Candyland

My sister posted a picture of the gingerbread house her girls made this weekend. And I was so envious. I have never made a gingerbread house from scratch. So when yesterday turned into a snow day, I seized the day!

I made my dough from this recipe. I didn't have molasses, but the friendly people all over the internet said you could substitute corn syrup. The only thing that it really changed was the color of the walls.

I made my own pattern from cardstock. I basically sized it based on how much dough the recipe made.

The genius part of this recipe was the helpful hints written at the end of the directions. It suggested rolling your dough on the back side of your cookies sheets and baking them that way. This way, you never have to move the pieces after you cut them out. You just remove the dough around the cutout pieces. The dough is just too big and fragile to move after it is layed out.

After each cookie sheet of gingerbread house was baked, I let them cool and then placed all of the pieces in the oven at 200 degrees for three hours. This makes each piece super hard and brick-like.

It took both Rory and I to assemble. I started with the back and sides and waited until these parts were cemented together with the frosting. I had to keep the frosting covered at all times. It hardened to cement within 10-15 minutes, depending on how thick it was piped on.

I had limited goodies on hand to decorate the house. So I colored noodles and used other things I found hiding in the cupboards.

We had lots of pretzel sticks, so it quickly was decided that this would be a log cabin gingerbread house. Surprisingly, it didn't take too long to cover all the walls. We were watching Disney's Prep and Landing and I was so full of the Christmas Spirit I could hardly stand myself!

This morning we went out to our grocery store and got a few more candy-type goodies. I finished with the chocolate stars, dots, caroling cinnamon bears and peppermints.

I think gingerbread houses will be my new snow day tradition. You sort of do need a whole day for the project. But it is so fun to play with food, so fun to create and construct and to binge on the candy as you create your own happy home. Plus, our apartment smells amazing, inviting and cozy.

snow day

We've got a blizzard here in Omaha, blowing strong and leaving us quite content to stay inside watching the growing snowdrift on our deck, illuminated by christmas lights. I have had a delightful day. Honestly, there is nothing like a snow day. To be given a surprise day off might just be the most delightful feeling in the world. I'm a planner, so even a Saturday or Sunday typically have some sort of agenda pre-planned for them. But not a snow day. A snow day is a surprise day ready to do all those projects that have been waiting for "a day to myself."

In honor of this snow day, I did the following:
1. Made a gingerbread house
2. Talked to my sister for a good while
3. Made supper in the crockpot
4. Took my blog entries from my other blog and transferred them to this blog
5. Watched a lot of hgtv

Number four on that list really is all thanks to my beloved, techy husband, Rory. He worked hard on this project today. And now, if you go to the side panel and look at the archives list, you'll see that my blog now begins in September of 2008, because that is when I began the other blog. But now the two have become one and I am so pleased to have all these thoughts and pictures and adventures gathered together in one place. Be sure to check out the October 2008 entries. Oh my word, did we see some beautiful places on that roadtrip last year!

an advent sucker tree.

A year ago I took my first Jessica Sprague class teaching me the basics of digital scrapbooking. That class empowered me in ways I never could imagine. There is something so thrilling about learning something completely new. I remember moments in that class when I would yell at my computer asking it boldly why it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. But then, when I figured things out, and when I really was learning, I would hoot and holler at my computer while doing a happy dance, so proud of what I had learned.

This whole experience of trying and then trying again and then trying some more until I finally 'got it' has led me to other things that I want to try. Like sewing.

Last month there was a quilting retreat at Camp and I was inspired. There was a woman there named Mary, and we talked for a bit and she insisted that I borrow her Bernina machine sometime. I thought she was just being kind and generous. She was, but she was also very serious. So I borrowed her machine...but I couldn't remember how to thread a bobbin from my 7th grade home economics class. I called her to return the machine and as soon as she heard I hadn't sewed anything yet she invited me over to her house for a special lesson. She showed me how to load my bobbin and thread my machine and I went back home with her Bernina and a bit of sewing confidence.

The project I had in my head to sew was an advent sucker tree, counting down the days until Christmas. I had an advent sucker angel growing up, eating one sucker each day until Christmas. It was my own personal decoration and filling it up with suckers was my own special tradition each year.

I made my own pattern out of a grocery bag, cut my felt with kitchen scissors (I now have sewing scissors) and sewed the ribbon on, picking my foot up every once in a while to leave a gap to tuck the sucker in later. (How impressive is my use of "foot" back there?!! I'm learning sewing lingo!)

When I finished my tree I was so stinkin' proud! I called my mom immediately to tell her the happy news. And then I decided to make four more trees while home over thanksgiving so I could give one to each family in Rory and my families. I gave a tree to my niece Ruby when we were home over Thanksgiving. I told her, "Ruby, I have something for you." And she responded, "For me? For me?" "Yep. It's right here behind my back." She peeked and I announced, "It is a sucker tree for Christmas!" And she began jumping up and down, arms flailing, "FOR ME! FOR ME! IT'S FOR ME, MAMA!!!" I turned to her her mom and said, "This is why I learned how to sew."

And tonight I got a call from Mara and Sonna, my nieces in Montana who just got their tree in the mail today. I told them I sewed the tree myself and Mara asked, "with a machine?!!" And I was so proud to say, "Yep. With a machine. I just cut out the green fabric, sewed on the red ribbon, sewed it up like a pillow and stuffed it with fluff. And then I put suckers on it." Sonna then asked, "you make the suckers?" And I told her no. But it made me think, if I can sew, surely I can make a sucker. Add that one to the list.

weekend winter wonderland

A few days after our 10 year high school reunion, Heidi called me and said she needed something else to look forward to...Christmas was to far away and her husband Tim isn't coming home from Iraq until March. So we scheduled a girls weekend to Okoboji Bible Camp, the perfect halfway point between our two homes.

It was a nicely timed weekend, as this week Heidi's daughter, Joy, figured out how to use her poo as carpet art. We brought our own food, went for a few winter walks, looked through a box of our high school memories (notes we wrote, pictures we drew), talked and prayed and played on the camp's tire swing. My abs hurt from so much laughing and my heart is full.

yes, please.

I remember when my parent's dropped me off at the airport before my semester abroad in India. My dad said, "Just remember, wherever you are, that's where you're at." And I thought it was such an odd thing to say. He went on to explain that no amount of homesickness or wishing to be somewhere else would do any good. It's okay to feel those things, but don't miss what you're experiencing because you're wishing to be somewhere else.

I can't tell you how many times I repeated these words of wisdom while I was there. There were horrifying things we were confronted with: slums and sickening poverty, child labor, bride burnings, a caste system that convinced human souls they were lower than feces. But I never wished to be out of that country. I loved India. I loved the people we met, and the brand new experiences we lived fully every day. I never wished my experiences away and now I look back at those extreme highs and lows in India as some of my most formative experiences that shaped who I am today.

The words above are available for print on wrapped canvas and I love everything about it. It's sort of a different spin on Dad's words of wisdom, but holds the same security of being right where you're supposed to be.