Author: Faith

Memorable

Thanksgiving 2009 will go down in family history as The Year With The Mouse. Yep, yesterday a mouse somehow made its way into the crawl space behind our fireplace and then decided to take a tour of our family room. I was on a last-minute grocery run so our poor babysitter was the first one to spot it. N arrived home first and got the report from our freaked-out sitter and then promptly called me on my cell. And I promptly freaked out and bought several traps and packages of poison bait.

We looked everywhere in the living room but couldn’t find it. It didn’t show itself until after we put E to bed and were watching a show. Then it darted out from a vent in the back of our gas fireplace and ran behind a bookshelf. Needless to say, we were pretty freaked out. We were up until after 1am trying to get rid of it. It wasn’t interested in our sunflower seed butter baited traps (with E’s allergies we don’t have any peanut butter in the house). At one point I had the ambitious idea that I was going to trap it under a sieve and then take it outside and let it loose. However, it didn’t quite catch the vision of my humane plan and wouldn’t cooperate. So we broke out the poison.

We haven’t seen it all day today so I think it either succumbed to the bait or found its way back out again. *Shudder* So hopefully we’ve seen the last of it.

Other than the drama with the mouse our Thanksgiving was really nice. Very low-key, but nice. Not to get sappy, but the older I get the more I can truly see the hand of the Lord in my life. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful husband, a sweet son, loving parents and family, kind friends, and a warm home on cold nights (mouse notwithstanding).

Letterpressed Christmas Cards

Thinking about Christmas cards yet? I am. (It’s more fun to think about cards than about cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner ever tomorrow.) We don’t actually have a strong tradition of sending them out, last year was the first year we did them, but I’d like to mail them again this year.

I haven’t picked out our cards yet, but I took a quick look around Etsy and found these nice letterpress cards.

I don’t know if I’ll end up going with any of these. I have good intentions (as usual) but I’ll probably end up procrastinating until it’s too late to order anything by mail.

Turkey Day Countdown! *Gulp*

Up until now I’ve successfully avoided ever having to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. But this year my luck finally ran out/we decided that it would be nice to have our own dinner now that we have our own little family.

But of course I’m horribly unprepared. Work has been really crazy lately, N and I are both coming down with colds, and E’s been feeling under the weather and cranky since he got his flu shot on Friday. Bleh. I wish I had another week to prepare.

But the holidays wait for no one. Since it will just be the three of us I’m planning keeping it as simple as I can: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, a vegetable dish/salad, store-bought rolls, and a homemade pie or two (N has his heart set on a berry pie and has vowed to help with the baking). My sister-in-law Miranda recommended this Alton Brown turkey recipe which seems doable and tasty, but other than that I’m not sure about which recipes to use.

Any specific suggestions? What are you guys going to cook?

Woodworking Fall 09: Week 9

We had a low-key weekend. On Friday we met up with Elaine and her husband for some Korean food again. It was a lot of fun. You can see a picture of us (me looking awkward and Elaine looking stylish as she is wont to do) in her post here.

Woodworking last week was a mixed bag of emotions. I made a lot of great progress but didn’t get everything I wanted to finished, mostly because I had forgotten that I needed to chisel holes (or mortises) for the hinges to sit in so the lids would lay flat when they’re closed.

The lids trimmed down to size and sanded most of the way smooth.
(Seeing how these turned out were the highlight of the class for me.)

I drew where the hinges would be placed on the back of the boxes.

Pre-chiseled boxes.

The mortises I chiseled for the hinges to sit it. It was pretty interesting to carve them out by hand with just a chisel and hammer, Noah’s ark style. You can kind of see where I went a bit out of the line and split a little bit of wood off. I was hurrying and took too much off. *Sigh*

Not pictured: the giveaway cutting board I got trimmed and mostly sanded!

I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get as far I had expected. The time it took to chisel out the mortises by hand really threw off my plans. But at least I got the cutting board trimmed to size and mostly sanded. My instructor said that I might be able to come in to the shop during the day to lacquer the boxes, so we’ll see how it goes. I need to sand the cutting board by hand and put mineral oil on it and then it will be ready for the giveaway.

I’m planning on taking the class next semester again so if I don’t get the boxes finished in the meantime I should be able to get them done in the first week or two of next class.

We’ll Miss You

Tomorrow my good friend Kristin and her family move out of our neighborhood. We met her and her husband soon after we moved in and it was one of those family friendships where the stars aligned: her and I have a lot in common and get along swimmingly, our lawyer husbands get along great, and E and their son P are close in age and love playing together.

I’m really going to miss having them just down the street, but they’re not moving too far away so I’m sure we’ll still see each other often. Yesterday morning I watched P while Kristin attended to last-minute packing. E and P had a blast running around wrecking havoc (as they usually do when together).

We’re really going to miss you guys.

Your ex-lover is dead

One of my favorite routines on So you think you can dance? last night was set to one of my favorite songs by Stars, a Canadian indie pop band. I was excited to see a song I really like get good exposure.

About the song, I like the lushness of the music, the he said/she said structure, and how the lyrics capture the awkwardness and heartache of running into an ex. (Yeah, it sounds corny, but it’s a great song! I’m not really that good at writing about music, that’s N’s department.)

But check out Stars, they’re great. On the show they had to trim the song down for the dance number so here’s the whole thing.

“Your Ex-Lover is Dead” by Stars

Woodworking Fall 09: Week 8

Last week’s woodworking class was fun. I glued together the lids and made some progress on the giveaway cutting board.

I cut some pieces of walnut to go around the panels of the lids. When I was cutting the sides I taped them together so they would be exactly the same length.

Gluing the walnut sides to the lid. After the glue is dry I’ll trim the sides so they’re square.

The three different lids.

And I had just enough time to get the giveaway cutting board glued up. All it needs now is a lot of sanding and to be trimmed.

Tomorrow is the last day of class *sniff*. I’m going to make a list of tasks I need to finish so I waste as little time as possible. Wish me luck!

Test Results

E’s appointment with his allergist took most of the day on Friday. I got stuck in the backup from a traffic accident on both the way up and back from Salt Lake. On the way up it wasn’t so back, only about 25 minutes. But on the way home I was in stop-and-go traffic for over an hour with a cranky, tired, hungry E. The only thing between us and insanity was a bag of Skittles I had put in the car for such an emergency. By the time we got home he was covered in a layer of sticky brownish grime from the colors melting together all over his face and hands. As soon as we pasted the wrecked my irritation evaporated, though. It was pretty bad. Among the crunched cars there was a flipped minivan that was torn up really badly. I wondered if there had been kids in there. And I realized that dealing with a cranky toddler for an hour was infinitely better than whatever than whatever the people in that van were dealing with right then and maybe for the rest or their lives. (Just checked, sadly someone did die.)

But about the appointment itself: there were mixed results. Last year we found out that E is allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, and a bunch of other nuts. The doctor (who is really great–let me know if you ever need a recommendation) wanted us to also avoid all seafood because it is also highly allergenic. So this year we retested his blood to see if his allergies had changed.

The bad news: E is somehow more allergic to milk than he was last year and his egg allergy stayed the same.

The good news: E’s peanut and nut allergies went down dramatically. He’s still very allergic to them, but at least they went down which gives me hope that he can continue to outgrow some of his allergies. And E is not allergic to seafood so we can start giving it to him. I think one of the first seafood recipes I’m going to try is this one from my sister-in-law Mindy who is a great cook.

The doctor and I were kind of disappointed about the milk and eggs. She said that normally if kids outgrow something it’s usually milk or eggs so it’s usual that E’s peanuts/nut allergies came down instead.

The plan for the next year is to continue avoiding all milk, eggs, and peanuts/nuts and then do his bloodwork again when he turns three. She said that by the time E is four or five and can articulate if he’s having a reaction then they’ll probably had the protocol for oral desensitization worked out and he can start on that. While we got mixed results I’m trying to look at them positively.

Schnappi

My friend Amber came over for dinner last night. She made okonomiyaki and I made ddukboki. It was SO good.

After dinner she showed us this German cartoon that a friend had shared with her. E thought it was great and after a few seconds was clapping along to the beat.

Later today I’m taking E to his annual checkup with his allergist. I don’t know how likely it is, but I’m really hoping that he’s outgrown some of his food allergies. *Crosses fingers*

Have a great weekend!