One more post about the Christmas tree

Can the internet handle one more picture of the Ragfield Christmas tree? Rob and I were at Target the other night, and as we walked past the aisles of Christmas decorations, this beautiful silver star caught my eye. It was only $9.99, which I considered totally worth it. For years I’ve been looking for something like this, but I’ve never found any that I liked enough to buy. Now that it’s on the tree, I’m not sure if it makes the tree more or less folksy than the red and gold bow that was there before. Either way, I like it.

Thanks to everybody who has called, emailed, etc to ask about my grandma and wish her well. It really means the world to me, to know that there are so many people out there rooting for her. Some have asked if there is anything they can do to help, and I’d say, just keep Grandma (and my mom and aunt too) in your thoughts. All that love and energy really does help, I can feel it. Thanks again so, so much.

The things I couldn't say

Sometimes, there are just things I can’t write about.

For whoever finds this blog, please send your very best thoughts and wishes to my grandma, whose health has taken a turn for the worse, and to my mom and aunt, who are looking after her.

The women in my family (myself included) tend to have a stubborn streak, to harbor strong opinions, to fight like a lion for those that we love, to be unable to do things in moderation, and to feel that we must never be idle because there is always a meal that needs to be cooked or a tub that needs to be scrubbed. All of this stems from grandma, and for 93 years, she’s been going strong. Recently, she’s had to slow down a lot though. On Friday afternoon she suffered a series of strokes or seizures or both, and now we’re all having to come to terms with the fact that things aren’t going to be the same anymore.

I still can’t really say or write the things that are going on in my head. Auntie is the one who’s probably sorting it all out and writing it into one of her poems that sums up everything and makes us all smile even though we’re kind of crying at the same time too.

I keep remembering that when I was in second grade, I had to do this art project where the teacher gave us the beginning of a sentence and we had to complete the thought by drawing a picture. The phrases were things like, “It makes me happy when…” or “My favorite food to eat is…” One of the phrases was, “Sometimes I cry when…” I finished it off by writing, “when its time to leave Grandma and Grandpa’s house.” I drew a picture of Grandma, her hair red (rather than the blonde she always insisted she was) and Grandpa, with his cap on, standing in front of the barn with their dog Tasha. It doesn’t really feel like it was more than 20 years ago that I drew that picture.

At any rate, I can’t really write or draw these days. I’m only posting this with the hopes that anyone who reads it will take a moment to send a thought or prayer or wish—whatever you call it—to my grandma. I know it works, because the love and energy that people have sent to me during tough times have gotten me through a lot.

Thanks.

The Ragfield Family Christmas Tree (cont'd)

If this tree gets any more cute and folksy, it will wink and say, "You betcha." (Let's hope it doesn't come to that.)

I actually really love our folksy tree. Making the popcorn and cranberry garland took forever, but it was a nice way to be productive during my unrelenting insomnia.

I haven't had any luck in finding a more suitable top for the tree. You wouldn't think it would be too hard. All I want is a plain silver star. Over the weekend I looked at Prairie Gardens and Michael's, and neither of them had anything even remotely like that.

Here are a few photos of some of my favorite ornaments.

I picked up this ornament in San Francisco in a cute little shop at Fisherman's Wharf for only $1.49

Round and round the Christmas tree

When I was little we had this stereo-hutch type thing that held an actual record player. Around Christmas, we would play actual records on this record player. It may have been a bit of an antiquated system, even at the time, but I always remember it as being so much fun.

There was one particular song I remember listening to all the time. I don’t know who sang it or even what the name of the song was, but the chorus went something like this:

Round and round the Christmas tree
Opening presents with the family
One for you and two for me!
Oh what a Christmas Day!

Last night as Rob and I decorated our tree, that song was going through my head. In case anybody who found this doesn’t already read Rob’s blog, here is a video of us decorating the tree. A while ago Rob built this remote timer thing for his camera, and while we were decorating the tree he set it up so that it would take a photo every 10 seconds. Then he strung all these photos together and made a video out of it.

(Technical note: Okay, I just looked at this post and realized that the smallness of the video really sucks. I need to get back to my dissertation now, but sometime soon I will try to fix the video. And maybe also convince Rob to add some kind of music to the video [if that is even possible]).

If you look closely, you will see that at one point we dropped an ornament and it shattered. At the time I was disappointed to have broken an ornament, but in retrospect, it is pretty funny on the video. Also, you may see me go in and out the front door a couple of times. Although it looks like I am trying to run away, I was actually just putting up a wreath and some other small decorations outside.

I would also like to point out that (what may end up as a future blog entry), the finishing touches have not yet been added to the tree. I am trying to make a popcorn and cranberry garland (which is taking a lot longer than I'd hoped), and I'd kind of like to get an actual star for the top.

Thanks for reading!

The Ragfield Family Christmas Tree

I was actually being sarcastic when I suggested to Rob that we go pick up a Christmas tree on our tandem bike. But he called my bluff and took me up on it.

The whole endeavor was made more interesting because when we woke up this morning, the world of Urbana was covered in snow. Finally this afternoon we rode Big Red through the slush over to the Custard Cup parking lot, which is where they sell Christmas trees every year. It wasn’t actually too difficult to pick one out, given that there were only a few trees in our price range.

The day after Thanksgiving, the Custard Cup parking lot transforms into a Christmas tree lot.

We bought the tree and Rob used bungee cords to secure it to the make-shift trailer he had constructed. Then we headed for home. It probably wasn’t the safest ride we’ve ever done. By this time, it was after 4:30 and becoming dark, it was sleeting a little bit, and with a 7-foot tree strapped to the back of the bike, we couldn’t see if there were any cars behind us. It was kind of scary every time we had to turn a corner or come to a stop. But luckily we only had about 2.5 miles to go, and we made it home just fine. I was a little disappointed not to have a photo or video of the adventure. I’d been hoping to stage a victory lap around our block so we could get some photos, but by the time we made it back, it was getting dark and I was convinced that all my fingers and toes were frostbitten.



I can only assume that this will now become a Ragfield Tradition. Hopefully next year we’ll ride over to pick out our tree before the first snow of the season.

A Very Vegan Thanksgiving

Rob and I have had 4 Thanksgivings (well 1 of them was actually a birthday party) in the past 4 days. When I was little, I remember Thanksgiving being one meal, on one day, at my great aunts’ house. Times have changed I guess.

Several months ago when I decided to stop dallying around and become a vegan for real, the one thing that gave me pause was what I would do at family holiday gatherings. I decided I’d cross that bridge when I came to it, and this Thanksgiving it was finally time. The end result? Well, I’m not going to be writing a Vegan Holiday Survival Guide, but I might go looking to see if someone else has written one that I can read up on before Christmas.

The festivities began on Wednesday night, when we celebrated niece Vivian’s first birthday and continued on Thursday with Thanksgiving dinner with Rob’s family. To these events, I brought pumpkin chipotle hummus (loosely based off of this recipe) and a sub-par minestrone soup that somehow managed not to re-heat all the way through before dinner, so I ended up eating it luke warm. I also brought some pumpkin spice cookies so that I wouldn’t feel too left out when everybody was eating Vivian’s cake and pumpkin pie. It ended up that I was the only person who ate any of these things (well, Rob politely had some minestrone soup).



Vivian's birthday cake


Nephew Caleb invented this fabulous game in which I got to sit on the couch while he stood guard for approaching "dinosaurs." Whenever he saw a dinosaur, he would call for me to put up my Magic Dinosaur Shield (a pillow), while he chased away the offending beast. Caleb and I both could have played this game for hours. The best thing about this game was that I got to sit in one place the whole time.

On Thursday night after the Scho Thankgsiving, we drove a very boring 4-1/2 hours up to my sister’s place and arrived late at night. Since we didn’t stop back at home, I traveled with all my various vegan dishes and accoutrements. My sister had made us a fabulous vegetarian chili and also some vegan brownies that are single-handedly responsible for my skinny jeans not fitting anymore. It was totally worth it though.

Nephew Logan playing


Rob and Meli with Logan


Michelle and Mark with Logan


Meli's fam

We spent the day on Friday at my sister’s, hanging out with my family and playing with nephew Logan. I also whipped up another batch of Peanut-Butter Noodles (which I keep calling “Thai Peanut Noodles” for some reason) for our 4th and final Thanksgiving with Rob’s family the next day. We left my sister’s at 6:30am in the bitter cold on Saturday morning and drove like hell to get there by noon. The car was loaded down with the peanut noodles, pumpkin chipotle hummus, and pumpkin spice cookies. I felt pretty terrible and was really hungry when we finally arrived. When it was time for dinner, I put the peanut noodles in the microwave, but they didn’t get heated all the way through. I sat down with a plate of ice-cold noodles, which were actually pretty gross. If I were at home, I would have just popped my plate back in the microwave, but we were eating off of fine china, so I just made do.

I think what made this Thanksgiving so difficult was that we went so many places and there were so many different family dinners that I had to bring something to. Considering all the work I went to and how it turned out, I might as well have just packed myself a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich instead of trying unsuccessfully to create a delicious dish that other people weren’t going to eat anyway (except for a few brave or unknowing souls tried my pumpkin chipotle hummus and ended up gagging and writhing on the floor).

Don't tell Cousin Dan, but its pretty obvious that little Brody (14 months) is my favorite Cousin-in-Law. Whenever I'm around Brody, I remind myself of the female howler monkeys who would steal other females' babies to hold them and play with them.

Caleb and Vivian with their momma and Santy Claus. At just 12 months, Vivian is a striding biped. I am truly impressed with her locomotor abilities.

Rob's family, which you may notice is more numerous than mine.

At any rate, I guess I have to regroup, and get ready to tackle Christmas. If there are any vegans out there who happen to have stumbled on this blog, please, please send your holiday survival tips my way.

Thanks for reading.

You're a vegan? What do you eat?

I’m thinking of starting a new segment on the blog called “You’re a vegan? What do you eat?!” This is for a couple of reasons. First, I get this question frequently, and hopefully such posts will provide an answer to any who are concerned. Second, many of the things that I eat are so lovely that I take pictures of them.

We’ll start off this segment with a dessert I made recently (I think it was great-aunt Julia who always said you should eat dessert first). Its called Gingered Cranberry Pear Cobbler. It actually ended up being a ton of work, and the ingredients were kind of expensive. It takes 8 pears. Eight! And have you priced pears lately? They aren’t cheap. The cranberries were on sale though, so maybe that helped a little. The original recipe calls for sour cream, which I substituted with Tofutti Vegan Better Than Sour Cream.


Making this dessert was pretty labor-intensive. It took me a long time to peel and slice all those pears, and then making the crust turned out to be a little bit more work than I’d hoped for. When I started out making the dessert, I hadn’t realized there would be kneading, rising, and rolling involved. It wasn’t too bad though, it just dirtied a lot of dishes. The final product was gorgeous, especially when I put it into the beautiful baking dish that my mother-in-law gave me last year for Christmas.

The verdict on this dessert: the filling was definitely tart alright. The recipe only called for ¾ cup of brown sugar, but I think adding some white sugar would probably help. I made this dessert when we had a couple of friends over for dinner, and they both told me that it was great. Rob tried some of it, which I definitely appreciate, since he generally avoids all desserts unless they come in brownie form. (He claims this is the first time he has ever eaten “cobbler,” but I find it hard to believe he’s lived 30 years and never had any of his Grandma B’s widely acclaimed cherry cobbler). But in the end, this dessert was not my favorite. We ate less than half of it and I finally wrapped it up and put it in the freezer, which I think of as Food Purgatory. I don’t know if cobbler is something that freezes well, but after going to so much work, I couldn’t simply throw it out. In sum, it was pretty good, but I’ve realized that if I’m going to put that much effort into something, it ought to be chocolate.

Moving on. For dinner tonight, I made Peanut-Butter Noodles from the Vegan A Go-Go website. They were A-MAZING!! All I can say is that Vegan A Go-Go rocks! This recipe was so easy to make, and it was seriously one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. I used low-sodium soy sauce and low-sodium vegetable broth for the sauce and it was still pretty salty. I’m not sure what “chili paste” is, but I had some “chili garlic sauce” and used that instead. I also chopped up some carrots and broccoli, steamed them, and added that to the final mix. The whole thing turned out so good that I’ve decided to bring it to one of the Thanksgivings that Rob and I are attending this week (we’re going to several celebrations in multiple states). Thanks for the great recipe, Vegan A Go-Go!

Fabulous Peanut Noodles. Showcasing Auntie's old Corell dishes again.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.