Christmas Memories

Happy New Year to all of you!

We had a wonderful two weeks of Christmas festivities. The month started out very snowy and the following pictures are of our early December snow storm. We were at Mom Benedict's trying out a 4 wheel drive car that I was test driving but it couldn't handle the deep snow and Tom had to get the tractor out to pull me out.

On Christmas Day the Benedict family came to our place-actually the community room at our condo for our meal together. It really worked well because there was lots of room for all of us. This is our family with Mom Benedict.

The month has been snowy and cold. I took this picture out front of our condo.

We celebrated with our church family with a potluck meal and lots of games and fun. This was the Saturday before Christmas. We are attending Faith Bible Church of Alto and love the close fellowship and the opportunity to serve there.

On the Sunday before Christmas, our children presented a Nativity scene for us. It set such a wonderful tone for the service.

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Our four grandkids were in a wonderful Christmas program at First Baptist Church of Middleville. All four had parts and we enjoyed every minute. Madelynn and Jack had solos and Jay and Anna were in the choir for back-up.

Christmas morning we all went over to Tom and Sherry's for the Benedict breakfast that always included Eggs Benedict. The girls got new outfits for their American Girl dolls from Great-Grandma and Grandpa Hoath.


Last week, we all went to Meijer Gardens to see Christmas Trees from Around the World and then capped it off with ice cream at Culvers.

Kristen and Eric were able to get enough time off work too come home for Christmas. I know it was a lots of traveling for a few days but it made for such a great Christmas for Tom and I. Jen had 2 weeks off school. She returned to North Carolina yesterday. I'm going back to work this week too. I feel so blessed and I'm looking forward to 2010 and the memories we will be creating.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

I gave copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking-Vol. I & II to my children for Christmas. I also got a copy for myself and the plan is for us to share what works and doesn't work from this cooking classic by Julia Child. I saw the movie Julie and Julia this summer that is based on someone trying to cook through the book and recording her attempts. So this is similar but I want it to be lots of fun. It wasn't so much fun for the girl in the movie.

I had heard that Julia Child's most famous recipe is boeuf bourguinon so I decided to start there. The English title is Beef Stew in Red Wine with Bacon, Onions and Mushrooms. Child describes it as "one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man." I would have to agree. It has an intense flavor.

It did take all afternoon to prepare. Tom, Jennifer, Kristen and I enjoyed every bite of it. I served it with boiled potatoes like Child suggested. It was even better reheated the next day. This time I served it with egg noodles and I liked that better.

The next recipe I tried was roast chicken. I served it to a dinner party of Tom, Jennifer and Mike, the guy who bought our house. Roast chicken was more labor-intense requiring basting every 10 - 15 minutes but the results were a very moist and flavorful chicken. I served it with roast red skin potatoes, peas and french rolls. We all enjoyed the meal and the time together.

I'd love to hear from you about what you are cooking even if it isn't French cooking. I'll keep you posted on my attempts throughout the year.

Plum Pudding

I decided to make my plum pudding this week. It took several calls to my mother to ask specifics about the recipe. The recipe came from my Grandma (Ma) Erickson and she wasn't always very exact on her recipes. For example, the ingredients called for 'small cups' of some things, big teaspoons of soda, and enough flour to make it stiff. My mother shared some directions that weren't in the recipe which I am sure were necessary for success.

The first step was to cut up the suet. My mother said she always has the butcher grind it when she buys it, so I will have to remember that for next year. The suet is important because it is the fat or oil in the pudding.
The recipe calls for regular raisins and seeded raisins. We can't find seeded raisins anymore so my mom suggested dates as a substitute. That works well.

The dry ingredients look like this when mixed together.
But you then add molasses for flavor and sweetness. Then you gradually add enough flour to make it still. I measured 3 3/4 cups of flour.

The batter is then put on a floured muslin cloth. My mother mailed me her trusted plum pudding cloth.
You tie the pudding very tightly with a piece of cloth and you're ready to go.
Now we get to the tricky part. You lower the pudding into a pan of boiling water. You can never let the water stop boiling because it will make a soggy pudding. As the water keeps boiling away, you must add boiling water. That means you have two pans of water heating.
Once you cover this, just keep a sharp eye on it for the next 5 hours!
Your pudding expands and becomes very firm but it is done.
The water left in the pan is used to make the sauce for the pudding. You add butter, flour, nutmeg and lots of brown sugar.

This was my completed pudding. It tasted great although, it is an acquired taste. My sister Kathy is coming over tonight to have plum pudding for her birthday. Most people aren't that enthusiastic about it.

Plum pudding isn't something you will make very often but it is a real treat for me.

The Blizzard of 2009

This is the current view from our balcony (11 AM). It is very cold and windy with snow falling and blowing sideways. But the blizzard of 2009 appears to be a failure as a blizzard and is just a Michigan winter storm. it has resulted in 2 snow days for most of us though. Tom was down in Berrien Springs working as a book buyer at Andrews University for the end of semester buy-back. He came home early because business was so slow and I'm sure the weather impacted the buy-back.

I've been home with 2 snow days and snow days still fun even though I don't work everyday. Yesterday my sister Kathy spent the day here and we did lots of interesting things. I was showing her things on the computer such as how to blog, how to download to iTunes, and burn cd's etc. As with everything on the computer, things don't go easily. But we got through it.

I also have worked on my columns for InsiderRacingNews.com. I've been writing a weekly column for them almost 2 years and I hear back from readers and some of the letters are amusing. People have very strong feelings about their favorite drivers and they don't like me pointing out their problems. This past week I wrote about Jimmie Johnson who is this year's champion. I compared some of his behavior to that of Dale Earnhardt Jr. There are always people who absolutely love Junior and writing about him is always a dangerous proposition. Here's a sample from last week's responses.

This first one is a lovely note that luckily I read before reading the scathing assessment that follows.

Good Morning Brenda,

Absolutely magnificent article, straight to the point, and accurate as it can be.

Am I a JJ fan....You betcha! But he is just one of my favorites, albeit my most favorite.

He may be "cookies and milk", but he sure creates a good image for the sport.

If the naysayers don't get the picture after reading your article they never will.

Thanks and a very merry Christmas to you and your family!!!

Adrian Flores

You are way off base. So much so that you may just be bonkers. Or maybe you don't do much research.

Hard to believe that they both read the same column. But that's what makes writing the column fun. I hear from people all over the country and you never know how they are going to react.

From Dec. to the middle of Feb. there is no NASCAR racing but I need to keep producing the column so it's always a challenge to come up with a topic. Fortunately for me, NASCAR drivers are prone to some behavior that gives me lots of material.

November News & Plum Pudding

I know I haven't been nearly as faithful writing this blog this fall. I miss sharing and even thinking about what I should share with my blogging friends.

My positions at Hopkins Middle School & MAISA (Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators) have kept me working almost full-time with only an occasional day off. This week I was in Lansing Monday - Wednesday attending two different conferences. Both dealt with using data from student work to improve the teaching. The emphasis in education is changing from the focus on the teaching to a focus on what the students are learning. It is a subtle difference but it makes huge differences in the end product-the achievement of the students. Then Thursday and Friday I was at Hopkins Middle School working with teachers to implement strategies to help students better understand and remember what they read.

Hopkins Middle School is a small school with great kids. I'm enjoying my work there getting to know the teachers and students. My work takes many forms and no two days are alike. I might be researching the latest methods on the Internet, visiting classrooms to observe teachers, meeting with teachers to implement new strategies, meeting with administrators to plan, or analyzing test results to try and pin point where our students' needs are. I also spend some time just socializing with teachers because building trust is a huge part of what I have to do before teachers will feel comfortable working with me.

Last Saturday we celebrated Sherry's birthday which was actually on Thanksgiving. Tom and I took dinner down to their house and we had a great time. Tommy and Sherry's business is going well and it keeps them busy as it grows.

School is going well for the kids. I miss volunteering in their classrooms like I did last year. Hopefully after Christmas, I'll have more time to do that. This is Madelynn's last year in elementary school as a 5th grader. Jay is in 4th grade and says his favorite part of school is library time. That makes this grandma very happy. Jack is in 1st grade and making great leaps in reading. Anna is in Kindergarten and I'm sure she is charming her teacher and class. Anna's class made me a get-well card when I hurt my ankle because many of them remembered me from last year.

Speaking of my ankle-it is healing well. I was able to stop using the crutches this week and it makes my life much easier. I am still wearing an air cast-the boot- but it comes off at night and also allows me to shower normally. It gets sore if I'm on it all day but I'm very pleased with my progress. The next step is to stop wearing the boot and I'm ready for that but it will be a few more weeks before I try that.

Winter arrived Thursday night in West Michigan and it isn't fun. We had to cancel our planned trip to the Soo for the Mitchell Christmas Dinner yesterday. That is the annual family Christmas celebration of Ma Erickson's family-my grandmother. It is held every year for at least 80 years. It was always a highlight when I was growing up. My grandmother came from a family of 11 children and when everyone gets together, there were always so many kids to play with. The Mitchell family has a Christmas tradition-plum pudding for dessert. Plum pudding is a flour based mixture with raisins, lots of sugar, and even suet that is boiled for hours. (No plums) Then it is sliced and topped with a sweet sauce. It is the highlight of the meal. My own family doesn't like it and so I never make it because it involves hours of work. You must keep it slowly boiling while wrapped in a cloth and that means you must be in the kitchen watching it. But I crave it and just writing about it makes me want to try it for my family one more time. I think it must be an acquired taste. If you are interested in trying some, let me know. One writer described plum pudding as "dark, dense and delicious". I agree. Maybe I'll have a plum pudding party for people interested in giving it a try. I found this picture on the web and it really looks like this but when you cover it with a rich butter sauce, it improves the look greatly.

In doing some research on plum pudding, I found the following quote: "Other historians suggest the link to Christmas started with a decree by the medieval Catholic Church that "pudding should be made on the 25th Sunday after Trinity, that it be prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and the 12 apostles, and that every family member stir it in turn from east to west to honour the Magi and their supposed journey in that direction".

I don't know if our recipe has 13 ingredients but it must have at least that. Now our plum pudding has Christian symbolism. I think that is rather a big stretch-all I know is that it is wonderful and a true sign of Christmas for me.

A 'Turn' in My Life

This week started like every other week. I meet Joyce, my sister-in-law, for running down Kettle Lake Drive. We've been doing that every Monday for years. On Wednesday we run in a different location. We run about 3 miles and we think it is a great way to start our day. But this week, I stepped in a pothole which I didn't see because of the dark. I twisted my ankle. At first, I thought it was just bruised but by Wednesday, the bruising and swelling convinced me to get it checked out. I have a small fracture and am now on crutches and keeping off my feet. This has really crimped my style. I did work yesterday but because I work in a school and visit many classrooms, I put many 'miles' on my crutches. Today I'm so sore that I can barely get around. The soreness is in my arms and shoulders and I'm bruised from the crutches too.

I see an orthopedic doctor on Monday and I hope I can get more mobile then. I am developing a new appreciation for people with mobility issues. It is exhausting to do every day activities and there are many things that I can't even begin to try. Luckily, Tom is home now from deer hunting and he's very willing to wait on me. So now I'm having hot coffee and fresh ice packs-just little things make a big difference.

It just took part of a second for my life to be changed and I'm having lots of trouble adjusting mentally to such limitations. But I'm sure God has some lessons to teach me. My friend, Marcia, told me this week. "Want to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans!" Isn't that the truth!

Our New Home

Here are some pictures of our new condo. You can see that we aren't completely unpacked and there aren't pictures on the wall but we are getting there.

Moving was very stressful but actually everything went smoothly. I learned a valuable lesson during the entire process of selling the house and moving. Don't focus on how much work you have in front of you. Focus on what you have already accomplished. I found that once I started thinking about how much I had to do, it slowed me down, made me nervous and kept me from doing all that I could do.

We are living in a complex called Jasonville Farms which is near Caledonia, Michigan. We only moved 2 miles but went from a 5 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom condo.

Our balcony is enclosed and gives us extra living space. We put an air mattress in there last weekend when Jen visited and it worked well. We call this space our Arizona room because it reminds us of the time we spend at Kristen's in Arizona last winter. Every day we sat on her balcony eating our lunch and playing cribbage. Our Arizona room won't have the warm temps or the blue sky every day but we can hope for that.

We have one large bedroom and one small one, two full bathrooms and a laundry room.
Our living room, dining room and kitchen are an open area and we fit our recliners, my Clavinova (piano) and the TV all into the space.

So far we are loving it here. The first time I vacuumed, I was amazed that I plugged in the vacuum in the hallway and didn't have to stop and move the cord. It reached the entire condo. Cleaning isn't a day long project.

Another perk is that our Grand Rapids Press is delivered to our doorstep. I don't have to go outside to get it. I especially like that on Saturday morning. I get my coffee and open the door and pick up the paper and sit down and enjoy. That's what I'm doing right now!