Thankful.

Yeah, it's a couple days late.  But the last couple days were filled with more cooing and cuddling and smooshing the cheeks of my nephew, playing cards and having grown-up conversations with my family, driving to Billings with my dad.  Add to that repacking my bag at the ticket counter since it was overweight,  a long day at the airport while carrying a 30# box full of dishes, and dinner with my hub who I had left home in Portland all week, I just didn't have time to blog.  But I did have time to be thankful.  What I'm thankful for:

family.  all of them

my husband

Gilda

sewing

creativity

orange jello with cool whip

running

Montana

friends

Faith

coffee

the human body

sharing talents

forgiveness and grace

shavasana

 My mom always makes us do "affirmations" at holiday meals.  We always groaned at them as kids, but as an adult I really appreciate this.  It really just means that we go around the table and give an honest affirmation to each individual, something we appreciate about them.  Something more than "you're cool" or "I like your hair."  It's hard!  But rewarding.  I got choked up.  All the little things that bug you about a family member (let's all be honest, they exist) seem to disappear and you realize that you really do appreciate X,Y, and Z about them.  Try it.  I think you'll like it.

Stealing my sister-in-law away for a run around the lake

look!  turkeys have a medial and lateral meniscus too!

Potholder made by mom

What's not to be thankful for?

Nuggets.

Because Taylen is already in bed, we have a game of cards waiting to be started, and mom wants to make a pumpkin pie tonight, this will be short.  The events of the past two days: a run around the surge pond, some auntie time with Taylen, wildlife viewing, watching videos of us and all our cousins when we were kids, crafting, and woodwork.  Here's a peek:

Some Auntie & Taylen time while everyone else went to the gym

Playtime with Nana

Wishful thinking for the guys as this 4x5 fella kept showing up in the backyard.

Mom and I sewed while Belinda got a nap.  I made him a Bobcat shirt, despite their sad showing in the big game last week (I'm always a little torn during Cat/Griz time...)

Mom and I work best when we put our minds together (she keeps reminding me of this).  A true Colstrip shirt; don't worry--it's mostly steam that comes out of the stacks.  As a kid I thought the stacks actually made clouds.  This created great confusion on days when there were clouds but no steam...

More signs of the big guy and his girlfriends out back.

Sunset from the driveway.

Working with my pops in the shop.

A man and his toys.

My new boots!  I lived in Montana for 25 years and this if my very first pair of cowboy boots.  I bought them at a second hand store in Colstrip (read: a house filled with other people's stuff run by a high school classmate's mom).  I love them!

I should probably go help with this pie now.  Happy humpday!

We Brew

So it turns out that making beer is essentially just like making tea.  You take a bunch of dried stuff, add it to boiling water, and let it sit till it's good and ready.  Okay, there are a few more steps to the ale-making process, but it is more similar than I would have ever expected.  Graham has brewed a few batches, but this was the first time I got to be a part of it.  We spent a surprisingly sunny afternoon on the back deck brewing a new batch, and then spent today bottling the batch he and my dad made a couple weeks ago.  Below is a quasi-step by step of the process, which is by no means meant to be an instructional tutorial.  Just a photo-documentary of my interpretation of the process.

Grains

Going into the pot of water

Boiling.  This was almost as cool as watching the Mud Pots in Yellowstone

After the grains were strained out of the "tea" (technically wort)

Emergency sewing session (so nice to be needed!)

I made a bag for the hops so we could skip the straining

A handful of hops

Adding the yeast

Sitting for a couple weeks

After the second fermentation, ready to be bottled

 After sitting in the fermentation bucket, the beer is poured into this carboy for it's second fermentation.  Shown here is the batch G & Dad brewed up, but I'm going to skip ahead and show the last steps with this brew.  Remember it's the Cold Smoke clone I mentioned earlier...

Siphoning the beer into the sanitized bottles

Getting every last drop.  There was lots of sediment so we ended up with one "chunky" bottle

Capped and ready for aging

The name came pretty quickly.

That's it!  Okay yes, I skipped some details in there, but you can see that it really is almost as simple as boiling some water and adding a bag of tea.  Almost.  The name pays homage both to the original beer as well as the time spent among the true brewers.  Thanks dad and Graham, sorry I wasn't around to bug you with my camera for the original process.  Off to have a pint!

Christmas Creations 2010

In light of Advent Conspiracy, Graham and I have taken up the tradition of making Christmas presents for each other.  Last year I framed a quote he liked, and he made me earrings.  Sweet, simple, quick.  This year we set much higher standards.  Went above and beyond.  And it was awesome.  We both happened to recruit his oh-so-creative genius step-brother Thadeus who is a Carpenter and artist/sculptor, and this is what we came home with:
 

 A Cribbage board (he really wanted a travel-sized one...) and a poop stool!  (Read this article about postures for bowel movements for more info on the stool...this is not so weird if you've spent much time with us since I've been a women's health physical therapist and have gotten very comfortable talking about poop).  Besides the fact that they are incredible gifts and were made (mostly) by our own hands, it was cool to spend so much time with Thadeus (so much time that he didn't really get to make his own woman her Christmas gift...oops).  The thing with "in-laws" is that you don't really get to spend a lot of time with them apart from your spousal unit, but when you do get to, it's just a little different dynamic.  So, of this year's Christmas gift giving, one of the best parts was just spending time getting to know another part of Graham's family as my own.  Which is the whole point of Advent Conspiracy--Spend less, give more: of your time, of yourself.  Mission accomplished. 

The pegs are old railroad nails I got for $1 at Hippo Hardware

Quilt top for TJR

The finished 5x5 quilt

I finally finished the quilt top for my nephew (I think Christmas was my original deadline, then New Years...I sent it off Tuesday).  This was a collaboration of the creativity of my aunts and cousins and cousin-to-be and Gramma and mom and honorary-aunt Terri.  I picked out the elephant and giraffe print with my friend Veronica and sent a couple fat quarters to everyone to do what they wanted with it and send back a 12 1/2 inch square.   I have to admit, I felt like I had a hard time finding fabric that went with it, but I was so surprised to see everyone's picks and how great they all look!  I have some good genes running through my blood when it comes to craft.  I'll put up pics of the finished quilt when mom and Terri get it done, but I wanted to get these up sooner.  Nice work ladies!

Close up collage of individual squares