A Queer Mobile

Our big Christmas present

We had a great Christmas at home, but we weren't dozing much. Last year we'd planned to redo the back building (John's former shop space) as our library/great room. The flood intervened, and the project waited until late November and early December. 

We got a great deal on some used industrial steel shelving that John resurfaced. He cleaned up and polished the concrete floor, and we installed five units, each eight feet tall and eight feet high. 

John's been moving books from his cache inside the house for a week or so. I've been so busy wrapping up projects at work for the year that the first chance I had to work on the library was Christmas Eve.

And work we did! We moved our literature library and several sets of old encyclopedias (John collects 'em). I moved part of my metaphysical library; the rest of it I've completely reorganized inside my office inside the house.

The obvious question is: how do you ever find anything here? The answer: we catalog everything with some software that'll read ISBN number bar codes from books, look up the information from Amazon.com, and store everything – including location information - in the database. I've been recoding books like mad, because when I reshelve books I want to have current location information. For you trivia folks: we have about 5100 books under management so far, not counting multivolume sets like encyclopedias.

Here we're looking back from the far side of the new library space. The room is huge - maybe 800 square feet. We'll move out the big TV and the sound system. I had thought to move my piano out, too, but I'm now considering other plans for my music studio.

Sending our Yule greetings!

I began my Yule celebration tonight. For those not used to my doings, we never have a Christmas tree. Instead, I decorate a wreath with apples, which signify the passage of the seasons. I burn candles each night and hold some simple meditations on the passage of the year.

Rather than buy a wreath this year, I fashioned my own from yew and juniper branches from our garden. The apples are Rome Beauty from our garden. I was feeling a little badly about not getting any decoration before now. I'm very glad I waited for the inspiration to use our own evergreens for the season.

Our best Yule greetings to all! 

John's part in rebuilding the African-American Museum of Iowa

John's been a strong supporter of the African American Museum of Iowa here in Cedar Rapids. He built two benches for the Museum's main exhibition space several years ago. Unfortunately the Museum was badly damaged in last year's floods, and the benches largely ruined.

John built two new benches for the Museum's recent opening. I took a quick snap of the new work before he installed it – just a day before the opening. We were invited to the opening, and had a chance to tour the restored – and significantly enhanced exhibits. Sadly, the Museum's curator, Susan Kuecker, said her farewell at the party; she's joining her husband who moved to Pittsburgh for a great new gig. We'll miss Susan, but John's looking forward to collaborating with the new curator.

Ham dinner

We picked up a ham this morning from our good friends at Forest Hill Farms. Their superb eggs and chickens were my initial draw, but we've been feasting on more of their home grown products. They pasture-raise all their animals, and they take tremendous care with all their products. So I ordered half a Christmas ham and shared it tonight with friends: one of the very best hams I've ever eaten.

I braised the ham in a mixture of 

1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped onions
1 tsp peppercorns
2 bay leaves
handful of sage
enough chicken stock to come up about 1" on the ham.

The ham went in a 325F oven covered until it registered 140F on my instant read thermometer. (The house was filled with the most wonderful smells...) The whole operation took about 3 hours. 

I let the ham rest at room temperature for an hour or so before serving. In the mean time I filtered off the ham stock for the following sauce:

Mix together

2 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp dijon mustard
2 tsp (or so) port wine

and add to 1 cup ham stock. Bring to the boil and check for proper thickness. The sauce was amazingly wonderful with thin slices of ham. Alongside I served braised spinach with sun-dried tomatoes and scalloped potatoes.

Scrumptious!