Maurie is in the News

Recently Maurie was interviewed by a reporter from the Daily Herald. Let me explain why. One of Maurie's callings is to be our ward historian. Needless to say he does an excellent job. Such a good job that the word got out past the local church level and he was asked to sit down with a reporter and explain what he does as a ward historian. The story was published last week and through the magic of the internet I have a link for all of you who would like to read it and view the picture. Here is the article. I hope that you enjoy reading it and learning a little more about Maurie.

They're calling it Snowmaggedon

We have endured "The Big Storm". It was the third largest recorded snow fall in Chicagoland history. Thankfully we had plenty of warning and all went well.

I tried to get the yardstick in a place that had not experienced drifting. The measurement of almost twenty inches is what we got on Douglas Road.

This is shot looking east across our front yard. Our shrubs look very miniature.

This is a shot of my hydrangeas. They managed pretty well.

Seth geared up for three and a half hours of snow removal. Yes it really took that long. We kept the snow blower going and two people manning the shovels.

This is a shot looking through my back screen door window. Lots o snow.

There was quite a bit of drifting in the driveway. Those are Maurie's footsteps. We couldn't get out of the back door so he went out the front door and around into the back yard. His quest, filling the bird feeders and putting corn out for the squirrels.

Our front walk, after the shoveling. This was the first area to get done.

Seth in action.

It was exciting to watch the snow arc over and blast into the minivan.

The snow in this shot soared so high it went over the car and landed in the long bed.

The first run was monumental.

All the way out to the street and then back again.

It's bad form to snow blow your snow into the neighbors yard. So he repositioned the nozzle and blasted the car again.

Meanwhile, Rachel was progressing in her work on the back porch.

Look at that huge pile of snow she moved.

This is what it looked liked when we had been working on our project for about 40 minutes. Both Rachel and Seth thought that working on the blizzard clean up crew was better than going to school. Yes, both of their schools shut down for Wednesday and Thursday. Soon after this shot I put the camera down and we got to work. Maurie was not able to help because he was suffering from a bad, I mean bad as in excruciating, pain in his side. We know that it is not kidney stones. He is back at the doctor's today to find out more. In fact he just walked in the front door. The doctor had some blood work done and he is supposed to go back in two weeks. I know Maurie is disappointed. He wanted answers.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I have been thinking about blogging on this subject for some time now. I probably first had the thought before Thanksgiving. But I dismissed the subject as being not appropriate for the holiday season. It doesn't address anything about being thankful. And it certainly doesn't seem very Christmas-y but, we are now more than half way through the cold dreary month of January and I needed a silly distraction. So I'm asking all of you. What is the strangest item in your fridge? I want to hear from everyone, especially our family members who are abroad. Yes specifically Zack and Leslie.

As you can tell from the above picture I have an overflowing assortment of condiments from fast food restaurants. This is my entry into the "Strangest Thing in the Fridge" collection. It is not that fast food condiments are odd. It's that it is so large. I open up my fridge and invariably a packet of fancy ketchup falls out at my feet. It's as if the refrigerator is making the choice for me. I can just hear it saying, "You may think that you want to have milk on your granola but, try this fat free ranch dressing. It has only been in here for three years. I'm sure you will enjoy it. Go ahead try something different." Or as I'm reaching for eggs my eye is drawn to excessive amounts of little sweet and sour sauce tubs. I own many of them and I start to wonder can I mix the McDonalds brand with the Burger King brand and can I then mix them both into cheese souffle? Probably not. I am an adventurous cook but, I'm not foolish. So let me tell you the numbers.

24 thin packets of parmesan cheese
16 packets of crushed red pepper flakes
8 mini tubs of cream cheese
8 packets of horsey sauce from Arby's
4 packets of Signature BBQ sauce from Arby's
7 packets of salad dressing (included are 3 fat free classic Italian dressing, 3 fat free ranch and 1 Newman's own southwest dressing)
6 packets of mayonnaise
11 containers of butter
7 mini tubs of sweet and sour sauce
4 containers of honey
1 imitation sour cream
1 mini moo half and half
16 packets of soy sauce
8 packets of hot sauce
1 unlabeled container that I think might be honey mustard dip
24 packets of fancy ketchup (Why does it turn into fancy ketchup if it is packaged into a small aluminum envelop?)
1 Special garlic sauce from Papa John's Pizza
1 mini jar of orange marmalade, partially used
3 packets of Gulden's spicy brown mustard

Oh as I was counting I found 2 more buttermilk ranch dressings. I was thrown off because they are in a mini tubs instead of a packet

And for the strangest item I have an unidentified large packet of some oddly colored gunky goo. It's lumpy and rather greeny, yellowy brown. My guess is that it may be really old garlic.

I hope that I haven't forgotten anything. Please share with all of us "The Strangest Thing in My Fridge."

Going to the Mikado

Last September, for my birthday I received tickets to the Lyric Opera's production of "The Mikado". They were a gift from Seth and on Wednesday last we drove into the city and saw a wonderful show.

I t was all very English-y and set in the twenties. This is a shot of Nanki Poo and YumYum returning at the end of the show.

Pictured here is the arrival of the Mikado and his daughter-in-law elect, Katisha. I must mention that the man who sang the part of the Mikado had a beautiful rich bass voice that was so big it filled the theater. The woman who sang Katisha was so funny and her voice was equally good but she would do funny things with her voice to make her character even more comic.

The Young Sweethearts

Koko is kneeling and asking for mercy from the Mikado

The Mikado doing a little dance

Seth is all excited about going to a cultural event in the city. (The pictures are now my own and not production photos from the Lyric Opera web site.)

Once we got into the city we found really cheap parking, but they wouldn't take my debit card, so we ended up at the closest Starbucks for a sandwich and some extra dollars to pay for the upfront parking fee. I had planned on taking Seth to a little bit nicer place to eat, but it ended up being at this corner Starbucks.

So Seth took a shot of the counter at the ubiquitous Starbucks.

It just so happens that the Lyric is very close to the Sears Tower.

When we first walked in the usher told us to go to aisle 5. We did and our seats were on row "E". We went to row E and it was right down front. There were two seats waiting for us and I was amazed that Seth had got such great seats. Well, there really weren't our seats. Our seats were in the upper balcony row E. We went to the upper balcony and we sat down and this is what we saw.

Lots of fancy architectural features.

Such a grand theater.

After the intermission we stood up and we saw that no one had come to sit in those two seats down front. We looked at each other and decided to go ask if we could sit there. Seth told the ladies nearby that this was a birthday present for his Mom and would they mind if we came and sat by them. The ladies smiled and did not tattle on us to the usher. So we saw the second act from five rows back from the orchestra. This picture is of what was behind us.

Seth took these shots just after the show was over. You can get a better idea of the size and the glitz.

I don't know why, but Seth took a picture of the chair that he sat in.

The stage door is a few steps away from this sign. We saw the guy who played Nanky Poo leaving the theater and we stopped and gave him his very own standing ovation.

Now for something completely different.

Rachel and I spent some time on Friday afternoon making rice bags for her and Seth. We used to aqll have rice bags and then we got our new furnace and the house was toasty. Then I started turning the heat down at night and the kids wanted rice bags again. So ten pounds of rice later we had two rice bags and they each had two covers in soft minky.

This is Seth's bag. Four minutes in the microwave and no such thing as cold toes.

I just had to throw in this picture of Rachel. She's pretending to be sad because her toes are cold. Yes, this was taken before the rice bag was complete.