You Put Your Right Foot In

When we took the missionaries to the beach it was the perfect opportunity to take a picture of some of the sisters' feet.  You can tell who has been here for a while and who arrived recently.  If you look closely, you can also tell who has served in Baturite, where the mosquitos seem to be especially aggressive.  

Maybe I should remind the sisters to use sunscreen on their feet.  I don't know that they would though.  Their  tan lines are sort of a badge of honor. 

Christmas Mystery II

You know how some people have Christmas miracles?  Well, we seem to have Christmas mysteries.

Last year we had Christmas Mystery I when we received a lot of gifts from an unknown giver.  This year our mystery involves an unknown taker.

We have a hall tree just outside our door in the hall of our apartment building.  Each floor of the apartment building only has two apartments and most people put some sort of furniture or mirror or decorations outside their door.

This year I decided to hang our Christmas stockings on the hooks of the hat rack/umbrella stand thing in the entry.  When we left for church yesterday morning it looked like this:

When we got back from church, it looked like this:

I asked Alan, "Hey, what did you do with your stocking?  Did you move it?"  (Up to that point, we hadn't really decided which stocking was his and which was mine, but since the red one was missing, I decided the green one was mine.)

I thought he might have taken the red one and hidden it in one of the drawers in the hall tree or something to tease me, but he said he didn't.  Of course I checked all the drawers anyway and looked around in the hall and elevator.  It wasn't to be found.  When we came back from a fireside last night, it was still missing.

We were bugged.

 Who would have taken it and why? 

 Why take one and not both?  

Who wants an empty Christmas stocking?

We couldn't think who would have taken it because we get along fine with the other people that live on our floor. Well, pretty fine. There has been a little coolness between us since their dog left poodle puddles in front of  both our front and back doors and I told them about it, in a nice way, because I didn't think I should have to clean it up.  I'm not the one with the stupid, yappy, hyperactive pet  fluffy, white, poodle.

So, after my shower this morning, I thought I would go check and see if elves had returned it in the night and sure enough, they had.  We have no idea who took it, where they took it or why they took it.  We only know that now we're back to this:

And we hope it stays that way.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY !

True, but Sad Story

I bumped in to What Not to Wear on the television the other day and decided to watch it.  I don't know why, but I like that show.  Anyway, as I am watching the part where they secretly film the unsuspecting victim and describe her fashion faux pas what do I see?

My blouse; my sort of special blouse.  The girl with no fashion sense was wearing a blouse just like one I have that I think is kind of special.

I've got to tell you that it hurt quite a bit when they got to the part of the show where they picked it up off that rack of clothes, made a snarky comment about it, and tossed it into that big metal garbage can.

CLUNK!

I've been trying not to let it damage my self-esteem, telling myself that it's okay because I am a lot older than the girl on the show and I am wearing especially conservative clothes right now so it's okay for me.  
                                                                    

AND

What do Stacy and Clinton really know anyway?  I personally think that a person can have too many argyle sweaters or vests and maybe someone ought to mention that to Clinton.  (Though Stacy is the one wearing the argyle in the picture above.) And even though that white streak in Stacy's hair is natural and she feels it's part of her identity, it can be a little too Cruella  deVil "ish" at times, don't you think?

AND

While we're talking dogs, I may have a pathetic wardrobe, but at least I don't have a dog that I dress up in ridiculous clothes like the girl on the show did. 

But still....it will never be the same .  I'll never be able to wear that blouse again without feeling extra frumpy.  I'll be looking over my shoulder for a hidden camera or to see if Stacy and Clinton are sneaking up behind me.

I really had no idea about all the insecurities that come with growing older.

It sort of bites.

A Follow-Up (but try not to throw up)

I thought I would post a picture of the yams I made for Thanksgiving dinner.  Try not to gag.  As I said in the previous post, I had my doubts about them.  When I opened the can and saw their color, I should have listened to the little voice in my head that was saying, " Don't waste the marshmallows and brown sugar on them," but I didn't.  

Alan suggested that I NOT put them on the dinner table and I thought it was good advice.  I did work up the courage to try a forkful.  I didn't get sick or anything, but there was a definite metallic taste.  It's probably unavoidable after 11 or 12 years in a can.

On a brighter note, I liked the way the pumpkinish thing and apple with candle decoration turned out.  I guess you win some and you lose some.   

T Day

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

For the past two years we haven't really celebrated Thanksgiving in the traditional way with turkey and dressing and all that good stuff.  Last year we ate fish; more like the pilgrims really did, or so I hear.

This year we decided to go for it. I bought a frozen chester, which, as near as Alan can tell from his search on the Internet, is just a big chicken with a a lot of breast meat.  Hence, the name Chester.  I bought a deboned one because it was half the price of the other ones and I figured I wasn't paying for bones either, so it would be a really good deal.  We'll see how that goes.  I'm crossing my fingers. Right now it looks kind of like a deflated turkey costume that someone left in a pile on the floor.

This one is for me.  I always love a good belly-button joke.

  

The other challenge with this dinner is the lack of ingredients that it takes to make a traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner.  No cranberries for sauce, not even cranberry sauce in a can.  No celery for the stuffing and  no Stove Top in case you wanted to go that route.  No canned pumpkin or evaporated milk for pies.  No yams, at least not orange ones.  The sweet potatoes here are sort of a light purple.  After you cook them they turn a gray color.  As a general rule, I try not to eat gray food.  Although I ate my share of gray-frosted sugar cookies while I was growing up.  ( Lucy used to try to get creative with her food color combinations and as I recall, most of them turned out gray.)

This one is for all the Idaho relatives who are freezing their tails off right now.

We actually have imported items to try to make this at least resemble a Thanksgiving dinner.  The only problem is that I had the kids send stuff we had in our storage room at home.  From the date we had written on top of the can, it looks like we bought the pumpkin in 2006.  It has an expiration date of April 2009, and it's not bulging or anything.  I'm not too nervous about it.  I may let Alan and/or the missionaries go first on the canned yams though.  It looks like we bought those in 1999. Canned yams aren't my favorite anyway. ( I also can't figure out how I missed donating those for the Scouting for Food drive all those years.) 

This one is for Alan.  He's out on the treadmill as I type.  He is way excited for the pie tomorrow. 

Wish us luck!

 

TRICK OR TREAT

I really didn't have anything major to do today, so I decided to make donuts so we could do some reverse Trick-or-Treating.  That was my excuse anyway.  They weren't picture perfect, but they were pretty good eating, if I do say so myself.
I made glazed ones because I planned to take some to a family in our ward who had visited the U. S. and loved the donuts there.  I figured glazed would be most likely what they had eaten.  I made some sugared ones because Alan likes those, and I like to spoil him a little.  I made some with maple frosting because those are my favorite and I like to spoil myself too.   
I was having a little trouble keeping the temperature steady so they came out in varying shades.  I decided that was okay here in Brazil because that is how the people are; varying shades.

On Sunday afternoon we made caramel apples for a Halloween party in one of the wards.  My friend is the Y. W. president and she wanted to have some traditional treats for the party. It's not something they celebrate much here, so she asked for my input.   I told her donuts and apple cider were probably the most traditional, but since you can't buy either of those here, I offered to make the apples.  

She was going to be out of town for the weekend on mission related business.  Her husband is in the mission presidency and they were doing some  auxiliary trainings in another city. I thought making 25 caramel apples was a pretty good trade off for not having to prepare and give training meetings, especially since their three kids, that were home alone for the weekend,  came to help with the job.

Alan pitched in too and before you could say BOO!, we were done.

I snapped a picture of the youth decorating the room for the party.  Becca got a steal of a deal on some Halloween decorations after Halloween last year.  She sent some balloons, napkins and some of those stretch spider webs and they put them to good use.  Speaking of spiders...

This big fella was in our living room a few weeks ago.  Sorry about the blurry picture, but I was in a hurry for Alan to kill it and I didn't take time to focus.  I think you get the idea though.  EEEEEEEK!

The Pumpkin Patch

I've been having a little fun making us a pumpkin patch.  I've been teased by both my husband and my daughter about my little project.  BUT given the resources at hand and how long it has been since I made anything, I think I like the results.  We need a little Halloween at the "Bat"t house, don't you think?  I got the idea from here. http://notsoidlehands.blogspot.com/search/label/Halloween