Gingerbread man potholders from Amy.

A Madam Curie finger puppet magnet from Elliot. (Mike got Isaac Newton and Audrey got Albert Einstein)

Some beautiful beads from Audrey. She is going to make me a pair of earrings.

A silver necklace and heart pendant from Santa.

A plant from Eugenia and Kimberly, with a personalized planter.

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My mother-in-law is in China for a couple of months. I am glad to be in the kitchen again. We’ve had some pretty good meals.

Tonight we made our own dumplings, ate them as we wrapped and cooked them.
Yesterday we made our own sushi with BBQ eel, avocado, Japanese egg, cucumber, and salmon sashimi. We made awesome dragon rolls!
I’ve also made vegetable crepes, pesto, beef stew, turkey meat loaf, shepherd’s pie, teriyaki chicken, and honey mustard chicken.

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Christmas celebrations:

Office dinner party at the Pomona Mining Company last Monday. It was nice to be festive and socialize with people from work.

Bible Study breakfast last Tuesday. A beautiful setting and inspiring words and songs realigned my mood for a meaningful Christmas. The leader challenged us to have a “To Be” list, instead of a “To Do” list.

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Commitment

Lessons learned:

-Most people will do the task they were assigned to do, but only a few will do more than they were asked.

-If you ask people to do a task, they will merely do what you asked. But if you get them to embrace the mission, they will do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission.

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Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, forced a reluctant nation to acknowledge a war that had been raging for years. It began with the Iranian revolution in 1979, when militant Islamists kidnapped American embassy workers in Tehran. There would be repeated attacks throughout the 1980s and 1990s, building…

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