Happy Things

OK, so not so much faithful in the blogging, but trust me when I say that I've been knee-deep in many good things, including many hours of mommying, with my sweet husband working lots and lots, which is our May and June reality. Lots of blessings have been blooming here, literally and figuratively, despite a challenging family schedule. So in honor of Friday, I thought I'd share a little list of things making me happy right now.

--The rose above, properly called "Angel Face," but nicknamed "Rescue Rose" by us. Purchased for $3 off of a clearance table at Lowes, its roots were drowning in its plastic-sheaved pot. Released to the earth, it proceeded to grow vigorously and produce this first stunning blossom.
--Panini made at home with the red cast iron panini press my dear in-laws gave me for my birthday, on homemade ciabatta bread. Makes me want to speak with those exaggerated accents the Food Network chefs use when they say "pancetta" or "parmisagna reggiana."
--How our garden grows-- tomatoes, squash blossoms, bushy beans and climbing peas. Progress seems daily now.
--Salmon burgers from Costco.
--Freezer paper stenciling. Yep, Jumped on that bandwagon. Really fun! T-shirts for my boys-- Joshua got a skateboarder, and Sam an Army plane. They wore them the next day.
--Queen Helene Tea Tree Hand and Body Lotion. OK, so I snickered a little at the name too. But it is so creamy, smells divine, and was $2 for a HUGE bottle down the street at Walgreens. Just right for this low-maintainence girl.
--Lots of little embroidery projects planned, as well as a few larger home projects. This may be the summer we say goodbye to the scary little vanity in our bathroom and hello to the dreamy white CLEAN pedestal sink.
--Reading aloud to the boys. Never gets old.
--The Happy Berry, our favorite blueberry picking spot, opens blueberry season June 15th. We will be there soon after!

--Despite gas prices and food prices and unending elections that have not really begun yet, there are lots of shade-dappled country roads to explore, there will be steamed corn to be eaten, juice exploding and butter dripping, right off the cob, there are buckets of sun-warmed berries and dirty boy feet at the end of the day. There's still bluegrass music and little white churches and freckles on noses and farmstand produce. So many good things to fill our baskets. . . Happy Weekend!

The Grace of Tears

I am an easy crier. I've made my peace with it-- Hallmark commercials, those little human interest stories they do during the Olympics, my elder son's class singing "What a Wonderful World. . . " Last weekend I attended a banquet honoring graduating seniors at my sister's family's church, two of whom are my twin nieces. I ruefully confessed to my sister, during the slide show, that I was weeping over the baby pictures of strangers.

But some tears are different. Some come from being so filled up, that something has to leak out-- gratitude, humility, real down-deep joy, the transport good art can cause, and salty and true they flow out. Lately I've felt these more real prickings behind my eyes: a huge car service that we were able to pay cash for that should keep our trusty wagon running well on into the future, a boy who has inherited my love of roses and celebrates an open bud with home-run exuberance, another boy who seems more easy in his spirit as summer approaches, a husband who has treasured me back to health, and all of it God's provision. I've come to love those moments of being overcome by grace, so happy and humbled that the very best cannot be earned or measured out, that these bits of wonder are only mirror shards reflecting my true portion, God Himself. And the heart sees beyond the precious but fleeting gift, to the Giver. And overflows.

Experimental Phase

This year is a first for us-- our first attempt to have a vegetable garden. Before we have grown a few patio tomatoes, and I love potted herbs, but this year we are doing the real thing. Sort of a modified square foot gardening model.

The thing is, it almost didn't happen. Like many homeowners, there are just so many dollars and so much time and energy to put into home projects. While we continue to tweak things indoors, we are rescuing our yard. Around our L-shaped ranch are various boxwoods and hollies, untended for two decades, scraggly above red clay that washes up on the foundation with every rain. Last year we reclaimed a few precious feet, with gravel and mulch, with new healthy shrubs, after creating a mountain of trimmings and digging out huge stumps.

This year, we had planned to garden, but continuing with the project we had begun was looking more and more attractive. Hours and dollars made it an either/or.

And then the first seed catalog came, with the only snow we saw this winter. The boys pounced on it before I could, and in their imaginations a wondrous garden took root-- filled with magical things like sugar pumpkins and baby carrots and sunflowers swaying over all like benevolent sentries. The decision was made and we ordered a great load of dirt, started making our beds, reused some fencing, and started some seeds inside.

As any of you with kids and a garden know, it is already worth it. Their wonder as green split seed and earth by our sunny window, their delight as vines creep upward and rosebuds burst into bloom has more than made up for our homely foundation beds. There will be time later for tasteful ground cover, for the hydrangea hedge at the border and peonies along the driveway. This is now. Their dirty fingers are still small and a little stubby, and they get it, on some level we can only approximate as adults.

So far we have had a few salads from the lettuce bed. The tomatoes are blooming and I am looking over the pepper plants and dreaming of July fajitas. My few roses, moved to make room for the garden, are flourishing in their new homes and putting on an early show. And every morning Sam wants to go check out the garden, survey his plot and check for growth, equally thrilled with rose and marigold.

We don't totally know what we're doing. But on some level, it is already a success.

Hello friends

Hello out there. . . I feel a little shy, like making a tentative entrance to a party, looking around to see if there's anyone I know, checking to make sure I'm neither over nor under-dressed, my contribution for the table held a bit too tightly. . .

I had mono this spring. Actually, February through the first of May seemed one long siege of sickness, but that last one. . . I was sicker than I have ever been, and still recovering my energy even now. Sick enough that I looked around at home projects I had done and marveled that apparently in other times I've had the strength to keep up with laundry and housework and cooking and create and paint and arrange too.

The photo above is like a little celebration-- the first day I slipped the strap of my camera around my neck and squinted into the viewfinder. And a few days after that, I traced and ironed on the designs for the lovely Alicia's Pleasant Kitchen dishtowels and threaded my needle. Last night, the kitchen smelled like homemade granola bars that I didn't have to make, that I made only to see the smiles of my boys at breakfast.

As I began to recover, I spent a lot of time mulling over what I missed. When all the busyness of even this quiet homebody was stripped away, when the thought of anything optional was purely exhausting, what did I miss? In addition to the strength to wife and mother in the way I want, what did I long for in those long hours? And what slipped away without my notice, and left space and time that was a benefit and not a loss?

When I could move beyond the "have-tos," to what would I want to return?

I missed taking pictures. I missed baking bread and making cards and embroidering. I missed "fluffing up" our house and moving things around for a fresh perspective. I missed puttering outside. I missed the mental energy for long e-mail chats about what really matters. I missed the thousand little luxuries of doing simple things well and artfully and with attention.

And, a bit to my surprise, I missed this space. This place to share little bits and pieces, the moment when I read back over something I've written and my life somehow makes more sense to me, that feeling of connection and understanding with others, the conviction I have long held that a life examined creatively is more fully lived.

So I'm back. Never sure of how frequently or how well. Quietly, thankful for even the energy to consider words and images lovingly shaped.

Hello. Spring is here. When you are away from your life for some reason, what do you miss? What do you let fall away?

Sifting and Sifted

Twenty four hours. Six days and one for worship and rest. Those of you who have been reading for awhile know that I long to live with purpose and attention, intention and grace. And there is no way around it- to do so is a matrix of nos and yeses. We navigate through our days gleaning urgent from important, need from want, self from servant.

This week I tried. I said no to days without order, and yes to a plan. I said yes to homemade pita bread, and dancing in the kitchen to Sam's new favorite song. (To listen, look for A Woman and a Shovel on the player at the top right of the page.) I said yes to more chapters read aloud, and no to impulse buying. Yes to good conversation, and no to most TV. And of course, as always, there were nos that should have been nods, and assent when denial would have been better. Sharp words where silence would have done as well, and speed over gentle slowness. But every day, morning and evening, the Father Who delights in shining through my fractured but colorful self, cast His mercies over me and it was good.

I talked with a friend this morning about what it means that we were created for God's pleasure. He delights in us. Just as we bend over our children, flushed and sleeping and are filled with a pure joy and satisfaction, not because they did anything for us, but just that they simply are, so it is with God. In Him there is no foot-tapping impatience, no dubious waiting to see if we will "get it right" this time.

The process of sifting our lives and allowing ourselves to be sifted is not to earn love or approval, it is instead to experience His best, to allow Him to shine through less obscured, to breathe in mercy to breathe out grace.

Because of Bob and Fred

Meet Bob and Fred.

Now, at first glance, they might look to you like just a couple of plastic figures, trapped in their acrylic box, bobbing up and down on the surface of the mysterious blue liquid of their personal ocean. A souvenir of our visit to the Tennessee Aquarium last summer.

You'd be wrong, friends.

You haven't been here for breakfast, or bedtime snack the last few weeks. I can't remember exactly when it started, when these two became stars in little stories told by John, in fact, when they were christened Bob and Fred. But you would be amazed at their adventures. They've formed a rock band, run for president, and over and over come to terms with their lack of electricity, out there on the ocean. (They can't play Star Wars on a playstation or plug in an amp for their electric guitar.) This morning they suffered an encounter with a couple of outlaws turned horsetheives, with a side discussion on the difficulties of webbed feet, cowboy boots and stirrups.

Every day I hear the requests, "Penguin story please!!!!!" And then the snickers and the chuckles and finally the belly laughs, and the protests when the story is over. As I refill a juice glass I see Joshua and Sam, shining eyes fixed on their dad. It is one of those utterly ordinary, everyday, something from nothing family miracles.

It's February people. You know, still.

This mom has been running low lately on energy and creativity, and I am appreciating again the seamless handoffs that parenting with a shared vision allows. How much it delights me to see him doing something that never would have occurred to me, that delights them.

So today, when you ask me why I love my husband, why I value him as the Daddy of these little people, I might say. . . because of Bob and Fred.

Inspired

Well, um, wow. . . We had one of those afternoons that we'll be chewing on for awhile, tasting every bit of the good from it, over and over. . .We asked a friend from church, an older woman who is in John's Sunday school class and who has been especially kind to the boys, to join us for lunch. We got Mexican at a local restaurant, and sat and talked with each other over quesadillas, and then she invited us to come to her house, a few moments from the restaurant.

She lives in an octagon-shaped home, three rooms, all hardwood and tile and cedar shake and windows. It is a spare and perfect as a piece of art, as the amazing local art that hangs on her walls. There in the space and light, with the profusion of nothing except books, and on her countenance, was everything we have ever read about voluntary simplicity. Every object selected for usefulness or beauty and mostly both, no more than would fit and a tiny home that felt spacious. "Enough as good as a feast."

Everything was touched with her vibrant spirit. We came away with so much to process, a desire to drink in everything we thought. I am not writing about it well even now, but I had to get some of it down, and behind it all-- the real deal-- that so clearly by saying "no" to some things, she has said a full and singing "yes" to others. And so, is there any space in our home, schedules, budget, brains, where we are called to say a small "no" that could pave the way for a deeper, truer "yes?"

Filling the Library Bag

There has been some reading going on in this sick household! In read-alouds we breezed through the last half of Little Town on the Prairie and are now enjoying an encore visit with Farmer Boy. John has alternated military history with a little Grisham to lighten things up, and I lapped up my wonderful What the Land Already Knows all too quickly. But a real treat awaited me in my next choice, Gail Godwin's Evensong. I remember reading the first book she wrote about her character Margaret Bonner, Father Melancholy's Daughter, several years ago, but I don't remember the thorough absorption and enjoyment I've found in Evensong. It helped that it is set in my beloved Western NC, so while penned up indoors, I got to wander the mountains and waterfalls that I love.

Joshua has alternated spending time with Ramona and Calvin and Hobbes.

But the pages we may revisit the most often were found in A Hole is to Dig, suggested by the wonderful Angry Chicken. Not sure how I missed this book-- of course we know Maurice Sendak, whose illustrations are at their most charming, and Ruth Krauss' husband penned Harold and the Purple Crayon, which I never read as a child and discovered delightedly with Joshua just a couple of years ago. (Why did I not copy all those index cards made my my future-teacher college roommates when they took children's literature? Why?) But this book, this book has already given us all so many smiles. I'll be ordering our own copy, and exploring more of Ruth's work.

This is a specific gift the blogging world has given me, a constantly growing list of books for us to explore with our boys. I'm thankful for so many passionate parents and readers who share their reviews and impressions to fill our library bag.

A Helping of Normal

I remember I started feeling bad on Super Tuesday. There we were, ensconced on the sofa in front of CNN, treasuring the last few days of nonstop political punditry before we canceled our satellite service. As the states lit up on John King's interactive map, I realized I was not enjoying Barack Obama's many wins as much as I had planned. In fact, by bedtime I felt distinctly unwell.

Sigh. Over the last two weeks I battled what I started out believing was a nasty cold, through the flu that got us one by one, and finally I am left with John, in the bedroom nursing pneumonia and reading his third book in as many days. My kitchen counter has looked like a wet bar of pharmaceuticals, with cold medicines and fever reducers standing in for mini bottles. The various juices and Gatorades to tempt our nonexistent taste buds and keep us hydrated have multiplied as well. We have made it halfway through a teetering library pile of books and videos.

But this morning, with husband still on the mend and eldest headed off to school with his sick note, Sam and I made a stand for normal. Medicines were banished to their top of fridge bins, everything wiped down, and mixer pulled forward. Flour and sugar and shortening from the cabinets, water from the tap, yeast and whole wheat flour and wheat germ from the refrigerator. Time to make bread.

It was wonderful how much I felt the regular rhythms of a good, well life returning as Sam and I measured and added and blended. We smiled as the Kitchenaid did its thumping dance as it kneaded, and were delighted after the first rise as the dough brimmed its greased bowl.

How those loaves satisfied me in their ordinary splendor, cooling on the counter. All shall be well and very well.

A Handful of Feathers

So perhaps a bit about the blog hiatus I took. . . I was feeling one of my periodic waves of ambivalence about my blog and about internet communications in general. Partly for privacy reasons, partly as a new blogger seeking my comfort zone, I had set pretty narrow topical boundaries here. And I think I got bored with them, got bored with the few sides of myself and my thoughts and heart that I had shared. And yet, knowing that there are things that I could write about that would be exciting for me, but would perhaps stir up controversy. And knowing that debate is not why I began to blog, and is not what I enjoy or want to engender here. Now, I can have a good debate with the best of them, and it is something I used to enjoy. I just don't have that kind of energy in the online portion of my life, to do it well and respectfully. The distances between us in cyber world, to me, demand an even higher level of civility than needed in our face to face interactions, as online we are without the graces of tone, gesture and expression to soften our words.

So I felt caught between a rock and a hard place, chafing against my own fences here and unsure of the land beyond them, should I climb over them. I told a dear friend, also rethinking her internet life, that I would mull it all over while I embroidered my bathroom valance, that I would not make a decision until the project was done. The center motif is a kind of stylized bluebird, and as he grew beneath my needle, it occurred to me that reading someone's blog, someone you only know through that venue, is a handful of feathers.

They are full of the color of that person, their texture and were a part of them. They are precious. But they do not tell you what it feels like to fly with the wings they came from, or what the landscape looks like from that bird's eye view.

No matter how true our words, no matter how tuned to our lives in perfect pitch, they are a part and not the whole of us. We hold each other's feathers but don't know the whole flight path, the journey that came before, the way the mountain looks from another's nest.

As I share other parts of my mind and heart I hope you will welcome them as just a few more feathers from a woman living and loving and praying, still creating and growing and figuring things out.

Translation

We have been living the hermit existence of a sick family this week. Aside from furtive rushes into pharmacy, grocery store and library for supplies to weather the storm, these four walls have been our space and us four, each other’s company.

With the distractions of work and schoolwork and church gatherings and daily commerce peeled away, I appreciate again the intimacy of family life. We know every inch of these little people in such detail, and can track symptoms and emotion as they play across their features.

Joshua curls next to me on the sofa. The bristly hair against my fingertips is like no other texture I’ve ever felt. He gets a fever hard and fast, this one-- as I hold him and read aloud, I can feel the heat through his Spiderman pajamas and see the glaze over his eyes as he sinks into my side. Thankfully, the fever reducer works equally quickly; he will be jumping around and chattering nineteen to the dozen in a half an hour. Sam always grips my upper arm for comfort, looping both hands around my bicep. When this little morning buddy chooses thumb and blanket over granola bar, he really doesn’t feel good.

This knowledge can come only through the crucible of family life closely lived. I can still remember the surge of competence we felt when we were first able to crack the codes of cries, facial expressions and body postures. The pouched lips and puffed cheeks of the teether, the waxes and wanes of appetite and growing pains, the little skirmishes and irritations that called for more sleep. Bodies and faces and tones to be learned by heart.

The trick seems to be, as they grow, when they are well and we are flown to the routines and relationships of daily life, to stay schooled in them. To be able to read the hurts and happiness they may not tell us, and to respond. The quiet that needs to be drawn out into conversation versus the quiet that needs only its own company. The anger acted out that sprouted from an earlier hurt. The over-eager helpfulness that whispers, “I need to be close to you right now.”

And then to hold, in the tension of paradox where being a parent is best lived out, the humility of the knowledge that we cannot and should not meet every need, the ones we interpret and understand and the ones that remain in all ways unspoken. They have a Maker who is the only one who can fill their deepest longings. We are the caretakers, with Motrin and cookies and cuddles and Little House and “You Are My Sunshine” and new crayons and the grace to translate and speak the language of family.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I will be returning soon, looking at life with a bit of a wider lens.

Ice, Light, and Silence

I am more out than in with the blog these days it seems. For the first time since right after I started blogging, I am feeling an odd reticence when I sit before the keys. But this time it is not the quandaries over showing my kids' faces, or how much to reveal about our hometown. It has more to do with how much of the real stuff I heap on a platter and bring to the table versus how much I keep here. Not just for myself, but for fuller conversations and deeper relationships that honor the topics with context, time and grace.

I don't want to write here about the political candidate I am supporting this year, though I am a passionate armchair pundit, because I fear a box-- "oh, she is one of those sorts of people!" more or less committed to one thing or another than the reader imagined. A mark of our times, to look for those boxes into which to file each other-- I do it too.

I have a certain impatience toward writing about parenting-- I have not been at the top of my game lately, and I don't mind revealing that-- I just have the misgiving that I should be doing it more and pontificating less. Actually, that speaks to a general impatience I am feeling with myself-- a "just do it!!!" It is lovely, most of the time, to care for our home, so I guess I am in a season of just reveling in it more and reflecting on it less.

Perhaps this blog has had its season for me. I'm not sure. John and I chuckle often over the generation gap we feel between ourselves and some of his younger coworkers. The world online still seems utterly other to us-- we are somewhat crotchety and insecure in it. Real connections are made here and I don't discount them-- the hearts and minds that bless and nurture me pulse and beat in real bodies and real hands convey their thoughts.

But for me, when I feel unsteady, or as though my footing in the here is not what it should be, this world is the first thing to be placed, gently but firmly, on some back burner

Perhaps I will return to this space at some point. Until then I encourage you to seek and find the beauty and grace in every day.

Within and Without

Yesterday the mountain was icy blue, school was closed, kids were up early for a cup of hot chocolate, fingers itching to pack the first snowball. Do you remember that feeling-- even if you loved school-- that breath-held, if-only, can-it-be-true wait to find out if school was canceled? In this part of the South, it doesn't even happen every year, and when it does, most often for ice storms that slick the streets and leave us, power out, scurrying for candles and more polarfleece.

This was a real snowfall, by our standards. It began as darkness fell Wednesday night. We were at church, and I looked out of the 2s and 3s room to see Sam's class, noses pressed against the windows, erupt into squealing in the hallway, squinting up toward the streetlights to see the first flakes coming down.

It was still snowing at daybreak, for a little while before changing to rain, and we played outside early, to make the most of it. And the rest of the stay was spent inside in the warmth. I had the blessing of contrast-- we are planning our first "real" garden, so I could drown in pictures and descriptions of flowers and produce, or read the helps and hopes in this book, but glance up to see white lacy branches and the far red cardinal who stopped for a snack. A little bit between the now and the not yet.

New Ways, Old Roads

I've been greeting the new year is typical fashion this week. The laundry basket and Goodwill bag, they runneth over. A menu plan is neatly printed on the first page of a new planner. I've sweated my way through workouts on three of the four days of this new year. The house is swept clean of holiday decorations and the sun shines in with chill brightness of bare floors and plumped pillows.

I loved the holidays, the extra family time and the celebration and feasting and fun. But this is good too-- like a deep breath of the coldest air this winter has seen yet. A kind of comfort that I already know the novelty of some of my virtues will wear off long before Valentines Day. But some might stick, might become part of my becoming this new year.

What are your hopes for 2008, your intentions and dreams? Would you like to learn something new, read some great words, learn to hold your tongue or let go of your agenda? Let us remember to balanced self-denial and abundance. ( A little less chocolate but all the library books you can carry? ) Let us step into His Hand, and see what He has in store-- both for us and in the making of us.

Calm and Bright

It has been quiet here, hasn't it? I don't really have any explanation, exactly. But it has been good. I feel ready for the flurry of feasting and giving and receiving of the next few days. All our extended family celebrations will be happening before Monday, so Christmas Eve and Day are all ours, for worship, and simple food. Scattering glittery oats on the lawn for Santa's reindeer, rising early, curling ribbon and muffin crumbs, and two boys impossibly taller than last year. For once I feel ready to drink in all its messy glory.

This year feels different. We did the dinner party, and it was fun and busy and festive, and then I just. . . stopped. The days since have been quiet. I had a visit from a dear friend, and Joshua had a school program. Sam stood up so straight to sing in church, and we caroled on the coldest night yet. But mostly it has been reading The Long Winter aloud to the boys, opening a new door in The Advent Book each evening, drawing Christmas trees and reindeer over and over, and playing a CD changer full of holiday music on the stereo next to the tree.

I let go of many things. We were so inundated with homemade treats from others that I have not baked very much, and for the first year, we have not sent Christmas cards. I imagine myself writing some letters in January to dear ones. We said no to several events; if we were trying to decide and it seemed like a bit too much, we said no.

And just now that feels just right. To know that I would not have traded one peaceful hour for our own greetings to be winging into others' mailboxes, or to purchase one more "perfect" gift, or to turn out Martha-worthy trays of confections. Our kids are still young, and their boundless delight in the small ceremonies and celebrations of home is a luxury I am reveling in.

We have many traditions that are the bones of our Christmases, but the character and shape of them is different every year. Every year we discover a new tone to our celebration, and perhaps this is uniquely appropriate for a holiday that is not a day at all, but a Person. May we, may you, as we savor Christmas, meet Jesus in some fresh way. Let us make Him room, as the hymn says, let heav'n and nature sing.

A Feast Before Us

I am not crazy about "Christian book stores." Not because of the books, for I love books, but all the "stuff." (And I won't go on here, because there is a big old soapbox of self-righteousness calling me, and I'm keeping my feet on the ground today.) But one time, in one of those stores, I saw a poster that depicted the Bridegroom's banquet that awaits us in heaven, a table with places set, stretching as far as the eye could see and beyond. I loved that.

Last night and today, I have felt like a guest at a feasting table, each rich and fragrant dish that passes a blessing heaped on my plate. Holidays and calendars are so good for marking our time, looking back to the last time or two we hung an ornament on the tree, or set out the silver. And I cannot deny that, while there have been times of need, moments of loneliness in these last two years, we have traveled a way I could never have imagined. At last, a career that my husband loves, a home that is beautiful to us, boys blooming with health and good-naturedness, a church home. In letting go of some things, some people, my hands were opened to welcome others.

And for this moment, I am so glad to sit at this table.

To Make Ready

Every year of our married life I have filled the shallow pottery circle with water, and snips from the yard, magnolia, nandina and evergreen, fitted the candles in place. Sometimes joyfully and expectantly, sometimes in sorrow and uncertainty, through the dim sleeplessness of new parenthood and the glad noise of small ones. And we have drawn around this circle.

Likewise my heart has been in different states by this Advent wreath. Absent and distracted or worried. Longing beyond the lighting and reading to bedtime for little ones and a few moments of peace before I am sleeping too. But, somehow, always making this circle of light part of our Christmas preparation.

This year, as the cut stems drink and the wicks stand ready, I, too, am longing. To drink more fully of Advent, to experience a season of preparation for Jesus. A slow dawning in my heart, again, of what it means that God poured His divine self into a human vessel, a man who laughed and wept and taught, who made friends and loved and was betrayed. But Who, Himself, was faithful to the cross, To the tomb. And now, to the Throne. Breath held, candle lit, as an old story is told and retold in our own four-flame circle, I want to see the wonder in our faces, to be made ready to come and adore Him.

St. Nick of Time

I cringe at puns, I really do. And yet, occasionally, I cannot resist them.

Here it is the Advent calendar inspired by the wonderful Teresa McFayden. I LOVED doing this project. My total cash outlay was $3, for an adhesive magnetic strip to make my magnet numbers. I had the cookie sheet, and the paint, glitter, paper, and trinkets were all from my craft room. Ribbons and glue and mateless earrings, bottle caps and wooden stars and stickers and ink.

I finished the last several markers today, and after this picture was taken, all the magnets were removed so the boys can start taking turns tomorrow, adding them one by one.

My favorite thing about this project was that I felt so free with it, like I could just have a good time making each little piece. It will be out for a short time, it can be homespun and crazy and glittery and a little too much. And now it is ready, ready for the first of December tomorrow.

Good night, and twenty five more sleeps until Christmas!

Dry Run Dessert, Take One

We are having a little winter supper here in a couple of weeks for John's coworkers. (I am resisting the term dinner party because it sounds oddly grand for what I am hoping will be a festive but relaxed gathering.) And so it is a winter supper with a lovely salad, a choice of soups, and these little lovelies.

I am testing my recipes this week so all my plans and shopping lists are in place well in advance. I am serving a chicken tortilla soup that is less a recipe than an always evolving Southwestern stew. The potato soup I am serving tastes amazing, as my family could attest after Monday night, but did not prove very photogenic on a dark, rainy evening.

And now these cakes. I'll make them the day before, and the ganache the day of the party. Dessert plates dusted with powdered sugar, cups of decaf all around, Christmas tree lights twinkling off of silver. . . aahhhh.