use real butter

Recipe: pistachio macarons

I seem to be taking a bit of a risk blogging tonight. We have crazy wind storms raging around us, shaking our house and flickering our lights. Actually, our power went out last night right after my post, so I was lucky to hit the Submit button when I did. We’ve had several power dips throughout the day already. That and my right shoulder is jacked up for whatever reason, so hanging out on the computer isn’t such a good idea (at least not for long).

The power dips didn’t matter too much today because I was making Chinese dumplings. It’s something we eat every New Year (both western and Chinese new years). I made both the pork and shrimp fillings and cooked them into potstickers and steamed dumplings.

filling the steamer

felt great to sit down to eat

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: mussels in white wine sauce

My dad skyped me this evening and I was all giggles because Jeremy and I had already broken into the champagne. Even though we stay up past midnight most evenings, we usually turn in before the year flips on New Year’s Eve. We enjoyed a bottle of bubbly with our dinner tonight.

i know this is a favorite of squid, barbara, and mollie

The typical thing to do at the close of the year is to reflect and perhaps list favorites or tick off milestones of the year. I feel I got a very good look at 2008 during 2008 – like traveling the road with my face 2 inches from the pavement. All of the bad times are quite fresh, but more importantly all of the good times are also vivid in my mind. I am really happy to not only be alive, but to be more or less healthy (it’s hard to really know), and definitely living on my terms. In volleyball, we always used to tell each other, “on your toes!” so you’d be ready for anything the offense would dump over the net – a dink, off the block, hard line, cross court, six-pack in the face. I feel as if I live my life “on my toes” now. That comes with the territory when you lose someone close to you or don’t know if you will survive your disease or experience one of those curve balls (I like to think of it as a wicked floater serve instead) that life pitches and sends you sprawling on your ass. Keep your eye on the ball.

back to breckenridge with my honey

**Jump for more butter**

I got an early start this morning because I had a lot going on today. After I dropped Jeremy off at the Park-n-Ride, I was turning out of the parking lot when I saw a police car racing through our town’s only traffic circle to my right, and an ambulance from the fire station coming from my left headed in the same direction as the police car.

Odd for our little mountain town.

And my busy day went as planned. Jeremy came with me to my appointment with my oncologist in the afternoon. We gathered groceries for the rest of the week, and as we drove home, we caught on the local NPR station that there was a fatal shooting at Eldora Mountain Resort this morning (Dec. 30). Eldora is our local ski hill.

We only gathered the details after getting home and hopping on the internet.

Eldora is a small hill compared to the big mountain resorts off of I-70, like Vail, Breckenridge, Copper… But we love Eldo because it’s ten minutes from our house. We love Eldo because there are more telemark skiers on that mountain than alpine skiers on a powder day. We love Eldo because it is a true family resort. They have the most professional staff we’ve ever encountered, the best ski patrol, the finest telemark instructors – good people and a good ski resort. I never knew, but the man to thank for the exceptional way in which the mountain is run is the general manager, Brian Mahon.

I’ll not get that chance to thank Brian, because he was shot and killed this morning by the gunman at Eldora. Brian is survived by his wife and two daughters. Jeremy and I are so very sad about the news.