Holidaze Post #1: Decorations

The past month has been a complete daze of holiday related happenings. In fact, things have been so busy lately that yesterday I didn't feel like doing anything at all. So I read, and my wonderful husband cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed. (I told you I had a good one.) We didn't go crazy with decorations this year, although we did have some good ones. There was a wreath on the door, a tree in the living room and paper ornaments in the entryway. Oh and this:

It is a Santa Claus that Noah's mom, Patsy, gave to us. Now, Patsy is a very nice woman, but honestly, some of the things she sends us scare me. This, along with the bride and groom marionnettes, fall into that category.

My mom also gave me some of my grandmother's and great-grandmothers ornaments. They are beautiful, handpainted items, some of which are from Germany. They were always handled carefully, and lovingly wrapped at the end of the season. Any breakage was devastating.


These ornaments are the ones that are a part of my cherished Christmas memories which include, of course, listening to the Muppets Christmas Album with John Denver, and making my sister into a Christmas tree complete with lights and a lot of sparkly garland.

Noah, on the other hand, likes to call some of them "The Death Star Oraments." And is creeped out when they "look at him."



Because I am compulsively crafty, and seem to have a deep-seated need to create things, there were also paper ornaments in the entryway. You can thank Design Sponge, because they are awesome crafty, artsy, designer people.


ps. Because of a slight SNAFU on my part, we now have more twinkle lights than anyone in their right mind might need. We had a bunch, but when I couldn't find them, I bought more. Come to find out Noah had stashed them in his footlocker, a place where I never look. (but honestly, he had forgotten where they were) Next year, we may have to create a landing strip on the roof.

The Chocolates, they call to me.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love chocolate and caramel. Well, my friends, today I made caramel-filled chocolates with sea salt. Yesterday, I made the caramel (there are no pictures of the caramel). It was a dry caramel, one made without water, but with butter, cream and honey added at the end. The additives make it silky, and mellow out the flavor just a bit, which this caramel needs a little. Because this is no namby-pamby Kraft style caramel, this caramel is deep and dark, rich, brick red and just a hairsbreadth away from burnt. Such a dark caramel is complex in flavor, and really not all that sweet. I could eat it with a spoon.

I used Callebaut milk chocolate. It is smooth and creamy and sweet. This is one of those chocolates that literally melt in your mouth. I bought a couple of big blocks of it from Whole Foods today. I used some of it last year for the peanut butter cups (more of those this year, too. I just haven't made them yet.


The crowning touch is grey sea salt. The crystals are relatively large so they crunch when you eat the caramels. The flavor complements the caramel nicely.


And here they are in all their chocolately glory. They are presents for the holidays, so are off limits. But ooh, I had one of the cracked ones, and damn, one is all you need. They are rich enough to knock your socks off. Noah had one of the other cracked ones (there was an incident with a falling frozen pie crust in the freezer), he says they are too gastronomically interesting for him. I feel like I have succeeded.

Because Kara Asked

Kara requested more blogging, so I'm giving her what she asked for because she is wonderful, and because I really should post more. Having a normal schedule continues to be wonderful. It is great to not feel like all of my waking hours are spent doing work.

I started a pottery class last week at a real studio, Hinckley Pottery in Adams Morgan. One quirky thing about the studio is that purely handbuilt items are frowned upon, at least, that is what my teacher tells me. I'm not sure why. The facilities are very nice, though, and the equipment is well taken care of. They also have porcelain, maybe one day, when I am a better potter, I will try it out.

I've been browsing around Etsy a lot getting ideas and inspiration. There are some amazing potters there. Some of the pieces that have stuck with me are below.

Laurel Begley makes beautiful pieces. I bought the bird dish below for my bedside table. It is perfect for my glasses and other small things.




Kim Westad does beautiful things with thrown and altered pieces.



Amanda Ryznar of YogaGoat Pottery makes colorful, bold, carved items.


So much inspiration, so little time in the studio. And this is just other pottery that I find inspiring. Don't get me started on what I see in nature.

Dye Another Day

I couldn't resist the title. Blame my DH. He's the one who makes puns all the time.

Today I tried Kool Aid dyeing for the first time. I washed the yarn in Soak and let the excess water drip away. Then I started with Orange and Cherry Kool Aid. One in each of my large Pyrex measuring cups. Having never done this before, I didn't get enough Kool Aid. While the lighter colors were pretty, I was looking for something with a little more oomph. So I took out my cake kit and pulled the orange and red icing gels.

As I was mixing and using the Kool Aid, I had no problem keeping clean. It is another story now. My finger tips and nails are currently an unnatural, Oompah Loompah shade of orange. I had mixed up some orange and I didn't notice a lump of color gel in the solution when it was in my mixing cup. I did notice it when I dumped it in the dye bath and wanted to get it out before my yarn became blotchy. Without thinking, I grabbed part of the yarn with one hand, and dunked my other hand into the dye bath. When I realized what I had done, I washed my hands a few times in a row to get as much off as I could. Unfortunately, I'm still Oompah-Loompah-fied.

I hope the yarn turns out to be self-striping like I planned.

Healthy Living, and recipes, too!

Now that I have more free time, I think it is time to start slimming down. In the past two years, as I was teaching, I let myself go. The extra pudge has really been bothering me over the past few months, but I've been so busy (or making excuses about being so busy) that I haven't done anything. So, now is the time to get back to healthy eating and exercise habits. New job, new home, new healthy habits.

I've been trying to keep track of what I eat on myfooddiary.com and today I just joined Spark People with the Knit Girls over at Ravelry. I think that figuring out if I am eating well, and where I can cut calories is a good idea. So is exercising.

I can't exercise tonight because I have a ridiculous crick in my neck and can't turn my head to the left. And because moving hurts. But here are two of my very own veggie-tastic recipes with nutritional information. I had the bean salad for lunch with some fruit and tonight I'm making the mushroom stroganoff.

White Bean Salad
2 cans canelli beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup red onion, diced (about 1/2 a med. onion)
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup fresh tomato, diced
2 tbl fresh dill, snipped into small pieces
2 tbl balsamic vinaigrette (I like Newman's Own Light)

Mix all ingredients together. Makes 4 servings of about one cup each.

Nutritional Information*
Calories = 249
Fat = 6.4 g
Sat. Fat = 2.2 g
Cholesterol = 12 mg
Sodium = 388 mg
Carb = 35.4 g
Fiber = 9.8 g
Sugar = 2 g
Protein = 14.5 g
Vit A = 9%
Vit C = 23%
Calcium = 13%
Iron = 21%


Mushroom Stroganoff
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 med onion, sliced
3 cups mushrooms (I like cremini or portobello), cut into chunks
1 tbl + 1 tsp butter
1 tbl flour
5 oz. red wine
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup sour cream

1. Saute the onion in 1 tsp butter until it is translucent. Add the garlic and mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms give up most of their liquid and the onions begin to caramelize. Remove from pan and set aside.

2. Melt the tablespoon of butter and add the flour to create a quick roux. Stir constantly until the roux is a deep brown color, be careful that it doesn't burn. Add the vegetable broth slowly, stirring constantly to keep the flour from forming lumps. Add the red wine and the vegetables. Simmer until the sauce is the consistency of gravy. Remove from heat. Stir in the sour cream. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Serve over egg noodles. Garnish with parsley if you wish.

Nutritional Information (for Mushroom Sauce only, not noodles)*
Calories = 181
Fat = 10.8
Sat. Fat = 6
Cholesterol = 24 mg
Sodium = 183 mg
Carb = 13 g
Fiber = 2.7 g
Sugar = 4.7 g
Protein = 3.5 g
Vit A = 6%
Vit C = 10%
Calcium = 6%
Iron = 10 %

*The nutritional information is from when I entered it on an online program. Since I don't know exactly how it calculates the data, I don't know how trustworthy the nutritional information is, but I guess you could always use it as a general guide.

Blog, Take II

Right. So, as I discovered so easily, being a teacher eats up all of your free time. So the old blog died a slow, horrible death. Now, I have a new job (start date, August 11) and more free time, so it is time to let the Wordpress blog rest in peace and try again over here at Blogger. Except, no pictures at the moment, because I can't find my camera. We moved a week and a half ago, and I haven't gotten to the office yet.

On to crafty things...
I've been working on and off on the Green Gables pattern. It promises to be pretty when it is finished. I like the Breeze yarn I've been working with, it is knitting up nicely.

I've been diligently scouting out items to put in my swap buddy's package. So far I've found some great Malabrigo yarn in a color combination she likes, some 100% wool from an unknown source to be Kool-Aid dyed (it came from my LYS, but the owner wasn't sure which mill it was from), a goofy pen, and a box to put it all in. I'm also going to send some spiced brandied peaches that I canned last September and some hand made stitch markers. I might thrown in some candy and silly putty, because really, who doesn't like silly putty?