Looks like we made it

Another good Christmas in the bag.  Or box, or tub or whatever we're storing Christmas in between events.  Christmas Eve, we planned a nice, easy dinner that I messed up by not having all the ingredients.  Rob was still putting out Christmas decorations on Christmas Day.  Sydney came and we all had a nice visit and lunch.  Neither of us wanted dinner that night.  The day after Christmas, Rob started taking down decorations and we spent the rest of the day visiting friends, lunch with one couple, cocktails with another and a serious nap between.  Saturday found Rob still taking down decorations and me cleaning the kitchen, putting away dishes...and resting.  Yesterday, I did a lot of cooking for this week and we took down the swag in the living room.  Today, we're both looking forward to lounging in our desk chairs at work.  

I almost named this post 'I knew I could, I knew I could...'  And, I did.  Three layers, white frosting...well, whiter than the white chocolate I used for the flower.  

I actually made two cakes on Tuesday.  I had a recipe picked out and I made it and was putting it in the pans and remembered I hadn't added the food coloring.  And, because it was a chiffon cake, I'd lost my opportunity, if there really ever was one.  How was I going to fold that cake batter enough to get a consistent color without breaking down the beaten egg whites that were the leavening?  So, I baked those two layers and soon as the pans were cool, I started over with another recipe. 

The cake is really something I do for me.  It's the challenge.  Getting better every year.  I don't want to spend a lot of time learning to frost pretty cakes, mostly because we wouldn't eat them.  A big chunk of this cake is going to be tossed because it got really dry before we could eat it all.  I need a plastic cake form to just decorate and enjoy and scrape off and start again.  

Early mornings (and any other time I could sneak off), I worked on this little quilt.  It's all together now.  I think I needed to pour some pre-holiday stress into this quilt as I was piecing it.  I got all worked up over it a couple of times because pieces weren't going together right.  And, I was re-orienting to my Singer 301, which will do what I ask it to every time, but it takes a little practice to figure out what I want to ask it to do.  Anyway, I struggled and picked out seams and picked out seams and did I mention that I picked out seams until I got it all together.  And, I got most of the points.  

The camera angle on that picture isn't doing me any favors.  It's not that wonky.  I swear, it came out square.  And, the few places where there's a little extra fabric will probably quilt out.  Probably.

Everybody have a great New Year's week!  Find a blessing and hold it close.  And, pray that the next year is somehow better than the last.  And, for the strength to withstand whatever comes.  

Lane

Christmas week and all through the house

Just think, in a week it will all be over.  In a week, the presents will be unwrapped, praised, complained about, boxes will have been played with more than toys, awkward holiday dinners will be over and the dishes will have been washed.  And, we'll likely be eating something other than ham...but I don't know, it's a pretty big ham.  Merry Cheesemas everybody!

There are only a few decorations left to get pictures of.  There are trees everywhere.  These two sit next to my desk.  My Mom's ceramic tree was all white, so when I saw the little one, it reminded me of her.  

And, there's one in the bathroom...because why not.  Sydney always put up a pink tree in this bathroom, but I found this white one at goodwill for $2 including 12 little ornaments, then spent another $12 on additional decorations.  Twelve little balls was not enough.  Christmas is about excess!  And, I excessed it up.  I don't think it's too cheesy.

I don't think I gave quite enough attention to this little tree.  This is the tree with the oldest ornaments on it.  These are from my Grandparents and from my parent's first Christmas.  Rob found a cute way to display them that doesn't draw attention to their condition, but lets me enjoy a nice display.  

And, we can't forget the reason for the season.  I've seen a lot of these, but this one used almost the exact same molds that my Grandmother used for the one she made my Mom, except in that one, the baby Jesus can be removed from the manger and our angels are different.  I've had mine for 30+ years and my Mom's would likely be 65 years old.  And, these are still my favorite.  

I took the CRV to the shop last week for regular maintenance and a couple of minor recalls.  When the man asked how many miles and I said 3100, he was so skeptical that I started the car to check...3109.  And, caught him looking over my shoulder to make sure the old man hadn't forgotten how numbers work.  We drive.  I swear we do.  But, I don't commute, so we mostly drive on weekends.  Maintenance was smooth.  They gave me a ride home and I took a Waymo back, just for the lark.  If you're not familiar, Waymo is driverless.  Rob said he had anxiety when I sent him this picture.  Couple times when we were approaching a hill, it slowed to a crawl in heavy traffic.  Scared the be-cheesus out of me.  It took a route through my neighborhood on streets I'd never driven on and I said "you're lost aren't you?"  Thankfully, it didn't answer.  But, suddenly, we were at a red-light.  It had driven there rather than make an unprotected left turn onto a busy street, so my overall rating is that it's overly conservative, but that's not really a bad thing, right?  The Uber driver that brought me home crossed 4 lanes or traffic at 70 mph because she'd nearly missed her exit, and that made me feel a lot less safe.

I made my sugar cookies yesterday.  Well, actually, I made them last weekend and just got around to baking them yesterday.  No frosting this year.  I told Rob it was too much.  I think it cheesed him off a little, but he was a good sport about it.  I keep talking up this year's cake to take his mind off it.  Orange flavored.  One red layer and one green layer, each cut in half horizontally and alternated red/green/red/green with orange filling and a buttercream frosting as close to white as I can get.  Then, I'm going to paint bay leaves with white chocolate and peel off the leaf, leaving me with a white chocolate "petal" for a poinsettia that I'll place on top with some silver balls in the center.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

We'll see.  

Cheese'nRice, surely I can follow a simple set of instructions.  

I made homemade chicken dogfood to try to give Bella something good to eat and she turned her nose up at it.  Dottie says she'll be glad to help me out and not let it go to waste.  It had a lot of dog friendly veggies and ground chicken and I cooked it in the crockpot, then ran it though the food grinder that attaches to my Kitchenaid.  I even tasted it and all it needed was a little salt and pepper and cheese and I could have fed it to Rob.  

It's clearly going to be a very cheesy Christmas around here.  If you're not having fun this week, try to be cheesy.  Remember  that by next Monday, it will all be over and in a couple weeks, it will all be back in the box.  And, in a few months, it will be time to do it all again...oops, lost my positive spin there didn't I.  

Merry Cheesemas Everybody!!  And, stick it to the man...you know which one.  

10 days and counting

 I think Rob is still putting up decorations.  Where does he find the time?  I'm mostly focused on cleaning and keeping us fed.  I spent both weekend mornings in the yard, prepping for freezing temps and yesterday afternoon in the kitchen.  I'm ready for a workday so I can just sit down.  

Last Sunday, we were in the grocery and I saw these amaryllis on sale for $7.50.  I joked that they were probably prepped for Christmas bloom but were going to bloom late, so they were on sale.  The poor plant was so dry the spikes looked dusty.  Brought it home and gave it some water and a week later, we have blooms.  So, maybe they were on sale because they're going to bloom before Christmas.  Doesn't matter.  They're beautiful!  Rob has challenged me to keep the bulb and try to get it to do this again next year.  The flowers are about 7" across and there's a second spike coming up.  .

We have a fireplace, but it's rarely cold enough to use it.  And, if it gets cold enough, it's quick enough to move the quilt and a few things and light a fire.  

But Rob goes all out on the mantle.  We try to buy a Santa every year to add to the collection, tho they seem to get smaller and smaller out of necessity.

Rob sets up two villages every year.  There's the Victorian village and Retroville, which was a limited edition collectable village from JoAnn's many years ago.  He's short one piece and it's so hard to find that we haven't been able to get it for him.  

And, there are Christmas quilts.  This one was a paper pieced block of the month that I found online many years ago.  Thanks to whoever posted it!  I altered the Christmas ornament block to have 6 ornaments instead of 5 so that I could use the colors of the rainbow flag there.  

And, this one.  This is one of the first quilts I made while still working with my mentor.  She had purchased this as a kit and let me use the patterns to create my own version.  

And, this one, from when I was learning to machine quilt.  Look at how much of the quilt's pattern is from the quilting.  So, much quilting.

We went Christmas shopping on Saturday.  We talked about going to large retailers, but decided to go to the small boutique "booth" shops where vendors can rent a booth and you never know what you're going to find.  One of the things I found for myself was a copper bowl.  It was heavy and large and black on the inside.  I'm pretty sure the previous owner used it as wall decor and only polished the outside, which wasn't in great shape either.  But, I know what to do with copper and in just a few minutes yesterday, I'd turned it into this!  It will be so much nicer to unwrap on Christmas morning now that it's all shiny.  It's about 50% larger than the copper bowl I already have and I pulled out my ginormous whisk and gave it a test run and I can't wait to whip egg whites in it.  I barely have to move my wrist at all to get the full effect.  Too bad it will be wrapped in a box when I make my Christmas cake next week.

One more work week to go and then I'm taking a bunch of time off.  I deserve it.  Everybody have a great week.  If you like decorating, do it all over.  And, if you don't, then let your open loving heart be your Christmas decoration for all to see.  

Lane

Decorating and then some

We really need to work out this greenhouse/holiday thing better.  Right now, we're doing all the things we do to get ready for Christmas.  But, we're also putting the garden to bed, setting up greenhouses and moving tender plants in anticipation of a freeze in the next week or so.  Yes, I realize some of you are reading this in front of a fire on a cozy, white winter's day...but in TX, the grass still needs mowing.  

I spent both weekend mornings in the yard, getting plants ready to go in the greenhouse.  I've learned this lesson.  I can't just drag them in and expect everything to be fine.  I have to clean them up, take out dead leaves and branches and take the fall leaves out of the pots.  If I don't, I get mold in the greenhouses that can take years to recover from.  

We've been doing our usual "it looks like Santa and his reindeer exploded in here" level decorating. 

This is the Li Bien tree.  The ornaments are theoretically hand painted from the inside.  The older ones probably are.  Anyway, we'd go shopping at Pier 1 close to Christmas when they were on sale, sometimes buying 5-6 a year for us, and we gave them as gifts.  When Pier 1 closed, World Market started to carry them, but they're not the same and they're a lot more expensive and they don't go on sale as far as we can tell, so the collecting is probably done.  They make a nice tree, tho.  But, we forgot to change the quilt behind them to the Christmas quilt.  Oops!  On top of the china cabinet, there's a small wire tree hung with vintage ornaments from my parent's first holiday together and from my Grandparents.  

Rob puts these spring curtain rods in the windows and hangs vintage "Shiny Bright" brand ornaments from them.  But, first, he had to clean all the windows.  And, I got him to clean the kitchen window too, while he was at it.  Thanks, dear!!!

This is the ceramic Christmas tree Rob's Mom made.  He had strong memories of this, so before he got this one from her, we'd bought another at a garage sale (where the lady didn't know the value, so Rob paid her double what she was asking...talk about surprised!)

Every year, Rob creates a new display...that's how we've gotten here.  I bring you this year's display (drumroll).  He found these glass shelves when he was cleaning the garage and built the display around them.  When he was building it, I asked why it needed to be temporary.  I can certainly think of things I could display here, so it became a permanent installation.  The little ceramic tree in the bottom right is the one from the garage sale.  It needs a brighter light.  

This is the swag that hangs across the living room ceiling.  Every year, I say I'm not going to put it up and every year, I do.  

To really appreciate it, you have to look close at the variety of red ornaments.  Rob and I have been collecting them for 25 years.  

There's candy and cardinals, Santas and apples,  reindeer and snowmen and every other kind of red ornament we could find.  Before I got the ornament collection from my Mom, we did red trees with white lights and a white pearl garland.  That was lovely too.  

Okay, couple pictures from the garden and I'll let you go.  I stopped in the middle of setting up the greenhouse to build this trellis for the blackberries.  Rob asked if I had time to stop and build a trellis and I explained this was part of putting plants in the greenhouse, but I think he was still skeptical.  Anyway, it took a nondescript plant and made it look really nice.  I hope it still looks this good when it comes out in spring.  

And, this is the Japanese maple, doing exactly what I always hoped it would.  Last year, I put it in the greenhouse too early, while the leaves were still green, and they just browned and dried and clung to the branches.  That usually means a tree is dead.  When I pulled it out in spring, I pulled the dead leaves and set it to the side to see what happened and it leafed out, so I was very happy.  This year, I've left it out and the leaves have turned purple/red.  Loving it!

Everybody have a great week!  My boss is in town tomorrow, so I'll be in the office and will have an after work dinner.  Yay.  Not sure who all will be there, but it should be an interesting day.  

Lane

Back to work

It's back to work for me today after 6 days off.  I am not looking forward to it.  But, it will be easier than what we've been doing for the last three days.  Most of the Christmas decorations are up.  I'm pretty sure Rob has a couple other things planned and there are a couple things he's still tweaking into perfection, but the big things like the trees and the swag are done.  It's not that they take so much time, but my shoulders ached when it was done from reaching up and down.  

This is Rob's village tree.  He built this A-frame shelving unit out of old fence wood, so it looks very aged.  He has stories about what the people are doing. 

Last night, everyone was gathering at the pub for shenanigans.  

I was decorating the tree yesterday.  I unpacked all the ornaments in the collection.  There are more than it looks like.

This is where I almost gave up.  

This is where I took two Aleve.

But, I got them all on the tree.  The tree doesn't have the 'sparkle' it usually does.  There's a box of balls missing.  I asked Rob about it yesterday and he decided the tree had enough on it.  Who was I to argue?  I definitely went and sat down instead.  

It's fine, but it's as lackluster as my Thanksgiving dinner was.  It was just the three of us.  I pared down the menu some this year, including all the favorites, but not the extras that no one but me likes.  Sydney had trouble with her corn casserole, but it came out good.  My cornbread dressing had too much poultry seasoning and I baked it til it was dry as sand.  And, I added sautéed onion and bell pepper to the green bean casserole.  Don't do that.  The sweetness of the peppers made the cream of mushroom soup taste sour.  No one liked it and most of it got thrown away.  Oh, and that butterball turkey was very moist, but it had NO flavor even though I did all the things I normally do to impart flavor, even putting seasoned butter under the skin.  But, we laughed and visited and had fun together and that's what really counts.  

Rob and I were done with the leftovers Friday night and yesterday, I rendered the turkey down and made a small pot of turkey soup for me to have for lunches and enough leftover to make tetrazzini.  

I danced around with a sewing machine on black Friday sale over the weekend.  Ultimately, I decided not to pull that trigger.  I didn't know that you can buy a new machine without a computer.  I don't want a computerized machine, partly for the cost and partly because that stuff wears out faster than the moving parts and when it does, it becomes a large paper weight.  Anyway, I discovered that you can buy a "mechanical" machine without a computer for a fraction of the price.  If it had been something I was actually shopping for and not a black Friday impulse purchase, I probably would have done it.  It was on sale 40% off.  But, maybe I'll start studying sewing machines because as much as I love my Berninas from the 80's, they're not going to last forever.  

I tried working on my Mom's machine the other day and it exceeded my skills, but I found another machine that fits her cabinet.  I think I'm going to like this as my sewing station.  I worked on a little quilt over the weekend.  I struggled with seam allowances and was kind of frustrated until I realized that it wasn't the machine or the seam allowance I had set...it was the pieces I'd cut that were off, so I'm paper piecing some flying geese to get the right size out of them.  This is my Singer 301 machine.  It's lightweight like a featherweight, but a full sized machine.  I'v used it for piecing and it's great at free motion quilting.  

The noose tightens.  I can't think of any other way to describe what we're watching in politics.  There's a knot that tightens the more you struggle with it.  It's like we're watching that process in slow motion.  But, slow is still motion.

Everyone have a great week!  I hope your holidays were all you wanted them to be and that you're looking forward to round 2 in a few weeks. 

Lane