Dinner With Old Friends

Its getting cold here. Too cold for this early in the year. Spousal Unit and I got up late this morning and lazed about for awhile before getting cleaned up an then ran a couple of errands.

I made chicken noodle soup yesterday for a girl friend. Her whole household has had the creeping crud that has been going around here. Knock on wood, we haven't been affected in our house yet.

Well I gave most of the soup away and now I have a really big Jones for the soup. So I will probably have to make another batch later this week.

Back on subject. So I wanted to go to the Farmer's market and get some cheese and fresh bread. We ended up having a "brat" for lunch and I found some really good Gouda with caraway and a Swiss fine herb cheese. The gals at the stand wanted to learn the English word for caraway and we told them. Did a good deed for the day.

We delivered the soup, and then picked up a new Tupperware catalog. I'm thinking about having an "old school" Tupperware party in a couple of weeks. Might be fun.

All in all a nice day, and am looking forward to going out to dinner. My ex bosses are in town and they like to keep in touch when here. Should be a good dinner with old friends.

Suzy Moments

My veggies are all now repotted and life is good.  

Spousal Unit just got home so I need to get all Suzy Homemaker on him and go running down the stairs and exclaim, "Oh Sweetness, you got home so late, I was worried.  You obviously had a really hard and long day, let me get you a beer, (which I will pour perfectly to have the correct amount of head/foam) and you can relax and put your feet up.  Just relax dear while I finish dinner."

And True To Form, We Are Missing Socks

One of my Gal Pals emailed me last night and got all, "What's up with all the pictures and no writing"?

Well, taking pictures and just commenting on the photos is a lot quicker to put out a post. I have been really busy, with the boys' visit and have not found a lot of time to just sit down and throw together an actual wordy entry. We have been traveling and getting home late. The boys are also on the 'puter keeping up with their own lives. So lately a lot of pics and not so many words.

To update a little: The visit, thus far, has been very pleasant. I am really enjoying them being here. It is also strange to have the boys about again. Spousal Unit picked the house out for two people to live here. Thus, the house seems to be bulging with people when we are all home.

I am finding that doing laundry for 4 people again is a chore.

The laundry is mountainous. It takes about 3-3 1/2 hours to do a load from start to finish. I love how clean ever thing is, but the time to accomplish the load is so sloooooooooooow.

The machines are both front loaders. The dryer uses extraction for the water rather than a vent for the clothes. There is only one setting that we have found that actually gets the clothes dry. Heavens, some of the controls actually refer to ironing the damp clothes. Iron? What's that???




And, after each load I have to pull out the container and dump the water into the sink. I am still deciphering the controls on the machines.
We also haven't figured out how to do a plain cold water wash. This setting is for 60 degrees Celsius. That's 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Done in an hour and 46 minutes.



And true to form, we are missing socks.

Suzy's Back

Continuing on the Suzy Homemaker mode I made cinnamon ornaments.

I miss my little electric potpourri pot that I used in the States to make the house smell good during the holidays. It is like a mini crock pot that simmers the spices. Looks disgusting, but very yummy smelling. The electricity is different here and using a transformer for appliances is expensive, therefore I left it in storage.

So, instead, I made cinnamon ornaments. The following recipe is approximate amounts.

1/2 cup cinnamon

1/2 cup applesauce

1/4 cup Elmer's glue

Mix until you can form a semi moist ball. Sprinkle cinnamon on the counter. Roll out to about 1/4" and use your favorite cookie cutters to for the ornaments. Carefully place the ornaments on a cookie sheet. Use a straw or toothpick to form a hole for hanging. Bake in oven @ 150 degrees for several hours or until dry. Hang with a red ribbon or you can embellish with craft paints and then hang.

Well, I didn't follow the instruction correctly. First set of ornaments, the "dough" was too stiff so the ornaments cracked. Second set of ornaments the "dough" was rolled too thinly. I didn't realize any of this until I took the ornaments out of the oven.

Well, they all curled up.

The house smells good, but I think I need to make another batch. I am too embarrassed to hang these.