Baking: lately I’ve been experimenting with sourdough. This past week I tried English Muffins with Mrs. Seifert’s recipe.

Reading:

Studying:

Writing:

Listening (mainly to History and Law lectures):

Cycling:

This was taken on a ride from last Saturday up in Cedar Creek.

Sewing:

No, I don’t think that I usually look that self-possesed when I’m doing it. But maybe someday…

Music:

After a very long hiatus, I recently started practicing this again. Despite the fact that I’ve never had a strong passion for music, I have enjoyed picking it up again.

I hope your day is wonderful, Heidi!

Peter was a crack-up!

Karl and Peter

Yes, I did catch it.

The group.

Peter

That’s all for now!  Check out Lydia’s and Karl’s blog for more pictures (they’ll be posting soon!)

Galena

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!

Galena

I have a lot of different memories connected with all our Christmas celebrations, which by the way is my favorite holiday.  Some of them are crazier than others – like the time Lydia and I got up at 1:oo and headed downstairs… and hung around the tree until morning and ate candy (yes, we do eat candy and we did sleep… some).  We don’t do that any more; we lost, in part, that childish excitement and anticipation of being the “first” downstairs and the “first” to examine every present minutely… and also now we’re the ones going to bed at 1:00 on Christmas eve, and we’ve both come to realize that sleep is not to be despised.

But in light of a recent conversation I had, I started thinking about our tradition of drinking eggnog during December.  For the uninitiated, eggnog is a foamy, whipped-up mixture of eggs, milk, whip-cream, sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg.  It can be made with or without cooking the eggs: the kind you buy in the stores and the kind I make is made by cooking them.

I remember that one of the signals that Christmas season was starting was that the stores would start carrying eggnog and Daddy would start bringing it home from the store to put in his coffee. We loved that stuff and nothing was better than being able to drink some of the foamy, rich, goodness – with the essential nutmeg sprinkled on the top.

Of course, as our family became more health conscious over the years, that tradition died. After all, that stuff is loaded with sugar! It probably has preservatives in it too… and artificial flavor might be in there also.  So, the tradition was out for a couple years but we missed our eggnog. The season just wasn’t the same without it!

So three or four years ago, we’d thought we’d try making it. The sugar content is still pretty high: you just can’t make good eggnog if it isn’t! – but that’s okay.  We only make it a couple times in the season but that’s fine too – we enjoy every drop and look forward again to next year when we can have it again.

Anyway, tomorrow I’ll be making it for our Christmas morning breakfast and needless to say, we’re all looking forward to it!

Edit:

Recipe: Homemade Eggnog

Yield: 3 1/2 quarts

12 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

2 quarts milk, divided

2 tablespoons vanilla

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 cups whipping cream

Additional nutmeg, optional

In a heavy 4-qt saucepan, whisk together eggs, sugar and salt.  Gradually add 1 qt. of milk.  Cook and stir over low heat until a thermometer reads 160-170 degrees, about 30-35 minutes.  Pour into a large heatproof bowl; stir in vanilla, nutmeg, and remaining milk.  Place bowl in an ice-water bath, stirring frequently until mixture is cool.  If mixture separates, process in a blender until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.  When ready to serve, beat cream in a mixing bowl on high until soft peaks form; whisk gently into cooled milk mixture.  Serve in mugs with additional nutmeg, if desired.

Galena

(Btw: all photo credit for the dance photos goes to Johannes)

Pete

Sarah, Camden and Christian

Michaela

Talitha

Josh

Evie

The peanut gallery.

More of the same.

Joshua

Zach and Josh

Kaylee

Michaela

Lining up!

The Virginia Reel.

Circle Dance called “I care not for these ladies.”

“The Sausage Machine” = Really, fun dance.

Part of the same dance.

The Physical Snob.

The Virginia Reel again.

Well,

Lydia was making dinner tonight and she had one of those pans with a lid on it that you usually put on the stove in the oven.  So she took it out of the oven with mitts and put it on the stove.  However, she obviously forgot that it was hot because ten seconds later she had her hand under cold water because she had burned herself trying to take the lid off without the mitt.  That was bad enough.  But she tossed me the mitt so I could take care of the pan, which I did.

Five seconds later  I joined her at the faucet because I’d forgotten the lid was hot and tried picking it up with my bare hand.

]]> http://galena.avlux.org/2009/11/17/ow/feed/ 6 http://galena.avlux.org/2009/10/31/lydia/ http://galena.avlux.org/2009/10/31/lydia/#comments Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:20:38 +0000 Lena http://galena.avlux.org/?p=323 Happy 16th, Birthday my darling sis!  I love you so much and I’ve been truly blessed over the years by our friendship:  We’ve shared the best of times with a few worst ones thrown in.   Despite our differences in personality and other things, we’ve always gotten along and, out of all my peers, you are still my closest, my favorite, and my best friend.  You still are the only one who can make me let go of my “dignity” enough to do things that aren’t “proper” – and I love that about you.  Your exuberance over life and your determination to enjoy it and try new things has been infectious!  I love the fact that we always have fun together; that we understand what the other one is thinking; that you are always ready to listen to what I have to say; that you build me up and encourage me to go farther; and that you are always prepared to help me if I ask you!  I have few, if any, regrets over our friendship in the past 16 years, because we’ve always ‘clicked’ so well that our disagreements never lasted long.

You have not only been gifted by many talents, but you have taken those and pushed forward and excelled.  Your diligence has paid off so much in the formation of excellent habits  and I know it will continue to pay off in your life.

You have filled your life with good, biblical and right things and it is so much of a joy to see you grow daily in your walk with God.  You are truly becoming a Proverbs 31 woman, and, I have no doubt, one day your future 20+ children will rise up and call you blessed!

My life is filled with memories of the times we’ve spent together, mostly little things but things that will always stick in my mind because we had so much fun together doing them:

~when we were little and Dad told us to clean our room: which was so messy you literally couldn’t see the floor.  We got it clean, however, in about 15 minutes.  We stuffed everything under our bed and called Dad in for inspection.   We thought we were so smart about it all!  Several hours later, our room was finally clean.

~playing in our room on summer days with stuffed animals and jump ropes – when we were supposed to be in bed – but hey! we stayed “in bed”, although I still remember and laugh over “the bolt of Tash falls from above”.

~going to the beach and taking long walks with you, playing in our room with pillows, watching movies and making ridiculous comments, dancing in the sand.

~taking “5 minute breaks” in Saturday chores to play a quick game of double solitare or manacala.

~cooking in the kitchen on Saturday mornings while dancing to Bluegrass music; learning how to ball-room dance with you; playing ultimate frisbee together; “snowboarding” down our hill (if at all possible, we’ll do actual snowboarding this year.. on a real hill!)

~our study sessions for Gileskirk and Greek, where we egged each other on with comments on how we’ve got to study because so-and-so said this… and which usually involved more laughter than study.

~our spontaneous late night talks about everyone and everything, the jokes we share together.. and always will because no one else would get them or think them funny.

~all the surprises, parties, crazy ideas and fun things we’ve planned together and executed – some more successfully than others.

~all our long walks and hikes together: talking about this and that.

and so many more that they are almost uncountable…

May the coming years of your life be blessed, full of love for people, abounding grace, and the joy and peace of Christ!

I love you, Lydia!

“I’m not a follower of anyone or anything! I’m a thinker. I make up my own mind.”