Hello?

Here is me doing what I have become obsessed with.

Is there anybody still reading?

I am still here, just a little busy. I am hoping to pick this back up as soon as things are a little less hectic around here. But to give you an update, my husband graduated from law school and got a job in a quaint little town in Wisconsin. We recently moved there, and are trying to get settled in. Also, I started playing roller derby. Expect more on that later.

Image copyright 2010 Papa Razzi

Winter, are you almost over yet?

Happy Anniversary to me!

Today is my Two Year Etsyversary! I can't believe it has already been two years since I made the leap and started selling my wares on Etsy. I started out slow, learning to take better images, honing my shop (when I first started I was selling plushes as well as books and art) starting a new shop just for my art and learning how to market and promote. I still need some work, but I am happy where I am right now. I am especially happy with the friends that I have made through etsy. Thank you for your support (you know who you are!). To celebrate, I am having a 20% off sale if you mention the code "anniversary" at checkout. Here's to another year of success for all of us!

New Year

Best wishes to all my readers for the new year and decade!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Unfortunately the picture quality isn't that great (I really need a camera that will take decent pictures even when it isn't a bright day outside)

Last night we finally had time to decorate our big beautiful Fraser Christmas tree! This is very exciting for us because for the past 4 years we have lived in little apartments, and have either had very little trees, or no tree at all. This year is different, now that we live in a place with a living room, dining room and separate kitchen (not to mention the upstairs with two bedrooms and a bathroom) we have the room for a big beautiful Fraser Christmas tree. We bought it last Sunday, after a long search for a "cut your own Christmas tree" place outside of Madison, only to find our that those trees were almost $40.00 more than the precut trees we looked at in Madison (and the place was teeming with people). No thank you.

When we lived in Viroqua there was a wonderful tree farm outside of town where the trees were reasonably priced, and after you went and cut your own tree, they would give you hot cocoa and cookies after wards. It was great and I was hoping to recreate the experience here with no luck. So we went to a place in town and bought a much better priced, large tree that takes up half our living room! It is so big actually, that it would not fit in our tree stand and I spent a few hours (with my bread knife, because we don't have a saw) cutting the tree to fit in the stand.

We have these great French doors in our living room, and that is where we put the tree. And last night, while listening to Christmas music, with all the lights off except the tree lights, Maya Nathaniel and I hung up the ornaments on our big beautiful Fraser Christmas tree.

I will post tomorrow with pictures of the enormous snow fall we had last night (no school today, woohoo!) and decorating cookies with the family.

Craftacular

I forgot to blog about what a wonderful time the Craftacular was! I made great sales, and met some really wonderful people. I think I had a smile on my face the whole day. Thank you Naomi from The Glitter Workshop, and Sachi and Laura from Anthology for putting together such a great event!

Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year for the first time. Nathaniel and I finally felt we had enough room after moving into the townhouse. It turned out so wonderful, our guests included a few friends, Nathaniel's family and Dave. It was a great match of people, the kids had a great time and the food was delicious (even if the turkey took 3 hours longer than I thought it was going to!)

My menu included:

Spice rubbed roast turkey
Homemade applesauce
Ginger cranberry sauce (and the canned stuff just in case)
Traditional bread stuffing with dried cranberries
Candied sweet potatoes
Gouda Mashed Potatoes (brought by my friend Monica)
Cheesy broccoli casserole (brought by Dave)
Apple chutney (made by my brother in law Gary)

And three kinds of pie:

Maple pumpkin
Apple blackberry
Pecan

I am not sure what I loved more, it was all so good!

Peeling the apples for the pie

The apple blackberry pie (recipe courtesy Martha Stewart)

Candied Sweet Potatoes
(we used to have these in my high school for Thanksgiving,
and I loved them, so I had to make them)

Spice Rubbed Roast Turkey

The kid's table, Maya and Ollie (my nephew) had sparkling grape juice to compliment our champagne :)

The table setting. I made the runner the day before from scraps leftover from my dining room chairs, it turned out really nice!

I made place settings for everyone with little leaves attached.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Please share some of the best parts!


photo's courtesy Gary Wahl, thanks, Gary!