I just realized we didn’t go to Sonic even one time when we were in Oklahoma.  But this is the only thing I can think of that wasn’t ideal about our time in Oklahoma.  It was so nice to be there for long enough to relax and hang out with family, get to see dear friends from Norman, play with the Wildwood band on their Christmas special, and frequent all the delicious restaurants we miss so much.  We even got a little bit tired of Panera.  Now that’s success. 

I did get sick last Tuesday, and while it was nice being served cup after cup of tea by my many siblings and having my adoring husband try to make me better by fetching me broccoli cheese soup, I’m ready to be well again.  I took my first sick day today and slept most of the afternoon, so hopefully I’ll be able to function tomorrow.

The new year finds me having given no thought to resolutions, but I do know as I look back over past years, I’m convinced that God has always had a plan I could trust and is worth knowing deeper.  The great thing about that resolution is that it isn’t completely up to me, because if it was, I would completely fail.

I’m completely excited to be at the start of this very last week in NYC before we head to Oklahoma for Christmas!  I’m not delighted that it’s about 60 degrees outside today and probably going to rain for most of the week, but whatever.  Daniel and I had a fun time shopping this weekend.  The stores’ window displays are completely amazing, and makes all the walking between stores a very festive experience.  I didn’t do any decorating for Christmas this year, and I’m kind of sad about it.  But the combination of being really busy with my job, space limitations, and the fact that we won’t be at our home on Christmas just made the whole idea seem not as fun as I usually think it is.  But that’s ok, because there’s been plenty of Christmas decor around this whole town, so we’re surrounded by it enough. 

For Advent, our church has been talking a lot about waiting for God and what we can learn for our own lives from how Israelites waited for the Messiah.  There were a lot of points that have caused me to re-think how I wait and how my expectations affect the way I respond when God does act.  The Jews expected a Messiah who would overthrow the Roman Empire on their behalf, and when Jesus did come, because He wasn’t what they had in mind, most of them missed it.  He has come.  I want to let Him deliver me according to His great plan and not mine.

I don’t have school on Monday due to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and Daniel is taking the day off to spend with me, which equals a 3 day weekend for both of us!  We didn’t set the alarm last night and thus woke up at 10am this morning!  A couple years ago, that would have driven me absolutely crazy.  Whenever that would happen by accident, I would leap out of bed, frustrated and frantic to make the most of the second half of the day, but for some reason living in a place where the pace of life is generally very fast has mellowed me out a bit in the arena of Saturday morning wakeup times.  Perhaps this is because I have never had a job where I worked so many hours, and I find myself really worn out at the end of the week instead of excited and desperate to release a week’s worth of pent-up energy on poor, unsuspecting Saturdays.

My life is one big countdown right now:  Only 12 days until we journey to Oklahoma for Christmas!  And that means only 11 days until my students perform in the Christmas Pageant, a fact which has caused me a fair amount of lost sleep.  And only 8 days until Scott makes a quick stopover on his way to Oklahoma.  Let the season begin!

With the onset of winter, and I do mean winter, here in New York, I am endeavoring to do more cooking.  For one thing, now that it’s cold, the warmth that our gas stove and oven provides is welcome!  But also, it feels like my ability to cook is one of the few domestic things I have left.  I can’t paint and we don’t have room for home decor, but we still have to eat, and I am adjusting to my new cooking facilities.  (I refuse to call it a kitchen.)  I wash a dish or utensil immediately after I use it so that my tiny counterspace doesn’t get overcrowded.  Meal preparation takes forever, but the good news is that I haven’t broken anything in a few weeks since I adopted this procedure!

Yesterday I made a wintery white meal:  Baked Potato Chowder with Lemon Cranberry muffins.  Both recipes I found on allrecipes.com and made a few alterations.  Try them and let me know what you think! 

Baked Potato Chowder:  for the chowder I used fat free sour cream, skim milk, and turkey bacon. 

• 2 cups peeled, cubed potatoes
• 1 cup of browned sausage
• 4 bacon strips
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper 

In a covered 3-qt. saucepan, cook peeled and cubed potatoes in water until tender.  Meanwhile, brown the sausage in a skillet.  Drain and set aside.  Cook the bacon in the same skillet until crisp; remove to paper towels to drain. In the same skillet, saute onion and celery until tender; drain. Add to undrained potatoes. Stir in sausage, soup, milk, sour cream, and pepper. Cook over low heat for 10 minutes or until heated through and slightly thickened. Crumble bacon and add to the soup before serving.

Lemon Cranberry Muffins:  I cut the sugar down from a whole cup and chopped fresh cranberries in my food processor.  Also I didn’t use paper liners, but these did stick to my well-greased muffin tin, so I will use liners when I make them again. 

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl, beat the eggs, milk, oil and extract. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in cranberries.  Bake at 400 degrees for 19 minutes.  Makes 15 muffins.

Here’s all the people behind us watching the parade.  We had a spot at Central Park West and 72nd right between two luxury apartment buildlings.  The Dakota, where John Lennon lived and was killed, is on the right, and the Majestic is across the street.

Here’s the first float:  Thanksgiving Turkey!

Dora was my favorite.  Such a cutie.

I loved this little float.

Most lovable green ogre ever.

Jennie, Emily, and Jarrett working on dinner at the Harris’ lovely, spacious Jersey City residence.

The delicious end result: turkey with a sage paste, cranberry sauce, pumpkin muffin stuffing, green beans with almonds, potatoes romanoff, and coconut and chocolate cream pies (not pictured)

This is a year of firsts for us, so we try to make a big deal out of each of them to keep up our adventurous spirit and really make the city feel like home.  The more we experience, the more we identify with all things New York and get an increased sense of belonging.  It’s been so awesome to see layers of friendships and experiences begin to surround our lives again and start to feel invested and important in the Church.  As I thought about all God’s gifts to us this year, this process is what I’m most thankful for.  Many pieces of our hearts remain in Norman, Oklahoma and always will, but it’s so oddly comforting to realize that after all the sadness of leaving, we have jumped into our new home with both feet and are making the kinds of relationships that if we were to leave New York, would cause us the same pain and heartache all over again.  I’m grateful.

We tried to do Thanksgiving in dramatic fashion seeing as how it was one of those firsts.  Yesterday we left our apartment at 6:15am to meet our friends, the Harrises, and find a spot for some parade-watching!  Breakfast was my job, so I had made some cranberry muffins the night before and we stopped at Starbucks and picked up one of those coffee “travelers” which completely impressed the other people waiting for the show to start.  We looked like complete pros.  The parade was spectacular!  I took over a hundred pictures of the floats and balloons and will definitely post my favorites (Dora and Buzz Lightyear) later on.  After a longer-than-intended nap for both of us, we headed over to New Jersey to prepare and eat the most scrumptious meal ever and play some Mario Kart!  Best day ever.

It was announced on Monday that Wednesday would only be a half-day of classes at my school, with no after-school activities taking place.  So today is the first day of my Thanksgiving Break!  My contribution to the meal will be a potato casserole and cream pies for dessert, the ingredients to neither of which are currently in my home.  Hence, a trip to the grocery store along with hundreds of other procrastinating Thanksgiving dinner shoppers is in order for today.  Good thing big crowds don’t bother me, because tomorrow we’re going to the PARADE!  We’re meeting our friends as close to 6am as we can hoping we can get a decent view.  I’m beyond excited about it.  Watch for us on TV!

Saturday was cold and rainy, and since Daniel and I both have tons to do in our respective jobs, we went downtown for Daniel to get caught up on some things, and I sat at a desk and wrote out violin parts for my students’ Christmas pageant performance.  It feels good to have made progress on that project, but there’s a lot more to do:  teaching the parts to my students.  I feel like I am definitely getting better at teaching in groups and addressing multiple needs at once, but it is still a slower pace that I would like.  So this next month or so until the end of the year will be a mad dash for both of us, and in an effort to regroup and recharge for the sprint, we’re going to Philadelphia this weekend.  I have been itching to get out of the shadow of all these huge buildings and honking horns, but this morning as we were walking to church we both just kind of caught our breath at the scene:  it was pretty chilly and Daniel was carrying our coffee in my sparkly red Starbucks mug (thank you to my mother-in-law for a very treasured Christmas gift!), there were tall, majestic brownstones on either side of us, and leaves were gently falling all around us.  Pretty idyllic.  It’s New York City in the fall!  What’s not to love?!

America has voted, and we have a president-elect.  The news was a little bittersweet for me since of course I’m disappointed that the candidate I thought most closely aligned with the issues I care about most lost.  But how can anyone deny the monumental symbolism of Obama’s victory or disagree with the dreams he has for America?  I prayed for Obama this morning that God would guide his decisions as our president, protect the strength of his marriage in what is sure to be an intense next four years for him, that his daughters would be sheltered from the trappings of their father’s job, and that America would prosper under his leadership.  I pray that the decisions he makes as president that are righteous and moral would be blessed and that any decisions which would undermine righteousness and morality would be halted.  I am not depressed by Obama’s victory yesterday…thoughtful and sobered, yes, but I feel at peace because I know that yesterday’s outcome changes nothing in the eternal scope.  How awesome that we can know that!

And now for an installment of IMHO: 

As the election has approached us, Facebook has become the place to share political views, it seems.  I have been annoyed every morning for weeks now as I log on and see many status messages declaring their candidate’s virtues and insulting the other party.  And of course, this morning was no exception.  Obama supporters are overjoyed at his victory and McCain supporters are in the depths of despair.  I object to this on several levels, not the least of which is that I’m just annoyed by all the chatter that simple, political statements on Facebook seem to invite.  But I also think it’s inconsiderate.  I firmly believe that political views don’t have to be divisive, and especially for Christians, I think we’re called to not give each other reason to make fellowship any more difficult than it already is.  Our fellowship is already attacked many different ways, and it suffers even more through these random statements on Facebook generally offered freely without request and presented without a context.  We are the church and must fight for our unity.  So I would humbly support an effort to lay off of the ecstatic victory messages as if all our country’s issues are now on their way toward resolution as well as all of the doomsday-predicting status updates as if today is the first day to have merited our concern.

Finally, I hung the curtains my mom made me!

The chocolate raspberry truffle birthday cake:

We’re very excited about our new Wii!