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This week is the week of BABY BOOM. So really, it’s two children are born this week, both of them girls!
My friend Tiffany is having her second child on Thursday! And my niece arrives this week, we think!
(You can read about Tiff’s little boy Billy here and here)
As Melanie said in Gone With the Wind, “The happiest days are when babies come!”
I thiiiink this might be my first birthday party? Not sure!
Obviously meeting Patty was high on this list!
Favorite Memory: Meeting Patty!
Best thing I read: Go Tell The Bees that I am Gone *
Best new habit: Barre workouts!
Most Memorable Adventure: Amish Country! (all posts here)
That sky!
Song on Repeat: “Immanuel’s Land” (Audrey Assad) and “This Could Change Everything”
Milestone celebrated: 16 years post-transplant!
Best meal or recipe: Kolaches in Houston, and the food in Amish Country!
biggest change: My sister is pregnant and little Maddie will be joining us NEXT WEEK!
Most beautiful sight I saw:
Mel’s ultrasound, and…Patty :)
“Who is this weird person taking my picture ?”
How about you—what were some of your best things?
Christmas music: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, Judy Garland (From Meet Me In St. Louis)
Today’s a Marian feast day, hence Marian photo!
Welcome, 2022!
I hope that all of you have a New Year that is full of joy, happiness, blessings, and good books.
The USCC offers this prayer service to bring in a new year.
Today is also the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God., so we’re going to have some Marian Christmas music.
This song is one of my favorites! Give it a listen!
This is sadly not captioned, so the lyrics are here.
Since it’s New Year’s Eve I thought it was a good time to slot the “new year’s goals” entry into the blogmas calendar.
I don’t make resolutions. I make goals. I discovered Lara Casey’s Powersheets in 2015 right after I’d left my job at the Senate, and they literally changed my life. I wouldn’t have written—or published!—my book without them!
(No I don’t get paid to say that, I just LOVE THEM)
So ever since then, I’ve used them to set goals for the year. The Powersheets break these goals down into monthly “tending lists”, which are broken down even further into Monthly Action Items, Weekly Action Items, and Daily Action Items.
I do the “prep work” in November and December, and I usually write out the tending list for the next month on the last Thursday of the month, which was yesterday.
So here are my goals for 2022! (I’m summarizing here. There are some things that I keep to myself, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. :) )
(THIS is basically my aesthetic)
Yesterday I made my tending list for the month: (yes I blurred some things out :) )
Each goal has a color attached to it as you can see here. The hot pink is for spiritual growth—that’s a never-ending goal, so I don’t purposely “set that” as a goal each year.
Create healthy snack list: This is harder than it sounds for me. As I’ve written before, one of the hardest things for me post transplant has been the food adjustment. Before transplant, I was never really hungry. You read that right. Never. I might like some things, but I didn’t crave food, or really get hungry.
Post-transplant….um, that changed. :) Which was GOOD! I grew an inch and a half! My body was so malnourished that it took everything I was throwing at it, and I physically filled out. But…I didn’t know how to really eat. And also I’m on prednisone forever, which messes up hunger cues. So before when I was never really hungry, now I’m never really not hungry. I could always eat something.
Throw diabetes on top of that, and it’s messy. So one of the things I want to do this month is create a healthy snack list and then stock my house according. A healthy snack, for my purposes, is one that combines protein+fat+carbs (Yes, people like me do need to have carbs. Fairly regularly, actually, or else the blood sugar plummets and that’s not good either.).
The January Cure is a thing Apartment Therapy does. It’s a 20 day house cleaning/organizing challenge.
Wellness challenge I am all signed up for!
February budget: I use EveryDollar (the free version) and I love it!
Retreat Day: I do this monthly. It’s a day when I turn off my electronics and read, work out, and look over my goals for the next month.
Confession: I’m working on going to confession once a month. So I write it down here so I don’t forget to do it!
These are all health related:
Meal plan: I used to be good about this and then I slacked off. I generally plan for 4-5 days of meals so I have some flexibility if I just don’t feel like cooking and instead have PBJ, or my parents invite me over for dinner or a friend wants to go out!
Weigh: Every week. Yes.
Barre 2x/week: This isn’t barre like pure barre or barre 3. This is ballet barre, using YouTube videos. And no, I don’t mean an entire barre, which is about 45-50 minutes. Right now, my goal is 10-15 minutes of barre twice a week. This isn’t all the exercise I do in a week, but I want to make sure I do these, so that’s why they’re a weekly goal.
BIAY: the Bible In A Year podcast. I started last May, so I want to make sure that I keep going! (Folks, this is amazing. I love doing it. (Here’s a post on what I’ve learned so far—I need to write another one of these!)
January Cure Items: This is the daily accountability for the January Cure Monthly item.
Budget check in: This used to be called “balancing your checkbook”. :) But this is where I reconcile my budget with my actual spending.
TA-DA! That’s my January tending list and my goals for 2022! How about you? What goals have you set?
CHRISTMAS MUSIC: “In The Bleak Midwinter” from Renee Fleming and Rufus Wainwright
Our Christmas breakfast, for as long as I can remember, breakfast has been cinnamon rolls and sausage. I look forward to this meal all year. They’re just the Pillsbury type, and the sausage varies—now we use turkey sausage—so it’s simple, but it’s great, and I really appreciate that mom still makes it for me, now that my siblings are married and spend Christmas with their spouses (or, in Melanie’s case, she can’t get home for Christmas, because she’s going to have Maddie any minute now. :) ).
I usually make two Barefoot Contessa recipes for Christmas: The raspberry crumble bars (you can use any flavor of jam!) and the hermit bars (spicy gingerbread). I don’t make the icing for the hermit bars, because I think they taste great enough on their own. I’ve also made Giada’s citrus biscotti in the past. Mom is also a huge fan of snickerdoodles, so she would make those sometimes too.
Our dinner has varied greatly through the years, to the point that there really isn't anything we have every year, with the exception of Schwann’s peppermint stick ice cream! And if there is a party during the season, I will make THE GUINNESS CAKE.
I almost always get a cookbook for Christmas now—and have ever since I moved out after college, although my first cookbook (that wasn’t an American Girl historical cookbook!) was Betty Crocker’s Quick and Easy, which I still have, and used when I lived in an apartment, briefly, my senior year of college. This year I got Half Baked Harvest Super Simple, so I will be marking the recipes that I want to make, and then making them over the next week and a half or so.
Do you have Christmas/holiday food traditions?
Christmas music: If we’re talking about food, then we probably need a carol with food in it :)
Let’s have “The Christmas Song” sung by Nat King Cole, huh? :)
I’m not sure whose Christmas tree this is. :)
You can read all the blogmas posts here!
As a kid (I mean up until about the age of 9, I think), we spent Christmas in Pittsburgh. That meant that my brother and I got our Santa gifts early, which made us very happy and made our classmates very jealous. At the time, there weren’t as many grandkids as there are now, so my brother and I were pretty spoiled with presents by our grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
We would arrive in Pittsburgh on Christmas Eve and stay at one grandparents’ or the others that day, and then spend the next day with the others. I seem to remember that we usually spent Christmas Eve with Dad’s family—his two sisters, their husband, kids, and my grandmother (my grandfather died when my dad was 20). Being southern Italians, they did the Feast of the Seven Fishes for a long time—I don’t think they it when I was old enough to actually partake, or they did, and the kids just didn’t get the food. Gifts were after dinner in the living room. Bryan (my brother) and I were (and still are, but with the addition of Melanie!) the youngest grandchildren on this side of the family, so we got most of the gifts (I think?). I do remember adults opening things as well, but being a kid I didn’t really pay attention!
at the Heilmann Christmas party. L-R: Diane [Patty’s mom!], Jeff, me, and Julie holding my screaming brother.
The Heilmann Christmas was multi-parted. My great-grandmother lived in a nearby apartment building and we would have a Christmas party there in the building’s “party room”, which you see above. This was also the location for a lot of my early birthday parties. (Remember, not a lot of grand kids on this side, lots of people who wanted to spoil small children.)
I don’t remember sequence, exactly, but we would open gifts at Grandma and Pa’s (mom’s parents), and then at some point there was the party at Nana’s, which wasn’t far away. Diane and her family (my Aunt Sue, Uncle John—mom’s brother—and her sister, Megan) lived in St. Louis and it was always a lot of fun to see her, since we’re only six months apart in age. Julie (seen above at the right) is the oldest grandchild, I’m second, and Di is third. (Also, the first child in every family on my mom’s side was a girl, too!) We spent a lot of time playing Barbies. (Well, Di and I. I don’t think Julie was into Barbies.)
I loved the way we spent Christmas. It evolved, of course, as we got older, but it was really magical when I was little, especially getting to spend so much time with my relatives.
Gifts I remember getting? A Sesame Street sleeping bag and a banjo (also Sesame Street), and the My Little Pony Pink Perfume Palace! (I loved that thing so much I took it to Walt Disney World when I was seven. It was my carry-on. I’m not kidding.)
Christmas Music: TWOFER!
1) O Come, All Ye Faithful, from the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph!
For some reason, I remember singing this at my grandparents’ church. I don’t know if it actually happens, but I have a very strong memory of it (I was wearing a white dress with navy blue anchors on it). So, I’m sharing this one today!
2) I should’ve posted this yesterday since it was the feast of the Holy Innocents—Loreena Mckennit singing the Coventry Carol.
OK it is time for THE BOOK HAUL.
I always get a lot of books for Christmas—either as gifts or because of gift cards to book stores. :) I have actually ordered some more books that haven’t arrived yet, so those will probably show up in next week’s Yarn Along! If I’ve read it already there will be notes. If not, just the title and a link.
(All book links are affiliate links!)
The Ballerinas, Rachel Kapelke-Dale. A former soloist with the Paris Opera Ballet returns to set (choreograph) a new ballet on its dancers. She wants to use two of her former friends in the ballet—especially Lindsay, who she hurt years ago and now wants to make it up to her. The suspense is in what our narrator actually did, as well as the machinations of the other characters who swirl around her, including a former boyfriend and the ghost of her mother, who was a former etoile (star, the highest level a dancer can achieve at the Paris Opera Ballet). There’s definitely a tinge of Black Swan to this one, but I found it incredibly propulsive and couldn’t put it down on Christmas Day.
Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr
Drums of Autumn 25th Anniversary Edition, Diana Gabaldon. The fourth installment in her Outlander series, this one takes the Frasers (Claire, Jamie, and Ian) to America to settle. It also involves Brianna, Jamie and Claire’s daughter, whom Claire left behind in the 1960s. If you haven’t read it, I don’t want to spoil it! This was the basis for season four of the TV show.
Outlander Knitting: I’ve looked through this, not enough to really digest any of the patterns, but there’s a variety of things here, from accessories to home items to some garments. Now that I can do stranded color work (more on that next week!) there are projects in this book that I can do, now which is very exciting.
Half Baked Harvest Super Simple: I fell in love with Tieghan’s first book Half Baked Harvest, which I picked up in Houston during my summer trip, so naturally I asked for her second book for Christmas! There are lots of good things in here so I’m looking forward to going through it with my post-it notes and marking recipes I want to try. (All my cookbooks have tons of post-it notes in them, marking recipes I want to try. I use a lot of post-it notes!)
Now for (some of) the Amazon books!
The Ballerina Mindset, Megan Fairchild. As you know if you’ve read here for any length of time, I love ballet. So reading Megan’s book as definitely something I wanted to do! She’s a principal dancer at New York City Ballet, has acted on Broadway, is earning her MBA, and has three kids. Whew! I’m really excited to dive into this one.
The Island, Victoria Hislop. I saw this book on The Duchess of Cornwall’s (Camilla, Prince Charles’ Wife) Reading Room feed. If you’ve not heard of it, the feed showcases books that the Duchess loves with there being several books a season”. It’s a great way for me to expand my literary horizons! The Island was featured in season 4, so I put it on my Amazon wish list. It involves Greece, leprosy, WWII, and family ties—sounds pretty good!
Christmas fact: Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents (it’s also the wedding anniversary for two of my friends!)
Christmas Music: Linda Eder with the Broadway Gospel Choir , “Do You Hear What I Hear?”
(Fun fact: This was one of the “traditionals'“ in my high school choir. We had two of them, and one of them was this one, which we called “Do you hear what I know” because, let’s be honest, it’s hard to remember the order here, people!)
These aren’t really surprises, but I do want to talk about the two things I knitted for Christmas gifts this year.
The first was a blanket for my niece, Madeleine.
I’ve given some notes about this before, I think, but I want to talk about it more in-depth.
I worked with my sister to select the colors—I gave her a choice of yarns, and she chose the yarn and the colors for the blanket. This yarn is Rowan Baby Cashsoft Merino , in colors teal, rosy, snowflake, and lavender. These go with the aesthetics of Maddie’s nursery, but they’re also colors that can grow with her, because I don’t like to make just “baby blankets” that have typical baby colors. My siblings and I adored our baby blankets, so I wanted something that would be good for a little girl, tween, or teenage (or even adult!) Madeleine.
This yarn is also great because Maddie lives in the Rocky Mountains, where temperature changes can be fast and brutal! The wool, acrylic, and cashmere blend will provide warmth and softness. (I would not have used this for Patty’s blanket, because she lives in Texas where it is HOT.)
The pattern I used is my favorite Sully, but I made some alterations to it. I don’t do the picked up border because picking up stitches is fiddly and I don’t really like it. But to prevent curling, I did a 4 stitch garter stitch border on both sides of the blanket. It still curls a bit, but it’s not as bad, and I like the bit of whimsy it adds to what is essentially a stockinette stitch blanket (with pearl stitch detailing in the color change rows).
I didn’t block it, because I like how it looked off the needles and I didn’t want to mess it up with blocking. Sometimes in blocking things like a blanket or a shawl, the blocking can be….weird. It can be stretched too much, it canasta be “off”. Now, I know that’s partially my fault! :) But I didn’t want her blanket stretched out. I liked the effect as it is, which you can see above.
I mailed it wrapped in plastic wrap and I also included a care card, so my sister Melanie knew how to wash it, if needed. (I always include a little care card with knitted gifts.)
The second gift is a simple scarf for my friend, Amilia.
This yarn is a super, super soft alpaca silk blend. It is very pretty—much prettier in person!
However, I have a hard time knitting with it because it is so slippery!
So I decided that I would use it for a very simple pattern—make a long, garter stitch scarf that gives Amilia styling options and allows her to just love a useful accessory in a beautiful yarn.
I called this pattern “Ripples” and it’s super basic. It’s just 25 stitches cast onto size 9 needles, and then I knit in garter stitch until it was the length I wanted it. Easy-peasy.
Christmas fact: Today is the feast of St. John, apostle and evangelist!
Christmas music: From Linda Eder and the Broadway Gospel Choir singing “Silent Night”.
Christmas Eve chez moi
Christmas Eve started with Mass, where I read the first reading (and loved doing it, it’s so good), and then we had dinner at my brother and sister-in-law’s house, followed by presents and the traditional Christmas Eve viewing of A Christmas Story.
The Emma Bridgewater pottery my brother and SIL got me—I collect it! And how awesome is the personalized cocoa mug?!
Afterwards my parents dropped me off at my apartment, where I spent Christmas Eve working on some knitting projects for me and watching Muppet Christmas Carol, which is truly a classic. I also re-read some of my favorite Christmas novels.
My dad picked me up and we had breakfast before opening our gifts.
We always have sausage and cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and it’s my favorite breakfast of the year!
One of the 12 Days of Christmas plates from my mom’s set.
After that we opened presents! I got one very special present that deserves its own post, so stay on the lookout for that!
Christmas booooooooks! :) (And I got Amazon gift cards, which also lead to—more Christmas books!) I will talk all about the books later during Blogmas!
We had an easy lunch, followed by a game of Harry Potter Scrabble where we used all the tiles. I am proud of our accomplishment! My mom is amazing at word games, so she won, as I expected. (I am not very good at word games, which surprises people, because they think that being a writer I’d be good at word games. I’m not, really. I tend to think of bigger words that don’t fit on the board!)
We had dinner and then I went home to spend the rest of the day.
Christmas fact: Today is the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr!
MUSIC: Two today!
Mannheim—this time it’s O Holy Night.
Loreena McKennit’s awesome version of “Good King Wenceslas”, which takes place today, “On the feast of Stephen”. It will make you want to dance!
Just popping in to say Merry Christmas to all of you and your families! I hope you have a wonderful day. :)
One of my Christmas traditions is not listening to this song until Christmas Eve on the way to Mass. I don’t know why. Growing up, my parents had all the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas tapes and we would listen to them going to Mass, so maybe that’s why. But this always makes me think of that drive, down a street that was lit by the milk-gallon lanterns that people put out and seeing all the lights aglow in all the yards. So I hope you enjoy it!
I know a lot of video bloggers do “vlogmas”, which is videos beginning Dec. 1 and going through Christmas (or thereabouts). I decided I’m going to do “blogmas” BUT through the 12 days of Christmas! Wheee!
I’ve never done this but I have done daily blogging challenges before so this isn’t a new thing over here—but it is something I haven’t done in awhile.
Not sure exactly what the content will be, but I’m sure it will consist of books, family, knitting, movies, and recipes, so that sounds like a good start!
Internet stupidity makes Patty UPSET!
So today I read an article written by a priest that says that if you’re not healed of your suffering, you are….basically not doing Christianity well enough.
Ohhhhhhhhh I began to wail like an over-tired Patty when I read this.
I am linking to it, even though I don’t really want to give this article hits, because…..yeah.
Now, in fairness, I will note that the author says “possible reasons” at the beginning of his piece.
However it doesn’t cover the amount of sheer insanity that is spouted.
Here’s why you aren’t getting cured:
*You lack consistent prayer
*You lack faithful discipleship
*You lack complete trust
*You lack readiness to give total praise to God
*You lack the willingness to bring healing to all persons.
Do you notice a thread here? It’s all, you are not doing your part so you need to do more and then God, like. vending machine, will give you what you want. You need to do better.
At the end of the article the author says that well, God has his own reasons for doing or not doing things.
But look: This is dangerous garbage. To tell someone who is desperate for healing that they aren’t praying enough, aren’t trusting enough, aren’t doing enough—that’s crap! It’s like the people who have told me that the reason I have CF is because I haven’t prayed enough. It smacks of the attitude of “Oh, there, there, just do X and all will be FINE!”
What? No.
What, precisely, did Jesus “do” to “earn” his death? Did he not have total trust in God? Did Mary lack faith and prayer, or the willingness to give total praise to God, as she watched her son die?
Jesus says in the Gospel of John that the blind man is blind because that’s how he’ll glorify God.
In my book I write about this dangerous attitude. And I also write about how God uses suffering to draw us closer to him, deeper into prayer, and further into a relationship of trust.
Prayer is not magic. God isn’t a vending machine.
If you are suffering, do not believe that somehow, you are failing. Yes, through your suffering, God might be asking you to do more—to trust him, to enter into deeper prayer. But to enter into that with the goal of only gaining is not the right way to enter into deeper prayer. A real relationship with anyone isn’t about what the other person can give you or what you get.
Suffering can, certainly, be, as C.S. Lewis said, “God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” It can spark conversion, definitely.
But we need to be very careful when we talk about why God is permitting suffering. We need to step away from thinking that if we’d only do X Y Z that we’d be cured.
God’s ways are not our ways, and suffering is a deep mystery that we will never totally understand. Don’t try to provide facile answers.
I’m featured over at Spoken Women, writing about today’s second reading from St. Paul!
Excerpt:
This Sunday, with almost two weeks left before Christmas, St. Paul tells us to “rejoice always!”
Do you feel like you rejoice always? Or rejoice at all? Do you have joy in your daily life?
I’m going to make a confession here: I am a very naturally happy, nay, joyfulperson. In fact, when I was a contestant on Jeopardy!, a Twitter user wondered if I was trying to imitate Carol Channing with my enthusiasm. (If you don’t get that reference, google Carol Channing. You’ll get it.)
I wasn’t. I’m just a naturally joyful person. So when St. Paul says to “rejoice always”, I can say I do that often enough. Not always, though, because, let’s be honest: It’s hard to rejoice always.
Read the rest there.
Are you a person who needs permission to relax?
I am one of those people. Not to relax, per se, but to build in margin? To give yourself a break? That’s a problem I’ve always had. In some ways it’s good, because I can be counted on—I once did a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest in the midst of atrial fibrillation, because there wasn’t an understudy. I finished the show, went home, changed, and then went to the ER to get it fixed. (Seriously)
Sometimes it’s good that I don’t want to let people down. Other times, it’s not good.
But I think it’s especially important now, when everything is so busy, to remember that it’s OK to give ourselves margin.
For example: Before I had sinus surgery, I told the lector coordinator that I’d need two weeks off. I didn’t think I actually would be sick for two weeks but I thought, eh, you never know.
It turns out that yeah, I have needed that margin. This morning I thought I wasn’t going to make it to Mass. I didn’t fall asleep until almost 4 AM. But as the day went on (and as I’m writing this), I felt better. So I decided, yes, I could go. I had enough margin. I love Advent, so I knew it would feel good to go to Mass and I could wear one of my new dresses!
Said dress! :)
But, if I hadn’t felt good, then it would’ve been OK to miss Mass.
As I look back on my life, I see that there are times when I probably should have had margin, and didn’t. Like the high school semester that I had TB? I only missed four days of school, and two of those were for testing at the hospital. I should’ve missed a lot more. I was falling asleep in my Earth Science class! There was one day when my mom woke me up, and I was so tired I was crying. That day, I didn’t go to school; I just slept all day. We probably should have done that more. I should’ve said “I need this” more. But I didn’t.
The summer after I almost died? (TWENTY YEARS AGO, now!). I got a summer job. Probably shouldn’t have done that.
Post-transplant I knew that margin had to come into my life in a big way. I couldn’t push myself like I had before. I really did have to listen to my body. And I’ve done a better job of that, over the past 16 1/2 years. But it’s an ongoing process. I need to learn to cut myself some slack, because I can be hard on myself, and I’m guessing you can too.
It really is OK to step back. The world will not end if you take time off. It really, really won’t.
My tree isn’t decorated yet. My nativity isn’t up yet. Normally, both those things would be done. But they’re not. And I’m not pushing myself to do it, either. I’m letting myself feel out each day and see what’s happening in my body. I’m feeling, right now, like the nativity will happen tomorrow. But I don’t know for sure and that’s OK.
It is OK to need margin and space. It is OK to rest.
If you need permission, you have my permission.
REST. Give yourself slack. Create margin. It’s OK.
Last week was “technically” yarn along week, but I was having surgery, so no yarn along for me, haha. But I can talk about yarn and books this week!
This project has been a year long knit along, and I’ve had so much fun with it! Whatever the Weather wraps up this month and I’m really going to miss it! The Ravelry link is above if you want to see all the details. There were three size choices: scarf, wrap, or blanket, and I chose the wrap. You’ll see it in all its glory next month.
I’ve finished Madeleine’s (my niece’s!) blanket:
And I have two more Christmas gifts to knit. I’m about halfway done on one and once that’s done I will start the second. I’m hoping to get them done by Christmas, but if not, they’ll be done by Epiphany!
There are lots and lots and lots of fun projects on the horizon but right now Christmas knitting has taken precedence over all the things.
But just WAIT.
In terms of books: I’ve started reading Dune! I was really intrigued by the movie trailers and I have to say I am liking the book so far! I have it on my iPad because that’s easier for me to read, post-surgery, for some reason, so no good pictures of it. :)
I also re-read one of my absolute favorites, In This House of Brede, which EVERYONE must read.
Sinus surgery was successful!
There was a lot of stuff in there, according to my ENT—the sinuses were actually “overflowing” (which I could’ve told ya.) It’s so nice to be able to feel air in my nose again! Yay!
So I’m taking the next few days to just putter and rest/work on house things that have been neglected during the massive “I have no energy because I have massively infected sinuses!” campaign. I want to work on my travel sketchbook and get some of my Amish Country sketches done/finished, and I have a few knitting projects that need repaired or blocked. I’m done with Madeleine’s blanket (she’s my niece!) and I’ve moved on to the next Christmas gift on my list, a scarf for one of my best friends.
Maddie’s blanket (not blocked)
And here’s a nice little treat for all of you—I didn’t know there was a Dominican blessed named Emily! You can read all about her here!
Detail of Bl. Emily in Bernadette Carstenen’s “The Dominicans”
How are you doing? Are you preparing for Christmas? Are you celebrating Advent? Are you doing both or neither? :)
Side view of the Carlisle Inn
It was snowing on Friday when we left, but it was the “good” kind of snow that doesn’t stick to the roads, so we weren’t worried about driving home.
After we packed up the car, we went to Der Dutchman for breakfast (part of staying at the Inn is that you get one free breakfast buffet at the restaurant), which was excellent. Buttermilk pancakes for the win!
Before we left, we stopped at the attached bakery to get some goodies to take home. I got a strawberry fry pie, ground coffee, bread and butter pickles, and Amish popcorn (apparently this is a big thing, Amish popcorn!). Mom and Dad also got some things. It was a really nice bakery, with plenty of items, from bread to doughnuts and other goodies. They also had things like mugs and gift baskets and candy.
Some of my bakery purchases.
On the way home we passed a lot of Amish farms and more buggies (I counted 11!) and Amish kids on bikes. There was more laundry on the line, and lots of cows, goats, horses, and sheep in the fields. Some people had their laundry hung on their covered porches, to keep it out of the wind and snow.
Hills behind the Inn.
This was a great trip that I’d long been wanting to take, and I definitely want to go back as soon as possible, hopefully in the spring so we can use the porches and balconies of the Inn!
Breakfast menu
I feel like there’s so much to write about and I just haven’t had time to do it!
So, happy Advent! Happy New Church Year! Happy Feast of St. Andrew (on the 30th!)
Here’s a post I wrote on Advent and the Liturgical Year
Advent reading: “At the Service of His Plan”
Also, the St. Andrew Christmas Novena starts on November 30. This is one of my favorite “new” traditions—I picked it up about 6 years ago, and I love it.
Anddddd also I’m having surgery on W, Dec. 1 to finally get my sinuses cleared out! WHEEEE!!!!
Wednesday morning
Wednesday was our big day out, since everything was closed on Thursday. Surprisingly, some stores were also closed on Wednesday or had shortened hours, so I was glad I’d done some research ahead of time and ID’d places that were open. Because of that, some of the places on our list we weren’t able to go to, but we can save them for next time.
We had breakfast at the hotel and then headed to Millersburg, where both my aunt and I wanted to hit Farmhouse Frocks.
Uncle Frank checking out the candles (which are awesome)
Farmhouse Frocks is run by a local woman and her two daughters and features clothing in sizes 5-28. All the clothing is made by Amish seamstresses from fabric that Lena (the owner) picks out. Clothes shopping really doesn’t get more local that this!
The shop carries clothing, accessories, and all sorts of home goods, from cowhide rugs to ornaments to kitchenwares and stationery. This is my kind of store and I could have spent hours in here!
We did spend about an hour and a half in here, trying on clothes and looking at everything. Aunt Judy and I got some great pieces—I got two dresses (two prints of the same dress) and a top, as well as two hair clips (I’m SO GLAD claw clips are back!) and a leather pouch, because my purse is like Mary Poppins’ bag, and I always need pouches to keep things organized.
All of the pieces that I got are versatile, beautiful, and comfortable. All important things! I was hoping I’d find some great things here, and Aunt Judy and I were not disappointed.
All decorated for Christmas!
After shopping we were, understandably, hungry. So, lunch time! This was a bit tricky because, as I said, some places were closed on Wednesday or had special hours. But fortunately we found a great cafe, the Olde World Bakery and Bistro in Berlin, right off of state route 39 (which is the main road that connects Millersburg, Berlin, Walnut Creek, and Sugarcreek.)
mmmm, bakery case!
The food here was delicious, and as an extra perk, the shop also makes their own sodas, including Cream Soda, which my dad and Aunt Judy love. I had the grilled cheese and tomato basil soup, which was perfect after a morning of shopping.
Perfection.
The bakery/cafe is part of a bunch of shops and craft malls, so after lunch mom, Aunt Judy, and I headed to the craft mall while the men checked out the leather and shoe shore. In the craft mall, I found some hand spun and hand dyed yarn! I totally wasn’t expecting that so it was a lovely surprise!
Yay, yarn!
It was a really nice day, sunny and sort of breezy and not too cold. I had my sketchbook with me so I was able to sketch a bit while people finished up their shopping.
After the antique/craft malls, we split up. Our hotel had a promotion with a local forge where guests could get a free commemorative ornament, so mom and dad and I headed out to Wendell August Forge. They’re actually based in Pennsylvania but have a local store in Berlin; we loved seeing all the Pittsburgh things! (Dad actually got a Pitt keychain, which probably proved lucky, since they just had their first 10 win regular season since nineteen eighty-one…..) Mom and I got some coasters and we all got our ornaments.
Another fun part of the store? They have the world’s largest Amish buggy!
It be BIG.
On the way back from the Forge, we saw this:
This was the first time on a trip I’d seen a horse and buggy in a parking lot. We actually saw five buggies that day (holy moly they’re loud I can hear them better than cars!), but since this one was parked I could actually get a photo.
We also saw a lot of Amish teenagers wearing the safety vests (you can see these in the back of the photo) while they rode bikes around the area. Most of them had saddlebags on their bikes and the teens seemed to be making deliveries. It also seemed like wash day in the area because a lot of the houses had their laundry on the line.
Once again we went to Der Dutchman for dinner—they were one of the only places open—but there was so much on the menu we wanted to try that we didn’t mind going there again! It was definitely much more crowded (see—no other place open!) but the service and food were still excellent. I had the local bologna and Swiss sandwich (YUM) with potato salad, and a sampler size of the fudge cake (Really, sampler size is all you need, it was a rich cake. So good.). (Yes, I think one must talk about food when one is talking about Amish Country, because the food is really good.)
Then back to the hotel (next door! Walk off dinner!) where we chatted for a little bit in the second floor gathering room. The hotel had filled up quite a bit from the night before; lots of people were checking in all day. Apparently some people do this every year (I can see why!) and they bring their entire extended families for the holiday.
Amish quilt work in the hallways.
Carolers tucked away on the second floor.
Stained glass details off the lobby.
AKA, Thanksgiving!
We all slept in to varying degrees. It was raining so it was very cozy to enjoy a comfortable bed and watch the Harry Potter marathon on USA. (We got through the first and second movies before dinner.) Aunt Judy had stopped at a local market yesterday and picked up some lunch fixings, including baby Swiss cheese, so lunch was delicious.
I sketched a bit, then put on one of my new dresses, as well as a necklace mom had gotten me at Carlisle Gifts. Around 4:15 we headed down to the basement event center for dinner.
There weren’t just hotel guests, there were people from all over the area, so apparently this is a big thing, and after we ate, we could see why—it was great! It was buffet style but there were waiters and waitresses who took drink orders and cleared your plates.
Table setting.
Sadly I didn’t get photos of the buffet, bad me, but it was really good. There was turkey, ham, chicken, and bunch of sides to choose from, including Amish noodles (which my dad tried). The mashed potatoes were particularly good! There was also an entire table of pie, plus spice cake trifle.
It was pretty easy to walk away satisfied, let me tell you.
A quilt on display near the banquet room.
View of the lobby from the staircase
After dinner, we played Apples to Apples for a bit, and then sadly we had to go pack up. Aunt Judy and Uncle Frank were leaving before us in the morning so we said good-bye then—which I hate doing, but I was so glad that we’d gotten to spend time together!
Packing was hard, since my suitcase didn’t have room for all the things I’d bought! But we managed to get everything a bag and in the car—success! (Yarn takes up space, people!)
This Thanksgiving my family decided to do something different—we took a road trip! We decided to go to Holmes County, Ohio, and spend Thanksgiving in Amish Country.
Ohio has the largest Amish population in the country, and “Amish Country” really includes quite a few areas in Northeastern Ohio, but the epicenter, if you will, is in Holmes County, around the areas of Millersburg, Berlin, Walnut Creek, Charm, and Sugarcreek.
My parents had taken a day trip up to Holmes County years ago and had really enjoyed it, and when my grandmother spent a weekend there recently, Mom thought it would be fun for us to go there for Thanksgiving, along with my dad’s middle sister, Judy, and her husband.
The view from my balcony
I had only been to Millersburg once, to attend a wedding of a college friend who grew up there. But I’d been interested in Amish culture for a long time and I’d always anted to spend more time there, so when my parents suggested this trip, I was totally on board.
We stayed at the Carlisle Inn in Walnut Creek, which put us really close to Millersburg and Berlin. The plan was to get there Tuesday, spend Wednesday shopping and exploring, chill on Thursday (since everything was closed for the holiday), and leave on Friday.
This will be in a few parts so that it’s not a huge deluge of text and photos.
We only live about two hours from Holmes County, but there’s no direct way to get there, really, so we took the “back” roads—what the Ohio Department of Transportation calls the “Amish Byway”. I had been on this route once, but I’d forgotten how hilly it is here! (People who say Ohio is flat haven’t really seen Ohio.)
We arrived at the Inn around the same time as my aunt and uncle, who were making the trip with us. My Aunt Judy is my dad’s “middle” sister (he has two older sisters), and I hadn’t really seen them since my brother’s wedding. We’d had lunch with them this past summer after Kelly’s wedding, but that’s not the same thing as really spending time with people, in a place where I can hear them. So it was great to see them.
We checked in and got settled into our rooms. The Inn was already decorated for Christmas and they did a wonderful job.
The lobby fireplace—a great place to sit and read or nap!
Almost every room has a balcony or porch, and garland and bows were strung from them. I’m sad it was too cold or too rainy to use the balcony—next visit!
Looking down from the second floor breakfast room.
Outside of every room were these lanterns, bedecked with a wreath and ribbon.
We had a very early dinner at Der Dutchman next door (it’s owned by the same company that owns in the inn), and it was delicious. I had broasted chicken, which, if you’re not familiar with it, is a way of cooking chicken that gives you crispy skin and juicy meat, without frying it. It’s an Amish specialty (sometimes you’ll see Bob Evans offer it, so you can try it then.). With it I had potato salad and green beans. Portions here are BIG, so be prepared. You get your money’s worth but it’s a lot!
We all had dessert, because, hello, PIE, but they also have a pie sampler, where you can get cuts of three different types of dessert. (We did this the second night and I have to say it really was a perfect size). I got the Butterscotch custard pie; my aunt had cherry, and my parents had the pie sampler.
I’m not a huge pie fan, but here, I definitely am. These were good pies.
There was a gorgeous sunset that night…
We spent the evening in front of the fire place, talking and enjoying catching up with each other. We al went to bed pretty early, which is one of the things I like about vacation—if you want to go to bed, go to bed! Want to stay up? Stay up! No worries!
I forgot to take pictures of my room (bad blogger), but every room has a wooden bedstead covered with an Amish-made quilt. There were also watercolors in the rooms, a small refrigerator, TV, and the bath/tub combination (which I love. I dislike places that only have showers!). The floors were wood with some inlaid carpet.
One o the things I really liked was that it was dark outside. No random electric lights, no light pollution—the night skies were gorgeous.
Because of COVID, you had to ask for maid service, and if you wanted fresh towels, you put your towels in the laundry bag outside the door. The housekeepers would then collect the bags and return them with fresh towels. The desk clerks all wore masks, as did the rest of the staff, but that was the only thing I really noticed, COVID wise.
Amish art in the lobby lounge.