So I didn't come back.

I meant to, but I didn't make it. Christmas was fabulous with a surprise visit from F.M.S. who flew in from Taiwan and knocked on my front door. I screamed and jumped into his arms. F.O.S., D-I-L, F.Y.S. and Julie were all in on the surprise. My wonderful children....thank you for the most amazing Christmas. I love you.

For now, I'll be back later because I. am. exhausted. Perhaps it's the lack of sunshine, but I just want to curl up and sleep away the days for a bit. By the way, I'm loving all of your posts from the holidays. Looks like everyone enjoyed themselves immensely. See you next year.

Just a reminder....

to myself that the days are now getting longer. Sweet yea! And the sun is shining right now. And I'll add to this post in a bit. I have to show you what I made for my niece, but I have to enjoy the sunshine for now. Be back in a while.

Grandma always said.....

to keep it in a North window and give it the last bit of your evening drink of water before you go to bed. If you do that you'll be rewarded with blooms many times each year. Looks like she knew what she was talking about because I do what she said and I've got new blooms coming.....again.

Seriously, my grandmother always had African Violets in her kitchen window and over the years I caught many glimpses of her sharing the last few sips of her water. Her voilets were constantly moist, but she also told me to never water from the top, only pour the water into the bottom saucer because if you water from the top, you risk getting water on the leaves and they will turn brown and die. It's true.

Pretty darned cute!

When I give a gift I like to make the wrapping and name tag just as thoughtful as the gift itself, so last year I started making ornament tags to put on my kids and grandkids gifts. I want you to know I'm doing this because it gives me something crafty to work on in my spare time (huh?). Riiiiight, the truth is I'm making the ornaments so each of them will have a ready-made supply when they get their own trees to decorate. These are adorable on the presents......

and I found the directions here. I'm curious what other people do for personalized tags or if they make them at all. 

(Jewleigh, you still have to act appropriately surprised and awed when you get yours. *grins*)

Must make soup!

Go to the health food store, buy the Eden Organic Brown Rice Flakes and make this soup immediately! The recipe is also on the back of the rice flakes package, but I'm telling you, it's the easiest and tastiest broccoli soup I have ever ever ever had. It's heaven in a cup. It's a thick, creamy, tasty comfort food that will make you go crawling back for seconds. Did I mention easy? And just for fun, I made it a second time but with asparagus from my freezer. Again.....heaven in a cup. Please let me know if you make the soup and what you think of it. Seriously!

Jewleigh and Megan - you are going to love this.

She said what?

Girl's Night Out. That's one of my many favorite things to do with the clever and precocious Miss M. Just the two of us, all dressed up and searching out marvelous adventure downtown. Dessert at a fancy restaurant is a must and the more decadent the dessert, the better it is for us. This brownie with fruit sauce is just what we were craving. See that ziggy little stripe down the right side? Yep, that's the first thing she did when the plate was put before us. She dragged her finger through the chocolate, tasted it, gave an 'mmmmm' of approval and said, "I had to do that."

Later this night we experienced a little of our own fairy tale when we saw Cinderella at the Civic Theatre. It was beautiful and felt sort of magical in the theater with the rich sets and beautiful costumes. We were perched right at the front of the balcony, which gave Miss M a fabulous view of the play. It wasn't long before this little girl was completely smitten with.....the prince? But, I thought this was about Cinderella? Oh no, her royal highness Miss M fell completely head-over-heels in love with the prince. I'm not sure she even realized the story was about Cinderella.

As we gathered our coats after the play a very kind woman mentioned to Miss M that she would be able to meet Cinderella and the prince if she walked down the stairs to the lower level. You should have seen that little girls eyes light up. We had a tiny wait before it was our turn to meet the characters and Miss M spent that time craning and straining to see around the crowd to get glimpses. She was funny, I tell ya. Finally, after what seemed like hours to her, she was able to meet them. She was glowing....and grinning.....and giddy. Look at this picture!

Is she not in love? She hugged him and chatted for a bit while I took pictures. Oh, my gosh, he even let her try on his crown.

Then we had to look at the pictures right! now! As we were leaving she ran over to give the prince one last hug...she told him she loved him...he said he loved her and now, in Miss M's world, his fate is forever sealed with hers. She skipped along the sidewalk all the way back to the car and didn't stop talking about her prince until she fell asleep.

The next morning, as we were making breakfast together, I started singing a song from the play, "do I love you because you're wonderful, or are you wonderful, because I love you?" Now get this, and I'm not kidding here, she annouced with complete wonder in her voice, "that's the song the prince was singing....to me!" How did this happen? How did she go to this play and have an entire audience and the cast disappear except for her and the prince? Maybe I was still there with her, but I dunno. The only thing I can think of is that as he's singing he's projecting to the back of the theater and there's little Miss M, perched on the edge of the balcony thinking he's looking right at her? I find it truly amazing and I have no idea how this happened, but I'm thinking the little girl is entitled to her own fairy tale. I did say it was magical in the theater. Stay tuned for more fairy tale updates through the years to come.

Here's a quick photo of another favored tradition between us...baking up yummies. This is a cranberry bread made with flax meal. Pretty delicious too.

Later, I asked Miss M if she would like to learn how to embroider. I thought it might be hard for her and I said as much since this would be her first time using a needle. Right? Difficult for Miss M? No, it was a piece of cake for her. I showed her how to draw a simple pine tree shape and once she drew hers, I copied it to a piece of muslin using a transfer pencil. I sat behind her on the stool for two stitches just to show her how to come up and go back down through the fabric as she followed the line and then she took over. One time I pointed out to her that she was poking willy nilly and that would make it difficult if she found the right spot. For the rest of her time she would say, "poking willy nilly" to reminder herself or "ouch, poked myself". Yeah, we all do that. Still, I'm blown away by how well she did with her first time stitching. Will you look at this?

While she stitched I kept myself busy (and away from her stitching) by cutting out fabric to turn her first embroidery into a pretty little pillow she could keep.

Later, she set the pillow on my bed with my other pillows and said, "ohhh, what a pretty pillow family."

What's not to love about spending time alone with this girl?

Now that's just so cool!

I love to make or bake gifts for people for Christmas and while I seem to be in good company with many bloggers who are similarly like minded, I insist that my gifts be cool, inexpensive and fabulously made. In the spirit of giving, I want to give to lots of people so I have to be very creative in what I give as gifts so I don't go broke. For instance, my 17 y/o niece is going to receive Cashmere mittens I'll be making from a sweater I picked up at a garage sale for $1. Someone else made the mistake of drying the sweater. They thought it was ruined and therefore of no value. I snapped it up knowing full well I could make felted mittens out of it. Seriously, wouldn't you love a pair of Cashmere mittens to slip your hands into?

If you're into hand made Christmas presents and projects, you simply have to start at the November posts from Sew Mama Sew. The good folks over there do all the searching and scouring of blogs and then post the coolest ideas for the rest of us peruse. I found this link and look what I made my nephew for Christmas.


I didn't buy the wooden blocks for mine. I have a friend who gave me a bunch of Formica sample chips that are obsolete and they worked wonderfully. I only made 16 because my nephew is 2 and I didn't want the game to be too difficult for him. I sanded the chips lightly to knock off some of the sheen on the front and to smooth out the back. Then I used Liquitex Matte Gel Medium to adhere left over scrap paper to the front and back. Once dry I lightly sanded the edges and put a slight curve on the corners. I added stickers to a couple pieces that I thought were a bit bland and now I have the coolest Memory Game for my nephew, and it didn't cost me any extra money. I'll make a little drawstring bag to hold his game with some of the left over thrifted pillow case material. You can not beat gifts like this when you have lots of people you want to give to.

(Rubbing my hands together with glee!)

I finally woke up to snow on Friday morning. Brent and I took my grandson to the symphony Thursday evening and I mentioned somewhat expectantly that I love it when it snows after a Christmas concert. Hey, it happens frequently for me so I didn't think it was too much to expect it to happen again. I had also been feeling a tiny bit envious of those of you who had already received a good snowfall and I was being patient, but seriously, it's December and I wanted snow. Well, wadda ya know....it was snowing when we walked out of the concert.

I thought my morning view was beautiful.

This was so worth the wait.

So, what did snow mean to an outdoorsy, nature loving girl like me? It meant a snowy walk in the woods Saturday afternoon, that's what it meant.



Aman Park is close to home and has great hiking trails that wind along Sand Creek. It was a little late for taking pictures, but the walk was beautiful and the snow was really crunchy. We purposely went out late so we could be hiking in the dark.

Then, we did this on Sunday. There is nothing like winter paddling. The rivers have little or no traffic, it's quiet and beautiful, and you feel like you own the world. And, to answer your questions, no, we don't get cold. At least not any colder than someone who's gone skiing because you dress for the weather and you do NOT fall in the water. Not to worry though, I carry a dry bag with extra clothes....just in case. Okay, okay, yes, I've rolled my kayak (twice) in the winter and it was really, really freakin' cold! Okay? Now you know. Furthermore, I sold the boat that made me swim because it just wasn't working for the sort of paddling I was doing and I bought this pretty little thing this past summer.

This is her first time in the snow. She didn't mind at all. In fact, I think she rather enjoyed the snowy day and she certainly behaved well since I didn't do any swimming - not even close.


Look, I'm sitting on the ice right now.

And how nice of them to light up the river just for me!

We've got 'the blizzard' blowing in now. Perhaps I'll take another walk tonight when the weather is absolutely frightful. Won't that be fun?

Don't do this!

Take pictures while you're driving - that's what I mean. It's just not safe driving practices! However, I thought the view was fabulous and seriously, how often do I get to see a nearly full moon in front of me while the sun is setting behind me? Sorry about the quality of the pictures but I really didn't have time to worry about the composure last night.

I noticed this when I glanced out the window this morning so I ran for the camera and tripod and skipped on out to the front sidewalk. So I was in my robe and slippers. So it was freezing outside. So the neighbor walking his dog thought I was crazy. It's all about the pictures right?

Perhaps I should take up astronomy.

Gonna give it away.

I believe Michigan now has the dubious honor of having the highest rate of unemployment in the country (15%). Along with that comes a large number of newly homeless who have no more resources to fall back on. It's tough man! Really tough here. Someone in my city, I don't recall who, started a project where you take your hand knit hats and mittens downtown and clip them to a tree or fence along with a note explaining that the item is free for the taking. What I should do is take pictures of the items hanging around town. I don't see them often because, frankly, the items don't stay on the fence for all that long. Anyway, this one is ready to go. Bear says it's nice and warm.