Recipes

My friend Mary has been begging for the salad I make in the fall and winter when I have friends over for dinner, so I finally put it up here.  It’s my fall/winter alternative to my balsamic strawberry salad, which I make in the spring and summer.

Patron Saint for 2014

So every year Jen at Conversion Diary runs the Saint Generator, which gives you your patron saint for the upcoming year.

this year, my patron is St. Catherine del Ricci, which is somewhat ironic; she’s the patron of sick people, and was also a lay Dominican (there were called tertiaries, back in the day).  I have to say, after reading about her, I like her muchly. This sounds like a saint I can really like! (Not that we can’t like all saints, but you get my drift. Right?)

Head over to Jen’s if you want your own patron saint for 2014.

Catholic Women’s Almanac No. 46

Outside my window::

It’s sort of snowing. What I mean by that is the snow is being uncommital in its desire to come down. It’s sort of just floating along.

Wearing::

Jeans, black flats, a v-neck cornflower blue long sleeved tee from Eddie Bauer. It’s a house day. 🙂

Reading::

A Dance With Dragons; two Christmas books, Mythology and Charles Dickens (a biography by Claire Tomalin), and trying to finish a book on Italy’s history. And re-reading The Book Thief. 

Creative::

That last Christmas scarf? Yeah. It didn’t get done in time. So I’m working on that. Also one of my goals for the year is to write every day in some form, so this counts as that, but also keeping my journal up to date. I’ve been really slackerly there lately.

In the CD player::

Loreena McKennit A Midwinter Night’s Dream.

From the kitchen::

Dinner party tonight. Menu is Tuscan pasta (the pasta is cooked in a bottle of Chianti), a salad, and the ever-famous Guinness Cake, which is currently under the cake dome. I frost that at party time so the frosting doesn’t dry out and get unattractive. The wonderful thing about this cake is it is so MOIST that it does not dry out. You can eat this thing for a week, easy. It makes a divine breakfast. (Not that I know that by personal experience, or anything)

Around the house::

After much wrangling with it yesterday, the dishwasher is working again, Hallelujah! So I’ve done a round of dishes already this morning. I have to vacuum and dust a bit before the guests come over, and I have to change the sheets and linens in the master bath.

Plans for the week::

My parish offers Midnight Mass on New Year’s Eve, so I’ll be attending that. Back to work on the second!

Resolutions

I am terrible at resolutions.

I always have been. When I was a kid it was stuff like “I will not bite my nails.” Given that I just ripped off another one, you can see that this resolution has never been kept. Part of it is my grandparents’ disdain at the sound of long fingernails clacking on piano keys (Grandpa always said girls should keep their nails short, so this didn’t happen), part of it is I can’t grow long nails (thanks, CF finger clubbing, although mine’s not as bad as some other people’s), and part of it is….I just do it. If Jackie Kennedy did it, I guess I can do it too, with no serious loss of face, although I do try to keep a nail file with me to keep hangnails from appearing. And yet…they do.

In my family we didn’t have a tradition of making a big show of new year’s, or resolutions. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried, with varying success, to make resolutions and keep them, but they’ve never lasted very long.

I’m good at short-term things: like NaNoWriMo. I’m great at that. Writing every day for a month? That I can do. But then the habit lapses.

There are a few things that I do regularly: take meds (I know, how thrilling!), say my Divine Office, read, Mass. The rosary, usually, although some days it’s said right before bed and I fall asleep while I’m saying it.

But this year I’m going to try to make it different. I’ve got a few days left of break and while I have a cold right now (it’s been hanging around for the better part of this month and I am determined to get rid of it in the next few days, if not today), there are some habits I want to instill this year, for certain:

• Daily writing–either blogging, journaling, editing novels, or something else.
• Attending Mass at least once during the work week, every week.
• Getting up earlier. This is a habit I actually started working on this year, and it’s worked fairly well, but now I need to push it back even farther. My goal is to be up by 7 AM on a daily basis, so I’ve got about 20 minutes to shave off here.
• Daily Bible reading. Again, another habit I started this year, but it’s been hit or miss. I’m hoping that by waking up earlier I can add this to the time I’ll gain in the AM.
• The fitness habit–be more consistent.

So there are five things there, which I’m going to attempt to incorporate one at a time, starting with the getting up one. I’m hoping that by getting up earlier I’ll have more time in the morning to do things like read the bible. Working out in the morning will not happen unless I get up much earlier, which I don’t think will ever happen. Seven is probably the earliest I can coax my body to get up on a regular basis.

So if I can incorporate one a month, that puts me at the beginning of June for having these instituted. Of course the last one needs to be fleshed out a bit more. Goals need to be specific in order for them to be achieved. So off the top of my head, let’s say three hour long workouts a week–minimum. Once we establish that, we’ll go from there.

Do you make resolutions? If so, what are yours for 2014?

Christmas in photos

My parish altar, decorated for Christmas

Mel and I, wearing the scarves we got each other

Olaf isn’t mine–my brother got him for his girlfriend. But I love him anyway.

Santa brought soft kitty slippers!

Christmas table centerpiece–I made the gingerbread girl in ceramics class a million years ago.

Christmas books and other gifts

 

 

Seven Quick Takes Friday Vol. 33

I.

Happy feast of St. John the Evangelist!

II.

So how was your Christmas? Mine, as usual, was pretty excellent, and it continues (Christmas is 12 days, y’know) with the family reunion, which kicks off today. We went to the 4:00 Mass on Christmas Eve at my parish, where the priest (a son of the parish, who was ordained in June–as a Jesuit, but we limited the Jesuit jokes) gave a wonderful homily based on a line from the psalm, “blessed the people who know the joyful shout”. He also talked about God’s intense love for each one of us, at every moment of our lives. It was a really beautiful homily. The children’s choir provided the music.

My parish altar, decorated for Christmas

After Mass we headed to a local Italian place for the usual Christmas dinner, and then back to the house for the exchange of sibling gifts, and my brother and his girlfriend exchanged presents. There was much watching of A Christmas Story, per usual. We love that movie at our house.

III.

Christmas morning–my brother had to go to Mass on Christmas day (Since he worked the Eve), so once he was home we opened gifts and had the Traditional Christmas Morning Feast, which is sausage and cinnamon rolls. I look forward to that meal all year. I love it. I delight in it.

One of my favorite gifts: tickets to see the new US tour of Phantom of the Opera in March. My love for Phantom is deep and well-documented–it was the first professional musical I ever saw–and to see it again is always exciting to me, especially in a new production.

Christmas Day is a fairly low-key affair at our house. We stay in, nap, watch movies, and things like that. Bryan and I spent the night again while my sister went home (she had to work the 26th).

IV.

A nice “Christmas surprise” on the 26th was that my vacuum had given up the ghost, so dad ran to Best Buy and got me a new one. It’s nice, living where I do, in that there are three big box stores on one street, so it’s good when you need food and/or appliances. The new vacuum works amazingly well–it got up a crazy amount of dirt from the carpets. I was suitably impressed. As a reward for our efforts, we had Chipotle for lunch.

V.

Today kicks off the Annual Family Reunion and I am, as usual, psyched about it. It’s always great to see all my aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandma for a few days, especially now that everyone is getting older and it’s hard to see everyone when my family visits during the summer. Most of the family lives in Pittsburgh but some live in NYC, St. Louis, and Indianapolis, and my cousin Diane lives in Houston with her husband and two girls. So at Christmas we get to see about 98% of the family. There is lots of food, drink, frivolity, shopping and movie-seeing.

VI.

On Sunday I’m going to a hockey game with a friend’s family–Penguins vs. Blue Jackets. This is a tough game, because the Penguins have been “my team” since I was about six years old, but the Jackets are my hometown team. Either way, a team I like shall win–but the game is here, in Columbus, so it would probably be safer to root for the Jackets? Maybe? I might just wear a neutral blue shirt and “Grover”, my North Face fleece. 🙂 Then I’m good either way!

VII.

As usual, I got several books for Christmas (to be augmented today–I got a B&N gift card, too): Longbourn, Lidia’s Commonsense Italian Cooking, and Jane Austen’s England. Longbourn was amazing, and I highly recommend it. I was a bit wary of the premise–it’s the “downstairs” version of Pride and Prejudice, basically–but it turned out wonderfully well. And since my sister got me a scarf with a quote from P&P on it, it was a very P&P Christmas. 🙂

Catholic Women’s Almanac No. 45

waiting…soon He comes!

Outside my window::

Cloudy, and a lot colder. It was almost 70 yesterday and we had rain all weekend, but it’s in the 30s now. Tomorrow it will be in the mid twenties. Brr! Quite seasonal though so I don’t mind.

Reading::

Finished One Thousand White Women and Yesterday, Today, Forever; the latter was better than the former. The former would have been better if it hadn’t been so slow to move, since it became very exciting towards the end. I’m eagerly anticipating Christmas books. 🙂

In the CD player::

One of Mannheim Steamroller’s Christmas CD–the one with Carol of the bells, O Holy Night, Veni Veni, Hark the Herald, and a few others. It’s my favorite of all their Christmas albums.

Christmas::

Gosh I can’t wait!!!! I love Christmas so much, it’s sort of crazy. Tomorrow starts with brunch with my friends, which is always a great time. After that I head over to my parents’  (the restaurant is on the way), where I’ll spend the night Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We’ll go to 4:00 Mass at our parish, which will be glorious arrayed for  Christmas (I’ll post pictures), then dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse, and then back to the parents’ mason for the holiday. We do the sibling gift exchange on Christmas Eve, with the rest of the gifts on Christmas morning, followed by the most GLORIOUS breakfast of the year, and which I eagerly anticipate all year. It’s just cinnamon rolls and sausage links, but I love it. I am a big proponent of tradition, and this has been our breakfast for as long as I can remember, so I love seeing it re-appear every year.

In the spirit of West Wing’s State Dinner ep, this dress is what I’m wearing, and I shall endeavor to do my hair like this. (There are no mother-of-pearl toe buckles in sight, however.)

From the kitchen::
Not much, since I won’t be cooking the next two/three days. I did make these biscuits over the weekend and they were quite yummy! Note to the recipe: I used regular flour (2 c.), and “clabbered milk”, and they were still awesome.

Around the house::
Packing, last-minute gifts to pack up, cleaning out the trunk of my car so everything will fit, and then a bit of general tidying, to make room for Christmas stuff and c.

Plans for the week::

Other than the obvious? 🙂 Christmas family reunion kicks off on Friday, then Blue Jacket/Pens game on Sunday!

Catholic Women’s Almanac No. 44

Outside my window::

It’s not snowing! For the record, this has been the 8th snowiest December on record in Columbus–and it’s not even winter yet. Oy vey! It will, however, be snowing later today……about an inch of so.

Wearing::

Tan pants, a navy blue boatneck top, my Pandora charm bracelet, and really warm wool socks. Smartwool, thou art my friend.

Reading::

One Thousand White Women, The Fiery Cross (re-reading the Outlander series), Writing Down the Bones (a Christmas gift from Tiff)

In the CD player::

A Midwinter Night’s Dream. I have swapped out Frozen, but now I have the Frozen sheet music, so…. 🙂

Keeping Advent::

The O Antiphons start today with Wisdom. I love the O Antiphons!

Christmas Prep::

That last scarf! And writing a list of gifts received so I can write Thank You notes.

Celebrating::

Birthdays. Today is the Pope’s, and Beethoven; Jane Austen’s was yesterday. Let’s party!

From the kitchen::

Nothing tonight, but I did have a very successful dinner party on Saturday! Beef and cider pot along with a salad (greens, capers, red onion, and a vinaigrette with dijon mustard, EVOO, worchestershire, steak seasoning, white wine vinegar)

Around the house::

I think my vacuum cleaner is broken. 😦 So this makes me a bit unhappy. Thankfully it will warm up to the 50s (!) and rain this weekend so my car will get clean!

Pondering::

There is another very ordinary expression that I wonder how often we ponder: someone has a job to “wait on tables”. What do we mean by that? Not that you stand there and do nothing–quite the opposite! You are moving all the time. You are taking care of people’s needs. You are watching out for needs; you don’t even wait until they are expressed. You see that everyone is taken care of, that no one is missed. This is what we mean by waiting. And our dear Lord tells us that he rewards waiting–with waiting! Isn’t that marvelous? “Blessed are those whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them (Lk 12:37).” The reward for focus, for service, for active waiting upon the Lord is that he will wait on us. I think that is the most marvelous truth that the Church shows us in the Scriptures. This is how we rewards us for right, energetic, focused, joyous waiting for him. God always does this. When we wait upon him, then he waits upon our needs.

Who would not want to wait upon Jesus hand and foot? Well, so often the answer is that we are the ones who do not want to do this. Where is he? In the tabernacle, yes; in the world of Scripture, yes; and in the  persons in this room. We want to wait upon him hand and foot in one another, so that he may wait upon us. The more we do this, the more do we enter into the joy of the child, who says in the right way, with the wisdom peculiar to the child, unencumbered by the complexities and rationalizations of the adult, “I can’t wait! I can hardly bear the deliciousness of this activity of waiting!”

How do you wait for someone whom you really love? You do all kinds of things; you have all kinds of surprises awaiting the loved one. It is an expression of love. Real waiting always begets this loving “doing.” It eases the burden of waiting, which otherwise can scarcely be borne, as the child knows so well. The person waiting at the window is full of activity. When we are waiting for the loved one to come down the road, our heart is poudning, our eyes are straining, our whole body is taut, leaning forward. Someone is coming! Someone whom we love above all is coming! And now, in Advent, the One who we love about all is coming. The Church is giving us these precious days to focus the eye, to let the heart pound because he is coming. He will come. By the love of waiting for his little red lights that say, “Step back, now, because someone else needs to be served”, we will enter into the deliciousness of the real “Can’t wait.” We shall understand that when waiting is rightly comprehended, it is a deliciousness that is already indeed a wink of bliss.

–Mother Mary Francis, PCP, Come Lord Jesus, December 17: Waiting

Plans for the week::

Blood drive at work on Thursday and office Christmas lunch; Friday my parents and I are going out to lunch, and Saturday I’m planning to see The Book Thief with a theater pal.

Catholic Women’s Almanac No. 43

Outside my window::

A good 3-4″ of fresh white powder from a “dusting” this morning. The weathermen here seem to be living in Wonderland; we call for a big storm, we get limited snow, we call for a dusting, we get dumped on (well, a bit. It’s a dumping when you’re expecting less than an inch!). Opposite day, anyone?

I agree with Olaf:

Wearing::

Nutmeg colored boots; black v-neck, empire waist dress, and a cranberry camisole under it, with my Our Lady of Knots and St. Thomas Aquinas medals.

In the CD player::

Frozen. Yeah. I probably need to switch it out.

reading::

One Thousand White Women; A Dance With Dragons; Outlander (again); Come Lord Jesus, The Greatest Gift

Keeping Advent::

Went to confession on Saturday. Score! Also the last two books above are Advent devotionals.

Christmas prep::

Working on that last Christmas scarf, and a few more cards to send out.

From the kitchen::

Girls’ dinner party on Saturday, so: salad, St. Lucia buns, and beef and cider pot for that. Saturday is St. Lucia’s day, so let’s party with buns, since I am Italian, bien sur!

Around the house::

I need to start wrapping gifts. I am horrible at this. Once I was about nine, my dad had me wrap my mom’s presents. I didn’t do too well, but….so I am not the world’s best gift wrapper. I do, however, have AWESOME paper with the Grinch and various characters on it. (For the roots of my Grinch love, go here, number 6)

Creativity::

The novel is resting. In January I start revisions.

Pondering::

…I ask you to take this very deeply into your prayer, so that we are not just facilely mouthing, “Come, come!” without realizing what we are saying. Then each “Come” would ring very hollow in heaven. We want it to fill the world; we want to reach out to all the world, so that is says, “Come!”  If we open wide, he will come in; he will grow within us, in each of our lives and in the life of our community, and we will be able to respond with joy to everything his coming asks for us, expected, unexpected; ordinary or extraordinary; predictable or unpredictable. He will come in and give us the strength as he says, “I will take my repast with him; I will take supper with him, if he lets me in.” Then we will be nourished unto the fullness of him whom we have allowed to come into our souls, whom we have allowed to come into us both in himself and through the sisterhood.”

–Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. “Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting”, Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

Plans for the week::

Dinner party on Saturday

Girls’ night and gift exchange on Friday with Tiffy (movie night!)

Gaudete Sunday and last CCD class until 2014!

Movie Review: Frozen

Movie poster, with, from left to right: Elsa, Christof, Sven, Olaf, Anna, Prince Hans.

If you just want a fast recap: I really liked this movie. I liked it so much I saw it twice in two days. So, there you have that.

Oh, you want more detail. OK.

Frozen, A Disney Animation Studios product, tells the story of Anna and Elsa, two Nordic princesses in the fictional kingdom of Arendelle. Elsa is born with the gift to create snow and ice, and she uses it mostly to entertain herself and her younger sister, until she accidentally hurts Anna with it. Their parents take them to a wise troll healer, who heals Anna, but also erases all the memories she has of Elsa’s powers.

Anna’s parents hide Elsa away, and give her gloves (her power is transmitted through her hands) to wear to hide her ability. Elsa is terrified to get close to anyone, and as a result, never plays with Anna anymore. When their parents die in a shipwreck, Elsa is next in line to be queen when she comes of age.

This is where the story really picks up–the song “Do You Want To Build A Snowman?” chronicles the girls’ lives from Elsa’s separation from Anna to the day of their parents’ funeral. Anna, lonely in the palace, can’t wait for Coronation Day, because she’ll get to meet the people of Arendelle (her parents closed the palace’s gates when learning about the power of Elsa’s ability). Elsa is terrified she’ll ruin the coronation ceremony.

At the ball following the ceremony, Elsa accidentally reveals her powers, and, terrified, flees to the mountains. Anna goes after her sister, determined to bring her back. As Anna goes on her journey, she picks up three companions: Christof, an ice seller; Sven, his reindeer, and Olaf, a talking snowman magicked into being by Elsa, who dreams of summer.

Elsa testing her powers

The story is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen, and as the movie goes along, it reveals more similarities to the original story than immediately apparent. The story is about the relationship between sisters, and it’s that sort of love, not romantic love, that drives the story (although Anna does have a romantic relationship in the film).

The animation is breathtaking, as you’d expect from Disney, and the characters are multi-dimensional and well drawn and voiced (Kristen Bell voices Anna, and Idina Menzel voices Elsa). The songs are the strongest in recent memory, probably since The Lion King and included a great ballad for Elsa entitled “Let It Go”, which is perfect for Menzel’s range and strengths. Olaf the snowman has a solo in “Summer”, where he dreams about experiencing summer (but as a snowman…); the sister share an “I Want” duet called “For The First Time In Forever”. There’s also beautifully arranged choral singing throughout the film.

I liked this movie better than Brave, and a tiny bit more than Tangled. To me, this movie is in the Little Mermaid/Aladdin/Lion King mold of Disney quality and shape, so if you liked those films, I believe you’ll like Frozen.