Fifteen Minutes at the Mall

Today, perfectly nestled between our anniversary and Christmas, is Joe's birthday. To celebrate I'm sharing one of my favorite posts about Joe. He may not be a mall-kind-of-guy, but he's a watch-a-movie-on-a-rainy-afternoon-kind-of-guy ... and that's just fine with me. Happy Merry Birthday Joe! And just so you know, this year your birthday cake does NOT say Merry Christmas! 

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Last night Joe announced that he needed to go to the mall.

STOP. Joe never wants to go to the mall. Never, ever. He HATES the mall. In his mind the mall should have been one of Dante's circles of Hell. But he had a Dick's Sporting Goods gift card and decided that Friday, his day off, would be the perfect time to use it.

Who was I to argue? I was not letting this golden opportunity slip by.

So after the boys left for school this morning, we got ready to go to the mall. I was ridiculously excited ... which is a little pathetic, I know, but it was a date! And not just any date ... a MALL date. Like we were in high school, or something! For the occasion I even straightened my hair and wore TWO coats of mascara.

We got to the mall shortly after it opened, and after coordinating our cell phones so we could meet later, he headed for Dick's to purchase some golf stuff while I headed to Macy's with a fistful of coupons.

Fifteen minutes later he calls and asks me if I'm done.

"Done with what?" I asked, a little breathlessly because I was trying on jeans. "Aren't you at Dick's?"

"I'm done. I got a golf hat, a golf glove, and a dozen golf balls," he replied. "Do you want me to drive around and pick you up at Macy's?"

Fifteen minutes. He purchased all that in fifteen minutes and he was done. Finito.

Evidently his idea of a mall outing was not my idea of a mall outing. At all. Not even close. And because it was 10:20 in the morning it wasn't like we could go and have lunch, either.

But all was not lost. On the way to meet him I quickly ran into JCPenny with a $10 coupon that was expiring soon (the kind with no minimum purchase required!) and five minutes later I had a brand new pair of earrings that, after the sale, special promotion and my $10 coupon, cost me $1.30.

And I wore them all the way home.

Tiny Christmas Party Favors

Supplies

tiny jars of Nutella

cellophane bags

assortment of Italian chocolates

gift tags (printed from Pinterest)

Instructions

place everything in the cellophane bag

tie with ribbon

A Christmas Formula

Nordstrom package for Joe =

Christmas present for Bia ;-)

Speak to Me Sunday: The Two-Word Commitment

Twenty-nine years ago Joe and I stood before God and said I Do.

And we've been saying I Do ever since ...

to good days, bad days, and in-between days;
to romance and candlelight
and the reality of bills and finances;
to parenthood and uncharted waters-- 
snuggling babies, wayward toddlers,
surly teens, and amazing young men;
to the magic of playing Santa Claus
and the nervousness of being a driving instructor;

to thoughtfulness, respect, I love you,
and I'm sorry and forgive me.

Every day we say I Do to all of it.

And last night, those two simple words were manifested in the laughter and love we felt as we sat around our kitchen table playing board games with our sons.

Christmas Caesura

early morning darkness and blustery weather 

humming refrigerator, glowing tree lights, and steaming mug of coffee

waiting ...

one son on the road

the other son driving across three states

through darkness and blustery weather

to a humming refrigerator, glowing tree lights, and steaming mug of coffee

coming home

home for the holidays

~from the files of very bad poetry by bia

Christmas Finds ... Big and Small

One mini glass jar of Nutella (giant one for scale). 

It would make a nice stocking stuffer. 

One giant cardboard Bialetti with inside a panettone, 

coffee, and chocolates (original one for scale). 

Not a stocking stuffer but still ... just so darn clever. 

Guess the Number of Homemade Tortellini

It was a grey, blustering morning and as we listened to Madama Butterfly sing "Un bel di vedremo," my father rolled the dough into thin sheets, my mother and I folded the tortellini, and our youngest son lined them up with military precision on the countertop to dry.

An Ocean, an Airplane, and Two Countries Full of Kisses (Ch. 7, Opera in the Kitchen)


This past weekend, just like we've done every year since the boys were young, we gathered in my parents' kitchen to make homemade tortellini for our Christmas dinner. It's a long-standing tradition in our family, and one which generates many precious memories.

A few days earlier, on our family WhatsApp page, there was an ongoing bet to see how many tortellini we would make this year. Here were some of the guesses:

Paola -- 600

Tiziana -- 751

Maria -- 843

Luciano -- 958

Martha -- 300

Laura -- 654

Now, you're probably thinking ... whoa. All those numbers are high. That's an awful lot of tortellini.

And you would be correct. But we have a large family that gathers at Christmas, and we serve tortellini both in a savory broth and a cream sauce, so we make a lot (and leftovers are GREAT).

There is no denying that it takes a lot of work--buying the ingredients, cooking the filling (made with chicken, pork loin, mortadella, and prosciutto), preparing the pasta dough, rolling the dough, cutting it into squares, filling each one, and then folding each one by hand. Then, because we make the tortellini several weeks before Christmas, they are left to dry and then placed in the freezer.

This year the tortellini making involved three days (working a few hours each day). The first day I helped my mother cook and prepare the filling, on the second day we made about 500 tortellini, and since we had some leftover filling my mother rolled some more pasta dough and I returned for a third day to help make a few more.

So what's the GRAND TOTAL?

812

(and since I won the bet I get ALL the leftovers ;-)

folded, 812 tortellini

my mother, preparing the filling

my dad, rolling the pasta dough

my parents received these as wedding gifts

over 50 years ago

in the past, Timothy helping Nonno

(I love Timothy's Duplo tower on the counter)

in the past, folding tortellin with my mom