After we got the basement completed, we were able to rearrange furniture in such a way that our turntable now has a place in the living room. Among Brendan's 45 collection is a set of 80s singles that includes Nena, Men Without Hats, DEVO and Weird Al. And then there are the Motown singles. It's awesome. Our LP collection is a bit of a mish-mash including records I saved from my Dad's purge several years ago, Beatles albums I purchased at thrift stores and other miscellany. Powering the turntable is my old stereo from college. Which also gives us a place to play actual CDs and TAPES! I think I have more nostalgia for tapes these days than I do for my records. 

My dad had this one tape titled - 90 Minutes of Good Music. It was a mix compiled of tracks he had taped from records including Jimmy Buffet, James Taylor, CCNY and others. At one point I had it in my possession but since it was one of his favorites, I had to give it back. I did though, in 1998, make a copy of what were my favorites of his favorites. And today, I found it! I don't know if Dad still has his copy of the tape (probably not) and I don't recall exactly what all was on it anyway. But at least part of it survives. 

There's also a pile of CD mixes that have been just sitting on the shelf. Since our cars both have a hook in for the iPod, we rarely use them anymore. It's like a little time warp, really. What songs was I obsessed with in 2002, 2003, 2004? 

I'm dorkily excited about all of it. Of course, there's no way that we'll be getting out the entire CD collection again (it has all been digitized afterall), but I like the idea of curating a little selection. 

We have been pretty darn busy over the past month. 

We took the kids to see The Muppets just after Thanksgiving. Bridget really loved it (and so did Brendan and I), and now we're watching The Muppet Show! thanks to Netflix. Johnny would have made it through the whole movie quite nicely had the previews not gone on so long. He loved Ms. Piggy and her karate chops. 

We went to a fancy holiday party at the National American History Museum. It was pretty awesome. Saw the Jefferson Bible and Brendan totally geeked out. The next morning we were (some of us more than others) reminded that we are not in our 20s anymore.

We did a little bit of decorating, but not too much until...

The basement got finished! Brendan and I put in a lot of time putting up walls (him) and painting and painting (mostly me, but also him) and getting trim up (him). And still more painting. Carpet was ordered and installed just in time...

.. for the MuskoX-mas celebration at our house. And though I mis-read the directions on how long the ham would take to heat up, it was still very successful. 

Now we just have some final preparations for Christmas. I think our artificial tree looks pretty darn good. 

This year, we decided to skip the driving and stay home for Thanksgiving. Brendan's mother and a couple of our friends made the trip down to have dinner with us. 

It's only the second Thanksgiving dinner that I've cooked. The first turned out well, but sacrificed my right shoulder. I have gotten better at cooking meals for a group of people over the past six years, so it wasn't nearly as stressful as my first Thanksgiving. We had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied carrots and parsnips, corn, jello salad, and green salad. It was just enough food to have some leftover for today, but not too much. 

We took it easy on the table settings, and while we used our wedding china and crystal, we kept all the food buffet style in the kitchen. It was a good move. We sold our really big table in the big yard sale this summer but we made it work with our little table and an extra card table. 

Today we hadn't planned on doing any crazy shopping. I like to stay out of the way of the crazy shoppers. However, as we were browsing the ads (we get the Sunday paper now like good little suburbanites) I noticed that the tree that we just bought on Monday was on sale for $100 less than we spent on it. So Brendan woke up at 5:00 and went over to the store only to find them all gone (barely, people were in line with them). Thankfully, the managers at the store were very nice at 8am when I called and asked if we could just return the one we bought and re-buy it at the sale price. Even though their policy is to only allow that sort of thing within three days of purchase, they were kind and let us do it today four days after purchase. 

We promptly turned around and spent that money on primer and ceiling paint for the basement. Now it's up to me to start painting. I haven't quite worked up the momentum just yet.

My almost 21 year old brother recently posted this photo on Facebook: he's now in possession of our father's blond Gibson Hummingbird guitar.

And I'm a bit jealous.

Though I don't remotely play guitar (too frustrating to learn and I like having nails), and he does play very well. So it makes sense that he'd eventually obtain it. 

It's just...

When I was little, Dad was so careful with this guitar. It was the only one he had, and he was proud of it and protected it. We weren't allowed to touch it.  Dad has newer ones now that he uses more regularly.  

There are just a lot of memories wrapped up in this one thing. I know Kevin has memories of his own, and I know he's responsible. I just can't believe Dad let it go outside the house. 

In my quest for knowledge about my family history, I have been hoping to find a way to figure out where exactly in Poland and Lithuania my relatives were from. The Polish part is proving to be very difficult. 

My Lithuanian relatives were a little bit easier thanks to my great-grand uncle Mike. He was born in Lithuania and came over with his parents. While his parents did not become citizens, Mike did. Because he served in the Navy for the U.S. in WWI, he had an easier path to citizenship. Still, it wasn't until 1951 that he became naturalized. It was not the easiest process to figure out, but once I determined who to write (NARA of the mid-Atlantic), I was able to get a copy of his naturalization records. They came today. I was a bit pessimistic because of the length of time that had passed between his birth in 1896, and his naturalization, and because his Social Security application lists Maryland as his birthplace; however, there was a town listed as his last foreign address.

Takniskiai, Lithuania. It's certainly rural. But it's a place. 

We had a really nice visit with Brendan's brother's family last weekend. There was a winter carnival at the kids' school, a birthday party, cousins galore...

messes, home-brewed beer, a lesson in chocolate melting...

and brrrr, it was super-cold. Bunches of fun for all of us. 

Yesterday, the DC metro area got it's first real bit of snow. Since it was a Wednesday, we were teleworking. Turns out that was probably the best thing we could have done. Down here, on the southern edge of the storm, we ended up with somewhere between 2 and 3 [very wet and heavy] inches. But it did come down fast. We had few friends stuck in terrible 8 - 10 hour commutes. They weren't alone. Quite a few friends and family in Baltimore (where they had much more snow) are still without power, and might be through the weekend. (yikes!)  I am thankful our lines are underground and we are all warm.

Thanks to an email from my uncle with a photo of my grandparents on their wedding day, I realized that my favorite shots I scanned way back in 2008 were also from that day. Still, there's a little discrepancy as to who it is with my grandmother. Is it her best friend, as I had written down, or was it her younger sister as my uncle said? I'm inclined to think it's her sister.

I think it's time to buckle down and get myself to the archives again.