Yesterday was Matt's birthday. Unfortunately it was also the first day that the music group was in the studio, so we spent all day at the Tracking Station while I worked to lay down the reference tracks with a few of the musicians. But I had plans to make up for it.First, when we got in the car, Matt discovered a Dairy Queen ice cream cake (thank God his birthday's in January!) sitting on the front seat. Personally I prefer the Carvel cakes but he likes DQ's fudgey layer in the middle, so I went with the DQ. I gave him the option of going to Chez Vachons or something like that for breakfast, but he decided he'd rather just get Dunkin's on the way there. We got to the studio around 9:30, and he played with his new laptop, which he had thought was his birthday gift, while we recorded the first two songs. Between the set up, rehearsing and then actually playing a reference track we like, that took about 3 hours to get done. Lunchtime! That's when things got really fun. I should mention that the Tracking Station is a studio which was built by our drummer in his barn. So he and I had concocted a plan earlier in the week. I ordered Matt's birthday present and had it shipped directly to Mitch's house. He had his daughter wrap them for me. So after lunch and birthday cake, Mitch dropped the presents on the counter in front of Matt and said "Hey buddy, I got you something!" Matt unwrapped the Wii, the extra remote, nunchuck, and the WiiPlay game, and turned to Mitch to thank him with a grateful but extremely confused grin on his face. Mitch told him "you're welcome" and would have continued to take credit if I hadn't let Matt know that the gifts were from me. He was completely surprised ... Apparently I did too good a job convincing him that we couldn't get a Wii. So after another few hours there, we headed home. Matt decided he wanted to get Outback for dinner, so we picked up some food and spent the evening playing the new games. The final verdict? He's much better at tennis and the tank game than I am, but I am an excellent Wii golfer. And I beat him down in boxing.
Here's Matt before he left for his new job. He nailed all the demos he had to do in front of his boss, and came home with two rock band guitar controllers and an Xbox live webcam which his boss said he could keep. The picture was taken under protest, but he still looks pretty happy.
I came home last night to find Gabe and Isaac building lego houses in my living room. Matt said that they were pretending that they were daddies with imaginary mothers, getting their houses ready for their family and telling each other "Get that out of the house, it's not safe for the baby!" I asked Gabe if they had met Ileana. He grinned and nodded, and Isaac added "She came OUT!" When I asked how big she was, Gabe spread his arms wide, indicating that Ileana was at least 3 feet tall. When I asked how much hair she has, he pinched his fingers together and said that it was no color at all.
Obviously, we were going to have to meet her ourselves, so we packed them in the car and drove to the Eliot.
Gabe wasn't as annoyed as this picture indicates... I think he was watching tv.
She is beautiful. She looks like Gabe when at rest, but when she starts squirming and rooting and making faces, she looks like Isaac. She does have very long skinny legs, but they're not quite 2 feet long, and her hair is a dark brown, despite what her brother says.
On Saturday, Matt and I drove down to my older sister's house in Taunton for my goddaughter's birthday party. Emma is Julie's youngest and loves turtles and anything artistic. This year, she insisted that she would decorate the cake herself.
It's a turtle. Obviously it's a Rivet turtle; Look at its huge head! Actually, I'm pretty impressed with it, especially because Julie said Emma decided she needed to use 2 techniques - she piped some frosting and she then used watered down paste colors to "paint" on the water and the lines on the turtle's shell. You can't tell in the picture, but she also "needed" to have 2 different greens for the head and the shell.
Julie and John's house is small. It's a ranch, and I would be surprised if they had 900 square feet. But somehow they make it work when they have parties. The whole place is filled up with people, but it makes it easy to jump in and out of conversations and catch up with everyone. At my folks' house, it's easy for me and my sister's to congregate in Chris' kitchen, and the guys hang out in the living room to watch the game, and mom and the aunts are in mom's kitchen, and the kids are upstairs. But at Julie's, you don't go to a party at their house and find yourself not spending time with everyone there. Julie and John are also very welcoming, and they always allow the birthday child to invite a few friends to the family party, and they usually wind up bringing their siblings... Julie always tells the parents that with all the cousins, there's bound to be a kid the sibling's age, too.A few more pictures of the fun...
And the birthday girl herself. We bought her a ton of "real" art supplies: pastels, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, drawing pencils of various degrees of hardness, and kneeded erasers and smudgers, along with a few sketchpads and pads of watercolor paper. I always get a little thrill when the kid wants to play with my present before the end of the party. These were out of the package as soon as the wrapping paper was off. Win.
I had a dream last night about my sister-in-law. In the dream, she was at our house, but our house was much larger and had tons of cabinets, still full of the previous owners dishes and food and holiday decorations. Rooms upon rooms of them, each cabinet with the same things over and over again. We were going through them, and trying to figure out what to do with all of it. I remember thinking "I had no idea I had this many cabinets in this house!" And as I went along, I would find Joanne in a room or sitting on the lawn or on the back porch and I would start talking to her. I was trying to convince her to get back together with my brother, and she was listening to everything I was saying, but then I would turn around for a minute and she would be gone. Then I would walk around a little bit and find her sitting somewhere else. We would resume the conversation and then someone would distract me again and again she would be gone. It was so frustrating and upsetting, and at the same time I felt like I was badgering her and she was just letting me talk because she didn't want to hurt my feelings. And then the alarm went off and I woke up.
In real life, I haven't spoken to Joanne since Christmas. And in real life, some things have happened which have made Joe and Joanne's pending divorce weigh heavily on my mind (obviously). I am debating about what to write here, but I did say I would share a little more, so... Joanne told Joe that she wants to move pretty far away, and then she sent me, my sisters, my mom and my aunt an email telling us that she has met someone new, and she wanted to tell us herself rather than letting us find out through the grapevine or facebook. I've also learned a few other things which kind of shed some light on weird things that have happened in the past 2 years (yeah, that's the limit on the sharing. It does no good to explain those things here).
Since they've been separated for over a year now, I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised that Joanne's wanting to move on. But ever since they've been having trouble, I have been praying and hoping that their marriage could be healed. And I'm not the only one. I know my parents and even my older sister who never prays have been praying for it. And Matt's family also have been praying for them. With all those prayers, it's hard for me to accept that they really are determined to go their separate ways.
I know that no one can really know what goes on inside a marriage. My brother and Joanne both are imperfect people, I get that. But I keep remembering their wedding day, and the way they were together up until just a few short years ago, and that feeling that their marriage was right. Not that it was good all the time, but it was right. Things were in their right order and so many good fruits came out of what it was, because of the way they were with each other and to others when they were together. Now it is not right, and I've been hoping that it would be right again someday soon.
It's not hard to interpret my dream. Those cabinets, in my house but full of someone else's things... I can't figure out what to do with them or where to begin. There is of course a part of me that wants to know what happened, wants to examine everything so I can know, so that the same thing won't happen to Matt and me. But there is too much, and some things make no sense because they are out of context, or because they were so long ago. And talking to Joanne... I haven't actually had a real conversation about the separation with Joanne, so I'm doing it in my dream, and it does no good. I can tell her how much I want them back again, I want them whole again. I can tell her I know that there is grace to make it happen. But she won't say anything back. She'll listen and nod her head, and then some point, I will get distracted. And she will be gone.
So I'm home from work today with some kind of infection. I went to the doctor at 11:30 and was reminded once again why I need to find a new PCP. He did absolutely no exam, just asked me why I was there and then wrote me a script, even after I said that I would prefer it if we did a culture to rule out anything else. He just kind of brushed me off and said that the antibiotic would probably knock it out anyway. Now, the office has a policy that they will not write any prescription without me coming in. I am cynical about this -- nothing we did in the office couldn't have been done over the phone -- and I'm pretty sure that they only have the policy so they can bill my insurance for the visit. Grumbly grumble.
Home and bored and trying to figure out what to do with myself.I came across a recipe the other day for homemade gummy candy. It seemed easy and fun, so I picked up a box of Knox gelatin and tried it out the other day. The first batch I made didn't turn out so well. I used sugar-free Jello (yeah, forgot that that was the only kind we have in the house), and they turned out very firm, very chewy, and very sugar-free tasting. The recipe also only made about 6 gummies, because it was only 1/3 cup of water and sugar free Jello is just a smaller quantity of powder. So today, I tweaked the recipe by using slightly more water this time, and I used regular Jello. Ahhh. Jewel-like, gummy without being jujubees, and it made a whole tray of gummies.
Gummy Candy Recipe
2 packets of unflavored gelatin
1 package of Jello, any flavor
1/2 +1 Tbsp water
Candy molds or decorative ice cube molds
Place all ingredients in a small saucepan and stir until combined. Wait 5-10 minutes, until the gelatin absorbs all the the water. Put pan over medium-low heat, and stir gently until gelatin is completely dissolved and the mixture liquifies. Do not over-heat. Pour mixture into molds. Allow to cool until completely set. Unmold by pulling gently along the edges of the candy until it comes loose from the mold.
I'm going to try this with sour salt (citric acid) and Kool-aid powder next. I have found a few recipes which recommend using that to make sour gummies.
I came home today to find the Christmas tree on the porch. While I was working, Matt had used the Saturday to take down the tree, vacuum the entire downstairs, and shop for the supplies for tonight's Cana couples and tomorrow's Life Teen. I love Christmas, and I love the Christmas decorations and the way the house has looked when I drove up to it on a cold night, so I am sorry to see it go.
But taking down the tree signifies something else, too. I have been saying that once the holidays are over, I want to paint the paneling in the living room and the entryway. I am really looking forward to getting that covered up and replacing the curtains and blinds and making everything in there less brown in general. It's so blah and unwelcoming to me the way it is now, so I have hopes that maybe a pale blue will brighten things and that we can find some sheer curtains to let in the sun and make things more open. Eventually we'll replace the awful shag carpeting as well, but for now I can live with it.
Also, I should note that I did get another car, a blue Honda CRV which I am already in love with and am so glad to have. And Matt has been offered a job with Microsoft, working with product displays in stores. So the Christmas season has seemed to have dumped just a pile of blessings on us. I can't wait to see what the new year will offer us.
Well, my first year of blogging is over.I was looking over the posts from the past year, and I have to say, I am really glad I started this simply for the sake of my own memories. There are a dozen or so things I saw that made me smile, or that reminded me how good God has been to Matt and I, and how much we have been blessed over the past year. Things like the soy milk ice cream, the conversation with my dad and the ways he's struggled this past year, the stupid things Matt and I argued about during the wedding planning, and then wedding itself and the honeymoon, adjusting to living in the same place, the house hunt, actually finding the house and moving in... It's all been so very good, when I look back.
I'm also a little chagrined to see how much I've gotten out of the habit of blogging, especially since this fall. I think about all these little things that happened which I didn't journal (because really, that's what it is, a journal I'm sharing as I'm writing it) and which I'll probably forget about before this year is over.
I know that part of it has been laziness. Just plain laziness keeps me from picking up the computer and posting something. It's easier to just watch movies with Matt, or lose myself in some mindless online game, than it is to sit and write. And a part of it has been computer issues which then lead (in my mind) to a back up of all these things I would like to write about. The perfect is the enemy of the good in this case, and I give in to that feeling that I will never catch up so why even try. Those two are the biggest issues, sure, but the other problem is that sometimes, the things that are going on in my life and in my mind are pretty personal, and I hesitate to put that stuff out there when I have no way of knowing who's reading it and what they're taking away from it.
Which leads to me not posting.
Which leads to me feeling like I'm building up a backup of things to post.
Which leads to me feeling overwhelmed and not even trying.
Because I'm lazy.
So, New Year's Resolution is this: I will try to post 3 times a week. I will try. I will not try to catch up if I miss that goal and only make it to 2 posts in a week. If I post more than 3, that's okay. Last year I posted 84 posts, which comes out to a little better than 1 1/2 posts a week. So I think this goal is reasonable.
I'll also try to open myself up a little bit more, while still being wise and not oversharing our lives. I have no idea what that will look like yet. I guess we'll find out together.
I came home last night to find Gabe and Isaac building lego houses in my living room. Matt said that they were pretending that they were daddies with imaginary mothers, getting their houses ready for their family and telling each other "Get that out of the house, it's not safe for the baby!" I asked Gabe if they had met Ileana. He grinned and nodded, and Isaac added "She came OUT!" When I asked how big she was, Gabe spread his arms wide, indicating that Ileana was at least 3 feet tall. When I asked how much hair she has, he pinched his fingers together and said that it was no color at all. 
Gabe wasn't as annoyed as this picture indicates... I think he was watching tv.
She is beautiful. She looks like Gabe when at rest, but when she starts squirming and rooting and making faces, she looks like Isaac. She does have very long skinny legs, but they're not quite 2 feet long, and her hair is a dark brown, despite what her brother says.
On Saturday, Matt and I drove down to my older sister's house in Taunton for my goddaughter's birthday party. Emma is Julie's youngest and loves turtles and anything artistic. This year, she insisted that she would decorate the cake herself.
It's a turtle. Obviously it's a Rivet turtle; Look at its huge head! Actually, I'm pretty impressed with it, especially because Julie said Emma decided she needed to use 2 techniques - she piped some frosting and she then used watered down paste colors to "paint" on the water and the lines on the turtle's shell. You can't tell in the picture, but she also "needed" to have 2 different greens for the head and the shell.
Julie and John's house is small. It's a ranch, and I would be surprised if they had 900 square feet. But somehow they make it work when they have parties. The whole place is filled up with people, but it makes it easy to jump in and out of conversations and catch up with everyone. At my folks' house, it's easy for me and my sister's to congregate in Chris' kitchen, and the guys hang out in the living room to watch the game, and mom and the aunts are in mom's kitchen, and the kids are upstairs. But at Julie's, you don't go to a party at their house and find yourself not spending time with everyone there. Julie and John are also very welcoming, and they always allow the birthday child to invite a few friends to the family party, and they usually wind up bringing their siblings... Julie always tells the parents that with all the cousins, there's bound to be a kid the sibling's age, too.
And the birthday girl herself. We bought her a ton of "real" art supplies: pastels, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, drawing pencils of various degrees of hardness, and kneeded erasers and smudgers, along with a few sketchpads and pads of watercolor paper. I always get a little thrill when the kid wants to play with my present before the end of the party. These were out of the package as soon as the wrapping paper was off. Win.
So I'm home from work today with some kind of infection. I went to the doctor at 11:30 and was reminded once again why I need to find a new PCP. He did absolutely no exam, just asked me why I was there and then wrote me a script, even after I said that I would prefer it if we did a culture to rule out anything else. He just kind of brushed me off and said that the antibiotic would probably knock it out anyway. Now, the office has a policy that they will not write any prescription without me coming in. I am cynical about this -- nothing we did in the office couldn't have been done over the phone -- and I'm pretty sure that they only have the policy so they can bill my insurance for the visit. Grumbly grumble.
Gummy Candy Recipe
I came home today to find the Christmas tree on the porch. While I was working, Matt had used the Saturday to take down the tree, vacuum the entire downstairs, and shop for the supplies for tonight's Cana couples and tomorrow's Life Teen. I love Christmas, and I love the Christmas decorations and the way the house has looked when I drove up to it on a cold night, so I am sorry to see it go. 
