we gather together

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I Thank Thee

O Thou whose bounty fill my cup,
With every blessing meet!
I give Thee thanks for every drop-
The bitter and the sweet.

I praise Thee for the desert road,
And for the riverside;
For all Thy goodness hath bestowed,
And all thy grace denied.

I thank Thee for both smile and frown,
And for the gain and loss;
I praise Thee for the future crown
And for the present cross.

I thank Thee for both wings of love
Which stirred my wordly nest;
And for the stormy clouds which drove
Me, trembling, to Thy breast.

I bless Thee for the glad increase,
And for the waning joy;
And for this strange, this settled peace
Which nothing can destroy.

--Jane Crewdson (1860)

taking time out for a friend

My friend, Barb, and I discovered (through our daily e-mails back and forth while we are at work) that we were both taking a vacation day today to prepare for Thanksgiving. She suggested we take time out of our morning to meet for coffee at Tim Horton's. Here is Barb enjoying a cup of coffee and a 12-grain bagel. I am so disappointed that I have been taking blurry pictures lately. I carry my camera in my purse and the dial gets so easily turned to a setting other than the ones I like. I didn't notice and I can't see the tiny screen well enough even with my reading glasses to tell that the picture is blurry until I download it. That is why I have put a new camera on my Christmas list. So I'm so sorry about the quality of these pics.



After coffee we walked over to Georgetown Liquor to purchase wine for Thanksgiving dinner. Barb knows a lot about wine. She was afraid that she was beginning to sound like an alcoholic but I told her she just sounds like a wine connoisseur. Since her husband is Italian she chose Prosecco - a white sparkling wine. I chose Pouilly-Fuisse since I know that it is a favorite of B. We considered spending the day talking in these big comfy chairs by the fire but knew we had to get along home to start our busy days. Happy Thanksgiving, my friend. I am thankful that we could spend some time together.

where would you like me to sit?

If you are hosting Thanksgiving dinner, this question can be answered by the use of placecards. Perhaps you can enlist the help of a small child to make the cards for you. This set was made by this little angel, my niece Mandy, seen here playing with baby Jay. Ernie is resting on the sofa.

my salad days

I've been going to Weight Watchers the past couple months and eating a lot of salads. It has paid off. This week after digging my money out of my wallet and stepping on the scales, my money was handed back to me because I'm a Lifetime member and I was within two pounds of my goal. Yeah!! I love salad but I've been trying to come up with something besides the plain old green one. This one I think is especially delish. I'll call it "Autumn Salad". Eating it off my heavy diner style Buffalo China plate makes it even more tasty. It consists of oranges, chick peas, green olives, carrots, fennel, yellow pepper, red onion, cilantro and a splash each of olive oil and lite rice vinegar. Try it. You'll like it.

prosit! to your health

About a year ago this darling little German restaurant opened on Main Street. Since B and I both have some German blood in us and our last name is definitely German, I decided to treat B to Prosit for his birthday dinner. I didn't call for reservations until yesterday, the actual date of B's birthday. I found that they were booked for the evening except for 4:30 which is the time they open. We ate a light lunch and by 4:00 we were starving so it worked out well. I think the building had actually been a home at one time. It was a two story very narrow townhouse. Before becoming this restaurant it had been an antique shop among other things. The rooms have a lot of heavy dark intricately carved woodwork and are painted in dark golds and browns. Old glass-doored china cabinets stuffed with hand painted and gold gilt-trimmed Bavarian china are fitted into the nooks and crannies. It is owned and operated by the Schlau family . Oh my, the food was out of this world. Out of this modern contemporary world anyway. Old songs that were favorites of our parents played in the background. Autumn Leaves and Misty. All the table settings were mismatched and antique. An old photo that looked like it could have been B's paternal grandparents sat on our table.



First a plate of thinly sliced raisin bread, pumpernickel and rye along with a few thin slices of cheese and molded herb butter were place before us. This is B eating his bread. We meant to have some with our salad but the bread plate was bare when our salads arrived.



This is our salad. My hand must have been shaking with the anticipation of eating it because I'm disappointed to find this picture came out a bit blurry. All entrees were served with this house salad and a choice of three house dressings. The salad was field greens, whole raw cranberries, black olives, feta cheese and two big crispy homemade croutons. I had carrot-ginger salad dressing and B had bacon-tomato. I pronounced my dressing one of the best I'd ever had and B pronounced his the best. All entrees were served with very lightly cooked, still slightly crip apple slices with a dash of struesel topping, warm sweet and sour red cabbage and a cold cabbage and celery slaw that was lightly dressed in vinegar and oil. B ordered Golumbki (ground spiced pork wrapped in cabbage leaves). I ordered the traditional sauerbraten or Schlaubraten as it is called at Prosit. As you can see by lack of photo of my entree, I really was so excited when it arrived that I completely forgot about the picture that I had intended to take. It came with a big lightly breaded and fried dumpling in addition to the three sides. I took my first bite. "This is unbelievable" I told B. I offered him a bite. He agreed.



In fact, right then and there he made a reservation for the following Friday. Jay will be visiting us for Thanksgiving and we want to share this memorable dining experience. We followed our meal by sharing Black Forest Chocolate Mousse. We are looking forward to this Friday when B will be saying Goodbye to Golumbki and Willkommen to Schlaubraten.

happy birthday hottie #2

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Today is B's birthday and he deserves equal hottie time. Happy birthday, Sweet William!!

creatures in the house

a cicada in my bathroom


a hen party on my kitchen desk


someone who thinks he is royalty

keeping the sabbath

Some keep the Sabbath going to church
I keep it staying at home
with a bob-o-link for a cloister
and an orchard for a dome.



Some keep the Sabbath in surplice
I just wear my wings
and instead of tolling the bell for church
our little sexton sings.



God preaches - a noted clergyman-
and the sermon is never long
so instead of getting to heaven at last
I'm going all along!

Emily Dickinson

so long big blue

B had been thinking about replacing Big Blue last October. Then one evening on my way home from work a big SUV made an illegal left-hand turn in a busy intersection spinning me around and totaling my tiny Rav 4. But that's a another story.
We had to quickly replace my '97 Rav with a very pretty maroon and silver '06 Rav. We put a hold on replacing Blue. This October Blue starting wheezing and feeling pain in his right front wheel. He was diagnosed with old age (14 years) and arthritis (aka a slightly bent wheel). We couldn't put it off any longer. B didn't think that Blue would make it through the winter.

B had been researching autos for awhile and thought he would like to buy a hybrid, so we went to the car dealership and test drove a Prius. It's a little off-putting to sit at a light waiting for it to turn green and not hear your car running. Even though the Prius was appealing, a used one was priced almost as much as new one. B had a dollar amount in mind and he didn't want to stray too far.

B pulled together an Excel spreadsheet to analyze his savings among the various cars that held his interest. Elantra, Corolla, Civic and Prius down the side. Price, cost of gas and years to recoup across the top. He called me into his office and explained to me that it would take 6 years to recoup if the cost of gas was $4 per gallon and even if the cost of gas went up to $7 it would still take 4 years. This cemented that we would not be buying a Prius. He decided to buy a less expensive car now and wait for an electric plug-in car to show up on the market in a few more years.

The Saturday morning of Columbus Day weekend we sat out to visit dealerships and test drive a used Civic and a used Elantra he had found on-line. The Civic had a strong dog smell inside and the color was not appealing. B doesn't like white cars and he thought that maybe the reason my car had been involved in the accident was because black cars may be hard to see. Besides he wanted an exciting color like red or bright blue. The Elantra was red and had a lot of bells and whistles. We put a deposit down on Saturday with the intent of continuing to shop throughout the weekend. On Sunday B saw a new listing on-line for a 2007 Corolla. He left a message with the dealership and on Columbus Day he went over to take a look. I called him from work around noon to inquire about the status of his car shopping.
He replied that he was "All done".
I said "Really, when do you pick it up"?
"It's already in the driveway" he responded.
He had driven Blue home then ridden his bicycle back to the dealership, picked up Red and stopped to have the insurance pictures taken. He was all set to drive Red to work on Tuesday.



"You’ll look so cool driving to work in your candy apple red sports car" I told him.
B looked up. "It’s not candy apple red . It’s called impulse pearl red."
"Well then, they certainly got that wrong, didn’t they?" I said with a smile.

thoroughly modern mona

after a Mexican feast

Thanks to all who sent me happy birthday wishes. Many told me "Happy Birthday" in person. My mom sent a card by snail mail. My baby sister, Melissa, texted me birthday wishes via cell phone. My big sister, Debbie, posted birthday wishes on her blog. Others sent e-mails and e-cards. I received wishes, smiles, angels and cards on Facebook. My sister-in-law, Mary, even sang Happy Birthday ala Marilyn Monroe to me by posting a video on Facebook. My friend, Barb, shared lunch and champagne with me. Bill took me out to dinner at The Left Bank. When we arrived he asked the hostess for a table near an electrical outlet where he proceeded to plug in my gift – a digital photo frame. We watched a show personally prepared for me throughout dinner. Photos from all our years together. My son, Jay, and his girlfriend, Sara, drove from Rochester to share a meal at our favorite Mexican restaurant. He presented us with e-tickets to see and hear the Trans Siberian Orchestra in December.


some of my birthday presents

I received birthday wishes by so many different mediums that it got me to thinking about our modern technological world. When I was in college I was first introduced to computers through a computer language class that I took one summer. B and I had to go to the math and business building where we used key punch machines to punch cards. If you made a mistake on a card you had to punch a new one. Then we took our rubber-banded stack of cards to the giant computer where we handed it over to a student worker who would put it through a card reader machine. A day or so later we returned to pick up a big green and white striped pin-fed paper print-out. If a mistake had been made the whole process had to be repeated. At my first job the computer was housed in a special glass-walled room. The temperature and humidity had to be kept constant. I would leave my desk to sit at one of the three or four monitors to key in information and miracle of miracles only hours passed before I received my print-out.
At work today we are paperless. I scan and fax and peer at dual monitors on my desk everyday. In October I took another step toward being modern when I embraced blogging and Facebook. I started using my camera more and started down-loading photos nearly everyday. So I guess there is no looking back. Better face reality. Everything today is thoroughly modern. Everything today makes yesterday slow.

happy birthday hottie

Indulge me, please..... It's my birthday and this is the picture I chose for my birthday post. It may not be the me of today but still...it is me nonetheless.