Greetings friends,
Here's a bit of an update for those of you who requested more information, re: my engagement.
In the late fall of 2006, I attended a halloween party hosted by a friend I went to Wheaton with (Raelyn Isherwood, for those of you who know her). At this point, she was in grad school at Wheaton in the TESL program (Teaching English as a Second Language) and she invited a bunch of friends from her class to the party as well.

Thus, completely unexpectedly, at a halloween party (where I wore a costume consisting of an orange t-shirt which said "This is my halloween costume"), I met the girl it seems God has plans for me to marry. :)

Her name is Melanie Thayer, she's from MI and she graduated from Grand Valley State University (in MI) in 2002 with an Elementary Education Degree & Special Ed focus (education degrees in MI are highly valued across the country because of their stringent standards). Then she spent 2 years in Tanzania as a missionary, teaching english at a bible school hosted by a local church. Now she is a full time special-ed teacher/resource facilitator at a school in Glen Ellyn, and is taking grad classes at Wheaton for a master in TESL part time. She is smart, fun, thrifty (we both are...one of our favorite things about each other), has a beautiful smile and...this list could go on and on. :)

In all seriousness however, she is another glowing example in my life of how God takes care of me and blesses me in ways I could not have expected. Simply put, if God has allowed me to create the "perfect wife"...made to order if you will, whatever I thought would be ideal (You know proverbs 31 stuff, but also attractive, etc...)...I would not have created a Melanie. That's right, I said not. Instead I would have created a girl who was so much less that what Melanie is for me, and I wouldn't have know better. But thankfully, God does know better, and in Melanie, he's placed a girl in my life who is so much more than I ever could have hoped for, and who is so much of a match for me in so many ways, it blows my mind.

It's hard to believe the wedding is only about 3 months away. Very exciting.

On a different "update" note, I'm currently in my third year at MagnetStreet (http://www.magnetstreet.com/). I work in production running to 2 Xerox iGen3 Digital Presses (each worth about $750,000). In addition to magnets, etc, we've recently branched out into the wedding invitation market (which is of course what I've done our invitations on...you'll get them in a few months). This is good growth for the company, and while I don't know what God has planned, my hope is that if he's keeping me at MagnetStreet for an extended time, that this growth will lead to promotional or possibly even management opportunities in the future.

Lastly, Melanie and I are closing on a townhouse in early April. I'll move in shortly after. Then we'll spend evenings and weekends painting, fixing up, etc...and then just before the wedding, we'll move Mel's stuff in after she heads up to MI for the wedding. We're very excited about the place. :)

Anyway, that's pretty much that from this end. I hope you're all doing well and of course I'd love to hear what you've been up to.
Later!-Wes

Mathetai-Brown House, Version 2.0

It starts with alphabet blocks. Next thing you know, they'll be making out in Fisher Lobby.


These pictures are from last month, when Jordana brought the kids over to my parents' house in Maryland. The weather was lovely and we went to the playground together. When we live next door to each other and homeschool someday, I hope every day will be as great as this one was. ;-)

Happy Spring!
Love, NEB

[PS And if I weren't a loser I would have thought to take a few pictures last night, when we visited Chez Long for J's birthday and enjoyed the company of Momlet and Dadlet and Uncle Meredith and Aunt Kendra. Fabulous people and a fabulous evening!

Zingrin drove down from DC last month for an audition at UT. This is us posing for the "before" picture (after a couple of "cold drinks"), fixing his car's bumper, which had "fallen off". Most of the front of the car came off. I got to use my Craftsman rachet set! (not in picture). And the bumper's still on, which is nice.

-- Peter (Does this picture make me look fat?)

If the Chicago weather of late is any indication...Hades has, in fact, frozen over.

As such, it is probably as good a time as any to inform those of you (that is to say, nearly all of you) with whom I have failed to adequately keep in touch, that I, Wesley Attaway, am, in fact...

getting married.

:-)


(Yes, that was a pig you saw flying overhead, and not a featherless goose)

Hmm ... I'm not sure if it's just because I'm signed on to my account ... can anyone tell me if there's a map option (left hand column after clicking the link) called "Where We Are Now"? That's the map ...

I was messing around with GoogleMaps and started mapping out where everyone is ... then Molly showed up and she wants to cuddle and it's hard to type with only one hand so I'm leaving it as-is for now and y'all can add your own addresses if I didn't have it handy when I started this whole thing. I'll do something with inviting collaborators & stuff so it's not public but I can't be bothered just now so add what you want!

The Jordans are Moving

Sorry I haven't posted for awhile. I was waiting until I had news worthy of a post. So here it is: Laura and I are moving to Huntington, West Virginia where Laura will teach at Marshall University. Laura got many many offers from great schools, but in the end we decided to go with the university that had the most Matthew McConaughey movies associated with it. And of course we wanted the prestige that comes along with living in West Virginia. We'll be moving some time this summer, most likely early July. So if you wanted to visit us in New Haven, your time is running short; and if you want to visit us in W. Virginia we'll need a lot of help moving in. I will probably get to keep my current job and work from home after the move (fingers crossed) which is good because I like my job and I like working from home.

More pictures from my work in progress:

Here's the blocks actually sewn together (in the picture in the post below, in case you can't tell, nothing was actually assembled yet, just laid out. I like picking fabrics, designing, and cutting out. I don't really like sewing because it's Hard.)


Doesn't it remind you of peppermint candy? Here's a close-up of the fabrics:

(For some reason the pattern on the red fabric is a little blurry...? And the white looks a little pink? Oh well.)

So the original plan had been to sew on all the "leaves" by hand, a kind of cheating-applique in which I sew the pieces flat on the blocks (i.e. instead of folding the edges under) but with some decorative trim to protect (and hide) the raw edges. I started this a few days before Christmas.

I have a four month old. It took me an entire day to sew on one leaf.

There are 100 leaves!

So I got Frustrated and considered back-up plans. My sewing machine...? Can do lots of fancy stitches...? I carefully read through the manual, found a stitch that would be appropriate for sewing on the leaves and decorative trim, and got a scrap of fabric to test my abilities to machine sew a curved seam.

That plan was quickly abandoned. Apparently, my machine sewing skills are like my ice skating skills- I can pretty much only go in a straight line, forward.*

At this point, I rather Despaired, and started thinking what most Lazy/Immature/Unskilled/Inexperienced/Impatient quilters think at this point-

"Can't I just GLUE these things together...?!?!?"

So then, my mother-in-law came to visit us. You have to understand, my mother-in-law is An Excellent Seamstress. She makes clothes. She knits. She does embroidery. You get the idea. She does things The Right Way. Her craft items have all the corners meeting up perfectly, unlike mine, which seem to mysteriously lose an inch (OR TWO?!?) somehow in the creative process. So I was king of hesitant about asking her about my options... but in the end I was glad I did, because she introduced me to the miracle of:

(*trumpet fanfare, drumroll*)

FUSIBLE WEBBING!!!!!

It's all about the TWO-SIDED-STICKY FUSIBLE WEBBING, my friends! Among the greatest inventions of the 20th century! Ranks right up there with putting people on the moon and general anesthetic!!

The answer is, Why, YES! YES YOU CAN GLUE YOUR QUILT TOGETHER!! And this was the result:


Here I'm showing it to you "on point," because the patterns that show up all look kind of different from this perspective. (Plus, my Inner Fractal Quilter [does everyone have an Inner Fractal Quilter??] totally wants to take this design, shrink it down to a 12x12 block, and lay out a bunch of blocks on point, or make them into a border for the main design, or make them into some kind of Great Circle pattern or Irish Chain or something.)

A few more notes: this design is essentially a block pattern called "Winding Ways," which is a variation on the more traditional Drunkard's Path. If anyone's interested in using it for anything, you can find template instructions by googling "Winding Ways."

I think it is probably the Height of Literary Pretention (but it is also True) to tell you that this quilt makes me think about The Great Dance in Perelandra.

To Mary, who, in the comments below, was "in awe": remember: I don't cook. I rarely clean my house. I can't really sew, either. I GLUED this baby together. ;-) It's not my fault that Jesus made the world with beautiful, exquisite geometry.

Love to all, and I hope you all had a marvelous Christmas. :-)
Neb

PS Apologies to any readers of this blog who aren't Crafty. You can totally post some oversized piece (replete with pictures) of how you Rebuilt your Engine or Defragmented your Hard Drive or something.

*This isn't technically true. I can turn on ice skates, which is a useful skill when skating around an elliptical rink. I just can't go backwards. Still, ice skating is what came to mind for this metaphor, and it makes me happy and seems winter-appropriate, so I'll leave it in. I need more Coffee now.

Make a photobook - it's easy!

My first virtual Christmas Card. I never thought I'd see the day. Hopefully most of you will get this in your regular email but if I missed you, here it is! Merry Christmas to all of you!

If you would like to check out photos of my time here in New Zealand, I've posted quite a few here. A lot of them are of flowers and family; but there are some scenery shots, too. Merry Christmas, everybody!

I can't post about this on my own blog because I am making this for my sister and she reads my own blog, but I realized I can post about it HERE, so here it is, 8 blocks of the 25 blocks in my new quilt, the beautiful new quilt I am making!!!!!



Merry Christmas!!!!!!

I need more coffee now.

Love!
Neb

Yay, thank you everyone. Now I can post on our Blog. Well, I'm sorry I don't have any recipes right now, especially not Christmas recipes...Not because I don't want to give them to you, or because I don't like to cook. I just don't have specifically holiday recipes. But I do have some news, for those of you who don't know, my wife Sarah and I are going to have a baby this February! That at least is worth a post, I think. Hope you're all having a good day.

Jeff and Sarah Squire (and baby)

Jeff and Sarah would like to join the blog, but I don't have their email address to invite them! Could somebody (who does have their address) email an invite, please? Unless we collectively don't want them to join, in which case a ritual freeze-out is in order.

So Jeff, if you don't get an invite, consider yourself Snubbed.


Just kidding. So someone needs to go to the "Settings" tab, then the "permissions" subgroup (compsci people please stop flinching) and "Add Author."

Thank you.

Speaking of Christmas . . .

Some of you have moved recently (okay, in the last 2 years, but I am slow). Can we start a round robin/mass email of our current addresses just to make sure everyone is on the same page? I know I don't have up to date addresses for Carrie, Alysia, Dan, Zingrin, Michael T., NEB or Airika (maybe I do, but how would I know since we never hear from her). So! When this starts, if anybody knows their addresses (or has a good guess) feel free to reply for them. Also! Hannah? I feel sure you sent me your address and I DO pay attention (to you anyway ;) but I can't seem to find it.
That's all folks!

PS I don't have many Christmas recipes because we usually do super traditional things that have no recipe. Rub butter on turkey. Use baking bag. Yeah! Beg Granny to make the dressing and let you watch so that someday you will be able to make it. Follow the pumpkin pie recipe on the Libby's can. The only unique thing I can think of (with a recipe) is a Cranberry Upside Down Cake recipe I have. I typically make it for Easter but I think it is more traditionally a Christmas/Thanksgiving recipe. It is very easy and I will share if anyone is interested.

Oh, and some years my family has gone non-traditional for Christmas and had Mexican! or Steaks! or Italian! They know better than to do this when I will be around. Anyway, if you are wanting to break out of the box, do it with flair. The lasagna sounds like a prime candidate for such a venture. I will be trying that recipe one of these days.

*Neb's Top 5 Can't-Live-Without-Them Holiday "Recipes"*

1) Coffee: add grounds, add water, brew. Flavors are good. Addition of liquor is permissible in the presence of Disturbing Relatives.

2) Chocolate: Find stockings hung over the mantle with care. Access candy. The perfect Christmas morning breakfast.

3) Asparagus Casserole: [My mom's recipe- I've made it before, but can't remember the precise details. I don't think you can really go wrong, though.] Layer asparagus, extra sharp cheddar cheese, and finely ground Ritz cracker crumbs in a casserole dish with pats of butter on each layer and a tiny bit of milk poured over the whole thing at the end. Bake at some kind of temperature, like maybe 350 or so, for awhile, you know, until it's quite hot all the way through and the cheese is melted and so forth. I would guess 30 or 45 minutes. I really have absolutely no idea how long. You kitchen people could probably guess better than me. Anyway, my mom always used canned asparagus, but I'm sure fresh would improve the taste- don't know how that might change the baking time. This is my absolute favorite dish at Thanksgiving.

4) Sweet Potato Souffle: [Again, this is one of my mom's Thanksgiving recipes, and I have made it before, but since it's somewhat complicated mine really didn't turn out the same as hers..] Let's see, you start by baking some sweet potatoes. How many, you ask? Well, get the casserole dish you're going to use for this recipe and see how many sweet potatoes will fit, I guess. Once the sweet potatoes are baked soft, scoop out the insides, and mash them with a lot of butter and some nutmeg and brown sugar. Then separate some eggs and beat your egg whites with an electric mixer until That Thing Happens (you know, that cooking thing that you're always looking for when you beat egg whites... "stiff peaks"? Is that what they call it?) How many eggs, you ask? Well... how many sweet potatoes did you bake? You need enough egg white material to match the amount of sweet potato innards you've got! Fold in the egg whites to the sweet potatoes, VERY slowly and patiently, to make them fluffy.

Add some more butter and brown sugar. Use a LOT. Really. [When I asked my mom for this recipe over the phone, she was, of course, trying to be more specific with quantities and stuff until she got to the butter. Then our conversation went like this:

Mom: "And then, you add LOTS of butter..."
Neb [writing]: "Okay... how much butter?"
Mom: "Well. [Pause] I really can't tell you how much butter I put in."
Neb: (sigh) "Mom, I know you put in a lot of butter. Seriously, it's okay. Just tell me how much."
Mom: [audibly blushing] "No. Really. I can't tell you how much butter I put in. I can't say the amount out loud."

I can just see the scene at the Pearly Gates, where [perhaps?] all of our Secret Deeds are revealed, with Michael the Archangel saying "YOU, Elizabeth W. ****, put SEVENTEEN STICKS OF BUTTER into that one casserole you made every Thanksgiving..."]

So then I think you sprinkle some more brown sugar on the top (it couldn't hurt, right?) and top with giant (S'more-sized) marshmellows, then bake (at 350 maybe? For some amount of time?) Yeah. Good stuff.

PS Now that I think of it, I think maybe you're supposed to take at least one of your egg yolks from the separation and mix that in too, and maybe a little milk. But it probably doesn't matter much.

5) Apple salad: Cut up about 3 apples and 3 bananas into tiny pieces. Place in a large bowl with 1 can of pineapple chunks (again, I'm sure fresh is better, but we always used canned), some mini marshmellows, and Cool Whip. Top with Marastachio(?) Those Bright Red Cherries that Come in a Jar and Begin with an M. Serve chilled.

In closing, a gratuitous baby picture:


Love, Neb

Deanna's Sicilian Lasagna

I got this from a coworker of mine. It takes some time, but it's totally worth it.

Sauce:

Chuck roast (or similar inexpensive roast -- NOT ground -- and NOT flank steak), approx 2 LB
Olive oil (couple tablespoons)
6 cloves garlic
4T basil (dried or fresh)
Tomato sauce -- 2 large cans
Tomato paste -- 2 small cans
1/2 C sugar
6 bay leaves
salt & pepper

Cheese:
1 tub Ricotta
1/2 C Shredded Parmesan (shredded is better than the shelf-stable grated stuff)
1/2 C Shredded Mozzarella
various spices to taste (I usually use more garlic, basil, oregano, thyme and a little marjoram)

Lasagna noodles -- I like the no-boil kind.

Get your biggest soup pot. Heat the olive oil in the bottom (it's ready when it just starts to smoke), then brown the roast about 5 min. each side, add the garlic and basil when you turn the roast over. Once it's brown, add the tomato sauce and paste, bring to a simmer and cover. A half hour later, add the sugar, bay leaves and whatever other spices you'd like. Cover and simmer for a while ... the longer the better. Like 4-6 hours. The point is to simmer this stuff until the beef falls apart.

Combine the cheeses. Layer the lasagna as usual, except that the meat's already with the sauce. You may need to break up the larger pieces of meat. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 50 minutes; uncover for a final 10 minutes.

Notes:
1. The sauce can be done in a crock pot. It comes out a little darker -- just make sure your crock pot is big enough!! I still prefer the taste of stovetop-prepared, though, and do it that way when I can.
2. Finished sauce can also be frozen for up to six months.

From Hannah -- she put it in the comments section, but here's its own entry.

Scotch Shortbread

(Best made a day before you plan to serve it.)

1 cup butter
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
2 cups sifted flour (at room temp.)

Cream butter and beat in sugar gradually. Mix in flour well. Spread on a cookie sheet, or in a cake pan (about 9"x9") at least 1/2 in. thick. (If you're having trouble patting it out--too sticky--chill for 30 min. or so till the dough is stiffer.) Prick all over with a fork (we always do a pattern). Bake at 350 F. for 5 min. Reduce heat to 300 and bake about 45 min. longer. Cut while still hot! (We usually cut ours in 36 squares...but, of course, you can try any shape or size.)

Enjoy! I made shortbread just a couple weeks ago.

In an effort to jumpstart posting, I'm going to announce the

First Annual
Holiday Recipe Exchange!
(ta-da!)


The idea is that we post our favorite/traditional recipes we tend to use every year and/or everyone's asking us for (or we're asking someone to make). And then we've all got something different and tasty we can try for the holidays!

(Translation: I'm cooking this Christmas and I'm looking for ideas.)

First off, I need Hannah's shortbread recipe.

I'll also post my awesome lasagna recipe later, when I have more time.

A Plea for your Pennies

Hello, everyone! Time has gotten away from me again, and I forgot to post this earlier ...

Ahem ... OK, suffice it to say that I 1) Dislike fundraisers (too many years in band, selling chocolate/wrapping paper/more chocolate/popcorn/did I mention chocolate?); 2) Hate making pleas for money. However, I love my husband and he loves his job (which, I'll admit, is a good cause all by itself -- the Job, that is, although the loving of it is also a good thing) and here goes:

Michael (the husband) works for Deaf Video Communications of America, Inc. For those of you who don't like to follow links (Dan), it's in a nutshell a Christian nonprofit to assist the deaf. They provide video (DVD and VHS) sermons, Bible studies, closed-captioned Christian movies free of charge for the deaf community, which is an incredibly large relatively unreached people group in this country.

The Big Project lately is Dr. Wonder's Workshop, a weekly TV show for deaf kids (it's actually on air right now). It's pretty much the first of its kind (there have been other shows, but this is the first one that's actually managed more than two episodes. They're doing postproduction on season 2 right now.).

Anyhoodle, I've already mentioned that this is a nonprofit, right? And kids (the target demographic, obviously) don't have money. So an awful lot of the funds have to be raised, which leads me to

The Point

This Saturday (Oct. 20) is DVC's annual Bowlathon. I am participating. I am supposed to get pledges, either per-point or flat amount. I promise y'all, I am a Terrible Bowler (so a penny a point won't kill the piggy bank!). Any and all donations will be greatly appreciated. It should also be noted that a foundation (who wish to remain unnamed -- I don't even know who they are, Michael won't tell me) has promised a matching grant up to $25,000, which is awesome.

Just email me or leave a comment if you lost my email address ... and ... I guess that's all! Thanks, everyone! (And I promise that, when your kids are old enough, you can put me down for a case of the chocolate bars with almonds.)

Well, it seems that a lot of us are dealing with new babies, finding employment to justify our new doctoral statuses, trekking through New Zealand and having wonderful adventures or just otherwise tired ...

I can't give much input for a lot of the above (OK, or any of the above, except to say Congrats, you Lucky Ducks!), but I did stumble across a cool website for those with the Babies of Newness. Some of the stuff is ridiculously overpriced, overblown, overmodern, etc. but there are a couple cool pieces -- I would direct the reader's attention to the Kipiis and Bilibo as pretty cool concepts. And some Montessori-type toys.