Birthday Celebrations and Christmas Celebrations

It has been over a month since I last wrote. And a busy month at that. There have been so many things going on and I have been busy at work, busy at home, busy at church, socializing a lot, Paul and I have been doing things—it must be the holiday season. I was planning on relating some of the details of my birthday. It was such a happy day for me. But it was a long time ago and I don’t know that it is worth the recital that I might have given it, had a reported on it a month ago. But in brief form— My colleagues had asked me if I wanted to have a celebration to mark my entrance into a new decade—like hang a big “60” from the ceiling in my office. I said that I would not object to having lunch together, but I didn't want to make a big deal of turning 60. When I arrived at work, on my desk already was a canister full of lemon drops, yellow flowers, and a yellow balloon bouquet, with a card that suggested that the Counseling Center was going to make lemonade from the “lemon” of turning 60. And then every period during the day there was a new “lemon” themed gift. There was pitcher filled with lemons 2nd period, and a gift card to a local restaurant name The Blue Lemon 3rd period and 4th period they all presented me with one of the cute designer aprons in yellow and white chevrons. It was celebrate briefly every period. Then that evening Paul had surprised me with a large family dinner at Macaroni Grill. Erika, Jono, Peter, Kortney, Eleanor, my parents and my brother Stephen and his son Steve were all there, and we had a nice dinner and lots of laughs and fun. And so I was fêted into happiness at the crossroads of my middle age and old age. It was a really happy, day. And then we move on. A birthday only lasts one day. The next day, was the November meeting of one of my book clubs. Our book for the month was Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. This is a book club darling at the moment, and interestingly had been a book club pick in my other book club last spring. It is the story of a romance between an unlikely couple in unlikely circumstances—she, Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl who takes an interesting job as the companion to a quadriplegic accident victim. He had been a bigger than life young, urban professional, into extreme sports and living a big life. And was hating the caged life of a housebound, infection prone invalid. Over the course of the novel they develop a sensitivity to one another and love, but the novel asks the question, “What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?” (That question comes from the book jacket.) I really like this group of women, but we are now at 13 members and it is getting just a little on the big side. It is hard to keep the group from breaking into sub groups and keeping the discussion going when there are that many people involved. I can’t imagine giving it up though—I like these women and we have been a club for years now, I think about 12-13 years. Another activity that had been largely occupying my time during the month of November was photographic slides. When Paul and I were first married we chose to record our lives with slides. We had a slide projector and a number of carousels and for a while we kept really good track of all of our slides. But then we didn't so much anymore and they had gotten mixed up and misplaced and out of sequence and order. Then in October when K.C. was home he told us that at the University of North Carolina there was a scanning machine that converted slides to a digital format and that he was willing to do that for us. That is all well and fine except our slides were in some disorder. So I brought them out of archive state—I organized them in chronological order, bagged them into snack bags which are just the right size to keep them in sequence order, numbered and labeled them and in a big box sent them off to K.C. He is scanning all of them and giving us the digital copies for Christmas. I am really excited about that. Anyway, our dining table was a sea of slides for several weeks. I had them in stacks by number—organized by year, and month and day—with labeling. It was a huge job, but when we get them back we will be able to completely order them in their carousels and have them in good order. I will be able to document a portion of our lives with them. And all Paul’s mission photographs are slides and much of his early climbing and hiking is documented with slides. So this is a really valuable family history gift. (Even if I had to do a lot of the initial organizing, it is a huge job for K.C. too. There are more than a thousand of them. I’m not sure he knew what he was getting into, but he did want to have some of the photographs of his growing up be available in digital form, too. And a lot of other things have happened in the last couple of weeks and I won’t go through them day by day. But I did want to share a little about our “alternative Thanksgiving.” I worked on Monday and Tuesday, but I had Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and the weekend off. It was a nice period but it was also a busy time. Erika and Jono and Peter and Kortney were going to their other families for a big Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday at 1:00 P.M., and so I suggested that we gather at about 5:00 in the evening for an event at our house. I also invited my parents and my brother and his son. It was a party of 11 people. At first I was going to do a thanksgiving dinner of my own and then I thought better of it. Why try to duplicate that same dinner again for my family. (We did have family members who were coming for their one and only dinner, and it was the one and only dinner for Paul and me, but no matter, I decided to try something completely different this year.) I decided to have a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I found a website with 10 different and interesting turkey sandwich varieties and I picked four that I thought would work for my particular group—and added a traditional open-faced hot turkey sandwich. I gathered up all the fixings for these five sandwiches and hung recipe cards from the cupboards for my guest to study and create their own sandwiches. I set up a Panini grill and a frying pan to make the sandwiches toasted or hot. And I made several cookie sheets of sweet potato fries. I also had a couple of fruit salads as sides. We had some appetizers first and then we did the sandwich-making buffet style. I had cooked a turkey the day before and then let it cool and wrapped it tight in the refrigerator overnight. It was super easy to slice for the next day—making really nice slices for sandwiches. The event did require preparation. I made a very tasty cranberry chutney, and I did cook a turkey and then deboned it, and I did prepare mountains of sweet potato fries for pan roasting instead of deep frying. Erika brought a gluten-free chocolate cake and my mother brought a pumpkin dessert. And there was also a box of See’s chocolates to keep everyone happy. It turned out to be really fun. The creating of an individual sandwich is very appealing—some of the men in the group had more than one sandwich and it was easy to have both regular and gluten free bread choices. I had some gravy, hot and ready in a pan on the stove top for those who wanted a hot open-face sandwich, and everything else was on trays on the counter top for easy access to all the choices. Most people didn’t stick strictly to the recipes, but followed their own creative muse so that was fun, too. Here are the choices that I offered: Hot Turkey and Gravy Open-Faced Sandwiches Ingredients 2 tablespoons margarine or butter 1 large onion, thinly sliced ¾ lb. cooked turkey breast, cut into ⅛ inch-thick slices 1 (12-oz.) jar fat-free turkey gravy 4 slices bread Directions Melt margarine in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; cover and cook 4 to 6 minutes or until onion is tender and lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Add turkey and gravy; cook until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally. To serve, place 1 slice of bread on each individual plate. Top bread with turkey and onion mixture. Turkey and Cranberry Chutney Sandwich Ingredients 2 tablespoons cranberry or some other fruit chutney 2 tablespoons chopped toasted pecans 2 slices sourdough bread 2 ounces thinly sliced roasted turkey 2 ounces Brie, sliced 1/4 cup arugula Directions In a small bowl, combine the chutney and pecans. Spread the chutney mixture on the bread and form a sandwich with the turkey, Brie, and arugula. Turkey Sandwich With Watercress and Apple Ingredients 2 slices white sandwich bread 1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature 3 ounces roasted turkey, thinly sliced 1/4 apple, thinly sliced 1/2 cup watercress, thick stems removed Directions Spread the bread with the butter. Form a sandwich with the turkey, apple, and watercress. Turkey Reubens Ingredients 8 slices rye bread 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons Russian dressing 8 slices roasted turkey or chicken 1 cup sauerkraut 8 slices Swiss cheese 1 tablespoon olive oil Directions 1. Spread 4 slices of bread with the mustard and 4 slices with the Russian dressing. 2. Dividing evenly, top the mustard-spread slices with the turkey, sauerkraut, and cheese, then the remaining bread. 3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. 4. Add the sandwiches and cook, pressing occasionally with the back of a spatula until the bread is golden brown and crisp and the cheese is melted, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Serve with the potato chips and pickles. Turkey and Pesto Panini Ingredients 1 loaf soft French bread (12 ounces), split 1/3 cup store-bought pesto 8 ounces sliced roasted turkey 4 ounces sliced Swiss cheese 1/4 medium red onion, thinly sliced Directions 1. Spread the bottom half of the loaf with the pesto. Top with the turkey, cheese, and onion. Sandwich with the top half of the loaf and cut into 4 pieces. Dividing evenly, brush the outside of the sandwiches with 1 tablespoon of the oil. 2. Heat a grill pan over medium heat and cook the sandwiches, pressing down occasionally, until the bread is crisp and the cheese has melted, 5 to 6 minutes per side. 3. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the vinegar, the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Add the lettuce and avocado and toss to combine. Serve with the sandwiches. I have to admit that some of the recipes had ingredients that I found hard to come by. The grocery store where I shopped didn't have any watercress and I used green leaf lettuce instead of arugula, because I already had some. But I had sour dough and rye bread in addition to gluten free options and whole wheat—I skipped the plain white bread in favor of the other options. And so we had a short order grill going on for a while at our house. And as I said, it was fun. After dinner we played games and then later in the evening we had a short celebration for Peter whose birthday was the next day. I had made a bundt cake and we had 28 candles and we sang and Peter successfully blew out all the candles and we had a few presents for him to open. For me it was a happy day. I had gathered my local family and we had enjoyed the time together. I had enough turkey for left-overs for the next few days and I didn’t have to go to work the next day. It was remarkably pleasant weather the week of thanksgiving and Paul worked on the horse trailer and we both raked leaves. Sandy City has a collection day—December 1st and any bags of leaves left on the curb on that day will be picked up and hauled away by the city clean-up teams. I felt honor-bound to rake our yard and get rid of the leaves while we had the chance. And as I said, both of us did rake, and rake and rake. Ultimately there were 20 large leaf bags stretching across the front of our house on the curb. He hauled them out the night before and arranged them in a line. It was quite impressive actually. We do have a lot of trees and they do produce a lot of leaves and now all those leaves are long gone. Isn't that grand. And now we are passed Thanksgiving and into the Christmas season. I had Jono and Peter help Paul pull all the Christmas decoration boxes from the attic on Thanksgiving Day and on Friday and Saturday—my school vacation, I spent nearly two entire days putting up the tree and doing the decorations. This year I was hosting the Christmas Party for both my book clubs and I wanted to get all the decorating done in those two days so that all would be ready for the seasonal entertaining. Also because I work full time, I just wanted to get it done and not spread it out over several days after I began work again. The first Christmas party that I hosted was on December 4th. I’m in two book clubs and each of them has their own personality and I like them both very much. The interesting thing about this book club is that Erika has joined it. In October, it was my turn to host and Erika talked me into choosing Gone with the Wind as my book choice, and then she came to the meeting because she read the book and wanted to have someone to talk about it with. Everyone adores Erika anyway and at that time they invited her to join, but she demurred at the time. But I invited her to the Christmas party and she was invited again and this time she accepted. So we will be doing this together. Anyway, we had a really fun time. We do a book exchange and can steal books from one another. It is always interesting to see what people are interested in, what they give up and what they steal. I made a beef and broccoli entrée and everyone else brought food, so it really isn't that much work. I do decorate and set the table and of course I have to tidy up a bit—but I’m not cooking all day. And I really like this group of women. And Thursday night after the party was over and I was cleaning up in the kitchen we got a phone call from K.C. with the happy news that he was engaged. He and Elizabeth had already been ring shopping and they went out to dinner, he took the ring with him—they had dinner, he proposed, she accepted and now they are getting married. This is a very happy piece of news for both Paul and me. We are so glad that K.C. is going to be going to Korea with a wife. And, of course, we have had several contacts with Elizabeth over the last year. We saw her in Boston when K.C. graduated and also at Erika’s wedding—and last summer several times….so this is a happy time for K.C. and for us. Then two days later, I hosted another event. This time a four course dinner for eight people. It was Peter’s friends group doing their annual murder mystery dinner. This was the 11th one that I have hosted for him since he was a junior in high school. Some of the original young men who were in the original ones back in 2004-2005 have moved out of the state, but two of the originals were there and two new players were also there. There were part of Peter’s friends group from high school, but weren’t a part of the original group. The girls have changed a lot, at first the girls were girls who were friends or girlfriends of the boys, and later they started bringing their wives. This time it was four married couples all with children—although the children were not invited. I usually do one of these for Peter each year and one for Erika each year. Peter’s is usually in November—this year the first week in December. So that was two dinner parties in two days. Then the following Tuesday, December 9th was the second book club Christmas Party—also hosted at our house. This one proved to be a bit more complicated because we have more members of this group. My dining table only comfortable spreads to accommodate eight—nine in a pinch. And we had twelve of our fourteen coming. So Paul and I hauled the kitchen table into the dining room which didn’t fit too well considering that the tree fills some of that space, but with some adjustments and wiggling and such we managed to get everyone a full place. I made a really easy chicken pesto, using bottled pesto from the store and it was really delicious. I had never made the recipe before—so it was kind of a gamble, but the ratings on line for the recipe were outstanding and so I took the leap and made it. Really easy, really good. Baked Pesto Chicken (Makes 4 servings, recipe adapted slightly from The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook.) 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts salt and fresh ground black pepper for seasoning chicken 1/2 cup basil pesto (you can use purchased pesto.) 2 oz. (1/2 cup) grated low-fat mozzarella cheese Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Trim all visible fat and tendons from chicken pieces, then cut each chicken breast lengthwise into 2 or 3 pieces. (I cut the larger ones into 3 strips and the smaller ones into 2 strips.) Spray a 9" x 12" (or 8.5" X 12.5") baking dish with non-stick spray, then spread 1/4 cup basil pesto over the bottom of the dish. Lay chicken strips over the pesto, then spread 1/4 cup more basil pesto over the chicken. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil (or use a baking dish with a tight-fitting lid) and bake the chicken for 25-30 minutes, just until chicken is barely firm and cooked through. (Don't cook too much at this point, or the chicken will be overcooked by the time the cheese is melted and browned.) When chicken is barely cooked through, remove foil and sprinkle chicken with 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese. Put dish back into the oven without foil and cook 5 minutes more, just until cheese is melted Serve hot. There will be some flavorful juice in the bottom of the dish when this is done, so you may want to serve with rice, couscous, or quinoa to soak up the juice or serve it as “gravy” to pour over the hot chicken. The picture shows that it was toasted under a broiler for a couple of minutes, but I just served it baked with the melted cheese on the top. Everyone like it very much. Actually we had wonderful food, the other members bring salads, appetizers, bread, vegetables and desserts. So there is always a great variety and lots of choices for everyone. And we were a noisy, laughing, chatting group. It was loads of fun. We do a book exchange in this club as well and there was a lot of competition for the many interesting and diverse book options. The guests have a choice of picking a book from the unwrapped pile or choosing a book from the many that have already been chosen. You get a better choice if you are down the line to pick a book. We draw numbers to see who goes first. I ended up with a Joan Walsh Anglund book—which was an author I read when I was a child. She is in 50th anniversary reprint and it was fun to get this delightful book in my library again. Both of my book club parties were loads of fun and I have such a good time hosting them. This is about my fourth or fifth year as the hostess for both of these parties. On Thursday it was party time again, December 11th was the Back Country Horseman Christmas Party. This is always a fun party with a dinner and a silent auction. We always end up buying things that we didn’t intend to buy because it is just so appealing to see if you end up getting what you bid for or watching the bidding going up. I started bidding on tickets to the symphony, but when they went up over $50.00 I dropped out. I did get tickets to Hale Theater for just under the normal price and Paul and I both picked up some odds and ends. Paul got a magnetic sign to put on the side of the truck with the Back Country Horseman logo on it, and I got some Christmas cards. Usually we do an extensive barbeque with a big outside grill and do New York Strip steaks and chicken breasts, but there has been a changing of the guard in the administration of the club and now there is a group of women running the show. (Paul relinquished the presidency at the meeting—actually quite happily.) This year for the first time since we have been members of the club there was a really different menu and instead of club members preparing most of the food it was catered this time, with ham, funeral potatoes, barbequed beans and a nice green salad. There might have been a few people who were hoping for steak, but the food was really good, and everyone was able to eat hearty. The best part was that Paul and I didn’t have to stay for an hour after the party was over helping to do all the heavy clean-up. We helped a little and then left. Paul has served in the presidency or as president for six of the last seven years, so I think he has been a very respectable participating member for a long time. The flavor of the club has changed a lot over the last few years, with a lot of the men bowing out in favor of women. The 2nd vice president, the 1st vice president and the president this year are all women. So it will be interesting to see how this year and the future years go. Paul still intends to ride with them, but he feels like he has taken his turn as part of the administration—and some of the ways that things have been done is changing. The club will no longer be printing a mailed newsletter anymore, but will be posting on a Facebook account. So things are changing. Friday night, Paul and I went to the big Christmas concert held in the Conference Center downtown with the Tabernacle choir. Every year they have well-known guests and this year the concert featured Santino Fontana and the Sesame Street Muppets. Santino Fontana is a versatile actor whose greatest claim to fame currently is that he starred as Prince Hans in Disney’s mega hit Frozen, and of course, the Sesame Street muppets have been fixtures on PBS television for more than 40 years. I thought that the concert was delightful. The way that they staged the muppets so that they were very visible, and yet still accommodated the puppeteers was very clever. Santino Fontana was the glue that held the concert together, performing as an independent artist and also playing off and interacting with the muppets. I enjoyed the concert very much. Paul, who isn't that great a muppet fan wasn't quite as delighted as I was, but we enjoyed a very nice evening with my parents. Paul and I haven’t actually scored any concert tickets (which are quite hard to come-by) through the regular channels, but have benefited from the largess of my parents who get tickets annually from the choir president—so without any effort on our part, we usually get ground floor center section tickets. And are happy to get them. We have been to every concert but one in the last twelve or so years and that was because we were unavailable and my parents took someone besides us. They score tickets every year. I feel like this letter is kind of a rehearsal of our last month of activities—maybe a little boring for you to read, but it has been a really fun month of great activities for us. And I have just a couple more things to report on. Our Stake puts on a wonderful musical event every year. The Stake Music Chairman has organized this event which features a number performed by every ward choir, plus some solos and other musical contributions. We have a couple of over achiever wards that have set the bar high for everyone and so everyone really steps up. We have fancy arrangements with four hand accompaniments and bells and percussion and string and woodwind players. It is very interesting and special. One of the wards in our stake, 7th Ward’s choir director is Lex D'Azevedo and he was a guest performer this year, playing an arrangement of We Three Kings and the 7th ward choir, which incidentally is conducted by his daughter performed an original Christmas number written by him. Erika has sung in this event for a number of years coming home from college or from her apartment to share in our ward choir and she performed with us again this year. I had Erika and Jono and my parents for dinner and then we all went over to the musical soiree together. It was another happy Christmas time activity. And the last event that I will write about took place on Tuesday this week. December 16th. This was an event that starred Paul. He was asked by Mary Dollahite, who is the president of a women’s club named Cleofan, to be the entertainment for their Christmas party. This is their premiere event of the year and was held in a magnificent home in the same neighborhood as Erlyn and Duane Madsen in Provo. Paul and I drove down and were invited to eat dinner with everyone and then Paul performed in the spacious and very acoustically advantageous living room. Paul did a series of poems, mostly Christmas themed accompanied by guitar. It was a very lovely evening and he did a very nice job. He brought a couple of his guitars and stool to sit on and a sound system—very professional. I was very proud of him and the job he did. He has been practicing copiously for about eight weeks—and so he was well prepared and ready to perform. And now it is time to put the final touches on Christmas. I have sent off a couple of packages to Philip and Camille and today I will send off a package to K.C. He is spending Christmas in Oklahoma City with Elizabeth’s family. And I have a few more things to do to be ready for Christmas, but it is coming. I’m really excited because tomorrow is my last day of work until January 5th. I will really enjoy the next two weeks off of work.