29 December 2007

this year I resolve to...

Here's a 2008 goals list I created in response to a message-board query earlier this week. I think most of these goals are reasonable & reachable.
  • Run 15 miles a week by April.
  • Travel extensively/live in at least one Latin-American country.
  • Figure out how to run my business better/decide if I want to try something else.
  • Open an etsy store to sell my handmade wares.
  • Finish at least one craft project a week.
  • Start a quilt.
  • Finish remodeling my house.
I'm looking forward to reviewing this list in December and seeing how many of these I actually accomplish. Since I'm publishing this for the world to see, I'm hoping to be guilted into doing at least half of these!

*cough*


This has been what I've been up to for the past week. I've been sick with a sinus infection, which made for a lovely holiday with Tim's family. They were gracious and wonderful, but constant sneezing and coughing can not create great first impressions. I'm finally sleeping again, and the sore throat is gone, but the stuffed-up foggy-headedness just won't go away. Ugg! I've been itching to craft over the last few days but can barely sit up without foggy head pain. Here's hoping to be better by NYE!

21 December 2007

happy birthday, little one!

Madeleine turns 10 today! That's right, my beagle is 70 in dog years. Here's a picture of her napping with me the day we brought her home at eight weeks old.

20 December 2007

favorite holiday decorations

My favorite new decoration this year:


It's been so much easier to hang these cards instead of setting them up on the dining room hutch, where they would inevitably fall or get lost behind a larger card. I put four picture nails in the dining room door frame and wound wire leaf garland around it. Then I used small clothespins to hang the cards, paper clipping any letters or pictures to the inside for safe keeping. This makes me smile every time I walk into the house.


The awesome turquoise tinsel tree was a Christmas gift last year from my Mom. I placed it in my kitchen last year, but since I finally finished the Florida room this summer, I thought it looked more appropriate in there. Mercury-glass balls and silver bells are interspersed amongst the branches.


This wreath was one of several handmade by my aunt in the 1970s. My mother always put ours on the dining room table during the holidays. When my grandmother downsized into an assisted living facility, I jumped at the chance to bring hers into my home. Comprised of at least 50 small boxes individually wrapped, decorated, and then pinned (!) to a foam wreath core, this had to take forever to put together. Check out that wild wrapping paper!












When I got my grandmother's wreath, it was quite loose and barely holding together in some spots. Forty-five minutes and some hot glue later, it's solid as a rock (well, almost anyway.) It's my favorite holiday decoration because of its history and overall awesome-ness.

holiday craft overload

My Mom commissioned me to create gifts for her coworkers this year. She's worked in the same office for 24 years now, so it was like making gifts for old friends since I grew up around many of her work-mates. I made two different things: 8 sets of four holiday coaster and 12 sets of four alligator pushpins (did I mention she works at the University of Florida?)



















I've made both things before, but not in large quantities -- not to mention I've never completed everything in one day! My biggest struggle was trying to figure out how to mount the pushpins for poke-free giving. I wandered around Jo-Ann's with a semi-idea (my preferred method of decision making.) I turned down the floral aisle and there it was -- a giant sheet of one-quarter-inch styrofoam! It was a lot easier to cut than I ever imagined it would be. I just used a straight edge and a sharp craft knife and made sure to score the styrofoam to help prevent ripping before cutting all the way through it. I designed and printed out sticker gift tags to cover the styrofoam completely. I created a smaller card stock version of the gift tags for the coaster sets.

I was so happy with the results that I quickly whipped up extra sets for Tim's family. His brother is a rabid Columbus Blue Jackets fan, so I colored some bee stamps dark blue instead of yellow. I'm not really sure they look like blue jackets, but I'll let you be the judge...


I finally delivered the coaster and pushpin sets to Mom's house at 1am Thursday morning -- yawn! But I feel great having all my holiday responsibilities taken care of. Actually, I'm waiting on one more. Mom wants me to make her a purse like the one she's worn to death, but she keeps forgetting to give me her old one to use as a template. So that will likely end up being an early 2008 gift.

december 20th, wouldn't you know

That's a picture of my living room this afternoon. Yup, those are open windows. It's 73 degrees outside and beautiful. This weather has given me plenty of time to work in the garden.

These are some of my veggies and herbs (the ones I bring inside when it gets super cold.) I decided to try growing late-season tomatoes, so I planted the plum variety in late September. It's worked out better than I could have ever expected. There are lots of flowers, and you can see the almost ripe tomatoes on the smallish plant. The weather has been so nice that they've been able to stay outside for all but a few nights recently. I'm looking forward to some fresh tomato sauce in January, complete with basil (see plant on the right.)

It's been so beautiful that there's even a bloom on my favorite hibiscus plant. The warm weather has been a great early Christmas gift for me and most of my garden, but the rye grass I've been trying to grow -- it's not been nearly as lucky. Too warm!

cookies, cookies, cookies!

Friday night I had my annual cookie exchange party. I hadn't planned on doing one this year until Stephanie convinced me it would be fun. Last year's was nice but a lot of work. This year's really turned out to be a good event. I scheduled it for the weekend most people would be going to holiday parties so that they could bring some cookies along as gifts or potluck items (every little bit helps during the hectic holiday season, right?) I forgot to take pictures of the cookie table before we all started dividing them up, but here it is mid-grab.


Everyone made around 4 dozen cookies so that each of us could get 4 cookies of each kind. My newest idea was to have folks label their cookies and tell people how many to take (several of us had recipes that made 5-6 dozen cookies.) I always want to know the names of the cookies so that I know what I'm taking. Here are the tags. If any of those look good you can check out the recipes here.


I ended up making two kinds of cookies -- Orange-Sable and Lime Sugar -- so that I could collect two batches. My reasoning: By giving both sets of parents cookies this year I'm off the hook for nut rolls (which I love but are time consuming.) It sounded like a good idea at the time -- and Mom came to collect hers the next day -- but I've been stuck in the house with the cookies for Tim's parents for almost a week now. The temptation is going to kill me! I've had to saran wrap the container they're in and seal it with tape (pathetic!) With those measures in place I should be able to control myself until Monday -- I hope. Don't they look delicious?

13 December 2007

christmas past

I've mentioned my Rockefeller Center Tree Christmas cards a couple of times on this blog, so I thought it was time to share them. I don't know when my obsession with the tree began -- not really too far from when I started making these cards in December 2000. I have a decent-sized collection of Rockefeller Center Tree images in various mediums (record album cover, photograph, watercolor, postcard, book, even an image on a record) that are displayed in my living room throughout the year. Christmas trees evoke such a warmth and happiness that you can't help but smile when you see one. And isn't that what this holiday is all about?

2000

Inside: Wishing You A Happy Holiday Season

The first attempt at card making was quick and simple, just using Photoshop to make this already cool 1937 image very graphic. It remains one of my favorite cards.







2001

Inside: Happy Holidays -- Best Wishes for a Happy New Year

For this card I got a bit more creative. I printed out black and white images of the 1964 tree and attached each one to the card using photo corners. That was labor intensive but it has a classic look that would be fine even today.






2002

Inside: Happy Holidays! Wishing You and Yours a Wonderful New Year

This one is unique. The three images, all from the 1990 tree, are simple and elegant. Photoshop was able to help me pull out the red and gold hues which really make these pictures pop.











2003

Inside: Happy Holidays! Wishing you and your a wonderful holiday season and a New Year filled with joy.

This card, although one of my favorites, took a long, long time to make. I printed another 1990 image onto vellum paper. Then I sewed the image onto card stock. The preciseness of each sewing pattern made this tricky for me. It must have worked pretty well though, since now almost all of my handmade cards have an element of sewing involved.








2004

Inside: "Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." -- Barich Spinoza

This card went out the year the Iraq War started. Peace was a big message for me during that holiday season, so the card was a simple image of a recent tree (year unknown) during the brightness of day. This is also the year I started using quotations and sayings in my cards. This quote remains one of my favorites, and the one most friends and family have commented on.








2005

Inside: This Season ... Mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Write a love letter. Encourage youth. Keep a promise. Find the time. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong. Think first of someone else. Be kind and gentle. Laugh a little. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the Earth. Wishing you and yours a magical holiday season. Happy New Year!

I love, love, love this image. So sweet, it's from a children's book about the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. I cut the cover and inside separately, then sewed them together at the top. It was quick, unusual, and memorable. This is the card I've gotten the most comments about.







2006

Inside: A good conscience is a continual Christmas -- Benjamin Franklin. May 2007 bring you & yours a year of excitement, joy, & continual Christmas.

This card is my favorite, hands down. My friend Lisa brought me some awesome tree pictures from her visit to NYC in 2005. I wanted to use pieces of them in a graphic manner. I had cut up the photo into pieces already and had been playing around with them for quite a while when the idea popped into my head to use a triangle as an anchor. This card was also cut into two separate pages and attached with a small diamond brad in the top left-hand corner.







Well, those are the cards from the last seven years. I'll put this year's card up once I mail them -- nope, not one has been sent yet! I usually have these finished Thanksgiving weekend, so I am behind!!

10 December 2007

let there be lights


We went holiday light peeping last night. It's another of my favorite parts of December. Gainesville only has so many light displays and they often aren't near each other. The Tampa Bay area is all sorts of different. Not only do both daily papers offer online maps of area displays, they include brief descriptions of what can be found at each site, which is ultimately how I mapped out our route. We found that too many people decorate with only those blow-up lawn ornaments or icicle lights. But there are still plenty of classic decorators. Here are some of my favorite shots, taken of course with the crazy camera (so pardon the angles and color variation. We weren't even sure they would turn out at all.)

This was part of a multi-home display. The lights continued throughout the backyard, and motion displays were everywhere.

What Santa really does to pass the time at the North Pole. Gainesville light display to follow sometime soon -- I'm sure of it.

holiday traditions

Even after the long out-of-the-way drive to get here and the recuperation time from my Freaky Friday (see previous post), I still managed to get some work done while here in Clearwater for the weekend. That's right, it's Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree card time!


I spent most of Sunday folding, addressing, and note writing my annual holiday cards. This is one of my favorite yearly traditions. It's a perfect time to reflect on the year I've had and share it with family and friends. Unfortunately, I've never been good with birthday greetings, phone calls, or the like (I know, that's terrible of me and I resolve to get better every year. I am getting much better with emails though, so I guess there may be hope?) This is what keeps me connected. Even more important than the cards I send are those I receive. My favorite part of December is going to the mailbox and pulling out holiday cards and letters (I LOVE the letters!) that detail the highlights of the previous year. Babies, weddings, trips taken, photos of grandchildren -- I eat all that stuff up. And if the sender is nice enough to add a website (a Flickr page or a blog about the new baby perhaps) I not only visit the site, but usually bookmark it to return to several times a year to stay in touch -- if only virtually. What would we do without the internet?

Once I get home I'll post my previous cards and the method used for making each one. I won't show this year's cards yet and ruin the surprise, but I'll put it up eventually. It was hard to top last year's card, which is my all-time favorite, but this one is definitely unique.

freaky friday


That is how my Friday began. With a beautiful sunrise as I headed from Orlando at 6 a.m. to Fort Lauderdale for a jet job. It was only a three-hour drive with minimal traffic for a morning commute. Yay! The job, which was supposed to take two days, only took nine hours to finish with five of us working. Super! So instead of grabbing a hotel room for the night I decided to head on to Clearwater at 6 p.m., only a few hours away. No sweat, right?

Well, it took me an hour of bumper-to-bumper traffic to get ON the turnpike headed out of South Florida. I should have taken that as a sign of things to come. I glanced at the map, but once you get on I-75 heading west there really is no other way to go so I figured I was okay. At about mile marker 50, I realized I hadn't seen an exit since I paid a toll at the beginning of Alligator Alley, the lonely road that cuts through the Florida Everglades. It was then that I realized I would need gas relatively soon. At mile marker 90, I started to get panic-y. Did I mention that it had started to rain? And it was dark? And that I should have replaced my windshield wipers a while ago? I started to have visions of calling for a tow truck while stranded on the side of the road by myself ... in the rain ... in the dark. Would I even get cell reception way out here? Maybe that's why there were so many call boxes on the side of the road. Gulp.

I called Tim (phew, the phone still worked!), who after being told of my predicament decided to ratchet up my panicked state by telling me I was in the middle of the Everglades and did I really expect to find a gas station in the middle of a swamp (thanks, honey!) He asked why I didn't notice the big sign at the beginning of 75 that mentioned that there were no gas stations for about 100 miles. I swear I never saw any signs -- and I promise I look for things like that! And anyway, there should be way more than ONE sign, right? I mean it's only seven miles to get over Tampa's Howard Franklin Bridge and there must be four signs reminding you to check your gas levels before crossing. For something considerably longer you'd think they'd remind you at the toll booth or something. Anyway, after looking up my mile-marker placement online, Tim told me that mile marker 101 was the first Naples exit. I calmed down considerably after that, knowing that my car could get that far. I was so thankful for that exit -- I don't think I've ever been so glad to pay $3.11 per gallon of gas.

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful, if not just plain long and boring. Even the three bridges I crossed that gave me spectacular views of the Bay area couldn't shake the grumpy out of me. I was so happy to coast into Clearwater at 11:30 (but even happier to get into a hot shower to rinse off that lo-ong day.) By the time all was said and done, I drove 470 miles in 17.5 hours with only a nine-hour work break in between. It's taken almost all weekend to recover. Check out that route!