Early bird

I am not an early bird. I don't awaken early. I don't generally arrive early. I don't finish early, most of the time.
But this year, I got a jump on the holidays.
Case in point: yesterday, certain little elves delivered caramel turtle dessert apples that were assembled in careful stages and brightly wrapped before the December page was flipped over on our calendars.
My youngest nephew and I made wreaths for him to give his other maternal aunt, both of his grandmothers and his Mom. We also started decorations for him to give to his teachers and would have finished those had we not run out of supplies.

I have handmade tags finished and several things ready to wrap.
The two scrapbooks I blogged about early are now complete.
All this is so I can enjoy the time with my family at Christmas as much as I did Thanksgiving.
Less rushing, more savoring. That's my goal once again, beyond just November, since it worked out so well.
Here is what I am considering:

• decorating in stages instead of all in one day or one weekend.
• including more of the people I love in activities I usually tackle solo. The drudgery will of some of it will be better with company and the help will be nice.
• making sure I have Christmas music playing as I/we work, unless coversation is preferred over carols.
• doing as little last minute as is possible. I've already gotten a start on that.

Just the thought if it makes me happy.
 I am liking this early bird thing.

Bliss week

As I write this, I am over half way through one of my favorite weeks of the year. I have decided to call it bliss week, since that is what it is for me.
I am savoring the last little bit of fall before Christmas is officially declared at my house.
I once rushed to put the tree up the week after Thanksgiving. It tended to create a sense of havoc and rush that was not a fitting end to such a sweet time with my family.
These days, we nibble left overs and watch/rewatch recorded portions of the National Dog Show and Macy's parade, old and new movies together.
This year, our favorite high school team has made it to the playoffs so we attended a pep rally and a tail gate gathering before the big game. We did just a smidge of Black Friday shopping. We discussed plans for Christmas.It was all, well, blissful, as is this week.

I am still catching up on the laundry and emails and clutter that accumulated while we were feasting and ballgaming and ballgame watching and shopping. I am not rushing to get those done, either. I am just enjoying bliss week.

scrapbook mantra

I am trying to finish up some scrapbooks for Christmas gifts. There are several in the works. I want to finish all of them in time for the holidays but life keeps getting in the way. Still, I press on. Determined, I am.
And I am trying to relax. Scrapbooking can be very therapeutic.
Or so I am told.
I'll let you know how it goes.



 

wewokies

I was solicited to make some baked item for a museum bazaar next week. I poured over cookbooks and searched Pinterest for something unusual but delicious, with historical value. It was a high order.
Finally, I have settled upon something I hope will go over well.
Sorghum is a signature item in these parts. The fall festival is called "Sorghum Days." There are always horses or mules harnassed and walking round and round making sorghum molasses the old fashioned way.
I always buy sorghum at the festival. As I stared into the pantry thinking about what would be appropriate a jar of sorghum caught my eye.





  I found a reciped for sorghum molasses tea cakes. I put my own spin on them and even named them.
I am so pleased with the result. It's been a while since I experimented in the kitchen. Sometimes when I do, the results are mixed. Sometimes there are terrible. This time, they were good.
Whether anyone else likes my sorghum tea cakes remains to be seen. But I am happy about them!

Celebrating Holidays at Home

Several years ago, when my youngest child was a college freshman, we acted as a surrogate family for members of her collegiate tennis team who did not live locally.
We picked up students at the airport and helped them settle into their dorm rooms. We tended the sick and homesick...did laundry... cooked meals.
Especially with students whose families were far away, we became something of a shelter at certain times. Thanksgiving break was one of those times.
Most of the kiddos traveled home for Christmas/winter break, but for fall break and Thanksgiving, they took up lodging at our address.
Students from far, far away gathered with the fam for our annual feast. We had fun discussing their traditions and our own. They were intrigued and many questions were asked about our customs.
I found myself reading about pilgrims and plymouth rock




. I seemed to have forgotten as much as I remembered and found myself pulling out the kids' storybooks and some beloved post cards.
I read up on menus, as they asked why do you have that to eat.

People cookies" otherwise known as gingerbread men, were a special hit.
The following spring I made a batch, complete with raisin eyes, to send home with the students when they departed at semester's end.
The next year, we had a foriegn exchange student take up residence with us. She was a high school senior from France whose placement had not worked out. I was proud to have info when she asked the inevitable questions about why we do what we do at Thanksgiving.
The year after that, the the baby daughter was dating a soccer player from Great Britain. He, too, asked many of the same questions and we had the answers.
This year, a certain five year old has become fascinated with all things Thanksgiving. I can hardly wait to tell her all about it/them.

Smocked garments

I am working on what I believe may be the last thing I smock for my only grandchild. Her mother and aunt, have declared her to be too old for smocked things.

My daughter tells me that she cannot handle the thought that her precious neice would have to wear clothes with smocking as long as she did. She vows and declares that I made her wear smocked dresses until she was in something like junior high.
Not true!
I am pretty sure I wasn't able to make her wear them much past the fifth grade. But I sure made them and caused and compelled her to wear them as long as I could!

 

Pictured above, my baby daughter wearing
a dress I smocked for her back in the day.

Same with the grandbaby. She has started to balk. I have started to bribe her.
Her mother and auntie, as mentioned above, are likewise protesting.
The dress that I am working on is picture smocked with a nutcracker. It is for her to wear to the Christmas ballet next month.
After this one, my daughter tells me, geometrics only, if at all. I am sad in anticipation of non-smocked Easter and Birthday dresses. I suppose I should be happy she has worn them as long as she has.

My scrapbook helper

One of the reasons I am loving to scrap is because it is something I can do with my Grandbaby.
I don't like to scrapbook alone. It seems to me to be a social endeavor. I have a group of friend, as I have blogged previously, who I scrapbook with from time to time.
Lately, the time to tie has not been enough as I have several projects half way to three quarters complete. Since cutting, pasting, drawing, writing are among the Grandbaby's favorite things to do, I have enlisted her help.
 She spent the summer working  on a scrapbook of her own. It is a darling little book that she has picked out the illustrations for, drawn the pictures in, done the lettering, etc.
This fall, shehas also been helping me select embellishments for the pages I am working on for scrapbooks I intend to give for Christmas gifts. That makes the endeavor fun for the both of us and lets me accomplish some of what I need to complete for the holidays while enjoying her.
I mentioned to my husband that she is doing so well as my little scrapbook helper that this year we could make our own Christmas cards. He didn't say what I know he was thinking..."there she is making a hobby work again!"
I'll let you know how it goes...

Hobbyist

My husband says I am the only person he knows who makes hobbies hard work.
I've had my fair share of them. And he is right.
My skills were only passable when I took art classes as a child and again in college. Neither watercolors nor oils were my forte' so once upon a time I decided to try tole painting. I didn't paint all that well, but I worked at it. I abandoned that to take up sketching because I thought it would be easier. It wasn't.
From there I went to handwork. Cross stitch was popular at that time and sewing over lines or into pre-set areas didn't sound all that hard. It was. I invariably selected large and/or complicated patterns and inevitably tired of them before their completion.
My paternal Grandmother and Great-grandmother were avid quilters. They spent the better part of every winter standing at quilt frames spread out across the den of my grandparent's house. I wish now I had shown an interest in learning from them. I was about as interested in learned to quilt as I was to crochet or knit or tat or can.
The regret of not following that particular family tradition led me to bid  on quilting lessons a few years ago, thinking I would pick up on the skills of my grandmother and great grandmother. I learned the basics during the six weeks I attended the class. I even made a few small throws and baby quilts. But, true to form, I selected patterns that were too complicated for my proficiency, or lack thereof.
That particular hobby was made more difficult by the fact that I did not know how to sew on a sewing machine before I started the classes. I didn't take home economics in high school.  Back then, students had one free hour and cheer practice trumped home ec on my schedule. My quilting instructor could have made far more progress with me had she not had to teach me to thread a sewing machine.
I still do a little quilting from time to time. I have tried some applique. But my serious hobby of the past few years is scrapbooking. I find it very therapeutic, especially when I "scrap" with friends who can help me accomplish my often complex page goals.

I am trying to simplify them. Really, I am.

Big hair envy

I will go ahead and admit that one of the reasons I want to dress up for Halloween as the bride of Frankenstein is because she has big hair.
I have always, always wanted big hair. Likely it is the era in which I was raised.
 My mother used to wear a "wiglet" and had it teased and sprayed into her hair to made it stand way high.
All the ladies in the church choir had big hair.
A look back at photos taken throughout my life reveals that I have had the same hairdo since I was approximately 5. The brown football helmet description used by the Julia Roberts character in "Steel Magnolias" to describe her mother's couiffure would fit my hair, as well.
I have tried to deviate, with mixed results.
Once I tried darkening. I warned the beautician that my hair "grabs" color. My hair, albeit temporarily, ended up so black it cast purple.
I have tried lightening but somehow it always fades to a putrid shade of red.
I have gotten highlights. They usually work out alright.
But it's the volume I seek. No amount of product or teasing or technique can accomplish this... I have been no more
My hair, like my children, basically does what it wants to do.
I believe that I can literally watch it fall (read: wilt) even before I have the cap back onto the hair spray can.

That would be me with the brown football helmet hair.
 ( Both of my little sisters have darling little
pixie hair cuts!)

My middle sister has thick, voluminous hair.  I have called it "horse hair" but only because I am so jealous. Several of my friends have hair so thick that they go to the salon to have it "thinned out!"
Now I know, that in the scheme of things, flat fair is not a big deal.  I know that amid all the issues with the economy and global warming and famine, hunger and warfare, big hair is actually a very small deal. I just think I could deal with the world better if my hair stood taller...

All Hallows Eve

My Merida got to trick-or-treat twice this year: once in the day time and once at night. An event on Main Street where we live was a big hit with kids and adults. It was fun seeing the costumes in daylight. There were some really fabulous ones. I very much like the Lego man, the wolfman, a really fabulous Elvis, among others. One little boy had on a costume that made it appear he was riding a chicken. Of course, my Merida was my favorite. She had gotten candy from most of the downtown merchants and was sitting on the curb eating it when I found her, her Mom, two grandpas and a a grandma in tow.  She'd pulled off the Merida wig by the time I saw her, too. The weather was quite pleasant but too warm for that wig, my Merida said.

My Merida ran into some of her cousins, a baby football, Joe Dirt, a sparkly mermaid and spiderman somewhere along the route.

Her sister danced with her dance company to "Thriller" as special entertainment for the event. I hope it becomes an annual event. It was lots of fun and besides, I have wanted to dress up as the bride of Frankenstein for sometime now...