The aftermath...

Christmas was a time of illness in the world of me. It may have been the flu. It was definitely bronchitis. I was on my booty for a long time. Mostly I knew I had been puny when my hubby told me I looked really cute one day. When I said thanks, he told me it was the first time he had seen me out of pajamas in a long time. :)

So first of all, I knocked two things off the old list over the holiday:

tamales
ukulele

On New Year's Eve, our good friends came over and we made tamales. They were GOOD!!! Now I want to make some more and get really creative. I only got a few pics of Miss Z up to her elbows in the masa, but fun was had by all. It really takes a village to make tamales by the way.

Also, my fabulous hubby got me a ukulele for Christmas. Those 6 months of guitar lessons in college finally paid off because I am soaring along at playing. It is so fun that I can't even hardly stand it. The hubz said that this is the Christmas that will forever be remembered as the year he lost his wife to a ukulele.



And so there.

New Year's resolution is to exercise more. I really MUST.

Let's see how I do.

Happy New Year!!!

I know you won't believe this...

This is actually progress on organizing my craft room. Slowly but surely, I will be one of those people with one of "those" craft rooms that make crafters drool. At least that is what I want to be. I figure progress is progress (even if it is unrecognizable by the naked and untrained eye).

Also (insert gasp of excitement here) I am on Thrifty Threads again! This is really exciting for me because I very much admire Angela's blog. Stop over. Take a gander. Look at more than just my listing because she has some great things to say. I dare you to leave unmotivated.

I am crawling (with a chest cold that rivals Camille- old movie reference, forgive me if you don't get it) towards the weekend. Christmas cantata coming up at church and I am supposed to be a dignified Queen Elizabeth. That is very hard to do while you are hacking up a lung. Bah.

Merry Christmas if we don't meet again until after.

Felt is my medium

I love to work in felt. Somehow it is so satisfying. In particular, felt has nearly no match (in my humble opinion) when it comes to making Christmas stockings.

I have made all of the stockings for my family (somehow my dog ended up with the biggest one) except my own.

My stocking was made for me by a friend of my mom's when I was just a baby.

I just finished Miss Tiny's stocking...finally...I have had part of it done for over a year.

See our stockings hung by the foosball table with care (a tradition in the Tabanou home).

Miss Z and I also worked on our annual gingerbread house this weekend. I use a kit because it would make me want to die a lot to try to make the pieces myself. This year we used the Trader Joe's kit and it was really cute!

Miss Tiny helped us by eating cheese puffs (notice the telltale cheese dust on the shirt and the bit of cheese puff drool on her chin).

The results...

I will not let Christmas make me crazy (my new mantra)

There were never more devoted sisters...

This past weekend I had the supreme privilege of getting to visit my sister and her family. This was my first time to see my youngest nephew in person. IT WAS AWESOME! Here are just a few pics of the adventures we had during my trip (BTW- somehow I didn't get a picture alone with my oldest nephew or my brother in law but I am just stating right here that is not for a lack of love... gotta be fair and all).

My dad, Glen, sent deer meat home with sister at Thanksgiving so that I could eat my favorite chicken fried backstrap. I haven't chicken fried anything in a while, but you know, it is kind of like riding a bicycle.

MMMMMMMM...does not begin to cover it.

I also brought my niece a late birthday present. She loves fashion, crafting and recycling, so I thought we would make some recycled t-shirt necklaces (link to Threadbanger tutorial). This is such a fun craft and so fast and easy. It is very satisfying to walk away with a finished project in so little time. We ended up having so much fun that we pilfered shirts from my brother-in-law so we could make more stuff. We made a headband, scarf, two necklaces and a bracelet. Now I want some for me!

(does this dress make me look like Loretta Lynn?)

I love my sister to pieces. We always have so much fun together. At one point this weekend when we were Ebaying together on side-by-side laptops and giggling uncontrollably, my nephew peeked his head in and said, "You guys were meant to be sisters." I couldn't be more blessed.

horses...horses...horses...horses... (if you don't get this, see Sleepless in Seattle)

Gobble gobble

I am off gobble gobbling this week. You get a book review instead of interesting tidbits about my life. But don't you fret, I am sure life is being interesting. I am just gobbling so much that I don't have time to notate.



So I read this. I will never be this thrifty. I try to re-use. I try to buy thrifted or Ebay. Unfortunately, I have never been that great in the deprivation department (aka I buy a lot of thrifted and Ebay). Now I know that deprivation is not the point of thriftiness or simplicity and I have fun doing the creative things I do to "make a difference", but some stuff doesn't work for me. I have no judge for anybody, I just know my limits. Some reusing doesn't work for me because I have cootie issues (particularly where food is concerned). I will never go to more than one grocery store for the week's groceries (because that makes me want to die a little). I won't learn to do my own car repairs (it would be nice to know, but I think I fear tinkering with such items), etc, etc. I will say that one point in the book made my heart sing. I must admit that I feel a great deal of guilt and shame surrounding the infrequency with which I bathe my children. Of all the things in the day (and there are a lot of things) this falls low on the priority list for me. As long as they don't actually smell bad (and a wash cloth and some lavender calming spray can do wonders for even that) I don't always get them in the tub. Now that Zelda takes showers by herself and I can just chuck her in, she does get more bath time, but Lu hates bathing and it is a project. In this book, Miss Dacyczyn said that one of her time saving tips was not bathing your kids all the time. BLESS YOU AMY! I feel validated! I feel less guilty! Somebody else is as lazy as me and this person is a well respected advice giver to millions. Just that makes the book a recommendation from me. Get validated in your "craziness". I am sure you do something that makes people roll their eyes. Maybe another person in this world that others think is really smart does it too.

Happy Turkey Day!

Just passing the time...

FINALLY FINISHED SOMETHING NEW FROM THE LIST!

Roller skating in the driveway is done. It was fun for about 5 minutes, but skating on pavement is a lot harder than skating on a smooth surface. I had much more fun after I went inside to skate in the kitchen. Also, in case you have been wondering, it is very hard to push a stroller while you are on roller skates. You wouldn't think so, but it is true.

Here is possibly the most white trash thing I have ever cooked. Now I come from white trash, so I can use the term with pride. This casserole consists of cream sauce made from powdered milk, cut up Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets, frozen green beans, leftover baby carrots, leftover boiled potatoes, and is topped with crushed potato chips (for the crunch). All adults dutifully ate the project, but no one but me braved seconds. You can take the girl out of the white trash, but you can't take the white trash out of the girl.

This is my eldest playing a rousing game of "throw the plastic banana through the window on the playhouse". Basically, this is included because it cracks me up.

And here is my homage to recycling. Man how I love to re-use a paper grocery sack. If you have scrap fabric around and a pair of pinking shears, you also have a bow. :)

Brace yourself for the rush of the Holiday roller coaster!

Blerg, I feel blerg...

Ok, this week I am just not feeling motivated to blogify. I don’t know why. I do know that I have been very neglectful of “the list”. I need to pick something and do it. In the meantime, you can enjoy pictures from my lovely Halloween adventures.

But hey, I can also give you a book review (read- filler)

Radical Homemakers

LOVED this book. Once again, I am not nearly as radical as many of the people in this book. But I am trying to be my best. People like this inspire me. I am also very interested in the idea of community. That is something I feel has really been lost. What ever happened to the idea that it takes a village? Why are we so obsessed as Americans with independence? Wouldn’t the safety of a community based life be so much nicer? Read this book. It will make you want to can something.

Over the river and through the woods....