Back to reality

We were finally able to get our dog her cruciate tear operation. Oh gosh, all I can say is that it's not easy. Poor puppy. c.

We

We did a lot of laughing, talking, eating, gifting, painting.
We are recovering from Wii elbow, back and knee.
We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends.
Thank you Lindsay for everything. Can't wait to see you all again soon. xo, c.

Kitchen art

This is my favorite spot in my kitchen. Every time I look at it, it makes me happy. I didn't even decorate it for Christmas. It's sort of like my little corner of Spring to keep me going in -0 temps. You would never know we had a bunch of snow on the ground looking at this.

From bottom left: Julie Knoblock, Janet Hill, Anora Spence

Ho ho ho

Happy Holidays!

Knee deep

Did you know I live next to the Griswold's? Oh yes, the most lit up house in the neighborhood. It's quite pretty actually but it makes our few strings of lights looks a bit silly. Today we got dumped with snow, at least a foot or more. Griswold's baby reindeer is hiding in it. I won't tell you what some high school kids did to the deer one night last week. Let's just say that it wasn't exactly "G" rated and Griswold was not happy. c.

note: I modified my paper house pattern for anyone that downloaded it. The roof needed to be extended.

The first cake

I think I just got the best cake I will ever have. My little one made it all by herself and it's calorie free! c.

Tiny paper town

I was examining the Rankin/Bass movies from yesterdays post, the paper trees, the fake snow and the little puppets. I think one of the things that I find most endearing is the set designs. Today I set out to make a tiny paper town using bits and pieces of card stock I had laying around. You could use just about anything that has a heavy feel to it like packaging or magazine subscription cards. If I get the chance to make a tiny trash town in the next week I'll post that too. We had these bristle brush trees for many years and we pulled apart some cotton balls for snow. Out of everything I've made this has captured the imagination of my three-year old most of all. Here's my pattern. c.

Rankin/Bass love

Nothing sums up my childhood Christmas memories like the beloved Rankin/Bass Christmas specials. Most of us who grew up in the U.S. during the 70's and 80's have a very soft spot for these stop motion animations. They also have some of the best songs ever. I don't think there will ever be a Christmas where we won't watch Rudolph or Santa Clause is Comin' to Town. It's been a real treat for me to share these movies with little g. this year since she's caught on to the whole Christmas thing for the first time.

I'm guessing about this but I think it was about 5 years ago when the movies and figures started appearing in the stores. We have some of the Rudolph characters for under the tree. They look really cute there except they don't seem to stay there for long. c.

Takeout Town

I didn't cook at all this weekend which is a pretty rare occurrence. We had Thai on Saturday and then my husband made sweet potato soup on Sunday. I'm starting to think that most people don't cook anymore. Everyone I talk to is living in take out town. Maybe that will be my New Year's resolution, to cook less.

We are gearing up for a busy and exciting two weeks to come! c.

Oldies but goodies

Phew, got the trees up (yes two this year!). Doesn't everyone have a woodland tree and a snow fall tree? Just kidding, I think I'm making up for many years of under decorating. I love putting our old family ornaments on. This Santa was my grandmother's and every time I look at it wonderful memories of my grandparents and their house come flooding back to me. My daughter picked it as her favorite so he got the best spot.

Now for some more coffee laced with eggnog...

Wit-Craft Wednesday

The following is my post on Wit-Craft, Craft: The Spirit of Recycling

I was bouncing around, all over the internet yesterday, looking for holiday recipes and fun things to do when I came across this festive project on The Crafty Crow featuring a project by Bethany Actually. It seemed like a perfect craft for the season - and so we decided to give it a try and made the first card by following her tutorial.

We began by gluing tissue paper and sequins on to some foil and then we cut out tree shapes to glue on to the cards. We went on to make the majority of the designs by recycling old gift-wrap scraps, used magazines and some water color paintings little g. did a while ago.

FYI: We tried using paper as the base instead of the foil but that didn't work too well. We also discovered that Glue-Sticks work best for gluing the paper to the foil; and regular Elmer's glue works best for the sequins.

We thought that these would make nice cards for little g. to give directly to her family and friends. It was also a great way to get little g, and maybe other children, into the spirit of recycling! c.

Potato leek twist

Lots of soup making going on in my kitchen. I make my own version of a potato leek with a bit of a twist. We eat this soup along with some Gruyère cheese toasted on a baguette and it is our favorite winter meal.

6 leeks cleaned and sliced
2 carrots diced
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 level teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon canola
1 large potato cubed
6 cups clear veggie stock
Black pepper
Salt

Baguette
Gruyère cheese
Butter

Melt the butter and canola in a soup pot. Add red pepper flakes, garlic, leeks and carrot. Cook until soft. Stir in the potato for about 1 minute. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for 1/2 hour. Add salt and pepper to taste. Using a hand blender, blend until smooth. If you use a standard blender let the soup cool first and then reheat to serve. We like to eat this with Gruyère toast. I slice a baguette, spread a little butter on top along with some slices of Gruyère. I broil it until the cheese is melted and the top is toasted. I may rename this blog, or my dog or my pet hamster Gruyère because I love it so much. Is there anything the Swiss haven't perfected? c.

Bucket Man

Burrr, it's cold. Look what I came home to today. Little g. calls him The Happiest Snowman. He certainly is making me very happy. I call him The Donald (it's the yellow glasses Lindsay). Bucket Man with nails for a mouth, a sieve hat and safety glasses are all very daddy inspired. Nothing like my obsessive, perfectionist, controlling snowman building, I need coal and a corncob pipe. Maybe he's Frosty's cool cousin.

And now for some more hot tea...

Mamma Mia

Here I go again with another birthday. It's not just any old birthday because this year I am turning 40. There I said it, phew, it wasn't that bad. I'm not one to stress about this sort of thing but I am lamenting that my 30's are over. I'm sure I will feel that way about my 40's when I hit 50 and so on. We don't typically make a fuss about big people's birthdays but this year we are celebrating. On Saturday my neighbor made me a yummy cake and little g. and her sweet friend Mia helped me blow out the candles. Actually, we blew them out a few times. Why not just keep doing the best part over and over? c.

Quiet

Looks like it's going to be a quiet day. I love when little g. pretends to read books and really just makes up stuff about the pictures. I also love hand-me-downs like this rocking chair from our good friend Stacy. It was stained wood for a boys room so I slapped some soft white on it and it fits in nicely. We are meeting Auntie Linda for lunch today, a real special treat for both of us. Happy Friday world! c.

Flexitarian

I'm married to a strict vegetarian. Basically if it's ever had a brain he won't eat it. Put it like that and most of us would stop to think about what we are eating. 17 years ago when we started living together I had to figure out how to cook interesting vegetarian meals. It took me a long time but I now have a pretty good library to draw upon.

Whenever anyone finds out that my husband is a vegetarian I always get asked if I am. I have struggled and fumbled through this question for years. The real answer is no but the fact is that I very rarely eat meat. I'm cooking for a vegetarian almost every night and I'm not going to go to the trouble of making a meat dish as well. It's just too much work. So I always answer "no" and then ramble on about how I don't eat it often and bore the person to death with my consumption habits.

While driving in the car over Thanksgiving I was listening to NPR and they were discussing vegetarian Thanksgivings. This was when I was introduced to the term Flexitarianism - a semi-vegetarian diet involving the practice of eating mainly vegetarian food, but making occasional exceptions for social, pragmatic, cultural, or nutritional reasons. Yipee, I'm a Flexitarian. I love it! So to celebrate my new title I made some chicken soup!

It's just a basic soup. 1 Onion, 3 stalks celery, lots of carrot, chicken (I bake 2 breasts in the oven and cut them up), low fat organic chicken stock, pasta (I cook my pasta separately), lots of black pepper and some salt. Nothing like a bit of chicken soup on a really cold day, Flexitarian style!

Thinking about...

I see faces. I know I've posted most of these before but I thought it would be fun to see them all together since we are still trying to get back in the swing of things now that little g. is healthy. c.

Full circle

Well after a few days of a fever little g. is requesting pancakes. Looks like we are back up and feasting on our favorite food (someone else wants a little too).

We are still in the deep freeze. Snow + ice + snow + ice = not good.

24 hours

On Sunday morning we decided to take little g. out for pancakes to her favorite place.

Sometime around 6pm Sunday she got really sick with a very high fever and shaking. It came on so fast it really gave me a scare.

By this morning we were covered in snow and our fever is under control.

Now we are shut in for a bit. c.

Tofurkey

Our Thanksgiving really was nice. We got our holiday decorations out and little g's Nannie explained the Santa Claus stuff to her. She wrote a letter to him right away. I wonder where all those letters end up?

Our neighbors made a Tofurkey, I've never had one and they're not bad. You can actually make roast potatoes with them! A big thanks to them for everything. c.

Wit-Craft Wednesday

The following is my post on Wit-Craft, Craft: Stop Thief!

I live with a professional criminal. A very skilled sock-stealer to be exact. Our dog has spent the last 8 years perfecting her stealth-like, sock-stealing skills. And unfortunately, what we are always left with is one good sock and one with a hole chewed right through it.

When I came across this book in the craft section of a store, a light bulb went off in my head! It gave me the perfect idea of how to turn all our single socks into something useful. I didn't buy the book (because it's on my wish list); but I had an old issue of Martha Stewart Kids from 2003, which had a similar pattern inside that I loosely followed for this project.

The diagram above is my attempt to help you follow along!

Here's what you will need:
2 socks (the same size)
Stuffing.
Needle and thread to match.

First, sew the main body and leg pieces. They need to be sewn inside out, leaving a big enough gap for you to be able to turn the socks the right side out after sewing. Once this is done, you can stuff those pieces.
After you are done stuffing, you can then close the gap.
Next, sew the two front legs in exactly the same way, then stuff, and then attach them to the body.
Once you have done this, you can place the head on to the neck and attach the bottom of the head to the body.
Make sure to stuff this piece from the front of the face and then sew it together.
After this, I sewed the ears and then attached them without any stuffing - for more of a floppy look.
Finally I used some embroidery floss to create the the eyes and mouth. c.

Dinky

Shrinky Dinks why didn't I think about you sooner? One of my favorite childhood craft projects was staring me in the face at Joann's the other day. I can assure you that the magic of Shrinky Dinks is alive and well based on the effect it had on little g. and my neighbor's kids. Lots of necklaces and tree ornaments were made today. c.

Polar

I can no longer live in denial about Winter. We have snow on the ground this morning and Thanksgiving is only a few days away. It's time to embrace the season.

Our obsession with polar bears continues. You may remember my holiday card. I can't believe I was thinking about this back in August. I've put together a set of 3 designs based on Lee the polar bear we saw at the zoo over the Summer. I might put a few sets up in our Etsy shop later this week. c.