Cookie swap

Tomorrow I'm going to my friend's third annual holiday cookie swap that I've missed the past two years because of work, so I'm more excited than I probably should be. Once I realized that what I planned to make didn't even qualify as cookies, I figured she'd probably stop inviting me. Kidding.

I decided I'd make peppermint bark, peanut brittle and fudge. Not a cookie in the group, but great additions to any holiday tin in my opinion. It was pure fate that while I was online to look up a recipe for the bark I came across one unexpectedly over at Soule Mama. Yes, it's easy, inexpensive and really really good!

As far as the peanut brittle and fudge go, I always turn to an old country church cookbook I have that has never failed me. I successfully avoided all dough rolling, icing, baking and cutting out and opted instead for melting, stirring and cooling.

I'm breathing a big sigh of relief with my last Christmas orders going out in today's mail and nothing in the queue, at least nothing that needs to be finished before Christmas that is. Well, unless you count the gifts I'm making/giving. Okay, so I'm not as done as I thought I was at the beginning of the paragraph. At least there's plenty of time to finish what I need to.

I'm looking forward to the kids being on break (she says this now) and an open wide schedule. I'm going to try to take them to a Nutcracker performance if the boy will agree to it, and other than that I'll just be trying to keep everyone from wriggling out of their skin with pre-Christmas giddiness. There is definitely more baking, wrapping and singing in our near future.

The Country Life

Recipe for fun in the country:



1. make large pile of dirt

2. sprinkle with children

3. mix thoroughly with imagination



and you get this:













However, the resident chef in the family, we're calling her lil' Paula now, didn't wish to be photographed. Instead, she was content to play cooking show in the field of alfalfa with the large bag of cooking paraphenalia she'd toted out earlier. A popular ingredient as of late is the chicken stock which she adds to most anything. She's 4. She wants to have her own cooking show. I must have eaten 30 "meals" today. She'd watch the Food Network all day if I'd let her.




I have been knitting. Just in time for the 70 degree weather I made these:










I had one leftover ball of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino and deliberated for quite a while as to what to do with it. These started out as gloves, but then I realized the pattern would be too big for me and it only came in one size. Hate that. Ripped it out. So I adapted the DK weight yarn to the pattern in "Last Minute Knitted Gifts", or is it "One Skein" or something else. I can't remember where this 2 by 2 staggered rib fingerless glove pattern comes from. All I know is that it has just the right amount of snuggness (I'm sure that's not a word) because of the pattern and they feel heavenly. The yarn is merino, cashmere and a synthetic that feels so soft it doesn't seem possible.

The Sundance sweater is also in progress. No picture yet, but there will be soon. I hope my calculations are right and it's going to fit how I want it to. But I'm not afraid of starting over so there's always that possibility.

And as for me, well my mood has flip flopped all over today. I started out with "this is going to be a great week" and wound up with "I work so hard and everyone finds a way to complain about it". So I'm off to give myself an overhaul. Anytime I want to pick other people apart, it's usually me that needs the picking apart. Sounds like a good time for knitting, a good TV show and a little alone time. Everybody's asleep right now anyway.