Preparing for the Holiday Season

So, preparing for the holiday season is well underway. I have Big Guy all shopped for and we’re working on Little Guy. I have a major weakness when it comes to Christmas shopping though. I like to keep going. Big Guy gets upset with me every year and tries to limit how much I can buy for him. This year, when I made my first purchase, he immediately got irritated and told me I spent too much, even though it was under $25. I think it’s because he’s somewhat flustered, having a wife who tries to dote on him on the holidays.

I have to figure out what we’re getting everyone else for the holidays and work from there. It’s a different type of holiday than last year. It will be our first Christmas without the kids. Luckily, we have Little Guy to focus on and we can work to make it good for him.

Right now, I am also trying to plan my Christmas Eve dinner and breakfast. For breakfast on Christmas day, I am strongly considering a meal of “Night Before French toast” (recipe to follow), sausage, bacon, coffee, and biscuits. But dinner the night before is usually a good meal. My mom comes over and we have our Christmas Eve family gift exchange. This year, it looks like I am making a turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, sweet potatoes… I’ll have a few finger food snacks and we’ll have a wonderful night. I am excited and looking forward to it.

The big meal the night before enables me to play around the next day and not have to worry about meals. And Christmas Day is one of my favorite things to do.

Night Before French Toast

1 loaf Texas Toast
lots of brown sugar
about 1 stick butter
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
dash nutmeg

Directions:

Melt butter and brown sugar together stirring frequently.

Spray a 9×13 pan (important!) with cooking spray. Pour mixture on the bottom so it’s about 1/8 inch thick. Lay the bread slices on top of it.

Mix together eggs, milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Pour egg mix over the bread. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, preheat the oven to 350 and uncover the baking dish. Bake for 30 min. You can serve with toppings of your choice.

Happy Thanksgiving

I’m still alive and kicking. And around here, we’re preparing for the holiday season. The past couple months have been exceedingly busy and involved classes, Halloween, and a dead computer. Now, though, things seem to be settling down and I am trying to get a hold of myself in an attempt to prepare for the upcoming holiday season.

For Thanksgiving, we’re visiting family and eating heartily. I made “Russian Tea Cakes” to take to both Big Guy’s parents and my mom’s meals. These things are delectable, delicious, and completely fattening. The recipe I follow is the same one my mom uses from Betty Crocker , with our own little differences of course. We can never make a recipe without improving it somehow.

And on Friday, we did participate in the rampant consumerism that is Black Friday, but we also got something good out of it. We ended up NOT buying at any of the major stores, for by the time we arrived, all the deals were gone. What they had left was not enough to tempt us to brave those lines. So, we went to breakfast and then went to Big Lots where there weren’t as many people and the deals were much better. While there, we did find some good gifts for Little Guy to open Christmas Morning.

For the rest of the evening, I imagine we’ll play games, watch movies, and eat pizza. And for that, I am truly thankful.

Russian Tea Cakes
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts (I used pecans)
1/4 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar

1. Heat oven to 350ºF.
2. Mix butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in large bowl. Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together. (If it still seems dry, cover and place in a warm spot for a few minutes. The butter will start to bind the dough together a bit more.)
3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Bake 10 minutes or until set but not brown. Remove from cookie sheet. Cool slightly on wire rack.
5. Roll warm cookies in powdered sugar; cool on wire rack. Roll in powdered sugar again.

A Nearly Frigid Fall

A chill is in the air as fall and winter begin to descend on Northern Indiana. I should consider myself lucky that we had such pleasant weather lasting through September, but now I can see the leaves go from green to the yellow and red shades for fall. The warm colors belie the coolness in the air though. We had our first frost this week.

My tomatoes never did well, nor did anything else I planted this year. I know part of it was the sheer distraction we experienced with the losses we suffered this summer, but I also blame the groundhog for eating my beans and the ground for sucking so hard. There just isn’t enough good dirt to grow anything useful. So, next year, Big Guy is building me a raised bed and we’re going to go through and add real dirt to the soul and hopefully do much better.

I finished my super secret project, which was a 9 square blanket for my sister-in-law for her birthday. It turned out much better than I could have hoped for, considering the crunch I was under. 9 granny squares of 9 rounds, with each grouping 3 sets of triple stitches. Clever enough for a birthday that occurred on September 9, 2009.

I’ve also been busy teaching. I just finished a round of Composition 2 and am preparing to start a class for the basics. This will be my first time teaching this particular class, so wish me luck! I was telling Big Guy, I really do love teaching and it is rewarding to see people connect with the language.

We received our Angel Food Ministries box and already have made some tasty meals from it. My personal favorite involved pork chops, pears and fresh sage from my garden. It was truly delicious and the pears complemented the pork beautifully. I also made chicken and beans in the crock-pot because we received two HUGE chicken breasts so I used one breast with beans and I think the other might be slated for some homemade chicken soup. Yum!

Half Time Work, Full Time Life

Well, Big Guy’s job situation was finally clarified and his hours were cut. Down to practically half. He’s now on contractor status but can only work a total of 24 hours per week, no benefits. So, we’re implementing some serious budgeting measures.

We’ve gone back to ordering from Angel Food Ministries and I am going to prepare weekly menus. Angel Food Ministries is an excellent source for good cheap food. $30 and you get an order of food that is billed as “enough to feed a family of four for a week”. This month’s order comes with steaks, chicken, pork chops, ground beef, veggies and fruit, eggs and a dessert. It’s pretty well balanced and you can come up with ways to stretch it. We order one box at a time and can generally make it last the whole month.

I’ve also got a running tally of our funds on an excel spreadsheet to keep track of our budget. We’re going to run into some issues because what we’re bringing in is less than what we need per month. If we’re careful with the payout for his vacation time, we may be able to limp along until he either gets another job or they decide they need him full time.

He is looking for another job, both full and part time, and I’m working on teaching. If we can keep it up, things should be OK.