Three on Thursday

Hello All,


I trust you all had fabulous holiday celebrations.  We certainly did!!  I was going to post a bit earlier, but ran into major computer problems this morning...my laptop may be on its last legs (hoping not...don't really need yet ANOTHER expense at this point in time...but we will see).


So first the fun things.  Christmas Eve we ended up at Mailing's parent's home for making dumplings and then dining:

It is a lot of fun to make these, though I pretty much suck at it.  Mine are the not-so-pretty ones in the foreground.  Mailing and her sister are really adept at making beautiful crescents.  And their father is the master at rolling out the dough.  The stuffing is ground pork, scallions, ginger and some other spices.  We had these with some beef, a delicious salad of noodles, tofu, red onions and cilantro.


After dinner, Colin & Mailing came over to our house and the four of us opened stocking stuffer gifts.


Christmas Day Fletch and I got over to Colin & Mailing's by 11 a.m. for brunch.  There were home-made popovers and a delicious black tea punch that had (besides a black tea simple syrup) brandy, champagne and some other liquor.  It was perfect! 

That is Colin & Mailing at the head of the table, Fletch and Anna (Mailing's sister) on the left and Mailing's parents on the right.


We opened gifts and later Fletch and Mailing's Dad took a walk.  It was much too cold and windy for the rest of us.  Some napped and others just lazed around.  At one point Fletch and Talbot got very comfortable together (though not too close...).

Dinner was amazing:  a roast that was cooked to perfection, Brussels Sprouts, home-made butternut squash ravioli and also home-made spinach & mushroom ravioli and then home-made chocolate mousse with whipped cream.  Eventually we waddled out and drove home.  I have been pretty much a slug ever since!


No work for me this week which has been a joy.  I haven't done nearly what I thought I would, but that's ok.  I did start fingerless mitts for myself and got as far as the thumb on the first one and had to unravel the entire thing.  It has been started again and I'm working on it slowly.  I did something - not sure what - to my arm/elbow the other week and I've been having a bit of pain with that.  Fletch thinks it's a pinched nerve which it may be.  It might also be my arthritis acting up.  Whatever, I've been downing Advil and avoiding lifting heavy things.


A pot of bean soup with ham is on the stove and I have bread rising.  Colin & Mailing are coming for dinner tonight.  We need to find out what else they would like as we had to return one of our gifts to them...we had gotten them the pasta attachment to their Kitchen Aid mixer, but they got a pasta machine a week before Christmas!  A redundant gift!  Luckily Amazon is so easy to do returns.


I also promised Colin I'd make him another pair of socks (Mailing did get some hand-knitted socks), so maybe he will pick out yarn tonight.


I've started reading "The Other Einstein" and am really enjoying it.  I finished "The Little French Bistro" which was just ok in my book...also finished "The Keeper of Lost Things" which again was ok...it seemed to bog down for me in parts.


Christmas found me with some books as gifts (Yay!!) - one of which is Slow Knitting which I've glanced through.  It's going to be a very enjoyable read.  Hopefully I will learn to slow down a bit and savor things a little more.


Not sure if I will be back before the 2nd or not...kind of depends on this laptop and whether it starts acting up again or not.  Fingers crossed it will behave itself.


Wishing you all a safe and happy new year!  May there be good health, plenty of laughter and much joy in your lives.