Evan Said All He Wanted Was A White Christmas...

Be careful what you ask for! No spoons under the pillow or backwards jammies required last night, as they cancelled school before they even went to bed. I've never seen that happen in my life time and I've always lived in snow country.

Steve got to put his new baby to work this morning bright and early. Ok, I agree, it WAS a good idea to buy the big snow blower. There's no way in hell I'm shoveling us out of this! The heavy, wet snow is dragging all my bushes to the ground and threatening many large branches of our trees. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed later today when the 50 mph winds arrive...at least we still have power (knock on wood). Maybe we can get out and make a cool snowman before the temps plummet.

Today we'll be hunkered down in the house, I'll be sewing sewing sewing and making a few batches of Chex Mix. YUM! Perfect snacking for a day like today. The kids will be climbing the walls because our satellite is out - no TV for them. Maybe a marathon monopoly game later today?

Stay warm and safe and enjoy the view!

It's Comin' on Christmas

I'm feeling very merry this year.

I must explain that historically I dread this coming holiday. I stress about giving my family the "perfect" Christmas, starting with finding just-right gifts for everyone on my list and making sure my kids have exactly the same number of presents under the tree. I spend an unhealthy amount of time wishing I could wrap my gifts in color coordinating paper with clever cut-out tags a la Martha Stewart, but by the time I finally start wrapping I'm pretty much too tired to care if I have to resort to using birthday wrapping and a name scrawled in blue sharpie. I can easily wear myself out planning perfect holiday meals, even when in recent years I have had only my small family to cook for on our quiet christmas eve and morning. And don't even get me started with the stress of getting the house decorated inside and out, including making sure the members of my lighted deer herd all have working bulbs and both trees have the proper ornaments.

But this year is somehow different. I am scaling back the number of gifts I'm giving to relatives and have begged them to do the same for me. The house is decorated inside and out and while I still have to haul the empty boxes to the basement, it looks very holiday-ish around here and I have yet to break a sweat. My packages will be on their way to Colorado well before the last minute and (you might have to sit down for this one) I am working on my christmas cards, something I haven't done in at least ten years. My Illinois family is breaking tradition by having a gathering the weekend before Christmas, at MY house, and I'm feeling very calm, capable and ready, even though I have no idea yet what I'll be cooking.

I can find no other explanation for this jolly state of mind except to say that I'm simply happy. I am looking forward to the snow, joyful times spent with my friends and family and I know in my heart I could not ask for more than what I have with me right now.

I wish the same for you, my friends!

Happy Thanksgiving! What's for Dinner?

Menu

Shrimp Cocktail

Assorted Cheese and Crackers

Roast Turkey with Fresh Herbs

Mashed Mixed Potatoes

Sweet & Sour Green Beans

Sausage, Apple and Cranberry Stuffing

Red Cabbage

Cranberry Apple Chutney

Assorted Breads

Pumpkin Creme Brulee

Apple Pie

I was in the kitchen this morning by 8:00 a.m. and by noon had cooked my cranberry sauce (nice and tart, just the way Steve likes it), made my world-famous "make the day before mashed potatoes", prepared the creme brulee and baked a mile-high apple pie. Tomorrow there will be even more kitchen craziness with The Bird, stuffing and green beans, and then the always challenging act of getting everything to the table, at the same time, while it's still hot.

I do not have a double oven. I would only use it one day of the year and therefore cannot justify the expense, nor could my recent mini makeover of a kitchen find room for it. For the last several years I have regrettably roasted my turkey in the Nesco to free up the oven for all of the side dishes. The resulting bird has always been moist but I miss that lovely caramel color, the crispy skin and the yummy roasted flavor you can only get from an oven. How can I make this work?

I have no idea, no real game plan, but this year I'm moving The Bird to the oven. I bought a cute little heated buffet server at Target this year, thinking my potatoes, stuffing and veggies could go in the three trays very nicely. However, according to the directions, it only heats to 185 degrees so everything must already be warm before putting it in the server. Hmmmmmm. Of course, there is the microwave, but I'm not sure how my potatoes will behave because I've always baked them in the oven - they get all puffy and fluffy in the real oven and I'm worried they won't be as delicious out of the fake oven. I guess I really don't have a choice...

We are not having a big crowd, just mother- & father-in-law, so we'll have LOTS of leftovers with a 22 lb turkey! Turkey and biscuits, Turkey cacciatore, Turkey pot pie, Turkey sandwiches, Turkey Turkey Turkey. It doesn't matter to me, I'm in it for the side dishes anyway. YUM!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Few New Things

Here are a few new bags I've recently finished.




The Daddy Diaper Bag is SO cute - every new Daddy must have one!!!






The Ballet/Soccer bag is for a little girl down the street and I searched the world over looking for the perfect fabric. I didn't want Teddy Bears in tutu's, she's too old for that. And the pink soccer fabric - PERFECT!! The flowers on the front of the ballet side were really fun to make, once I found the instructions on how to do them.





And the red and black bag is another rendition of a set of prints that continues to be my favorite. I think I've officially made every bag in my line with this fabric. I just can't get enough of it!
Enjoy!

Today is your birthday! Happy Birthday to you!

Today is my baby's birthday. I don't think it's possible for me to be the mother of a THIRTEEN year-old, but I am. Yes, thanks for noticing, I was a child bride, and even younger when I gave birth to him.

To celebrate the big event we spent our weekend in the land of fudge and waterparks, the Wisconsin Dells. For anyone not familiar with "the Dells", it's exactly like Estes Park, CO and Myrtle Beach, SC, except without the mountains and the ocean. In the summer it's beyond unbearable, with crowds of barely dressed people of every size (ok, by that I mean lots of fat cheese-eating wisconsinites) and wall-to-wall minivans in the streets, everyone clamoring for a ticket to the water ski show or the bungee plunge. However, at this time of the year the Dells magically becomes much more tolerable, one only needs the street smarts to handle the obnoxious flat-landers (people from Chicago) and their badly mannered children to survive, and so it is this time of the year we make our annual trek.

We splashed and sprayed and flew down tubes and tunnels, all in the name of good clean fun, with the exception of the dreaded swine flu virus that was threatening to latch on to us at every turn. Seriously, could there be a better place to live if you were a virus looking for a home? I guess we'll know in a few days if our incessant use of the Purel dispensers did us any good.

Now we're home, dry and darn exhausted. An afternoon spent raking more and more leaves - we'd be up to 81 bags if someone hadn't come in the cover of darkness last night to steal all of the bags in our cul-de-sac. Who does that? I'm happy to give them to you...I mean, the city would have picked them up for free tomorrow, so it's no big deal, except that you could have offered to help us rake!!

The steaks are on , the ice cream cake is chillin' and it's time for me to go sing a little Happy Birthday to my boy...

I'm having a big Mac attack!

I'm spoiled rotten.

Steve decided that my old, kinda clunky laptop wasn't in good enough condition to support my new business and my creative needs and energies, so he went to the Apple store yesterday and came home with my new MacBook! It's beautiful and shiny and has that new car smell and I am very, very happy. I have never worked on a mac before so this is new territory for me, but I'm learning slowly and so far I'm loving it.

Sunshine Handbags world is great, although if you take a look at my Etsy shop, you might wonder if I'm going out of business. In fact, just the opposite seems to be happening...I'm finally really, really busy! I've had a bunch of custom bag orders in the last few weeks, and I've been working day and night to stock up the Artsy Fartsy shop in town. My etsy shop looks so bare and neglected but I'm almost to the point where I can start adding new bags and wallets there, too. I have loads of wonderful fabrics to work with including a very cute trio of Pink Ribbon fabrics for Breast Cancer Awareness wallets, so keep checking my shop for new additions.

Photos will follow soon. I've got to dust off the camera and try to remember how to use it. I find taking good photos in the fall/winter light very challenging, but I'm going to try and not get too easily discouraged this season. Maybe it's time for a quick photo class at my local camera shop.

Oh, one last thought...I just reconnected with a mom whose son went to preschool with Evan. They've moved into our elementary school district and I'm happy to see her at scout meetings so we can talk. I was so excited to learn that she is an avid writer and is the About.com skin care specialist. Go visit Jen here and learn all about how to keep that young glow we're all so desperately searching for.