Monday morning.

I love the days when I get up and know there's nowhere I need to be and nothing I need to go out of the house for. They're rare enough that I really enjoy them when they come along, especially in a cold day like today. I can just "putz around the house," which is an expression from Todd's family. I know "putz" means something else in Yiddish, but in our house it just means to putter around tending to this and that, with little breaks for lunch, a cup of tea, or...blogging.

Speaking of Todd's family, his parents left for Ohio this morning after three days here with us. They are the perfect houseguests, and I always hate to see them go, because it's nice to have other people in the house.

Somehow this became a thrifting weekend--when they come down in spring or fall, we often go to yard sales, but those are non-existent in January, so I took them around to a bunch of shops on Friday while Todd was working, and then we went down to Virginia Beach on Saturday afternoon and hit a bunch more. My mother-in-law is a thrift shop devotee--it is not within her power to buy an item new if she thinks she can get it used. Me, I am certainly not opposed to buying items new, but I like finding things that are old and unique--and cheap is nice too, but harder and harder to come by, even at thrift stores.

I ended up bringing home a tremendous stack of books:


Including an old stained Moosewood Cookbook, which I've always wanted to own:


As well as four small teacups with pink thistles on the front--they're soft pink on the inside, and white on the outside:


And the goofiest knickknack I ever did see, but it made me laugh, and that's worth a buck:


A long thin picture--I think it's 40-45 years old--that fits perfectly on the scrap of wall between the kitchen entry and the storage closet:

A pile of wool sweaters in nice colors, for felting:

A couple small pictures and a tiny picture frame I think I'll try to paint in white:


And a little wood chest that would be great to make into an art piece, if I ever get around to it:

Plus a couple of flannel shirts for Todd and a hooded sweater for me. I think that's all!

It was quite a mix of stores we explored, from the frightening to the upscale, most of which I'd never been to before. But, as it turned out, the most profitable store, for all of us, was the one right around the corner from our house, run by the Disabled American Veterans. At least now I know which one is the best in town!

Other than that, we had a couple very nice dinners out, hung around the house, played cards, napped, read...it was a great weekend. And now January is all but done.

Winter bouquet.

I confess.

Last weekend, Shimelle Laine held a free mini-class on her site...wherein one was supposed to make a mini album of things one had to confess--silly, serious, whatever.

The album's pages were to be made from 4x6 or 5x7 photos, hole-punched and bound, which is an awesome idea for a mini book, but I just wasn't in the mood to take pictures. Plus, I was out of town that weekend.

But the idea stayed in my mind, and when I was in a scrapbook store on my out-of-town trip, I saw a rack full of these little photographic die cuts. And looking at them, many of the images spawned a reaction in my mind.

Hence my own little confession book (4x4"). I subtitled it "fifteen random secrets" but some of these confessions aren't really secrets. It's just that "secrets" was a word of the perfect length to make, with "random" and "fifteen," a perfect square subtitle block.

Here's a few of the pages. I'll bind them all together with jump rings once I get a chance to go pick some up, and them probably add some ribbon.

Just call me...

...Her Exalted Highness Duchess Janelle the Coherent of Gallop Hophill.

That's got a certain ring to it. Thanks for the link, Mimi!

Thursday thoughts.

We are --finally!--getting some wintry weather here, with nice brisk air, and today, a cold gray drizzle. I've been strutting around in my brown wool jacket, feeling happy that I finally get to wear the darn thing. It was a case of love at first sight when I saw it at TJ Maxx, and I love it more each time I wear it. It's got an embroidered shawl collar and just closes with one button-and-loop at the bosom--looks great with jeans and a turtleneck, which is my cold-weather uniform. Nice to be able to dress up my uniform a bit.

In an effort to sharpen our brains, we've gotten interested in puzzles around here. I bought Todd a sudoku book for Christmas, and we rented a very interesting little documentary called Wordplay about the NY Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz and the crossword championship he created and hosts each year.

I haven't done a crossword in ages, since Jeremy used to let me help him with the puzzles in his Games magazine when we were kids, but I worked one in one of his books when I was at his house last weekend, and I picked up an "easy" level NY Times crossword book for myself today.

Another brain stretcher for me the past week has been the introduction to music theory my guitar teacher embarked upon...well, honestly, the whole thing is a brain stretcher and has been from the beginning, but the theory stuff is really overwhelming, causing major Algebra II flashbacks, wherein I sit in a chair and listen to a teacher describe something that I have no understanding of whatsoever. So I also bought myself The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory, knowing I can retain stuff much better reading it as opposed to hearing someone tell me it...and also knowing that I am indeed a Complete Idiot.

So hopefully we are staving off Alzheimer's a little longer here at our house.

Tomorrow we are headed to York, PA for the weekend and a machine show that we attended five or six years ago. When we went before, I stayed for a while and took in the show, then headed out to find all the scrapbook and stamp stores in the area. I'm hoping to put the spending freeze on hold and make it to a few shops on Saturday and relive the fun. This will be a shorter trip--last time we were in the area for four days or so--but we're looking forward to seeing some new places and shaking the winter doldrums off a little. Hopefully the weather will cooperate, too.

I've been debating for a few days whether to bring this up here, because it's a tragedy that I am at the very far periphery of, and I feel reluctant to...I don't know, to say that my feelings are even a fraction of what my friend feels, or to try to express grief for a situation I'm not really a part of. It feels presumptuous somehow, and I know I'm not expressing this well at all. But it's something that has colored this week for me and for everyone who knows this family.

My friend's son committed suicide on Monday. He was 13 years old. He was a sweet, polite, smart boy with a lot of pain in his heart. I wish he had known how many people would cry for him and how many lives his life touched. Please say a prayer for his parents, his brother and sister, and all the people who loved him.

Monday was a gorgeous sunny 75-degree day, and on Tuesday the weather turned cold and gloomy. While I am enjoying this taste of winter, as I said above, the change does feel appropriate for the feelings around here this week. There's just a layer of sadness over things right now. Please keep them in your prayers.

But hey, at least Saddam's toast.

What can you buy for $1.2 trillion dollars?

Read this and weep for what could have been.

More weekend pictures.

Since the weather was so warm Sunday, we spent the day playing outside. Todd, Jeremy and I played with Tanner, pitching and batting the ball around. I know I always say this, but he looks so grown-up in this picture.


And his little sister is about a foot taller than when I last saw her in July!

Here's my dad rocking Marissa almost to sleep in her swing:

Todd and Marissa playing choo-choo train with folding chairs:

Kylie and I reading:

And here's the beautiful birthday girl:

Pictures.

We had a lovely little weekend at my brother's house, celebrating his birthday and his daughter Natalie's birthday, too. My parents, my sister, and my niece and nephew all came down from Ohio, too, so it was a houseful of fun, for sure.

I brought my guitar, and Tanner and I picked out "Ode to Joy" together. He's much better on the piano than I am on the guitar, but maybe someday I can catch him up:

Natalie and Kylie indulged their love/hate relationship--they're two years apart and really love each other--most of the time. Here they are in a peaceful moment:

Can you believe they're barefooted in January? (Just for sandbox play--we weren't letting them run around like that all day.) This freakishly warm weather is starting to scare me!

When we were kids, we had this great fabric playhouse my aunt Molly made us. It was like a sleeve that fit over a card table--a way upscale version of the old blanket-over-the-table fort. It had windows and a door that closed and everything.

My mom has made her own versions of this for Tanner and for Kylie, and now it's Natalie's turn to have her own special place. She LOVED it.

Little Miss Marissa is such a joy. She says so many words, with her little finger pointing at whatever she's talking about. And she has a great sense of humor. Looooves to swing!

What a cutie.

I'll put a few more in another post...I seem to be at my limit for photos here.

A few cards.

Here's what we're making in my at-home class tomorrow:

No real rhyme or reason to the themes--it's mostly what's sitting on my desk at any given moment! I did use a few new stamps, though. I totally need some new inks--half of mine are dried out--and some new sentiment stamps. But I put myself on a spending freeze till May 1, so...oh well! Stamping is even more of a money pit than scrapbooking, because the inks and stamps are soooo expensive.

Not much else going on here...we're definitely in the post-holiday slump. This weekend we're going to my brother's house for my niece's fourth birthday party. My parents and my sister and her kids will be there, too, so that should be fun!

Weekend update.

Wow, this week went by fast! It was a combination of productive and frustrating...I got the downstairs pretty nicely cleaned up and organized, but there were some errands and other projects that left me spinning my wheels. I'm also very frustrated with my guitar today. I think I understand the whole Pete Townsend-smashing-guitars-into-little-bits thing a lot better now!

Other than that, I've just been reading like a maniac all week and hitting the library for the first time in literally years. Our libraries around here are sort of lousy, and I get frustrated and homesick for Columbus and its awesome libraries every time I go into a library down here, but right now I'm just sucking it up and going and trying to find what I want. I stand by my feeling that a city this size should have a much better library system than it does, but I guess libraries are at the bottom of the state priority list.

I've read:

My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme. Reading the Julie and Julia book I mentioned before got me interested in Julia Child's life, and this book is really inspiring. She found her life's work at age thirty-six, which is how old I am. Hmmm.

Catch a Wave by Peter Ames Carlin, which is a biography of Brian Wilson, mostly from the point-of-view of his music, and less from the ins and out of his personal life, although that does get mentioned somewhat. Carlin puts Brian Wilson's lyrics and themes right up there with writers like Steinbeck and Twain as part of the American voice, which I thought was audacious but interesting and probably pretty legitimate.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan...this was recommended by someone at Two Peas, and it's a totally compelling book about the Dust Bowl in the 1930's. I couldn't put it down...so many tragic stories and so much hubris that led to this environmental disaster.

Right now I'm reading The Great Deluge: Hurrican Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley, and it's making me so angry I've had to start reading it in smaller chunks so I don't get overwhelmed. Although I don't discount, and Brinkley certainly doesn't, the outrageous neglect on a local and state level in Louisiana, this book confirms my growing feeling that the Bush presidency is the one of the most tragic things that's ever happened to this country. It's a tremendously interesting and heartbreaking book, and there are many small inspiring stories, too. I really recommend it.

Ring out the old!

Only three hours left in 2006...wow, where did this year go? I was sitting in the living room sipping a cup of tea a little while ago, thinking about the painting and packing we were doing this time last year, and yeah, this New Year's Eve is way better!

We're just spending the weekend being busy little beavers, knocking some stuff off the "to do" list. Kind of fun, actually.

Just for fun, I thought I'd make a little year-in-review list of totally random items:

10 books I read in 2006:

Julie and Julia
Snow Falling on Cedars
Assassination Vacation
A Long Shadow
The Kite Runner
Tender at the Bone
The Reading Group
St. Dale
Locked Rooms
Jane Austen: A Life

8 movies I saw in 2006:
(In a theater, that is--and this is all of 'em, not even ten!)

Casino Royale
Stranger than Fiction
Talladega Nights
The Holiday
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
X-Men: the Last Stand
Flags of our Fathers
Marie Antoinette

10 Movies I rented in 2006:

Walk the Line
A Prairie Home Companion
The Matador
The Reckoning
Memento
Spanglish
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Match Point
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
Wedding Crashers

10 CDs I bought in 2006:

Wintersong
Barenaked Ladies Are Me
We Shall Overcome—the Seeger Sessions
The Very Best of Marvin Gaye
A Mighty Wind soundtrack
Smart Kid (Clumsy Lovers)
Yours, Mine and Ours (Pernice Brothers)
The Little Willies
Ricky Nelson Greatest Hits
Highway Companion (Tom Petty)

And finally...
10 Embarassing Songs I downloaded in 2006:

Play Me (Neil Diamond)
Looks Like We Made It (Barry Manilow)
Sister Golden Hair (America)
Magic (Olivia Newton-John)
I Say a Little Prayer for You (Dionne Warwick)
Baby, I Love Your Way (Peter Frampton)
If I Can't Have You (Yvonne Elliman)
Crazy Love (Poco)
Everything I Own (Bread)
...and the most cringe-inducing...Afternoon Delight (Starland Vocal Band)

All from the Seventies, Decade of Shame. And Decade of my Childhood...this is my musical heritage we're looking at here. Consider this last list an homage to our late President, Mr. Ford, who presided over a slice of my childhood, albeit a smaller slice than either Barry Manilow or Neil Diamond.

Happy 2007, everybody--may you have perfect peace and contentment this coming year! Thanks for reading my mutterings and crazy thoughts in 2006! Love ya, man!

The last of Christmas journaling.

I've got the final four pages of my journal done!

Here's the page for the 15th which I put off because the prompt for the day was not something I could relate to. I swapped in a later prompt for this date:

And here's the page for the 20th, which was about Christmas mail. We got many fewer cards than usual, and nothing particularly unexpected, so I just clipped some stamps and postmarks and stuck them in a pocket:

For the 24th, I wrote about a very vivid childhood memory:

And wrapped it all up neat and tidy for the 25th:

I need to figure out how to decorate the cover...if I come up with anything awesome, I'll share it. Thanks for looking and all the great comments I got...this was a fun project and it really made my holidays more fun!

A more perfect me.

The weeks after Christmas always follow the same script: Janelle tugs worriedly, hand over hand, at the skinny rope attached to the household that is slowly, slowly teetering on the brink of collapse.

At least that's how it feels. In the lead-up to Christmas, I neglect the house even more than I usually do, thinking that when January 1 comes, that will be the perfect time to pull everything back into shape for the New Year. January 1 is like my magic "do over" date.

So after Christmas, there are presents to shoehorn into storage spots, and closets to go through, and always complete rehaulings of at least one room if not more, while trying to pick up the clutter that has gathered in every room, and maybe scrape a layer of dirt off stuff, too. Oh, and all the Christmas decor to put away, which is always horrible...all the magical wonderful holiday stuff that has brightened your month, now just another loathsome chore to be added to the long list.

This is the time of year we often buy furniture or new storage set-ups, which require lots of rearranging. Last year at this time we were dismantling one household while trying to prepare a new household for habitation. I've been thanking God on bended knee every day lately that I don't have to do THAT again this year.

Finances always need attention after Christmas too--enter the receipts, bring the accounts up-to-date, file the last of this year's paperwork and set up folders for next year's paperwork. Shudder at the sums you've spent on Christmas and, worse, on after-Christmas sales, and calculate how many months into 2007 you'll be paying off your spending orgy. (The past couple weeks have been abnormally hard on my credit card.)

Now I'm up very late tonight feeling some major anxiety pangs...not quite sure about what. Just everything, I guess. I have such a long list of chores for the next couple of weeks, and an even longer list of goals for the upcoming year. Spend less, eat less, clean more, walk more, get organized, get life figured out. It's making me twitchy.

Catching up and throwing up.

This week between Christmas and New Year's always throws me off. Nothing is routine!

Todd had Tuesday off so we planned a movie marathon where we would see four movies, carefully planned according to the theater schedule. But then the first movie (The Holiday) ran far longer than we figured (why does a romantic comedy need to be over two hours long?!), throwing off our second movie (The Good Shepherd). So we killed a little time at TJ Maxx, where I found and bought a very cute brown wool jacket.

Then we skipped our third planned movie (The Nativity Story) and went straight to the fourth movie (Casino Royale). After that we had dinner and debated whether to try to catch a late show of The Good Shepherd, but we were both tired and Todd had to work this morning. So our four-movie marathon turned into a two-movie...um...mini-marathon?

I woke up at 3:30 this morning throwing up, so I laid low and slept much of the day away today. I was going to clean and tidy and maybe start putting Christmas away, but I was a little too sore and achy for that. I'm feeling steadily better, though.

I've been ripping CDs to my computer today, about the only activity I felt good enough to tackle, and I played a bit of one of my Eva Cassidy albums just now. I don't know if you've ever heard a voice pure enough to make you cry, but she had it for sure. Listen to the first track on Eva By Heart and see if it doesn't get you. I remembered then why I stopped listening to the albums--it's hard to drive with tears in your eyes!

I made an appalling discovery today--the Christmas journal class runs through Epiphany! That's January 6 for any heathens out there. I thought it just went through Christmas.

Well, not only won't my album hold that many more pages, but I am officially OVER Christmas and it will be hard enough making myself catch up with the four pages I need to finish. So I think I'll be hopping off this ride before the end.

I hope to get the final pages done and up by the end of this weekend.

Merry Christmas!

I hope everybody's having a happy day today. Joy to the world!

We had a relaxing day yesterday, with lasagna and Christmas cookies for dinner, and wine in snowman mugs because I didn't have time to run out and find wine glasses. Then we went to a late candlelight service at church that was really beautiful. Great music.

This morning we both woke up way earlier than I had planned, just in time for an early call from Todd's sister Lisa. Opened presents, ate breakfast, and now we're just hanging out. This afternoon we'll go spend some time with my friend Cheryl's family.

Here's my Christmas journal page for December 23. I finished this page last night, so I'm just two behind! I think I'll work on them tonight and see if I can get this project done!

Day 22.

My relatively short to-do list...I thought the snowmen scurrying to and fro on this paper were too cute and appropriate to cover up:

Journal. Almost there!

Here's Day 21 of my Christmas Journal...we were supposed to take a picture of our home "as is" and see how it shows our state of readiness. Or words to that effect, it's all a little fuzzy now.

Day 20's prompt was about unexpected Christmas mail, but as we have yet to get anything really spectacular in the mail yet...I'm postponing that one. There's still a few days left to get something awesome, right?

Pooped.

Oof. I hit a wall sometime yesterday and now I want to sit by a crackling fire with a cup of tea and a British mystery I've never read before with a blizzard whirling outside and Christmas cookies on the table...and not have to do one blessed thing at all.

However. It's still in the 50's here, so no snow and no real need for a fire...I have no British mysteries to read...and I'm too tired to make cookies. Hm.

I guess I'll just have a cup of tea. And fold some laundry. And get dinner started. Sigh. I'm pooped today! Anybody else feeling that pre-holiday energy pinch?

One more.

Christmas Journal for Day 19:


I think this may be the first letter I ever wrote to Santa...we didn't do Santa when I was a kid! It felt weird, but that was what Shimelle said to do today, so...!

C is for Cookie.

One more post for today--the challenge at Two Peas is to blog about your favorite Christmas cookie.

I love cut-out sugar cookies, but they have to taste GOOD, not cardboard-y.

For years I made my mom's stand-by Betty Crocker cookbook recipe, which is good and tastes like home...but then five or six years ago, a friend shared her tried-and-true recipe with me.

Eva's Sugar Cookies

2 cups butter or margarine, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
6 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla and almond extracts until light and fluffy. In another large bowl, combine flour and baking soda. Gradually stir flour mixture into butter and sugar mixture until blended. Chill for one hour, then roll out on a floured board and cut into shapes. Bake at 350 degrees on lightly greased (or parchment-lined) baking sheets for 8-10 minutes, until light golden brown. Makes 12 dozen cookies.

It's the almond extract that makes the difference here--these are some delicious cookies. The last time I made them, they never made it to the frosting stage--Todd and I devoured them all plain! But when I do manage to get them frosted, I usually add a drop of almond extract to the frosting, too. I just use whatever generic white frosting recipe is in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Mmmm...now I'm craving some!