hoarding

I love to watch the show Hoarders on A&E. It's like watching a train wreck. I find the fascinating, and extremely depressing.

I feel so bad for the people involved. It's such a complicated disease, I wonder if they are ever able to live a life that is free from the extra stuff (sometimes actual garbage)?

Not only is the show entertaining, but it provides real motivation for getting rid of the extra stuff that I tend to accumulate. After watching last night's episode I went through my closet and pulled out the clothes I no longer wish to wear (and I packed up everything that I won't be wearing for the next few months). A clean closet is such a fabulous thing!

Tomorrow I'm planning on going through my son's closet and drawers, and pack away/donate his outgrown items. I'm getting excited about dropping stuff off at Goodwill :)

Yeah, I'll probably go in the store and take a peek, too. If I get any great deals I'll let you know!

Does anyone else watch Hoarders?
Does it set you on a search and destroy mission of clutter in your own home?

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving at my Mom and Dad's house.

For the past few years my Mom and I have taken turns hostessing, this should have been my year, but back in July when I asked her about Thanksgiving plans she responded with "Why would you want to do that? You have a toddler running around." So she took over, and it was especially wonderful because now I don't just have a toddler running around, I'm also expecting again in early June :)

What you need to understand is that Thanksgiving is serious business for my mom and me. I remember being about 8 years old, my Grandmother had finally allowed my mom to hostess Thanksgiving (I love my Grandma, she was amazing, but she wasn't the world's most amazing hostess) - my mom sat me down for a serious talk and told me that "We are going to out-Martha Martha Stewart, and I am going to need your help." I mixed pumpkin pie and mincemeat fillings,peeled potatoes and set the table.

We out-Martha'd Martha. And I loved it.

We both have our Thanksgiving "Bibles" - three-ring binders full of recipes, notes, and most important - the names of our turkeys (to make a wonderful Turkey, you need to bond with it, and you must name it). The turkey is key, we usually order an Amish turkey (Mom) or one that is locally raised (Me). We set the tables a week in advance, carefully plan the menu and pick appropriate serving pieces, and then work our butts off so that on Thanksgiving it looks effortless. We are exhausted by the end of the day, but so very happy to have served our loved ones.

I'm planning a few posts for Thanksgiving, so today I'll leave you with the meal, it was wonderful. I'm currently hounding Mom for the recipes, I'll share when she starts to co-operate ;)


Clockwise from the top:
Savory Bread Pudding
Mashed Potatoes and Mom's Amazing Gravy
Green Beans with Shallots and Bread Crumbs
Cold Cauliflower Salad
Roasted Sweet Potatoes
The Best Turkey Ever (we named him Thom) with more gravy (I could drink it, really)
center - Brussel Sprouts with Hazelnuts

I neglected to take a picture of the brioche and artisan breads (from Zingerman's) and yummy cranberry relish. I also forgot to take pictures of the pies (pumpkin, apple and pecan) - I blame that on food coma :)

Chocolate Ornaments

This is my first tutorial! And it is super-duper easy, hooray!

I wasn't really sure what to call these bites of chocolate and pretzel yumminess, but they are round and festive, so I figured calling them "ornaments" wasn't too far of a stretch.

These are ridiculously easy. So easy that someone taught me how to make them when I lived in the dorms, and I made a whole bunch of them in the shared, dorm kitchenette and proudly handed them out at Christmas.

Here are your ingredients:



a bag of pretzel rounds (sometimes they call them "beer pretzels" and they are generally not manufactured by a national brand, just look for them - I swear they are out there)
a bag of holiday M&M's
a bag of Hugs (because the stripes are more fun than plain old Kisses)

Step 1: unwrap the Hugs - this will be mind numbing and time consuming - I suggest doing this while watching TV.

Step 2: preheat your oven to 150 or 200 degrees (basically, as low as it will allow you to set it) and then turn it off. If you don't turn it off you will burn your Hugs, and no one wants a burnt Hug. Then lay out some pretzels on a foil lined cookie sheet, and slip a hug into the center of each pretzel.

yep, I forgot to use foil - it made ornament removal a little bit difficult

Step 3: put the pretzels and Hugs into the oven for 2 - 3 min. They will become nice and melty.

mmm...melty

Step 4: top each Hug with an M&M .I like to place mine upside down so you can't see the logo. I also try to place the M&M exactly over the pointy part of the Hug, just to knock it down.



Step 5: stick you tray of ornaments into the fridge until they are set (10 min. or less), pop them off of the foil (or pry them off with a spatula- seriously - use the foil) and enjoy!

nom, nom, nom!

I'm adding this post to The DIY Show Off's Holiday Highlights Party :)
Come join the fun!

On the Subject of Christmas Gifts

Thanksgiving is almost here!

And you know what comes after that... Christmas!

The season of giving, love, Christ, family and friends, and ridiculous spending. Yep, I said it, it seems that every year, no matter how hard I plan, I will go slightly overboard on gifts for a few people. Now, I've never gone so far as to have massive post-holiday debt (we buy most of our Christmas gifts with cash), but every once in a while I forget about someone, and then in my rush to get them a gift, spend more than I would have if I'd given it a little more thought.

This year we're downsizing our Christmas spending. I'm pretty sure my husband will only find socks and undershirts under the tree this year. We're pretty much in agreement that our $20K foundation repair (oh yeah, that totally happened while I was on hiatus, but I'll elaborate later) was easily our joint Christmas gift... for the next 30 years or so.



I've cut my list down this year, and cut back the amount of money we're spending as well. It was something I've been thinking about for awhile now, and the Advent Conspiracy videos really solidified that for me. I'll be Giving Water to a few of my friends, I know they'll appreciate that much more than another pair of Christmas socks, blank journal, or random set of bath products. And a few other very special people will be receiving goodies from my kitchen.


I'm still trying to decide exactly which goodies to put in my boxes, but I have a few front runners:
Chocolate Ornaments
Spiced Nuts
Pepparkakor
Christmas Spritz

Have you thought about giving homemade or charitable Christmas gifts this year?

jumping back in

I've been busy.

Mostly I've been working on a Historic Homes Tour (it was yesterday), which is our bi-annual fundraiser for service league. The homes are decorated for the holidays by local florists, and this year we're pretty sure over 2000 people toured the homes. Our goal is always to raise at least $14,ooo, as that's pretty much our philanthropic budget for two years. The best part is that every single penny we raise goes directly to our community.

In a community this size $14,000 can make a huge difference. For example, our local food pantry is starting a milk money program. They were hoping to raise $1,400 to start the program and be able to give over 800 families a few vouchers for milk every month, unfortunately they were only able to raise $400. So they sent us a request and we were happy to assist them.

So that's why I've been absent from the blog.

And even though I missed doing little projects - and taking the time to take pictures of my food as I am cooking (although I never seem to write those posts!), and missed a bunch of fun blog parties and great posts that all of you have written - I'm happy to be able to give my time to my communtiy. I had a lot of fun working on this project, even though it didn't give me the immediate satisfaction that our service projects do. When I sit back and think about the impact of the money we raised, I have to say that it makes me tear up to think of little ones and pregnant women (who live right where I do) drinking milk instead of water because I was able to donate (sometimes begrudgingly) some of my time.

And now back to blogging :)

gardening for a cause

Tomorrow morning, rain or shine, I will be planting bulbs.

image from http://www.flower-garden-bulbs.com/

83 to be exact.

And nope, they won't be in my yard; because, once again, I procrastinated on ordering my bulbs.

I'm actually really excited to be helping with the landscaping of a local Habitat for Humanity home build! I'm in a local service sorority, and we are landscaping the home as our Make A Difference Day project for this year.

We threw an awesome Cinco de Mayo party last year to raise enough funds to landscape two homes (unfortunately they were only able to fund one home this year), and now our project days are here! I'll take my camera and share some pictures tomorrow.

Have you had the opportunity to serve your community lately?

window dressings

As I alluded to earlier, I now have a pretty firm plan of how I want to treat the windows in the great room.

Here's what I started with:

these curtains came with our home, I'm so over them

The walls are now a yummy butter yellow, and I've kept the crisp white trim.
I have decided not to use shears, I can add them later if I feel we need more privacy, but I honestly don't think I will. I was also super happy to see those flimsy rods go away (note to self - list them on Craigslist!).

For now I have hung up one set of "drapes" - I used drop cloths like I keep seeing everywhere in blogland, what can I say? I loved the idea!

drapes in progress
(it's really hard to take a picture of a window!)

I really like the new rods I picked - I found them at Lowe's, so the price was right and they have the feeling I was looking for. At first I was going to just go for the dark, round finials, but I ended up with fluted amber glass balls. They go really nicely with the wood tones in the ceiling and mantle.

I had to hang up a set of the drop cloth panels because we needed drapes at least on the front of the house for privacy (the neighbors don't need to see me before I've had my coffee!), and because my husband was less than excited by the idea of drop cloths as drapes.

I'm pretty sure he was picturing clear plastic sheets on the windows.

I'm not sure if he really likes these, or was just really happy with the price (I've been brainwashing him into believing that Potter barn is the only place to buy drapes - hee hee!)

I'm very happy with the texture of the drop cloths. I'm going to sew on (green) ribbons to tie the drapes to the rings, because I love these drapes from Potter Barn:

Pottery Barn

And I'm also going to do something to the bottom of the drapes.

At first I was thinking of sewing a chunk of green and white fabric (maybe a trellis pattern?) to the bottom of each panel, but now I'm thinking of stenciling the panels instead - I figure if I don't like the stencil I can always go back and sew on some fabric later.

So that's the direction I'm headed with the drapes.
I'm excited for the change!