Merry Christmas!

          There are times when I sit and write and the stories and words just seem to flow from my fingertips. Then there are other times, times like right now, when I sit to write and I don't have the foggiest notion what I'm going to write about.

          Speaking of foggiest... fog... here's a picture I took as we crossed the Susquehanna River on a mini shopping trip yesterday. Mini shopping trip, that just means we kept it local as opposed to our longer shopping trips to the Sayre/Athens area.

          Last time I left you, I told you I had more pictures to share, so let's get those out of the way.

          I did it again.

          "Did what again, Peg?" you ask.

          I took a picture of a beautiful sunrise from my kitchen window. 

    Despite knowing it wouldn't come out and knowing I'd have to go outside, I did it anyway. I expect it's something I'll always do. You see, it isn't just about the sunrise. It's not even about my heart sitting on the windowsill. It's about both of them. Together. My mother sits there too, just off to the left, out of the frame of this picture, with a beautiful smile on her beautiful face, hugging on beautiful Kat who is gone now. Every day I gaze upon these much loved faces, then on the promise of a new day and it stirs my heart. I can't explain it any better than that.

          I made a microwave peanut brittle recipe for Mike.

          "I don't like peanut brittle," Mike said when I presented it to him.

          "You don't!" I was surprised.

          "Peg! In all the years we've been together, have you ever seen me eat peanut brittle?"

          "No, but you've never seen me eat it either. I just thought it was one of those things we don't buy, not that you didn't like it."

          By the time I shared it with a couple of people, it was gone so it didn't go to waste, and I didn't eat very much of it either so it wouldn't go to my waist!

          Something Mike does like, however, is potato dumplings. I looked up the recipe online and found a Martha Stewart recipe that seemed very doable, but, "Mike, this calls for you to rice your potatoes," I told him.

          "Rice your potatoes?" he questioned.

          "Yeah, with a ricer. It's a thing you put your cooked potatoes in and press down and it comes out through these little holes in strings. I don't have a ricer."

          "I don't think my mom ever used a ricer."

          "Okay then. I'll just mash them." And that gave me an excuse to pull out the best potato masher ever! Not that mine is in great shape or anything, just that this style of masher makes the best mashed potatoes. It's the style my mother used the whole time I was growing up and they're kind of hard to find.

          I've made potato dumplings for Mike twice now, once using the masher, once using the mixer. Never having had potato dumplings before, I didn't really know what I was looking for. I didn't mash them enough and the chunks of potatoes were too big one time, and when I used the mixer, it tended to whip the potatoes up too much the other time. Even though Mike ate them and didn't complain either time, it just wasn't like his mom's. So guess who's got a ricer coming in the mail?

          We went shopping last week — the long version. On the same roads we always take. This time I challenged myself to find some new pictures for you.

          How in the world do you manage to hit that side of the cow crossing sign?

       

  

          How did I do? New and interesting pictures?

          Oh, this would be a good place to stick a small story with no pictures...

          Our bat came back this week. Two nights in a row he took a spin through the bedroom as we lay watching TV. Two nights in a row! Then we didn't see him again. I've got to get a net, I won't let Mike kill him.

          I completed two projects this week.

          First, I finished reading the book One Light Still Shines. Even though this book came out of a sad and tragic event; the Amish School shooting in Lancaster, PA, it's a book about God's love. It was written by the wife of the shooter and from the very first page, the story gripped me. I didn't want to put it down. But life keeps on moving around me and I'd have to put it down, so it took me a while to finish it. And I want to extend a great big thank you to my friend Judy for sharing this book with me.

          My other project...

          Oy!

          I wanted to make Rosie Kipp a terrarium for Christmas. Picking the colors was easy.

          "Rosie," I said six weeks ago. "If I was going to make you something for Christmas, what color glass do you like?" And I let her pick it.

          Cutting the glass was easy. So was washing, grinding, foiling, and soldering the pieces easy. Putting it all together was another story!

          If your cutting has been accurate, the book says, then everything should fit together...

          I decided to test fit my pieces. I got a block of wood and staged lots of pieces of tape and I started to put it together. Do you know how hard it is to get a heavy glass panel to stay where you want it with just a piece of tape?

          "Use two pieces of tape," you say.

          I know right! Well I started out using painters tape and after many failures of that tape holding — and visions of the whole thing falling on the floor and shattering into a million pieces — I switched to boxing tape, which was much stronger and worked much better. I got the bottom and sides on but when I put the top on, it didn't fit. I had to take it apart and try a different way. I bet you I put it together four times and no matter what I did, the pieces didn't fit. I was beginning to think I'd have to take my side pieces back to the cutting board. Actually that's where I was heading when I thought, I didn't have this much trouble when I made Momma's and I didn't test fit it either. Well, what worked once, may work twice. After four hours of trying to get stuff to fit, I just jumped in and started putting it together.

          "How did it come out?" you wonder.

          It's a little caddywhompus, and my solder lines aren't as pretty as I'd like them to be, but it was a labor of love and fortunately, Rosie loves it. "And I'm not pointing out all my mistakes either!" I told her when I gave it to her.

          "Good," she replied, "because I probably wouldn't notice them anyway."

          Our Saturday morning mini shopping trip not only produced the foggy picture I opened this letter blog with, but I got a few other shots for you too.

          Look at all the Bittersweet!

          Mike and I have a few favorite games that help us pass these long winter days. Besides dominoes, I taught him to play double solitaire the way my mother taught us kids to play it, but the one game we play the most is Rumikub. The game starts by drawing fourteen tiles each, but with two players we always end up having to draw more tiles before either one of us has enough points to start the play, so we always draw twenty tiles. In all the time we've been playing, this is the first time I've ever drawn an equal number of all four colors. I still didn't have enough points to 'go down' but I thought it looked well balanced and kind of pretty sitting on my rack.

          Let's call this one done.

          Merry Christmas!