Adelaide Lemonade

I'm in Chelmsford

Where, you ask?  Yeah, I'd never heard of it either until the class I was supposed to take in my hometown didn't get enough participants and the closest alternative was Chelmsford, MA.  There's not exactly much to do here, but I'm actually enjoying my "alone" time.  After traveling for work quite a bit in the past 3 years, I've discovered that I don't mind being alone one bit.  That may change when I'm not constantly with 5 other people, a cat, and a dog, but for now, I don't mind.  Of course, my first choice would be to be with my family, but I'm having a glorious few days doing what I want when I want.

I don't even mind eating out alone - especially when it's on my company's dime.  I usually treat myself to a glass of wine, read my e-mails, check my facebook, annoy the crap out of my husband by texting him photos of everything I'm eating and drinking, then read Kindle on my phone while I eat.  Tonight I chatted with some fellow business-travelling ladies from Dallas sitting next to me (but I'm usually traditionally Yankee stand-off-ish and don't talk to anyone).

The first night here, I ate a yummy cherry pepper flatbread from Moonstones

I liked it so much that I skipped dinner last night and ate my leftovers.

Tonight, I ate at a place called Fishbones.  Nice decor, don't you think?

Yummy blackened swordfish with pineapple salsa.  

I also drank a bellitinitini.  

Never had one before, but I was sold on the advertised peach puree.  I managed to drink it, but I'm not sure it was really my thing.  I didn't really need it, but I had a glass of Prosecco for dessert - my first white wine of the season.  

I usually drink red when it's cold and white when it's warm.  It was gorgeous and approaching 70 today.  I think it was the first day in 6 months where I haven't been freezing my butt off.

The two drinks is probably what's making me brave enough to post a photo by myself.  Here I am eating all by my lonesome.

I stumbled home on the lovely Bruce Freeman Rail Trail where I've been running/walking every day.  

Other than that, I've been spending oodles of time surfing recipes and cooking blogs on the web.  Do you have any favorites I should follow?  I've been following Pioneer Woman, Smitten Kitchen, and Pinch My Salt for ages, but I just added as many as possible to my Feedly feed last night.  I'm not positive that will still work after the Google Reader end of life.  I still need to research that some more.  What are you all going to do?  I mostly used the Google Next button which I loved because it took me to the actual blog.

I'm still totally on a cooking kick.  Here's what I made for meals last week.

Sunday:  Barbeque Shrimp, Chips, Guacamole, corn, Poblano Jack Cheddar Beer Bread (if I make this again, I need to cook it longer) S'mores Cookies, Strawberry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (I used Pioneer Woman's Blackberry Ice Cream recipe, but blackberries aren't exactly in season now, so I subbed strawberries.)

It was so good!  We used chopped up Hershey bars leftover from the cookies.  Does anyone know where you can get those flat square chips that you find in mint chocolate chip ice cream?

The S'more's Cookies were the third in our project to make I Heart Naptime's 50 favorite cookie repices.  We all liked these.  I might skip the cinnamon next time and maybe double or 1 1/2 the Hershey bars.

Next up are Cookies and Cream Cookies.  Here's Addie picking the next recipe out of our basket of recipes.

and Frank carefully pressing the Hershey bars into the partially baked cookies.

Monday:   Pretzel Chicken (again!).  This time we used the Snyder's Honey Mustard and Onion Pieces for extra flavor.  I'm not sure it really made that much difference.  Crash Hot Potatoes (never any leftovers with these babies).  Carrot Sticks.

Tuesday:   Pork Satay with Peanut Sauce (this was so good - it converted my husband from his vegetarian ways - I feel a bit guilty), Quinoa Salad (I liked it well enough but not a big hit.)

Wednesday:  Leftovers and my husband cooked up some pasta because the peanut sauce was just so damn good.

Friday night, I went a little crazy preparing for an overnight in Rangeley and made my new favorite Jacques Torres Infamous Chocolate chip cookies found on via I Heart Naptime.  I'm really liking the Crepes of Wrath blog - home to these cookies - and have already marked a bunch of recipes to try.

I also made bagels and my favorite Pain a l'Ancienne from Peter Rheinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice.

I have a reprieve from cooking this week, since I'm out of town.  Since I've had so much extra time on my hands, I think I just about have the next 3 weeks of meals planned.  For me, that's almost the hardest part.

I originally had really good intentions of making a blouse for Spring Top Sewalong, and I was a good portion of the way there on Thursday night.  I might have been able to finish by the deadline of Friday night, but then I remembered that I'm trying hard to be patient with myself.  Rushing to finish a shirt didn't really fit in with that.  

I also intended to cut out a bunch of things for Kids Clothing Week and to bring my sewing machine to Chelmsford with me.  It was such a great idea, since, other than class, I have no commitments and could sew uninterrupted, but I had a chance to go to Rangeley for the night and hike with my girls on Sunday.

So I didn't have much time to prepare, and I decided that didn't fit in well with  being patient with myself either.  I am feeling a bit bummed about missing out on KCW especially seeing everyone else's posts about it, but I think I'll manage.  I'll sew when the motivation and opportunity strikes and not worry about it other than that.

I'm not completely craftless.  I brought my knitting.  I'm working on a Judith sweater and finally started on one of the sleeves.

Hope you're well and enjoying KCW!

Cookies!

Infamous Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies

While looking for a dessert to make last week, I stumbled across this great list of cookie recipes from iheartnaptime.  I showed it to my kitchen helpers, Frank and Addie, and they (well particularly Frank) were inspired to make every recipe in the list.  Like I said, Frank is so bored with his broken leg that I think he'd do just about anything, but I loved the idea.  It's similar to my Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge - which I swear I will finish someday.  I'm really close, but how the heck am I supposed to get motivated to make things like Panetone and 100% whole wheat bread?!

Frank took it one step further and made an index card for each recipe that we will draw out of a basket . . .

to decide which recipe to make next then use to record our thoughts about the cookie.

We've made two of the chocolate chip cookie recipes so far.  The card above is for the first one we made - this one.  Maggie's right, I probably did cook them a bit too long.  Otherwise, they were really, really good.  

We were all skeptical about the bittersweet chocolate at first - being more fans of milk chocolate - but it was perfect.  I even think I like the recommended salted tops (which we only did on a few - to try).  This will definitely be my new go to chocolate chip cookie recipe (like I actually had one before).

The second recipe, this one, was really good, too, but just couldn't hold a candle to the first one.  We haven't written up the card yet, but the overall consensus was that it was more cake-y which apparently is not a trait our family likes in a cookie.

Worlds Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nevertheless, we managed to eat them all.

We've already drawn the next recipe from the basket, and it looks very promising; s'mores cookies.

Care to join us on our cookie adventure?

Dinner

You would think that after being a wife and mother for over 18 years, I would have had the whole dinner thing figured out by now, but it's never really been my forte - to say the least.

It's not that I really mind cooking, but I always have other priorities like knitting, sewing, carting the kids around, relaxing, etc.

That and I'm not good at magically creating meals out of nothing without a recipe.

So another big duuh moment - you um need to plan for making dinner.  At least I do.

Most of you are probably thinking I'm pretty lucky to choose whether or not to make dinner and are thinking you've had to do that for your family for years.  I am lucky.  And guilty.  I won't spill all my secrets, but it's possible there are some cereal nights, lots of mac and cheese, a few nights where I yell down "you're on your own for dinner", and maybe, just maybe, a few trips through the Mickey D's drive through on the way home from dance class.  And I have a really great husband who cooks a lot and is a way better cook than I.

I decided to start small and agreed to start making dinner Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.  I've managed two weeks in a row!  I'm not going to say it's a habit because I know myself, and I know the next project that I feel I absolutely must work on will quickly deter me from this dinner making thing.

But for the record, I want to document what I've made and what we thought of it.

Last Sunday (okay I didn't cook last Sunday - we were just getting back from Worlds in Boston)

Last Monday:  Pork tacos and corn salad.  I thought the pork was yummy, and the kids ate it but didn't love it.  My husband and I really liked the corn salad.  The girls just ate the corn and tomatoes.  The boys just picked out the corn.  Oh yeah, and I had to whip up a batch of my very favorite salsa.

Last Tuesday:  Pretzel Chicken and Strawberry Arugula salad.  The kids liked the chicken the best of anything we've had so far.  Frank's been helping a lot.  With a broken leg, I think he's so bored, he'll do anything.

The kids didn't say as much, but I think they thought the salad was a waste of strawberries.  I thought it was pretty.

I used goat cheese instead of blue cheese and enjoyed a big helping of the salad at work the next day (although, since I'd already dressed it, it was a big soggy).

Last Wednesday:  I was on a role, and we had a lot of leftovers, so I made dinner again even though I hadn't commited to Wednesdays.  We made nachos with the leftover pork . . .  

and ate the rest of the chicken.

I think we skipped a vegetable.  Hey, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Saturday was a bonus night too.  Because I really know how to party on Friday nights, I made this pizza dough with some fancy flour I bought at Formaggio Kitchen.  It has to "ferment" over night, so we ate it on Saturday.  I made this sauce that I've been wanting to try for a while.

 I really liked it.  I tried it again last night, but it got kind of funky - maybe frozen? - in the fridge.  My favorite pizza toppings are carmelized (aka burnt to a crisp) onions

and goat cheese.  My husband who's on a sometimes vegan/mostly vegetarian kick just had cheese and regular onion,

and the kids had bacon.  

Oh yeah and we had homemade ice cream.  

Addie and Frank helped me make it.  Frank is helpful.  Addie is the kind of help you can do without.  I added four crushed up Skor bars (my supermarked didn't have Heath bars - what's up with that?).  It might have been three by the time Frank and Addie and I sampled some.  Anyway the ice cream was awesome!  We had soft serve right out of the ice cream maker for a snack then hard serve for dessert.

This Sunday:  This slow cooked barbecue pork with these homemade buns and homemade coleslaw.  I made the buns really small - slider size - I divided the dough into 24 pieces.  

My husband claimed to like the buns (most wise husbands would always say they like their wives' buns - right?), but really none of it was a big hit.  I have lots of leftover pork in the freezer.  It doesn't help that my 17-year-old-will-eat-anything-except-tomatoes-and-frosting is out of town on a class trip.  Oh wait, I almost forgot about the crash hot potatoes.  

Those were definitely the highlight of the meal.  I've made them before and highly recommend them.  I found some expensive little potatoes at my supermarket that were perfect for this.  I can't wait until Farmer's Market season begins again!

This Monday:  Sloppy Joes on the leftover homemade buns which I had saved on purpose thanks to my planning.  Again, if only my 17 year old had been here.  Frank heroically ate two.  I pulled a classic parenting move (probably oh so wrong) and made Addie sit at the table until she tried one bite.  I remember sitting at my kitchen table as a young girl for what seemed like hours.  I'm pretty sure it was fishsticks, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't going to give in.  I don't remember the outcome, but I don't think I ate them.  Katie 1, Mom 0.  If only we'd had a dog.  For a vegetable (back in this century - not in young Katie's 70's), we had this cauliflower recipe.  Another one for me to enjoy for lunch snack the next day.

Last night:  Baked Potato bar.  Frank's idea even though Maggie is the one who loves baked potatoes.  Because I don't even know how to bake a potato, I used this recipe which was really good.  We had pear sorbet for dessert which was really yummy but kind of just tasted like frozen applesauce.  

I couldn't find pear brandy, so I used Applejack.  Now I have a lot of that and am going to have to find some cocktails to make.

So I'm off the hook for a few days and enjoying some time puttering around in my newest craft room trying to pick out a shirt to make for the Spring Top Sew Along.

Thanks for following me on my ever-changing obsessions.  If you have any great dinner ideas, please, please, please share!

Catching Up

Ugh.  It's been ages since I last blogged.  I hate when I do that!  I could just dive right in and start blogging about whatever I'm up to now and pretend the last two months didn't happen, but I'd rather try to catch you all up.  And I'd like to have it "on record" for when I forget and want to go back and read it all later.

So here's what we've been up to, since I last posted (almost exactly two months ago!) . . .

My husband and I had a lovely night away in Portsmouth, NH.  We had a nice, late dinner at Mombo . . .

and breakfast the next morning at The Friendly Toast.  Both great, but if I had to choose one, it would be The Toast with their funky atmosphere . . .

and homemade, thick Anadama toast with my asparagus and goat cheese scrambled eggs.

Frank broke his leg skiing.  It was his second time skiing, and he was with my 17 year old son.  We weren't even there.  We were an hour away at home, so they had to deal with the whole thing by themselves.  Boy did I ever feel guilty.  

We met them at the hospital as quickly as we could, and Frank is feeling much better.  He has a boot now and healing well.  I feel like I'm doing okay with this being the first broken bone in 47 collective years of parenting.

My mom, sister, and I have had several (okay 2) shopping excursions in Kittery and dined both times at the When Pigs Fly restaurant.  I love that place.

My mom and I found matching coats . . .

How cool are we?  For the record, we were most definitely NOT shopping at that store in the background.

Oh yeah, and I got a new job.  I'm still working at the same company, but I'm in a totally different role and department.  I'm loving it so far and am just a bit worried it's too good to be true.  I'm able to be a bit creative in my job as a developer (instead of managing developers) which I didn't realize I'd missed until I started doing it again.  I liken it to living in Maine - you have to go away and come back to realize how much you love it (although I really do question that every February and March).  I felt a little bit like I was going backwards in my career and giving up on being a manger (which I really think I was not bad at), but I now realize how silly that was.  I'm a thousand times less stressed out and can actually leave work at work and have room in my head to think about other things rather than obsess and worry about work.

My older daughter had lots of Irish Step Dancing events in March.  'Tis the season.  Then just last week, I took her to the World Irish Dance Championships in Boston.  

I thought it was going to be crazy - like regionals times ten - but it was actually really well organized.  Even though we spent the better part of 3 1/2 days there, it didn't seem so bad.  We had two days off in the middle, so we went shopping with my mom (that's what the girls in my family do) one of the days and the other day, I went on a bit of a foodie excursion in Cambridge/Boston visiting the famous Flour and picked up some gorgeous bread . . .

and Formaggio Kitchen and bought some fancy flour to make my own bread (or pizza dough as it turns out), and couldn't pass up these gorgeous macarons . . .

In the midst of it all, we decided to do a major rearranging of the house, so everything is a total mess, but yesterday, I finally got my craft room back in order.  I feel like a new person!  We still have a long way to go.  Only one of the kids currently has a room that's not complete chaos.

I really haven't been all that inspired creatively, but since I last posted, I did make my sister one of Noodlehead's Open-Wide Pouches for her birthday.  Of course, I had to make one for myself, too while I was at it, or as I told myself, to learn from any mistakes.

I didn't even take time to take a proper photo.  I was going to try to edit one, but why not just let you see my craft room in it's true state?!

I've been knitting a bit.  I made my sister a Dogwood hat for her birthday and Frank an Insulate hat.  (He's a Dr. Who fan.  I like how the pattern is pretty subtle.)  I'm working on a Judith sweater for myself.  

I just finished the body, now on to the sleeves.

I've been kind of in to cooking lately, but more on that another day.

My husband and I started the Couch to 5K program and are actually in our 6th week.  I'm quite proud of us considering I've started this about a dozen other times without making it past week 1.

I ordered some seeds.  I'm hoping to garden again this year.  Last year, I just knew I wouldn't have time, and the year before, I was in Australia during four of the big gardening weeks.  I've ordered from Seed Savers Exchange in the past but decided to go with more local Fedco this year.  I'm anxiously awaiting for them to arrive in the mail now, so I can start the tomatoes inside.

I'm sure I'm missing some things, but I think that mostly covers it.

I feel like I can take a breath now and think about sewing.  I'm hoping to make a top for Spring Top Sew along, and I definitely want to make some things for Kids Clothing Week (except I think I might be out of town that week.  Ugh.  Maybe I can bring my sewing machine.)

Hope you're all well.  Thanks for still reading after all this time.

Back to School

Everyone was pretty grumpy last night anticipating going back to school today.  I just woke up my oldest who has to leave for school first.  I have one more glorious day off, but everyone else has to face reality today.

I just spent the last hour lazing around in bed reviewing my blog posts and photos from last year on my iPad.  It turns out that we had basically the same day on 1/1/12 as we did yesterday with just a few slight variations.  I hadn't remembered until I read last year's blog post.  I guess we really are creatures of habit.

This year, I made monkey bread (vs. last year's popovers).  

(Recipe at the end of the post.)

No fresh squeezed o.j.  We haven't started receiving our Christmas oranges yet.  I muddled through with a mimosa (or two) with store-bought grapefruit juice.

After that, we left the kids at home (turns out at least 3/4 of them went back to sleep) to search for our 2013 datebook.  This year, like last year, we bought a family one, but I also bought a little Moleskine-sized one for my purse.  I live and breathe by my Outlook calendar, but I'm thinking that this year I might like to have something more personal and portable and tangible.

Then we went to the movies to see "Lincoln" (vs. last year's "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".  Can't believe that was a whole year ago!) 

Then we came home and sat by our Christmas tree and spent the next several hours doing some hard core planning for 2013.  Neither of us are really planners by nature, but I have to say it feels really good once it's done.  We enjoyed doing our mini trips so much last year that we planned a bunch more for this year.  We have weekends planned (and hotels booked!) for January, February, March, May, June, and October.  I have the school vacations, camp dates, feis dates, high school open house dates all written down in my new calendar.  Of course, there's still all the every day stuff, but it feels good to have the big things blocked off.  

We even have a January date night planned.  Woo hoo.

Best of luck to you as you get back into your post holiday routine this week.

Here's my easy monkey bread recipe:

Ingredients:

3 tubes refrigerator biscuits

2 t cinnamon

1 1/2 cup sugar (approx)

1 stick butter

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a bundt pan or 9 x 13 baking dish.  In a small bowl, mix 1 t cinnamon with 1/2 C sugar.  Cut each biscuit into four equal parts.  Roll those into balls and roll them in the cinnamon sugar.  Put all the balls into the baking dish.

Put any remaining cinnamon sugar into a 1C measuring cup.  Add the remaining 1 t of cinnamon and enough sugar to fill the cup.  Melt the stick of butter, stir in the cinnamon sugar mixture.  Spread that over the dough balls.

Bake for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Don't you just love the opportunity for a fresh start?  I read a bummer of an article today that basically said you just can't make drastic changes all at once, that baby steps are the key.  That may very well be true, but I love the hope and inspiration embedded in New Year's Resolutions along with a fresh start and a return to a routine after the craziness of the holidays.  My husband and I have a date planned for tomorrow to make plans and resolutions for 2013, but tonight we are cleaning . . . 

See?  Clean bedroom.

Well my side anyway.  My husband is off getting a haircut.  A different kind of clean I guess.

And clean craft room . . . 

which I had already cleaned on Thursday, so it only took two rounds of "Angel from Montgomery" to straighten

which was in my head from this great day-after-Christmas concert given by my brother, my laid-back uncle who has me convinced that every 3rd out of 4 child is mellow (do you concur?), and my mom's boyfriend

and two more songs to sweep

holy run on sentence (but it's my blog - I'll mess up the grammer if I like).

Here's a shot of 3 generations singing along.  

Could have been 4 if I'd dragged Maggie and Addie into the photo.

And aside from cleaning tonight, we'll be gorging ourselves on appetizers.  I have a miserable cold, so I stayed in bed until 9:00.  I normally wake up at 4 or 5, so it was weird.  I went to bed immediately after we got home from NJ yesterday around 5 PM.  I finally got myself going to the supermarket around 10:30 and picked up a boatload of ingredients.

I've already prepped everything, but we haven't started eating yet.  I would be such a super duper housewife (and maybe mother) if I didn't have to work!  I made this Texas Cranberry Chutney which I have already sampled.  Way too sweet and not spicy/savory enough for me, but then again my tastebuds are probably way off due to this cold.

I have this shrimp marinating and already made the chipotole mayo to go with it.  I have these meatballs hanging out in the crockpot and this white bean dip ready to go in the oven.  Then of course staples like Snap Pea Crisps, pretzels and cream cheese, and grapes.  Oh and I'm dying to make these bacon wrapped dates, and I got all the ingredients but forgot that I didn't have any toothpicks.  My husband is picking those up on his way back from the haircut along with Shirley Temple ingredients for the kids.  I have Prosecco lined up for us grownups.

Tomorrow morning, I"m planning to make monkey bread and mimosas.  I'll let you know how everything comes out.

Do you have any great New Year's Eve traditions?  Every year, I google it and try to add some new fun things like eating a grape for each month of the year at midnight.  This year I read about wearing red undies for good luck (or love and passion).  I almost used that as a good excuse for a shopping spree at Victoria's Secret, but with Christmas spending and birthday coming up (17 - Holy Sh@&%!), I decided to behave.  

Apparently there's some kind of marzipan pig in Germany.  I thought about trying to do make-your-own-pigs but completely forgot about that one while I was in the baking aisle at the supermarket.

Traditions or no, I hope you have a lovely evening and day tomorrow.  Happy New Year!  Thanks so much for reading my blog.  It's such great therapy for me!

Happy Friday!

And Happy Birthday to my brother, Simon.  (Simon, if you're reading this, I still want that sourdough recipe!)

(Here he is on our short sailing adventure last summer.)

And Pearl Harbor Day, too.  My daughter was writing a paper about it last night.  That sparked a heated conversation about war and the nuclear bomb between my husband and oldest son.  Poor Maggie kept trying to get a word in edgewise to ask for help on her paper.

On a different topic, I finally finished a sewing project yesterday.  I'm so happy to be "back on the wagon".  I decided to ditch the challenging overalls for now and go with a nice, straightforward Oliver & S pattern.  I hope to get some photos tomorrow during the (sparse) daylight hours.

Just so I have some crafty thing to show on this blog which I don't think I've done in months, here's a sweater I finished back in September before I fell off the crafting bandwagon.

I had some pretty lightweight yarn in my stash - sport weight probably - which was a bit too light for the pattern, so I decided to make the size 7/8.  By all my calculations, I should have had plenty of yarn, but I stopped working on the sweater altogether when it looked like I wouldn't have enough.  I finally decided to at least knit until I had no more yarn then maybe add a contrasting color or something.  Luckily, it turned out to be just enough.  I think I literally had like 8 inches of yarn left.

I really liked the pattern and would definitely make it again except that Addie tells me she hates sweaters (which I kind of already knew).

Here she is choking even with the top button unbuttoned.

Quite the drama queen don't you think?

This is definitely not the thumbs up it appears to be.

Rather she is practicing her counting.

Here's a close up.  I think the sizing came out okay with using the lighter weight yarn and making a bigger size.

See what I'm up against?

I think it will look nice over her newest item of clothing.  I'll see if I can bribe convince her to wear it again tomorrow.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Monday

Or not so much.  How is it that the weekend goes by so fast?!  

I managed to catch a cold over the weekend.  I haven't had a cold in years to the point that I thought I could just refuse to catch a cold, and that would work.  Not so much to that either.  I might go to work for the one meeting I really have to go to then come home and crawl back into bed.

It was a great weekend in spite of the cold.  Two really good friends and I had dinner at The Green Elephant.  Such good food and such good company.  I fear that I drank too much wine and monopolized the conversation.

Then it snowed on Saturday.  I love it when it snows up until New Year's Day or so, but once Christmas is well past, I've had enough.  I managed to get a walk in in the snow, and in the afternoon we got our tree.  Oh yeah, and before that, Myrtle got a new coat.

For our tree, we went to the same place in Cape Elizabeth where we went last year, The Old Farm Christmas Place.

Isn't it picturesque?

Maggie, Frank, and Dad raced around trying to steal eachother's hats and hang them high up in the trees.  (Dad was the instigator, I think.)

Joe did the hard work of keeping track of Addie.

Who had a meltdown because I overrode her choice of tree.  (How could I have now that I look at that photo?!)  It's not always a democracy around here.

Joe cut down the tree we finally selected

(I'm totally getting the teenaged hairy eyeball here, can you tell?)

and then tried to charm Addie out of her fit

while Maggie and Frank carried the tree.

Hot chocolate/cider warmed everyone up and finally got Addie out of her bad mood.

We had walked/ran up the hill - just to warm up,

(Joe might have been just a bit put out to be missing college football on TV.)

but we took the tractor back down.  Frank took this rare photo of me.  Man, I have a lot of wrinkles.

As we drove away, I saw another Mom helping her husband tie the tree to the roof of the car.  It made me realize how great it is to have older, capable children.  Now I can just wait around and delegate.

Thanks to all of my husband's prep work the weekend before, we were able to decorate the tree the same day.

Frank and Dad were on lights.

Addie did the star as she has for the last few years.  She's getting to be a pro.

I passed out ornaments while all the kids hung them on the tree.

And then some of us just sat around and did nothing.

Sunday, we finally went to mass.  It's been a while, but I like to at least go during Advent, so I don't feel quite so guilty about going on Christmas.  We followed that up with our favorite local breakfast place, Bayou Kitchen.

For some reason, the girls decided to share a room again.  My husband worked on the move while Maggie and I shopped for matching comforters which was the condition she had given.  Maggie can be quite a good cleaner when she puts her mind to it.

I did manage to get some sewing in this weekend, but it wasn't a very successful foray back into it.  I was trying to make a pair of lined overalls.  When I finally got to the giving-birth-type turning right-side-out part of the whole thing, I realized I'd created some kind of mobius-type impossibility.  I couldn't bear to face the stitch ripping right then especially because I'm not quite sure how to fix it, so I started knitting.  That wasn't too successful either.  I'm trying to find a good, simple hat pattern for a pretty skein of Malabrigo Worsted that's been in my stash for a while.  Any suggestions?

Happy Thanksgiving!

A little late, I know.  I can't believe almost two months have gone by since my last blog post.  Sheesh.  If you're still reading - thanks for sticking with me.  I've been off of work since last Thursday.  There's nothing like a little time off to clear my head and motivate me again.  As I'm sure I complained about in my last post, work has been all-consuming.  There's something about that that just completely saps my creativity.  Time off always helps me get some perspective.  As much as I'm dreading going back to work tomorrow, I'm determined to find a way to make time to do the things I love.

I didn't manage to take advantage of this time off to actually make anything, but it's been a crazy then relaxing 10 days.  Last Thursday, my older daughter and I headed to Providence, RI, so she could participate in the annual regional Irish Dance competition (Oireachtas).  I think this is our 5th year.  It's always kind of fun for just the two of us to stay in a hotel, get room service, and shop, but the competition days can be pretty crazy.  They're always twice as long as I expect.  There are thousands of people, and of course, my daughter is always pretty nervous.  She did really well though, and overall, we had a good time.  Here she is in her new-to-us, very expensive dress:

I got to exercise my craft skills just a bit by gluing on 60 Swarovski crystals.  I also got to sew gold trim on 8 of their dresses for another team dance.  That's really the only sewing I've done since my last blog post in September.  Ouch.

After the awards ceremony on Sunday, we got back late on Sunday night then the other 3 kids and I packed up to head up to Rangeley.  Maggie and Dad joined us later that evening.  We had a lovely, relaxing time there.  We played games, went to the pool and hottub, walked, checked out the new bowling alley, played in the park for a bit, and had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.

Since it was just the 6 of us and we had the entire week free, we decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday.  We knew we'd be leaving Rangeley on Friday and didn't fancy the idea of bringing a partial turkey carcass back home with us.  But aren't the leftovers the best part of Thanksgiving?!  So on the real Thanksgiving, we relaxed and hiked and ate turkey sandwiches.  It was great!  Here are some photos of our hike near Small's Falls . . .

Joe is always good at listening to Addie's woes of which there are always many.

This crew left us in their dust.

Addie finally got a chance to walk Myrtle.  She was in Heaven.  Maggie was stressed.

On Friday, the 4 kids and I headed to my dad's new farm (have I even blogged about that yet?).  There's really not much near Rangeley, and there's really not much near my dad's farm, but the Garnet Hill Factory Store in Franconia, NH (which is probably not normally really on the way to anything) just happened to be located about halfway between the two - right on our way.  AND they just happened to be having a sale with 50% off everything.  How convenient is that?!  My kids waited very patiently while I shopped (for about 15 minutes) and stood in line (for about 45 minutes).

We had a nice relaxing afternoon/evening on the farm checking out my dad's progress, and . . .

running around after a long car ride

climbing trees

taking tractor rides

laughing with a funny uncle

visiting with cousins,

and trying out my dad's new pool table.  

Some of us looked more professional than others

We continued to play pool into the next day, walked the farm property with all of it's glorious stone walls, maple trees, and potential.  The boys went off into the woods a bit later to shoot at tin cans.

All the while we smelled the delicious turkey cooking.

We had a lovely second Thanksgiving dinner that evening and speculated about all the things that would be farm-grown for the next Thanksgiving.  My sister and her family were there along with my brother.  A few other friends joined us who are always fun to visit with.  One of them is running this cool project - check it out.

My husband skipped the farm to stay home and get the house ship-shape and ready for Christmas decorating.  He actually put all the decorations out except for the tree.  It was great to come home to a festive house.  Now we're all ready to put the tree up next weekend.

I'm hoping some Christmas crafting inspiration hits.  What are you working on for gifts or otherwise?

 

Hope Valley Winner

I know I said I would choose a winner on Friday, so I apologize for being a day late.  It's been a crazy week at work - a 14-plus-hour-a-day, work-on-the-weekend, work-sleep-repeat kind of week.  There were no more comments last night or today, so your chances are still the same.  In fact, there were only 14 commenters, so you had a pretty good chance.

I LOVED all your comments about what you're going to do with the kids clothes you made.  Everyone had different decisions, but everyone seemed to feel pretty strongly about what they were going to do.  It was very interesting.  I'm leaning a bit toward the on-line yard sale option - but still contemplating.

Anyway, you probably really want to know the winner.  It's commenter #4, rachelmp from Four Wise Monkeys who said, "Your Addie always makes me laugh! Love the jacket too and must have another look at the Figgy patterns - just what I need. My daughters clothes are all being kept for grandkids too as I spent so much of my limited time sewing them."  Rachel, I'll send you an e-mail shortly to get your mailing info.

Here's the random thingy to proove it.

I thought it would be fun to create a mosaic of all the things I made when I went through the stash I talked about in my last post.  Here it is:

1. Figgy's Rue Jacket, 2.  Sailor Outfit, 3. Figgy's Ayashe, 4. Japanese Shirt with Lisette Lawn, 5. Shirt Dress, 6. Gingham Shirt, 7. Lawn Blouse and Shot Cotton Skirt, 8. Double Gauze Jumper with Embroidery, 9.  Dress with AMH Voile, 10.  Echino Shirt, 11. Lightweight Denim Shorts, 12. Shot Cotton Shirt, 13. Cloth Napkins, 14. Clever Charlotte Hoodie - Purple Linen with Lizzy House Lining, 15. Japanese Pattern Skirt, 16. Plaid Pants - HH2 Pattern O, 17.  Japanese Pattern Sleeveless Top, 18.  My Fabric Challenge

I'm going to try to be a bit more reasonable this time.  Here is my next stack of fabric to use up: