Project Room

I have been working on organizing and cleaning my project room for the past couple days. I am much more creative when my room is neat and tidy. The room can be viewed by anyone standing at my kitchen sink so I really wanted to get it into shape by the beginning of the new year. On December 21 I showed a photo of that room in all its gift wrapping mess (I'm sure there is a way to link to that photo, but I can't figure it out). Today is the “after” photo. Not only did I take care of surface stuff, but I cleaned out a couple cupboards and filled a bag to take to the dump I tend to keep way to much “stuff” and have a hard time getting rid of anything… Now, on to the kitchen to begin the undecorating process!

Snow

It snowed tonight and I took a photo outside my sunroom door when I let the dogs out. I didn't actually venture out myself but I couldn’t resist a photo with the snow hanging on the trees and everything covered in white. I’m not sure how long this all will last but it was very pretty tonight and I took a few minutes and watched it come down and enjoyed the peacefulness of it all! I love snow!

A Day to Lounge!

When I was in my 20's I worked at a university and it always closed between Christmas and New Year's Day. I looked forward to and loved that week off. A lot of my friends were home that week and we often stayed up late and caught up on life. I am a night person and loved that time to stay up late and sleep-in as long as I wanted. I could just lounge around without a care in the world. Just the way my daughter spends her vacation time, doing whatever she wants without a thought to anything else going on around her.

How I long for a couple of days with no responsibilities to read blogs and drink tea or do what ever I want while i finish up the leftover Christmas goodies in anticipation of the New Year. So today I made a cup of tea and relaxed a few minutes. Instead of grabbing a mug from the cupboard, I got out one of my tea cups and made an event of it. Instead of a few minutes I'd really like a few days of nothingness.... guess I'll keep dreaming!

Christmas Brunch

I have become an avid blog reader during the past few weeks. I just love seeing the beautiful homes and I have really enjoyed seeing how they have been decorated for Christmas. I read blogs of decorators (shabby cottage style), and crazy quilters mostly. I think it would be so cool to have the talent of the various artists that I read about.

I am going to be working on my blogging skills and most importantly my photography skills this coming year. The light in my home is mostly wrong and when I use a flash I seem to burn the photograph! I have a problem seeing with my eyes. I wanted to take a photo of my table before our brunch on Christmas Day so I put everything on the table and grabbed my camera thinking I was ready to photograph a pretty table. As you can see my daughter has already removed her frozen fruit slush and put two pieces of toast on her plate. Apparently she used the paper towel that is also on the table to carry the toast in because the paper towel was not part of the tablescape. I used the green overlay as a last minute attempt to add some color to the white dishes and off white table cloth, but I neglected to iron it, hmmmm. Of course I never noticed any of that until today when I downloaded pictures onto my computer.

So, as I think of New Year’s Resolutions this year one of them will be to improve my “eye” for taking photos! Anyone else making New Year’s Resolutions?

Christmas Festivities

We had a lot of fun on Christmas this year. My sister Lindy was here from Connecticut and her daughter Megan is staying here during her semester break so I had a Christmas brunch with just the 5 of us. Then we went to Al’s mother’s to visit in the afternoon and came back here and put lasagna in the oven for the Kline family later Christmas night.

My niece took some family photos of us but didn’t realize that you have to press the shutter slowly so that it focuses…so I can’t show those… since I was cooking and trying to get everything out on the table for the buffet dinner I forgot to take photos. Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me? I am a scrapbooker so you would think that I would remember to take photos! Here is one after everyone had eaten and I remembered the camera! My nephew Jason and another nephew's wife, Emily are on this photo. I served the food buffet style and I had tables set up in the dining room as well as the sun room and living room.

Meg invited a friend over later that evening and we played Cranium which was also fun.

Two more Days!!!

I made a trip today to the grocery store for what I thought would be the last time before Christmas…then I found out that I would be having 4 more for dinner, and I noticed that Molly ate some of my lettuce tonight for her supper… uh that was for a salad on Christmas, oh and I forgot the meat for the lasagna so…one more trip to the grocery store and I should be done.

I did a lot of gift wrapping today and actually finished that job so now I can go to Al’s family Christmas party tomorrow and not worry about what has to be done at home. Here is a photo of what I ended up doing with my cookies. I put them in a clear plastic box and added some Hershey’s Kisses and a tag. I wish I would have had some of those silver balls to decorate the cookies with, I’ll plan ahead next year!

This afternoon I was thinking about my Christmas table. Here is a photo….notice the centerpiece in the background. I needed something small because the table is not very wide and it fills up quickly with food. I like something low so it is easy to see around for conversation. I think this will work for me.

Feeling the Stress

Ok, well I'm starting to feel the stress of the upcoming holidays. I have to much to do and to little time. Gift wrapping looms large on the list! Here is a photo of my gift wrapping area. This is where I do most of my creative work. I put the papers and fibers away and got out the wrapping paper. I've got quite a few bags full of stuff yet to wrap. I really hope to put a dent in it tonight. I took a nap this afteroon so that I can stay up late and get started on the cooking with an occasional break to wrap something. Well that sounds pretty ambitious.. . Here is my list for tonight:

make pickled eggs


bag up the granola


wrap 10 gifts


bake sticky buns for Molly's boyfriend's family


design and print some gift cards



Anyone else reading blogs instead of working? I'd rather get lost in the decorating blogs than get to the reality of Christmas dinner!

Christmas Cookies

The Christmas cookie baking was a success! I am not big on baking cookies but I stumbled upon a web site (http://kitchengifts.com/cookiedecorating.html) with what seemed like easy directions for royal icing and step by step directions on how to do it. When I saw the beautiful cookies, I decided that I need some of those to tie on gifts. And upon further investigation I see that they have some really cool cookie cutters and my wheels are already turning… I can see some really cute cookies for Molly’s sorority sister’s for Valentine’s Day…

So... Friday night I baked cookies and Saturday night I iced them and today I am feeling pretty good about the end results! I wish I would have had some of those silver balls to put on my cookies when I was decorating. Next time I bake sugar cookies I will plan ahead. Anyone who needs some encouragement to bake and ice these cool cookies, don’t hesitate to drop me a note because if I can do this, anyone can! Truly, all it takes is patience.

Estate Sale Purchases

I went to an estate sale today…. It was for the parent’s of my best childhood friend, Barbie Gross. I really wanted a remembrance from her home, the only problem is that the sale was in Pennsylvania and it was about 30 degrees there today! So, I dressed in my warmest clothes (and since I am not an outdoor person, I really don’t have warm clothes) and sat at a sale for about 4 hours. I did learn a few things today. #1 We will not be having my parents estate sale in December, January, February, or March…April and November are very questionable as well! #2 A warm pair of boots is a definite “must have”… I am going to get a pair with Christmas money! #3 The dogs can not be trusted to be home alone. Stewart must be crated when I am not home!

So this is what I bought for my $33.50….I think they only sold one piece of ironstone all day and luckily no one else wanted it, an ironstone oval veggie dish. I love most all Bavarian plates and found one. My sister wanted me to get her a piece of flow blue. She wanted a serving piece or a plate to hang on the wall but most of the flow blue had chips or were otherwise damaged so I was not really successful. She will have to settle for a cup and saucer. I also have a stack of "junk" still in my car that will be going directly to the dump but I did pick out two Christmas pieces in some of the "extras" that were with the stuff I actually wanted; a clear dish with a Christmas scene on it and a white plate with a tree could be filled with cookies and "regifted". It says not dishwasher or microwave safe....gee doesn't sound like a dish for my house! Oh and there is a silver plated nut dish that I can surely figure out something creative to do with.

So, I am just about thawed out and ready to tackle another project.

Christmas Gifts

I'm feeling a bit less stressed as far as the Christmas gift giving goes. Yesterday Al and I did our annual trek to the stores. I don't know about your husbands when it comes to shopping but mine is about worthless at a mall....unless of course he brings his credit card, which he did yesterday. So it was not a wasted trip!

Does anyone make Christmas gifts? For those people who have everything, I like to give something from the heart...something that says I went to some trouble of more than picking up a gift card or putting a check in an envelope. This year I more or less didn't get it together as far as making anything. However, there is one person on my list who sends cards and so I made some "thank you" notes for him.

And on the homemade note, I have been inspired lately by some beautiful sugar cookies I have seen on some blogs and I'd sure love to make some really nice cookies to package individually and tie onto some presents. I am in the process of baking right now and have 4 beautifully baked cookies.... After Grey's Anatomy I will bake a few more....the real test comes tomorrow night when Molly and I try to transform ourselves into Martha Stewart! I may or may not post about my cookies! I am not very good at baking....I used to do a layered cake from scratch every year for Molly's birthday, after a few years of being embarrassed about those efforts I found it a whole lot easier to just take a family vacation on her birthday and let Ruby Tuesday or Red Lobster do the baking! But I'm older and wiser now....I think I can decorate a cookie!