Cooking With Wine

This past Saturday we went to a wedding. I was really looking forward to dressing up, going out, and having a good time. In my mind, that good time included lots of adult conversation with people I don't see very often, and a glass or two of red wine, maybe a dance with my hubby, and a slice of wedding cake, but mostly I was excited to wear my brown dress and to have a glass of wine. Unfortunately, my girls had a different idea. Martin missed the entire wedding ceremony, as Anja was unable to be quieted and therefore was taken outside to run around the parking lot and watch trains go by. I missed half the wedding ceremony due to a hungry Greta, but I have to say, I did have a good time sitting on a very comfortable couch in the fancy "behind the scenes" room. After feeding Greta, someone had come in late and taken Martin's seat, which meant I had to crawl over people to get back to my own seat, so instead of returning I just went outside with Martin and Anja. When we noticed that the ceremony was over, we went back inside and followed the crowd upstairs to the reception. (This wedding was in a very cool building called the Mavris in Indianapolis.) To try and appease Anja, Martin had promised her cheese. Even for a cocktail hour, we assumed there would be some form of cheese to munch on. But, as usual, we were wrong. I think we might have been there forty-five minutes, but maybe it was less. Anyway, the girls both melted down and by the time we left Anja was practically screaming for cheese. I never got my wine, though I did get to talk to a few old acquaintances, and we ended up going to a McDonalds in Lebanon all dressed in our fancy clothes, and eating cheeseburgers together, just the four of us. I guess that's just the way things are meant to be sometimes. Not quite the way we had envisioned the night, but it makes for a good memory.

But anyway, I was still missing my glass of wine. I am not a big wine drinker in general, but I felt kind of cheated on Saturday. Something about a brown polka-dotted satin party dress just calls for a glass of red wine, and doing without was kind of a big bummer. However, I had coincidentally planned this week to make a pasta sauce that my sister-in-law had given me the recipe for, and it called for one cup of red wine. Because I cook with wine even less often than I drink it, this meant we bought a bottle at the grocery on Friday night when we were buying our groceries for the week. And tonight as I was making my "Ragu" sauce (definitely NOT the stuff from a jar, or anything like it) I had myself a big ol' glass of red wine. At last!

Martin is on vacation this week. He is going to do a little deer hunting and hopefully we'll have a freezer full of meat soon. Martin is into hunting more for the meat than for the sport, but I am learning a little more about the sport of it anyway, and it makes me laugh. Men are so funny!

I am knitting a pair of slippers for Anja for Christmas. I'm nervous about them. I'm afraid I'm going to put a lot of time into them and they're going to turn out completely wrong. The pattern is fairly easy (or should be, but I'm a terrible knitter) but there are no pictures! So when I get the the end of a section, I'm not sure if it looks like it's supposed to look! And I won't know until the very end when it's time to put it all together. I also have some felted Christmas plans, but can anyone tell me, when using felted wool sweaters, do you felt the sweaters first, and then cut them as felt? Or do you cut up the sweater and then felt the pieces?

I have so many things I want to get Anja for Christmas. I'm so excited for this Christmas, I think she's going to really love it. I'm excited to show her the nativity scene and to decorate our tree. My sister-in-law gave her a snowsuit for her birthday, so now I'm excited for snow!

We changed Anja's earrings this weekend. Last year for Christmas she got a pair of blue and a pair of red studs from my mother-in-law, and I've never been brave enough to change them. But on Sunday we asked her if she wanted to change, and she said yes. We let her choose her new pair and she chose the blue ones. We sat her up on the bathroom counter so she could watch, and she was thrilled to pieces. She just looked at her ears in the mirror and smiled. It was so adorable!!! Now she walks around touching her ears and saying "blue" and "grandmamma." (As of now the names of both her grandmas sound the same and we have to ask her which one she's talking about. It's kind of confusing.) She is so cute.

Holy smokes, it's after midnight!