Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all!  Don't forget to start writing 2013 tomorrow!  

Bill ended up going to Spencer with Tim today and took his Menard's 20% off bags and got a bunch of electrical stuff that he had on his list for the shed.  We had gotten one of those paper bags that you get 20% off everything you can fit in the bag.  They just had Burger King for lunch so I put a whole chicken in the crock pot for tonight and also had mashed potatoes with gravy, broccoli salad and fried apples with ice cream.  Kind of sad that this is the first New Year's Eve without Dick Clark.  

Bill, Peggy, Jim and I went to a candlelight Christmas Eve service at the Lutheran Church here in town at 5:00 this year. Then Uncle Tim, Aunt Bette Jo, Bill's cousin Paul and his wife and daughter and Aunt Delrae came over for soup.  We had chili and wild rice & chicken, beef stick & cheeses, baked corn dip, crab dip, fruit with dip, rum cake, caramels and Jim's chocolate covered cherries.

Here everyone is watching Riley open a gift from Jim.   She was very excited to get Dr. Who Tardis & Dalek salt & pepper shakers.

  

 

Good Advice

Every day I receive an e mail from Sandy when she posts to her blog, Reluctant Entertainer.  I'm kind of a reluctant entertainer but wanting and trying to be a better hostess and have read some good tips for being one on this blog.  Things like your house doesn't have to be perfect - nobody notices.  And don't point out your food that maybe didn't turn out perfect.  It makes people uncomfortable and they don't know what to say.  I always worry about what I'd have for the food that everyone would like and that would be easy to finish up with company in the house.  This is the tip I like best:  she says to have one meal in mind that most people would like, that you know turns out well and keep those things on hand.  Then if people stop by at meal time, it's your "go to meal".  You don't have to think about it.    The most important things are the people and visiting.  

Today her post is on How to Fight After-Christmas Blues.  I think lots of people have this "condition" in January and February, and her post today has lots of good advice.  Click HERE to read it. 

While my two little great nieces are so excited today to be getting to go to a hotel with a water park in it tonight, I'm getting ready to put on as many clothes as I can to go ride the sleigh to see Christmas lights with my niece, Ryanne, and my mother-in-law!  We have snow so that's great, very little wind which is good, but the temp. is 12 with the sun shining!  Brrrr!  Should be fun!

Another Funeral

We went to Joe's funeral yesterday, then I had an appointment in Emmetsburg.  Our builders came over because we had a spot on our guest bathroom ceiling from a leak and Bill could only find everything dry in the attic.  It ended up being kind of a strange thing they found.  Then the electrician came and Bill worked with him on the last connection from the house to the new shed.  Just a little more to do on that today.  Our generator can now be hooked up if needed!   


We started getting some light snow yesterday in the afternoon that continued through the night.  It looks like we may have gotten a couple of inches of fluffy snow.  Everything as far as you can see definitely has a white coating now. 

We're going to Deb's funeral this morning.  There were about 450 at Joe's yesterday.  HERE is a link if you'd like to read their obituaries.  This was one of Joe & Anastasia's engagement pictures.  Anastasia told me that Joe picked up their pictures the day of their accident.  

 

Much Sadness

Last night I got to go caroling with about 25+ people of all ages, stopping at 13 homes here in our town.  I love to sing (with others) so this was so fun.  I miss the days of being in the Central Christian Church, Carmel's choir.  We met at the farm home of one of our vets in town.  They had a fire going in their fireplace which smelled so good outside along with a fire in the chiminea on their deck.  Inside there was the scent of fresh pine from their real Christmas tree and other freshly cut greenery.  Everyone pitched in soups and other goodies.  We had about five different soups to warm us up when we got back from caroling - clam chowder, chicken alfredo, white chicken chili and tortilla that I can remember.  One of the families organizing this is very musical (several grown kids) so it was great to sing with them and when we got back, one of them sat down at the piano for more singing with the younger kids gathered around!  What a nice, Christmas evening with wonderful people!  I'm hoping we do this every year!  I sure didn't get very good pictures of caroling.  It was cold so had gloves on and with such a big group we were spread out.  Here we were in the home of a P.E.O. member who is about 95 I think.  She's the grandmother of several of the girls that organized the caroling. 

Velma, a special lady

More singing around the piano

Old fashioned real Christmas tree and pretty table.

3 of the 5 or 6 crock pots of soup.

When I got home though, Bill had some very sad news.  Three of our friends had been in a car accident on icy roads near Ft. Dodge where they had gone to Christmas shop.  Two of them did not survive.  Deb was the owner of our really nice flower/gift shop in Pocahontas and a P.E.O. member with me, and we all went to the same church.  Her beautiful daughter is okay but her fiance did not survive either.  They had dated several years and were to be married in June - such a cute couple.  Joe was a huge part of his family's farming operation and seed business (we do a lot of business with them).  Joe helped me - and had patience - when I took the seed tender to their place to get seed - when I couldn't back it up, he did it for me.  When I asked him how late they would be there one night we were trying to get a field done, he told me he would be there whenever I came back.  When I went back later that night for more seed and I didn't see anybody, he came around the corner and smiled and said "I told you I'd be here!"  He has a twin sister.  This family had another family member pass away earlier this year too.  So many in this area are very sad for the families, and we will all miss these two very much.     

White Christmas!

Well, we got snow - and wind!  The temps are going to stay very cold so we're going to have a White Christmas - yay!  No school anywhere around or in most of the state today.  We only got around 6" as best can be guessed when it blows away.  The Des Moines area (about 2 hours away from us) got 12-14".

the heat pump

propane tank

As you can see, without a grove, when the wind is bad, it blows our yard bare in most spots but the biggest drifts are always where we don't want them - on the sidewalk to the front door, around the heat pump and propane tank.  The driveway usually stays clear though which is nice! 

Possible Blizzard & Recipe

We're in a blizzard warning until noon tomorrow.  We were kind of on the line to get not much or a lot but now they're saying 8" for us with 45 mph winds.  We'll see!  We figure we WILL get it this time since our generator is not hooked up!  Bill is moving it from the old, little garage where the power was on the outside of the building to the inside of the new building, but our electrician hasn't been back to finish this last part.  We're not too worried since we have the propane stove in our living room that can run without electricity and it really heats up the room fast!  

It has started snowing!  By the way, we did finally get 1/2" of rain the other day.  First in a long time.   

I was asked to make some projects for a West Bend high school class on their last day before Christmas break which is Fri.  It turns out that almost 30 kids have signed up to take this stamping class!!!!!!!!  Yikes!  So an elf showed up to help me get all of that ready today (Peggy!)!  We got a lot done and the projects are cute!  I'll post about that another day.  

Since Peggy was coming over to help, I asked her to have lunch with us.  I tried a Carmel friend's crockpot lasagna which was easy and turned out good, and I made this nut roll recipe that Aunt Bette Jo had made this fall.  We like it and it's very easy!

NUT ROLL

1 jar of dry roasted peanuts
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 bag peanut butter chips
3 c. small marshmallows

Put half of the jar of peanuts on the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan.  Melt together in the microwave:  peanut butter chips, milk, and marshmallows.  Pour over peanuts and sprinkle rest of nuts on top.  Refrigerate to set up.  
 

Beautiful Winter Wedding

We went to a wedding the first weekend in Dec. here in our town.  I was expecting red and black for the colors but the bridesmaids wore light blue dresses.  The bride looked like a blond Barbie doll.  

The wedding was at a church here in town and the reception was at the old school gym.  We walked into the gym and were amazed at how beautiful everything was!  You can imagine an old gym with the wooden floor and folded up wooden bleachers on two sides.   They had transformed it into a Winter Wonderland!  

They had draped a huge piece of white material overhead kind of like a tent feeling so you didn't have the really tall gym ceiling.  The tables were covered with white with a light blue runner down the middle with lots of sparkly snowflakes everywhere in white, silver and blues.  The chairs were covered with white covers with light blue bows.  On the tables and in other places were large clear glass containers full of different Christmas ornaments in blues and silver.  But the most amazing part was one whole side where they had pulled out the bleachers part way I think and had about 3 rows of white flocked trees alternating with white spray painted branches that looked like winter trees with white lights!  There were about 25 trees!  It was soooo pretty!

Nice photo op setting.

Santa at Hometown Christmas

The decorations were left up for Hometown Christmas the next day.  Bill transported Santa to the school gym on a fire truck.  The usual vendors were there like Pampered Chef, Avon, Stanley Products, etc.  I sold Rolfe Sesquicentennial Cookbooks for a while.   A 4-H group did a soup supper - chili or potato soup.

House Fire

These are pictures of the house that burned in our town Sat. night and was a total loss.  The firemen and ambulance crew were called out at 11:15 pm and were there until early morning.  Bill got home and they were called out again soon after because there were still some hot spots.  He got home again around 8:00 or so and they were called out again at about 8:30.   They met with the family at the fire station at noon.  So it was a long night and next day.  Most of us wives don't get much sleep either when our husbands are at a fire. 

After both of us battling the flu and the coughing has hung on, we haven't been up to speed lately.  I finally made some fudge and caramels tonight.  Bill has been asking for caramels!  I did a blog post about making caramels on 12/10/10 with pictures and the recipe.  Check the right sidebar for the Recipes category and scroll down.   Or click HERE - I think that will take you right to it.  Caramels are easy because they don't have many ingredients and just take about 30 min. of cooking and stirring. 

P.E.O. Meeting

Bill got called out for a house fire at about 11:15 tonight so thought I'd do a blog post before heading to bed.  Even though it's very dark, I can see white smoke in town.  The page said that the residents were out of the house so that's good.  It's different living here - whenever you hear of an ambulance or fire call, you wonder who it involves since most likely you know them.

Last night we went to the Fire Dept. Christmas party.  it was at Vinny's BBQ in Dakota City.  After eating and exchange of gifts we got a tour of the new Humboldt Fire Station.  It's very nice.  The kitchen has 2 of everything:  2 dishwashers, 2 stoves, 2 French door refrigerators, 2 sinks and they have a fairly new "fancy" fire truck along with about five others and a rescue boat.     

Tues. night our P.E.O. meeting was here at our house.  I served my Aunt Linda's Red Velvet Cake, Mom's Mexican Wedding Cakes, my Aunt Vera's Glazed Pecans and a truffle with coffee, black holiday tea or hot spice tea.  The red cake was pretty for Christmas I thought.  We had 13 here for the meeting.  

 

Pretty truffles from Fresh Market in Ind.

  

Electrical Work

This past week the electrician was here running wire for service to the new building.  Now Bill's waiting on the company that will put up the doors.

 

Christmas Preparations

 I've been getting things ready around here for the P.E.O. meeting tomorrow night.  Today I've been doing the fun part - baking!   I'll take more pictures and tell you what this is after tomorrow.  A couple of people that will be here sometimes read the blog!

 On Friday, I picked up Diane's girls at daycare and they helped me decorate the Christmas tree.

My little elves.helpers.

They seemed more excited about having an after school snack than decorating until I actually opened the boxes of ornaments.  When they saw them, they jumped up, grabbed the Santa hat and reindeer antlers, put them on and got busy!   I had thought about not using my same misc. ornaments I've been collecting for years and putting on all red and gold balls.  But Lacey already remembers and looks for her favorite ornaments every year.  I don't think putting all balls on would be the same!  Plus I really like our initial K's and First Christmas Together '07, the Christmas mouse, the little Night Before Christmas book that you can really read,  the 3 shiney hearts, etc.

Bill is feeling better today and is at an insurance meeting tonight.  It was very sunny here today but very cold (8 this morning).  Still no rain.  The experts are saying that even if we start getting some rain or snow, it's going to take a year to recover from this drought.     

 

Still Alive

We've been sickly around our house for a couple of weeks and had enough of it!  As you know, we thought Bill may have had food poisoning after attending a convention in Des Moines as several others were sick after too.  But it turns out he had a bad case of the flu.  Then last week I had what started out as a tickly cough and turned into a case of the flu with just body ache, fever and cough.  I'm feeling much better but now as of last night, Bill seems to have that!

I'm getting ready to have a P.E.O. meeting here Tues. night so I'm trying to get the house all Christmasy, and I'm behind after our not so good past couple of weeks!  

We had a few snowflakes flying around last night, woke up this morning and it was darker than usual so I expected it to still be snowing, but there was no snow.

Also last night we had some excitement.  Dave and the twins were down for the day to deer hunt and as they were just getting ready to give up leave, they got a 4 pt. buck!  After a long day of waiting and being trying to be quiet, Matthew was so excited! 

 

Gemutlichkeit Luncheon

On Sat., Bill and I went with a friend and her mother to Zion Lutheran Church in Humboldt's annual Gemutlichkeit Luncheon.  Gemutlichkeit means "a happy good time".  We had gone for the first time last year and really enjoyed it.  I don't know how many years they've been doing it but it's many.

The sanctuary is very pretty.  The smaller cross is made of poinsettias.

They started serving at 11:00.  We got there a little before noon and were given numbers 19-22.  We waited for a few minutes in their pretty sanctuary before they called our numbers.  

Everything is very organized.  You go through the line to get your sausage, smoked pork loin, sauerkraut, potato soup, German potato salad, fruit soup, and desserts.  As soon as you're seated, someone comes and reads the prayer in German which is printed and on the table.  Then they bring a bread basket with several kinds of bread and a relish tray with 2 kinds of pickles and pickled beets.  Deviled eggs are on the table.  There is definitely plenty of food!  They have polka music playing softly and all of the workers are in costume.  Really nice holiday meal we plan to go to every year. 

The dessert table.

This Black Forest Cherry Cake is soooo good!

Springerle

Bread

Melt in your mouth!

 

 

Some of the servers.