First World Supply Chain Woes

 NYE is a big deal in this house -

We've been hanging with our friends for 15 years - with each year devising new, inventive ways to celebrate cuisine and friendship.

This year- our theme is Bar Food. Essentially, if you were going to go hang out at a bar with your friends, what would you eat?

Our menu ideas start all over the board. On my end, I start to scour cookbooks from the library and graphics on Pinterest. I come up with 1/3 of the menu and several options to whittle through.

This year, I'm on tap (hehehe) for:

* Whipped Cranberry Feta

* Cranberry Brie Bites in Puff Pastry

* Wasabi Macarons with Smoked Salmon

* Chicken Pot Pie with Puff Pastry

* White Chocolate Cheesecake with a Peppermint/Vodka-Infused Cream

Sounds amazing, yes? Just 1/3 of the dishes.

I'm prepping, planning and purchasing ingredients as we go.

Until I get to Puff Pastry.

HOLY MACARONI, there has been a run on Puff Pastry. A trip to five separate grocery stores and calls to four other friends. 

None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. 

NUNCA!!

Oh for the love.

Fine, supply chain management woes, fine. I see you. And I'll beat you at your own game. I'll make it myself!! I don't need you, overpriced Athena's Puff Pastry. I've got my (other)bestie, Ina Garten, and a food processor.

I'll show you!!

Pictures to follow!

A Late Arrival

 A white Christmas - what we all sing about, and that I watch religiously every December 24th - did not arrive on the day the bells told of our Savior's birth.

It did arrive this morning, though, right in time to mess up a morning commute. Thank goodness I have super flexible hours and can work from home when I want! 

Alas, winter is now in West MI, at least for the time being, and the cold has settled in. There are only 94 days until Spring Break. Not that I'm counting.

I totally am.

 PLEASE OH PLEASE don't let Covid take that, too!

The Light Returns

 I've never minded short days - where the sun barely pokes through the grey West MI cloud cover. Winter comes, short days loom, the sun is a fleeting moment.

Frankly, it was even worse when I lived in Atlanta, being so far east inside the time zone. Darkness would start to fall shortly after 4pm. In good ol' GR, we're 30 miles from CST, so we can still see Happy Hour without a flashlight.

But yesterday, as we marked another solstice and we find ourselves at the shortest amount of sunlight for the year, I mused at how many social media posts I read that told me not to fear, the light was returning.

Or was it The Light. 

Maybe I just wanted to read it that way....that the Light was coming back. As though He had mysteriously wandered off somewhere with a need to scurry back to the party.

I'm not entirely sure that my friends who posted the meme saw any significant depth to their wording. But I did.

Non Sequitur:

Bubs and I were working through the lyrics to We Three Kings the other day. What does it mean to Traverse Afar? Where is the Orient? What gifts did they bring? He did pretty well...and then I asked him what it meant when we sang "guide us to thy perfect light."

It took him a minute, but he got there. That big brain of his soaking in poetry and nuance. He's a gem of a kid.

Alas -that said, maybe that's why I got to wondering about the social media posts and the return of the Light.

I do long for sunny, warm days ahead.

But I always long for the Light that brings me out of what ever darkness is around.

Happy Birthday

 Wishing my beloved Auntie who means the world to me - a very Happy Birthday! Love her to the moon and back - and around the sun again. She's the cute one on the right (not that my other aunt, uncle and Dad aren't cute, too!)