Doing the Happy Dance!

I'm finished. With everything. The Divinity was finished at 11pm last night, I wrapped the last gift shortly after that (I was waiting on a box my husband was bringing home from work, he works 2nd shift.)

What is left behind is a mess! I baked from the time I got up until the time I went to bed last night, but everything is finished, making today a putzing day. I'm planning new quilts and hopefully pulling fabrics and gathering supplies for them. When I'm feeling brave I'll tackle my kitchen in bits until it's clean and shiny and ready for the rest of the holiday food prep.

This was the last cookie to be baked, they are called Toffee Bars. They bake at a low temperature for a long time and are a bit chewy and nutty and have a marvelous flavor.

When these were baking, I made Puppy Chow. I haven't made this for years but knew it would be a fast and easy thing to add to my holiday goodies. Ruthie is often tentative about trying new things, but she tried this and loved it.

Also on the agenda for yesterday was homemade marshmallows. These are marvelous in hot chocolate and I put a couple in my coffee and they melt to a yummy skin on top, a bit coming off with each sip. Yum!

I learned a lesson making Divinity yesterday, my mixer will not hold a double batch! As a result, not all the sugar syrup was able to fit and it's just a little bit gooey...I actually like the texture better having done it wrong, but it did make it much harder to get it nicely off of the waxed paper. Is it really bad of me to feel a bit of glee that this is one recipe my mother-in-law was unable to conquer? My version has chopped soft peppermint in it...It's wonderful!

I thought that today I would be working like crazy to get everything finished, and instead I'm planning new projects and able to relax some before the busy-ness of the next few days. With my exercise finished I'm dressed for the day, I have dishes soaking in the sink and my magazines and paper ready for quilt planning so it's time to run. I hope everyone is ready (or almost anyway!) for Christmas and can squeeze in some relaxation time in the next couple of days.

Happy December 22nd!

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I'm seeing it. I'm really surprised, but I guess I shouldn't be. They say if you want something done to give it to a busy person. Last week, I didn't see any way I could finish everything in time for Christmas, but I'm on the brink of it now.

These cookies are called peppernuts. They are little crunchy spice cookies that are just wonderful. I used them to fill in the holes in the cookie platter (I'll post a pic of one when I have one made up.) I like to leave them sit in my mouth for a minute so they soften up, they are so good! Last night after FINISHING my Christmas shopping, I made these Amaretto Apricot Chews. They are an oatmeal based cookie with chopped dried apricots and chopped almonds in them. These were the choice of our 13 year old. Each child gets to pick their favorite and those are made no matter what, then I add more if I'm able.

I was able to finish the machine mat for me this morning, so now I have this lovely little thing to hold the supplies I need at hand...and I have no sewing left to do! LOL. I am planning a top, though, to be started next weekend, so it will get broken in then.

I'm about to leave for a quick job with my husband and I'm babysitting for a friend's children today. Other than that I really hope to finish the cookie and candy making. Last night I wrapped all the gifts except one (my husband is getting me a box for that one.) While I can sit while things are in the oven, I'm going to go through my magazines and look for the next top I want to make. When I get magazines, I put post it notes on the front with the projects in them that I want to do, so I'm going to browse through them today and tomorrow and find THE project to inspire me after the holidays.

Now I have to run, our oldest is going camping this weekend and I told him I'd make him up a tin of cookies to bring along, then I have that job to do.

May your day be productive and relaxing (doesn't seem possible to have both, does it??)

Happy quilting (baking, cooking, shopping, wrapping....)

Really, has only a day passed??

I can't believe my last post was yesterday, it seems like several days have passed as I've squeezed so much into yesterday and now today. These are Spritz cookies that I made on Sunday. I'm on cookie number 8 of 10 now. Tomorrow I might have time to bake one kind, but the plan is to complete my shopping then. It will depend on when I get home and how much energy I have left if I'll bake at all tomorrow.
As I was looking at email yesterday afternoon, I found one telling me the only gift I ordered online was not going to be shipped as it was out of stock. This was a much wanted item from our oldest daughter's list and I had no idea where to even find one locally...and now not much time to do so.

I looked into ordering from somewhere else online, but at this late date the shipping cost as much as the item and I was hoping it wouldn't come to that. I searched the sites of some local stores and found a couple that SAID the item was in stock in the store (though the internet site had also said the item was in stock, so I was skeptical.)

I was supposed to go to a quilting bee last night and was debating whether or not to go before this. I could sew at home without having to pack up all my supplies and could bake cookies while I do it. Now with this extra shopping, the decision was made. I took our 15 year old daughter along to drive, she's got her driver's permit and needs night time driving hours.

Thankfully, I found the item at the first stop and our oldest daughter will be thrilled on Christmas morning. While out, we picked up a few other things.

We didn't get home until 9pm. I glanced around when I walked in...I didn't see Ruthie, her door was open so she wasn't in bed. I asked my sons if she was with them. No. I had a split second of panic as I asked Rebekah where she was...she pointed her finger...oh my. Our dolly was asleep among her dollies.

I decided I could still bake one kind of cookie even though it was getting late. The dough was made and chilling in the refrigerator. These are called Cream Cheese Snowcaps and have a lovely lemon flavor and a double coating of powdered sugar.

Today, thankfully, was a "home" day. After my morning exercise I started baking and am still going now. This next cookie is called Buried Cherry. It's a soft chocolate cookie with a maraschino cherry half hiding under the "frosting." This is our oldest son's favorite cookie. Each year, I ask them all which ones we have to be sure to make, this one gets chosen every year.

This next one is Lucas' favorite, they are M & M cookies.

I'm still baking, the last one for the day are chocolate chip and mixed nut, I still have at least a couple of hours of baking ahead.

As cookies baked, I worked on this for a friend for Christmas. I have one in progress for me, too, and hope to get it finished sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my usual errand day so I'll be grocery shopping first thing in the morning. Once the food is home and put away, I"ll be heading out to finish my Christmas shopping (I hope, anyway.) I have a pretty detailed list so it's just a matter of going out to get things, but I'm still anticipating it taking most of the afternoon.

I'm now in the marathon worker state of mind. I often do this when there is a lot to do...I work like crazy until it's finished so there is a day or two of downtime before the actual event. I find I can enjoy it much more if I'm not working right up until the last minute...we'll see what the next few days bring!

For now, I'm off to finish these cookies and clean up my kitchen, it looks like a tornado hit it after 10 hours of baking. Though I did do some cleaning as I go, there is still work to be done before the day is over and I can relax a bit.

Whew!

It's Beginning to Look (and FEEL) a Lot Like Christmas!

After a couple of days of sheer panic last week, I feel a bit more put together. The tree is purchased and decorated, the cookie baking has begun, I've done a bit of Christmas shopping and though my week is still very busy (with watching a friend's children thrown in the mix) I feel like I'll actually finish. If all goes well, I should be down to a few last minute, fairly quick to make items and Sunday will be a day of rest.....well as much of a rest as one gets with spending the morning at church, the afternoon making and cleaning up dinner for 8 and the evening at rehearsal for Christmas eve! Without having to squeeze in Christmas prep, though, that doesn't sound too bad to me!

These cookies are called Chocolate Mint Creams. The "frosting" is a mint kiss that is put on the cookie when it's almost fully baked and popped back in the oven for a couple of minutes to soften it, then when they come out it's spread like icing. Delicious! This is the second year I've bought these throwaway pans to store all my cookies. I don't have the space to store a large amount of containers through the year and these even have the pop on plastic lids, making storing (and retrieving) the cookies quite easy. I wipe out the pans and keep them for messy things like lasagna, giving me easy cleanup for a few meals post-holiday.

This next cookie is called "Cappucino Flats." They are flavored with chocolate, cinnamon and coffee and dipped in melted semi-sweet chocolate after baking. They have a shortbread consistency that is wonderful with a cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.

This is a picture of Ruthie's hair after being in braids all week. A combination of a french braid and french braided pigtails gave her this adorable fuzzy ponytail.

Last Saturday morning we got our Christmas tree. I prefer to get it about 3 weeks before Christmas, we usually settle for two, but this year the busy-ness of my husband and older children pushed it back another week. Some years we go cut one, others we hit a local store that is selling them and just pick one out of a lot. With time constraints and a 3 year old who doesn't like to step in (or touch or even see up close) snow, we opted to go to Home Depot and go the quick route. We were glad we did! The price was good, we easily found one we liked and they even cut off the bottom so all we had to do was pop it in the stand and decorate.

I had to run to the post office and came home to the lights already on and the ornaments in progress. Ruthie got the hang of it right away and had a nice little pile all on one branch...which I think all of our kids did around here age. She particularly liked this little elf ornament.

They all had fun decorating the tree and it was done in no time. I often look at my children in amazement. They are so kind to one another (well, most of the time!) and have had such a good time shopping for one another this year. Our four older kids all have jobs and went all out buying gifts for one another. They can hardly wait for Christmas morning to see the reaction of their siblings to the gifts they bought. I think they are far more excited about that than what they themselves get. It warms a Mother's heart!

Today is one of those days that I really need to get a lot done, but some of what needs to be done can't be done quite yet.

I have one kind of cookie in progress, step one is finished and cooling. I have another kind of dough made and chilling, it would be ideal to be able to bake both of these today. The problem is I'm going to give a sewing class to a friend's Girl Scout Troop at 3:45, will be home in enough time to quickly make dinner, then I have a quilting bee tonight. I thought about skipping it as I didn't have any Christmas related sewing to do, but now that I've decided on the sewing machine mat for a friend, I will go so I can work on that uninterrupted...with any luck I should come home with it finished...or nearly so.

My husband will be home soon and taking some laundry to the laundromat (we are still washer-less.) I'm thankful for him going but he will come home with 5 or 6 loads of laundry to be dried and then folded and put away.

I have my rehearsal CD on, so Christmas music is blaring, my cookies are ready for the next step and I'm hoping to get a bit of sewing done before tonight so there isn't quite so much to do and once I hit mid afternoon I'll have to pack it all up. Last time I forgot my power cord AND my pattern. Let's hope I'm more organized than that tonight!

Happy Christmas prep!

An Evening Post

This is something I haven't done yet. Usually I post first thing in the morning because that is when I'm sitting at my computer with my cup of coffee and clearing my head for the day. I know tomorrow morning I'll be really busy so I decided to do one tonight.

As I write, I usually plan my day and often somewhere in my blog I'm listing out what I plan to do that day, or for the next few days.

Yesterday, as I tried to get handle on what was left to do before Christmas it hit me. I have too much left to do. I'm so thankful my sewing is done (well, it was, but more on that in few minutes) because I truly don't know what I'd do otherwise. As I ticked off in my head the number of things that need to be done, I was nearly in tears knowing that I would have to be really diligent with scheduling my time over the next 10 days or I would NOT be ready.

Grocery shopping, gift shopping, wrapping, baking, three 2-hour rehearsals, taking Jonathan shopping, taking Lucas shopping, pre-making potstickers and egg rolls. Tomorrow afternoon is my quilting bee lunch, little will be done tomorrow and Saturday we're having friends over in the evening for dessert, snacks and cards.

I woke up still feeling a cloud over my head. It's the 'bad' day of that time of the month and I was up a few times in the night. I felt out of sorts, tired, and completely overwhelmed before I stepped out of the house for our errands...which consisted of 8 stops today. EIGHT!

We got the groceries for the week, for Christmas dinner and for Christmas cookies bought and put away. Ok. A big job done. I needed to bake so we have something for dessert tomorrow after our lunch out. I had the foresight to buy chicken from the Meijer deli for dinner, another 'job' ticked off my list. I baked two loaves of banana bread and a pan of brownies.

I sat down with my Home Management Binder (thanks Bren!) and started figuring out what I can get done in the next few days and writing them down. A cup of coffee with dinner helped bring me out of my fog a bit and I started to think about what I can still get done today if I try.

I have a couple of gifts to wrap and a box to get ready to send out. All of that can (and will) be done tonight yet. I need to clean the dishes from dinner and I want to get the potstickers made and in the freezer for Christmas dinner.

I'm feeling a bit less frantic. I still have a lot to do, but I can do it. Does anyone know how much caffeine it will take to stay up from now until the 26th??

And of course, in my usual manner, I've decided that I do have one more gift to make after all. I wanted to make myself a pad for under my sewing machine after seeing Bren's and realized I still needed something for a friend. I can make two almost as quickly as one. I've printed triangle paper, written out a plan, pulled most of the fabric and will begin sewing tomorrow, I hope.

This is on my table and there is something calming about seeing it. It's so large I have to clear my table off to use it, so my table is staying neater and it's reminding me that staying organized will help me through this next busy week.

Here is a closeup view of it. Somehow those white quilting lines really show up in the pictures, in spite of them being rather hard to see while quilting!

I've also started a Happy New Year runner, I'm getting the applique pieces ready now. I'm hoping that while cookies bake or when my feet and body just need a few minutes rest, I can sneak in a bit of applique.

I was telling my daughter about the "message" runners and trying to come up with some more to make for other times of year. Bren's idea was "He is Risen", which I'll do for Easter. I can figure out something for Valentine's day for sure. My daughter suggested "Happy Birthday." Well duh, I should have thought of that! With 8 of us, that will get a LOT of use!

I'll close with pics of my little dolly as I really need to get to work. She really needs some dress up clothes for Christmas. She was wearing the "santa" top and the green pants and decided she needed to add the red vest and the "skirt" which is actually a dress from when she was a baby that she has pulled up around her waist, the "slip" part is what is showing. It's dark so you can barely see it. She wore this all day long, as pleased as punch. She loves to get dressed every morning and I found the most adorable pajamas today while out shopping. I hope they are still there when I go Christmas shopping, they are pink with shiny silver on them and she will love them. We've learned not to show her anything she can't put on right away!

Ruthie is loving the lights of Christmas. We haven't yet put up our tree, but the rest of the decorations are up. She points at the stairway railing lights and the fiber optic Christmas tree every morning and says "mom!" if I haven't turned them on yet. Here she is, getting a closeup view of the lights. She will sometimes get really close to them and blow on them, I'm not sure what she thinks will happen!

Somehow, in spite of several things still on my "to do" list for tonight I'm feeling a little more in control and less overwhelmed by the very long lists of the days ahead.

I'm reminding myself how much I love the Christmas season and if not all the cookies get baked it won't be the end of the world. What does matter is my family is healthy and happy and will all be here with me on Christmas. It doesn't get any better than that!

Christmas Sewing is DONE!

Whew! While I may make a few more dishcloths, what I need for Christmas is finished. I also finished the final seams on the Humbug bags yesterday, 12 in all.

The three middle ones are the sizes that the pattern makes, the two end ones, the "XL" and "XS" I experimented with as I had zippers both bigger and smaller than the ones the pattern called for in my supplies. The extra large one is 15" x 10" and will be used as a project bag, the extra small one is 4 1/2" by 3" and will be used for my thimbles and other small objects so they aren't just loose in the bag. The rest of them will be given for gifts this Christmas.

It's an unusual weekday here today as our daughter's school cancelled because of an ice storm. Right now it's not bad out so our son went to his job here in town, but we're to get another wave later on today that's supposed to leave 1/4" to 1/2" of ice. Yikes. I can't even imagine.

My husband cancelled his job for this morning as it was in the next town over, so he's here, too. He doesn't know yet if he will have to go to his school job later...while school has been cancelled here, usually the janitorial staff has to still go.

With a houseful today, it's not likely I'll get much done. I'll see what the day brings.

For now, the plan is to finish the outer border on my Christmas table runner and get the binding on it. I have a few chores on today's list that I should be able to finish even with extra bodies in the house. I hope to get my New Year's table runner started and maybe jot down some plans for a few more for during the course of the year.

I hope everyone in the path of this storm stays safe and warm...and I'll see you on the flipside!

An Early Start

I woke up early this morning. I'm not sure why as I was up late last night. It does feel good to get up and going while the house is still relatively quiet, two left before I got up and came down, two more left without much fanfare. Now there are 3 kids still in bed and they will probably be there for a while yet.

My coffee is here hot and I have bacon in the microwave as I stop to make a quick post before the business of the day.

I've been knitting like crazy since last Tuesday and now have a stack of dishcloths again. These will be stuffed into Humbug bags as gifts for a few friends this Christmas.

I made my food shopping lists for making cookies and for the holiday food and I'm hoping to get most of those ingredients this week. Christmas cookie baking will begin next Monday and will likely take all week to finish.

Our Christmas menu is rather ecclectic. For years growing up, we had turkey on Christmas, which I just loved. I remember being keenly disappointed the first year I was told we were having something different. I remember when my Grandma used to make the Christmas dinner and we all went to her house, but as the years went by it became too much for her and she would buy the food and my Mom (alternating years with my Aunt) would fix it all.

So one year, they decided they were all tired of eating turkey at Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas a few weeks later, so they made standing rib roast instead. As a kid, I missed my turkey! But it wasn't too many years later I realized what we were having was even better.

Over the years, Mom would make whatever struck her fancy for Christmas dinner. Delicious prime rib, juicy pork loin roasts, whatever sounded good to them was what we had...and it was wonderful.

Fast forward to ME having to make Christmas dinner....my inlaws all live out of state, my parents moved to Arizona and here we were, with nowhere to go for Christmas and no one to invite over. What we were used to was opening gifts, having a big breakfast and then getting ready and going to my Mom's house. I whined to my husband "all I'll be doing is cooking and doing dishes!" First there will be breakfast, then dishes and by the time that is all done I'd have to start making dinner...then more dishes. I was feeling decidedly Scrooge-ish.

So he said he'd make breakfast...and clean it up. Hmmm. That might help. So while he made breakfast and then cleaned it up (with lots of asking where everything was, LOL, and then where it went to put it away) I sat in my jammies reading the book he had gotten me for Christmas.

Also about that time, our kids were getting bigger. We usually get together with another family for New Year's Eve and play games and eat...and eat...and eat. We would make a simpler dinner for the kids, then eat a big fancy meal (usually steak and crab or some other combination of surf and turf) while they were occupied. Our friends' kids didn't really like the fancier food anyway, but ours did!

So I suggested we do that for Christmas dinner. Delicious and quick to fix, our seafood feast ended up being a big hit. I think the kids look forward to dinner even more than opening gifts in the morning. Steamed crablegs make an appearance every year, with some sort of shrimp dish. Usually there is venison roast, or steak of some sort also.

This year, our menu includes homemade potstickers and eggrolls. These can be made ahead and frozen, so just the actual cooking will be done on Christmas day. I'll be making these over the weekend, before the cookie baking begins.

On today's list is some chores in Lucas and Ruthie's room along with my regular work of the day. I'm also going to get my machine out and finish up the Humbug bags. I have the machine quilting done and all I have to do is sew up four seams on each and they are finished. Two of the four seams are the zipper, which I dread and why they aren't finished yet, but I need two of them on Friday and am determined NOT to leave them until the last minute. I'm hoping to do them all today.

I had to tack on a picture of Ruthie and her big girl hairdo. Big sister Rebekah is in cosmetology school and so far has permed, colored, cut and highlighted Rachel's hair...not all at the same time, she's cut, permed and highlighted my hair and has done various things to friend's, friend's moms, etc.

Saturday night she trimmed Ruthie's bangs for me and we were talking about how she and Rachel used to fix Ruthie's hair every morning when she was small to keep it out of her face (she was 5 months old when we started having to fuss with it daily!) The last few times we tried anything other than a pony tail or pigtails she didn't want to sit still. I don't know if she was tired or what, but she let Rebekah french braid her hair, then she fell asleep. She let her redo it in the morning for church. Her hair is not quite long enough and the sides started to slip out, but we took a picture anyway.

Whew! So there it all is, I guess I felt chatty this morning. Ruthie just got up, I've had my breakfast so it's time to get to work. I hope you all have a happy, productive day!