grandma kate's noodles

i just posted the recipe for grandma kate's noodles over on my foodie blog--domestic sensualists. you may want to come over and check it (and all the other goodness) out.

would you have made a good 1930s housewife?

8 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

i wonder how grandma kate would have done...

a little "how to"

i heard from gisel that some of the luddites nachtigals have complained said that they have written posts for this very family blog and have been unable to post them.

as an admin on the blog, i cannot see any draft posts in the list by anyone other than gisel, who has two empty ones, so i thought perhaps a little tutorial  on how to publish here was in order.

once you have gone to blogger.com and signed in using your personal sign-in information, you will see the blogger dashboard. here is what part of mine looks like:

bear in mind, yours will look a bit different than this because you probably don't have eleven blogs and if you do, you don't need this tutorial.

yours will look more or less like this:

once you see this, you can either "view blog," just to have a look and see what others have written. of course, you can ALSO do this without being an author, just by going to http://thenachtigals.blogspot.com. that means that ALL NACHTIGALS can LOOK at the blog at any time and just read what's going on there. most of which is currently written by me, which is admittedly getting a little old.

However, if you want to write, you need to press the pretty blue button that says "NEW POST." once you do that, you will see this:

it's a pretty, empty space in which to compose your blog post. you go into the space and begin to write whatever hilarious story or poignant memory you wish to share. when you are finished, you will press this pretty little orange button at the bottom of the screen. it says, intuitively enough, "PUBLISH POST."

now, you have published your first story on the blog.  you will get a message that looks like this:

i didn't get fancy and tell you how to upload pictures or anything, as i think it will be quite enough to just try to get text up there in the first run.

if you already have permission to post on this blog, you can use this information to write a post right away. and i sincerely hope you will do that.

if you would LIKE permission to post, please email myself or monica and we can send you an invitation to contribute. you will receive an email from blogger, which will contain directions for you to follow in order to accept the invitation. i can be emailed at jknachti (at) gmail (dot) com and monica's email is mqnachti (at) gmail (dot) com. obviously with @ and . in lieu of the words in parentheses--i type it like that to avoid spam.

The Little Boys

My three younger brothers were always referred to collectively as "The Little Boys".

Kent, the oldest, was always Kent. And, me, the only girl, Gisel. But Dan, Tom and Sam were always "The Little Boys" as if they were an ameoba and could not be divided into individual cells.

My mother would call us in for dinner: "Kent, Gisel...The Little Boys!"

When we lived in what we now call The Harvison House (because the Harvisons later bought it) the kids were delegated to the upstairs. Kent had his own room, I had my own room, but "The Little Boys" not only shared a room, but all slept in the same bed.

"The Little Boys" didn't have their own designated clothes but instead operated a shared clothing consortium - anything from the "clean" pile was fair game.

I wonder if the Little Boys have joint checking accounts...

once upon a time...

once upon a time a very, very long time ago, this little girl was dropped off to attend a week of bible school at the trinity lutheran church. now her family did not attend this church, but bible school was thought to be for anyone. plus her parents thought, hey, free babysitting and a week of peace without the kid!

so her mother dropped her off outside the side door of the trinity lutheran church, and despite her being quite small and never having been there before, just sent the child in without accompanying her. the child has a very clear memory of the crunch of the wheels of the stationwagon driving away on that little gravel road beside the church and how daunting that unknown door seemed. said child wandered in and some people talked to her, inevitably asking her her name. feeling a bit shy and out of place and perhaps even abandoned out in the woods as well as having a healthy imagination, she informed them that she was called snow white.

she was pretty steadfast about the snow white thing and it took those people 'til mid-week to figure out who she really was. i guess someone finally spotted her mother, who didn't appear to be accompanied by seven dwarves, picking her up.

and they all lived happily ever after, but she still really hates going in alone to a new place full of people who already know each other. and roger eastman teased her about it for years afterwards, as he apparently found it such an amusing story. she got so she hated to run into him.

a new blog to visit

sabin is involved in a new blog. it's a modern day penpal story and it's also a bit inspired by the Flat Stanley book. she and a girl in minnesota, who is also 8, also in the second grade and also a twin who lost her twin are (with a little help from their moms) blogging and learning about how it is to be 8 and in the second grade on two different continents.  pretty cool stuff. come and check it out by clicking here.

does anyone know?

i have this throw rug in my hallway that used to be grandma kate's:

do any of you know whether she might have actually made it herself? i have no recollection of her doing any craft-type things, but did she sew or make such things? can someone tell me a story?

kitchen love

just had to share this link to a feature about our kitchen on the design website apartment therapy!  i'm so excited to have been asked to do this!!  i had posted pictures on the photo website flickr and one of the editors found them there and asked if they could feature my pictures! after i stopped jumping up and down ecstatically, i said, "yes, please!"

go and check it out! apartment therapy is awesome, so be careful you don't get addicted. i've had it as a daily read for ages!

have you ever seen?

...a pheasant up a tree?

taken just minutes ago in our neighbor's back yard:

since when do pheasants fly up into trees? maybe he's just a confused danish pheasant.

just heard on letterman

watching an episode of Letterman (they're probably a week old when they reach us) in which he was reading "Small Town News."  there was a piece from the Custer SD paper which said, "suspicious persons were seen doing something strange with a flashlight. further investigation revealed that they weren't suspicious, they were just Canadian."

isn't that hilarious?

once upon a time...

a very long time ago, i was a page in the SD legislature. one fine day, in the midst of doing page-like things (running errands, picking up papers, running mrs. kosher's notes on how to vote down to mr. kosher), i found myself in the elevator. with governor janklow. he smiled and looked at my name tag. "nachtigal," he said, "charles mix county," there's a ralph nachtigal down there. i said, "i know, he's my dad." the smile faded from governor janklow's face and he said, "oh." conversation over. after what seemed like an eternity, the elevator doors opened and i got out.

happy birthday to sabin

our pooka turned 8 yesterday!  in putting together this post, i realized what a lot she did over the past year, especially for one who was only seven years old. and now she's eight! it sounds trite to say that i can hardly believe it, but i can hardly believe it. i am more amazed at her every day. just as an example, last evening, she played a card game in the whist family (davoserjas in danish) with five adults and she won. fair and square and by playing smart. she's just so cool. 

sabin's year in review:

she climbed down to møn's klint (and back up), twice.

february 2008

and january 2009

she made a snowman at easter:

she went to barcelona together with her parents and big sisters:

she endulged her entrepreneurial spirit and made a little stand to sell her parents handmade rubber stamp erasers, tomatoes and muffins:

she explored nature:

she went to munich and got to meet some of the mad cousins:

she ate meatballs in ikea (several times):

she spent time in an idyllic place with a good friend:

she took a mini-cruise to oslo:

she relaxed in the gold lounge before flying all by herself to chicago. she also joined SAS's frequent flyer program on that trip (because they finally opened it up to kids):

she did jump shots with her cousins at navy pier in chicago:

she ate strange things that turned her tongue black:

and drove halfway across the midwest (and back) with her cousins and aunt monica:

she swung at countless pitches thrown by grandpa:

got extraordinarily dirty on the 4th of july at a fishing derby:

attended a huge family reunion:

swam in the missouri river:

went to the omaha zoo with her grandparents & cousins:

REALLY learned to swim at swimming lessons in iowa:

logged far too many hours playing mario on the DS:

got her first mac:

helped with the building project (at least the lunch part):

hostessed an extremely successful halloween party:

made all kinds of creative projects:

ate sushi every chance she got:

lit sparklers in the house:

leaped off a WWII german bunker:

left 3 candles burning on her birthday cake

but had a great birthday party with her class:

and opened presents at the breakfast table yesterday morning:

we're really looking forward to seeing what her eighth year holds!

happy memories

i've got a wonderful new program called adobe lightroom 2. it's for people for whom photoshop is way too much, but who still want to be the author of their pictures in these times of digital photography. i've been playing with pictures from mom and dad's visit back in august/september. so enjoy...

there's something of american gothic over this picture

minus the pitchfork

that was fun now, wasn't it?

how about sharing some of your pictures, i'm sure you have some! :-)