N. T. Wright

Most of you will NOT be interested in this, but that's OK. One of my favorite authors is N.T. Wright. He is an Anglican bishop in England and considered one of the top theologians of our time. Here is a fabulous interview of him. It lasts about an hour, so I am warning you. For the few of you who may find this interesting, I would love to hear some of your thoughts about this interview.

Old Memories

The Christmas season always makes me think of one of my strangest Christmas memories. I was doing the gift exchange with the family of a guy I dated in college. The guy's mother was a sweet lady, but a little odd. I felt a bit sorry for her as her husband wouldn't let her have a Christmas tree since in the last few years he had decided it was "pagan" without consulting his wife on the matter. So I got her some Christmas tree scented candles since she said she missed the scent of the tree so much. That's me, always promoting martial harmony.

Anyway, her future daughter-in-law (the girl engaged to the brother of the guy I was dating) really outdid me. See Mrs. T had a thing for cats. They had 2 cats and she was always taking pictures of them, getting cute little cat things, she was a cat person. (I always found it odd that the cats didn't actually like her, but that doesn't really pertain to the story.) And since she couldn't have a Christmas tree, thanks to her loving husband, she extracted revenge by decorating the entire house in snowmen.

Really, snowmen everywhere. The guest bathroom had snowmen towels, snowman soap dispenser, and a snowman picture. That was just the bathroom under the stairs. One entire counter in the kitchen was taken up with stuffed snowmen. Don't forget snowmen dishes, snowmen blankets, and snowmen candle holders. You name it, she had it. Or so I thought.

The future Mrs. T presented her future mother-in-law with the most hideous sweater I have ever seen. A red button down sweater with snowmen appliqué that are really snowcats! Snowmen with pointy ears and whiskers. There is something to be said for being creative, I am all about creativity, but this was creativity gone very bad. She loved it. No, no, she was ecstatic about it. She showed it off at all times. Mrs. T had it on every time I saw her for the next 2 months. I just tried my best not to say anything.

I have tried my best to dig up a picture of the horrible thing, but alas someone has realized that a good sweater, it does not make and is not making it anymore. Too bad.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

This is my all time favorite Christmas hymn. I normally prefer it with a single female voice with a lone guitar but the video really made this version for me. Hope you enjoy it.



O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That morns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Chorus: Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel

O come, O come, Thou Lord of Might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save
And give them vict'ry o'er the grave.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
O drive away the shades of night
And pierce the clouds and and bring us light.

O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heav'nly home
Where all Thy saints with Thee shat dwell
O come, O come, Emmanuel!

Party in a Lampshade!

Mr. and I were wandering through Target the other day (because that is what we do for fun around here) and we came across this little object:

Being intrigued and because we had an extra $5 lying around, we bought the each one uniquely made light bulb. Just think, all that stained glass art for only $5. This was going to bring our living room to a whole new level. Disco meets the Renaissance. And we were right, check out my Eiffel tower lamp now.

Another plus to this bulb is that it is only 25 watts. Now the reader might say, "but that isn't much light!" and you would be correct. However, I was reminded of a cookbook that Make Mine a Triple gave me back in the day entitled "I Hate to Cook Book." I have always admired Peg Bracken as a writer since then. I can't find that exact quote, but she writes of a hostess who never cleaned her house before a party because it was just going to get dirty during the party. She would change out all her light bulbs to low watt bulbs and called it mood lighting. Nobody ever noticed she had not cleaned. If I am ever in a time crunch and I have you over and all my bulbs are like this, you know I haven't dusted.

Evolution of a Christmas Picture

Here is a record of my attempt to take a Christmas picture using a timer on a camera. Poor Mr. M was subjugated to my attempts to capture us in front of our tree.

First, we tried sitting in our futon, but our posture was lacking.

Next we tried a bench, but I wasn't crazy about the angle and Mr. M kept trying to feel up his unsuspecting wife.

Mrs. M then tries to point out their wedding pictures as an example of a good smile

Next, Mrs. M convinced Mr. M against his will to try keeling in front of the tree, but the camera was too high.

Change the camera height and voila, Christmas card picture. (AKA this was the end of Mr. M's patience). You should be getting these in the mail sometime after Christmas.

Adventures in Tree Cutting

Here in Montana, you can buy a $5 pass and go on state land and chop down your own Christmas tree. So last Saturday, we bought our pass and proceeded to wander the woods for the afternoon. It was cold and icy and even my pink snow boots weren't keeping me warm. And ALL THE TREES WERE HORRIBLE!

We would see a tree, take a closer look at it and see that it was really 3 trees growing together. So if you cut one down, you would have lots of area with no branches. A few not growing together were just horrible looking, or to short or to tall.

So we did what all good Americans do: bought one out of a parking lot for $35 (gasp, that a 1/3 of a fake tree that doesn't DIE). Once we got home I realized that it was spray painted, that's why it looks so nice, but at this point, I don't care. Here is our fresh cut tree:

And here it is all decorated. Note the tree topper hanging from the ceiling.
Here is a fun centerpiece I put together with a Target candle, Target cranberries and candle holder we got for our wedding.
Also Bath and Bodyworks is selling the cutest tea light holders and if you wait until after Christmas you can get this table runner from Target at half price like I did last year. Yes, I love Target. I would live there if I could and then visit Bed Bath and Beyond for lunch.

TenThousand Villages

Are you done with all your holiday shopping? I doubt it, so here are my shameless plugs for two organizations I think are great. The first is World Vision. I usually buy something from them for my family. Go check it out.

The second one is Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade organization. You can order online or check their store locations. (I know that they have a store in Austin, Texas.) Check out their website to learn more about their fair trade policies. A local church in our area had a 3 day holiday fair and brought in some of their products to sell. Here are some things we bought.

We bought this basket for Mr. M's mother. Made in Uganda, cost $20.00

A cat ornament made out of a gourd. Made in Peru, cost $8.

A wacky wind chime. Made in Indonesia, cost $10.00

Cute ornament. Made in India, cost $8.

Large purse/bag. Made in Bangladesh, cost $10.00

So if you aren't done with your holiday shopping, head on over to these websites and check out these goods. You can get good stuff and help the world! (Note, I only used gifts on this website of people who don't read this site. So don't worry, I am not giving any surprises away.)

Living in a Winter Wonderland

We had our first big snow in the valley a few days ago. Here the the view from our deck. Note the lovely ski slopes if anyone feels like skiing.

Here is our deck. Anyone feel like coming over for some BBQ?

Of course there are a few upsides. This tree branch looks nice in white.

And this tree is enjoying her winter coat.

And I get to wear my pink snow boots!

This doesn't really make up for their being white stuff all over the ground, but I try to stay positive.

Thanksgiving

I have been waiting to get some more Thanksgiving day pictures, but it may be a while. So here are a few of the things I cooked. We decided to do Thanksgiving with Noah's parents and T and I split up the dishes. They made the turkey, gravy, stuffing and mashed potatoes and bought some pies. I made butternut squash puree, zucchini rolls, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole and a pumpkin tart.

The morning of Thanksgiving, Mr. M woke up not feeling very good. I thought he was being whiny because whenever he has a headache, he gets all grumpy and I have to force him to drink water and take Advil. But I did feel bad, because later as I was in the shower, he started vomiting in the toilet. I guess the honeymoon is over. Don't worry, he was all better by the end of the day, but I had to leave him and take all the food since I cooked. (I am not being a mean wife by leaving him. He warned me before we got married that he gets grumpy and wants to be left alone when he is sick. So I just left him alone.)

But I was in love with my sweet potato casserole. Here it is in all its glory. With a butter, brown sugar and pecan topping. Yum. I will have you know that I did NOT use canned sweet potatoes. I roasted them and scooped out the insides.

My favorite thing. A pumpkin-banana tart. Sounds strange I grant you. But hey, the Barefoot Contessa made it, so it has to be OK, right? I don't think I could go back to plain old pumpkin pie. And there is no crust to roll out, what could be better?

The best grilled cheese ever!

I have been thinking about putting some of my cooking ideas on this blog. After reading this blog, I really got inspired. So here it goes, the best grilled cheese ever! This is so good that I serve this for lunch when people come over after church with some soup.

Here are stars: wheat bread (none of that white crap), fresh basil, mozzarella, a little pepper jack cheese, butter and a tomato.

I mean, just look at those beautiful veggies!

Pick the basil off the stems and put the leaves in a nice little pile. This works better if you put the larger leaves on the bottom.

Then you roll the leave up.

And cut them length ways. This is called chiffonade, but we won't use that term again.

Next, slice the tomatoes as thin as you can.

Grate your cheese. You don't need much pepper jack.

Put your butter on your bread. Don't use margarine, nasty stuff. I like to melt my butter in a little bowel and brush it on using a pastry brush.

I am lucky enough to have a cast iron skillet (although my dream is to have the Cuisinart sandwich press). Put your bread on the skillet and place a small amount of mozzarella on the bread.

Next sprinkle some basil on there.

Now for some fresh tomato. I try to buy the ones that are still on the vine. They have a much better flavor.

Next sprinkle just a bit of the jack cheese and a little more mozzarella.

Cover with the other piece of bread and if you have a bacon press, stick that baby on there. Helps it cook faster and keeps your sandwich innards from falling out.

Just look at that beauty. Mr M loves these just the way they are, but if you have a man that must have meat on his sandwich, fry up some bacon and add that as an extra layer.

Tasty, tasty!

New Blog I Love

I almost wet my pants when I read this post.

Other rules on dating

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. We were talking about dates and dating and I was reminded of some things I had come up with back in the day before we were married. Of course we all know the basics, date someone that you have things in common, someone you like, shares the same religion, yada, yada, yada. These are some fun extras. Some of these rules came from my own experiences and others came from friend's experiences. If anyone has other rules they would like to add, feel free to write them in the comments section.

1) Don't date a guy who does not have a car if you do have a car. (This used to be: don't date a guy who doesn't have a car, but I have amended it for people who live in NYC.) The dynamics are all off. I tried this once, don't recommend it.

2) Don't date a guy who when you cut your foot, his first reaction is to be more concerned about his parent's new carpet then the huge gash in your foot that is squirting blood.

3) Don't date a guy who is rude to service people. (For that matter, pick friends who are nice to service people.)

4) If you start having to do more and more editing in your head before bringing up topics, get out now.

5) Don't date someone who won't admit he is wrong, and don't be that person either.

6) If you have just worked a 13 hour shift, gone home, taken a shower, driven 2 hours with your boyfriend to go to lunch with HIS mother, she give you the silent treatment because you are 15 min late, and he grovels and apologizes to get his family to talk, while you are thinking about how you have been up for almost 20 hours, get out, get out, get out.

7) Don't date a guy who never wants to hold your hand or touch you in any way, and makes you feel ugly after hanging out with him. He really is gay. (I am not saying that a guy should be all over you, what I am saying is that you should get some sort of sense that he finds you attractive)

8) Date someone for a least 6 months before getting engaged. I don't care how long you have known him or how wonderfully you click. If it is meant to be, then you can date for at least 6 months.

9) Don't date a guy who is always talking about other beautiful women all the time.

10) Don't date a guy who is probably clinically depressed.

11) Never date a guy who lives with his parents, ever. (There is a difference between a guy living with his parents and his parents living with him for health reasons and such.)

12) Don't have a crazy long engagement. It's to stressful for everyone involved.

13) Do have pre-marital counseling and don't cheat on the questions.

14) Do date a guy who supports you and encourages you to pursue things you enjoy.

15) Do date a guy who brings over soup and medicine when you are sick and will sit on the couch with you all day because he knows you are bored.

16) Do date a guy who helps with the dishes.

17) Do date a guy who has the same financial goal as you.

18) Date a guy who your best gal pals really like and they aren't just saying that.

19) Date a guy that likes to interact with people.

20) Date a guy who does not have apron strings attached. (I find that dating a guy say about 7 years older then yourself helps in this matter. Although Mrs. Juicebox was able to work it out with a guy about 5 years older, but that may be a unique situation.)

Little Montexan

On October first, our good friends, B&T, had a little boy now named Noah. Since T is also from Texas she had brought a ziplock bag of Texas dirt so that her son could be born over Texas soil. The hospital staff put it under the operating table and they dubbed Noah a "Montexan" since he was born in Montana over Texas soil.

T has been generous to offer to share her soil with me should we decide to have any babies in Montana. If we come to that point, I may just take her up on it.

Here's little Noah the day he was born. We were his first visitors!

T wanted to take some baby pictures to send out for Christmas, here are a few of our attempts yesterday.

Farewell to Jana

My friend Jana moved. This is distressing to me as she is one of my friends in Montana that I can say "hey, let's grab coffee," or "let's hike in the Glacier" at the spur of the moment and she is usually up for some girl time.

But since she is leaving no matter what kind of fit I throw, I decided instead to throw her a going away dinner. Here is my lovely table set for fall. I was going to put applesauce in the little pumpkins, but they are too cute to butcher, so they are gathered around the candle.

Bye, Jana! We will miss you!

(I apologize for the fuzzy picture, I won't let Mr. M take them in the future.)

First Snow

Yesterday morning I looked out my dreary window and saw for the first time this winter, snow. It melted in a few hours and I didn't even have to wear a coat today.

My rosemary bush is still going strong.

I put some red stars up in the window, but it's hard to photograph them.

Character

Most of the time, the only time that one hears character referenced is in regards to politics and even then, only at election time. However, the other place it is referenced, though not discussed is in sports. There is a show on Saturday morning called the "Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year". It's a nice show about what football coaches all over the country are doing to help their teams. It's also an advertisement for Liberty Mutual (whom I hold no ill will since they did feed my family for about 10 years).

The thing that gets me, is during the show's introduction the talk is all about the brave and wonderful coach who has so much character and leads his men to victory. He has character to keep being a football coach. This is the point when I roll my eyes. Sure we like it if the coach who wins is also a nice guy and his players go to class, but the reality is we like a coach who wins.

Players talk all the time about a fellow players great leadership and "character." OK, but this same guy may play great ball, but he has how many kids by how many different women and how much time does he spend with them?

Everyone loves Tom Brady. "What a great guy." "What a leader!" What character!" What if Tom Brady announced tomorrow that being away from his infant son is not good for him. What if Tom Brady announced that he was going to live near his son and work a normal job and be a real and consistent father to his son? Can you fathom the outcry? No one would be talking about character. They would be saying "what a waste."

Or how about a more down to earth example. What if the local high school football coach decided to just be a teacher in order to have more time to be a better father and husband? Why he would be "letting down the community."

What shows more character, doing something you don't like day after day because it is good for you or your family or doing what you love and running over everybody in you life in the process?

*Disclaimer: I know that there are many wonderful people involved in sports and I think that often sports can be a very positive thing. But sports like many things has a dangerous side that our culture refuses to look at or deal with.*

Congrats!

Congrats to several people in my life.

First, to Mrs. Juicebox for passing the bar exam. She is now a real live lawyer.

Second, to my friend Sarah, who got engaged. I am in the wedding in June!

Third, to Betsy, who is going to be an aunt in May!

Wii Update

I am in the castle of Bowser, but it is tough to throw those little guys at him.

Tiramisu

I recently inherited a collection of ladyfinger cookies and did what anyone else would do in my position: made tiramisu. Barefoot Contessa cookbooks are some of my favorites and I decided to use her recipe. Glancing over the recipe before going to the store, it calls for mascarpone cheese. I forgot to write down how much cheese I needed which I usually remember to do.

So I got to the store and found mascarpone cheese. Turns out that it is an Italian cream cheese and it is being sold for $4.oo an ounce. Now I am willing to spend some money to make things right (never use dried basil when you can use fresh is my motto), but 4 bucks for 1 ounce of cream cheese is a little much, even for me. So I bought a can of 8 ounces of light American cream cheese (a store brand) for $1.19. When I arrived home, I read that I needed 16 ounces of this stuff. To make the recipe the way it called for required at least $64 to make the tiramisu according to the direction. That doesn't even take account for the rum I bought too!

I will never do anything useful in life again...

Yesterday Mr. M and I set out to get me a birthday present. He had given me the choice of pearl earrings or and old super Nintendo set to play super Mario brothers on. I, being the strange creature that I am, chose the video game.

Turns out that the store didn't have any in, but then we found out something else. You can buy all the old games from the old Nintendo systems and play them on Wii ! You just download them for a few bucks off the web. Oh, oh, oh! We had looked at Wii before and thought it was a cool system and looked fun, but we didn't know that little tidbit. It pushed us over the edge. We had some birthday money from different relatives and buy the Wii system we did. It is even cooler then we thought.

Between joining facebook and having the Wii system, I doubt that there is much usefulness left in me. That book I was thinking about writing has fallen by the wayside.

Week in Dallas

For those of you who are wondering, my mom is doing well. She probably won't be able to drive for a few more weeks and will go stir crazy, but her eye is doing excellent.

I had a blast in Dallas; I got a new haircut, my eyebrows waxed, did some Ann Taylor shopping, and got new makeup. I feel like a new woman. (yes, I did hang out with my mom as well, I did not neglect her.) I also got to see a bunch of people who I love and they love me. It was great.

I took a plunge and bought a starter kit of bare minerals makeup. Brushes and makeup are all included in the kit based on skin tone. It took a few days to get the application technique all worked out, but I love the stuff. It feels so light on my skin, washes off very well, and looks better the longer I wear it. I don't even have to wear moisturizer any more! (I am not quite sure why, but my skin is not near as dry.)

My brother convinced me to join facebook and now I will never ever get anything done again. It is way to much fun to look up people I know and see if I can find them. Turns out a guy I knew in college was up here a few months ago on vacation and I had no idea. But like I said, way to addicting. My brother's facebook page has a picture of him standing with Ron Paul. What can I say? It takes all types.

Change of location

I will be in Dallas from October 11th to the 17th. Turns out that my mom needs some eye surgery that involves a lengthy recovery and I am coming down to play nurse( I mean be a nurse, yes, I am one in real life).

I don't know if I will be able to get out much, but if anyone wants to swing by the house, we would love to see you. (Plus my birthday is the 15th and I know you all want to throw me a big party.)

Baby goats!

I am sitting on the floor next to my dining room table. Why you may ask? Because my back is sitting in front of a vent blowing hot air on me. It is my favorite place to drink my morning tea from September to mid May.

However, our summers are nice and in an attempt to get people to come visit me I am posting some pictures we took this summer.

Baby goats checking each other out.

Baby goat staying close to Mama.

Goat licking the parking lot.

Critter begging me for food (he is about the size of my hand, maybe a little smaller)

Mr. M and me in front of a waterfall on the road.

If you come see us in the summertime, we can take you to see the goats too. They live about an hour away from us. Come on, everybody loves baby goats!