This year's Yule Feast

 Well, another successful medieval style Yule feast was accomplished yesterday!

It was a bright, sunny Solstice day, but chilly (never made it out of the 40s), so I was able to have a cook fire, AND an after-sunset Yule fire!

A friend came over in the afternoon.  We shared the honey cakes and wassail that I had made earlier, and sat by the cook fire, while I cooked the veggies.

We exchanged gifts, then she went home, and I got back to work.  Dave helped me by getting the little birds prepped to go over the fire.

The menu this year was: 

Mashed carrots and turnips (mixed together), with cream and ginger.  These were boiled over the fire in a cauldron, while my friend was here.

Cornish game hens, brined, then stuffed with onion, raisins, and fresh rosemary.  These were roasted over the fire, and finished in the oven to reach a safe internal temperature.

Pears, spiced, and cooked in wine with rose water.  (I had cooked these earlier in the day, on the stove, while the wassail was also cooking.)  This was served with a dollop of heavy cream.

The meal was exquisite.  Served with brown ale to drink.

We sipped wassail by the fire, after dark, and it was truly lovely.

I worked hard all day, and then couldn't sleep until some time after 2 am.  SO, I am tired today, but satisfied.

Today, I need to wrap Dave's gifts to go under the tree, which we got set up last weekend.

On Friday, the supervisor sent out an email that said we can all work from home next week.  In my mind, I said "except me,"  because I have to go get paperwork in order to do part of my job.

This morning, though, I remembered that she has scanned the paperwork to me on previous occasions, so I texted her to see if she is going to the office tomorrow.

Hopefully, I will hear back before my "office day" alarm time tomorrow morning!

For our Christmas Eve gathering, our friends from Switzerland, who usually join us, are the only ones coming.

Two friends, who have come in the past, made it clear that they didn't want to be invited again, so .. they weren't.

I am going to make a broccoli dish, and the spoon bread, and, of course, we will have Virginia ham.

Then, Christmas day is going to be the usual.... we will open gifts, and have left over ham and biscuits for breakfast.

We both have to work the next day, from home (thankfully), and on Friday, I have my heart ultrasound and chest CT in the morning, and chemo in the afternoon.

Right now, I am off to take a leisurely, warm bath to start my day.

Happy holidays, bright blessings, and have a good week!

Getting started...

 Yesterday, Dave dragged the bins out of the shed that have all of the Yuletide decorations in them.

We didn't quite get the tree up, but will do that today.

I DID put some things out on the porch... some colored lights, and the bows that go on the railing, the artificial wreath, and the Mari Lwyd banner.

Holiday cards have started to arrive here, so I need to get mine out.  I wrote the insert a couple of days ago, so, today, I will edit it, and get those cards done.

I don't send, or receive nearly as many as in previous years.  It's not really a thing anymore, I guess.

This year's gift sending is also quite modest, as the medical billing situation at OU is much more.... financially impactful....  I had to pay out quite a bit, that I think my previous clinic was writing off.

The place I go now is literally a hospital, so their billing reflects that.

In order to insure that next year is easier to manage, I sold two weeks of my vacation time.  That's an extra pay check that I will set aside for when the bills start coming in.

Our tiny ham has arrived, and I am starting to think about what to cook for our Yule feast on the Solstice, and about what sides I will make for Christmas Eve.

This morning, on a slightly related note, I am going to bake a quiche that will be good for breakfasts this coming week, as well.

I got a good deal on pie crusts from the grocery delivery service I use!

Our holiday office party was Thursday.  It was fun, and then they let us leave after it was over.  

I will make up for that tomorrow, HAHA!  Lots of catching up to do.  

The refund checks for last week didn't even get printed until after we left on Thursday, so I will have to get those out tomorrow, and then next week's will be done when I go back next Thursday.

When I take my time with those, they can take most of the day.

Dave's meeting with human resources was useless.  How does no one know how he can continue to carry health insurance for his spouse??

The H/R representatives that he has emailed, and spoken to on the phone, and now met with do not know.

It makes no sense.

Thankfully, we have a couple of months until he retires to get it all figured out.  A friend of ours also suggested that he contact a local medicare vendor to talk about that part of things.

I am off to the shower, then will bake the quiche.  Later, there is an online meeting of my Spiritual community.

Have a lovely week!

Making candles

 I started making candles, yesterday, to give as gifts to local friends this year!  

I bought some pretty, frosted jars, and a kit with a wax pitcher, long spoon for mixing, thermometer, wicking, and soy wax.  I also had a stash of bees' wax on hand.

Yesterday, I made an unscented one for a friend who is allergic to fragrances.  That one is a 50/50 mix of soy and bees' wax.  It turned out beautifully.

Then, I made one that was all soy, with a few drops of essential oil added for a light scent.  It also turned out well!

I'll be making at least one more today.

Our two dinner guests for Christmas Eve will get that one, along with some nice, warm gloves. 

Just got word yesterday that our Christmas Eve "mini ham" will be delivered on Tuesday!  I might have mentioned that I ordered the petite, pre-cooked one, because we just don't need a 15 pounder with all of the bones.  It's a sad fact. 

My brother usually sends me a big one, but with everything that's been going on with him this year, he was unable to do so, which is TOTALLY FINE.

Anyway, I need to get gifts wrapped and put into boxes to mail next weekend.  Hopefully, I can work on that a little bit today.

My treatment went well on Thursday, but the sweats that night were the worst they've ever been. It's odd how they just keep getting worse. 

I had to get up three times and change my soaked pajamas.

Stripped the bed Friday morning, and washed everything.  Ugh.

The weird part was that I actually slept between waking up drenched, but the insomnia hit me on Friday night instead.

And again last night....  

SO, I am pretty tired today, but feel okay. 

I got all of my chores done yesterday, and made a big pot of beef stew, and a batch of chicken stock.  I am reheating the chicken stock this morning, and will put it up this afternoon.

In other news, Dave likes his new therapist, and seems to be making a little progress.

He's also asking for a meeting with his human resources department to discuss further details of retirement.  

It seems odd to me that they don't offer a schedule of meetings to help their employees work toward that goal.

Most big companies do that, I think, but he is mostly being left on his own, and doesn't know what to do about stuff like carrying over insurance for me, and what to do about medicare for him, etc.  SO, he is pursuing them for help.

This coming week, I will have two office days, and Thursday is our holiday party at work.  

We didn't have one last year.

In fact, nothing at all happened last year, not even an email from the director.... so it's nice that they're doing something for us this year.

We get to take the afternoon off, basically, with a catered lunch, and stupid games, HAHA!

For out gift swap, I got a package of expensive ($9) cookies from Trader Joe's.

If I don't get all of the refund checks mailed that day, I honestly don't care!  I still think it's absolutely ridiculous that they make me go in twice a week, just to do that.

I am off to make french toast for brunch.  Have a lovely week! 

One more Thanksgiving in the books

 Yes, we had what was our favorite cabin this year, but it was drastically changed.

They had torn out all of the kitchen cabinets, and the "peninsula" of counter top that served as a table as well.

They put in a glass cook top, and an actual vent hood, and took away the stove/oven.  In place of the oven, there was what looked like a big microwave.

This was a combination convection oven, air fryer, and microwave oven.  It was sitting on the square table that they had brought in from one of the other cabins.

And....there were no chairs! 

There used to be heavy wood and wrought iron chairs that matched the table, end table and lamps, etc., that were standard in all of the cabins (except that this cabin never had a table before, due to the peninsula). 

Oh, and the end table and lamps were gone, too.  All that was left was the nightstand, and the heavy wood and wrought iron table they had brought in, from another cabin, to put the oven-thing on.

SO... when Dave went back to town to get the firewood, he stopped at the office and requested chairs. Someone brought us two folding chairs while he was out.

In the meantime, I tried to find places to put things away, but there were no drawers, and only the cabinets under the cook top, and the sink, which were about halfway usable due to cables, and plumbing, and an extra coffee maker, toaster, and some kind of little grill accessory. 

While Dave was out, I thought of the idea to bring the nightstand out to the kitchen, and put the microwave thing on top of that, so we could sit at the table, which we would pull out into the middle of the combination kitchen/living room area.

The nightstand has a drawer we could use for silverware, other utensils,  and cutlery, and a little cubby at the bottom where we could put pots and pans.

When Dave got back, we implemented my plan, and I was then able to put the silverware and cutlery into the night stand drawer, and the pots and pans in the cubby below.....This, indeed, made it a bit more user-friendly for our meal prep, eating, and clean up.

The rest, I had to leave in the plastic bins out on the screened in porch, which was kind of a pain, but we made it work!  

We put the dish drying rack on top of the fridge, because there was almost no counter space, and left the water jug outside during the day, and brought it inside at night to keep it from freezing.

Once the dishes were washed, we just left them in the drying rack on top of the fridge for the next use, since there was no cabinetry to put them in.

The oven thing was obviously smaller than the previous electric oven, but, thankfully, I had a smaller pan that we could do our cooking on, since I was expecting a full size oven.   

I had also packed a THREE pack of 9x9 inch foil pans, instead of just bringing the ONE I thought I would need!  We ended up needing two of them, due to the tiny amount of oven space.

Of course, we had to cook everything one item at a time, which made creating our Thanksgiving feast a very time-consuming process.

Also, the oven thing didn't work all that well, set on convection.... 

The green beans were still cold in the middle, and the cheese wasn't melted.  The little turkey breast tenderloins took an hour to get up to temperature in the middle, and the pie was raw on the bottom, and almost burned on the top.

UGH.  

SO... my breakfast plan for Friday was out the window (I had wanted to bake biscuits, but didn't trust the oven to bake them through. ALSO, they get baked on a cookie sheet, and there was definitely not room for that in the little oven!), but we had left-over cinnamon rolls from Thursday, so we ate those instead.

There was about 2 square feet of actual counter space (part of which was taken up by the coffee maker), but the glass cook top and table provided ample work space.

We had the entire cabin area to ourselves on Wednesday.... it was blissfully quiet!  

But then, on Thursday, three families moved into three cabins behind ours.  We recognized them as the big group that USUALLY rents the newer cabins up at the other end of the cabin area.  

Why they switched to the "quiet end" of the cabins this year is a mystery, and was MOST disruptive. 

 Teenaged boys, bouncing their football off of our car,  yelling, coming RIGHT UP to our windows, hitting our windows with golf  balls....  Dave went out and yelled at them at one point...it was pretty unpleasant....

Between the three families, there were also 4 large dogs! Yippee! 

They set up their camp chairs in a big circle around one of the fire pits (which is how we recognized them from previous years at the other end of the cabins), and brought in a truck load of wood for their nightly bonfires.

While I understand that they had every right to be there, just as we do, they were EXTREMELY disruptive, chased all of the wildlife away, and were utterly annoying. 

Fortunately, so to speak, the heating unit in cabin #13 is really loud, so it drowned out their racket that went on around their bonfire until well into the early morning both nights that we "shared" the cabin area with them.

Last year, it was the chainsaws, and the party at the ranger's house.

This year, it was the permanent lack of a decent oven, and the ultimate in bad neighbors.

SO.... we are seriously considering stopping this tradition, or going somewhere else next year to see if it's any better. 

Or, just stopping doing it. It's a lot of work...and we are getting older. 

ON THE OTHER HAND, before the ass hats arrived, and in the early morning hours, it was still my favorite place.  

It was SO quiet, and watching the lake change with the hours of the day, and being with the deer (who were back in droves this year) was wonderful.

Friday morning, there was frost on the grass, and heavy mist on the lake, and a big buck came down from the ridge to where the does and fawns were grazing. 

He must have scented one that was in estrus, because he took off after one of them, and they all leapt and bounded into the woods!   It was spectacular, with the frost, and the mist...and no other human witnessed it aside from me.

I didn't have my phone, and didn't want to disturb them, so I didn't get any pictures.

The deer met me every morning.  On Thanksgiving afternoon, we went for a walk and saw some in the woods, too.

All in all, it was our annual retreat.... we made the best of the space, we had our internet/social media detox, and I got to have my fires in my favorite fire place.

Traffic was light on the way, as usual, and we had our usual lunch at the smoke house.  

As we left on Saturday, we went to the diner in town, and had a big breakfast, so we wouldn't need to stop for lunch.

Traffic coming home was heavier, but nothing awful.  The truck drivers on that route tend to be well-behaved.

We were home before 2 yesterday, and unloaded by dark.  Laundry is done, boxes and bins are unpacked, and today, we can relax.  

The groceries are coming in an hour, so I need to go get my shower.  Have a lovely week, and happy December!