New Years Week 2015

What a fun New Year's week this has been!  For some of us, anyway.  I need to post my pictures before I have even more from our activities later today.  I really need to post more often.  I don't blame anybody if they never read my posts, because they're just so dreadfully long.  

As I mentioned in my last post, Destiny came home with us after our fondue meal at Sam and Jenn's on Sunday.  On Monday she went with me to Anthony and Lori's to do food prep.  Of course, Austin was off school too, so they had some fun together that day.  Lori also took them on a brisk walk to the nearby school playground. 

That evening we had Sewing Class!  I taught Destiny how to cut out pattern pieces.

Then how to thread the sewing machine.

And finally, how to sew seams.  Oh, how she LOVED using the sewing machine!

We did eventually end up with a skirt, but I wimped out a bit and decided to make an elastic waistband instead of the regular waistband and zipper, which ended up making a short skirt even shorter.  So I'm not sure if she'll ever wear it, but she had fun anyway.  

When Dick had come home from work that evening he said his knee was really painful, and he spent the evening with ice on it.  On Tuesday morning he could hardly walk and decided he needed to see a doctor.  Unfortunately our doctor's office could not fit him in until Wednesday, so he instead went to a walk-in urgent care facility.  They told him it was just a bad inflammation and he should continue to do what he already was doing - apply ice, keep it elevated, and take anti-inflammatory meds.  And wait for it to feel better.  Ugh.  He does not get paid sick days at his job, and we had already used up all his vacation days in November.   So missing work days was not exactly in our budget for this time of year, but his knee did not care!

I went to work at the church office that day.  I brought home everything I did not have to absolutely do at the office, and we watched The Sound of Music in the afternoon.  In the evening Destiny wanted to make snickerdoodles.  I don't know where she got that idea, since that is not a cookie I have ever made.  But she looked up a recipe on her phone, and she made those snickerdoodles.  She wanted to do it all by herself, including the mixer.  Again, I do not have a picture of her finished product, but trust me, they were absolutely delicious!

On Wednesday Dick stayed home from work again because of his knee.  Destiny and I made a trip to Joanne Fabrics.  We were planning to get some material for Destiny to make a curtain since she loved using the sewing machine so much.   But she fell in love with fleece when she saw and felt it.  So instead we bought two yards of plush fleece that was on sale.  We saw a knotted fringe fleece blanket in their showcase, so when we came home I cut the edges and she knotted them.  We didn't have two layers, but it was such thick fleece, she didn't care.  

She tied the white selvedge edge around her head.

In the evening Anthony kept Dick company at home, and Destiny, Lori, Austin, and I did our traditional New Year's Eve activities.  Destiny and I went to the Pagula Ice Rink first so she could get her annual chance to ice skate.  

Then we met up with Lori and Austin to eat dinner at The Corner Room.  From there we looked at all the ice sculptures.

We always enjoy watching the Penn State Thespians acting as mannequins in the windows.  They are incredibly convincing. 

Then we headed to the park for some of that yummy kettle corn and hot cider.  

And the wonderful fires to warm by.

And, of course, the ice slide.  

When we left we still had plenty of time before the ball would drop in NYC, so Destiny and I went for gas and groceries.  I'm going to copy and paste here our grocery shopping story from my Facebook post. 

"Last night Destiny and I left the downtown celebrations in plenty of time to do a little grocery shopping before midnight. (We always like to watch the ball drop in NYC.) But alas, both Weis and Giant were closed for New Year's Eve.

So Walmart it was. High on the list of necessary things was pork and sauerkraut. I have not been home on New Years Day for years, because we always drive Destiny home on that day. But this year she does not have school on Jan. 2nd, so I definitely wanted to make my favorite, traditional New Years meal today and invited Anthony, Lori, and Austin to join us.

The pork was easy to find, but the bags of sauerkraut that are usually right alongside the pork, were missing. We looked other places and finally asked a guy in produce if he knows where we would find the bagged sauerkraut. He said, "Over there," and pointed in the direction of the meat. He headed that direction and we followed. He was surprised to find none there and said he would look in the back, saying, "I sold a lot of sauerkraut the past couple of days." As we waited, I noticed a man waiting nearby. I asked, "Are you looking for sauerkraut too?" He said, "Yes, I couldn't even find any cans of it. They would be with the canned vegetables, right?" I agreed. The Walmart guy came back saying there was NO sauerkraut in the back.

Then he remembered that there had been jars of sauerkraut at another location, and he headed toward the cheese case. We and the man followed him. A lady standing along the way looked at us with a question on her face, and I said, "Are you joining the sauerkraut line too?" Sure enough, she got in line, and we all followed our Walmart man. Then another man joined our ranks. Four of us looking for sauerkraut at 11 pm on December 31. And there was ONE jar. I said, "You are kidding. This is like Black Friday." The others agreed that that one remaining jar should go to me since I was the first one asking. I felt so bad for the others, but I WAS first. I thanked them profusely and slinked through the store, half hiding that jar of sauerkraut in my cart.

For some of you reading this and wondering, "What ever in the world is the big deal?" I just have to say, "You haven't tasted my pork and sauerkraut and mashed potatoes."

And now to those of you still feeling sorry for those other people, the produce guy saw me later, as Destiny and I looked for avocados. He informed me that they had found a display of canned sauerkraut. So we're all good. (But I'm sure the jarred variety probably tastes better.}"

When I posted this story on Facebook, I got all kinds of responses, including the ones that say they hate sauerkraut.  But let me say that on New Years Day I turned my Jamaican daughter-in-law and my Puerto Rican granddaughter into lovers of pork and sauerkraut and mashed potatoes, hahah!

Destiny and I had also discovered at Walmart that they had fleece blanket kits for knotting, cheaper than the two yards of fleece we had gotten at Joanne's.  So we got a kit, and that was her New Years Day activity.

Unfortunately, as Dick's knee began to feel better his head and throat began to feel worse and worse.  He developed a really bad cough as the day progressed.  I felt so sorry for him.  As we sat around after dinner that evening, I asked him which feels worse, his knee or his head and throat?  He said,  "My spirit."  Bless his heart.  He who has soldiered through cancer and chemo over and over again, rarely ever needing to take unplanned days off work.

Here are my pics from our very lazy New Years evening.  We considered actually getting the Scrabble board out, but that would have required getting up and going to the table and looking words up in the dictionary and keeping score.  It was so much easier to play Scrabble in our comfortable chairs on our devices, which is just what Lori and Anthony were doing, hahahaha!!  Oh, how technology has spoiled us!!

Austin has become a Star Wars fan, so he let his imagination roll for a while.  

Then I lured him into a few games.  We did checkers and Jr. Scrabble.  I didn't bother reading the rules for Jr. Scrabble and I let him make them up.  He also kept score, haha!  Of course he beat the pants off me, according to his methods.  It really is fun to see him sound out letters and put words together.

On Friday I kept giggling to myself as I remembered something cute he had said the evening before.  Here again I'll just cut and paste my Facebook post.

"I'm still giggling over an affirmation I received from Austin last evening - he who is not prone to warm fuzzies. I had told Destiny to put napkins on the table, and Austin immediately went for the paper towels. He pulled one off and asked, "Grandma, why are your paper towels so big?" (Lori and I prefer the Bounty Select-a-Size.). I said, "I KNOW! I just could not find the regular kind. I don't like these at all." He proceeded to put one by a plate on the table and said, "You don't need to feel bad, Grandma. These paper towels look pretty good." Haha! Melt my heart."

Dick did go to work on Friday, which surprised me.  I was quite sure he had a fever when we went to bed Thursday night.  I asked him Friday morning if he has a fever.  He answered,  "I'm going to work."  I said, "In other words, you do have a fever."  Ugh.  His knee was so much better, but his head hurt all day.  

Lori took Destiny and Austin swimming at the YMCA on Friday.  In the evening Destiny and I continued our Anne of Green Gables Movie-thon that we had started on Thursday.  Unfortunately, our week is ending too soon, and we have not had time to watch them all.  

This afternoon we will be taking her home.  It makes me feel like crying.  We have so much fun together, more the older she gets.  As Anne of Green Gables would say, we are kindred spirits.  

After we take her home we will be going to our annual Stauffer Christmas dinner.  This time, instead of sitting at that LONG table in Grandpa's basement, we will be at Manheim BIC, a much roomier location, including the use of the gym.  We decided last year that the family was just becoming too big and too noisy for Grandpa's house.

We are just hoping and praying the temperatures will rise today.  There is sleet and freezing rain in the forecast.  We've been having a mixture of sleet and snow so far here.