Monthly Archives: December 2012

Grand Ideas

Les Miserables Video

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Here’s the video I helped with last week.  Since the movie comes out today, I thought it was fitting that I share it. 

Photography and video by Sarah Crowder.  Sarah asked if I was available to help her out—basically I was her gopher and held reflectors and stuff like that.  It was easy and fun, and I hope I can help her out again, because I love working with her in pretty much all capacities.  The school I teach at is owned by the same people who own St Louis Ocarina—my boss, Dennis, totally freaked out when he saw me there.  I think he thought I was crashing the shoot.  He was totally confused!

Here’s some “behind the scenes” shots I took…

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Are you going to see Les Miserables?  I’m not a huge “musical” fan, other than the Sound of Music.  I always think of this quote from “Sabrina”:

Mack: Buff? The most difficult tickets to get will be for a Broadway musical.
Linus Larrabee: [distractedly] Okay.
Mack: That means that the performers will periodically dance about and burst into song.

childhood, Christmas

Christmas is about the memories

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Driving home from my second (of three) church services today I started thinking about memories from Christmas.  I heard somebody say once, you aren’t planning a wedding, you’re planning the memory of a wedding.  I think many holidays and special events are like that.  Sure, live in the moment, all that jazz, but honestly, that’s for the day to day.  Holidays are for the memory making, right?  I turned down a Christmas Day gig because I wanted my Christmas Day memory to be of waking up next to my husband and hanging out with him all day long.  I can work any day.

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(I wanted this to be on our Christmas card, since it’s a Christmas themed photo, but somebody vetoes it.)

Memories from childhood: 

Singing around the piano

Loading up the car and driving to PA and OH. 

Grandma Miller trying to give us bags of sandwiches and Mom trying to get her to not bother.  Us eating those sandwiches in the car AND stopping for lunch.

Playing endless games—Acquire, Rook, Pit, Dutch Blitz, Monopoly

Playing violin duets with Leslie—for the family, for the church, for ourselves (Christmas Trio and the medley, need I say more?)

Eating so many cookies and candy in Ohio one year that I had to throw up…in the kitchen sink.  Gosh, I remember I felt better after that!

Ice skating, playing in the snow, having fun with siblings and cousins

Date pudding and 7 layer salad

Leslie crying over her presents when she didn’t like them (I probably did this too, but that’s not MY memory) 😉

Memories from a little bit older:

Coming home to see how much Carrie had grown

Dad joking (I think) that we should just keep all the presents wrapped and save them for next year

Cheese grits and cinnamon rolls

Being up late playing violin at various church services

Spending my first Christmas NOT with my immediate family.  That was really the point I realized I was an adult, and my siblings too—when we started spending Christmas elsewhere—like we are again this Christmas

Getting snowed in on Long Island and driving overnight from New York to St Louis in an overpacked Honda Fit with two of our best friends.

Losing my grandfather to pancreatic cancer (not all the memories here are happy ones, but I can be grateful for the happy memories of him from all the years before—I can’t think about past Christmases without thinking of him though.)

Interesting fact:  I never believed in Santa.  No one in our family ever did.  I was probably that kid who ruined it for the other kids…I didn’t realize until I was older that there were actually kids who believed in Santa—I assumed it was all a facade.

Anyway, thanks for reading my blog today, yesterday, in the past, and in the future!  Merry Christmas to you!

Tantillo263

Food

Gingerbread Cake

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I’m not an amazing cook or an amazing baker.  I have my skills—I’m really good at cookies, because you get so many chances to get it right, and I’m a patient person.  I have amazing pie recipes and genetic tendencies towards making pie (not crusts, mind you, I’m talking about the filling.)  Cake on the other hand…not really my strong point.  Granted I haven’t had a whole lot of practice, which arguably is the biggest problem, but still.

A few weeks ago I found this recipe for Gingerbread Cake which looked really good and “Christmas-y”, and I emailed it to my friend Laura.  She responded that I should absolutely make it for Christmas.  Okay, except I’ve never had a huge amount of success with the Smitten Kitchen’s recipes.  That doesn’t mean I can’t try again, right?  To be fair, my only non-success was the Raspberry Buttermilk Cake I tried and the whole thing fell apart as I flipped the pan, and the second time I made it it was great.  But that was a scarring experience.  (I’m aware that all cooks and bakers have disasters.  I just prefer not to.  Remember what I said the other day, failed perfectionist.)

(Raspberry Buttermilk Cake, back in the day.  I love that I can reference my life via a search box on my blog.)

The next issue was that I needed a bundt pan and didn’t have one.  This is an easily remedied solution in the US, but even easier than buying one is borrowing one from Laura.  Later she asked to borrow my apple peeler/corer (we have this awesome contraption) and a springform pan for a recipe she was making so it was perfect (or frankly, the opposite of perfect, because we were making absolutely the wrong recipes.)

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(This is how the cake starts.  Beer and Molasses. )

Did I mention grocery shopping yesterday?  I have three church services to play today so I wanted to get my grocery shopping done yesterday.  I’ve been tasked with bringing corn pudding and a green vegetable to Christmas as well as the cake.  We are also planning a cooked breakfast in the morning with pancakes, sausage, hash browns, and coffee cake (basically all the stuff we don’t allow ourselves to eat ordinarily, isn’t that what the holidays are for? Don’t ask me about what has happened to the cookie party cookies or how my weight loss plans are doing, this too shall pass and at least we are keeping up our running and working out—also please ignore my switching between we and I, because half the time I’m referring to Chris and the other half it’s the royal We.)

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(I was worried because it was so liquidy compared to other, non-cake recipes, but it turned out good.  Took at least 15 minutes longer than the recipe said, which always freaks me out.)

Anyway, the grocery store was pretty busy, and then I couldn’t find the cardamom I needed.  They were all out.  I did a google search and determined it could be substituted with something else, and twitter told me the same (well, some on twitter said otherwise but I figured I’d go with the people who agreed with me)—then Laura said she had cardamom seeds and could grind some for me…well, it turned out the recipe said “a pinch of cardamom” so I figured, this is not even worth it.  And I believe I was correct, because the cake tastes great.  I know this because when I went to flip the bundt pan plenty of it stuck in the pan.  So the cake will taste wonderful though it is perhaps NOT the most attractive baked good.

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But I’ll put some powdered sugar on top, and like I said, it’ll taste great.  I’m not trying again.  I have other stuff to make.

Here’s the link to the recipe.

Random thoughts

Two good books about family and loss (perfect for the Holiday season)

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Happy Christmas Eve Eve!

Here’s a double book review and giveaway!  These two books had the common theme of family and loss so I think they fit well together.  And I find the holidays to be a time that I always think about my family, and those who are no longer with us…is that just me?  I always get so introspective and a little depressed…

Celia’s Journey
by Heather Muzik

Celia’s Journey is the story of a family who loses a child in a tragic accident and how their lives continue from that point on.  I’m not going to lie, I cried more reading this book than I had from a book in a really long time (I’m thinking the last Harry Potter book…).

The Strane family (Lindsay, Jerry, Adam, and Max) have a wonderful and easy life until a tragic accident takes one of the boys.  Everything changes as the family members struggle with their grief and pain, and try to continue with life and put the pieces back together.  The book is a difficult read because of the subject matter, but it’s a really good read.  I highly recommend it.

 

Out and Back
by Diane Strong

Out and Back is the story of another family, but this from the point of the view of a daughter who loses her mom to cancer and how she copes with her life afterwards.  Amber is a mom and a runner (a synopsis I found online referred to her as a “obsessive running/fitness junkie”—I prefer “runner”) who has, as most of us do, a challenging relationship with her mother and struggles to create a “perfect” life for herself and her family.  (I definitely related to Amber in this book.)  The book jumps back and forth from earlier in her life to the present day to tell the story of her life and how she copes with her loss and other family problems.

Like I said, I enjoyed both these books.  Celia’s Journey is a harder read, but REALLY good.  Out and Back was more relatable for me since I’m a runner (and perfectionist too…or at least a failed perfectionist.)  I recommend them both.

More stuff: Heather Muzik wanted me to tell you about a promotion for some of her other books that starts tomorrow (Christmas Eve!)—these books will be free on kindle on December 24, 25, and 26 as part of a promotion. She said the “2 Till” books are light and fun, and the other book is dark and twisted.  I know I’ll be taking advantage of the promotion!

You can find some other books by Diane Strong here.

All her books have a running theme.  Diane is a runner, triathlete, and also participates in adventure races.  Crazy, right?

Another of her books:

Giveaway time!  GIVEAWAY CLOSED:  WINNERS WILL BE NOTIFIED BY EMAIL! Okay, for the first book, “Celia’s Journey,” I am giving away a kindle or e-reader copy of the book OR a real paperback copy (mailed to US residents only).  For the second book, “Out and Back” I am giving away three kindle copies of the book.

Leave a comment below to win and let me know if you have a kindle or e-reader (you can read on your computer too and a variety of other ways).

I’ll choose the first winner randomly, and then choose three more winners who are up for the kindle copies (somewhat randomly, but funny, touching, or properly spelled comments would have a higher chance of winning!)  Winners will be notified by email.  This giveaway runs until 10 pm CST Sunday, December 30.

Random thoughts

Poems by cats

As thrilled as I am to be on vacation from teaching for over two weeks, that doesn’t mean I don’t love my students.  I do. 

Last night I said something like “Thank goodness I don’t have to see any children for over two weeks!”  My friend Laura looked a little insulted and said she would do her best to keep Benjamin out of my way on Christmas.  Mothers get so sensitive about these things.  I may teach him to play the violin on Christmas Day, just to spite her (he’s 8 months old, so it would be a stretch, but he’s a smartie, and I’m a really good teacher so it could work.)

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This was a gift from my student who wore the horse head mask to his lesson one day.

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And this from his mother!  The whole family is amazing and really gets me.

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Then my friend Sarah sent me this picture.  Even better, she let me know that she followed the truck around the Tempe Marketplace for at least five minutes, waited for it to park, and then got out of her car to take that picture for me. 

Oh, and a note to recently married people:  keep your wedding registry up to date.  I found out my Mom sent us something from it and I hadn’t updated our address…since I didn’t think we’d be getting anything else.  Oops!  Thanks anyway, Mom!

Random thoughts

Too Many Friends

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Does anyone else have this problem?  It’s a wonderful problem to have, but still a problem.  You feel like you’re too busy with work and other stuff (you know, working out, taking pictures of your cat) to meet up with your friends, and when you do, you have a great time, and you say, gosh, we should do this more often! and then weeks go by again.

(FYI: I’m going to intersperse random photos I’ve saved to share with you into my blog post today.  I’m feeling super random, so you’ll have to spare me and you know, get over it.)journey

I’ve been overwhelmed this week.  It’s the last week of teaching before “vacation” (which officially isn’t until about the 29th for me as next week is chock-full of gigs) and that’s fine, but then I have been packing all kinds of extra stuff in and I don’t even know where the week went!

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Let’s see, I’ve been teaching, practicing, figuring out last minute Christmas presents, trying to hang out with friends who are going out of town, figuring out our anniversary trip (Chicago! Need more restaurants suggestions and don’t say “The Girl and the Goat” because it is booked up), working out, acting as virtual virtual coach for Rose, baking, eating, and reading a bunch.  Basically nothing really important and just procrastinating a lot–I’m only “busy” in that normally I don’t do anything 3 pm and this week has been different 😉

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(You can read Rose’s blog post on my virtual virtual coaching of her.  Nutshell:  she owes me $1.99.  Longer story:  we’re failing pretty hard at her training plan and we keep rationalizing it.  I blame her for accepting running advice from me.)

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Oh, and this morning I played assistant to Sarah Crowder for a video shoot.  It was great fun and I will share the video with you when it comes out!

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Oh wait, that picture is related…shoot.

I just found this on facebook.  I’m very delighted by it.