Today is my parents wedding anniversary.  I have to confess – I wasn’t even thinking about that when I called mom this morning.  I was actually looking for some information on a church member.  As we were ending the conversation, I asked her if there was anything else going on.

“well, it’s our anniversary and your father has a meeting tonight.  So we are going out at noontime to a tool show,” was her reply.

I was very amused at this – it’s very typical of my parents.  I told her – “well that’s what you get when you marry a boy you meet at 4H!  If you wanted a guy to jet set you around the world, it’s probably not going to be the boy you met on the farm!”

The Boy: ” Mom, these cookies are the best cookies ever.  Either you need to make them all the time or never make them again!”.

From Gourmet Magazine’s Letters to the Editor in the Dec. 2008 edition.

Real Danish Butter Cookies

Makes about 9 dozen

Active Time: 1 hour  Start to Finish: 1 ¼ hour

4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 lb. unsalted butter at room temperature for 1 hour

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, beaten

3 to 4 tablespoon sanding or other coarse grain sugar

1) Preheat oven to 325 with racks in upper and lower thirds.  Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper

2) Whisk together flour and baking soda.

3) Beat butter with an electric mixer until fluffy (if using a stand mixer, use paddle attachment), then add sugar and flour mixture, mixing until just combined.  Divide dough in half

4) Roll each piece of dough between large sheets of plastic wrap (about 1/8 inch thick).  Chill on a tray until firm, about 30 minutes.  Cut into 2 by 1.5 inch rectangles and arrange 1 inch apart on 2 large baking sheets.  (If dough becomes too soft, chill or freeze until firm enough to handle.)

5) Brush tops of cookies lightly with beaten egg, then sprinkle with sanding sugar.  Bake cookies, 2 sheets at a time, switching positions of pans halfway through baking, until cookies are very pale golden, about 15 minutes.  Cool on sheets 5 minutes, then carefully slide cookies (on parchment) to racks to cool completely.  Make more cookies with remaining dough, baking on cooled, freshly lined baking sheets.  Reroll scraps once.

Dough can be made one day ahead, chilled.  Cookies keep in airtight container at room temperature, 1 week.

My notes:

No point in preheating the oven until you actually are about to make the cookies.

I wasn’t happy with the rectangles I made, so I made the cookies smaller and used a flower-shaped cookie cutter.

I suggest dividing the dough into 4 sections, not half, when you roll it out between the plastic wrap.  It was easier to deal with and easier to put in the fridge to chill.

I re-rolled the dough twice – no one complained (actually, they just wanted more!)

I had to take the garbage out on Wednesday afternoon.  Every garbage can we have was full… very full.  We hadn’t gotten the garbage out for a few weeks, what with holidays and parties and being sick.  So I was very motivated to get the garbage cans out so I could empty out the fridge from the party leftovers.

Since we have a very long driveway, I have started to put the cans in the back of my Outback and drive up to the top of the driveway.  I got the first of three garbage cans and started to roll it from the basement door to the car parked in the driveway.  There was some snow on the ground, so it was a bit difficult to get it to roll smoothly.  As I am walking toward the car, I see a brown blur out of the corner of my eye.  It slows down enough and I recognize it as a mouse.  “How cute” I think to myself – amazed he’s doing so well in the winter months.  I get up to the car and notice there is a HOLE in the bottom of the garbage can.

And then I notice something else… a small claw inching its way out of the garbage can.  So apparently there was at least one other mouse living in my garbage can.  I figured he needed some time to get out of there safely, so I left the garbage can there and went to get the other two at the basement door.  I took those two up to the top of the driveway and came back to get the third.  I looked at the hole, and I could still see the claw there.  I decided to lift it up and get it into the car – maybe the mouse would find his bravery when the garbage can was at the top of the driveway.  As I lift, I make sure that the hole is up – he was hanging on that way and garbage wouldn’t shift back on him.  I started to lift up and WHOO!! another brown streak is going through my field of vision.  Actually – it went toward my parents field – off to relative safety.

The next day I got the empty garbage cans to put back at the basement door.  I looked at the one with the hole – and there were the remains of the mice’s winter home.  There were shredded bits of everything — a spectacular nest of warmth and food to nibble on for a few weeks.  Ah, the luxuries of country living!

It’s New Year’s Eve day and it is snowing.  Again.  It snowed right before Christmas; then it melted; and now it is snowing again.

I got a small bug after our Holiday Halftime party.  I spent most of yesterday “resting” in bed and cancelled my physical therapy appointment this morning.  I rescheduled it for Friday afternoon – and I should be feeling 100% by then.  I don’t feel too bad right now, but I really haven’t done much of any substance (which The Hubby will attest to!).

I took the photos off my camera from the past week – there were over 100 of them!  I think I am going to try to take more photos this year.  I have been trying to get a picture into this post, but the little widget doesn’t seem to want to work today.  I noticed last week that it has been a very, very, very long time since I put up any pictures on the blog.  Write it off to laziness, I guess… except today, when you can write it off to technical issues.

Hope you have a great and safe New Year’s Eve!

Christmas is no longer one day a year… it is a whole season.  And the heart of the season is a two week span… from a few days before the 25th to a few days after the start of the new year.

We have (like many lucky folks) been busy with family, friends and church.  We have our family traditions that, although they don’t seem to change year from year, become more and more meaningful each year.

The Boy was part of the youth group’s Christmas play.  This is third installment in the series; and each year we have the church potluck dinner first and then the play (nothing like dinner and entertainment, right?).  They added a Sunday community performance – it’s a bit less attended, but still very nice.

There was supposed to be a Christmas party for my work, but Mother Nature and her pal Snow Storm got in the way.  So even though there was no actual party, it was nice to know the bosses put the effort into the planning of it.

With my knee issues, decorating didn’t get done timely or in full swing.  No lights on the outside of the house (the up side of that is – we don’t have to take them down, either!).  The tree went up the week before Christmas – very late for us.  I had The Boy do most of the actual hanging of ornaments.  Traditionally, The Hubby is in charge of setting up the tree in the stand and putting the lights on; The Boy and I are in charge of ornaments.  Since we got an artificial tree a few years ago, The Hubby’s portion has gone down in time, effort and swearing.  And it’s even a pre-lit tree, so no untangling of strings of lights either.  It’s pretty much get it out of the box, make sure we have the right parts in the right places, and plug it in.

I did the rest of the house decorating – but again, very light and modest in comparison to previous years.  And my friend Sally give me her annual post-Christmas purchase for Christmas (she gets great deals after Christmas and gives me my ornaments in time to decorate for the next Christmas) – some nice sparkly (I guess that’s a word!) beaded ornaments.

The Hubby and I went to church the Sunday before Christmas.  The Boy was doing the reading that day, and the Sunday School kids led the worship with a drama.  We generally don’t go to Christmas Eve services.  The early services tend to be packed with families (not that I don’t like families, but it is a small church and I like my space) and lately there hasn’t been a midnight service at our church.  I did think about going to my aunt’s church – but their later service was only at 10 and I decided against it.  We opened family gifts – the ones from me to The Hubby, from The Hubby to me, and our presents to The Boy.  Santa came overnight and filled stockings and left more presents under the tree.  We opened those around 9 or so – it is so nice to have a teenager who sleeps in and not a toddler waking you up at 4 am!!

I invited my parents over for dinner and made a chicken.  I have to say, that was one of the best chickens I have ever had.  I got a large bird – about 7 pounds – and roasted it in the pan I ususally use for Thanksgiving turkey.  I really didn’t do much to prep the bird – just washed it out, put some salt and pepper on it and threw some salt/pepper in the cavity – then into the oven for 2 hours.  I used the brand new Cuisinart hand blender my parents gave us for Christmas and whipped up some awesome mashed potatoes.  Add in the green bean casserole, and it was a pretty good meal.  I pulled out the banana bread, ice cream and homemade chocolates for dessert.

Friday was a prep day for our big family Christmas.  I was making all homemade gifts for everyone, so I had to get cracking on the chocolate portion of the gifts.  I had already made the cookies – but hadn’t had time to get the chocolates done.  I was making baskets for K&E and J&S to give them on Movie Night, so I concentrated on getting those done first.  It turned out we went to J&S’s early to talk with Steve about the XBox 360 and gaming, so I was really under pressure to get them done quickly.  When I was ready, we headed over to J&S’s place for movie night.  We were going to watch The Island (which is a great movie and I had actually just talked to someone about it), but once they heard that we had watched it, they wanted to pick another movie.  Jo offhandedly said – hey we could go see The Spirit and The Boy was like “Field Trip!” and we ended up going out for movie night.  I wasn’t overly impressed with the movie, but it didn’t suck completely.

So, Saturday was the big family party at my aunt’s house in Windsor.  I had to get seven more baskets done before noon, so I was up at 8 am starting my chocolates.  I managed to get everything done (the baskets, present wrapping for the niece and nephews, and wrapping the family swap present) in time and off we went to party with the family.  We had a pretty big crowd (about 40, I think) and had a great time eating and drinking and playing games.  The big boys (the over 15 year olds) actually took over the Wii and bowled quite a bit.  We did a present exchange – whoever you wanted to give presents to.  Aunts and uncles gave to nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters exchanged gifts, etc.  Then we had a Yankee Gift Swap.  The basic idea is to get a gift (you set a dollar amount – we used $20) and it gets put into the pot.  Whoever gives a gift, gets a gift.  We had 12 presents, so the twelve of us got to pull a number to determine what order to pick the gifts in.  Number one has the best deal of all.  That was my Aunt Joanne this year… she got to pick first.  Then the second person picks a gift and unwraps it.  They can either keep it or swap it for the first gift.  This goes on and on – the current gift picker can exchange the gift in hand for any of the previous gifts.  But… poor Number One you might be thinking… gets stuck with whatever they first got or got stuck with in an exchange….not so quick there.  Number One actually gets to pick AGAIN at the end… so clearly number one is the best number to pick.  And Aunt Joanne knows how to pick them – she opened the CVS gift card first and then took it from my brother at the end!

Then we did our new thing – the family story thing.  I got nominated to start first, so I shared the story about the Camaro we bought in Rancho Cucamonga.  Mom went next and shared a story about her father in law and her husband when he was a boy.  Aunt Joanne shared some pictures of her parents with Cabbage Patch Dolls for Christmas presents.  Aunt Marilyn told us how she and Uncle Carl met in college.  My cousin Elaine shared a story about her and her husband’s trip to Canada. So now Mom & I will get the pictures scanned and type up the stories for a family book of memories.  I hope this is something we do every year.

Sunday was our annual Holiday Halftime party.  We basically have an open house for friends, co-workers, church friends, etc.  Last year we probably had over 80 people, so we were expecting a crowd.  The invitation was a bit late coming out this year, so I think that contributed to a smaller crowd this time around.  We had so much food!! (And we still do!)  Everyone was generous with bringing something and we had the basics of clam chowder, chili, and meatballs.  My dad made a venison chili which was a big hit.  I actually bought a deli platter that was to serve 20 – 24 people – and it never made it upstairs to the table!!  Even though it was a smaller group, we still had a great time.

And for New Year’s Eve, we will be heading to J&S’s place for a night of games and The Twilight Zone.  We’re bringing a bunch of food and drinks; they are providing soup and bread and other goodies.

On Saturday The Boy is having about 10 friends over to have a Rock Bank party.  So I am sure whatever food I have left by then will be devoured by Saturday night!

I hope your holiday season, whether Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa is happy, healthy and full of love and joy!

Torture: Physical Therapy.  I have been to three physical therapy appointments so far (I expect to have about 12 all together).  The first one was awesome… I was walking much better afterwards and felt better too.  The second one had me walking better, but was a bit harder on my knee.  Today’s appointment… well, it started off with a very stiff knee, which my therapist could see the second he watched me walk by him.  I had about 10 minutes of one of the warmest heating pads I’ve ever had… and I loved every second of it.  He massages my knee cap and then has me do some flexing and stretching of the muscles.  Today he moved my leg to the left and to the right, stretching out the muscles on the sides of my knee.  But the real torture was when he had me bend my knee as far as I could while I was lying on my back.  He gave me a strap (tied around my ankle) to pull my knee up every minute or so.  That was painful… stretching my knee like that.  But, I did get it to bend almost like my right knee.

More Torture…

What probably made my knee stiff was all the baking I did yesterday.  I am having a great time baking Christmas cookies, but all the standing does wear me out.  A few days ago I made gingersnap cookies; over the last day or so I made Danish butter cookies.  I loved the way the gingersnaps came out.  I was a bit unhappy with the way the butter cookies were coming out, though.  I couldn’t get the square size the way I wanted to have them.  So I came up the brillant idea of using a cookie cutter.  (Like no one else has ever used one, right?)  So now I have dozens and dozens of beautiful, delicious butter cookies too.

I found some other reciepes I want to get to this weekend.  Part of the baking is for Christmas presents; the other part is to stock up for our annual Holiday Halftime party.  Plus, I just like baking.  And I have my eye on some candies I want to get done too.

Ok, it’s been a while, but I do have a valid excuse… surgery is a valid excuse, isn’t it?

I was scheduled to go to the hospital for 1:30 on Tuesday.  As The Hubby and I were putting on our coats, the phone rang.  It was the hospital.  The doctor was running late due to some issues with his first surgery of the day and they pushed me back to 2:30.  Now – I have not eaten anything since 11:30 Monday night ( I had some crackers and hard boiled eggs before I went to sleep), so I am not particularly happy about pushing it off an extra hour.  I had actually been sleeping so I wouldn’t be thinking about the surgery or how hungry I was.

So, I went back to snooze for an hour. I get up, we put our coats on, … and the phone rings.  Yup, it’s the hospital again – pushing me back to 3:30.  Urggg!  This time I just channel surf to pass the time.  We leave at 3:00 (it’s only a 15 minute ride to the hospital) and pray that the phone doesn’t ring as we are putting on our coats.  We get out the door safely and are on our way.

I go through the pre-op paperwork and physical exam; I pee in the cup and get into my nice hospital gown.  The Hubby gets to come in and sit with me while I wait.  They insert the needle for the IV and I see the doctor.  This is the first time The Hubby has met the doctor, so he asked him a few questions and then the doctor takes a marker to my knees.  On the right one, he writes “NO”; on the left leg he writes “YES” down the leg (not on the knee itself).  I love a doctor who pays attention and does the right medical procedure on the right appendage!!

So I get a hug from The Hubby and they wheel me away to the surgical room.  I have the nurse and the nurse anaesthiologist, plus another OR nurse in the room.  They set me up on the IV and tell me I will start to feel a little different shortly.  Everyone was nice and we chit chatted while they got everything set up.  One of the nurses put a blood pressure cuff on me and man, was that thing tight!!  I felt like it was trying to squeeze the blood out of me, not just measure the pressure!  I told the nurse it was really bothering me and she readjusted the cuff; it got much better after that.  Then..

Nothing.  I remember nothing.  I remember our conversations (talked about how I did this, about what kind of dogs I have, stuff like that) and then nothing.  I didn’t “drift off”; I just wasn’t there.

Then I woke up in a different room, with The Hubby sitting next to me, looking at me.  We talked; he told a bit about what the doctor said; the recovery nurse was there; but things were a bit blurry in my head still.  I guess I asked The Hubby a couple of the same questions more than once – he would gently remind me that I had already asked that and I couldn’t remember that I had.

I wasn’t feeling too much pain – even after the IV had worn off.  The knee had been shot up with Novocaine, so it was pretty numb.  We left the hospital around 8 pm – about 3 hours later than we had thought (but pretty much all due to the delay in start time).  We drove down to a Burger King to get a quick bite as I was, as you can imagine, very hungry by this point.  But I really didn’t have the appetite to eat a whole hamburger – I had about half before I decided that I had enough.  The nurse had kindly given me a Percocet before I left, so I was pretty much out for the night.

Wednesday I took it very easy… I took the Percocet every four hours (or whenever I woke up and at least four hours had passed).  It was hard to get up and go to the bathroom, but at least the dogs were well behaved.  The Hubby took them out before he left with The Boy to got to school and work.  Then Pansy jumped into bed with me and Chewie found his spot under the bed and everyone stayed there until about 2 in the afternoon.  I let them out and when The Boy came home at 2:30, they were ready to come in.

Thursday I got up and out of bed.  I tried to work, but only managed to get in 3 or 4 hours.  I took some time to get a shower in – my first since Monday night.  It was difficult – but boy am I glad our shower has seats on either side!  I was able to sit down and take it easy and pay attention to not getting my knee wet (it was wrapped in saran wrap).  The handheld shower head was also a great help.   I noticed my left arm really was hurting… which was weird since I didn’t think they had done anything to it.  I looked at my arm; then I noticed I had “stretch marks” where the dang blood pressure cuff had been.  I knew it was too tight!  For pain management that day, I switched over to 3 Advils after meals and took a Percocet at night.

Friday I got up and drove The Boy to school.  I felt so bad that The Hubby had to take over “mom duties” since Wednesday.  Plus, I had my post op doctor appointment that day, so I was going to have drive later on.  So I got him off to school, took a shower (a little bit easier this time), and started on some work stuff.  I went to the doctor’s mid-morning and got to see pictures of the insides of my knee.  He showed me what it should look like, and what it actually looked like.  He was a bit concerned that I was still having trouble bending and flexing my knee.  He said he wanted me to get into physical therapy as soon as I could.  When I was on the table during surgery he had my knee flat out without any issue, and since he had cut out the frayed mensicus, there was nothing impeding my knee from operating normally.

I had to switch physical therapists since my insurance did not gave their group in the plan.  I had printed out some area places for my doctor to look at, and there was one down the street from me – probably not more than two miles away.  I drove home, stopped at the place, and they had an appointment available at 2 that afternoon.  So, I booked it and went home for a few hours to get some more work done.

I got down there in plenty of time, filled out the paperwork and met the physical therapist.  He talked to me about the injury, the surgery, what was I able to do, and what he was able to do for me.  He felt the big problem was my knee muscles were too tight to work correctly.  I had spent over a month not using the muscles to walk because of the pain, and the pain combined with the expectation of pain was making me tense up and cause more pain – a beautiful self fulfilling prophecy.

So he started out with some easy stuff.  He used an ultrasound to help warm up and loosen the muscles.  Then he rotated my knee cap – which felt really, really good.  Then he had me bend my knee as much as I could.  He measured the angle – it was about 45 degrees.  Then he had me basically pull my leg up as far as I could stand it with a belt; leave it there for about a minute; then move it a bit more.  I did that for about 5 minutes; he measured again and I was at 100 degrees.  He was pretty happy about that improvement (and so was I!).  He gave me some exercises to do over the weekend and then sent me home.

I noticed I was walking better – still not perfectly, but better.  I have been trying to use my tai chi principles when I walk.  Because of the pain, I had been putting most of my weight on the right leg when I moved or stood still.   I now pay attention to where my weight is – where my balance is – and then re-adjust to be more balanced and centered.  I was able to sleep last night without any pain medication – and I felt like my leg was more straight and relaxed then the night before.

Today The Hubby and I ran the Blood Drive at our church.  We were up early and stayed there until about 2 pm.  I paid extra attention to standing in a balanced position and when I was sitting, keeping my knee bent so that I would feel it (but not pass out from the pain).  I only did my exercises once today, but I also added something to them.  I walked up stairs, the way a normal person would.  I went up and down the stairs to the office about 3 or 4 times, moving my office back upstairs where it belongs!  I had a real hard time walking down the stairs the “normal” way.  I managed to do it all the way done twice; halfway down once and did the one leg at a time method for the last time.  But still, I haven’t walked up stairs normally for a very long time, so I will take that improvement for today and keep working at it.

As I am writing this, I have Die Hard on the tv.  This is such a Christmas movie to me – which is strange, in a way, since it is about “terrorists” holding people hostage while they rob the vaults of bearer bonds.  It does take place during a Christmas party, but still, terrorists are not exactly traditional Christmas fare.

Another holiday favorite is Love Actually.  It does take place at Christmas time, so it does belong on a Christmas movie theme list, but Christmas isn’t the main focus of the movie.  The intersecting lives provide the link – not the holiday.  (Or maybe I just like Hugh Grant)

Bridget Jones’ Diary – another “Christmas” movie – but I really think that has to do with the scene where he is wearing the reindeer sweater his mother gave him.

Traditional Christmas movies for me are Holiday Inn; White Christmas; Auntie Mame (with Rosalind Russell, not Lucille Ball) and It’s A Wonderful Life.  I was never a big fan of Miracle on 34th Street – I think I was 30 before I saw the original movie.  For The Hubby, I suspect Christmas would not be Christmas without The Christmas Story.  TNT puts it on for a 24 hour block – and we watch it over and over and over.

I just let the dog in – and we are getting snow.  I guess Christmas is really on its way.

Just like you, I have my favorite websites that I visit regularly.  One of mine is Home Ec 101.  It has tons of practical information, from some great gals in the blogosphere.

They accept questions on your basic (and not so basic) household issues.  I finally worked up the nerve and submitted a question.  I wanted to know what to do with the leftover grease from hamburg and other nasty oils.  And they posted it up as a question here.

How kewl is that?

And now I know the best way to get rid of leftover grease!

Yup, it is now official – I have a torn meniscus (a.k.a torn cartilage) in my left knee.  That is why I currently can’t bend my knee.

I am scheduled for an arthroscopy next week.  I was amazed at how quickly my insurance approved it!  I was in the doctor’s office while they called up the insurance company and ran through the details.  Within 10 minutes, it was approved and I was on my way to schedule a date.

The procedure is fairly common and won’t keep me out of commission for a long time.  Basically Tuesday and Wednesday will be the worst of it – but I will have pain medication to help out!  After that, I should be walking around just as well as I can now – with the added benefit of it actually getting easier and I should be able to bend my knee!  I will have some physical therapy of some sort – the doctor will give me the info at my next visit on Friday.

So I am hopeful that by the 15th or so I will be able to work back upstairs in my office, instead of on the couch.  It’s pretty comfortable on the couch, but not always so productive!  I seem to have an easier time with some tasks at my desk – on the couch there just isn’t enough room to work efficiently.  Plus, the dog like to jump up and snuggle with me sometimes.