Livin' and Lovin' in the ROC city

“Everything was beautiful at the ballet…” – A Chorus Line

And it was! We had a great evening out at the ballet seeing Cincy Ballet’s Nutcracker and a late dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery right in downtown next to the Aranoff Center and the Fountain Square ice skating rink last night. It was nice to dress up for the first time since our wedding (note to future self – wear pants. No matter how cute a skirt and leggings under a peacoat may look – it’s just not worth it when its 20 degrees out) and go to a neat restaurant and relax with a Christmas classic. The dancing was high quality, they have a really talented adult company, and overall we really enjoyed it. We both noticed that the story of the Nutcracker has been tweaked a little over the years. For example, in ballets and productions in the past there were more fight scenes, and I always thought the little girl’s name was Clara, not Marie. This is the second reference I’ve seen this holiday season to the girl being Marie and not Clara. Weird. Cincy Ballet also features a free Ballet & Beer night for each show – you make reservations to attend a free open dress rehearsal or preview of the ballet show (which would normally cost anywhere between $30-75 per ticket) and you get free refreshments and wine and beer from local Cincy restaurants. That sounds excellent. Rock Bottom Brewery was neat too. Ted had been there a few times before when he attended a USITT technical theatre conference in Cincinnati two year ago with a group of other undergrad and grad students from MSU. He remembered liking it then and since it was right next to the theatre, we decided to give it a try for dinner. Rock Bottom Brewery features a full menu of urban eats and a handful of beers brewed there. Plus the view of Fountain Square all lit up for Christmas and the ice rink was pretty nice.

Tonight we tried out a new church down the road. While we liked the church we’ve been attending for the past six weeks or so, it’s very modern. There are a lot of ministries to get involved in and they do have a young adults group, which is nice. But there are lots of electronic technology, modern architecture and decorations, and the parishioner base in general is very young group. It sounds kind of bad to say this – but a lot of things there seemed so showy. So before we made a decision on which parish to join we decided to check out other churches in the area. We both really liked the one we tried tonight. It is a more traditional church with less showy features, no electronic gadgets, the rituals and hymns are more traditional, and there are a wide variety of ages in the congregation. The priest was really good, is very nice and had a great homily and the church reminds both of us – both in look and feel – of the Catholic churches & schools we attended as kids. The feeling of something familiar when everything is so different right now is a nice feeling. After mass they had an open house of the rectory right next door decorated for Christmas. Holy moly. We were in there for at least 40 minutes wandering from room to room looking at the amazing amount of gorgeous decorations! They had all the original, old-fashioned, antique decorations that really remind you of Christmas – fire engines, trains, dolls, nutcrackers and rocking horses beneath the trees. There were snow globes, realistic looking jolly Santa Clauses, snowmen, and reindeer. There were nativity sets, city scene villages, big colored bulb lights, old-fashioned oil and alcohol bubble lights, candles, old children’s Christmas books and garland and bows wrapped around the winding staircases. Every room had a tree in it, and almost everything was old. I don’t think either of us were really in the Christmas spirit until we toured that rectory tonight. It was stunning. That’s the stuff that reminds me of Christmas the most – the old, traditional, classic stuff – not all these modern decorations and things. So we’ll attend this church for a few weeks and give it time to sink in, but we really liked how familiar it was to us, so it might be the one we stick with.

Two days ago I wrote about feeling homesick – missing my family, friends and Texas at this time of year as I struggle to adjust to the cold, the snow, no job, a new state where we don’t really know anyone, and a Christmas season that wasn’t feeling too Christmasy yet (until Nutcracker and tonight that is!). Well, yesterday Ted & I received three care packages in the mail. What a blessing- and just when I needed some encouragement and a little taste of home the most, all three arrived. Talk about awesome timing. My sister and her husband sent us a really nice package of great quality loose tea – Stash Christmas Eve. I mentioned on this blog a while ago that I’ve been craving a hot cup of Christmas tea all season and I just couldn’t find it at any of the grocery stores in the area. So Kim & Tom sent us some really nice Christmas tea from Stash. I’m so looking forward to a hot cup of it tonight! The second package was from our family friend Marcia. She sent me a little figurine of an orange tabby cat that she bought in Scotland many years ago. She thought I might miss my Sancho (how did she know!?) and since she’s met Sancho before (Marcia is a cat lover too), she knew the little tabby in the figurine looks like him (and my old cat Rufus!) so she wanted me to have him so I could still have Sancho with me in a way. I was so surprised by how unexpected, sweet and thoughtful that was. I don’t know how she knew that I was missing him so much, but I’m so grateful to have the little tabby as a reminder of Marcia and Sancho. The third package was a care package from my mom and dad, full of goodies like homemade chex mix, rice krispie treats, holiday breads and a Christmas movie Ted and I are hoping to watch tonight. If I can’t have my parents with me, this is the next best thing. I love my mom’s holiday cooking and Ted and I both like Christmas movies. All three packages really brightened my day! We sure do have a lot to be thankful for!

When we were here looking for a place to live back in October before our wedding, everyone we talked to said that it doesn’t snow much in Cincy. The biggest concern and the thing they seem to get a lot of is black ice. After we moved in everyone we met assured us that it would be a mild winter this year and that they only get the occasional snowfall – usually in January or February. I have arrived at the only plausible conclusion that I can…

Everyone is a big fat liar.

It’s snowing – again. And there are enormous icicles hanging from all sides of our house, down the shutters, and against the walls. This morning I had planned to pick up one last gift in town, get a few specific food items for the weekend at Kroger, and head to Borders. For my last birthday my sweet friend Emily (Thank you Emily!) gave me a Borders gift card and since I have three coupons today – a 33% off one item, a 20% off every item in your purchase, and a free latte at the café coupon – I figured now would be a perfect time to stock up on nice hardcover copies of Polar Express, The Nutcracker, Twas the Night Before Christmas, and Santa’s Reindeer – the holiday classics I love to read every year. It would be awesome to have a set of our own since we both like those stories.  Well, that was my plan for this morning. Now I will be doing laundry, tidying up the house, unloading more boxes, and working on the job hunt. I never thought I could stay busy without a job, but I am so busy around here that I seriously just cannot get everything done that I need to in one day. I just finished shoveling like 5” off the front porch and the little parking area in front of our house and already you can’t even tell that I did anything. The driveway needs to be re-shoveled (not it!) and I’m not ready to tempt fate and try driving in this crap. Not with all the accidents I keep hearing about on the radio. So much for the mild winter with the occasional snow shower everyone kept boasting about. Liars.

Ted should be getting out early today. CCM is doing a holiday luncheon for faculty and staff and then a Christmas party. He’s hoping to be home around two and we planned to run some errands then before Nutcracker tonight so we may just have to add a few more stops to our list. Thanks snow for thwarting my plans yet again.

But for now I’m off to try to scratch some things off the to-do list. Tonight we’re going to ballet! (That sounds so fancy – “my husband is taking me to the ballet” – that kind of has a nice ring to it. I could get used to that.) We’re both really excited! Hope everyone has a good Friday!

P.S. Please send sunlight and rhubarb – I still cannot find it anywhere, fresh or frozen.

It’s kind of hard to believe that at this time last year I was knee-deep in hunting for the perfect wedding dress. I remember being really disappointed by the selection in San Antonio (they were almost all strapless princess ball gowns with an obscene amount of sequins, beads and details) and I didn’t like any of the dresses others liked on me  – they were nothing like the sleeveless, simple gown with unique detailing on the back I had in mind. I finally found the perfect one in February and took it home that day, but it’s strange to think how different life is this Christmas. It’s good and it’s so nice to be married to someone so wonderful, but we’re in a totally different place (literally and figuratively) than last year. I know the change happened over a year, but it seems so fast.

In not so new news, it’s snowing. Again. It was pouring snow when we woke up this morning and overnight there was about a 3-5″ accumulation. The list of school closures in the area on the radio this morning took nearly five minutes to read. It was ridiculous. They finished it off by saying “If you know of a school that isn’t closed, we’d love to know about it!” Ted shoveled a little bit of the driveway before he left for work this morning and then it took me two hours to shovel about 60% more of it. I still have a little more to go, but it started snowing (again) and I just can’t bring myself to finish shoveling while its still snowing out. What’s the point? Maybe I’ll muster up the energy when it stops again.

I still have boxes to unpack from Texas that mom and dad brought up over Thanksgiving (not that our kitchen furniture is here yet so I can’t even unpack that stuff), the Thank You cards are waiting to be stuffed and have the picture printed on them (when we can determine the right printer settings. Who knew printers were so finicky?), I have job research to do (why can’t I just do my old job long-distance?), and if our wedding pictures ever arrive (I’m losing hope) we have those to sort through. I have gifts to finish compiling and wrapping, and dinner and peppermint bark to make….but I don’t want to do any of this. I want to fly home to Texas where there isn’t snow and it’s in the 70s, where there’s a Riverwalk, my friends, my parents, and a Sancho that I haven’t seen in over two months. Because that’s Christmas to me. This is one of those downer blog days, but I’m just keeping it real here. I’m sick of being homesick. I didn’t think I would be, especially since I wasn’t during my year in Michigan, but I guess I am. I guess I just want a holiday at my old home.

Last night I laid out on the counter all the ingredients I was planning to use to make fancy grilled pizzas and salad for dinner – crust, pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil leaves, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, red peppers, asparagus, shrimp, green onion, and cilantro. As I surveyed the ingredients, a thought came into my mind….”Mmmmm!!” followed by “Uhh, what is my husband going to eat for dinner?” In an apparent lapse of brain power as I was planning the week’s meals*, I somehow arrived at the conclusion that this would be a great meal for us – never mind that my husband doesn’t like artichokes, kalamata olives, red pepper, shrimp, or a bunch of green, healthy-looking things. How this happened, I’m not quite sure, but somewhere in my head the meal must have sounded like a delicious culinary adventure and I must have stupidly forgotten that I have a husband now, and that this meat-cheese-and-potatoes Wisconsin man definitely doesn’t eat asparagus, shrimp and herb salads. He’ll try almost anything I make at least once, and even if he doesn’t love it, he’ll eat it. But I think this was pushing it.

Usually, I’m pretty good at cooking meals that use lots of veggies and “weird foods” that I love but that still looks and tastes delicious and normal enough that he likes them too. As I studied our pizza – my half smothered in goodies and his half plain as can be, I realized that the man was going to starve. Our cabinets were bare, devoid of milk, beer, or even the classic standby of macaroni and cheese (the horror!) because I was too pansy to make my weekly run to the store in the snow and -85 degree temperatures yesterday. I still stand by this decision. When Ted came home and asked what was for dinner, I confessed that I knew what I was eating but I wasn’t so sure what he was going to eat. He glanced at the ingredients, burst out laughing, and gave me a huge hug – probably relived that I wasn’t going to make him try the salad. Good thing he has a sense of humor. So while I dined on an appetizing fancy-pants pizza and asparagus and shrimp side salad, Ted chowed on a good old basic pizza (which he said was really good – take that Papa John’s!) and a loaf of garlic bread. If this is the only meal failure I’ve had since we got married, I’ll take it!

*On a side note, I distinctly remember turning to my friends Katie and Katy, snickering, and making some snide, smart-ass remark about how I would never be lame enough to sit down and plan out a weekly dinner menu when our Martha Stewart-esque home economics teacher suggested we plan out meals for our future-families during senior year of high school. HA. How the tables have turned! I honestly don’t think I could navigate Kroger without my pre-planned shopping list of ingredients of what I need for each meal. I have to do it, that way I don’t spend $8 trillion and come out with random crap like glazed doughnuts, almond paste and tarter sauce. That home economics class deserves a post all of its own. I’m still convinced that lady was a little nuts. It was a complete fluke that my best friends and I ended up in her class at all – I certainly didn’t sign up for it willingly. You see, one of the Katie(y)’s – I don’t even remember which one anymore…was senior year really seven years ago!? – somehow got put into Home Economics (or “Kindergarten” as well affectionately called it) because the elective she’d signed up for was full. She couldn’t transfer out because all the other classes were full at that point and it was too late. In a fit of misery, she convinced me to sign up for the class with her so that at least she wouldn’t have to suffer alone. I dragged the other Katie(y) along so we could all be miserable together. We were that poor teacher’s worst nightmare. We were the most exhausting, exasperating girls she’d ever had in that class.

In the “nutritious breakfast” unit we all three claimed an egg allergy and instead played egg toss across the room – until the eggs broke all over the floor. In the “how to find your future mate” unit we laughed relentlessly about the ridiculous title of the term “mate” and doodled hearts and cupids on all the personality-match worksheets. In the “life lessons” unit we squeezed so hard that we burst open a tube of toothpaste and then spooned it back into the back end of the bottle, thus ruining our teacher’s entire lesson plan and moral of the story. And in the “children’s birthday party” unit while everyone else put together pretty-pretty-princess parties, we designed a pirate party complete with ridiculous pirate names, a cake of someone tied to the mast of a ship, and a sharks & blood ocean beverage (blue koolaide with Swedish fish ice cubes). She was a little horrified and definitely less than amused. I know there exist pictures of the three of us in this class – applying false eyelashes, accidentally showing up wearing the same shirts, and with our pirate party – but I just can’t seem to find them on my computer. Maybe Katie still has them (do you? If so, please email them to me. You know, in all your free time between feeding your baby and studying for grad school exams).

I probably should have spent less time blowing off the housewife class and more time at least pretending to listen so our teacher didn’t have to dread every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 a.m., but really, she lost me when she wanted us to learn how to iron so we’d be prepared to iron our husband’s shirts. Get real – it’s 2004, we thought. And I still kind of think that. I love him dearly, but Ted can iron his own shirts.

Anyway, to make up for last night’s debacle, I have decided to make steak tacos and mint chocolate chip cookies tonight. See, who says I wasn’t listening to our home ec. teacher? I’ve successfully designed and planned far better things than awesome kids parties (try full-length kids musical theatre productions with 38 children and 5 staff!), I found my perfect mate, I can make a mean and nutritious breakfast including eggs, I know how to iron without setting anything on fire, I’ve learned some life lessons (though the tooth paste one will always stick with me because it was hilarious), and I can even make decent meals. There. She would be so proud. So, Mrs. Merrill, wherever you are, thank you for your endless patience and kindness (even if it was fake and all along you were wishing you could smack us). You’ll be glad to know that I didn’t turn out to be a complete failure at all things domestic. And sorry for ruining the toothpaste lesson.

To make up for the home economics pictures I can’t find, here are a few of my favorites from our rehearsal & rehearsal dinner:

Life’s little surprises of unexpected work seem to show up at the oddest times, don’t they? Yesterday after the pitiful Packers game in which they lost to one of the worst teams in the NFL (who loses to the Lions?) we headed back home. Knowing that it would reach obnoxiously cold temperatures overnight with abundant snowfall, we knew Ted’s truck needed to be plugged in and have a timer set on it for the engine’s heater to turn on for at least three hours in the early morning so the engine block wouldn’t freeze. Add that to the list of things I never had to do in Texas. So there’s Ted and his beloved torpedo heater outside in the swirling snowflakes, laying on towels beneath the front of his truck searching for the plug. Fifteen minutes later he found it, we set up the timer and ran an extension cord (apparently the blue ones are for below zero temperatures) from the garage to the truck. Work done! Time to make some dinner and relax, right? Except, wait…is that water on the garage floor? Water soaking the bottom of the cardboard boxes and plywood on that side of the garage? Is the floor leaking? Why, yes. Yes it is. Excellent. So we spent another hour unpacking the contents of the cardboard boxes, drying them off and vacuuming up styrofoam, rearranging the garage, shoveling the snow off the porch, and salting it – and I thought we were going to go home to make peppermint bark. Ha! But it did feel nice to get something productive accomplished and to spend time together. And then we went inside and relaxed – Ted finished covering our windows with the insulation film (I am so relieved that it is clear, I can see through it, and you can’t even tell it’s there!) while I made Asian meatballs, jasmine rice, and carrots and snowpeas for dinner, and we cuddled up on the couch with the glow of the Christmas tree lights to watch the Sunday night football game.

I do have to admit that for as much as I whine (and I do) about all the work that comes from shoveling, salting, and digging a vehicle out of the snow while it is still snowing and the wind is blowing said snow down the front of your jacket and into your snow boots – it is some gorgeous stuff. Last night when we were salting the porch I looked up and it felt like we were in a snow globe. The snowflakes glistening in the porch light sparkled just like flecks of glitter showering down in a winter wonderland snow globe. It was truly beautiful. And the moon reflecting off all that snow made it so bright outside that it looked like dusk, not midnight. You could see everything all around you in a pretty purple-ish haze, even at 11 pm. Even this morning it was pretty – all white and totally peaceful. It was pretty up until 8 am when Ted went to spend an hour shoveling and sprinkling salt on our endlessly-long, snow-covered, sheet-of-ice driveway while I battled with a dinky snow brush to dig his much-taller-than-me truck out from under 5″ of snow while snow continued to fall and counteract all that work and the wind blew snow in my face. Then the snow wasn’t so pretty anymore, I decided.

Given the nature of this post I thought I’d take the time to enlighten you with my list of the Top 5 Best Winter Purchases:

1) Sorel Snow Boots – Best use of $100 ever – at the time I thought that was really expensive but they are worth every penny. They’re really cute for snow boots, have excellent traction in the ice and snow, are waterproof, rated for up to – 25 degrees, are cozy soft, have good arch support and keep my feet warm and dry even after hours outside in the snow and ice. I got these my first winter when I was in Michigan – Ted helped me find them – and I love them. If it’s snowing, you can bet I have them on. It’s amazing how these boots can keep the heat in and keep your whole body warm.

2) Torpedo heater – This thing is brilliant. Seriously, brilliant. And I am so thankful for its existence and that Ted actually owns something like this. This guy is not something you use indoors – you’d have to have windows and doors open. It takes kerosene and can heat up our garage and even our driveway outside in the snow to the point where you can comfortably work outside in 60 degree weather even though it is snowing. It can thaw frozen washer fluid in a vehicle and heat up a large space in no time at all. I can’t imagine working outside in the winter without it.

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3) Hand Warmers – These are little pouches that you shake to activate. They heat up and you can put them in your gloves, shoes, pockets, etc. to keep you warm. Since hands, even with gloves on, tend to get cold fast, these are perfect. Sometimes they get so hot that I even have to take them out. They’re small, cheap, travel easy and great to keep in your purse or car in case you get stuck somewhere during the winter. Also excellent for outdoor activities and freezing Packer games in January.

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4) Cuddle Duds – At least that’s what I call them. Another thing I live in during the winter. They’re skinny and form fitting, but soft and warm. They’re almost like leggings and a thermal top or long underwear that you wear under your normal clothing for another layer of warmth but without the extra thick layering. It really helps keep you warm without bulking you up.

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5) Golf Cart snow plow – So, we don’t actually own one of these, but given the length of our driveway, we definitely want one.

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P.S. – The roof on the Vikings dome stadium collapsed due to excessive snowfall in Minnesota. That sucks for them (well, at least normal people think that sucks – Ted is overjoyed for their loss) and their home game last night had to be rescheduled for tonight to the closest dome stadium – the Lions stadium in Detroit. However, the cool thing is that since the home game is now an away game and they have to figure out a way to fill the stands last minute, the game is free to attend on a first come first serve basis. How awesome is that!? If we still lived in Lansing we’d be there! Think about all the people who have the chance to attend a free NFL game (and possibly see football legend Brett Favre play) who otherwise never could have afforded the $80 ticket price. Single moms with a kid who loves football and wants to play professionally one day, disadvantaged families, senior centers, the homeless, orphanages…there’s so many people who could get a little dose of holiday cheer from this. I just think that’s really neat.

Winter weather – it’s Christmas time in the city! Today we woke up to a 1-2″ dusting of snow. We’re expecting more this afternoon and evening and overnight we are supposed to have wind chills of zero degrees and 30-40 mph winds. I guess this makes up for all the white Christmases I missed in Texas. But after all these years, to me Christmas is 50-70 degree weather and delicious Mexican food beneath the endless Christmas lights on the Riverwalk of San Antonio. So, for all of my friends desperate for a holiday miracle of snow in the Lone Star state, allow me to share with you the ups and downs of a white winter.

The Good

The blanket of pure white undisturbed snow in our backyard and on the bare tree branches is so peaceful and beautiful. It’s a perfect view from the six windows in our bedroom! I am also really looking forward to sledding this year!

The Bad

Our porch is a sheet. of. ice. We’ll need to salt it as soon as we get home from Buffalo Wild Wings. We’ve been lucky that the snow hasn’t stuck to our driveway so far. And couple the cold, snowy weather with high winds and it’s just plain bitter and uncomfortable. Also, you’ll hate the mornings when it takes 20 minutes to scrape the ice off your windshield.

The Ugly

Toilet seats in the winter are so cold. It makes you question just how badly you thought you had to go to the bathroom and if it’s truly worth putting yourself through that. I know I cringe just thinking about it.

So today we finish watching the Packer game at Buffalo Wild Wings, we cover our windows in the kitchen with insulation film to try to keep the temperature up, and I’ll make some peppermint bark and work on stuffing and addressing our Christmas cards while Ted gets ready and organized for work tomorrow. Just another Sunday for us!

P.S. Yesterday was a very sad day in our household. Our “ring bearer” pumpkin and two other church pumpkins from our wedding died. They’ve been out on our front porch since we moved to Cincinnati – covered in leaves, snow and ice. Yesterday we decided to move them into the garage for the winter – after all, they looked healthy and strong still. Well, they were so soft all over that they almost couldn’t be lifted into the trash. RIP wedding pumpkins! Thank you for playing such a special part in our engagement and wedding!

The Cincinnati Museum Center in Cincy’s old train station, Union Terminal, houses the History Museum, Natural History & Sciences Museum, the Duke Energy Children’s Museum, and the OmniMax movie theatre. Dreary, chilly winter days are perfect for such adventures. A while back our Wii’s area attractions application told Ted that one of the world’s largest dinosaur bones had been discovered in China and would be touring to Cincinnati. Armed with that information and the knowledge that the OmniMax was playing a feature on the Hubble Telescope, away we went!

The museums are an all-day thing – lesson learned – unless you purchase a ticket to only one of the three museums, but if you want to do more than one, be sure to set aside the full day for it. We made it through the OmniMax Hubble film, the Natural History & Sciences museum (because that’s where the dinosaur bones exhibit was) and we made through a very small section of the History museum where the holiday model trains exhibit that was (another touring exhibit). We were both pretty impressed with the Union Terminal building, the museum’s use of the space, and their exhibits in general. We would love to come back another day and tour the entire History museum and Children’s museum.

We saw the dinosaur bones, a great exhibit about the mummification process and a mummy named Umi, a large, dark and damp maze-like bat cave, fossils, an exhibit about the glaciers and how they formed Cincinnati during the ice age, an enormous room-sized model of downtown Cincinnati and surrounding areas from the 1940s (very cool!), and the model trains exhibit (which was also really fun). We got to pet a live snake and the OmniMax Hubble film was incredible! If you’ve never seen a film in an OmiMax theater – it’s definitely worth it! It’s like a planetarium where the ceiling is dome shaped and the screen covers a huge semi-circle portion of the ceiling and 3 walls. It looks like you are flying into the movie – it’s nuts! The actual movie was awesome – lots of footage from the astronauts in space as they took missions to fix the telescope – amazing stuff.

We had a great time and it’s definitely somewhere we’d like to come back to and bring visitors in the future!

This year we’ve been really struggling to get into the Christmas spirit. Our home smells of fresh pine, it’s crisp and cold outside, we’ve been to the tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree in the snow, the lights and ornaments are up, our stocking are hung, we’ve made Christmas cards, done our Christmas shopping and wrapped our presents. We’ve eaten fresh gingersnaps, baked and decorated Christmas cookies, and watched the snow fall. We’ve munched on candy canes, listened to lots of Christmas music and watched Polar Express and A Charlie Brown Christmas. We’re going to Cincy Ballet’s The Nutcracker next week and we’ve talked about going ice skating, sledding and through the trail of lights. Our little nativity set in the dining room reminds us about the true meaning of Christmas. All this fun Christmas stuff and we’re still not there yet.

It’s our first Christmas as Newlyweds and I think we both had high hopes that it would be the best Christmas yet! It’s not that we’re not happy – not at all. We’re very happy and being married to each other gives us something to be joyful about every day. We’ve enjoyed doing all those Christmas activities together, but it doesn’t seem like enough to make it feel like Christmas. We’ve had so much going on lately that we can’t seem to put everything aside and just relax. The wedding, the move, a lot of expenses associated with having a house, leaving my job, Ted adjusting to his new job and working lots of long hours, the big stresses that come from living on one income right now, and for me, not being around my friends and family. It’s tough and we’re tired. It could just be that there’s a lot of adjustment going on right now, it could be that Cincinnati doesn’t feel quite like “home for the holidays” yet, it could be that we’re not surrounded by family and friends, there are no Christmas parties for us this year, and I know that I won’t get to see my family or friends at all this Christmas and that’s difficult to swallow, or it could just be that we need to keep plugging away at it and that we need to go for more long walks in the evenings – just the two of us and look at all the lights – something as simple as that. I don’t know. But we’re trying and for now we’re just waiting for it to kick in. So, that’s that.

But you didn’t drop by today to hear about all that blah stuff. So instead, I’ll share with you some of my favorite things right now:

1) My little desk nook upstairs in our office loft. My desk fits perfectly into the carved out window nook so I can look up from my computer and see trees with pine cones on them, our long driveway, and whatever the weather happens to be that day. We also have the lobby pictures from Hymn & Carol (my first professional production) hanging in that nook. It was a fantastic Christmas show and there was so much joy in that production – it’s nice to have the pictures to remind me of that happiness. I can’t believe it’s been two years since then.

2) Our stockings. They’re really nice!

3) Christmas tea. Warm, holiday goodness.

4) Slightly less popular Christmas tunes – River, In the Bleak Midwinter, Home By Another Way, Christmas in Kilarney, Winter Weather, Christmas Waltz, Merry Christmas Polka, Mary Did You Know?, Star of Wonder, and of course the classics – The Nutcracker and I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas. I also love Christmas hymns – those that speak to the true meaning of Christmas and not just cold weather, presents and Santa. If you haven’t heard some of these songs I’d encourage you to look them up on iTunes or something. Several were used in Hymn & Carol and I never would have heard of them otherwise.

5) Classic Christmas books – The Nutcracker, Twas The Night Before Christmas, The Grinch, Polar Express, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, A Christmas Carol – all stories from my childhood. I really miss having those hardcover books sitting on the coffee table during December. I loved the stories and I loved the pictures. I guess we’ll have to scrounge up the money one of these years to buy them for ourselves.

6) My mom’s Christmas movie collection. It’s quite the collection. I don’t even know how many she has. But between the classics, the popular favorites, the Hallmark channel ones, and the obscure ones – she’s got them all. My favorites were always Miracle on 34th Street, Holiday Inn, and White Christmas. We’d always watch a couple together every season. I miss having those movies and I miss being able to watch them with her.

P.S. If anyone wants to send me two packages of fresh or frozen rhubarb I’d be thrilled. I planned to make an apple rhubarb crumble tonight…that is until I couldn’t find frozen rhubarb in the freezer section. Blah. Also on the hunt for Christmas Tea. Apparently Kroger doesn’t carry that either. So, if you happen to see rhubarb or a box of Christmas Tea in your grocery store – please send it my way!

Ahhh yes, you win some you lose some. Remember that old saying? I do. Here’s why: I spent the morning Christmas shopping and it was a great success! Found everything on our list, it’s all pretty stinkin’ cute, there were some sales, and I was done in a matter of hours. Cheerful and efficient. Perfect!

The decorating of Christmas cookies, on the other hand, was not quite as successful. You see, the baking part went just as planned, but I imagined my Christmas cookies would look something like this when finished:

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Well, they didn’t look quite like that. I guess I’m better at shopping than artistically and skillfully decorating cookies because they kind of look like Kinder Care Pre-School’s Tasty Thursday class project. I won’t embarrass myself or my husband by posting a picture of them. Lets just say they’re colorful, have lots of pretty pictures on them, and will probably taste absolutely, phenomenally delicious with a tall cold glass of milk while we finish decorating our tree tonight. And that’s all that matters.

Speaking of cookies, apparently my husband does read my blog on occasion. Yesterday I posted that I would be baking cookies. Well, I ran out of time and something had to go. Ted came bounding in the front door after work last night, tummy growling, licking his lips, and sniffing around for the scent of freshly baked cookies (okay, not really, but close). Uh, Oops? Poor guy. So he’ll get them today. Unfortunately, I haven’t started dinner yet, so tonight he’ll have cookies but not dinner. Ah, well. You win some you lose some, right?