Happy New Year + Random Photos

Happy New Year!

In case you were wondering, I found the black-eyed peas, and fresh ones no less, for our NYD dinner. They were awesome. Well worth going to three different grocery stores? Well, that's debatable. And had you asked me that a couple of nights later when I was in a grocery store almost in tears because I couldn't find wonton wrappers, well, I probably would have said something really nasty about this Great Hoosier State we're living in. Actually, my feelings at that moment can best be expressed by this photo of Payton Manning after his Big Playoff Loss last Saturday night to the San Diego Chargers.


Anyway.

Random photos of La Familia!

Sammy in a new sweater that she *loves*. Isn't she pretty? I swear, every day she looks more and more like Jamie. She's just the spitting image (or spit and image, if you prefer) of him in this photo.


Jordan and Claudia at our Thanksgiving celebration. In the background are gorgeous flowers that the lovely Jason and Leah brought, one of Jamie's paintings and my Grandfather Hinson's straw Stetson.


Trying to get the dog to cooperate and take a nice kid/dog photo. Mission accomplished!






Jordan and Tico curled up with a book.


Claudia's Birthday Party Cake.

Claudia singing "Happy Birthday to Claudia" along with everyone at her party.

Opening gifts.

Peas!

I forgot to find fresh black-eyed peas for our New Year's dinner tomorrow!! Dammit! I just now remembered!

Blurg. I swear to God, if they find out I can't make good biscuits and forgot to get the peas, they're going to take my Southern Woman status away!

Ok, whatever. I am soooo excited about 2009. It promises to be if not great, then super good. Good!

A couple we really like invited us to a NYE party tonight. Should be super fun!

Isn't this an adorable photo of Jamie, Sammy and Baby C?



Safe and Happy NYE, everyone!

Love you all--

Susanne

It's December 26th and All's Well!

Christmas was a good one this year, even though, due to work craziness, weather and car problems it didn't go as planned.

Christmas Eve the kids decorated the tree and wrapped their Secret Rodney presents while Jamie and I frantically wrapped presents. We had a big crazy mishmash of snacks--pizza rolls, mozzarella sticks, cheese dip and chips, olives, etc. for dinner and then we opened presents. The kids were sent off to bed around ten and we were up until around 2am getting the Santa stuff ready.

This year we made sure to tell the kids they weren't allowed out of their rooms until 6am at least on Christmas morning. I think they actually made it to 7am! Then after Christmas dinner Jamie took Sammy to her mom's and that evening I took Jordan to see Marley & Me (which was good but oh! not a kids' movie!) and Jamie took Claudia to see Valkyrie.

The Secret Rodney Tree.


Tree the kids decorated.


Sam opening presents on Christmas Eve.

Jordan in her new "Grace Kelly" scarf.

More Christmas Eve photos.



Christmas morning Santa presents.

Santa brought Claudia a gas mask.

Checking out stockings.

The official 2008 Christmas Photo of the Children.

Jordan writing a novel on the typewriter Santa brought her.

Monday

Happy Almost Christmas! The children are off school and thrilled about it, Jamie and I are in hot pursuit of all the latest toys of the season. We wish--we're actually trying to find perfume atomizers, typewriters, record players, gas masks, combat boots, aviator hats with goggles and that's just for the two children who would tell us what they want! The third child has been pretty much a complete guessing game.

And work is a madhouse (moving to a new location, year end and Christmas!) and so is church. Yesterday at church my committee had four things going--we had the 5th and 6th graders selling fair trade chocolate to make money for the Guest at your Table program through the UUA, we were selling merchandise from a local non-profit fair trade store, one of the youth asked if they could participate and sell some things she made at another table to raise money for a trip she's taking to South America to help children there and our committee was also, with the help of the junior high kids, taking all the donations we asked for the previous week of Christmas gifts for 9 families in need that our committee sponsored. And tonight, Claudia, Jordan and I (Sam's at her mom's and Jamie's going to be out shopping for gifts for our kids) are going to go shopping with some other committee members to pick up the items that weren't donated, wrap them and deliver them to the agency we're going through.

But that's ok! It's all coming together and it will be fabulous. Wednesday night we're going to throw up the tree, decorate it, make cookies, watch Christmas specials, go to church then open presents. After that, Jamie and I are going to an 11:00 service at a Methodist Church downtown. I'm so excited!!! Lessons and Carols, baby!

I'll take anal bum cover for $300, Alex!

Snow Flakes!

It snowed today! So beautiful. I have a hard time carrying on with my day instead of staring at the snow falling. I had to go in to work this morning for a few hours where I saw a squirrel outside repeatedly sticking his entire head into the snow to find food. Then Jordan had play practice about 30 minutes from where we live this afternoon, so I got even more practice driving in the snow. And you know, it's fine. The only annoying thing is having to brush it off when I've been parked for a while.

Last night Jamie and I hired Claudia to babysit the littles and we went out. We had such a great time! Our friend, S., who is a textile artist invited us to an art show/sale so we made an appearance there and it was very cool. Then we ran in to Yats for some "Cajun" food which was pretty ok, because I was *starving* (long-hard-lunchless day at work) and then got completely lost. Indianapolis has roads that make you go "Blurg!" downtown. They have these three-way intersections and you canNOT tell which road is which by the STREET SIGNS! I mean, you're sitting there, you're looking at the street signs and they're completely incomprehensible. They might as well be in Greek or something, because they're not informing me of anything. We even had a map and we were still very late to our next destination--Jamie's Aunt Marie's 60th Birthday Party and her daughter, Jessie's photography studio opening. So we felt very bad about that, but the party was great, interesting photography, it was good to see Marie and Jessie and Marie has really interesting friends so it was super fun.

Miscellaneous:

1. If you're still not watching 30 Rock, you must. I insist. It's a modern Mary Tyler Moore show. That Liz Lemon has spunk!
2. We're currently in love with Lollipop Pottery.





3. Also in love with American Science and Surplus. I went there for their 3-D drawing paper and found such a quirky online shop with a million cool stocking stuffers.

If you're close enough to read this....I probably miss you!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday yesterday! We really did (with the exception of the absence of Sammy). We slept late, Jamie made us his amazing belgian waffles and we had that with a spiral ham for breakfast.

Then Jamie took Jordan to see Bolt in digital 3-D and Claudia and I stayed home and watched The Life Aquatic (Claudia likes Wes Anderson movies). For dinner we went out in search of an open Chinese restaurant and ended up at a buffet restaurant instead.

Jordan and I made divinity last night while we watched UT slaughter A&M! Even though we were using a candy thermometer, I overcooked the syrup and then I burned up the motor of our new hand mixer in the process of incorporating the syrup into the egg whites and then when we transferred our beaters to our old hand mixer, we didn't attach one properly and strings of divinity went all over the kitchen! Anyway, it was all really fun even though the divinity turned out more like taffy than anything. Taffy's good, right?

The only thing I would change about our actual Thanksgiving day this year would be to have friends and family with us. Two things happened in the past two weeks that were very much food for thought for me about expressing gratitude and taking people for granted. I'll share them with you so you won't think I've lost my mind if you're one of the people I tell, out of the blue, "I love you!" or actually start staying in touch for once.

1. This morning when I woke up I had a request on Facebook from my cousin, Connie, to mark all my friends who are also family. It was a weird exercise because it made me realize that so many of my friends seem like they should be on that list! On facebook and not, I have friends who I have known since we were 7 years old. And then there are my dear friends Jana and Jennifer and Ginny and Melissa who have seen me through the most horrid time in my life, who have seen me at my very worst and are still my friends. New friends to me, Adam and Melissa, who have been such good friends to Jamie for years, were and are such brights spots to me in the very difficult task of leaving our home in Texas. And there's Jill, who I'm only recently just getting to know well, whom I already adore and I can tell will be a life-long friend.

2. My coworker (and also, friend) lost her mother suddenly last week. Her children called her home from work one afternoon because her mother, who lived with them for the past 17 years, had been found dead in her bedroom by the children when they got off the school bus. My coworker and I talk all day long, 8 hours a day!, and we talk about her mom a lot. So I spent a good deal of time in the days that followed her death thinking about how their morning went that day, the last conversation she had with her mother and things that I know went left unsaid between all of them because it was completely unexpected.

More Thanksgiving Photos

Leah took these photos and I love them so I thought I would share.

Claudia.

Sammy, Jason and Jordan.


Sammy.

Sammy, Jordan and Leah.

Sammy, Beverly and Jordan.

Sammy and Beverly


Girlies snapping beans.

Jordan snapping beans.

Happy Anniversary and Happy Thanksgiving!

No, it's not Thanksgiving today and neither is it my parents' 45th wedding anniversary. So why the greetings?

1. It was my parents' 45th wedding anniversary YESTERDAY, which my mom informed me of when I called this evening to wish them a happy anniversary. Oops. Well. 45 years to be married is an awesome accomplishment and priviledged are we to have been a witness to even a small portion of such a great marriage. So Happy Anniversary, my mom and dad and thank you. Big party in five years in Austin. Wooo!!!

2. We had our First Annual Weekend-Before-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving celebration today since Sammy always spends the actual holiday at her mom's. We had a great time, our guests were fabulous company and the food over all was pretty good. The turkey was really good! We used a cross between Mothra Stewart's butter and herb recipe and the high heat cooking method and actually bought a meat thermometer this year and YUM! The girls (and Jason and Leah!) all helped me and Jamie cook and that was pretty fun. I taught Sammy how to mix up, knead, roll and cut biscuts and they turned out so well! Jordan made my grandmother's cornbread recipe and it made me a little teary.

Jamie peeling potatoes and Claudia snaping beans and watching football.


Leah and Jason.


Sammy and Jordan. We used my Grandmother's china today, which isn't very fall-like, but it meant a lot to me.


The little girls made themselves comfortable to watch tv.


Candles on top of a shelf.


Most of the food.


Claudia doing math and watching tv.

Thursday

Hello, Internets! (I stole that from Jana's blog because I thought it was funny.)

Only 2 seconds to post so it's list time!

1. Getting back in touch with old friends on Facebook is super fun and also kind of emotional (in a good way!). I did not expect that!

2. We're having our Thanksgiving dinner this Sunday, and we're having Jamie's parents and Jason and Leah over. I'm very pleased with our menu which I'll post later. The girlies and I are going to decorate with Mexican fiesta colors and it will be Fun (do you hear that, Claudia?!?) instead of traditional autumn colors because that's what I'm in the mood for at the moment. I will, as usual, try to get the girls to dress as pilgrims or turkeys and they will probably shoot me down as usual. So rude!

3. Claudia retained her first chair position in band.

4. Sammy's having fun writing her nanowrimo novel again this month.

5. Jordan's trying out for The Sound of Music soon.

6. Jamie and I are going crazy with church committee stuff but in a good way.

7. Amy and Marinda are safe from the fires this time.

8. I'm afraid that chocolate AND cinnamon are migraine triggers so my life is over AND I HOPE YOU'RE ALL HAPPY! (sorry, I have to blame someone and it looks like it's going to be you. Yes, you.)

9. This morning as I was chatting with one of my suburban acquaintenances, one of Sammy's friends' mom, I found out she and her husband are liberals. And seriously, I have tons of friends of every opinion, religion, orientation, etc. and etc., but it's nice to find like-mindedness in the Indianapolis burbs, if only so we can whine about the abstinence-only sex ed in our district.

Check your local listings!

Televised awesomeness tonight! Friend of the blog (FOTB) Adam made an official appearance as Professor Rengstorf on the History Channel show UFO Hunters.

http://www.history.com/minisites/ufohunters

The UFO Hunters crew were in town to investigate a loud boom heard over Kokomo Indiana this spring, with accompanying mysterious lights. The Man would like you to believe that this was a sonic boom caused by an F-16 from nearby Grissom airbase, and that the lights were dropped flares. Yeah, right, The Man. Sure it was.

During the investigation, the team uncovered a potential smoking gun: a possible impact crater from a UFO crash, located in a nearby field. Adam discussed possible trajectories of the impact, then helped them positively identify the small muddy hole in the ground as a small muddy hole in the ground, or "naturally occurring sinkhole" in fancy atronomer lingo.

Okay, The Man. Whatever.

Anyway, although we will doubtless never know the truth, in no small part due to the relentless obstructionism of the so-called scientific community, kudos to Dr. Adam for the aforementioned televised awesomeness. The episode is called Heartland Explosion, so if you missed it, check your local listings!

It's just another manic Tuesday

Mr. Rieger had the day off today because of Veteran's Day. Isn't Veteran's Day usually on a Monday? Anyway, sounds like he had a great day and he reports he learned something new about triangles. Then tonight he took Jordan to her science experiment night at school and they had a blast! They did lots of cool experiements.

I had a social justice meeting tonight after work. We're doing so many cool things and having such a great working on all of it. I had three new pretty big ideas to present and they were well-received. The first is a Unitarian Vacation "Bible" school. As far as we know, no one in this area does any such thing so we're going to work on this for this summer. The second thing was the interfaith gay marriage rights rally and the third was inter-racial dinner/discussion groups.

Please to note in the right hand column, that back by popular demand, is our Green Household Blog. We haven't updated it in forever, and to be honest, our household still isn't very green. But now it's back....it's in our faces....so, yeah. We need to get back on that already.

I am Annoyed at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints today. Two reasons: their major financial assistance in getting Prop 8 passed and also, I knew they posthumously baptized people in general, which has always crawled all over me, but today it came to my attention that they do it to Holocaust Victims. They've been asked to stop and they haven't. I find this incredibly offensive.

Monday

Hello, All! Long time no post!

Second most exciting thing that's happened lately (the first being the election of course, which I have too much to say about so I'll save it for later)--friends are loaning us their time share so we're probably going to be spending a week in Atlantic City this June. Atlantic City is far from our first choice of vacation BUT it's only 1 hour from the delightful Andy, Lysa and no-longer-baby-C. (Surprise Andy and Lysa!!) And it's also close to NYC! We've spent some time this week haggling over what we can fit into one day in NYC. Our list is fat. Too fat, in fact so we're having to pare down. Claudia's wanting to ditch the Statue of Liberty of all things. Too touristy, she says. She's adamant about a tour of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Jordan wants to see Wall Street (she's an interesting child, I think. For Christmas she wants a typewriter, a record player, a perfume atomizer and a scarf like Grace Kelly's). I haven't checked with Sammy yet, but will get her input on Wednesday.

I'm considering organizing an interfaith, city-wide gay marriage-rights rally, which Jamie suggested I do and I'm thinking it's a good idea. I'm sick over Prop 8. Sick. From what I understand the LDS church (or their members) donated a ton of money to pass that proposition and seriously, it's more than time for liberal faith communities to be heard on this issue.

I think I have a bead on what's causing my migraines! Seems like the tipping point is food. In other words, it could be hormonal, barometric pressure, stress and temperature or any combination of those, but certain foods seem to be the tipping point. So far the culprits are cinnamon and msg.

Claudia's planning a birthday party (OMG, she's going to be 14 next month!!). So far she wants to invite 24 people and four of those are boys that will be leaving around 11. So yes, that's right, that means 20 of the invitees are girls and the party's a sleepover. I love Claudia a lot. Can you tell?

My friend, Melissa, who spends a lot of time in Mexico, makes a mole turkey every year for Thanksgiving at her house in Austin. I said, Melissa, I want to make a mole turkey this year but I can't eat the peanuts and almonds. She said, you can't make mole without that stuff! So she gave me this recipe for Pollo en Pipian Verde (chicken in pumpkin seed sauce) and I'm so super excited about it! I'm going to make a regular turkey and also the pumpkin seed sauce on just a breast. We're having Thanksgiving the weekend before, on Saturday the 24th so we can have Sam with us (she spends Thanksgiving every year with her mom). Walter and Beverly are going to join us and possibly Jason and Leah and anyone else who would like to join us is welcome. We're probably just going to have a casual buffet, come by whenever kind of thing going on. We'll also be serving my grandmother's cornbread dressing (if any other Texan ever tells you their grandmother's dressing is the best, don't believe them, because it's not!) and my mother's sweet potatoes and fried apples. Also on the menu--Jamie's family tradition of Stove Top Stuffing and corn. And of course, various other things. I will selflessly cook with cinnamon for you all and then selflessly not eat any of it. But no, no--I'm fine. Really. You just enjoy.

It's ok.

Look! Dog costumes were on sale at Target so this is our dog dressed as a lobster.


Turns out, he doesn't seem to like it when the kids gleefully cram him into it (they don't make costumes for portly dogs, apparently, so it's a little snug on him) so there's some snapping, but then once it's on, he likes it!

More Barack Obama

Sammy, Jamie and Jordan out canvassing for Mr. Barack Obama today.


Graffiti artists tagging for Obama.

Halloween II

Big Mixed Bag of a Halloween this year. Tuesday night was just one of those perfect nights were everything went well. The kids got their homework done on time, we ate dinner pretty early and then we just had a great time carving pumpkins. Halloween itself was probably the funnest the kids have had maybe ever, but the holiday was definitely colored by the fact that we didn't have Sam with us this year (she was traveling with her mom).

Claudia dressed up as a Zombie and went trick or treating with four of her friends (her first year sans parents--wah! I'm ok!!!) and then they all went to one of the friends' house to watch the Soup and last week's SNL.


My friend, Julie, mother of Jordan's best friend, S., picked Jordan up at school on Friday, did the kid version of wined and dined (they did Happy Meals at McDonald's) and then they went to meet two of their other BFF's and went trick or treating. These kids, OMG, had the biggest haul of candy I've ever seen. They knocked on doors for three solid hours. After I got off work and took Claudia to her friend's house, Jamie and I grabbed a snack and met up with them. After trick or treating we hung out with Julie and some other parents and then came home.