My Advent Calendar

 December 12th

Christmas bird, one of two, made for me by daughter Emily years ago.

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It's been a baking day so far.

Lemon meringue pie to take to dinner at friends' house this evening.

Two kinds of cookies.

First these are Oatmeal Almond with golden raisins and coconut.

This recipe is based upon a oatmeal chocolate chip recipe I got from a colleague when I worked in DC 50 years ago.  It's a delicious chocolate chip cookie but I have used it to make Oatmeal Almond cookies - leave out chocolate chips and change the 2 tsp of vanilla to almond extract.  This time instead of chocolate chips I used shredded coconut and golden raisins and of course the almond extract.  My taste tester, Dan, proclaimed them delicious.

The other batch made was peanut butter cookies, a recipe from a neighbor almost 40 years ago.

Funny how most of my cookie recipes are ancient!

I'm planning to make two or three more kinds tomorrow and then with granddaughters #1 & #2 over in the afternoon while Emily and Matt go Christmas shopping, I hope to package some up for the neighbors. I figure I need 6 plates of cookies.  3 of those are for singles, 2 for couples and one for a family of 7!

My Advent Calendar

December 11th

 Another ornament from a trip. This time it was a Roads Scholar trip to St. Louis. It included a ride on the Mississippi on a paddler wheeler in Hannibal, MO. We also had a tour of the Mark Twain Museum and Tom Sawyer’s house. 

Before this trip I asked Dan “Are we going to learn too much?”  He’s teased me about that ever since. What I meant was whether the trip would involve too many long winded lectures. As it turned out there was only one!

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Today is homeschooling day. Granddaughter #1 is here for her once weekly day with me while Emily is at the office. She’s working on her writing assignment now, nope she’s back at the puzzle. She claims she finished her paragraph. Must check it out. 

My Advent Calendar

December 10th

My smallest nativity.  It's in a shell of some sort.  My mother gave this to me when we lived in The Lodge.  I had taken her shopping to a store that stocked items made by crafts men and women from over seas.  All items sold at fair market value.  I didn't realize she'd made this purchase as a gift for me.

To see how tiny it is, I put a dime in the shell.

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I'm later than usual posting today because I've been busy making birthday cards - 4 of them - and an anniversary card for youngest daughter and her husband.

I also made gift certificates for oldest two granddaughters.  The certificates entitle them to a shopping trip and lunch out.

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Yesterday I finished up this task.  I had purchased two 4x6 photo albums which had these pressed flower arrangements in the cover picture spot. I took them out of those spots and put them into these frames with mats with the right size opening.

Though don't have the original coloring anymore but I thought they were still lovely.

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To end this post let me share the Chinese noodle soup dish I created last night.

I'd purchased these rice noodles sometime this past Fall. I finally did some looking in a Chinese cookbook I have and on line for how to use them in soup.

I used half the bag for the soup.

 Here's a bowl of it.

And here's enough for seconds last night and lunch today.

Dan said it was the best Chinese soup he'd had.  I figured I'd better write out what I did so I can replicate it again.  It would be good with chicken too.

Sorry.  Not exactly a recipe you can follow easily. If you try it let me know.

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One more thing: we are having snow.  Prediction of 1-3 inches has been surpassed already.  I know because Dan just had a fire call - downed wire in the road - and I had to go shut the barn doors after he took car out.  I swept the porch too and it's 3 inches and climbing.  Since I was out, I took the compost to the outdoor compost bin.

View from my desk.  Porch is getting covered again.

The Cookbook Supper gathering that was to be tonight has been postponed until January because of this weather system.

My Advent Calendar

December 9th

I saved this birthday card from two years ago and include it with my window displays for winter. My youngest sister sent it to me for my 73rd birthday.  75 is creeping very close.

Here's the view out the kitchen windows this morning.  We woke to -9º temperatures.  It's warmed now to single positive digits.

Love the looks of those icicles.  This is the south facing roof and it hasn't been warm enough to melt the snow off.  It's only be sliding slowly but this morning frozen in place.

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I got the Christmas cards done and in the mail yesterday.

Here's something I have to admit about myself: I'm not very good about maintaining long distance friendships that once were based upon proximity or work or common interests. There are four Christmas cards I decided to hold off sending because I have had no contact with any of these since last Christmas.  Here's my reasoning: if they don't send me one then there's no need to send them one.

Is that so terrible?

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I've been ambivalent about making cookies this holiday but after sleeping on it I have decided to bake on Saturday.  Dan said he'd like some peanut butter cookies and I do like to make the almond decorated cookies.  There's also molasses that I only make at this time of year. 

For a number of years since we moved here I've been delivering cookies at Christmas to my neighbors.  In order to keep up that tradition I'll have to bake!  I even bought plates to stack them on when I was out at Michael's yesterday. 

Decision made: Look for cookie photos in the near future.