Yes, I'm bored

So right now the museum is mine, all mine. And now I'm bored. I worked well this morning but now I'm out of ambition on projects especially since I have a 1/2 hour left in the day. So I'll blog and fill some time.

In case you are curious, our snow content: about 10 inches but we've had some for quite a while now. We got our first snow December 1 and it hasn't gone away yet. Today for the first time in several weeks we're above 30 and ice is finally melting off of roofs and trees.

Earlier I heard several thumps in the museum.

Now there are many sounds you don't want to hear in a museum. For example, "Whoops," 'Uh,oh," and my favorite "Ummm, what does this go to?" Of the non-spoken, mysterious thumps coming from elsewhere in the museum are just as bad. This time it was just the huge (5 foot +) icicles that were hanging from the roof falling onto the porch. They were huge! Since they were hanging from the second floor, there was no way to know them down without a ladder and/or cherry-picker. And I'm glad they fell and didn't hurt anyone. Or the museum.

Matt and I have our Christmas shopping pretty much done. Just a couple of other small gifts.
I started cookie baking. I have the doods done and the cream cheese cookies done. The cream cheese cookies are very good. (Not that I tried one;) There is no leavening agent or even an egg in them. It's basically a cream cheese shortbread rolled in sprinkles. The recipe has you roll it into tubes and refrigerate overnight then slice. As I was slicing, I remembered making petticoat tails and trying to slice those darn things as warm dough in a boiling hot kitchen. It never worked well but they sure did taste ok. It was better as dough in my opinion but I usually prefer dough over the finished cookie. I don't know why. It doesn't work for other things. I don't prefer raw eggs over scrambled or raw potatoes over mashed but I do prefer raw spinach over cooked. Yuck:)

And on that note....

We live in a small town. Let me tell you what happened. Matt works at the bank and last week a customer brought in a letter for the bank president to see. The letter was sent from Galena to N.Y. in 1848 and had been lost behind a desk in Dixon, Il until 1987 when it was found and opened. If you were ever curious what happened to lost mail, it is behind a desk in Dixon, Il, the Petunia capital of the world and birthplace of Ronald Regan. Anyhow, Matt mentioned the letter, I asked if we could have a copy of it just for the information, Matt asked the owner, and last night when I went home, the letter was lying on our table. It's been framed so no worries about whatever might be on the table. So today I took the letter to the museum, scanned it, and transcribed it. Very cool. It describes a double murder suicide that happened in Galena in October, 1848, the election of the president, and general work stuff. But it is still cool. So tonight, I'm taking the letter back home and Matt will take it to the bank.
And I have a topic for our next newsletter that I should be working on but I ran out of ambition.....

Yay for Christmas Cookies

One of my many favorite things about Christmas is Christmas cookies. I love to bake and give away yummy (well, hopefully yummy but in my opinion, put enough frosting on anything and it will be good) treats to people. It is one of my earliest and most frequent Christmas memories. I can remember making cookies for all of our family friends and neighbors growing up and always trying to get them to people BEFORE Christmas which was always a challenge. Mom was in charge of creating THE LIST of who received the treats and what was made. I think kitchens should always smell like vanilla and baking goodness. Anyhow, Boy and I helped to make cookies and Dad was in charge of just one treat: the buckeyes. Now, in my years, I have tried many a buckeye from various suppliers. They go by different names: peanut butter balls, chocolate drops, and some creative names that implied animal scat. I have to say with a completely unbiased opinion that my father's are simply the best. Hands down. None of the others have the creaminess in the peanut butter or the correct texture on the chocolate. And I'm not saying this because they are my father but as an avid chocolate fan, they are the best. One of my favorite parts was watching him dip the peanut butter balls into the chocolate. He rarely dropped one into the chocolate or dipped it oddly but in the off-chance that he did, it had to quickly disappear, usually into my mouth. Shucks.



And because of Dad's overwhelmingly excellent buckeyes, I refuse to make them because I know that mine won't be as good as his. So I make other things and I try to make different ones each year but there are some standbys:

Doods or 7-layer cookies

Matt's fudge

And this year I'm adding:

Butter cookies

Cream cheese cookies (which just sound good)

Oatmeal cookies that I can make with Splenda. I have two co-workers and a m-i-l who are diabetic so I always try to make something with Splenda that they can enjoy. It's hard to find Christmas recipes that you can use Splenda in. Fudge won't set up, doods are just dripping in sweetness and even other things just won't work well. But I try and find something so that everyone can enjoy something at Christmas. It's a challenge that I enjoy.



I'm very excited to start baking. Today makes it even worse because we are in the middle of a snow storm and I'm home from work. We've decided that if the weather is bad enough that the local schools close, no one in their right mind is going to want to go to a museum. No one came yesterday and today is worse than yesterday so I have a snow day:) I got to sit and drink my coffee while I watched Matt get ready for work.... Oh, the poor boy..... It is really early in the season to have a snow day already, actually it's still fall and winter isn't even here yet. Uh oh. Looks like it's going to be a doozy. I did realize earlier that I didn't have any salt to throw on the steps for the ice so I tossed Kosher salt on them. Hey, it's salt and it's cheaper than the icemelt stuff you can buy. Now if I only had some pepper......

Mistletoe Ball, 0, Merrilee 1

I know that it has been an exceedingly long time since I've posted last but last week was a madhouse! On Saturday we had our 26th annual (I've only helped with 2) Mistletoe Ball which is a lovely holiday ball where people can either wear evening wear or period clothes. It's the only event I've been to where men wear tuxes on purpose outside of prom and/or weddings:) The evening went very well except for the weather which decided not to cooperate with us. Snow, sleet, and freezing rain in that order. Lovely. But of our 200 people, only about 20 didn't show up (and the tickets are not refundable so the money is ours, sucker) But at some point last week I went from being fun museum person to overstressed event planner. There's just one million last minute details that you can't forget or the evening will be ruined, ruined, I tell you. If you've ever gotten married or hosted a large party or planned a special event at work, then you know what I mean. Although we did realize on Friday afternoon that we didn't have napkins which would have been a BIG PROBLEM. Anyhow, it all worked, I took a three hour nap on Sunday and now I'm a fun museum person again. Whew.

As for clothing, I finished my dress (hand claps all around) And it didn't fall apart when I put it on. (more hand claps and hooting all around.) And there is only two safety pins in it. Good for me. I'm actually pretty proud of myself because this is the first dress that I've made by myself plus some important consult work from Mom and Leah and subsequent assistance in hemming the robe.

Here is Matt and I at the dance. I hate this picture of me because I look very surprised by the camera and like I've been in some horrible chopping accident with all of my fingers gone. Matt, as always, looks pretty good. Even though I've seen better pictures of him (don't tell him I said that). My dress had a slight train which everyone kept stepping on, myself included. There is a reason that later dance dresses didn't have trains. I don't recommend trying quick-step with a train. To be honest, I don't actually know how to "quick-step" but it's a faster type dance, right? Then that's kinda what we were doing.....

Oldey-timey dress gossip: Oh my gosh, some of the dresses Saturday were, well, interesting. Two ladies switched wigs half-way through the night, which was pretty funny. One was blond and the other brunette, then it was the other way around. It was still fun.

Last night I set up the Christmas tree and said something that I thought I would never have to say: "Gus, don't eat the manger." Apparently it smelled tasty and needed to be nibbled on to be certain. It could have been worse: "Gus, don't eat Baby Jesus" How to explain that........

And now I promise to be more diligent in posting because it's 362 days until our next ball and 9 weeks until our next special event but that one is all on-line so no worries about napkins and dance cards......