Pink Eye

You heard it here first, friends (or second, if you're on twitter), I have pink eye. In both eyes. So the good news is I have plenty of time before I go back to work to heal up my eyeballs, but the bad news is last night I slept with gauze over both eyes just so the drippy aspect of the eyes didn't bother me. Yeah, SUPER GROSS. So I might not update the blog for a couple days because I'm stuck in my old room at my parent's house trying not to get anyone else sick. It's eye drops and tea for me (because I also have a very sore throat, but thanks to Urgent Care, I know it's not strep).

Fun story: When I was a kid I used to "practice being blind", you know, just in case. I'd walk around the entire house with my eyes squeezed shut and I'd do everyday activities like brushing my teeth or drinking water, or going to the bathroom, just to make sure if I ever went blind I'd still be ok. Well, this morning I could not see anything (both eyes fused shut with "eye boogers" ewwwww) except light and dark (just like in Jane Eyre, I was so sympathetic to Mr Rochester!), and I said outloud to myself "Alright Al-pal! (Al-pal is what I call myself), This is what we've been training for!". And you know what? I OWNED at walking around with my eyes fused shut. So thank you, past self. And good thinking!

D.I.Y. Christmas

This year I was very impressed by some of the home-made Christmas gifts I saw. Here's a sampling of the creativity that surrounds me:

 Emily made this. It's a wine bottle from our family trip to California/Nevada last summer for our cousin's wedding. It's got twinkle lights in it. Here's what it looks like plugged in.

 She made one for me and one for my mom. I just think it's so creative.

 This is the deer head James made for his sister Mary-Kate. It's just like the blue on I have in our house, except it's plaid instead of all one color. He did all the cutting out of the foam board (which is a royal pain, so kudos James) and he did most of the plaid pattern. I helped him a little at first, but I had a dentist appointment and when I came back, he had finished.

 This is an embroidered handkerchief that Anna made me. It's the color of thread from our wedding and the sunflowers, which are my favorite flower. I'm going to spritz perfume on it and keep it in my pocketbook like a true lady.

 This is my only attempt at creativity this year. All I did was add the letters. Wah wahhh.

My friend Mags made this for me. It includes Celestial Seasonings tea and Target brand tea (yay!) and Emergen-C for all the colds I'm sure to keep getting while I'm working at the day care. Plus a whole box of Sleepytime Sinus Soother, which is clutch. Plus O can re-use the clothespin wreath for other things after I've had all the tea, so that's fun, too.

Snapshots of Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope you all had a warm and happy Christmas. Here's some snapshots of how the McShane family celebrated this year.

 On Saturday night, James and I went to see Anne sing in her chorale. Very pretty (the music and Miss Annie).

This is the full view of the choir at the Basilica of St Mary in Minneapolis, MN. So pretty, especially at Christmas time.

 Cookie decorating on Christmas Eve. John Xenakis and Karen Coleman were over for lunch, so they helped us decorate the first couple, but we were on our own after that.

 Lady in her Christmas sweater. She loves the snow. You'd think it was created just for her to run around in.

 Dad, Emily, James, Me, Lady, and Mom in our Christmas Eve attire. We went to the 4:00 Children's choir mass and the music was terrible. Not because of the kids, mind you. Man alive, bad music is so much more distracting than good music.

 Christmas Sweaters! James, Lady and me during presents.

 Emily gives Lady a kiss. Cute mistletoe comment here.

 Snuggling with the puppy on Christmas Eve.

 Lady has a nap in the middle of the staircase on Christmas morning.

 Lady sees the whole world differently.

 Tyler and Emily wear their silly hats from the Christmas "poppers".

 My dad is the coolest.

So yeah, that was Christmas for us.

On the Twelfth day of Christmas

 It's Christmas Eve! I actually like Christmas Eve better than Christmas Day, it's when our family has most of our festivities. But before the day gets started, I present to you the Twelfth day of Christmas:
12 of the best Holiday movies of all time!!(In no particular order)

 Is this technically a Christmas movie? No, but it's my favorite movie and I watch it a lot at Christmas because a lot of the film takes place during Christmas time.

 This is a warm, funny, sad, happy, awkward, lovable film. If you haven't seen it, you should.

 This movie was on TV all the time when Emily and I were growing up and we loved it. It's so cheesy, but it's home to me. Plus, I love the song "I believe in Santa Claus". Heart warming.

 Another claymation, a bit better known than the previous film. I just thought this movie was the bees knees as a wee child, so it's gotta be included. Plus, the fact that they claim Mrs. Claus' name is Jessica is really funny to me. It's such a modern name.

 Obviously this is a classic. It's so near and dear to my heart that really I have no way to explain it. I quote Yukon Cornelius all the time and rarely do people get where it's from, but I don't care. It's love.

 Oh, this is such a good movie. Jack Black is charming, Kate Winslet is lovable, Jude Law and Cameron Diaz are just cute. The whole movie is just one big success in my book.

 Ok, this is just a classic. Enough said.

 This is my favorite rendition of "A Christmas Carol". I love Muppets!

 This is, of course, another childhood classic. The original cartoon is so dear to me.

 Have you seen this movie? It's so good. I love movies where they prove Santa is real.

 This is a family favorite for sure. Will Ferrel is hilarious and so lovable. His tights kinda freak me out, though. I wish he wore pants more in the film.

Almost every 90s kid loved "Home Alone". Kid gets left alone for Christmas and fights robbers. Family has terrible time getting back home. McCully Culkin is pegged as kid with this face forever.

I know what some of you out there are thinking: "But Ally! Where's Love Actually? Where's It's A Wonderful Life? Where's Home Alone 2? What about that made-for-TV movie where Whoopi Goldberg ends up being Santa?!?!(spoiler alert!)" Settle down! Those are all great Christmas movies, too. I even consider Meet Me in St, Louis a Christmas movie because of Judy Garland's rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas" but this is the 12th day of Christmas. There just wasn't room. Sorry.

And that concludes the 12 Days of Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!

Time Travel with the sisters Hagens

So yesterday we went to "The Landing" (used to be called "Murphy's Landing") with 3 Hagens sisters, and it was a delight.

The Landing is a collection of houses on the site of an old landing right on the picturesque  Minnesota River.

 

In order to get "back to the days of Yore", you take a magic horse-drawn trolley through the enchanted woods (or so I told James).

 Here's Mary, Anna, and Emily on said magic trolley ride (totally different than in Mr. Roger's neighborhood)

 And here is said magic trolley. And I guess said enchanted woods.

 And here's the horsies nice and up-close.

Anyway, the houses and buildings start in the mid 1800s and slowly work you into the town square, which consists of all 1889 homes and buildings, including a church, a town hall, and several like-minded buildings.

This is a stained-glass window from the church, which is where we saw the Landing's Holiday pageant. They had the story of Hanukkah, the story of the birth of Christ, and "The Night Before Christmas", with audience-included caroling in between each reading. Very fun.

These are some teenagers playing games in the town hall. We're assuming that they're on their lunch break or something, because they were very stand-offish. That or mom and dad made them come with to work at the Landing and they think it is "so uncool" (how wrong they are!)

This was also taken in the town hall. Look how embarrassed James is.

Here's me and Santa. James wouldn't be in this one, but whatever. His loss!

 Here's Mary and James ice-skating in the town square.

Here's the sisters Hagens, all ice-skating, all smiles.

 Here's the group entering a house in the middle of town. I think it's lovely that we had such a nice snow cover. I think it's weird that someone left their stroller in the middle of the yard.

 Old potbelly stove. SO WARM.

 I like these curtains.

Here's some stuff in the pantry. Those pickle jars are cuties.

They had reindeer! Two of them! Here's one of them! Yay!

There was a lovely gazebo in the middle of the square that was all done-up for Christmas, so we took some pictures there.

Me and the Mr.

So there were a lot of houses in the square, and all of them represented different kinds of settlers from different part of Europe and each house talked about their different customs.

 I just really love this wreath. Look at the fake birds! A wreath after my own heart!

 

Images from a Kitchen that I found particularly charming.

 These next 3 picture are from the store. I am just glad that they had such presidential underpants.

 This is a shelf in the store. I like old stuff.

 My grandpa used to have this trick bank and I loved it. You put a coin in the dog's mouth and it jumps through the hoop (or just through the air, and puts the coin in the barrel.

 This is in another house. I just thought it was a lovely picture.

 This woman warned us of the dangers of young women picking wooden-irons up from their front porch. Apparently, man would make these for the woman they wanted to marry, and if you picked it up, you accepted their proposal. Watch out ladies!

 This is a store room.

 Pipes!

 Here's the front of the school room, where we spent some time being quizzed on Math and History.

 The math was hard because it involved working knowledge of how big things like "bushels of hay" where.

 James does math on a slate.

 On our way into the house that represents the Landing during the civil war era.

 Mary, Emily, and Anna with the flag behind them.

Map of the United States as it was seen during the Civil War.

 Now we're in the German house from the 1850s. Look how cozy this bedroom is.

 Only Germans at this time had Christmas trees. They decorated them with cookies.

I just really liked this hutch.

 We found some nice cows.

 James, Anna, Mary, and Emily all pet the cows.

 We climbed in and our of old barns.

 Anna, an old wooden pitchfork, and some hay.

 James, Mary, and the wheel.

 Mary relaxes in the hay.

We walked back into 2012, a little bit because we had missed the last trolley, but mostly because we wanted to.