Thanksgiving 2017

I'm pleased to report that I met all my requirements for a successful Thanksgiving!

I had a lot of help. The kids loved it.

Kevin worked on breaking apart the frozen pineapple. Our "special drink" for Thanksgiving is a can of crushed pineapple (opened and frozen beforehand) and a bottle of Sprite.

A little round of musical chairs before dinner:

Ryan made these beautiful rolls!

I made a lot of pie. Probably too much, but to me pie is half the reason for Thanksgiving. We had two pumpkin pies, a chocolate pie (I just did chocolate pudding in an Oreo crust), and a banana cream pie. The girls helped me make the banana cream pie using this recipe, and it was just fantastic. I'm sort of planning to make it again for my birthday. Actually, maybe I should just go make it right now, never mind that it's after midnight. It was pretty amazing how the filling suddenly congealed after cooking and stirring for one minute. I was totally expecting scrambled eggs mixed with half and half, but I followed the directions exactly and it worked out.

We had games and dessert at the church with friends. We took three of the pies to share, plus home made whipped cream, because I'm a purist and homemade whipped cream is important. I felt like I ended up wrangling kids more than chatting with friends, but it was still a nice time. I really need to figure out a way to arrange girls' nights more often. It's hard for me because I feel like my kids always want to come out if I have friends over after bedtime.

When we got back we stayed up late and watched A Christmas Carol.

ruts, projects, and water samples

Wow, I haven't blogged since the 8th. Occasionally I think about it, but I didn't really have anything to say. I do have cute things about Kevin/Heidi posts that I update occasionally, but I haven't been ready to post them yet. Oh, and Ryan's parents came and visited, but I haven't gotten around to uploading the pictures yet.

I have been in a rut when it comes to reading books. I'm not really sure how many books I have started without finishing in the past couple of months. Wives and Daughters, Silent Spring, Out of the Silent Planet, The Dark Is Rising, probably several more. I've tried rereading favorites, starting ones I've always wanted to read, reading books that others recommended, and most books just haven't done it for me. The only one I actually finished was Flowers for Algernon. I read it several years ago and liked it pretty well, but this time I couldn't put it down. I started it in the evening, read until 2 a.m. and couldn't sleep even then, and finished it the next day. It has a lot more meaning now than it did when I was younger because I've had more life experiences (relationships, marriage, children, college, etc.). In the end I cried. But after that I still haven't been able to get out of the rut. I've started Isaac Asimov's Foundation, and it seems promising, so we'll see. I think a lot of my problem is that I have a lot of other things that need to get done and I feel bad reading when I really ought to be finishing homework or a project.

It looks like we're going to have a rather handmade Christmas. I keep thinking about what I could get the kids for Christmas and I just don't want any more toys. But I do have a lot of fabric and scraps, and a few pounds of brown rice that (let's face it) we will never eat. So I'm going to use them to make some quiet book pages and little bean bags.

I also made some more bias tape for another project. I have several baskets that we got when we bought peaches at the farmer's market, and I've decided I'm going to put ruffles around them and put them on top of my cupboards to hold food so that my food storage won't look ugly up there anymore. The bias tape is to make the top edge of the ruffle look finished. Ryan and watched Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy while I was working on the bias tape. I'm intrigued and hoping that the library also has the next movie in the series.

Yesterday I spent the entire day getting my water samples ready to go in the mass spectrometer. It's quite a process. You use these tiny funnels called columns that have a very narrow neck with a little sponge in it. First you put resin and water in the column, and you have to let all the water drain out so that there is just resin in the column. Then you put more water and also nitric acid in the column and have to let it drain out, and you do that several times. Finally, you put the sample through the column. I'm studying the strontium, and the strontium sticks to the resin in the column while everything else goes through. After I put the sample through, I had to put 12 drops of nitric acid in and let it drain out--and then do it again six times. Then I put the column over a new beaker and put water in it, which had to drain out, and then more water, which also had to drain out. The water gets the strontium out of the resin and into the beaker. Altogether it took twelve hours, because it takes a while for the liquid to drain through the resin every time, probably at least half an hour. Usually it takes around eight hours, but for some reason the columns were draining really slowly yesterday. So it was a matter of putting liquid in, waiting, checking to see if it had drained, waiting some more, adding more liquid, waiting, checking, on and on. I knew there would be a lot of waiting, so I came prepared with homework. I ended up getting two pages of a paper done and making some headway on a final lab project. Oh, and the building was really cold, and the lab was even colder. There are a couple more steps and then the sample will go into a mass spectrometer.

Meanwhile, Ryan got to take the kids to Kindermusik and spend the entire day with them. Here's a google chat we exchanged late at night when I was still watching water drip:

Earlier today I was thinking about making mini quiches (which I have never done before), but I didn't really feel up to making pie crust. Dinner time came and it still hadn't happened. I told Ryan I was having a hard time figuring out what to make for dinner because there wasn't time to do the quiches. So he opened up the Tanner family cookbook to a random page and pointed at a recipe: Chicken Pot Pie. "I don't feel like making pie crust," I repeated. He tried again: Beef Pot Pie. I think he might have done it again and landed on Beef Pot Pie a second time. "Okay, apparently I'm supposed to make pie crusts tonight," I decided. But we had macaroni and cheese for dinner and I mixed the pie crust to use later. So I guess tomorrow is quiche and then I have two more pie crusts left for pie. And it just so happens that we're eating pie on Thursday with Jared and Kristi and family, so I guess I did some work ahead of time. We are very excited to get to have Thanksgiving with family.

Thanksgiving 2011

This year we had Thanksgiving with our friends the Rasmussens and the Gillenwaters, and also the missionaries. I volunteered to make rolls, potatoes, stuffing, and pie. I made pie crust on Tuesday and pies on Wednesday. Heidi was quite excited to taste the spoon I used to mix the apple pie filling.

I made a peach pie and an apple pie, both with apple crisp topping instead of a pie crust on top. I did this last year and loved it. Unfortunately I forgot that last year I had added the topping after the pies were about half-baked already. I put it on in the beginning this time and the topping on the apple pie was a little burned. The peach pie turned out pretty well, though:

I spent most of the morning and afternoon cooking and cutting and rolling and baking. Heidi ended up in the Baby Bjorn will I rolled out the second batch of rolls, and Kevin helped by putting the cut up potatoes in the pot. Ryan helped by taking Kevin out of the house when Kevin started thinking it was his turn to use the knife!

Even though I had tried to plan ahead and get things started early, I still ended up running pretty late. Our stoves are rigged so they don't get very hot and it took quite a while for all the potatoes to get soft. I ended up making the stuffing at the Gillenwaters (which also took forever). Ryan picked up the missionaries and I rode with Annie Rasmussen so there was room for the missionaries in our car.

We had a lovely feast. Annie made a beautiful and delicious turkey, and I was so glad it turned out to be so amazing because she certainly was stressed about it. She also brought pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes (I think she and I were the only ones that ate them--but they were really good!). Zoe Gillenwater, the hostess, had cranberry sauce and olives and she made some acorn squash, broccoli, and chocolate cherry pie.

Kevin plays really well with Asha, the Gillenwaters' daughter, and they had a wonderful time running all over the house.

What kind of parents would we be if we didn't show Kevin how to put olives on his fingers?

Heidi ended up falling asleep just before dinner and didn't wake up for three hours! So kind of her! (And yes, she still slept through the night.)

After dinner Ryan took Kevin and the missionaries home and Heidi and I stayed with Annie and her baby to help clean up. We had a fun time chatting on the way home.

When I got home my family called and we drew names for sibling Christmas presents.

So we had a really nice day!

And then I collapsed in my bed!

another pie

I made another pie a couple of days ago.

Here's the finished product:

And here's what it looked like before I baked it, just to prove that it actually did look nice when I put it in:

It was an apple pie. Other than the pie coming out looking like a round, blistered face, I only had one disappointment: It didn't take long enough to eat a piece of it. It tasted so good, and I wished I could enjoy it longer! We have two more pieces left, but they will probably be gone by the end of the day. I will have to try making one again soon. By the way, in case you didn't know, just because there is fruit in pie doesn't mean it is good for you--there is also a lot of sugar.

To keep myself occupied for the next month and a half, I have a few projects planned, involving sewing, canning, and scrap-booking (uh . . . what wedding album?). I will probably post pictures as I finish them because I am so proud of myself for trying something new. We'll see how much I actually do get done, because lately I have been amazed at how little energy I have for doing even the little things. But I intend to do my best without going overboard.

What should I write about that somebody would care to read? . . .

Here are some random things and excerpts from posts that I probably will delete before publishing:

I made pie by myself for the first time. I'm a little embarrassed about the result, but I think it will be better next time. I was starting a new container of salt, and I forgot to add the salt because I kept thinking about opening it and never got around to it. So the crust was a little bland, although not too bad with the filling (minty chocolate pudding--pretty good!). The crust was also just slightly too small to fit over the sides of the pan, so I couldn't do fluted edges. I did my best to break the edges off straight along the inside of the pan. I should have figured it would shrink a little bit while it baked. It had a nice flaky texture, though. The pie looked okay once I filled it up with pudding, and it did taste good. I'm not going to quit making pie just because this one wasn't great, especially since the main problems were very fixable. It really wasn't that hard to make it, either--I'm not sure why people are so scared of making pie.


This is my food storage wish list:

1. lots of wheat
   
2. electric wheat grinder
3. lots of mason jars and lids
   
4. pressure cooker, or at least some huge pots
   
5. thingy to squish up tomatoes for soup and apples for applesauce
   
6. big garden
7. lots of fruit trees
   
8. big storage room
9. extra freezer
10. Lots of big storage buckets (for all my wheat and flour and beans and rice and sugar and . . .)

I guess most of these are goals for the very distant future. I'm looking forward to it, though. My mom's wonderful canned food spoiled me a little bit, so the store-bought canned food just isn't as nice to me. For the time being, I really like to look at all of the food in our pantry.

Questions that I occasionally wonder about:

1. If I forgot to put salt in my pie crust, will it taste bad? (Answer: No, but never forget again because it will taste better with salt.)
2. Why do they sell canned fruit that includes peeled grapes? It seems like it would be too hard to peel them to be worth the effort, especially since grapes are so much nicer with a nice firm peel left on them.
3. Why do they make piano keyboards with keys that light up when you press them? I know I pressed the key--I did it on purpose, and I could tell because I heard a note.
4. How can there be an 11-inch baby inside of me when I haven't grown very much? Where did all the other stuff go to make room? And what is it like to be alive but not getting your oxygen by breathing air? And am I going to have a cub scout or someone to put in pretty dresses and cute hair clips?
5. What would happen if I didn't soak the beans before I cook them?