End Of Year Round-Up, Sort of

Sort of because it's too blooming cold to think.  Our high today is 38º and it's struggling to stay that high.  We tried to walk this morning and I couldn't do it.  Just too cold.  This is a semi-tropical area, we're not use to temperatures like this.  Down to 22º tonight, brr, brr, brr.
But anyway, if I can ignore D.Trump and most of the time I can, 2017 was a good year for us.
We traveled:

February to New York City

March to Japan

May  to Montana to visit Yellowstone Park

October  to Spain

November back to New York City

New York is incredible, haven't gotten it out of my system yet so we'll probably be going back again

I read 154 books.  My Goodreads account says 151, but my book journal says 154, so I must have not logged some of the in.

Best of the year:

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.  The Jesuits go to bring God to a faraway planet

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch. What's real and does our mind play tricks on us

The Broken Earth Trilogy

• The Fifth Season (August 2015)
• The Obelisk Gate (August 2016)^[19]
• The Stone Sky (August 2017)

by N.K. Jemesin. Science fiction fantasy, the first 2 won Hugos and I'm sure the 3rd will too.  Hard to describe, but oh what a story.

The OathBringer Brandon Sanderson. Science fantasy The 3rd in his  Stormlight series and maybe the best one yet.


A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. Who wouldn't want to live in a town like Alice.

Kindred by Octavia Butler---oh she wrote so well and died too soon.  What happens if a modern day black women keeps traveling back in time to the  pre-Civil War south?

The discovery of the Joe Pickett books by C. J. Box.  Joe is a game warden in Wyoming and the books are so good.

We never watch much tv other than sports.  But we have started watching Young Sheldon, the story of Sheldon (from Big Bang series) as a 9 year old.  Pretty well done.  We like Big Bang and Young Sheldon is a good follow up to it.
For the last week we've been watching a marathon of MythBusters, a great science show (and great explosions) that ran for 14 years and it's been fun watching all the early shows.

Movies

Didn't go to the movies at all this year, just a mixture of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Acorn TV.
We like comedies, but strangely enough 2 of our favorites from last year were Passengers and Arrival, both science fiction.  To end the year we watched Kingmen: The Golden Circle.  Not as good as the first one, but quite entertaining.

Tomorrow I'll talk about our plans for 2018.

Coming Home for Christmas | Heathrow Airport

Been trying to deChristmas the house and putting up with sinuses from hell.  The house is almost done, the sinuses aren't.  They make everything hurt, my cheeks, my teeth, my head, my ear.  All I can do is grumble and put hot compresses on my face.

Mac made me the cutest thing for Christmas, if you've seen the Heathrow Christmas ad for last year you'll know what I'm talking about.  If not take a look.







And this is what he made me.  Isn't it adorable.

Christmas 2017

A wonderful Christmas, we were all together and that's what makes it Christmas.  But now she's gone, we got up in the pre-dawn hours yesterday and took her to the airport to begin the long journey home to Japan.  Bless her for being willing to make that long journey each year, it just wouldn't be Christmas without her.
Dinner was delicious if I do say so myself, may have been the best leg of lamb I've ever cooked.  The pies I made were just
so-so, I had only one piece, but the others kindly ate more.
Many gifts were exchanged, both needed and surprising.
April brought us both goodies from Japan, mostly chocolate for me and more adventuresome fare for Mac.

Teeny, tiny crab

She gave me the most awesome Godzilla (if you've read this blog for any length of time you know I love Godzilla), he not only roars, smoke comes out of his mouth, well actually not smoke, but mist, he's technically a humidifier.  Mac built him a town to destroy, I'll have fun with that.

I gave Mac a toy from his childhood, a set of vintage cap guns and the caps to shoot with them.

There were many laughs, a great day.

Merry Christmas

Just popping in for a quick visit.  We've spent the week enjoying our daughter's company.  Internet was out for the better part of 3 days so we spent out time talking and reading.
Lunch at the Cotton Exchange and then breakfast one day at The Sunshine Restaurant which was packed to the gunnels with other folks who'd come to use their free Wi-Fi .  Tasty breakfast too.
I think all of the packages are wrapped.  I baked 2 pumpkin pies this morning,  spilled them all over the place when trying to put them in the oven, had to steam mop the kitchen,.    I think next time I'll just buy my pies.
Lamb for Christmas lunch, looking forward to that.  A load of cookies have been eaten, luscious shrimp for lunch yesterday and it'll be baked chicken today.
Hope you and your families are enjoying the holidays.

She's Here

And in fact United got her here a few minutes early, so job well done.

Saturday in the Swamp

Beautiful cold day here, down to 36º last night and only expected to reach 60º today, but the sky is blue and it looks wintery.
Lots to get done before our daughter gets here.

• Made bread

• Made sugar cookie dough, it's chilling in the refrigerator

• Made a total mess of the kitchen, cookie dough everywhere, if the ceilings were lower it would be up there too.

ª  Made sure all the Godzillas had fresh candy canes.  One of them kept moving and his picture turned out blurry and I had to retake it.

• All the packages here are wrapped, still waiting on a couple to come in.

• Mac hooked up the tv upstairs and brought a chair up for our daughter to use.  We'd moved the regular chairs from there down here.

Time to go play with Canon in D, I'll master it some day.

Another Sign of Christmas

My Christmas cactus is blooming, well at least one of them is, I don't know what the others are doing, planning on being Easter cacti perhaps.
Cookie baking today, lashings of chocolate chip cookies were made.  Their saving grace is that they're so rich you can only eat one.  Tomorrow I'll make sugar cookie dough and refrigerate it.
Mac got an order for a painting today and the lady wants it before Christmas (she lives in  Massachusetts) , well good luck, all he can do is mail it today, which he did, the rest is up to the USPS.
Gloomy day, but that's ok, too busy to really notice.  They're predicting we'll be around 70º by Monday, not very Ho, Ho, Ho.
Our daughter arrives Monday afternoon, if United We Not Much of an Airline, gets her here on time. From Japan to D.C. she flies ANA which is a great airline, but from DC to Savannah it's United, a not so good airline.  Last year she was 4 hours late and year before last they cancelled her return flight in the middle of the night a few hours before she was due to leave.  So fingers crossed.

What's Cooking?

The kitchen smells heavenly.  I made vegetable beef soup, think it's the first time I've done that.  It's for lunch tomorrow and I went a head and cooked it today because I was going to be in the kitchen all morning anyway.  I'm cooking Rabo de Toro (Ox-tail soup), a Spanish dish Mac always has when we go to Spain and we decided to see if we could cook it at home.  Picked up some ox-tails at the commissary Sunday, found a recipe online and started work on it this morning.  It involved searing the ox-tails, cooking together onions, garlic, tomatoes, red peppers, ginger, beef stock and red wine.  Then letting it simmer for 3 hours.  The broth tastes delicious, I'm going to serve it over mashed potatoes, can't wait.

The Vegetable Beef Soup

The Rabo de Toro

Tuesday in the Swamp

The house is once again filled with the smell of Gingerbread, I baked a load of little men, even wore my Gingerbread Apron, but I'm too lazy to take  pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  I filled a sleigh with them and they're sitting on the table.  Mac and I shared one and he squirted whipped cream on it---well YUM---whipped cream and gingerbread, a match made in heaven.
No a lot done besides the baking, starting to get the house clean before our daughter gets here so I can spend time with her and not on housework.
Finally finished A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, a book I didn't think I was going to like much but ended up loving it.  Now it's stuck in my head and I keep thinking about it.  Not told in chronological order and even has a Power Point presentation in the middle.  Some critics call it a novel, others 13 interrelated stories.  Very different and very good, but also very strange.
Now I'm reading When You Disappeared by John Marrs about a man who leaves his family and then returns 25 years later, so far it's very good.
I'm also reading Rooster Bar by John Grisham and so far it's just ok.
Warm day today, nearly 70º, but due to drop to 32º.  That's kind of nice though, warm days and snuggle under the covers at night.

All Wrapped Up

Started early, finished late.  I started wrapping presents way back in November and except for a few small things due in the mail I'm finally through.  And I have the back ache to prove it.  I use a lot of bags for gifts, but even that is time consuming.
Had a nice weekend, it's finally cold enough to feel like Christmas might be near.  Lows near 30º the last couple of nights, so a fire in the fireplace and the electric blanket on the bed.
Today I cleaned up our daughter's bedroom and put fresh linens on the bed.  She'll be here next Monday, can't wait.
Watched lots of football, OMG, the game in Buffalo looked awful---so much snow.
Grocery shopping done, have most of the things we'll need for Christmas, though I'll wait a bit to get the leg of lamb.  That's always my daughter's choice for Christmas dinner.  She says lamb is the one food that it's hard to get in Japan.
Saturday I made Gingerbread men, but tomorrow I need to make more.  Love when the house smells like ginger.  Saturday I also cooked bacon and the house smelled like ginger and bacon, my daughter wanted to know if I'd put bacon in the Gingerbread Men.  Wonder what that would taste like.
Time to go fight with Canon in D, I've been working on mastering this piece for years and though I've made progress, there's no way I can say I play it well.

On a Dark and Gloomy Friday

Second day of rain and BRRR, it's cold outside.  Would not have left the house, but it was time for my B-12 shot and I need all the energy I can get.
The living room is done, mostly, I still need to set up my teeny, tiny train.  Time to wrap more packages.

This was while I was still working, note cat in window.

Entry way table

The Nutcrackers are out in force.

The Christmas Critters and the stockings

The rest of the Critters are under the tree.