Good eats

I know I already posted today, but I had to share with you the yummy dinner we had tonight! I found the Salmon with Fresh Tomato and Basil Relish recipe on Jane's blog a while ago and had printed it off to try. Finally got around to it tonight and it will be a definite repeater for us! I made a few adjustments--I used canned diced tomatoes and basil paste from a tube because I didn't have any fresh. I also cooked my salmon under the broiler because I don't have a George Foreman grill. It still tasted very fresh and light. Delicious!

For a side dish, I made Sugared Asparagus (asparagus was on sale at the store) from a Taste of Home recipe I clipped a long time ago. Recipe is by Billie Moss of El Sobrante, California.

Sugared Asparagus
3 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 lbs fresh asparagus, cut into 2-inch pieces (about 4 cups)
1 cup chicken broth

In a skillet over medium-high, heat butter and brown sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add asparagus; saute for 2 minutes. Stir in chicken broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes or until asparagus is crisp-tender. Remove asparagus to a serving dish and keep warm. Cook sauce, uncovered, until reduced by half. Pour over asparagus and serve immediately. Yield: 4-6 servings.

I halved the recipe since there are only 2 of us and I only had 1 lb. of asparagus. I also used beef broth because I already had an open container in the fridge from last night's dinner, and it tasted fine.

Try it! You'll like it.

Valances & Valentines

I'm back, with photographs! Poorly done photographs, but at least you have something to look at. My apologies--I've done what I can in Photoshop, but it's just hard to take a picture of your window when it's light outside!

This weekend I finally got around to putting up the curtain rods I purchased for the kitchen. Up until 6 months ago I still had the valances the old owner of the house had made. They were pretty but just didn't match my decor. In an effort to motivate myself to get something new up there, I took down all the old valances and threw them on my back deck, where they are still sitting, covered in snow. I'm afraid that I just got used to looking at the naked windows so that whole motivation thing wasn't exactly as successful as I had hoped. Well, it finally worked--so I guess you could say it was successful, just not in as timely a manner as would have been ideal.

JoAnn's had curtain hardware on sale last weekend so I bought two curtain rods for my kitchen. On Saturday Quin and I put them up, which was unexpectedly difficult and resulted in more random holes in my wall and a few bits of salty language. For window dressing, I used 3 of my beloved vintage printed tablecloths. They are all different patterns, but all have red, blue and yellow as the main colors so I think they still coordinate. I folded them roughly in half, gathered the ends with a rubber band and tied them to the curtain rods with wide wired ribbon from my stash.

I love how the one over the sink looks. I do need to trim the ends of the ribbon. The two over the slider didn't drape as well as I would have liked, plus their patterns are such that the main designs are in the corner but they will have to do for now. I love that I can display some of the tablecloths that I adore and that I can change them out at any time! Even Quin commented on how much he liked them, so that's a great compliment! Next, I think I may try this cute idea using vintage hankies and embroidered napkins on the window in one of my spare bedrooms.

This afternoon I have another check-up with the Lasik doctor. I've been wearing these darn soft lenses since January 1 and they will map my eyes against my October visit to see how my corneas have changed, and thus how close I am to getting the surgery. Due to our schedule it will either have to be before the middle of February or the first weekend in March. I'm nervous, but excited!

It snowed all day yesterday. Blizzarded, more accurately. For anyone who's keeping track at home, that's the 5th weekend in a row that it has snowed here. We got about 6 inches out of this storm, effectively obliterating all of the progress the sun had made in melting the snow over the last few days. We have about 85% of our average yearly snowfall already, and it's not even the end of January! Traditionally our snowiest months are March and April so this is very out of character for our weather. I know when most people think of Colorado they think mountains and snow, but normally the snow that does fall here melts within a day or two. We're now at 30+ days of continual snow on the ground, and that's probably not going to change any time soon.

I got out my Valentine's Day decorations today. I had planned on waiting a little longer before putting them up so that I wouldn't be completely sick of them by the time the 14th rolls around. Oh well! It was fun to put things out. I followed my Christmas method of not displaying everything; holding some back so it will be fresh next year. It's liberating! I have a few ideas for some new decorations to make over the next couple of weeks and I'm excited to get working on them. Tomorrow I'll take a photo of my vintage Valentines to show you.

In the mean time, look at these cuties from Gooseberry Patch. I LOVE this yo-yo quilt. It's $150, way out of my price range, but I covet it still. Thing is, by the time I made 300 yo-yos and found a quilt to sew them on, $150 would probably look like a great deal!

I also love these darling reproduction vintage Valentines with hankies tucked inside. What a sweet little giftie for a friend, no? Two of my favorite things: vintage Valentines and vintage hankies! Gooseberry Patch has lots of other cute vintage-inspired things, so go take a look if you're not familiar with them.

Oh, and thank you all for your comments about the nighties hanging in my house. I feel so vindicated! :)

First, the mail treat: Miss Heidi, the Spiritual Knitter herself, sent me these wee little mittens as a thank you for the Christmas box I sent to her. They are only 3 1/2" long each and just as cute as can be! She designed the pattern herself, and you can find it here. I'm completely impressed at her ingenuity! Again, thank you!

I was tagged by Sarah and Tiff to share 6 weird things about myself. Shara, I had to laugh at your comment about just choosing 6 weird things...I told DH last night that I needed help coming up with weird things for this post and he gave me that *look* and said, "Just six?" Yes Dear, narrow it down. And don't forget that you married this weird girl!

So here we go:
1. I have an unhealthy obsession with lip balm. It must only be Mentholatum Natural Ice; no substitutes. When I was in High School I used to carry one in my pants pocket every day in the same place and eventually I got a little worn spot in my jeans, like guys who keep a wallet or snuff can in their back pocket. I must have a chapstick near me at all times or I go nuts. Instead of having numerous chapsticks, I carry the same one around with me--purse pocket when I go out, upstairs to my nightstand at night, in the kitchen during the day.

2. I have what DH refers to as "the tankard". This is one of those big plastic mugs with a straw like you get at the hospital. Every night before bed I fill it up with fresh ice water and put it on my nightstand. This no doubt is a major contributing factor to why I always have to get up to go potty at night! When I went to the hospital to have DD, I was excited because I knew I would get a new mug and my old one had a broken straw. My current tankard is getting a little worn, so it must be time to contemplate having another baby!

3. I have texture issues with food. I can't eat things that have a weird texture, even if they taste good. I desperately want to like oatmeal, but the slimy texture is completely off-putting.

4. In the same vein, I hate pumpkin pie. I think it is vile in every way. I do like pumpkin bread, cookies, and pumpkin-scented candles, though.

5. I have never seen a single episode of American Idol. You couldn't pay me to watch it.

6. When I was pregnant, I craved snow and ice. Lucky for me it was winter and I would step outside the back door and eat the fresh-fallen snow off of the deck railings. When there was no snow, I took to eating the snowy shavings left at the bottom of the ice bucket in the freezer. I used to bend over the freezer (ours is on the bottom) and scoop it out with a spoon. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I had pica.

And just for DH, I'll add one more. I have 2 vintage nighties hanging up in my house: one in my bedroom and one in the guest room. DH thinks that is the weirdest thing ever. I told him that the people who read this blog will not find that one bit weird. Am I right? Back me up here, friends!

Let's see, who hasn't yet posted...Heidi? Shara? Shonda?

Thrift finds, Thursday

Hit the thrift shop on base today. I rarely go to that one because it's only open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 am to 2 pm, which happens to be right about the time Maren naps. When I do manage to make it there, I am always rewarded! Things are priced really cheap and since the general public isn't shopping there, there is less competition. Here are some of the things I found today:

Level, $2.00. Needed one of these, as the only one I have is a keychain model and sometimes you just need a level that's longer than 2 inches.
Child's ice skates, $2.50. These are too big for Maren so I think I'll just keep them for a while. I first saw these months ago and I was shocked to see them still there today. I considered that a sign, so I bought them!
Vintage Christmas ornament & sequined clip-on bird ornament, $.25 each.
Vintage souvenir plate for my guest room from Excelsior Springs, MO, $.50
Pretty needlework purse with wooden handles, $.25
8 pieces Stangl dinnerware, hopefully for resale, $3.00
Snowsuit for Maren, $4.00. It's a little big right now but will probably work with a few layers underneath, and we might even be able to use it again next winter.
Wilton spaceship cake pan, $.75--hope it will be a good one for resale.
2 1976 Fitz & Floyd Christmas king candleholders, $.75 (will hold onto for eBay next year).

I also got all of these packages of vintage rickrack and seam binding for $3.00. I am a sucker for rickrack! I will always buy it when I see it. I have a pretty sizable stash right now, so I need to start using it. And just look at the fabric! It was $2.00 for a little over 2 yards. Keep in mind that I don't sew, but what did it for me was the little German couple. Too freakin' cute! I will just put this in my stash and someday, I will have the perfect project for it.

Long day, today. Maren was a perfect monster when we went to visit teach a friend of mine. I'll be getting a sitter for her from now on, as it's not fair to those ladies to have her running around and I can't enjoy myself and listen to them because I'm so worried about Maren-zilla destroying their houses! In the past few days she has finally learned to say "MINE" and I can tell this one is going to be used a whole lot. It's kind of cute to hear her say right now because it's new, but I can see it very quickly devolving into the seagulls from "Finding Nemo". Oy.

Time for bed, friends! Tomorrow I will share a treat I got in the mail from one of you dears and I will share 6 weird things about myself. Good night!

The writing on the wall

I mentioned back in October or so that I went to a home party for a company called Uppercase Living. Uppercase Living is a company that makes vinyl lettering that you can put on your walls, wood, mirrors, windows, cars...basically any flat surface. I have worked with vinyl lettering before and one of the best parts about it is the absolute ease of application. The letters are really reasonably priced and look really cool on walls.

I ordered two different phrases--one for the living room and one for Maren's room. I received them back in November but only just got around to actually putting one up. I chose the one in Maren's room, and followed the directions provided to me (even though I knew how to do it, having used vinyl lettering before). I have to say that I was terribly disappointed by the difficulty I had in putting the Uppercase Living lettering on my wall.

The way the lettering works is that there are three layers: bottom layer is the backing sheet, middle layer is the cut vinyl words which are adhesive on the back, and the top layer is also adhesive and sticks the whole thing together. To apply it, you peel off the backing layer, stick the rest of it to your wall (or whatever surface you're using) and use something like a credit card or Pampered Chef scraper to burnish the lettering onto the wall.

Well, I burnished right through the top layer of paper in a few places, and all they way through the vinyl in two others! :( The problem was that the adhesive on the top layer was far stickier than the adhesive on the back of the vinyl, so the vinyl could not separate from the top layer and stick to the wall. I have worked with vinyl from two other sources previous to this, and I've never had that problem before. I don't know if the adhesive somehow got stickier while it was languishing for two months on my desk, but I do know that I probably won't be ordering from Uppercase Living again. I want to order a long quote to go over a doorway in my house, but I'm glad I waited--I would have been tearing my hair out trying to apply it and probably would have ended up calling the consultant and asking for a refund.

Anyway, if you don' t look too close it turned out pretty cute. The print in the middle is vintage and was purchased at an antique store for Maren by my grandma. The little porcelain cherubs are a new addition and I think they may have belonged to my great-grandmother. The whole thing hangs over Maren's crib and I'm hoping that she doesn't figure out how to climb out of it anytime soon! I know it's just a matter of time but I'm crossing my fingers for a little longer...I don't know what we'll do when she isn't confined at night! Shudder.

Ya'll are a big bunch of enablers...and I LOVE YOU for it! :)

I did go back and get the cabinet on Friday afternoon. Last night I scrubbed it good with Murphy's Oil Soap and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I'm going to use it as a bookshelf as our other one is completely packed. I rearranged that one, threw away a whole bunch of garbage and today I got all my books in the new cabinet, and I'm so happy with it! I love that it has a door so I can close it and not look at all the mess, plus it will hopefully act as some sort of a deterrent for Maren, who loves to pull books off the shelves and tear them up.
Our other bookshelf has the tendency to collect junk as well as books and it was in pretty sorry shape prior to Friday night. We even managed to clean off the computer desk, now that there is room on the bookshelf again. I still have work to do here in the office/craft room but things are progressing.

It's still bitter cold here. The overnight temperature may get as low as -10 degrees, and it snowed all day. Unfortunately, Quin has to work tomorrow so he'll have to venture out on the icy roads early in the morning. I have lots to do around here--a mountain of laundry and still more organizing and cleaning, and I need to get cracking on listing some things on eBay. I took a long break and spent all my money so I need to get back in the saddle again and get selling! I have big plans for the money so the quicker I can make some, the better.

I'm thinking of all of you in the Midwest who are being affected by the ice storms and hoping you all still have heat and electricity! It may be ridiculously cold here but I've never had to worry that the power would go out or a tree would fall on our house! Hope you're all warm and safe.

Brrr!

Just a little check in from the North Pole--the outside temperature is somewhere between 3 and 5 degrees right now, depending on who you ask. When I got up at 7:00 a.m. it was ZERO, and it was well below that last night. There was about an inch of dry, powdery snow on the ground as well. Our high temp today is not projected to be much above 10 degrees and at this point, I'll be surprised if we even make that! The real snow is supposed to roll in sometime tonight. I've been to the grocery store and to JoAnn's for provisions--hey, if I have to be stuck inside all weekend, I need to have something fun to do, right?

Hit another thrift yesterday and found a few more goodies for the Pink & Brown swap. I also found an old white-painted wooden cabinet with a door on the front and shelves inside--more like an armoire, really. Priced at $14.99, but there's a catch--it has a big SOLD sign on it. But there's another catch: the pick-up date was 6 days ago, so I asked the furniture guy what happens now. He said he'd give the original buyers until today to pick it up but if it was still there this afternoon, he'd sell it to me. So now I'm trying to decide if I really need it or not. It looks old, but not extraordinarily so. I have NO IDEA where to put it, but I know I could find a place. And heck, I couldn't find something new at Target for that low of a price, and more storage is always a good thing, right?

Well, there you go. I think I've just managed to talk myself into it! Now to go get the car seat out so I can bring it home and break the news to the husband...

A new day, thank goodness.

Yesterday was a BAD DAY. As in, Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. There was lots of yelling (on both Maren's and my part) and lots of crying (on both Maren's and my part) and I had to schedule an emergency carpet cleaner to come today. I'll just leave it at that.

Today is a new day, and I'm determined to make it a better one. The carpet cleaner is scheduled to come between 12-2 pm and then when he's gone, I need to take Maren and hit the commissary for groceries.

The weather is supposed to take a nosedive starting this afternoon. While we had temps in the 60s yesterday, starting tomorrow our high is supposed to be around 12 degrees, with lows well below zero, a temperature pattern that's slated to continue for about the next 5 days. Oh, and it's supposed to snow for the 4th weekend in a row. Sigh. Anyway, I'm trying to do whatever I need to get done because we may be spending much of this weekend inside the house.

I did escape to go thrifting on Tuesday afternoon. It was the first time I'd been out since well before Christmas, and I missed all my junk! I was hoping to find some lovelies for the Pink & Brown swap. I did find something for my swap partner, but it's small and I'd like to find something else as well. I did find 2 Lu-Ray platters like these and because I have a serious weakness for Lu-Ray, I bought them but I know that I paid WAY too much for them. When I got home and saw what I could have bought them for on eBay, I was hit with some serious buyer's remorse that I just haven't been able to shake. I knew even on the drive home that I'd paid too much, but I think I was just so excited to find any Lu-Ray that I bought them without seriously thinking it through. Anyway, that Goodwill has a 10-day return policy, so they may go back. I've got a few more days to think on it.

The spoons in the photo are from a pre-Christmas thrift trip. All three came in a bag for something like $3.00. The one on the right is a silver loop-handled baby spoon, and the one on the left is brass and inlaid (but damaged) and marked Siam. The one in the middle is my favorite! I don't know how well you can see it in the photo, but the handle is an image of a kindly, bespectacled stork who is cradling a baby. The bowl of the spoon has a clock and it's engraved with the baby's name and birth details: JEFFREY Nov 4 1965 19 1/2 inches 7 lbs. 13 ozs. I absolutely adore it! It will go with my other vintage silver baby cups and spoons.

In cleaning news, yesterday I got started on the GRAND PLAN and did my master bedroom and bath. It's a slow start, but I've got to start somewhere!

Catching some ZZZZZZs

Last night as I turned out the light at 9:45 p.m. and settled in for bed, I couldn't help thinking that I used to be such a night owl--I would never have dreamed of going to bed so early! Times certainly do change, don't they? Even in the first two years of our marriage I retained my late-night tendencies. Poor Quin had to get up (and still does) and leave for work before 6 a.m. so naturally, he was inclined to hit the hay at a reasonable hour. I would grudgingly join him most of the time, but when he was deployed and I was all alone I rarely went to bed before 11 p.m.

It all changed for me when I got pregnant and was suddenly exhausted all the time. Most nights I could have gladly gone to bed before 9 p.m. That didn't change much after Maren was born, as I breastfed her so I was up twice a night for feedings. Thankfully, that's over but I have never completely returned to being the night owl I once was. I'm still not ready for bed quite as early as Quin would prefer, but I have gotten a lot better.

Speaking of sleeping, today I got to revisit one of my favorite Sabbath-day activities: The Sunday Afternoon Nap! Last year our church met from 1:00-4:00 p.m. so a nap was out of the question. Now we meet at 9:00 a.m. and get out at 12:00 p.m. Today I came home, put Maren right down for her nap and then settled in to the couch for a nice lie-down of my own.

I prefer to nap with the TV on. I find that it acts like white noise in canceling out other noises I hear. By far my favorite channel to nap to is the History Channel. All those shows with the narrators are usually perfect--the narrator's voice is generally deep and steady and when you turn it almost all the way down you get that nice white noise effect. Today when I was napping "Band of Brothers" was on, so I flipped to my second choice: Turner Classic Movies. Old black and white movies work in a pinch. The audio is just quieter than most of today's movies and TV shows. Today's nap was courtesy of Inherit the Wind and 12 Angry Men. It was most satisfying!

It's like deja vu all over again

We had storm #3 yesterday, bringing our snow total to somewhere between 4-5' (fixed, thanks Linda T!) in just over two weeks' time. Eek. Yesterday's snow was much more heavy and wet than the previous snows, as I found when I went out to shovel the driveway so that Quin would have a prayer of getting up it in the little car. Roads were nasty yesterday so we stayed in, although I did have to help with an activity for the children at church. My vote was for canceling but I'm not the President so I don't get to make the big decisions, and the President decided to go on with it. I know our attendance really suffered because of it--I wouldn't have taken my kids out on the roads like that, especially when school had been canceled--but at least it's over with.

Quin has drill this weekend so he'll be gone all day today and tomorrow, bringing my Mommy levels up to the saturation point. Monday he'll be home so hopefully I can escape for some alone time. I always said before I had a baby that I knew the most difficult thing about motherhood for me would be giving up my independence, and I was right. Don't get me wrong; I love my daughter immensely, but I go nuts if it's just the two of us for very long.

I have to give a lesson tomorrow in church (Sharing Time, for the MOs out there) so while Maren's sleeping I need to plant my rear end here at the computer and get it done. I know what I want to do, I just need to put it all down on paper. Later this afternoon we're going to brave the roads and go out to run a few errands. Quin took the Pathfinder as the roads were beyond icy this morning when he had to leave at 6:15 am, so I have the little car. Hopefully by this afternoon the roads will be in much better shape. The hardest part is getting into and out my neighborhood!

An update on Monday's post: my eyes are still blurry, and it's driving me crazy. If I'd worn soft contact lenses I would have had LASIK long, long ago! They're just so darn fiddly! I have to use a mirror to get them in and out of my eyes, something I haven't had to do in years and years with my hard lenses. I can't put them in--they won't come off my fingertip and stick to my eyeball, and I can't get them out--anything that requires me to PINCH my eyeball is a no-go for me. Add that to the difficulty reading or seeing anything tiny, and I am praying that my eyes change shape fast so I can get this over with!

Haven't had much luck with the grand house-cleaning plan, either. It took a lot longer to get all the Christmas put away than I had expected so that set me back. Laundry from the trip took forever and I felt like everything was just taking 10 times longer than normal to get cleaned up. I'm hoping to get started next week with the plan.

Happy Saturday, everyone!

Hello again!

Hello everybody, and Happy 2007! Hope you had enjoyable holidays. We were a day late getting to Utah because of the first blizzard, and a day late getting back because of the second storm! We had a wonderful time with our families. Maren is well and truly spoiled, and is now in Grandparent decompression. Our families were incredibly generous and thoughtful and we received some wonderful gifts, and I think the ones we gave were well-received. It was such fun to be with our families and I'm so thankful we were able to go.

As nice as it is to go visiting, it's always nice to be back in your own house! I have caught the cleaning/organizing bug that seems to be going around and I have grand plans to work on my house. My idea is to take assign one room of the house to each day and give it a deep-cleaning; all the stuff I normally ignore like cleaning the blinds and the baseboards and the ceiling fans. Some rooms may end up taking 2 days as they are larger and/or messier, but by the end of a couple weeks I'll have a nice, clean house!

Right now, I'm still working on doing the laundry from the trip and all the stuff put away that we brought back. Next is the Christmas stuff, because I can't really start my deep cleaning until that's all done. Hopefully it won't take too long, since I got out so few of my decorations. I've got the kitchen table completely covered with stuff that I need to find homes for. I thought maybe if I put it all in one place it would be easier, plus if I want to eat dinner tonight I have to get it put away! Nothing like a little forced motivation, right?

I have so many things on my To Do list now that Christmas is over. I pushed a lot of things to the bottom of the list because I just couldn't deal with them and the holidays and going out of town, but I'm feeling ready to tackle them again. One of those things is to get going on getting LASIK surgery done.

I wear hard contact lenses and will have to switch to soft for a while until my eyes go back to their natural shape. I actually got some back in October when I was visiting eye doctors and wore them for part of one day before they made me so crazy I had to take them out and go back to my old hard lenses. The problem is that I feel like I can't focus my eyes! I can see okay if it's just around the room, but to focus to try and read is a killer. I can barely focus on the screen as I'm typing right now, for example. I keep hoping that it's just going to take a couple of days for my eyes to get used to them but this not being able to read thing is seriously annoying. I'm giving it until next Monday to get fixed and then I'm going back to my hard lenses until I can get another pair prescribed. This is ridiculous! It's ironic that I'm actually having to make my vision worse so that it can ultimately get better!

We made it! It was a long day of driving, as we didn't get on the road until 10:30 am which was much later than we had hoped. It turned out to be harder than we thought to put the car carrier atop the Pathfinder and load it up when we had only shoveled the driveway to the exact width of the car's body. Ooops. Perhaps we should have been a bit more industrious and shoveled the whole thing.

Anyway, the roads were pretty icy so it was probably best that we left earlier than later. Maren exceeded all our expectations for behavior, which were admittedly low. You try being a wiggly 21-month-old strapped into a carseat for 10 straight hours! Really, she did remarkably well and that made the trip SO very much easier and more pleasant. We hit bad weather in Wyoming and for some unknown reason traffic slowed to about 5 mph, which we maintained for about 20 miles, no kidding. Lost a lot of time in that little snafu, and we finally made it here at 9:00 pm. Glad to be home! I may post on and off while I'm on vacation this week, no promises, but here's something fun to get you in the mood. Big thanks to Jen over at The Simple Things for explaining to me how to insert a YouTube video in my post...I never would have figured it out on my own!

Digging out

Thank you all for your good wishes and thoughts! We are so thankful to have a warm house and plenty of food and diapers and all the other necessities. Other than the inconvenience of having our vacation delayed, we're fine and we're safe, which is the most important thing.

When I woke up this morning I could hear that the howling wind had finally quit, so I though perhaps a miracle had occurred and the storm was over--no such luck! It was still snowing hard, although yesterday's winds had calmed down so the snow came down vertically, not horizontally! It finally quit snowing about an hour ago (2 pm MST) and I can see that the clouds have really lifted. There are even clear skies showing around the edges of the horizon. The weather guys are predicting that the clouds will break tonight but unfortunately that means it will get really cold and all that snow that's on the roads will turn to ice. We are going to try hard to get an early start in the morning so we'll have to see how that goes.

This morning while it was still snowing we put Maren down for a nap and went out to tackle the snowdrifts. All the other neighbors were out at the same time so it was kind of fun! The neighborhood kids are just about delirious with excitement--school's out, Christmas is only 4 days away and there's 3 feet of snow on the ground--could it get any better than this? There are enormous snowdrifts all over that are just perfect for being made into snow caves and sledding hills and the like. I think maybe we'll get bundled up and take Maren out to play for a while.

I've posted some photos that I've taken around the house today to give you all an idea of what kind of snow we're dealing with. Yes, this is Colorado and we're supposed to be used to dealing with snow, but storms like this are definitely the exception and not the rule! Three feet of snow and sustained 30 mph winds will bring any city down, I don't care how used to snow you are! The top photo is the view of up my front walk this morning, and the next photo is the same snowdrift from the inside looking out. The drift at the front door was almost as tall as me! I stuck my yardstick in so you could see how tall it is.

The next photo makes me laugh! It's what the driveway looked like when we opened the garage door this morning. The flat area is the part that was blown up against the door. You can kind of see my yardstick poking out of the middle of the drift. That's how much snow we had to shovel off the driveway today! Quin did most of it; I did the front door and part of the driveway. And last is a closeup of the yardstick so you can see exactly how much snow there was. I guess it was closer to 2 1/2 feet than 3, but it really depends on where you were because of the drifts. I still don't know how much snow we truly got because I can't find a place that wasn't affected by the wind to be a true representation. All I know is that there is A LOT.

Anyway, I'm off to fold the last of the laundry and drag my suitcase up from the basement so I can start packing. Maybe I'll take Maren out for a spin on her sled first. :)

Snowed in

The weather folks have been warning us about this storm for several days now, but I think even they were caught off guard by what has hit today! Denver is SNOWED IN. And I mean that in every possible way--the airport is closed (and not projected to reopen until late tomorrow), I-25 is closed from the Wyoming border to the New Mexico state line, I-70 is closed from Denver to the Kansas border (probably 200 miles) and numerous other roads throughout the state have been shut down all through the day. The Denver Nuggets basketball game that was supposed to be televised was canceled, the US Postal Service pulled the plug at about 2:00 pm, most local malls were closed by 1:00 pm and the few schools that were still in session were closed as well.

The governor has officially declared a Disaster Emergency, which means the National Guard will be mobilized to go pull stranded motorists from their cars. The road that leads from Denver to Boulder was closed off and on today. Currently there are cars stuck on that road where the people have been at a standstill for 4-5 hours. At one point when I-25 was still open, truckers were being required to put on their chains just to drive through town!

I heard a reporter broadcasting from the airport saying that she spoke to some people there who were stuck ON AN AIRPLANE for 8 HOURS. They are from the same suburb as me, so they'd arrived at the airport at 5:30 am for their 7:30 flight. The plane pushed back from the gate and then got stuck in the snow, a mere 100 yards from the gate! Those poor people were stuck on that airplane for all that time, only to be let back into an airport that is closed until who knows when. What a nightmare! No one can even get to the airport to pick up stranded travelers because the only road to and from the airport is closed. The last time the airport was closed like this, all of the restaurants ran out of food. It was not a pretty sight.

Me? Well, I had hoped to run a few errands sometime today but those quickly got canceled. Quin had the day off already and he left early this morning to go on base to PT and get the oil changed on the car. He was back by about 11 am, before things got too hairy. My plans today were to get us packed and ready to go because we had planned to leave tomorrow morning to drive the 9 hours to Salt Lake City to spend a week with our families. However, this storm is supposed to continue throughout the night up until about noon so it's very possible that we will have to move our driving day to Friday while we dig out tomorrow. We can't go anywhere until I-25 is opened anyway, and there's a good 2 feet of drifted snow in our driveway, with more being added by the minute. Just getting out of our neighborhood will be a feat.

Today I've been doing laundry and wrapping presents, interspersed with lots of looking out the windows and checking the growing snowdrift outside the front door. I'm thankful we have plenty of food and a warm house to stay in on this cold, blustery day which will only turn into a colder night. I feel so bad for those poor people stuck in the airport! Our plans may be delayed, but at least we have a warm, cozy house (and way too many holiday goodies) to enjoy! Let it Snow!

Mmm, cupcakes...

Isn't this guy cute? I saved the picture from last year but I can't remember where it was from--maybe the Kraft or the M&M website? Anyway, I love how they've used the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and a broken piece of pretzel to make the little ornament hanger. Clever! And any time you get to use Reese's cups is more than welcome by me.

We're going on a field trip today. First stop is Hammond's Candy Factory, to take the factory tour and check out the shop. I've wanted to go there ever since we moved here. We actually went last Saturday but it was a zoo (they were having a Candy Cane Festival) so we left without going on the tour. Hopefully it will be better today. After that, we're continuing north and crossing the border to the People's Republic of Boulder. Everybody have their passports? Honestly, it's weird up there, but there's a store Quin wants to visit so we're braving the crazies. I'm hoping to duck into the cute little store where I bought my Wendy Addison "Winter Dreams" garland last spring. Hoping maybe they have some new glittery goodies to add to my collection!

Happy Saturday, everyone!

Christmas meme

Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

Santa doesn't wrap presents. They are usually on the sofas in the living room.

Colored lights on tree/house or white?

We currently have white on the house but I like colored too. I think I like colored best on 'everything' trees and white on themed trees.

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?

Monkey bread for Christmas breakfast.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

We were allowed to open one small gift. I think with my kids I'm going to do special pajamas that they can open on Christmas Eve.

How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?

I have a vintage aluminum tree and it's decorated with vintage glass balls in turquoise & pink. I have a small green tree that I put our miscellaneous ornaments on but it's not out this year because it's just the right height for Maren to destroy it.

Snow! Love it or Dread it?

Love it, as long as it's not before Halloween!

What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?

Anything chocolate! I love cookies and candy.
What is your favorite Christmas Song?
It varies from year to year. Right now I love "Snow" by Loreena McKennitt

Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?

Eh. I like candy cane ice cream though (especially when it's atop a brownie!). Or those Cherry flavored candy canes.

Favorite Christmas Tradition growing up:

Christmas morning breakfast

Least Favorite Christmas Tradition Growing Up:

Christmas tree shopping. Yuck. We went artificial a while ago and I've never been sorry!

Breakfast or Presents First?

Stockings and Santa gifts. Then breakfast and after that I think we open the wrapped gifts from family.

Cloche Encounters

Thanks for the comments about the button tree, everyone! Sarah, I agree with you that it is seriously lacking in bling...that is actually one of the things I thought about when I tried to figure out the problem. I thought I had a lot more sparkly stuff in my stash but it was all in the wrong colors and I didn't feel like buying anything more, so I just went ahead without it. I do think that it would make a big difference, so I'm going to keep my eyes open while thrifting throughout the year and I can add to the tree as I find stuff. Have you ever seen those Christmas trees made out of old costume jewelry? They border on the tacky, but I'd love to find one! And VaxGirl and Jennifer--you are probably right in that I've just looked at the darn thing too long! Maybe once I get some distance I'll be more objective. And Peta--oh yeah, it took forever! :)

For today's show-and-tell, I must tell you that I giggled when I read Sarah's post from yesterday. Apparently we were having some sort of Vulcan Mind Meld about cloches, because I had just finished photographing mine when I saw hers. I love how Sarah's turned out, with the darling little pink house that her husband (!) made for her and the trees and the little felt base! So sweet.

The is the precious cloche & plate that I thrifted last week for an amazing $8.99. The bottle brush trees were colored using Sarah's bleaching and dyeing technique, and the little house is from Target. The snow is from Dept. 56 and is recently thrifted as well.

The trees: I bought a big package at Michael's for $8.99 (on sale, reg. price $14.99). There was a pretty good assortment of sizes. They were dark green to begin with and were flecked with white fake snow but that dissolved when I did the initial bleach & hot water treatment. Mine took a while to bleach out completely and required a water change because when I put them in initially the water immediately turned brown and the dissolved snow made quite a layer of gunk in the bottom of the sink. I think I could have actually left the big white one in a little longer because I notice it still has dark tips around the bottom half! For dye, I used Rit in Rose Pink and Teal. Love the pink but I was hoping the teal would be a little more blue; it turned out very green. Ah well, I still like it and I have to say that I was tickled with the results. Thanks for sharing, Sarah! I can't wait to make more.

I mentioned that the little house is from Target this year. It's actually a Christmas tree ornament from the range that's sort of vintage-looking and pale blue and red. I had planned on making my own little house, as I have the December 2000 Martha Stewart Living with the patterns for her glitter houses. When I saw this one, those plans went out the window. For $4.99 it was worth saving my time and sanity. It's cute--red doors, little white bottle brush trees, pale blue roof, glittery snow. It even plays music! Couldn't have done it much better myself.

And with that, I believe my Holiday crafting is DONE. I bought a couple of neat wool sweaters at the thrift in hopes of making stockings like these and these, but I don't think that's going to happen this year unless I give up sleeping all together. I still have to do Christmas cards, Christmas goodies, and round up a few more gifts and I have exactly one more week to do it, as we're leaving on Thursday the 21st. Maren is sleeping so I've got a few hours to hurry and cut paper. Gotta go!

O Button Tree, O Button Tree

You may have noticed in yesterday's post that there was a picture of my button tree. The idea for this came primarily from Sarah's tree, but I saw one posted later here. I like Sarah's best, though! I bought the supplies way back when Sarah posted her instructions, but finally finished the darn thing yesterday.
I used a 4" x 9" styrofoam cone for my tree. I didn't have any pink fabric so I bought a fat quarter from JoAnn's for $1.49 and just pinned it on like Sarah suggested. I also did a base layer of white buttons held on with straight pins, and I had to use a bead on almost all of those because the holes on the buttons were larger than the pin heads. Then I started the top layers.

I loved Sarah's pastel color scheme and I had already been kicking around the idea of a pink & turquoise Christmas decorating theme so that made my color choice easy. I thought I had plenty of buttons in those colors, but I was wrong! I had to go to JoAnn's and buy a couple of bags of buttons. The large bags of pink were the very bold hot pink rather than pale pink, and I wasn't able to find any turquoise so I had to settle for a very pale aqua, and I don't love how that turned out. I think it would have looked better overall if the blue had been bolder, or the pinks softer. I used hot pink & turquoise pearl-headed pins and some larger white pearl-headed corsage pins as well. I also found a bag of really pretty turquoise fake pearls at Wal-Mart so I used those instead of the white pearls I bought at JoAnn's. I also had some bright pink faceted iridescent beads in my stash that I used but I'm not sure how well I really like them. Plastic faceted beads have a tendency to look too "crazy church bazaar craft" to me, so I'm not sure how I feel about them on my tree.

I filled the tree as full as I could--there is literally no place left to stick a pin! For my topper I used a snowflake-shaped pin from JoAnn's that is set with little turquoise gems. I secured it with a couple of the corsage pins through the pin bar. The skirt is this cool ruffled trim that Lisa-Gabrielle sent me in the craft swap. It's perfect for this! I pinned it into the bottom of the tree with a few more straight pins. The base for my tree is a very cool Haeger pottery planter that I thrifted for just $.50! At the dollar store I found this handy little piece of floral foam that's shaped to go in a pot with a tapered bottom and flat top, so that's sitting in the planter and the tree is sitting atop it. Looking at the photos it looks like it needs to be raised up about a half an inch because the ruffled trim is getting squished!

So that's my button tree. I have to admit that I'm not sure how I feel about how it came out. There's something about it that's just a bit off that's keeping me from really loving it, but I'm not entirely sure what the problem is! Maybe I need to use some white buttons on the top layer, or maybe I need to ditch the pink faceted beads, or find some bolder turquoise buttons so they balance the bright pink better. Not sure, but the good thing is that I didn't use any glue so I can just pull the pins out and rearrange all I want! I do think a red and green tree would be charming, or even an all-white one with lots of different shaped buttons. Those will have to wait until another year however, as this year I am DONE with the buttons! No more!

Christmas decor

I think the decorating is finally done. Whew! I took it easy this year and didn't get out all of my Christmas decorations. In my house growing up, we always had an 'everything' tree and all kinds of decorations; nothing color-coordinated or themed. I love that and that's how I've decorated my house for the last 4 years, but this year I decided to try something different. I already had pink and turquoise vintage glass balls for my aluminum tree, so I used that as my jumping off point. The only problem is that I don't have enough stuff those colors to decorate my whole house, so the theme doesn't exist past my front room; the kitchen and family room still have red & green decorations (so I can use Rebecca's gorgeous tablecloth!).

The pink & turquoise looks a little incongruous in my front room that has 20-ft. tall scarlet walls. I actually considered doing turquoise & red instead of pink, as I actually prefer that color combination, but I'd already started that darn button tree in pink so I felt like I was stuck! Turquoise and red wouldn't have clashed so bad with the red walls but oh well! Too late now.

Here is the top of my china cabinet. I have a tall white feather tree that I bought on clearance at Tuesday Morning a couple years ago, a crazy vintage homemade centerpiece in the middle, the button tree I just finished today and a pink tinsel tree from Target. The tinsel at the base is actually the prettiest platinum color and was from one of the Martha Stewart lines at Kmart a couple years ago. I love it!

In the last photo you can see my glass glitter "Winter Dreams" garland. It's by Wendy Addison and I just love how the glitter sparkles when the afternoon sun hits it! You can kind of see the contents of the china cabinet if you look close. It's tricky to photograph because the back is mirrored so there are always funky reflections. I have various glass and silver bowls and vessels (most thrifted) filled with more vintage balls in pink, turquoise and silver. I love how it turned out! I'm already thinking ahead to next year. While I adore turquoise and pink and turquoise and red, I think I'm going to do either bright primary colors or traditional red and green. It fits better with the rest of my decor. The pink has been fun, though!