I don’t use my crock pot ever but this week I have used it three days in a row. I have fallen in love. Having a tasty dinner ready at the end of the day having done all the work for it at 6 am is a Christmas present right there. Taite and I can [...]
 If you’ve never done this, you should, once in your life. The U.S. Forest Service sells tags for $5 which allows you to cut down a tree for Christmas on federal forest land. The tags are available at all forest offices and through local businesses. You can look up your U.S. Forest Service by region [...] I can brag about this amazing menu because it’s not mine. We are celebrating Thanksgiving with Aileen and Jason and his family. Ellen put together our amazing menu. I am making the brussel sprouts and it will be a rendition of one I’ve made for a few years.
Dinner Menu: Aperitif: A French sparkling wine [...] How easy, a little votive by each place. A leaf from the yard turn this into simple elegance. With a bit more time you could add a name tag. I like the branch idea. A pear or an apple or a baby pumpkin would be perfect with the name neatly pinned on. A crafty [...] The terrific thing about this recipe is that it can be made a day ahead and just sit happily in the fridge until breakfast. This makes a 9″ X 9″ casserole which will probably not be enough so you will want to double this. Also, truth be told, I roughly follow the quantities in the recipe. [...] Flying solo this past weekend forced me to be uber organized; two daughters, two son-in-laws, two grandchildren, and a friend I had not seen in years were coming for a visit. And Andrew would be in California. I would be a single woman. I wanted to visit with everyone and not stress on the food [...] We sold our house… the one we didn’t want anymore… to squatters. Here’s the thing. This has been a spiritual journey for us. When first we set about to move, we figured, well of course God will just bless our decision beyond our wildest imagination and sell our house just in the nick of time for [...] A lovely little cake to take you into the weekend. Holiday time is a great time to have a few secret weapons for entertaining with ease. This cranberry cake is lovely to look at, a snap to make, and delicious for dessert or breakfast. You could even make it ahead to freeze and have on hand. [...]
Merry Christmas to you too. How about a tax per ornament hung. Are you kidding me? President Obama really thought he could just sort of add a tax to Christmas trees and no one would be the wiser!? Well, just the live trees; the artificial trees would be taxed later. Can you imagine, someone knocking [...] I grabbed the last of my garden tomatoes before the freeze and wanted to share this favorite fresh tomato recipe in case you have a few tomatoes left too. And want just one last taste of summer. It is a favorite recipe because of the few ingredients and the speed with which it can be made.
Because our family grows by leaps and bounds yearly, we began a tradition that helps keep the stress level low. We do a name exchange so that each adult is a secret Santa for one person. We meant to pull names from a bowl at Caitlin’s on Halloween weekend and forgot; so Monday morning this [...] We are looking forward to the Tintin movie coming out just in time for Christmas. I think we might even pay good money to see it in the theater! We first saw Tintin in a shop window in Alsace, France. I then bought Matthias two Tintin shirts which he still wears; that was four years [...] Leaping around the internet, I found this clever bit of work from Matthew Cusick. He takes old school book pages and carefully sands away the words, leaving only the photo and a few choice words:
The other thing he does is to turn old maps and atlases into works of art:
I love [...] I was smitten with the architecture of New England churches. The church I grew up in, a sturdy, beautiful building in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Out the front door of my church stood the Unitarian Church in all its splendor. In Boston, the churches get more ornate and stately. I love the old with the new. I [...] Do I look like I’m crying in this photo? I think it’s because I am. I could not have imagined the emotion that the site of that Dunkin’ Donuts shop would effect. Just married and without two extra cents to spare, we would slowly accumulate the single dollar in coins collected in a little jar in [...]
“Nabokov calls every great novel a fairy tale… Let me remind you that fairy tales abound with frightening witches who eat children and wicked stepmothers who poison their beautiful stepdaughters and weak fathers who leave their children behind in forests. But the magic comes from the power of the good, that [...] I have been living in the Pacific Northwest for more years now than I lived on the east coast but
Living in the Pacific Northwest means places like this: Are a flippin’ big deal. So, la di da, this is where the church I grew up celebrated its 50th anniversary, Charter Oak Country Club. I am [...] The fish never died. On September 4th I was celebrating, not just my birthday, but the demise of our last betta fish. We had had these three betta ever since we took them home from Caitlin’s sister-in-law’s wedding. They had been part of the wedding reception table decor beautifully swimming about in bowls of their own. Years, [...] So, Meghan and Eric were in San Francisco for a ten year anniversary celebration. I watched the grandkids. One evening we went to a bbq. The clouds looked like they might dump rain down on us, but it cleared and was a beautiful, not too cold night. Our grandkids and two youngest were running and rolling in [...] I love the idea of going into a store and having absolutely no idea what will be for sale. The only place that can happen is at a second-hand store. I love a good treasure hunt and finding the unusual bit, so I occasionally make a peruse through one. The real trick though, is being [...] |
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