Warm Wishes

It's been windy and cold and freaky around here. With high winds and freakish power outages (you gotta see this, from 12-20-12) and wind driven flood tides, we have been staying in a lot.

We spent the weekend making cookies, hanging around in our PJ's and listening to loads of audio books as well as taking in all of the hokey Christmas movies we can handle.

Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas!

happy solstice

tea and chocolate, what else is there?

There's more merry making happening here aboard the good ship Majestic. This time it's two of my favorite things... tea and chocolate.

We have a two fabulous local places to get organic herbs and such, so I have been stashing away herbs and finally made my own tea based on some of my favorites.

Here's what's inside: peppermint, rose hips, lemon balm, sage, thyme, orange peel, cloves, echinacea root, and chamomile.

I jarred it all up in spare jars we had lying around and added a honey stick to each set, and voila! Instant winter warmth and happiness.

Next is my new favorite chocolate recipe aside from the chocolate covered orange peels I wrote about in Rhythm Of The Home this season. I found these Mayan Chocolate Truffles on Pinterest and instantly fell in love.

The key here is to take the time and find all of the ingredients, don't substitute or skimp. If you do it according to the recipe exactly... whoa! It's a complex burst of flavor love. Here is the recipe I followed from Nourished Kitchen.

Ingredients (2 dozen)

• 10 ounces chocolate with 85% cocoa content, chopped coarsely
• zest of 1 orange
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder 
• 1 vanilla bean 
• dash unrefined sea salt 
• 1 cup full-fat coconut milk 
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil 
• cocoa powder, for dredging truffles

Instructions

1. Toss chopped chocolate into a mixing bowl with the zest of one orange, cinnamon, chipotle chili powder, the contents of one vanilla bean and a dash unrefined sea salt.
2. Bring coconut milk and coconut oil to a slow simmer in a saucepan over a moderate flame. Pour coconut milk and oil over the chopped chocolate and seasonings then stir continuously with a wooden spoon until the chocolate is thoroughly melted and the mixture, or ganache, becomes thick, uniform and glossy.
3. Transfer the mixture to a plate lined with parchment paper, molding into a log as best you can, and allow it to harden in the refrigerator for eight to twelve hours, or overnight.
4. After the Mayan chocolate has hardened in the refrigerator for eight to twelve hours, remove it, unmold it from the parchment paper and carve it into irregular bite-sized chunks. Toss the chunks with cocoa powder and serve.

The thing I had the hardest time tracking down was the chipotle chile powder. Thankfully SuperJen came to the rescue and loaned me some because there was none to be found anywhere around here.  Worth ordering some for sure, what a fabulous smokey flavor!

So there you go, one recipe to mellow you out and one to give you a jolt! Enjoy!

wee doll bed

It's that time of year, and rather than post all of the holiday making after the holidays I thought it would be more fun to share now. It's not like the kids will see the blog and spoil their surprises!

The other week a friend of mine brought some clementine oranges over for a snack and I jumped at the chance to snag the box. I knew it would be the perfect doll bed, but I went back and forth on just how to do it. Paint it? Decoupage fabric? Finally while watching the Nutcracker with Zach and seeing the ruffles around Clara's doll bed I decided that would be the nicest... and easiest. Two long strips hemmed and pleated and velcro and there we have it. Then the mattress is simple a stuffed rectangle with some dimples hand sewn in. And a wee pillow too.

The fabric for the bed skirt is Shroomy from Monaluna's Fox Hollow collection (left over from Naia's birthday party crafting.) The mattress is Jay-Cyn designs patchwork from Storyboek II. And the pillow is Birch fabrics Woodland Party also leftovers from her birthday.

Dolly fits perfectly and there is all kinds of room for upgrades like a canopy or something to cap off the corner pieces. But for a free box and scrap fabric, it does the trick just fine.

But I wonder if she will want to sleep in her own bed when she normally has a much cozier spot for naps.

scrappy scarf

Feeling the need for a colorful, happy post right about now. So I thought I would share my latest sewing endeavor. I have become a scarf making monster. I love this project because (1) no patterns (2) only straight lines (3) the end result is useful and cute!

Basically all you need is about a 1/2 yard of fleece and some fabric scraps. I used this excellent tutorial and truly the hardest part was just deciding on the patterns and colors.

For Naia's scarf (above) I used an old cashmere sweater on the inside. Someone had passed it along to us a while back and I used the sleeves to make her longies when she was a babe and had the body just laying around waiting for a good project. Then I went through and picked out purple-ish scarps to match her winter jacket.

The other girlie one (above) is for a little friend of ours, and the manly looking one is for my husband. Zach was kind enough to be my model and help me lay out the fabrics too. It's obviously longer and I made it wider too. I really winged it with the measuring and cutting.

This is just one slice of the holiday making around here. I love seeing what everyone is working on this time of year, feel free to share your projects and links in the comments!

celebrating the season

Winter holiday time is a little nutty for us. Not the kind of nutty that implies a full party schedule and packed shopping malls (shudder, you couldn't pay me to enter a mall this time of year. well any time, but that's a different story) and all night craft-a-thons. It's more the sort of nutty in that neither my husband or I have any strong religious traditions or family ties that bring a sense of consistency to this time of year so we seem to be covering all bases and winging it. We don't want to do nothing, because that would be too ba-humbuggy (is that a word? it is now!) We love an excuse to celebrate. Not party, but celebrate in the sense of making the everyday more sparkly and special and finding ways to spread joy and have fun and savor all that right now has to offer.

So do we play Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer while busting out our menorah and lighting Solstice candles after filling our St. Nicholas shoes and wearing a St. Lucia candelabra on our heads? No. That would be equal parts exhausting and confusing. But I won't deny having tried something like that in the past.  The traditions we are starting carve into the frost of the winter holidays are taking shape though. Once again I find if I listen to my favorite teacher, things tend to fall in to place. My sweet boy is old enough now to be past what one might call the age of believing. And I want to totally honor that and meet him where he is, but he made it clear to me that he is not past the age of having a one month long celebration.

We like to count down the way advent calendars do, but since our focus is not Christmas we do a countdown for all of December right on up to the New Year. Our Tomten friend puts notes in the mailbox with an activity for the day. More often than not the activity is small and something we'd be doing anyhow, but if the old Tomten says to do it, it suddenly becomes that much more joyful.  Things like listen to holiday music, read some winter books, listen to a holiday audiobook, go for a walk in the woods, drive around and see the lights, set up the winter nature table, drink hot cocoa. And then he cues us for the larger celebrations like Hanukkah (thankful for 8 nights so I have time to get my act together!) and Solstice and Christmas and such.

Zach has told me what things we have done in the past are special to him, and I make sure the Tomten knows, and so our traditions are forming. It's not the Waldorf way or the Jewish way or the Christian way or the living in a house way, but it's our way. Small and sparkly and filled with love and chocolate.

GIVEAWAY~ Make Magic! Do Good!

Dallas Clayton is the sort of guy you want to come over and watch your kids while you make dinner. I have never met him, but from reading his books he seems like that fabulous mix of thoughtful and hilarious that seems to work magic on kids.  We love his book An Awesome Book of Thanks equally for the bright, happy illustrations and the simple yet profound message of everyday gratitude. Then when I saw the video about Dallas Clayton's path to publication I was totally smitten.

Recently we had a chance to get our hands on a copy of his newest book of poems for kids called Make Magic! Do Good!  These poems made me giddy because of their positive messages. As I poured over them, all I could think was that these are so many of the things I want to say to Zach and make him understand, but if I say these things they will sound preachy. But when Dallas Clayton writes these amazing ideas and thoughts and messages into these fantastically silly and sweet poems it just clicks with kids.

I put the book in our basket where I knew Zach would pick it up, and I found him pouring over it. He was lapping up page after page getting lost in each poem. And after reading Make Magic! Do Good! for a while, he was so inspired he wrote a few on his own poems. Score! That is some magic in the making for sure!

Many of the poems are simple enough that I was able to read them to Naia as well, and she adored the illustrations. Whimsical and colorful, we spent all kinds of quality mama-toddler time talking about so many of them.

I am thrilled to be able to give away an autographed copy of Make Magic! Do Good! to one lucky reader. Please leave a comment here and I will pick one at random on Friday night, December 14. One comment per person per day is allowed until Friday. Good luck!

Thank you Dallas Clayton and Candlewick Press!

COMMENTS CLOSED. OUR WINNER IS ets. THANK YOU EVERYONE!

the gift of friendship

This weekend was a weekend of friends. Really old friends. I had a very tight group in my high school days and we have all managed to stay close and/ or in touch over all of these years. This week the first of our gang turned 40 and friends traveled from near and far to celebrate with him. Thankfully this first 40 friend happens to live just a few towns over from me so I was able to join in the fun.


I had a plan that I hatched 22 years ago. When we were all 18, I took my little video camera and spent a few weeks forcing all of our friends to sit down and do an interview with me. I asked everyone the same 10 or so questions. As some of the gang grumbled and squirmed at my insistence I always chirped the same line, "You'll thank me when we're 40." Well here we are. The videos are in storage with the birthday boy and are going to be digitized very soon. While I wish we had them for the party this weekend, technology and social media makes it just as easy to share, and I can't wait to see those interviews which none of us have looked at since we made the tapes when we were 18 years old.

Back in Stilwell, Kansas where I went to high school in the early 90's there wasn't much to do. Ok, there wasn't anything at all to do. So the thing our group did the most and did the best was talk. We would meet at a park or in a basement of someone's house or hang out in the school's little theatre and talk and talk and talk and talk. We were on the debate team, most of us after all, so running our mouths all day and night was no stretch.

This weekend was no exception. We stayed up until the wee hours each night here on the boat and out at their hotel talking and talking and talking. And more than that laughing and laughing and laughing until our cheeks ached and tears were rolling and we could barely breathe. Talk of past adventures and innocence lost and vices explored and secrets kept and jokes pulled off. Talk of lessons learned and feelings held and pain experienced and joy shared. Talk of the ones who were not there to be a part of this little rendezvous, some because of distances too far to travel and one in particular who was taken from us tragically by a completely random bullet. The thing about the dynamics in this group is the absolute safety. There is no being careful with words, no questions held back, no feelings bottle up. Refreshingly open. 

The long talks this weekend were surreal. Without our children and spouses around, we were in an alternate universe for a while. We all commented how normally we go around with these tags on us of mom, dad, husband, wife, scientist, writer, Republican, hippie, accountant, homeschooler, suburbanite, and so on. We wear the badge we play the role. But when we were all together engaging in our never ending 22+ year conversation all of those labels melted away. We weren't any of those things, those things didn't even exist, we just were.

(Ironically after being the steadfast shutterbug and documentarian all these 22+ years, I only took a few fuzzy phone photos this weekend. )

Having people who know you that deeply and have stuck with you through so many years and oh-so many changes, who have stuck with you through the awkwardly amazing process of growing up is a true gift.