Thundersnow.

Honestly, we had the worst commute ever yesterday. Jason says to call it "harrowing," and I think that, as the person who had to drive the worst parts of it, it's more than fair to let him decide how to describe it. Let's just call this a collaborative entry. You'd think after Snowpocalypse (or Snowmaggedon, the names are interchangeable now) that this city might have figured something out about handling a snow storm. But no. They have not.

We all knew the snow was coming--we woke up to icy slush, and all the warnings pointed to a brief respite during the afternoon before 5-10 inches descended on us. The East Coast has been pummeled with bad storms this winter, but somehow Washington had escaped them all until yesterday. Right on time at 3:00 p.m., the rain started, and right on time at 3:00 p.m., the government announced a two-hour early release, and right on time at 3:00 p.m., every worker in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area spilled out into their cars and onto the streets. Rush hour turned into rush minute.

We ventured out right into the middle of it. Due to a last-minute meeting (people who were “had to get to the airport,” ha), I didn’t spill out into my car at 4:00 p.m. to go pick him up two miles away. I finally got to him at about 5:10 p.m. I thought we’d hit the worst of it until we got onto I-66 for the last few miles and what is usually the easiest part of our commute. My relief at finally being out of DC (and giving Jason the wheel) was short-lived, however. I-66 was a string of brake lights, and as the rain turned to snow and the snow turned to ice, that string started to blink a bit as cars began to fishtail down the road. An oversized commuter-bus jack-knifed across both lanes of traffic, slowing the mind-numbing crawl to a complete stop for a while, and finally we discovered that up ahead it had snowed so much that they'd already shut down lanes so that only one was still open. Lovely.

We’d only had to go one exit on I-66, so when we finally reached it after an hour and a half (note: total drive time at this point is 2:30), we were feeling a bit reckless, so Jason bravely gunned it up the off-ramp. We cheered…and then realized that, no matter how we came at it, another steep hill stood between us and our house.

Our first plan was thwarted when two power lines came down right in front of us. Our second plan forced us back into painful traffic where we sat for another hour, just a mile and a half from our house. People had already started abandoning their cars in the middle of the road, having run out of gas or just simply given up and walked home—and don't think we didn't consider it. Finally we reached the road that goes to our condo, and we decided to make a break for it.

Jason seriously deserves a medal for Gutsiest Driving, 2011. We watched as at least three cars ahead of us started up the hill and slid backwards, but when there was a space, he gunned it and maneuvered his way past them, doing everything he could to keep the wheels spinning. At the top he let out a shakey breath and we braced ourselves for the last hill. The snow was wet and thick and landed like a sheet of slushy ice, and when we turned onto the last street an abandoned van sat in the middle of the road, having run out of gas. Jason took a deep breath, laid on the horn, and picked up speed down the hill before gunning it again to go up the last slope. All of my dad's lessons about what to do when the car starts fishtailing came flying back to me as we careened this way and that, narrowly missing one car and a fire hydrant as the wheels threatened to spin out of control. When we finally reached the top of the hill, he laid on the horn again and we flew through the yellow light.

We turned onto our street at 8:15 p.m. Over four hours after I left work.

Jason has this uncanny gift for being able to fall asleep whenever, wherever…something that sort of annoys me when I lay tossing and turning in bed. But last night he was still flush with adrenaline, and plagued by recurring flashes of the horrific drive, it was he who tossed and turned. The only saving grace was that we were together. It would have been terrible to have lived through those hours separated, constantly wondering if the other would survive the night and without means to attempt any sort of rescue.

We took full advantage of the offered delay on coming in this morning, waiting until the ice had turned back into slush before venturing out again. We definitely had a story to tell when we got in to work, but it turns out lots of people had it way worse off—someone was stuck on the GW Parkway for twelve hours, for example, and someone else took a grueling bus ride from the airport to the metro, only to have the metro closed and the bus turn around and go back to the airport. So all in all, only a little room to complain. Besides, we have a sunny getaway only a couple of days away, and we wouldn’t be able to truly appreciate it without miserable weather here, right?!?

A Sad Goodbye

We took an unexpected trip to Ohio this past weekend to celebrate the life of Jason's grandma Small, who passed away last week. A sad event, but not an unexpected one, as Grammy had been very sick over recent months and fell and broke her leg right after the New Year. Sometimes when someone is in pain and suffering, the sadness co-mingles with the joy that they are in a better place, you know? That Grammy is now at the feet of the King makes me smile. We were very happy that we'd been able to see her and have such a good time at Christmas, which we recognized at the time as a big blessing.

It was absolutely frigid in Mount Vernon while we were there--Saturday morning it was below zero when we left the house, and I think the high was about 15 degrees F for the weekend! It was nice to get an extra chance to spend time with the family again. We enjoyed the chance to visit with Justin and his girlfriend April briefly, we went to see True Grit (v. good), and on Sunday afternoon we drove a couple of hours to have lunch with some good friends from when the family lived in Pennsylvania when Jason was young. That was a real treat.

Sad moments like these, when they come, remind me of what Jesus has done for me, how He died so that I could be reconciled with Him. We've been talking a lot about reconciliation lately, about God's amazing powers to restore us to the people He created us to be, to restore the world, to restore our relationships with each other. When I have a God who can make things right again, I feel foolish that I don't always trust Him to do so. What a relief to live in His power instead of my own!

Routine

When a new year rolls around, I always, always hear my mom’s voice in my head talking about getting “back into the routine” and getting with a “new program.” These phrases always accompanied any occasion where a shift in mentality was called for—the beginning of the school year, January, coming home from a vacation, what have you. Granted, her “new programs” almost always came with some sort of chart for divvying up the household chores, but while that was never fun, there was always something sort of calming about getting back into the routine. I distinctly remember my mom’s set of index cards laying out what tasks belonged to what days—I imagine there were times that without that sense of structure, she might have gone crazy. It must have profoundly influenced me, as I still look for my bearings in the comfort of routine.

Anyway, January is a good time to both "get back into the routine" and start "new programs," and I’m learning that the lynch-pin for many of those programs (i.e. eating healthy, taking lunches to work, getting control of spending) is the same: meal planning. I am heavily dependent on meal planning, and I’ve mentioned in a few blog entries the ambitious four-week menus that have kept me sane during particularly busy times. I suspect that there are a lot of us out there who have latched onto meal planning as either a good new program or a way to get back into the routine for 2011. I don’t claim to have the best solutions to menu planning (I am NOT good with coupons, for example, which I realize completely influences how you plan meals), and I think there are lots of ways to do this (I love Becca's idea from way back here), but if, as Andrea has suggested, you’re looking for some tips, here's how I do it.

My menu planning has two levels of intensity. Ever since Jason and I got married and I discovered that you cannot actually live on love alone, I have planned my meals on a weekly basis, writing out the entire menu on a white board on our fridge. A couple of things I consider:

• Weeknight meals need to come together in 30 minutes or less. If I have a recipe that takes longer, it needs to be scheduled for the weekend.
• We don’t usually get home from church until shortly before 1:00 on Sundays, so I try to plan meals that can either go in an oven set on a timer (roasted veggies are particularly good) or in the crockpot—especially dishes that can only cook for 3 or 4 hours (as opposed to the 10 hours required for weeknight meals).
• Speaking of crockpots, Wednesdays are usually the longest days at work, so I try to plan a long-cooking crockpot meal, like this, for that night so that we can walk in, dejected and worn out, and smell dinner ready to spoon into our bellies.
• I try to choose meals early in the week that provide leftovers to take for lunches during the rest of the week. For example, we almost always have soup on Sunday nights, and I occasionally make four servings of a dish on Monday instead of two.
• Figuring out what to make is always a challenge—easier if you’re only doing it once a week instead of every night, but a challenge nonetheless—so I’ve put together a list of meals that we like to eat. I can then just look at the list rather than sort through all my recipes and cookbooks.
• I know this seems to go without saying, but once I’ve chosen the menu, I pull every recipe out to see what ingredients I need to buy at the store. If I don’t do this, I inevitably forget that I need green onions for black bean tacos or didn’t realized I’d run out of the cashews I need for curry.
• Perhaps this also goes without saying, but I plan out the entire meal—main dish, sides, veggies—and mark where to find the recipe. This enables Jason to make the meal if he gets home first, which is key to the success of both our meal plan and our marriage.

In a particularly busy season, I take my meal planning up a notch and plan for four weeks at a time. There are clear advantages to the four-week plan—obviously, less time figuring out what to have, but also less grocery shopping and less wasting of perishables—but there are disadvantages too, mainly lack of flexibility. I often lament at three food magazines worth of recipes going untested during the four-week plan, but sacrifices must be made. For a four-week plan, I think about:

• What dishes can I double so that half can be eaten the first night and the other half put in the freezer for a quick meal later in the month? Things like this work well.
• In the same vein, what dishes can I make on, say, Monday of one week, and then eat again on Thursday of the next week, so that I use up all of, for example, the shredded cabbage that I only like in black bean tacos?
• In the same vein (again), how many recipes do I have that use plain yogurt? Cilantro? Green onions? What do these ingredients all have in common? 1: I can never, ever use a whole container/bunch of them in one meal, and 2: I have three or four well-loved meals for each ingredient. Solution? Plan meals around ingredients to use them up, rather than throwing away yet another bunch of slimy cilantro or putrid yogurt. For example, cilantro goes in this and this and this.
• What can I use up that’s been in my pantry or freezer for a long time? Somehow the type of planning that involves using up the side of beef we bought from my parents, oh, three years ago goes better with long-term meal planning than short-term, so I like trying to clean out what we have by the end of the month so we can start fresh.
• What simple meals can I plan for nights when I know I won’t have a lot of time? I realize this should be how I think on a daily basis, but meal planning exercise forces me to look at dinner differently—as something that has to be done each night instead of a fun activity to take up an evening. I know, you think I’m looking at this backwards, but honestly, when you have to work until 6:30 and drive home in traffic and then read 300 pages and write a five-page paper before going to bed at a decent time so that you can do it all again the next day, it’s healthy to consider dinner as a means to an end. This summer Andrea (to whom this blog entry is dedicated) impressed upon me the importance of setting realistic expectations in the kitchen—paninis and salad, for example, are a nice meal, as is anything that takes 15 minutes or less (like this or this).
• Also good: leftovers. How have I forgotten this message? My favorite nights all through high school and college were Sunday night leftover nights, which were a smorgasbord of whatever you liked best. Plan one night a week to finish off all the last bits of curry and those last two slices of pork that are not enough for a meal all by themselves but go really well together with a dollop of tapioca salad.
• Grocery shop for a month at a time. Putting together the four-week meal plan is a production—recipes everywhere, scratching out things and moving them to different days, list after list—but go all the way and make your grocery list at the same time. Write down every ingredient you will need for each week, then go through and put all the canned goods, frozen meat, etc., on your grocery list for week one. Your pantry and freezer will be full, but for the next three weeks you will just have to add the list of produce and other perishables you’ve already created for that week to whatever milk and eggs you need to get. If the point of the menu is to save time in the kitchen, save time at the store, too.
• And here is my last tip: If you are planning for longer than two weeks, keep one night free each week. Stuff always comes up—a friend comes into town and you go out to dinner one night unexpectedly, Jason has to work late and we decide to do “dinner on your own” (aka ramen noodles), someone invites you over to dinner for this next Friday—and you can really only guess how the calendar will look four weeks in advance. The four-week meal plan was particularly successful for me during school, since I knew what I was going to be doing at least five nights a week (homework, class, homework, class, falling asleep at 7), but these days I would need to build in for some uncertainty. Maybe I make this my leftovers night, with the recognition that we can have leftovers on Saturday for lunch if we don’t eat them on Thursday. Whatever. It’s a good practice.

Okay, long blog entry, but hopefully interesting? What are your ideas for menu planning? Does it work for you or not? Any tips or advice you want to offer?

The First Few Pages

We have spent the first few pages of 2011 just like this: fire, shared ottoman, books. Sometimes (like now) tea. Nearly every night this week, we have cleaned up the dishes and settled in for at least an hour. It is heavenly. I actually feel like I'm doing something extravagant and probably irresponsible, even though the only things hanging over my head are dinner (and since, inspired by Andrea, we made this recipe for lunch today, we are not at all hungry yet) and a pile of constituent mail that needs editing.

You may notice, by the way, that Jason is reading Harry Potter. I know, I'm completely beside myself but trying not to overreact and thus scare him away. He has committed to reading at least through the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is generally agreed to be the "hooking point." The other day he randomly wove the phrase "house elf" into a conversation about not wanting to empty the dishwasher. My heart leapt.

So far, 2011 is exACTly what I had hoped it would be. There are delicious new recipes (this and this are for dinner tonight). There is working out (oh! THAT'S what's hanging over my head today!). There is a new Congress where my boss is both presiding over the House floor (yay!) and chairman of the approps subcommittee on which I work (double yay!). There is paced organization of everything, starting with a new spreadsheet of the recipes I want to try from my cooking magazines. There are new boots found on clearance on their way. There are long hours with books by the fire. There are twinkle lights, at least until the rest of our neighbors have taken theirs down. There is the tantalizing anticipation of a graduation celebration on the beach.

The only thing missing is chocolate cake.

New Year

Jason started the year toasting it in with friends who came over to play games. I started it in bed with a cold, kept company by Mr. Darcy and good cold meds. We've laid low the past few days, and all in all I'm grateful that the cold came when I was already planning to lay around in sweats and watch obscene amounts of tv, versus finish papers or celebrate Christmas or start new Congress next week.

Today's to-do list started with sleeping in far too long, then:
1. Drinking lots of coffee;
2. Tearing down the Christmas tree in overcaffeinated frenzy, then packing up all the other Christmas decorations (still feel grinch-ish for being so anxious to get everything down);
3. Eating soup leftover from last night's party;
4. Taking a shower;
5. Sitting.

There is still dinner to make, and Jason is organizing his computer games in an effort to pass time until the hockey Winter Classic starts at eight. But this quiet moment, in the clean, uncluttery (love tree, but takes up third of room) living room with tea and fire is my favorite way to start the new year.

I've been anxious to put 2010 behind us--this fall, particularly, felt like being trapped in a deep rut, so I feel relieved that January 1 is finally here. I want something totally new for 2011, something to break the mold. Like moving to London. Or quitting my job and writing a book. Or taking up ballet. Or, at the very least, getting a bold new hair cut.

For today, I've abandoned my Lady Grey for some new white tea and put away my Sara Groves playlist for a long-forgotten Lifehouse album. I feel a bit better, ready for a January where I will:
* organize my house, room by room, starting with the spare room and working my way up to that ridiculous shelf of crap in the utility room;
* write letters (or, okay, emails) to the dear friends whom I have completely and utterly neglected over the past year;
* update my iPod;
* practice the art of meditation, as studied in Celebration of Disciplines last year (perhaps not bad idea to stop for a moment and give God a little space to speak in my life);
* stop eating sugar (must dispose of hundreds of cookies, chocolate candies, etc. in next 24 hours) and get in awesome shape so that I a) look fabulous in a swim suit, b) stop huffing and puffing up the stairs (pretend it is the head cold, but pretty sure it is the lack of working out since before Thanksgiving), and c) fit into the majority of my jeans again;
* write something. Just something.

I am very happy for new beginnings this year...or, at least, I will be once I have polished off this last bag of cookies...

Ohio Christmas

We had a really delightful Christmas with Jason's family this year. Jason's work schedule forced us to arrive on Christmas Eve, but we were able to get there by lunch time and spend the afternoon hanging out with his parents before heading to the Christmas Eve service at their church that evening. I like Christmas Eve services. Growing up, we always did the carol singing and Christmas story reading together at home, but it is nice to do it at church, as well--plus, we enjoyed the Christmas "readers' theater" in which George deftly played the dog that guarded the Baby Jesus in the manger. :)


After church, we had dinner together and then watched The Nativity Story. This is definitely on Jason's and my list of Family Christmas Traditions--I was skeptical until Jason practically made me watch it a few years ago, but oh, so good. It gives me a new appreciation for the Christmas story all over again.


We had a fun Christmas, complete with White Christmas, gift opening, a delicious dinner, Christmas crackers with silly crowns (Grandmom wore hers all day, and I don't think she realized it was still on when she went to go home that evening!), and a fun game of Christmas bingo during which $20 was at stake. Of course Jason won the money. And he wonders why I don't like to play games with him! We got to meet Justin's girlfriend, April, at dinner, too--she was the perfect addition to the meal, and it was so great to get to know her a bit!


We finished off our trip with more games and lunch at Hunan Garden (which I've heard about constantly but had never been). In light of all the crazy storms on the east coast, we made it home easily and without incident--and to absolutely no snow on the ground! I think DC must have had a weird bubble over it over the weekend... Such a nice weekend and such a fun Christmas!

Run-up to Christmas

We have been very bad bloggers. Apparently my subconscious now associates spending time at my computer with school (sadly, also, Christmas music, so v. good that Christmas season is almost over, as feel like some sort of grinch), and have therefore neglected not only blog but email, organizing photos, and spending the $10 Amazon gift card that was burning a hole in my pocket during the pre-Christmas ban on shopping for self.

Anyway. Christmas did come to our house--we got home from Thanksmus at about 3 am on a Sunday morning, and once we finally woke up and got unpacked, we got a tree, put it up, and hung the stockings, knowing that the next few weeks would offer no time to stop and decorate. Then we went into a holding pattern until school finished, when we could finally begin to celebrate.


We got to host our now-annual Christmas get together with the Kings and the Gambills--brunch this year, and I made my mom's cinnamon rolls, which (finally) turned out fantastic. Baby Carter was fantastic, too, in his adorable Santa outfit. What with the addition of two little ones, our brunch was much noisier than last year! We ate and ate, and then we just hung out and visited for a long time, and it was wonderful to have no where to be and nothing hanging over our heads! Wheee!


Jason did a bang-up job again this year of putting lights on our house (we are getting good enough at this that it does not threaten our marriage anymore--nary a fight this year!). So good to come home to after long nights at class!


And this year I listened to A Christmas Carol on my drives to and from class. I love A Christmas Carol, it puts me just in the Christmas spirit, and I have fallen in love with audiobooks this fall--am only disappointed in self for not having discovered them earlier as great distractions from long and painful drives to class. Which, happily, are now over.

It wasn't perfect this year (had to miss many Christmas parties, teas, gingerbread house constructions, etc., in order to write mediocre final papers), but we did a pretty good job, considering. And besides, as was discussing with my friend Deanna last week, not having everything just right at Christmas reminds me--sharply, sometimes--about the real point of Christmas: God coming to us, offering grace so that we can accept his invitation to be beautiful.

Grandma Cookies

Even though "Baking things, i.e. cookies" was near the top of my list of "Things to do when school is done," I'm really not much of a baker. Most people I know say they prefer to bake than cook, but, unless I'm in a crowded kitchen of sisters and moms and grandmas (and nephews, as Cole is a pretty awesome sous-chef), I get tired of baking. I get annoyed by having to interrupt whatever I'm doing every 12-15 minutes to take cookies out of the oven and put in a new batch, etc. It's not just that, since Jason is not a dessert lover, I end up personally eating at least 70% or whatever I bake (though that's a large part of it). It's just that I think baking--especially cookie making--is a social activity, and I get a bit lonely when I do it by myself for too long. I miss my mom's big counter and huge yellow canister of flour spilling out while we haggle over washing the mixer bowl, with too-loud Christmas music in the background and Grams sitting in one of the counter seats, tempting us with Rice Krispie Treats or Muddy Buddies and slicing anything that needs cut and laughing at my lame jokes.

That last bit motivated my pre-Christmas cookie extravaganza this week. Another thing I've learned about myself as a baker is that, while I love to try new cooking recipes, I like to bake the same things over and over--my recipe box (circa 1987) has three very used dessert recipes at the front (Grams' peach cobbler, Grandma's rhubarb crunch, and Mom's brownies, mmm), and then a bunch of totally clean recipes I've never tried.

My cookie recipe collection is similarly organized--Grandma Bunn's sugar and spice molasses cookies and Mom's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (best. ever.) constantly stay at the front of the stack. But for the past few years I've missed the carrot cookies Grandma Johnson made every Christmas. I guess carrot cookies make about as much sense as carrot cake, but I distinctly remember trying them for the first time one Christmas when Grams and Gramps lived in central Washington being amazed at how tasty they were--all orange scented and cakey and so light you could put down a whole stack before noticing.

All this to say, I've decided to make a holiday tradition of baking my favorite cookie recipes from my grandmas (acknowledging that Rice Krispie treats don't count as cookies and to this day eating them makes me miss my Grams each time). So by the time Jason got home on Tuesday I had dozens of carrot and sugar and spice cookies littering the counter...and he, who only likes plain chocolate chip cookies (which I had made on Sunday), hasn't eaten a single one. Of course, these cookies were for me, a way for me to remember grandmothers who loved Christmas so much and for whom I ache a bit when this time of year comes around. Oh!

I don't really remember Grandma Bunn making the molasses cookies as much as I remember my mom making them, but when I tasted the first carrot cookie to see if it turned out, I found that I had to swallow it around the lump in my throat that it evoked. It was to cookies what Grandma Bunn's piano music is to carols--perfect and just a little bittersweet.

I'll pass on the recipes as my Christmas gift to you.

Grandma Bunn's Sugar and Spice (Molasses) Cookies: These are like gingerbread, but soft and thick instead of crunchy and crumbling. I'll let you guess how I prefer my gingerbread.

(Warning--this recipe makes about a million cookies (by which I mean 5-6 dozen). Expect a v. full KitchenAid bowl.)

Mix together:
1 c. soft shortening
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c. molasses

Sift and stir in:
4 c. flour
4 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ginger
2 t. cloves
2 t. cinnamon

Roll into balls the size of walnuts and bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Grams' Carrot Cookies
3/4 c shortening
1 c sugar
1 egg
1 c mashed cooked carrots (canned carrots work fine)
2 c sifted flour
2 t baking powder
1 grated orange rind
1/2 t lemon extract
1/2 t vanilla
1/4 c nuts (optional)

1. Cream shortening and sugar add egg and beat.
2. Add rest of ingredients and mix.
3. Bake 12 minutes in 400 degree oven.

Frost with a powdered sugar frosting using lemon or orange extract (I like orange). 1 c powdered sugar, 3 T milk (1% gives a nice thin glaze, but use cream if you want it thicker), and 1/2 t orange extract.

...1!

Done! This morning I sent my 90 page bibliography and my 17 page research paper to my professor and officially finished my career as a student (assuming I pass, of course--my paper on Kim was really sub-par). A silly grin comes to my face every time I think about it...which, of course, is quite often!

Between the end of term and the beautiful snow we got today, it's been a really delightful day--even though I thought we were going to be celebrating by writing constituent mail (me) and trying to quell violence in the Ivory Coast (Jason). We ended up leaving work in time to go to the Carlyle for dinner, where the snow set off the twinkle lights perfectly...just like we have been planning for about six weeks. So many things to do now--take a bath, watch the Northanger Abbey I DVR'd in February, make cookies, read the backed up pile of magazines, get Jason something for Christmas besides having his wife back...

...2...

Things are getting exciting around here. The paper chain my friend Missy (I think I will always have to call her "my friend Missy" so that you all don't think I'm talking about myself in the third person) made me in August is seriously sooooooo short (seven links left!), and I can actually see the end of the semester looming before me.

That is due, in large part, to the fact that yesterday, at approximately 3:29 p.m., I turned my 123 page thesis over to the GMU library. WOO-HOO!!! Even typing those words makes me want to laugh out loud! I went to bed last night at least a thousand pounds lighter. Yes, I still have two major projects (including research project I have barely started) due in less than a week, but oh, to have that thesis done, to know that it is approved and signed and out the door... Glorious feeling.

And now I have this lovely Friday stretching before me. My boss unexpectedly gave us the day off today. Lo and behold, it is snowing (first snow!) and for some reason the Christmas lights outside came on again this morning, so I'm sitting wrapped up in blankets and drinking tea and reading. Granted, I'm reading academic journal articles about seances in Victorian England so that I can write a credible research paper about Kim, but I'm not complaining. A week from now I will be reading Bridget Jones' Diary with a sense of complete freedom....

3...

The countdown until the end of school (forever) is finally on. (As if it hasn't been on since this.) Tuesday night I attended my last lit class for the semester. One down, two big things left to go... Am v. happy to be done with this class--as you can see, we read a lot a lot a lot of books. That's 5,267 pages since Labor Day. My final paper was a shining example of mediocrity, but I read every single one of those pages--a graduate literature class at its finest.

Actually, apart from the fact that I've done absolutely nothing but work and read in the past four months, this was a class full of good books. I loved The Young Lions. And Mary Lee Settle's WWII memoirs. And, oh, East of Eden. And I will never look at World War II the same way again--on Monday our office got a special tour of the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and the painting "Back to Civvies" actually made me tear up. And don't get me started on the first 28 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

But seriously, I have a stack of books this high that I've been saving to read.

Thanksmus 2010

It is so almost midnight, and I have soooo much homework to do tomorrow, but I just logged onto our blog and realized that I haven't posted in almost a month. And that the last post was about October. And I felt suddenly compelled to prove to you that we had a November.

I love Mom and Auntie Fay's "silly" faces.

I mean, we sort of had a November. Every time I thought about posting, the only thing I could think to write about was what book I was reading for class (Andrea, let me know if you want an annotated bibliography...). Otherwise, only three things really happened in November--our friend Carter Gambill made his long-awaited appearance, the Harry Potter movie came out, and we went to Idaho for Thanksmus.

Everyone (but photographer Auntie Fay) at the Thanksgiving table.

Cole made everyone beautiful place tags for the table.

We have a nice schedule in place for the holidays, switching Christmas and Thanksgiving so that each family is together for the one holiday each year. Somewhere along the way, my family decided that, since we were all together anyway (and we would all spend Christmas with other sides of the family), we might as well exchange gifts in person on Thanksgiving years. This year we took it to a whole new level, pulling out most of our annual Christmas traditions--reading The Littlest Angel and the Christmas story, ornament giving, and the fabulous seafood feast--a few weeks early. We even threw in some Beatles Rock Band (best.game.ever.) and a foot or so of snow to make it extra Christmassy. Gramps and Auntie Fay, Uncle Charley, Katie, and David joined us, of course.

We got Troy his own tools set for Christmas.

Cole with the feast of clams (Shaanti got a label maker for Christmas and promptly labeled her eldest).

Mason likes to share Troy's toys. He put the goggles on and just walked around beaming at everyone.

I can't believe that we didn't get a picture of Cooper smiling. He smiles ALL THE TIME.

So fun. Troy and Mason are now old enough to be best buds, and it's hilarious to watch them chasing each other around the cabin and laughing hysterically. Cole is getting so grown up, and we watched Cars together at least twice. And Cooper is seriously the most adorable little guy, always just waiting for someone to look at him so that he can beam a smile at them. We can't wait to meet the newest Bucher boy in a couple of months! It was a fabulous time together, perfect if it hadn't been so short.

The Tail of October

Last weekend was full of fall festivities.

First,



We got up reeeally early on Saturday so that I could run the Wolf Trap Howl-oween 5K with Kaylyn in the frigid cold (um, 38 degrees when we left the house) and Jason could hold everyone's camera and keys and take pictures. We missed Tilly, who inexplicably decided to decline this year. We also shaved seven minutes off of our time last year. I think it was the cold.

Second,


We bundled up again for the now-annual hayride and bonfire at Krops Crops with our Sunday school class. Jason made chili (I didn't marry him for his chili, but oh, I could have), and I made s'mores. Actually I made s'more, singular. I left everyone else to fend for themselves. I used to think paying for a hayride and bonfire was oh-so-east coast--Dad use to give a killer hayride and make a mean bonfire upon request--but, according to this and this, the trend has spread west.

Third,


We answered the door to a little lion and his safari parents (Steven made it very clear that they were dressed up as photographers, not hunters). Hudson was our first trick-or-treater of the night, and definitely the cutest.

Finally,


We dressed up (yes, Jason DRESSED UP for Halloween) and headed to the church's Trunk or Treat event. Jason went as a hockey player, and I went as a college student, complete with glasses, fake Uggs, and GMU sweatshirt. Okay, so we dressed up as ourselves for Halloween. But still.

One thing we did not do was homework. Or, at least, very much homework. I had a deliciously light week of homework, which came at just the right time, since I briefly hit the end of my rope. We had split pea soup for dinner and I watched You've Got Mail and all was right with the world.

The Tiger, the Race Car Driver, and a Couple of Pirates--Argh!

I'm hoping that by the end of November I will have finished blogging about October, but in the meantime, I just wanted to share my favorite (long-distance) trick-or-treaters with you. They are pretty awesome. Thanks for sending the pics, Mom!

Mini-Coop is looking grrrreat!

Speedy Troy

Argh, me matey Cole!

I think Mason is wondering why he's wearing this hat...

Fall Catch Up

Things are so delightfully fall-ish around here, in spite of our lack of anything to talk about on the blog. It's been a bit difficult to post here, what with all the homework (blah, blech), but tonight I'm cranking out the fourth of five 100+ citation bibliographies for my research class, and the only way I know how to get my citation program to work is to give ten minutes between each upload. So, wha-lah. Blog time.

Here's what we've been doing:
* Readers: The big news of the week is that my thesis is now in the hands of my readers--approved by my committee chairperson, who was very complementary (of the FOURTH draft, for the love), and one giant step further down the road to being finished. My gracious boss has let me take a day off each week while Congress is out of session to work on it and I have needed every minute. I don't have to think about it (much) for two weeks now while they read it, and that makes me v. happy.

* Nigella: I miss cooking, which I've given up for all but Friday as we push through to the finish. I think Jason misses me cooking, too, but he's such a good sport. He's more than a good sport--he is awesome. Anyway, I recently discovered the charms of Nigella Lawson, who now has a show on Food Network, and found one of her cookbooks used. I read it cover to cover, hearing her British accent on each page, last weekend. Glee got me through the spring, Nigella is getting me through the fall.

* Apples: Although cooking has generally been sacrificed to the homework dragon, I will make applesauce this year. I will. Which is why my friend Missy and I got up early Saturday morning for our now-annual apple picking trip to Maryland. Kevin, her husband, was craving the delicious Jonagolds from Rock Hill Orchards, so what can you do? And now, of course, the apples are rotting in a bag in my kitchen... Oh, another note--we did not go pear picking, but I grabbed some at the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago and made this. Unbelievable on toast with goat cheese...

* Nephews...s...s...s...s: That's five nephews, for those who find counting hard. We are getting all set to welcome Bucher Boy #3 into the family in February. Dresses are nice and everything, but we really like boys in our family! Shaanti and Adam are such awesome parents, and we can't wait to meet this new little guy! (And see how Mason likes being a big brother...we already know that Cole is ready to be, as he says, "another brother.)

* Graciousness: Another thing I've neglected to mention is how grateful we are that God took good care of Andrea and Baby Jane, who are finally, finally home in Olympia. This makes me so very happy.

* Coffee: It's official: I am a coffee drinker. For some reason this disappoints my mom, who thought that we were the lone holdouts on the no-coffee team (and yet Mom doesn't drink tea, so we're not really on the same team). I have been toying with the idea of learning to like coffee since college, but it wasn't until I started to have classes until 10 pm after a full day of work that I decided the caffeine outweighed the cost, calories, and addiction. And then. Oh, and then I discovered marshmallow mocha creamer. So amazing. Like my favorite hot chocolate from Moxie Java at home, but with a jittery kick. I honestly have to limit myself to mochas on the weekends or I would go through a container of creamer a week.

I am mildly concerned that most of these things revolve around food. And me. Clearly this list should have been entitled "What I'VE been doing." Whatev, he can write his own blog entry (when he gets home from Alabama, where he is doing some training for work). And now I have no excuse to not go back to the creative writing piece I'm doing for class tomorrow. It is awful and not getting better. Oh, what is that? There's an episode of Friends on TV? Just a few minutes is okay, right?

The Season for Hockey!

Irregardless of the fact that the temperature has stretched back into the 80s today, October signals the start of another exciting NHL season. Last weekend, a friend from my hockey team gave us his two tickets to one of the Washington Capitals pre-season games. Despite the disappointing loss, it was fun to go to Verizon center and watch the Caps in action!

My hockey season is also in full swing (since mid-September). We are on quite a run (we have a 3-1 record) -- having beat a formidable adversary last night 8-0!

Work Bench!

Having a designated corner of the house as a place for home repair and improvement projects is to be coveted. We had long envisioned this corner of our renovated utility room to serve just that purpose. After successive weekends of installing and painting pegboard, we finally finished the work nook. We might even find a bench stool at Ikea today to round out the work space! We have many to share the credit with, notably Dad Small for the utility room overhaul and Dad Johnson for his advice and assistance installing the pegboard. I suppose I now have no excuse for finishing those lingering home improvement projects!

A Celebration for Baby Gambill

My friend Tilly is about the most joyful pregnant woman I have ever met. Brent says that she's extra fun to be around because she laughs at everything, as if her joy is just bubbling over, even when the joke isn't that funny. I love that. Tilly is one of my favorite people, and swollen feet and all, it has been an outright delight to watch her get ready for the arrival of Baby Gambill.

Andrea, Megan, Tilly, and Layton

Maria and Destin made a beautiful fondant cake and cupcakes.

So when it was time to throw Tilly a baby shower, we felt like it needed to be a real celebration. Tilly's pregnancy, which came after a long, long wait and lots of prayer, was a reminder of how faithful God is, how perfect his timing is. We needed to celebrate this baby with fireworks and a big brass band!

Each guest wrote a blessing for Baby Gambill on a quilt square so that
we can stitch them together for Tilly.

Okay, so we didn't do fireworks or a band. But we did all get dressed up, pull out the twinkle lights, and put on a wonderful black-tie affair of a baby shower. Maria and Destin did an absolutely amazing job of decorating--the yard looked like a fairy land--and the food was delicious. And joyful Tilly, looking fabulous at eight months pregnant, had a wonderful time.

Tilly with all the shower hosts!

Amy and I, taking a picture time out!

I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends here, friends who encourage and pray for and celebrate with each other as if it is a joy and a privilege, not a chore. There is a Sara Groves song that talks about how life is "Twice as Good" with the people in her life, and that is how I feel about these girls. There is a line in the song that says, "At my good news, you're dancing on the table--baby's born, a celebration." That is exactly what it was like last Saturday...although no one dared to get up on a table in their high heels, the sentiment was everywhere.

Along the Sahel

I just completed a visit to three countries in West Africa: Niger, Mali, and Mauritania. This was my first visit to these countries since taking up my responsibilities for U.S. policy in West Africa in January. The countries have many similarities, such as large swaths of the Sahara desert and high poverty (example: Niger rates dead last on the UN human development index). I spent much of my time learning the dimensions of the challenges the U.S. Embassies in those countries face in advancing U.S. policy in the region: goals as diverse as counter-terrorism, humanitarian disasters brought about by regular droughts and floods, and political instability. My ten-day trip (all in one carry-on suitcase) included flights on such well known airlines as Air Mali and Mauritanian Airways. My flights were virtually all on-time, a rare occurrence I am told. My biggest complaint was when they served fish curry on an Air France flight (who thought the smell of spicy fish was a good decision for a cramped coach cabin?).

I didn't have much chance to get out into the country-side as I had hoped, since I was detoured unexpectedly to Mauritania about half-way through my trip to assist our U.S. Embassy in Nouakchott. Nevertheless, I did take one afternoon to check out the pristine Mauritanian beach front. The water of the Atlantic was incredibly warm -- likely due to currents from the Gulf of Mexico. If only I had had room in my carry-on to pack my swimsuit!

I also ran in to some camels!