Vanilla Icing

Satisfying Sunday

This is one of those pictures I am very disappointed to have taken with my cell camera(while bundled in my coat) because it was the only thing at hand. I'm hoping when I have another batch of photos for Qoop to print out that this one prints out decently despite it's grainy-ness. I took this one at the 'Christmas Carol' show but I liked it enough to want to give it its own entry. Tristyn asked me for a copy of it too--so he could put it in his room--which made me feel very good. =)

Yesterday we had a very nice day. In the morning we finished up Saturday night's sleepover. Tristyn, Maia and their two friends managed to bounce off the walls even harder than they had the night before. I think a night of sleep (albeit a very short night of sleep for the girls who stayed up entirely too late giggling) really refreshed their bounce-y-meters.

Tristyn and Maia wanted to try church with me and the three of us went together. (Rick didn't come this time because he had a prior commitment--okay it was a Steelers Game =P ) I was very apprehensive that the kids wouldn't like it. People who know me well know that I think it's very important for each person (and this means kids) to have as 'clean of a slate' as possible in regards to spiritual and religious things. This way if and when the person is ready to explore and learn about things that they are not trying to fight through a backlog of other things that they may or may not ultimately believe.

This type of thought is very conflicting with what most religions seem to believe. They seem to believe that one most 'train up their children' in the ways that they believe or else you are sinning. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that other than I don't see those that choose to do that as wrong--I'm only saying that it is wrong for me. I try to teach my kids the values, behaviours, etc that I think is the right way and correct way but I have never taught them anything religious. I know, I know....little heathens. We've talked about what other peoples believe. But---I have ALWAYS said that if and when they wanted to try a church that I would take them to it. And so they wanted to yesterday, and so I did.

The first part of the service was a little long (for them) but it also ran a little longer than usual because they were doing a Christmas program. They read the Christmas story in all different languages (I wish I could have had the written foreign words to attempt to follow along because I LOVE languages) which I really enjoyed. The second and third parts, Tristyn and Maia spent with other children and I was left to wonder how they were faring.

Wondering how they doing distracted me a wee bit from really being able to concentrate but I was still able to pay attention and enjoy the rest of our time there. My only disappointment was that they didn't pass the book in the third meeting to sign up for feeding the missionaries dinner! Anyways, after I collected the children and got them in the car they were full of excitement and talking over one another to tell me how much they had liked it. AND that they want to go back. =)

We went home briefly, mainly to wait for Rick and then we went up to Levy and Katie's house for dinner. (If you are wondering what I brought--it was brown sugar shortbread) Dinner was delicious--the lasagna so tasty that I couldn't help sneaking a look at Katie to see if under all that blond hair she just might be Italian after all! Our conversation with Levy and Katie and also Kelsey (Katie's sister) was also enjoyable. All of the children played (and did a hair too much running crazy but I think they were all just excited)

Sharing a meal with friends can be so satisfying it's a wonder more people don't do it more often. Is it too early to make a New Year's Resolution? Because if not, I think that mine will be to invite others over for dinner more often. Which is a lot easier and more fun to keep then giving up chocolate! <----I only chose chocolate because I know that most people have a weakness to chocolate and it would have sounded funny had I put in 'wheat thins.' =P

Christmas Dance Recital

Maia danced in two songs for the 2007 Christmas Dance Recital.  Her first was 'Let it Snow' and it was a jazz routine.  The second one was 'Chinese Dance' and it was ballet.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to use the flash and the pictures didn't come out as well as I would have liked.  Rick did get some video footage that turned out really well.  I'm hoping he'll make me a small version of it so I can upload that too (if I remember to ask that is!)

Look! A rare picture of me.  Rick snapped it when I was too busy talking to my dad to notice.

Maia is in the back...3rd girl from the left.  She just started taking jazz about 2 months ago (if that) and this was her first jazz performance.  We are so proud of her!

It really bums me out that the camera failed me for this picture. =(

Maia's the smallest child in this picture.

Second in line.

The show was really cute and all of the children did a wonderful job.  Next up in the Spring--Snow White!

Look Who Came to Town!

A loud, persistant wail of sirens will send anyone dashing to the window to look....but...add a Santa and some people will dash OUTSIDE.

It's Santa with the Edgewood Fire Department!

This is just one of the many, many, MANY things that Edgewood does that makes it such a wonderful town to live in. I am so thankful to be able to live here. =)

A Christmas Carol

Dinner......mmmmmmmm.

And a show!!

Pre-show....a local choir sang Christmas carols. Picture taking wasn't allowed during 'A Christmas Carol' (not that I would anyway) but the show was great and I'm sure we will always remember it. The man playing Scrooge was not playing Scrooge....he WAS Scrooge. Fantastic actor.

After the show.... =)

German Lunch

Yesterday was the ICC (Investor's Capital) Christmas Luncheon. The man who heads the Pittsburgh branch is German and belongs to the German Club (above) and that is where he decided to hold the lunch. I was a little apprehensive because of it being German food (more about that in a moment). We got to the Northside and even being native Pittsburghers we couldn't find the street that took us to the street that the German Hall was on. It was a classic Pittsburgh case of 'I can see exactly where I want to go but I can't see how to get there by car.' We have lots and lots of one way narrow streets in our city. It drives outsiders nuts. As it was, Rick and I ended up giving in, parking three blocks away and walking there.

The second floor of the German Club was set up with long rows of tables. I had a hard time getting any picture at all because of the people milling about but I tried. What you can't see is the side walls that had enormous glass covered shadow boxes on the walls that displayed items of all sorts representing various cities in Germany. Downstairs is where the members of the club usually dine but once a week (and also for rentals I think) they have a huge buffet style meal in the main hall.

I enjoyed the food despite it being heavier food than I usually eat for lunch. Despite it being German. I'll fill you in now on the German food. =)

When Rick and I first started dating, it was right away that he started taking me to lots of different restaurants that I had never been to before. I was a very picky eater. I'm talking the chicken finger/spaghetti/occasional PLAIN hamburger type of eater. It was obvious that Rick enjoyed a wide variety of foods. Rick is several years older than me (12) and I was afraid that he would think me immature to find out I only eat chicken nuggets. It was about the third restaurant he took me to that there was NOTHING plain on the menu. I decided on the spot that I had to order something and just try to eat it, otherwise I'd look like a child. So I did and I did eat it. I couldn't look at what I was eating lest it make me stop eating. It was some sort of chicken with a sauce of some sort--can't remember the sides but they were 'weird' too.

Probably around the 7th or 8th restaurant I realized that this 'weird' food I was eating was actually pretty good. I was able to actually look at what I was eating and see all the extra things mixed in and still enjoy it. Not bad! I thought, for a person who previously couldn't even eat the overcooked bits of celery in chicken noodle soup.

Then came the German restaurant. This one was also on the Northside but it was called Max's or something. I cockily ordered and didn't even blink an eye when the rabbit I ordered came out basically looking like a furless/headless rabbit. I dug in. It was pretty good. Then I finished eating the cubic inch that didn't have the sauce on it and I took a bite with the sauce on it.

Ugh.

Tried the potatoes. They had a different sauce on them.

Ugh.

Tried the vegetables. They had a different sauce from the first two also.

Ugh.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I tried to eat the meal anyways but I just couldn't do it with the sauces. Or gravies. Whatever they are called. Sour puddles of pure torture is what I like to think of them. It made each bit of food taste as if it had spoiled 3 months ago. I scraped off as much sauce as I could and ate the best I could which wasn't a lot.

Now, a few years and lots of different foods that I've enjoyed later, I agreed to go to the German Club for the luncheon with Rick. i though perhaps maybe now that I've gotten a few years of various 'weird' foods under my belt that I might have a different opinion of German food. (Plus, lunch with Rick even at a potentially bad place is always better than lunch anywhere else). I did like the food at the German Club. I tried several different things and found them all to be tasty. But you know what?

There wasn't any spoiled-3-months-ago-sour sauce on anything!

I pose the question--Do I or don't I like German food?

I don't even know. =S

Clumsy

I take clumsy to a whole new level. Yesterday, while at the doctor getting a yearly physical I found out that that horrible sharp pain I've been feeling in my foot since Day 2 of the NYC trip is because I sprained/strained the muscle the wraps around my ankle bone to my foot. And I did it just by walking. The other foot is fine. I should have saw this as a sign of things to come. Or maybe when they drew blood for routine testing when um...my...let's call it overeager...vein decided to make a mess on the paper robe I was wearing and on the nurse's scrubs I should have taken THAT as a sign it was not going to be a good day.

When dropping a prescription off at the pharmacy I didn't notice a puddle and walked right through it. Let me tell you---my ankles noticed that puddle! All day long I kept dropping things. I couldn't seem to get anything quite right on the first try. I jammed the fax machine. Twice. The copier didn't want to copy for me. My keyboard at work wouldn't type letters and I had to restart the computer. I dropped a piece of pasta on my skirt--I think no one noticed.

At home I started making the cake for today's office Christmas Party. It was to be a square chocolate 2 layer cake with a 'pine cone' on top of it. The pinecone part went sorta okay. (I did burn myself with melted chocolate while trying to make a 'twig' on waxpaper to put in the fridge to harden). The first layer came out of the pan a bit funky but not unmanagable. I frosted it and put the second layer on. The second layer extened a good half inch beyond the bottom layer on each side. I have no clue how. Each pan was an 8 by 8 pan. Each pan had the company's etching in it declaring it to be an 8 by 8 pan. Who knew that one company's 8 inches is different than another company's 8 inches.

I tried to gently turn it over thinking it was better to have the bigger layer on the bottom. It turned fine and I swear as soon as I stepped back to admire it (not much to admire with a wonky shaped cake but work with me--it's all I had at this point) it broke into pieces. Completely unrepairable.

There wasn't time to start again because I had to leave as soon as Rick got home to go get a few things at the store for the office gift exchange we are doing (see above picture) today. He made me promise to get a store bought cake and NOT come home late and start baking another. A store bought cake! Me!

Well here it is:

Rick suggested I put my pinecone on it anyway and I did but I think it just looks silly. =(

Oh--and I stepped on a piece of glass that I actually had to pull the shard out from the bottom of my foot. While I was gone the kids broke my glass cookie jar and Rick had missed a small piece while cleaning up.

I guess I wasn't the only one having a clumsy day!

P.S. Riley was a perfect angel.

Who's the Guilty Party?

Eddie woke me up at 4:22 am on Monday. He was climbing on my head and drooling. Yup, that's right. He drools. Literally drips out-- It's quite disgusting. Anyhow, I got up and shut him out of our bedroom and tried to fall back asleep but to no avail. For the next hour I tossed and turned and everytime I was just about to drift off I could hear a little voice telling me to just get up--think of all the things you could be getting done. Finally, I did listen to that little voice and got up. At 5:22 a.m.

I made myself a cup of tea, started a load of laundry and had breakfast. I updated my blog. Then I cleaned up the kitchen including a complete emptying and a partial re-load of the dishwasher. I cleaned the foyer (ours is fair sized) I packed the kids' lunches and filled out their envelopes and wrote checks for Frosty Shoppe for them. I vacummed the 1st floor, fed the cats and finished that load of laundry. All of this before 7:30! I even chatted online with my friend Cathy who lives up the street and was up surprisingly early herself for a few minutes. It was very nice getting a good start to the day.

Oh. I ALSO brought the dog-crate up from the basement and put it in the office on the second floor. I was getting to the point where I couldn't take having to come home everyday and spend time cleaning up the kitchen that was full of destroyed paper and any other reachable thing. Before we all left the house, I turned on some music for the dogs, put Riley in the crate and Bob in the office and put the gate up to keep Bob in the office with Riley.

A few hours later I came home and the office was TRASHED. Papers everywhere. Chewed up pieces of plastic from various things including the cases of several CDS that had been packed in a box with a lid on it. Oh, and this:

This was a full bottle minus about 3 tablets. Completely empty now. Not even one tablet to be found among the debris.

The culprit?

Bob. Yup, he did it all by himself. All of it. Poor Riley was still in the crate looking at me in that ingratiating way that dogs have when they think you might be mad at them.

Soooooooooooo. So. So. SO. Has Bob been the one doing all the damage these past two months? Despite having seen Riley be destructive like this about a year or so ago (which is why we were so quick to blame him thought we've not caught him at it since) could it really have been Bob all along and not Riley? We shall see today if it's really been Bob or if it's both.

Today, Bob will be spending his time in the crate and Riley in the office with the gate up to see if he duplicates Bob's destruction. It'll be worth taking the chance of having to clean up the same mess again (minus the TUMS) to see just who is doing what here.

Any guesses??

A bit Behind

but what else is new? No matter...I shall cram two days into this post. On Saturday, I went Christmas shopping for Rick. (NYC was for the kids) I didn't get finished before I needed to come home but I still took the time to get a decaf, tall, nonfat mocha latte at Barnes & Noble. Don't think I walked out of the bookstore with only coffee! I found some books for the kids for Christmas. Hmm...that previous sentence makes it sound like I had a difficult time choosing books and well, really, it was more like I selected some books out of the hundreds I would have wanted to take home.

Rick and I went to a Christmas Costume Party of sorts on Saturday night. Lots of Santa-ish and elf-ish outfits. If you are curious in sort of seeing mine, you might want to adjust your screen settings because the picture is kind of dark. And a wee bit wonky because I attempted to take it myself with my cell phone.

If you chose not to adjust your settings to a brighter contrast--trust me you didn't really miss anything! My costume was white and silver and think snowflake or something. I had a lot of fun putting on the makeup (lots of white shimmery stuff) and spraying glitter in my hair. I got to re-live being 6 again! That was the best part of the evening!

Sunday was a good day. The earlier portion of the day we stayed in and just did misc. (i can never spell that word!) things around the house; straightening up, playing on the computer, talking. My friend Missy went to help dip apples and package them at her sister's fiancee's uncles shop. That's a bit of a chain of people to follow isn't it? Sorry. Se did send me this picture:

That picture doesn't do them justice. Apples 4 You is the website of the uncle where you can get a much better look at things.

We attended church again too. I enjoyed it as much as the last time. One of the things they talked about really spoke to me because it's something I feel strongly. It was about 'Doing it Now, and not procrastinating.' They went on to say how if you do you will receive blessings and so forth. Perhaps calling it 'blessings' isn't someones cup of tea...but...doing what needs and should be done and not procrastinating definitely brings things to the table that procrastinating doesn't.

Also, we met a very nice couple and their baby there too! They invited us over for dinner and we gladly accepted. Luckily, we had some time in between where I was able to go home and put together a small platter of chocolate chip cookies and some candy to dress the platter up to bring with us. I don't like to go empty handed and I was very glad to have baked the cookies on Saturday. After I wrap up this post I'm going to write out a thank-you card to send. This one specifically:

It's not very season suitable--it's really more suited to spring--but the weather around here has been very gloomy. Lots of dark skies and dreary rains. Something bright and colorful I think will be more cheerful to open up. Ribbon adorns the top and bottom of the checkered pattern and the little bumble bee is made out of wood. I used to have a set of these cards on my Etsy but I decided to use them myself. =) Bad, bad Etsy seller!

Cafe Roma

Cafe Roma~~Bloomfield~~Pittsburgh, PA

Rick and I are holding good to our vow of trying new restaurants and not getting stuck going to the major chains.  Not that a major chain is bad--after all most of them started out small at one time or another--but more because I like to help the little guys.  You never know, they might get big someday too!

Bloomfield is a part of Pittsburgh that has the sometimes nickname of 'Little Italy.'  I say sometimes because in the last decade or so there has been an influx of a lot of Asian restaurants.  I like those too, but I like the idea of a 'Little Italy.'  Can you tell I'm Italian?  (And some Irish in there too--but I like my Italian to trump the Irish =p )

Cafe Roma was very tiny; about 6 tables were all that could fit inside.  I had read online that reservations were a near must--even up to a week in advance and I was very surprised to be able to get in on a moment's notice.  Then, I was even more surprised to get there and it was empty.  Literally empty.  I guess that's what I get for reading a review that was several months old.  I don't know if it was no longer the 'hot' restaurant or if the cold was keeping people away.  Two other groups came in while were about partway through our meal which made me feel better because I was worrying how the owner/chef would make ends meet if he was only serving one table's worth of people on a Friday night.

I had pasta e fagioli soup as a starter.  It was quite different than what my grandmother makes but very, very tasty.  I think Cafe Roma uses wine in their stock.  Then I had a gnochhi dish that had extra virgin olive oil and fresh diced tomatoes as topping (sauce? hmmm.)  The gnocchi were wonderful--cooked just right.  I think I would have preferred a different sauce (Mezzanotte a few blocks down makes a fantastic sauce for gnocchi) but I enjoyed it none the less.  Rick had a pasta dish that had a wide variety of things (mushrooms, peas, pancetta...) in a creamy sauce.  I took a bite of his and it had a very subtle sweet undertone to it that was quite tasty.   The portions are generous but not so generous that you feel as if everyone would gawk if you ate it all.  I would have liked to try their cannoli but we were both comfortably filled up and we left it for another time.

=)

 

Snow to Play In.

All over blog land, I've been seeing some really fabulous snow pictures. Well, not going to see those sort here. One, we didn't get quite enough snow, two, you can see the bits of yard/yard debris sticking through the snow because of #1 and three I was barefoot and loving my zoom button from the edge of the dining room door.

Here are a few...not so pretty...pictures of how the kids and dogs enjoy any sort of snow.

Tristyn prefers to use the snow as a modeling compound, shaping it into various things. I later found out that he was fascinated with how he could turn snow into 'ice' and was pretending he was some super hero that used this as his power. We hadn't been able to find his waterproof gloves and the plain knit kind allowed the warmth of his hands to compact the snow into hard little ice balls.

Maia thought she'd try snowboardings and she didn't care that her board was saucer shaped.

And spun. And made her fall. She just kept trying. What's that? You think Maia looks funny? I do too, but I couldn't get her to take her dress off. She looks like a pink puffy GIRL marshmallow man. I force them to overdress some for playing in the snow. I can't help it. I think I get it from my dad; he was always naysaying coats and jackets on basis of them not being 'thick' enough. At any rate, after 1 hour, 15 minutes I finally called them in because the hot cocoa I had warming on the stove was developing a skin. Except for pink cheeks, they weren't even cold!

Riley loves the snow. I mean he really LOVES the snow. It instantly excites him throwing him into a frenzy of running.

What about Bob?

Well Bob is like me. He doesn't like to be cold. Bob snuck in the house through my legs while I was taking the pictures.

I can't say I blame him.