Sacramental Magic

Last Sunday afternoon a few readers of this book gathered in my home. We had agreed to try out the recipes on our own for a couple months and then meet up again in February to cook a feast together and compare notes about our favorite recipes in it.

MENU for the EVENING

Appetizers~
Baba Ghanouj
Maple Walnut Muffins
Grain of Mustard Seed Bread

Salad~
Caesar Salad with fresh salad dressing and croûtons
Coleslaw

Main Course~
Baked Chicken with Honey Sweetened Barbecue Sauce
Beyond Pasta

Desserts~
The World's Greatest Brownies
Baklava

Drinks~
Ginger Fizz

Almost everyone came a little early to cook together... which turned out to be very cozy in my tiny tiny kitchen!





Someone found an apron and we decided to do a little 1940's advertisement while we were at it!

Here's a picture of all the food. We ended up with enough to feed a small army!

What a meal it was! I just wish there were more left-overs!

Our Birthday

Happy Birthday to Us!
Since our birthdays are so close together, we have usually used it for an excuse to get away for a weekend somewhere. This year we are saving up to be poor seminary students next year, so we bought ourselves some practical presents instead--sheets, pillows and a salt and pepper shaker. But all was not practical in the Marzinke household!

On the first, I woke up to tulips. When I got home that evening my husband was up to his elbows in chocolate cake batter!

I think he looks like the Flash in these pictures.

I even got candles, the song and a wish!



Add to that the serving dishes from my favorite discontinued style, and a pair of lovely silver earrings sent by our parents and I was happy happy happy!

For four short days I caught up to Jonathan in age. Then on the fifth he passed me up to leave his twenties behind forever! I fixed a manly breakfast of sausage and eggs. And he opened his presents from our parents--books and the GoodBook on CD!


We had a few friend over for a birthday supper that evening.

And then ended it all with home made banana cream pie.

HOORAY!!!

Dr. Seuss Dinner

I got a little experimental with our popovers the other night and added about three cups of fresh arugula when I blended them up...

...the vibrant green results made me think of the book by Dr. Seuss about Green Eggs and Ham.

I think he would have about as proud of our colorful dinner as I was!

Snow Shoeing

Abby Caleb, Jonathan and I all went snow shoeing on Jan 5th. We made our own trail through lovely snow covered trees. Then we had lunch under a tree and hiked our way back.
It was Fun Fun Fun!

Some Scary Christmas Fun

Take a look at Santa's finest helpers here.....

The Marzinkes Help Santa

Hope...painting almost done!

Thanksgiving weekend crept up on us about a week earlier than we thought it would be here....and we made no plans! Thank goodness we were saved from turkey abstinence by a last minute invitation to our pastor's home. And then the rest of the weekend was a fabulously unscheduled vacation for us.
I spent three solid days painting. I took pictures when I thought of it, which was pretty much when ever I took a break. I am almost done now...I think. Here's where it started and you can see that by the end of the weekend it was very different.
October 21st

Friday 2:10 pm re-doing the sky

Friday 4:23pm re-doing the sky again

Friday 5:18pm leaves!

Friday 7:0opm one tree becomes two

Friday 7:30pm second tree gets branches

Friday 8:00 leaf detail

Friday 8:00pm texture on pine trees (soon to be regretted)

Saturday 5:59pm pine tree on left taken out...involving lots of sanding and more texture to cover up where it used to be and re-doing sky.

Sunday 4:43pm "oh, it's going to be a birch tree!"

Sunday 7:14 no more log, textured leaves, change path, pine trees change color to balance the birch tree...and a myriad of branches...

There's still some things that are bugging me..and I will fix them soon, but there she is as of today!

dish washing extravaganza

I have been noticing these last few weeks that I have been avoiding my blog because there wasn't any thing exciting enough to write about....Silly-ness! From now on, I plan to write at least one blog a month about the very mundane things of life! Here is your first installment.

DISHES

When my Dad did dishes in our home, growing up, Mom always left the kitchen. This was because her blood pressure rose at the sight of his precariously leaning towers of plates and bowls, saucers and coffee mugs. He believed his efficiency grew out of his system of piza tower-like organization. And as far as I can recall, he was completely successful.

We children were also banned from the kitchen when Dad did the dishes. This came after a series of personal dish-washing disasters, which involved the largest serving bowl and an especially cacophonous fall of dessert plates from a great height. I think my Mom hoped that this would nip our attempts at imitating his impossible feats in the bud. Unfortunately, it is in our blood, and my brothers and I have all been working at perfecting our skills ever since.

I got lots of practice last weekend--and even if I have inherited the trait honestly, I must admit that I was especially proud of the sheer number of dishes I fit into our drain rack. (Jonathan calls these creations of mine 'little dish bombs waiting to explode', since something always falls when he tries to put the dishes away!)


And, now you have pictorial evidence of what happens to our kitchen when we go a whole week without hand-washing our dishes. I'm sure we have set a record!