes with Boy Scout Troop 109), we drove out to Potter's Tree Farm in Baldwinsville to get our Christmas tree. We went to Potter's last year and were impressed with the quality and value of their trees, so it was the logical place to get this year's tree.

Potter's is a cut your own place and James enjoys hunting the perfect tree; Aidan, not so much. Here is Aidan's "how many more trees are we going to look at?" face:

Please note the lack of snow on the ground. Hello, it's December - where is our snow? I don't want a blizzard or anything, but a few inches of snow are welcome. The icicle lights on our house are looking absurdly out of place without a backdrop of snow.

Anyway, back to our story. Compared to last year, James didn't take long at all to find a tree he liked:

He does look pleased, doesn't he? Aidan took a turn at cutting through the trunk:

I did not take a turn at sawing - I would have had to put down my cup of coffee and there was no way that was going to happen.

We got the tree home without any mishap or mayhem and started decorating after lunch. Even Spenser got into the decorating spirit:

That is his "you are SO going to pay for this" expression.

We always enjoy going through our boxes of decorations and reacquainting ourselves with favorite ornaments. Ours is not a designer or theme tree, but a joyous gaudy mishmash of memories:

Those with sharp eyes can count five stockings by the fireplace. Although our cat Daphne has been gone for many years, we still hang her stocking each year. And if you check my stocking, you will find a lump of coal that my dad put in my stocking when I was a child!

Our house is decorated - let the holidays begin.

November knit bits

I am pleased to say that I accomplished my November knitting goal of completing the two holiday gifts I making this year. The first item is a gift for Aidan's teacher, a simple buttoned neckwarmer:

My hope is that Mr. A will keep the scarf at school to quickly put on for recess and stay warm while keeping the students from killing each other. The pattern is Fourteen by John Brinegar and once I found an online video that showed me how to knit into the row below, it was a fun and easy knit. I used Baby Alpaca Grande Tweed by Plymouth Yarn and oh, baby, is it soft.

I also finished the other item on my list but I have no picture to share because a) it is still blocking, and b) there is always the off chance that the person for whom it is a gift will read this post and I don't want to spill the beans. Stay tuned for a post-holiday sharing of the photo and description.

I also quickly knit up a cute little star ornament from leftover yarn in my stash:

It is for a knitting friend who recently experienced an unfortunate life-altering event and a group of people is sending her these little crafted hugs to put on her tree.

As for the other goal of maintaining my walking schedule of three times a week...well, not such a success there. Between wet weather, holiday guests and winter laziness, I did get out several times to walk but not as much as my goal. While I am going to try and remain active outdoors as much as weather permits, the only goal I am going to set for December is to make it to New Year's Eve with my sanity intact. And for those who know me well, you know just how much of a challenge that can be.

And a good meal was had by all

Here was the menu at our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday:

• Turkey
• Cornbread dressing (made by my mother, who makes the BEST cornbread dressing)
• Sweet potatoes
• Mashed potatoes
• Gravy
• Creamed corn
• Cranberry sauce, both homemade and jellied straight from the can
• Homemade rolls
• Apple pie
• Chocolate chess pie

Whew. I used my new mini pie pans from King Arthur Flour, so we didn't have two full size pies. The mini pies were the perfect size.

We brined our turkey this year using a recipe from Emeril Lagasse:

That 48 cent per pound turkey (love love love my Wegmans) was both beautiful and delicious:

As you can see, I don't put any effort into fancy table decorations or linens; instead, I put lots of effort into preparing delectable food:

And Thanksgiving dinner at our house was well the effort.

Surprise!

My mother arrived on Sunday to spend Thanksgiving week with us. Although her birthday is on December 6, we decided to surprise her with an early birthday celebration. We got a lovely cake from The Gingersnap Bakery, which James was able to pick up the cake this afternoon without her knowledge:

It is a French vanilla cake with chocolate mousse filling between the layers, and ganache frosting. Pure decadence and about ten pounds in weight.

I prepared one of her favorite meals for dinner, beef stroganoff, and then we put a candle on the cake and brought it out, singing "Happy birthday to you!"

I am pleased to say that she was completely surprised. Spenser, of course, got into the spirit in his own little cat manner:

Happy early birthday, Mom!

Four more years

We have another presidential election in our rear view mirrors. Whew. I had no intention of staying up to watch election results but you know how it is with good intentions. James and I got caught up in the drama and excitement, and watched all evening; Aidan even watched for about an hour before his bedtime. And although the polls out west closed long after he went to sleep, the next morning Aidan told me how he thought the states voted and managed to get all the states but one correct - look out, Nate Silver - and deemed Florida too close to call.

Speaking of Florida, I told James on Wednesday that is is crazy that every four years, so much hangs on the outcome of a state that is 98% whackadoodles. Our friends who live there are, of course, part of the 2% rational people in the state. I saw a tweet that said "Why do we even allow Florida to vote?", which made me laugh. Thank goodness it didn't come down to Florida this election or it would have been 2000 all over again, with possibly another stolen election. Whew.

Anyway, Tuesday night was like the Super Bowl of politics minus wardrobe malfunctions and expensive commercials. We toggled between CNN (I adore John King and his smart board) and MSNBC, but jumped over to ABC briefly when a Facebook posting alerted us that Diane Sawyer was apparently participating in our election night drinking game (every time they say "battleground", drink!). We, of course, missed Karl Rove's hissy fit on Fox. The whole event was nerve-wracking, it was fun, it exhilarating. And, if you don't know me well, it ended the way that I wanted it to end, with Barack Obama being reelected president.

Here are some random thoughts about politics and the election:

• I am absolutely in awe of the voters in Florida who finally cast their ballots well after 1 a.m. the next day. They were in line when the polls closed and were therefore eligible to vote, but what fortitude, what passion, what patriotism they displayed by staying in line until they could vote. Mazel to you and you are NOT part of the 98% whackadoodles in your state. 

• I am appalled by the new low levels of nastiness displayed by people of all political persuasions. Yes, I voted for Barack Obama, but that does not mean that I say rude, untrue or bigoted comments about Mitt Romney. All in all, I think Mitt Romney is a fine person with some good ideas and talents, and I simply disagree with enough of his positions to make me not vote for him. That's all. I don't need to post vile cartoons on Facebook or circulate email messages full of lies. Disagree with a candidate? Vote against her/him.

• Speaking of nastiness, I am flabbergasted by people who lash out at those who did not vote the way they did by questioning their intelligence or their loyalty to our country. In three words: how dare you. I lived in Raleigh, North Carolina for sixteen years and had a "Defeat Helms" bumper sticker on my car for most of those years. Never did anyone accost me for expressing that opinion, but I have a writer friend in Raleigh who was recently cursed and called ignorant because another person did not like her Obama-Biden 2012 bumper sticker. How dare you. 

• Yay for Maine, Maryland, Minnestoa and Washington, and yay for marriage equality!

• I sincerely hope that Mitch McConnell finds something worthwhile to put on his "to do" list for the next few years. Any elected official that says "the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president" should be ashamed of his/herself. The single most important thing that Mitch McConnell or anyone else in Congress should want to achieve is to make this country healthier, smarter, stronger. 

Bathroom renovation

We have a new bathroom! Well, not really, but it certainly looks like we do. James has been working hard to turn the cave-like downstairs bathroom into a beautiful, functional bathroom. We neglected to take "before" photos, but take my word when I say that it was dark, ugly and poorly plumbed.

Let's start with the shower. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we turned our attention to the downstairs bathroom because the shower leaked; it appears that the person who rehabbed our house never sealed between the shower pan and the shower stall, so that water leaked out anytime the shower was used. It was that way since the day we moved into the house. James first removed the flimsy shower stall and even flimsier shower base, and with the help of our neighbor Ben, who is a plumber by trade and an incredibly nice guy, properly installed a sturdy shower pan. Then James installed subway tile on the three sides of the shower stall, adding one row of beige glass blocks for interest:

Gorgeous, and it does not leak!

We had a lot of wasted space just inside the door on the left side, so James made a cabinet to fit the space:

What a great use of that space and pretty, too. The sink vanity was an ugly, nameless color so we painted it white to match the cabinet:

Although you can't see it in the photo, we changed out the knobs on the vanity to match the knobs that James installed on the cabinet.

We chose a lovely biscuit color for the walls in an eggshell finish, and chose to accent with black and white:

Love the shower curtain:

Here is a close-up of the wall decal next to the sink:

How fun is that? I decided that since I always seem to say that phrase, I might as well put it on the bathroom wall in the form of a vinyl wall decal from Trading Phrases.

Applause, applause! What was once an eyesore is now a lovely, light bathroom that we are proud to have guests use, and is now the preferred bathroom of everyone in the house. Well done, James!

More pie

When I told my friend Jennifer that I had signed up for the pie crust class, she told me that King Arthur Flour was bringing one of their traveling baking demonstrations to Syracuse. I looked up the date of the demo and put it on my calendar without knowing the subject of the demo; all I knew was that the demo would take place at the New York State Fairgrounds (very convenient for me) and that is was free.

The demo was yesterday and the subject was...wait for it...pies and scones. James and I arrived about thirty minutes early and there were already quite a number of people there. We were handed a small booklet containing recipes and helpful tips, along with a numbered ticket for the door prize drawing. We scored seats right up front with an excellent view of the demo table:

The room was decorated with several large signs like this one:

To the right of the demo area was the tempting display of door prizes:

So many prizes, but no winning tickets for us.

But we did win lots of great information and had a very fun time. The presenter, Irene, had a pleasant style and voice and she did an excellent job of talking and doing, told lots of stories, and she interacted well with the audience. I found that the info she presented added to the info I learned in the class two weeks ago. The single most interesting thing I learned yesterday is to add your butter in two steps: the first half of the butter is worked into the small pieces, but then the second half is left in bigger pieces. That allows for both a tender and a flaky crust.

I tend to get fidgety during presentations but the time flew by. In addition to the pie crust demo, Irene showed us how to make scones. Both James and I have never cared for scones, but we came to agree that perhaps we have just never had a good scone. I will definitely try the cheddar, bacon and scallion scone recipe from the booklet that Irene demonstrated.

On the way out, each participant received a King Arthur bowl/dough scraper (a $1.95 value!) and a sample of cheese from Cabot, one of KA's partners.

Today I put the information I learned yesterday into practice and made an apple pie:

It looks and smells good, so let's hope it also tastes good!

On we go

Can I tell how glad I am to have Halloween over? Sure it's a fun holiday with costumes and candy, but for those of us who are introverts (and yes, people, I am actually an introvert - just ask Myers-Briggs), it can be an excruciating evening. The choice is stay home and make small talk with all the little goblins and their adult escorts, or escort Aidan around the neighborhood and make small talk with people handing out candy. It was my turn last night to take Aidan around the village but James armed me with a generous margarita in a to-go cup, so it wasn't bad at all. Our ninja had a great time and cleaned up in the candy department (and was very polite and gracious), and I got to see how much fun some of the people in the village have when handing out candy.

In October, I did as well as possible in the goals department; until Hurricane/Super Storm/Pain-in-our-Butts Sandy came along, I was able to walk three times or more each week. And while I can't say that I am back to feverish knitting, I did find and complete some fun projects.

Now it is November and we start the slippery slide towards The Holidays. In addition to trying to maintain my walking schedule, my goal is to complete the two knitting projects that will be holiday gifts; the first is an item for my mother, and the second is a buttoned cowl for Aidan's teacher. Both are small projects but I would like to greet December with them complete. Since Mom is coming to spend a week with us at Thanksgiving, I am trying to get her item done before she arrives. As long as Sandy hangs around and dumps rain on us, I will certainly have time to knit.

Pie and pickles

While I am an above average cook, my baking skills are less than stellar when it comes to anything other than bread. Pie crusts in particular have long baffled me - too crumbly, too dense, too tasteless - and for years I have used refrigerated Pillsbury pie crust dough. So when I saw a pie crust class listed in the local continuing education flyer for OCM BOCES, I decided it was time to give the Doughboy a break and learn to make a decent pie crust.

Chef Ann of The Gingersnap Bakery was the instructor for the evening class, and before demonstrating good pie crust technique, she explained the science that takes place when making a good pie crust. I learned why the flour needs to coat the fat (butter, shortening, or some combo of both), why the water needs to be cold, why you need to handle the dough as little as possible. I really liked that she had us put our hands into the demo dough to experience how the dough should feel, in addition to seeing how it should look. She explained the different types of pie tops, why hot filling should be cooled before being poured into a crust, how to bake a blind (empty) crust, and so on. We then broke into small groups to make our own pie crusts, and tried out a variety of fillings.

When I asked James and Aidan what type of pie I should make first, Aidan immediately said Aunt Tammie's delicious blueberry pie, which he had eaten at their house during his summer visit. Tammie graciously sent me the recipe and I made my first completely from scratch pie in years:

I am proud to say that the pie was delicious, and Aidan even said that it was almost as good as Aunt Tammie's pie! Because the filling is not baked in the pie, I could not do a fancy lattice top. Instead, I made a rope border around the edge and then blind baked the crust. The crust tasted great, although I made the border too thick in places and it was difficult to cut. All in all, I am very pleased with my first pie crust effort and will likely never buy another pie crust again. Take that, Doughboy!

James brought in the last of the peppers and tomatoes before our only frost so far this fall, but most of the tomatoes were green. Our friend Phil suggested that James make green tomato pickles and came over one night to get him started. They sliced the tomatoes along with the various peppers and some onions, layered them with salt and left them overnight with a heavy weight on top to press out the liquid. James then rinsed the produce, made a concoction involving vinegar, water, sugar and various herbs/spices, and packed it into jars:

We will soon be able to sample his first attempt at making pickles and if they are half as good as the ones that Phil gave us, then we will be happily munching pickles all winter.

Selfish knits

Every knitter has at least one story about lovingly knitting an item for a person who then did not appreciate the item. When a person is revealed to be not knitworthy, it is all we can do to keep from shouting in our best Soup Nazi voice: "No knits for you!" While we all have many people in our lives who are knitworthy, the one person I know who will always appreciate what I knit is me, and knitting for ourselves is known as selfish knitting.

The last four projects I have completed have all selfishly been for me. The first was the scarflet I finished in September - see Wrapping Up. The second item was a quick little ballband dishcloth that I had seen in my friend Geri's copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting. I already had cotton yarn in my stash so when we got home from our visit, I knit up a Halloween-inspired dishcloth:

The third item to be completed was a Sunday Market Shawl, which I knit out of Malabrigo:

The colorway is Roanoke and it is a lovely, rich chestnut brown. I wanted a quick, mindless project to get me back into the knitting groove and this shawl kind of did the trick. Because the majority of the pattern is simple stockinette, it is perfect for watching college football games. The openwork of the shawl is achieved by intentionally dropping a stitch on the last row, and then "running" the dropped stitch. While an unintentionally dropped stitch always runs quickly, it was actually a time-consuming and laborious task to run all the rows in this shawl.

As for it being a shawl…it would have blocked wider had I used a stretchier bind off, but it would not have blocked longer. If I ever want to knit this pattern again and actually use it for a shawl, I would cast one more stitches, use more yarn and find the stretchiest possible bind off. In the meantime, it is a pretty scarf.

The last project was my first pair of fingerless mitts. For someone like me whose hands rarely get cold and just need some protection from the wind, fingerless mitts are perfect:

I used the Sirdar Escape yarn that I purchased at Soper Creek Yarn while visiting Geri over Thanksgiving weekend. It is a wool and acrylic blend, so it is easy care and will wear well. Although I was concerned with making the thumb and thumb gusset, they turned out fine. The yarn is variegated so the mitts do not "match" each other but that is okay with me, since I am not a matchy-matchy kind of person.

My streak of selfish knitting is now at an end as I turn my attention to holiday knits.

The good, the bad, and the bugly

The Department of Entomology at Cornell University hosts an annual insect fair known as Insectapalooza. We drove down to Ithaca yesterday for Insectapalooza 2012 - "The Good, The Bad, and The Bugly." There were lots of insects and people in Comstock Hall, and none of the insects bugged me as much as the people; very quickly I experienced crowd overload and had to retreat to non-populated corners from time to time.

The insects were fascinating, and we enjoyed talking with the enthusiastic and knowledgeable students who staffed the event. Here is James holding an Australian Stick Insect:

 Aidan made friends with both a male and a female stick insect:

Although there are no photos to prove it, I also held one of the stick insects. No, really, I did! They are fascinating creatures and I can see (pun intended) how they could hide in plain sight on the side of a tree.

Thanks to James, Aidan ended up with another representative of the stick insect family on his head:

Pay no attention to the sign in the background of the photo - that is a Madagascar hissing Cockroach on Aidan's hand and not a tarantula:

Aidan must not have posed any perceived threat because he was not on the receiving end of a hiss. He also got to hold a praying mantis:

 ...and put his arm into a container full of ladybugs:

When we had seen all that we wanted to see and had our fill of the crowds, we stopped by Ithaca Bakery for lunch before heading out to Ithaca Beer Co.'s new taproom. Opened just over a week ago, the taproom offers pints of beer, flights of beer (tasting samples) and retail sales of beer, with both indoor and outdoor seating.

We enjoyed a flight of their hoppiest beers:

We also got a growler to go of Flower Power, which is our favorite Ithaca Beer brew.

Bugs + beer = a fun day in Ithaca.

Squirrel on wheels

The leaves are a-changing and the squirrels are busier than ever, scampering around to hide the acorns from our neighbors' oak tree. Not only do we have those big reddish brown squirrels, we also have smaller black squirrels, who rather resemble minks in color but do not live in fear of becoming outerwear.

And now we also have a blue squirrel on wheels:

Meet Rocky, who joined our household on Monday. When we returned from our recent trip to Canada, I learned that I had won a contest on Ravelry. Heather (OregonGrl on Ravelry) ran a contest on her web site, little green fox, to win an adorable knitted squirrel on wheels. She knit Rocky from a pattern in Anna Hrachovec's book Knitting Mochimochi.

Rocky is just too stinkin' adorable.

Unlike the other squirrels who run around our yard, Rocky will not eat all the sunflower seeds out of the bird feeder nor taunt Lily, the Pug next door who thinks she is a Rottweiler.

Thanksgiving weekend

When we got our passports, our friends Geri and Fred, who live in the greater Toronto area (GTA), immediately asked, "When are you coming to visit?" A comparison of our schedules showed that autumn was going to be the first good opportunity and they were gracious enough to invite us for Canadian Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving in Canada occurs on the second Monday in October, the same day that Columbus Day is observed in the U.S. (Columbus Day being that day when we celebrate Columbus "discovering" a land in which people already lived - go figure). Aidan gets two days off from school so it was a perfect time to go. We kept him out of school on Friday so we could start our trip in the morning and arrive at Geri and Fred's house before the holiday traffic became too crazy.

We had a fun weekend visiting with Geri, Fred and Ollie, who just might be the nicest cat in the world:

Unlike our darling cat (imagine the sarcasm I am intending as I type those words), Ollie is very quiet and content.

On Saturday morning, Geri took me to one of her local yarn stores, Soper Creek Yarn in Bowmansville. It is a lovely little store with a very nice and helpful owner. I showed tremendous restraint and bought only a pattern, and a skein of souvenir yarn from which I will knit some fingerless mitts:

 

While Geri prepared Thanksgiving dinner, James, Aidan and I went into Toronto on Sunday to the Ontario Science Centre. There are no photos to show what a good time we had at the centre; the camera was in the pocket of the jacket that I did not wear that day. Of course.

When we returned to the house, the intoxicating aroma of roasted turkey greeted us and soon we sat down to a delicious Thanksgiving dinner:

We took advantage of gorgeous weather on Monday and headed to Pingle's Farm Market in nearby Hampton. There were pumpkins and apples to admire plus lots of fun activities, including a photo opportunity for Geri and Aidan:

 All five of us chose to wander through the corn maze, but Aidan and James entered first:

They say that they ran through the maze the first time, then entered again to find Geri, Fred and me moseying along at a slower pace. There were corn stalks as far as the eye could see:

Despite the corn stalks and my lousy, make that nonexistent, sense of directions, I think I could have found my way out of the maze. Eventually.

We drove back to the United States on Tuesday and are now looking forward to our own Thanksgiving. Two Thanksgivings in one year -excellent!