Someday I will really, truly blog again (I hope). Until then, I will treat you to the only thing that put a smile on my face today.

Doing a little jig on my one-year “ankleversary”!

A year ago today I stupidly slipped on the ice on our front steps and broke the three big bones and tore dang near all the ligaments in my left ankle.

Today, just three weeks after having the hardware store in my ankle removed…

…I’m putting the whole ordeal behind me and steppin’ out! 

Kat has flown the coop

This has been a weekend of big changes for all the kids.

Elisabeth and CJ are moving into this cute little (ha!) abode for four months of house-sitting.  Peter moved from his own off-campus apartment in Pullman to a house full of friends that’s just a block from the Washington State campus.  Aleks “only”  moved rooms in his fraternity.

But for Kat, everything changed this weekend!  Last year she lived in an apartment near the University of Washington but attended the local community college.  She moved home last summer and stayed through the fall while she applied to UW for a third time, hoping that sheer persistence would pay off.  (I still don’t see why she didn’t get in the first two times… she had a 3.8 GPA in high school, along with quite a few AP classes and lots of community service – but we’ll let bygones be bygones.)

In late November, Kat was accepted to UW for Winter quarter, which would begin in five short weeks! 

Her persistence, it seems, had finally paid off.

Fortunately Kat was already somewhat enmeshed in the UW culture, especially the Greek culture, since her brother and some friends from high school were already in fraternities and sororities.  Within a week of being accepted to UW she was invited to join the Delta Delta Delta (“Tri-Delts”) sorority… and today she moved in!

As you can imagine, I was requested NOT to follow her around with the camera asking her to pose for pictures, so I was only able to sneak one of her and Elisabeth carrying a box inside.

The house itself is beautiful both inside and out (fraternities are often beautiful outside, but look like Animal House inside…) and the girls seem to be really nice. 

Kat only knows a few of the girls so far, but I have a feeling she’ll have 97 new friends within a few days.

Oh, and she’ll also have a full load of new university classes in a new major, Environmental Studies (which, coincidentally, was Tom’s major and is also Peter’s major).

So now Aleks and Kat are both at UW, just as they hoped to be way back in 2006 when we visited the campus and I took these pictures:

So now, with all FOUR children in college, Tom and I are back to empty nesting.  (Yes, it is indeed the financial craziness you’re imagining!!)  I’m sure they’ll be home often – fortunately doing laundry at school gets expensive – but most evenings will be pretty quiet around here.  With me consistently online in the evenings with co-workers in Mumbai, poor Tom will have to become addicted to bad TV… or a good book.

Winter cleaning

I don’t know what came over me…

It’s nowhere close to Spring!

Yet another sauerbraten, käsespätzle und rotkraut dinner

Are you bored yet?  We’ve done this every year since this blog began…

over…

and over…

and over…

and over…

and sometimes multiple times per year.  And yet here I am again, telling you about tonight’s sauerbraten, käsespätzle und rotkraut dinner.

I wanted to finally post recipes, but to tell you the truth we don’t have any!  Peter cooks the sauerbraten by taste, adding stuff like red wine vinegar, molasses, ginger snaps, and beef broth a bit at a time until it tastes just right.

Craig (Tom’s brother) is the onion man. 

Would you believe that there are 12 large onions cooking down in that frying pan?

And THIS is how much cheese we bought for the käsespätzle (but we only used three of these packages… the top one is Emmanthaler):

When cooking a German dinner, always drink beer!  Right, Kat?

Once the sauerbraten is cooking, start the rotkraut:

I pretty much just dump red cabbage, apple slices, vinegar, brown sugar and clove into a pot and turn the heat on low.

Let everything cook for a while.

 

Now it’s time to get the spätzle dough going.  I let the guys do this.  First little brother…

 

Then big brother.

Enlist daughters and friends in making the dumplings…

Then it’s time to construct the käsespätzle.  All SIX casserole dishes full of it!

And then, finally, it’s time to eat!

Delish!!

Schmaltzy as it is, there is nothing – positively nothing, like a big, happy, delicious family dinner!

Christmas night with the family – it ain’t what it used to be!

 

There was just enough money at stake (Tom and I put up a few bills for first, second, third and fourth place winners) to keep poor college students around the table for an evening of great fun and entertainment! 

The coasters are gifts I made for my dad and brothers (and myself!) on Shutterfly.  Took about 5 minutes  -- drag and drop – but we all ended up with a set of four coasters with pics of the families of each of Dad’s kids.  A fun, easy gift!

My gift to you…

is in the form of a holiday ham baking tip. (You balk?  WELL!):

You made Pioneer Woman’s bread pudding with whiskey cream sauce for Christmas breakfast, correct?  If you didn’t, back up the clock and make this for your family’s holiday breakfast. 

 

Yeah, that!*

Surely you had some whiskey sauce left over (made with these heavenly ingredients and these ingredients only… heavy cream, sugar, butter and whiskaaaay).  Yes?

And your plans for the afternoon are to make a Christmas ham, I assume? 

 

(You know where this is going, don’t you?  Don’t laugh; how do you think Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups came about?)

And that ham is pre-sliced, right? 

And it came with a pre-made sugary-molasses glaze, right?

And your dear husband got a silicone basting brush in his stocking, right?

(Yeah, you know where we’re headed here.)

Before sending the ham into the oven (covered with foil, of course), take that silicone brush that Santa bequeathed upon your hubby and spread a little gooey whiskey-butter cheer  upon each and every slice of the Christmas ham.  For good measure, brush a bunch all over the outside of the ham too. Don’t use it all, though.  We’re not done!

Now put the ham into the oven, with a little whiskey sauce rubbed onto each slice, but without the glaze that came with the ham.  As the directions say, you’ll be spreading that glaze on the ham only when it’s almost heated through.

After the ham goes into the oven take that sugary molasses-laden ham glaze, pour it into a sauce pan, and to it add all that leftover cheer in the form of gooey alcohol-laden butter and sugar… and VOILA!  You now have a delicious whiskeybutterysugarymolassasy saucepan full of cheer.

About 15 minutes before the ham is finished cooking, brush the whiskey-butter-sugar-etc glaze on the all over it with said brush that sure is getting a lot of use for its first day.  Send it back into the oven for a few, and serve – along with Kat’s favorite homemade mashed potatoes (with some skin left on, per Peter’s insistence) and fresh cooked green beans. 

Merry Christmas!

*First three photos are courtesy of Pioneer Woman.  Stolen with love and admiration and a fair amount of bowing and groveling.

A day in honor of Mom

I miss Mom most on Christmas Eve…

 

…because she knew how to make this day really, really special, without any commercialism at all.

Once I year, on Christmas Eve, I light “Omi’s Candle” and let it burn through midnight.  It’s the closest I can get to emulating Mom’s Christmas Eve… and it’s nowhere near close enough.