It's Official

Jed and I have set the date for our return to the states. We will be flying back to Dallas on July 27th of this year. Kristin, Jed's sister, will be getting married in Oklahoma city on July 30th so that was our deadline to be back. It's really strange to think that we are now only 6 months away from the end of our two year commitment here. Still, now that the plane ticket is bought and paid for we are looking forward to being able to put that in the back of our minds.
What is amazing is that I have finally found myself forgetting that I'm not from here. When I meet new people they ask where I'm from, and for a split second I think: well here of course! Adjusting to life in England was never really a problem for either of us but it is amazing how much more a part of things we feel now that it's been a year and a half. We love our home and the new Christian family we've found here in Morley, and I know that we will miss them all when we have to leave. Still, it will be nice to see our immediate families and friends so our feelings will obviously be a little mixed. All I have to say is that it's a very good thing we like to travel.

Naomi's Scarf

Last week I took a break from a blanket I've been knitting to work on a scarf for one of the girls from church. So here it is!

Christmas Eve!

Well, it's been a crazy few weeks but we've made it to the end. First we had a quick four day vacation, then my mom came to visit (which was fantastic!), then we got to host Chris and Anna. We've had about 4 Christmas parties and are still expecting a nice big meal with church on the day after Christmas.
Today we're going to a "Christingle" service at the local methodist church. I've never been to one so I'm pretty excited and it makes for something nice to do on Christmas Eve. Later tonight we've been invited to go for a curry with one of the families from church. I can already taste it... Tomorrow we will probably all have a nice lie in and head for the O'Donovan's house in the afternoon for some games and Pizza. Oh! and I can't forget some skype dates with our family in the states. All in all Jed and I are really excited to spend this Christmas in Morley.

Thanksgiving in Morley

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year on Saturday because in the UK school and work continue through the week. I got to cook a turkey for the first time this year and needless to say I was a little nervous knowing that we had company coming. Like any good girl my age I headed straight for Google and Youtube to learn the art of turkey cooking. After much debate I decided to make a "spatchcocked" turkey. This is done by removing the backbone of your turkey so that you can cook it flat on a roasting tray and it worked fantastically!!!! I don't know why more people don't do it that way but I highly recommend trying it. I was able to cook my entire turkey in under an hour! Of course you don't get to carve a full bird at the table, but since we always slice it in the kitchen anyway I don't really see that as a problem. My husband said it was the juiciest turkey he'd ever had. :) If you're interested in trying it I'll try to post a link showing you how to cut the bird. Then I tucked some rosemary under the skin and rubbed it with butter and salt before baking.

I was also able to make pumpkin pie thanks to one of the American families at church finding me some "Libbys" pie filling. They brought us a large can that was supposed to make 2 deep dish pies but because I don't have deep dish pie pans it made two regular sized pies and three little ones. The little one's were great to give as gifts to people who couldn't make it to our meal. We gave one to our neighbors who are originally from Iraq and they said it was "strange at first, but very nice and very addicting". I couldn't have put it better myself.
Jed's Grandmother gave me a great recipe for pie crustthat made all of those pies a little easier to make. It's made with oil instead of shortening so you can actually mix it in the pie pan and then just press it out with your fingers. No rolling involved at all! It turned out really flakey so it's worth try if you're planning on baking anytime soon. I'll copy the recipe at the bottom of this blog.
I feel like this picture can not be left out. In a brief moment of brilliance Jed and I decided to borrow one of the kids tables from church so that we could cover it with brown packing paper for our littler guests to enjoy coloring on before and after the meal. Here's what we ended up with:



Double Pie Crust Recipe

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 cup oil

6 tablespoons water, cold

1. Mix flour, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly with fork until sugar and salt are blended with flour.

2. In a separate small bowl, mix oil and water and beat with a fork or whisk until the oil is mixed completely with the water and the combination looks 'milky'.

3. Immediately add the oil/water mixture to the flour mixture and mix vigorously with a fork and your hands until the dough is uniform.

4. Divide the dough into two equal lumps, press one of the two lumps of dough out over the surface of a pie pan by applying hand pressure until the pie pan is completely covered. With a fork, punch tiny holes through the bottom surface of the dough in the pie pan.

Single pie crust for cream pies: with a fork punch tiny holes through the bottom surface of the dough in the pie pan. This may be used immediately or refrigerated for 25 hours. Bake crust in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until the desired color of browness is achieved.

5. Press out the other lump of pie dough onto an 11 x 11 inch piece of paper towel (trust me it works) until it is slightly larger than the surface of the pie it is to cover.

Just got back from vacation and I'm promising to write about it so I don't forget!

20 down 14 to go

Since about August I have been furiously knitting and crocheting Christmas presents for my family and friends. My husband doesn't really understand the drive to create something for every person we know. I'm not sure if all men are like that but the desire to be able to hand someone a physical gift (or in my case, ship it to them) is so great that I just can't imagine not doing it. Don't get me wrong, I know that I cannot possibly hand make gifts for everyone. Still as my list of projects dwindles somehow I doubt it will ever be finished. That's mostly because as I see myself making progress I get more and more excited that I just might have time to add a few more names.
Luckily most of my crafty craze can be taken care of quite frugally. I've now found all of the random bargain stores that carry yarn and try to avoid the nice yarn stores at all cost lest I long for things like silk and cashmere to knit with. Making small gifts like hats, mittens, gloves, and scarves is so incredibly satisfying. Unlike most things in our lives crafts can be easily controlled, they can be met on our terms, and when all else fails they can be unraveled and begun again. I think this desire to create must be an inherited trait.
My dad was a minister until after I left for college but in most of his spare time (when he had it) I can remember him creating something. He built the first house I remember living in. Then it was an old Thunderbird that he repainted in the back yard. Later it was things like adding paving, and a deck, and a gazebo to our back yard. The list goes on. I remember him commenting once that it was nice to be able to see what he had done at the end of the day. So many of us have jobs that don't give us that intense sense of accomplishment. I'm not saying that what we do doesn't have an impact, it's just not something we can hold in our hand. The other lesson that I learned from watching him was one that took me a while to realize. I never saw my father look at a project and say, no, I don't think I can do that. Sure sometimes he didn't have the right tools or the money but in those cases the project was simply put on a list of "to-do's". But time after time I watched him go to library and get a book or ask someone who had done a similar project how to get started. I'm not saying we never ran into hiccups along the way but there was no fear of trying something new.
I didn't realize that fearlessness was such a gift until I began to knit and one of my friends mentioned how "remarkable" it was that I could make so many things. When she said it, I sort of laughed it off because I am in no way an experienced knitter, but after I thought about it for a while I realized that from the moment I decided I wanted to learn I never considered the thought that I might not be able to. I checked out a book at the library, borrowed needles from a lady at church and got started. Now here I am almost a year and a half later churning out hats, and slippers, and the list goes on.

Christmas is coming!!!!

On October Jed and I were on our way to do some shopping when we realized to our horror that Christmas lights had already appeared on Morley's main street. Of course they won't be turned on until late November but these are giant christmas bells and things suspended between the buildings, they're not easy to miss. In being completely truthful I was elated to see them going up because for me it could be Christmas all year and I wouldn't complain. Still, for many people it's very frustrating to see the decorations going up so early. Something I have learned this year about the UK is that they really don't decorate for any other season that Christmas. Of course the stores take full advantage of things like halloween but to anyone over thirty halloween might as well not exist so there really is no transition from summer to Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I've already started all my Christmas crafts and can't wait decorate gingerbread houses but in his wisdom Jed has set a ban on Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. It's only fair I guess ;).
That brings me to Thanksgiving, and yes, we will be celebrating here in Morley. We've already invited an American couple and their two little girls to join us for our feast. I feel a little guilty in making it an all American event. The fact of the matter is still that, even though I would love to have a true thanksgiving feast with about twenty people in attendance, if we started inviting friends from Morley it would be really hard to find where to stop. It seems a shame that we can't share such a wonderful holiday with our English friends but the cost would make it impossible. Still we are looking forward to a little slice of Americana.
I am now about one third of the way through my Christmas gift knitting. I've made quite a few scarves and a few pairs of mittens. My goal is to finish the things that need to go to the states by Thanksgiving so they can have plenty of time to get there. I just hope that will leave me enough time to get things for our friends here finished. When I get them all finished I'll take one big picture before I give them away just so I'll have a record. I've forgotten to do that in the past and I'm sure there are more of my creations floating around out there that I have long since forgotten about. I would post pictures of things in progress but then that would spoil the surprises so pictures will have to wait.