Happy Holidays to you and yours! Here's a video of one of my favorite songs that I was able to sing when I participated in an annual singing of Handel's "Messiah." The words of the song come straight from the Book of Isaish in the Bible, as does much of the music for the full concert. Enjoy!
Have a great holiday, and I'll be back another day to post the remaining recipes from my Christmas week menu and pictures!
Friday, December 25, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Christmas Week Menu
I'm so excited this week is here! I love Christmas and all the meaning and spirit of the season! This is the first Christmas I've spent away from Texas in a LONG time...as in since I was in 3rd grade! Anyway, R's parents and sister are joining us here in MD for the holiday and I'm so excited! We may have gotten over 21" of snow the other day, with a likely chance of more on Christmas Eve, but the roads have, for the most part, been cleared for easy travel throughout most of our area. There's still some issues I see at the smaller intersections and on the lesser used highways, but the workers who deal with the snow plows and salting trucks have been hard at work, and I'm so thankful as Saturday was very treacherous to drive!
Anyway, back to the reason for the post: The menu I came up for dinners for the week. We may actually change one or two of these to go to a restaurant or two, not sure yet. (Mon. and Tues. are still up in air...may have spaghetti on Mon.) If you notice that these recipes come from Southern living, you would be right, as I love having a subscription to that magazine for all kinds of ideas throughout the year.
On Tuesday: I'll be making some Apple Cinnamon Bread to take to work as well as another loaf for the house.
Wed.: Spinach-Apple Salad, Antipasto Penne Pasta (I'll type up the recipe here the day of), Homeade Sugar-Free Cherry Ice Cream Cordials with Whiskey Hot Fudge Sauce
Thurs.: Happy Christmas Eve!! R's family is Italian and German in heritage on his dad's side and British and Irish on his mother's side (as in my mother-in-law's mom was British). Anyway they have a family tradition of shipping in Dungeness Crab to eat for that dinner from Pike Place Market in Seattle. We'll be having that, as well as a Green Salad with Orange Vinaigrette, some red beans and rice, and a Pear Tart for dessert (Recipe I will be using will be typed up here on Thurs.). I might make up some Pomegranate Cocktails as well.
Fri.: I'm off work! Christmas morning, presents will be opened and we will be having an easy breakfast and lunch, possibly even some leftovers. For dinner, we will have Meat Fondue, Green Beans, and Lasagna. I'll also be making some dinner rolls with my breadmaker to help.
Sat.: May make corn quesadillas and slow-roasted tomatoes (if we do this, I'll put the recipe up that day), or we may go out to eat, not totally sure. The family was once stationed in Hawaii (R's parents are both retired USAF officers), and there is an excellent restaurant (Roy's) that is centered around Hawaiian dishes. R and his mom ate there when he moved East early this past summer before we were married.
Anyway, back to the reason for the post: The menu I came up for dinners for the week. We may actually change one or two of these to go to a restaurant or two, not sure yet. (Mon. and Tues. are still up in air...may have spaghetti on Mon.) If you notice that these recipes come from Southern living, you would be right, as I love having a subscription to that magazine for all kinds of ideas throughout the year.
On Tuesday: I'll be making some Apple Cinnamon Bread to take to work as well as another loaf for the house.
Wed.: Spinach-Apple Salad, Antipasto Penne Pasta (I'll type up the recipe here the day of), Homeade Sugar-Free Cherry Ice Cream Cordials with Whiskey Hot Fudge Sauce
Thurs.: Happy Christmas Eve!! R's family is Italian and German in heritage on his dad's side and British and Irish on his mother's side (as in my mother-in-law's mom was British). Anyway they have a family tradition of shipping in Dungeness Crab to eat for that dinner from Pike Place Market in Seattle. We'll be having that, as well as a Green Salad with Orange Vinaigrette, some red beans and rice, and a Pear Tart for dessert (Recipe I will be using will be typed up here on Thurs.). I might make up some Pomegranate Cocktails as well.
Fri.: I'm off work! Christmas morning, presents will be opened and we will be having an easy breakfast and lunch, possibly even some leftovers. For dinner, we will have Meat Fondue, Green Beans, and Lasagna. I'll also be making some dinner rolls with my breadmaker to help.
Sat.: May make corn quesadillas and slow-roasted tomatoes (if we do this, I'll put the recipe up that day), or we may go out to eat, not totally sure. The family was once stationed in Hawaii (R's parents are both retired USAF officers), and there is an excellent restaurant (Roy's) that is centered around Hawaiian dishes. R and his mom ate there when he moved East early this past summer before we were married.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Winter Wonderland
AKA Blizzard Maryland style! Drove to work today....usually takes me 20 minutes down the highways, except today it took over an hour due to the .5' of snow already on the ground. I stayed for about an hour and a half then was able to come back home due to the worsening weather conditions. R and I watched a movie and then walked down to the Cheesecake Factory in all our snow attire fabulousness...had a miniature snowball fight in the plaza in front of the Inner Harbor...good times!! There's a good two feet of snow on the ground already and its not supposed to stop until morning, with a possible chance of continuing all tomorrow. It's lovely when you're inside looking out through a window, but not so much when driving on the roads.
I plan on making sourdough bread (the start of my Christmas dinner plans for next week) and watching more movies with R for the rest of the evening.
I plan on making sourdough bread (the start of my Christmas dinner plans for next week) and watching more movies with R for the rest of the evening.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Going back a few months
So I just now uploaded a large selection of pictures from my camera and they include my first trip to Vegas, and Rick's umpteenth millionth (so I make up words sometimes, what of it?) ; ) Anyway, we went out to attend a friend's wedding in October and be tourists for half a week, as her wedding was on a Thursday. We had a lot of fun exploring the different hotels, casinos, and sights! We found a Jummy Buffett Margaritaville and had "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" to continue our trend of eating at each of those restaurants we come across (we previously ate at the Orlando one in 2006). This one had a volcano like one of the other hotels, that "blew up" with smoke and lights during our meal. They have an area for live music as well as a large screen for showing pictures of fans from the different shows.
Picture from the airplane...flying over possible Lake Mead? I don't really remember, sorry!
Flying over the Grand Canyon area! Now to only get back and see it in person and not courtesy of Northwest Airlines.
The City of Las Vegas as seen while descending onto the runway.
Some of the best food I've ever eaten!! Rick and I discovered Diego in the MGM Grand Strip. I got the fajita plate as part of a dinner special that came with drinks, entree and dessert. Down the hall from Diego is a restaurant that some of you may know about if you're Top Chef fans....Tom Colicchio's CraftSteak, which also sounded delicious! Basically he has that restaurant, another one in the hotel called 'wichcraft, and then in New York City he has Craft. Anyone else notice a trend?
Ok, enough of that and back to the sightseeing in Vegas:
This was the hotel we stayed at, and also where the wedding was located. It was a fabulous hotel! The hotel is comprised of suite style rooms. The price was really reasonable as well, and it's a fully non-smoking hotel.
When we walked through the Bellagio, they have a garden that changes with the seasons and it made up of completely organic plant and food material for decorations such as the following picture of the replica of the hotel.
Had so much fun on that trip and added three states to my goal of visiting each and every state!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Update on 101 in 1001
Here's a quarterly update on my 101 in 1001 list. To see the original post go here.
Start Date: August 13, 2009
End Date: May 10, 2012
1. Celebrate our anniversary (0/2)
2.Surprise my husband with a gift just because (Done 9-4-09)
3.Get married. (Done 9-5-09)
4.Officially change my name to doublelettered. (Done in Oct 2009)
5. Create a will
6. Host my family at our house (0/2 (at least, may be updated later))
7. Host Rick’s family at our house (1/2 (same as my family, may be updated later))- Christmas 2009
8. Go to my family reunion (0/3)
9. Create living wills
10. Finish my list of First Ladies biographies I started (2/44)
11. Finish re-reading the Presidential biographies I started (2/44)
12. Complete some form of exercise at least 3 times per week (16/146)
13. Read at least two books per month (4/66)
14. Get my advanced open-water SCUBA certification.
15. Get re-certified in CPR
16. Go to church every Sunday for at least a month- we may have finally found a church to go to regularly! (Dec. 2009)
17. Get my rescue diver certification
18. Indulge in a few manicures (0/5)
19.Move to the new place (Done in Oct 2009)
20.Remember to take my vitamin everyday for a month- Viactiv chews are actually good. (Done in Nov. 2009)
21. Clean and go through all items in storage before moving (Didn't get done.....)
22. Teach myself Russian and Arabic
23. Get back into reading though my German materials, and complete my books I still need to read to re-familiarize myself with my college foreign language
24. Go to a cathedral for Midnight mass.
25.Unpack my stuff in our home. (Done by Oct. 2009)
26.Unpack and organize wedding gifts in our home. (Also done by Oct. 2009)
27.Set up a recycling area that will be taken to the recycler weekly (there's one on the first floor of our building) (Done by Oct 2009- trashcans not being used come in handy at times)
28. Save up for new living room furniture
29. Go house-hunting
30.Find a solution to our floor-ceiling windows in the living room (the apt. comes with vertical blinds)
31. Buy decorations for classroom
32. Buy supplies for classroom
33. Set up my classroom
34. Graduate with my Masters in Education degree (June 2011 hopefully)
35. Begin work on Anthropology Masters degree
36. Start on my thesis for my MAT
37. Research area programs for Anthropology departments (Nov 2009)
38. Travel to at least 12 different cities for weekend getaways/vacations (1/12)
39. Travel to Canada. I've been across the pond to Italy, I've been on a Caribbean cruise, and I've been south to Mexico but I haven't visited our Northern neighbor.
40. Get to New York City during the Christmas season!
41. Start a “Newlywed Map”
42. Go camping (0/3)
43. Be in D.C. for July 4th.
44. Continue my list of visiting every President's childhood home/ museum - so far I've had it easy, LBJ's ranch is down the highway from our wedding location and George Bush Sr. is in the town I where I went to college. (2/44)
45. Work on completing my U.S. travel map (20/50)
46. Try at least four new recipes a month (6/132)
47. Sit down and plan a weekly menu and shop for food each Sunday.
48. Go out to breakfast (4/16)- Frank & Nic's, Teavolve,
49.For one week, make meals that can only be made with ingredients already in our cupboards (excluding perishables—vegetables and dairy)
50. Work through all the recipes in at least two of our cookbooks
51. Write my friends in Germany and the Netherlands at least 4 times a year (2/24)
52. Send baby and wedding gifts to our friends (2/6 so far. . .)
53. Talk to my best friends every two weeks (8/73)
54. Get together with our friends from college at least twice a year (1/6)
55. E-mail friends/ send a message on FB at least once per month (5/33)
56.Celebrate Thanksgiving with a good friend of ours. (Nove 2009, good luck on the remaining finals, Rosary!!)
57. Host a friend in our new home. (My friend Anja and her boyfriend are coming to visit from Germany in a week and one half!!)
58. Celebrate my friend's graduation from law school!
59. Send birthday cards to all friends/ immediate family in 2010
62. Start a retirement account for myself.
63. Finish paying off college credit debt. (1/3)
64. Work on paying back student loans (0/3)
65. Buy a new car for one of us.
66. Buy a new laptop
67. LASIK eye surgery is sounding better and better
68. Buy a Nintendo Wii
69.Buy Wii Fit and/or Wii Active (There's funny story behind this, but I bought a Wii Fit with a wedding giftcard we received when it was on sale in Sept. 2009)
70. Get over my fear of needles and donate blood at least once. (I had a horrific experience as a five year old in pre-op)
71. Clean out closet twice a year and donate old clothes to charity (1/6)
72. Continue my habit of donating at least a dollar for every Salvation Army Bell Ringer I come across. (0/3 holiday seasons)
73. Donate $ to charity (0/10)
74. Mail packages to soldiers through Operation Baking Gals (0/10)
75. Donate my wedding dress and veil to Brides Against Breast Cancer in memory of my paternal grandmother.
76. Go on a wine cruise
77. Go on a roadtrip up and down the East Coast- I've only been to the Gulf Coast of Florida and to the Atlanta region of Georgia.
78. Go skiing again.
79. Go to each part of the Smithsonian
80. Visit all the sites in the Maryland/Pennsylvania/ Virginia area that are listed in 1001 Places to Visit Before You Die- USA and Canada, as well as the World edition.
81. Go to a Gamma Phi Beta Convention (next up Orlando, FL 2010)!
82. Host a holiday cookie swap
83. Go to the National Aquarium
84. Go to the National Zoo.
85. Go on wine tours on all the wine trails of Virginia (0/13)
86. Blog at least 20 times per month (0/33) (yea...still hasn't been done yet, although I got close one month, maybe that will be a New Year's resolution)
87. Redesign my blog. (Done in Oct. 2009)
88. Reupholster our dining chairs.
89. Finish my cross-stitch projects.
90. Have my grandmother's grandfather's, (did you follow that?) i.e. my great-great grandfather, violin fixed and ready to be played again.
91. Play the violin again- I stopped when I was in junior high.
92. Enroll in a cake-decorating class
93. After the wedding, get our proofs from our photographer. (Done in October 2009)
94. Design the wedding album and gift books (Done by our photographer and mailed in Dec. 2009)
95. Make my Christmas memories photo album that I came up with a few years ago to start when I got married.
96. Participate in Project 365
97. Actually finish the quilt I started for a friend a year ago.
98. Get my regular scrapbook up to date.
99. Work on my travel scrapbook and update it.
100. Donate $5 to a charity for every item on this list that I do not complete
101. Start a new 101 Things in 1001 Days list once this one is completed
Start Date: August 13, 2009
End Date: May 10, 2012
Marriage & Family
1. Celebrate our anniversary (0/2)
2.
3.
4.
5. Create a will
6. Host my family at our house (0/2 (at least, may be updated later))
7. Host Rick’s family at our house (1/2 (same as my family, may be updated later))- Christmas 2009
8. Go to my family reunion (0/3)
9. Create living wills
Zen of life
10. Finish my list of First Ladies biographies I started (2/44)
11. Finish re-reading the Presidential biographies I started (2/44)
12. Complete some form of exercise at least 3 times per week (16/146)
13. Read at least two books per month (4/66)
14. Get my advanced open-water SCUBA certification.
15. Get re-certified in CPR
16. Go to church every Sunday for at least a month- we may have finally found a church to go to regularly! (Dec. 2009)
17. Get my rescue diver certification
18. Indulge in a few manicures (0/5)
19.
20.
21. Clean and go through all items in storage before moving (Didn't get done.....)
22. Teach myself Russian and Arabic
23. Get back into reading though my German materials, and complete my books I still need to read to re-familiarize myself with my college foreign language
24. Go to a cathedral for Midnight mass.
Unsere Hause
25.
26.
27.
28. Save up for new living room furniture
29. Go house-hunting
30.
All Work, No Play
31. Buy decorations for classroom
32. Buy supplies for classroom
33. Set up my classroom
34. Graduate with my Masters in Education degree (June 2011 hopefully)
35. Begin work on Anthropology Masters degree
36. Start on my thesis for my MAT
37.
"Not traveling is like reading only one page of a book." - Aristotle
38. Travel to at least 12 different cities for weekend getaways/vacations (1/12)
39. Travel to Canada. I've been across the pond to Italy, I've been on a Caribbean cruise, and I've been south to Mexico but I haven't visited our Northern neighbor.
40. Get to New York City during the Christmas season!
41. Start a “Newlywed Map”
42. Go camping (0/3)
43. Be in D.C. for July 4th.
44. Continue my list of visiting every President's childhood home/ museum - so far I've had it easy, LBJ's ranch is down the highway from our wedding location and George Bush Sr. is in the town I where I went to college. (2/44)
45. Work on completing my U.S. travel map (20/50)
I am a foodie through and through
46. Try at least four new recipes a month (6/132)
47. Sit down and plan a weekly menu and shop for food each Sunday.
48. Go out to breakfast (4/16)- Frank & Nic's, Teavolve,
49.
50. Work through all the recipes in at least two of our cookbooks
Friends Are Forever
51. Write my friends in Germany and the Netherlands at least 4 times a year (2/24)
52. Send baby and wedding gifts to our friends (2/6 so far. . .)
53. Talk to my best friends every two weeks (8/73)
54. Get together with our friends from college at least twice a year (1/6)
55. E-mail friends/ send a message on FB at least once per month (5/33)
56.
57. Host a friend in our new home. (My friend Anja and her boyfriend are coming to visit from Germany in a week and one half!!)
58. Celebrate my friend's graduation from law school!
59. Send birthday cards to all friends/ immediate family in 2010
Pinching Pennies
60. Change banks. (Done in Sept. 2009)
61. Deposit some EXTRA money into savings every month (1/33)62. Start a retirement account for myself.
63. Finish paying off college credit debt. (1/3)
64. Work on paying back student loans (0/3)
Chump Change
65. Buy a new car for one of us.
66. Buy a new laptop
67. LASIK eye surgery is sounding better and better
68. Buy a Nintendo Wii
69.
Pay It Forward
70. Get over my fear of needles and donate blood at least once. (I had a horrific experience as a five year old in pre-op)
71. Clean out closet twice a year and donate old clothes to charity (1/6)
72. Continue my habit of donating at least a dollar for every Salvation Army Bell Ringer I come across. (0/3 holiday seasons)
73. Donate $ to charity (0/10)
74. Mail packages to soldiers through Operation Baking Gals (0/10)
75. Donate my wedding dress and veil to Brides Against Breast Cancer in memory of my paternal grandmother.
Just for Fun
76. Go on a wine cruise
77. Go on a roadtrip up and down the East Coast- I've only been to the Gulf Coast of Florida and to the Atlanta region of Georgia.
78. Go skiing again.
79. Go to each part of the Smithsonian
80. Visit all the sites in the Maryland/Pennsylvania/ Virginia area that are listed in 1001 Places to Visit Before You Die- USA and Canada, as well as the World edition.
81. Go to a Gamma Phi Beta Convention (next up Orlando, FL 2010)!
82. Host a holiday cookie swap
83. Go to the National Aquarium
84. Go to the National Zoo.
85. Go on wine tours on all the wine trails of Virginia (0/13)
I like to be busy with random activities (aka hobbies)
86. Blog at least 20 times per month (0/33) (yea...still hasn't been done yet, although I got close one month, maybe that will be a New Year's resolution)
88. Reupholster our dining chairs.
89. Finish my cross-stitch projects.
90. Have my grandmother's grandfather's, (did you follow that?) i.e. my great-great grandfather, violin fixed and ready to be played again.
91. Play the violin again- I stopped when I was in junior high.
92. Enroll in a cake-decorating class
Thanks for the Memories
95. Make my Christmas memories photo album that I came up with a few years ago to start when I got married.
96. Participate in Project 365
Queen of Procrastination
97. Actually finish the quilt I started for a friend a year ago.
98. Get my regular scrapbook up to date.
99. Work on my travel scrapbook and update it.
101 in 1001
100. Donate $5 to a charity for every item on this list that I do not complete
101. Start a new 101 Things in 1001 Days list once this one is completed
Our First Christmas
Technically this isn't the first Christmas that we've celebrated together, but its our first as a married couple! I'm a little late with this, but I took some pictures last week with the full intention of participating in The Nester's Tour of Homes on the 14th. Due to work schedules, I was unable to put it up that day, so here's the selection of photos of our apartment decorated for Christmas.
R's immediate family is flying up to visit us next week, and I'm pretty stoked to see them! Here on the east coast people tend to freak out when you tell them driving for 4-6 hours is really no problem, but what they don't understand is I had to do that to visit some friends and family on a regular basis as I lived that far away from them up in North Texas. I miss being able to do that and that was all it took to visit those friends and family members. Visiting friends in Houston required me to be in my driver's seat for a solid 6 hours, maybe more if I hit traffic...oh and by the way that means I didn't leave the state and it took me that long. Over here, that same trip would get you from Baltimore all the way up to Rhode Island!
Our shopping is all finished, but there's still a few gifts to be wrapped and some that need to be wrapped and sent. Including a few that R picked up on a recent business trip.
Last weekend we went to a restaurant here in Baltimore with some friends that made it on the city magazine's "Top 35 Best places to eat breakfast" - Teavolve! It was really good, and I'm definitely hooked to go back! Afterwards we went with them to pick out their Christmas tree and it was an entertaining experience. We found one though! Sorry, no pictures, as I forgot my camera.
Happy Holidays!
Our Christmas tree with the angel from my childhood on top. R's mom sent us four packages that had presents to be placed under the tree for the five of us, and I'm looking forward to their getting here next week! On the tree, there's a collection of Reed & Barton ornaments that my grandmother gave me, one for each year, as well as various other ornaments from the past 25 years.
This is the nativity set I inherited from my grandmother and I've always loved it! It's a collection from Fontanini and she had been collecting them from the mid 1980s. One of our wedding gifts from an aunt and uncle is in the left corner next to David, the shepherd boy. It's the photo frame of a cross.
R's immediate family is flying up to visit us next week, and I'm pretty stoked to see them! Here on the east coast people tend to freak out when you tell them driving for 4-6 hours is really no problem, but what they don't understand is I had to do that to visit some friends and family on a regular basis as I lived that far away from them up in North Texas. I miss being able to do that and that was all it took to visit those friends and family members. Visiting friends in Houston required me to be in my driver's seat for a solid 6 hours, maybe more if I hit traffic...oh and by the way that means I didn't leave the state and it took me that long. Over here, that same trip would get you from Baltimore all the way up to Rhode Island!
Our shopping is all finished, but there's still a few gifts to be wrapped and some that need to be wrapped and sent. Including a few that R picked up on a recent business trip.
Last weekend we went to a restaurant here in Baltimore with some friends that made it on the city magazine's "Top 35 Best places to eat breakfast" - Teavolve! It was really good, and I'm definitely hooked to go back! Afterwards we went with them to pick out their Christmas tree and it was an entertaining experience. We found one though! Sorry, no pictures, as I forgot my camera.
Happy Holidays!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Halleluia Chorus
HAHA! I got sent this in a message from a friend on Facebook and I'm loving it! These kids are super creative and for the most part are right on cue with their flashcards. I grew up going to see the Messiah performed by my church choir every Christmas, and then when I was a teenager I got to participate for three years during high school. It was an amazing experience as that church choir has been performing the Messiah for over 30 years! Here's a link to the website and the video with the choir singing the Halleluia chorus as pictures scroll through:
And now for your viewing pleasure, the high school students performing the same song in a new way...as silent monks!
And now for your viewing pleasure, the high school students performing the same song in a new way...as silent monks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)