Less Hustle More Coffee

We’ve been planning this Northern Latitude party for several months now. Mainly just planning a fun time with friends, but in order to narrow down the food line up we have started coming up with the themes and then making our party around that. When it’s around Christmas time (usually after the busy-ness of the holidays) we throw in our gift exchange.

So I saved out any white decor, bought a few shiny, icy, snowy things for the table decor, bought some cute deer, b/c I like them and we have lots in our neighborhood. And I put together a snowy, icy decor, threw on some Northern lights on YouTube, lit some candles, and made it look as “northern wintery like” as we could. George threatened to turn on the air conditioning or open the windows to make it more genuine. And of course we had all researched northern types of foods and divided up the dishes and each made our thing.

Lisa insisted that we open what she called a “hostess gift” to us which in writing on the sack was listed all of our dishes and drinks for the evening. Very cute.

The northern lights puzzle. This will be my next puzzle. I may have to work it on the dining room table though since it’s 1,000 pieces. I think my card table might only have enough space for 500.

Love the Canada socks. They are by “Good Luck” socks. I need that – good luck that is. I know that some of you are from Canada, and if you are – I hope you leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. We were celebrating in honor of you and all those who live in the upper climates!

We were also given a Canadian hat. Does it have a name for the type of hat it is? Surely it does? What is it my Canadian friends?

Also they gave us some of this…Swedish Aquavit.

And all in fun (I promise) is George giving his best accent. How did he do?

He’s also wearing his Jeff Beck shirt in memory/honor of Jeff Beck, the excellent guitarist that recently passed.

So I worked on the table over the last few weeks, finding items that would work with our decor. It came together pretty easily as I was already out shopping with Mom a few weeks ago at the Home store and found the ribbon, deer, silver candle and white candle sticks. I ordered the very inexpensive (less than $20) silvery (icy looking) placemats of six. And I dropped by Tuesday Morning on the way home from work one day knowing they had fancy dinner napkins of all sorts – while the grocery stores have been disappointing in this arena for some time now with selections narrowing as we go along.

George made us a “Montreal” which he personally named, instead of a Manhattan, lol. It was great.

And then Don and George served up another drink they called “The Oslo” which was like a Manhattan with the Aquavit. It was also good.

From there we girls drank very little – but water and coffee, lol. The guys, well they are responsible for themselves. lol

As for the food? Oh my gosh. Too much of it. We even had to laugh as one dish had been forgotten but NONE of us could even think of trying to eat even a bite.

George made poutine, which is a Canadian dish. He made the fries himself and we bought cheese curds which you can find down here in TN these days. And it has gravy, bacon, and scallions.

George’s meat pie, was great and he made his best maple leaf on the pie, and laughed and said it came out looking like a palm tree.

Lisa made this butter board. Oh my gosh, what a neat thing. She had crackers and bread. It has bacon, spices, and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Oh my it was so good. She had feared it was too much. No, this was gone in a heartbeat. And guess what. The plate was part of my Christmas from them, so we got to keep it!

Don made what we were calling Swedish meatballs but they were more Norweigan. And made of Elk.

So I feel bad. I was totally into the moment, (which is a good thing for me and something I’m trying to do more of) and I forgot to get a picture of Lisa’s Salmon Board and the creamy green pea soup which was delicious. We were totally in eating/grazing mode, catch up mode, and talking about everything mode. So at least I forgot for a good reason. The cucumber salad, was the forgotten dish but we have some in our fridge for tonight. I also forgot to get a pic of the Apple Yum Yum I made until after we’d cut it. But maybe it’s better this way as you can see the layers.

My research showed that northern most places like Norway, really like their creamy apple desserts. So I went with a no-bake recipe. My friend prefers gluten free, so I’m going to have to learn how to cook gluten free things. It is actually one of my challenges to consider a gluten free diet for a month. It’s not THIS month, I’m telling you. But I do need to experiment with it and see how it impacts me. And I feel bad for us not having a more gluten free dinner. She usually just skirts around our cooking, splurges a little, and goes with the flow but I really want to be better at trying to meet everyone’s preferences.

The yum yum cake was great. I think I prefer hot apple dishes though instead of colder ones. But it was really good. I think the apple filling being hot served with the cold whipped topping would be great.

So if anyone wants the recipe let me know and I’ll find it and post it again. I made the whip cream from heavy whipping cream. It takes a while but I tried to be patient til the “stiff white peaks” formed. And it’s mixed with sugar. The other thing was taking cream cheese and mixing it with sugar – until creamy and then mixing ALL of the whip cream mixture and cream cheese mixture together. You put on your homemade graham cracker crumb crust (crushed cinnamon gram crackers with butter). So it was really good. But I would have preferred having a hot apple dish with the creamy stuff on top, lol.

Ok so I usually don’t post pics of guests – except for the family I have always posted, but I know some of my folks prefer to be more private. However, I don’t think Lisa would mind me posting a pic of Dexter giving her some love. Dexter absolutely loved her. She would pet him and he didn’t want her to stop. He just had to let her know he loved her although he was scared of our company at first. Lisa quickly warmed him over to her.

We had a lovely time catching up and spending time together. Don and Lisa and Dillon and Juliana are so special to us. They are good friends – so much so we call them family. We check on each other throughout the month and share pics and fun times and also lean on each other for the sadder more testing times. A beautiful friendship and one that I am so grateful for. And our time together is something we cherish and look forward to. God blessed us with these good peeps throughout the threads of our lives. God knows what He’s doing. And we are so thankful for these times throughout the year we can forget everything for a moment and come together for a meal, a happy cocktail hour, or even just coffee. Deep conversations, deep support, and continued prayers for each other. Thank you, Lord. We all need each other to get through this life and its challenges. We have their back and they have ours.

And George ended the night letting Little Bit in because it was twenty something degrees Fahrenheit out there. You can see Dexter over on the ottoman from the big living room which he likes for a bed, lol. And it ended up like this.

His head rolled back into a slumber and the cat slept on top of him. He went to bed not long after that. I read a bit and put my to do list in order for the day, lol.

Today we went to church. Mom told us she forgot to set her alarm – not to come get her, and then also told us later it was too cold to go. So not sure wish was the more pressing issue, but she still wanted her KFC lunch and her curtains hung, and her groceries brought to her, lol.

So we rushed after church to get to Tractor Supply for one of our own errands (doggy pads are cheaper there than on Amazon by a long shot). And then to Kroger for a quick run through of Mom’s needs. And a few things we wanted. Mostly her stuff though. And then on to KFC and then back to her house. We ate, and George hung her bedroom curtains which were too long. So George has to go back next Sunday and move the rods up more. Then we hung the ones in her little extra room that is meant for an office but can be a sitting room. Those were a hair too short but she said she could live with it. Then the rod and the curtains need to be hung in the extra bed room. So I guess we do that next Sunday. I also need to get her to T-Mobile soon so she can see about a phone upgrade and getting a new pad. I hate to commit during the week in January with quarter end going on, but I might surprise her and call her one day if I’m still waiting on data. Otherwise I kinda have to protect my time throughout the rest of January, but we can take her places on Sunday. She may have to wait another week though on the T-mobile.

She is also having tooth pain which is better one day and not the next. So we may have to make an appointment with the dentist soon. I’ll probably have to take off for that one because for an emergency appt we will have to take what they have, except I can’t on Tuesdays at all. But she can’t be in pain and don’t want her to hurt or have problems that can cause, so we’ll get that looked at right away once she gives “the word”.

Anyway, I’ve had a very busy weekend as you can tell. I’m going to “get the movie ready” to work on. That means importing all my footage to Final Cut Pro and then I can start working on it as I can through the week – fifteen to thirty minutes here and there. I’ve been itching to get started but we’ve always got “something else” we really need to do – to get past the holidays, start the new year, and also get all the responsibilities and plans worked on. Trips booked, dinner parties done, and this Saturday we are having breakfast with our neighbors that fed the cat while we were gone on Thanksgiving. Our thanking them is to take them out for breakfast. Of course, I’d love to go out with them “just because” too b/c we enjoy their company. But certainly we want to thank them for taking care of Little Bit while we were gone and keeping him with food and water on the porch.

Ok over and out. What did YOU do this weekend?