Christmas Has Commenced...

 So, "White Christmas" is on the TV, I've got a cake and 2 batches of cookies baked. Hubby has the tree up...He's going to put one batch of Lemon & Cherry cookies in the oven this evening. 

It feels like we might have some momentum. I've got 4 gifts wrapped, and most of the shopping done. Though, to confess, in the past many years, I've just done shopping early and had it over with. That worked out especially well with Covid, of course, but lately, I'm not even in the mood to get out and "people" a lot with shoppers. 

I will say, however, that I'm a bit bummed that the local "Christmas Pop-Up Shop" which opened in one of the mall buildings has not decided to come back. That was fun, even though I certainly do not need one more ornament or decoration. Period. 

I finished a large editing project. I actually even caught up on the blogs I usually read regularly, but I let them slide. There's been a lot going on. 

I hate to jinx it, but I'm actually slightly ahead of myself at work, considering it's Advent and we're embarking on the busiest season for the next few weeks. Fingers crossed that I haven't just put a pox on the copier or something... 

The One Problem...

The fact that I still have just about ZERO taste & smell is particularly problematic. I can smell strong smells. I often misidentify them. Many times, I've said to Hubby, "Something's burning..." and it's not. But taste is the most elusive now, and it's hitting me funny. I don't want to eat. 

I was just kind of eating out of habit, even though (a) I couldn't taste it; and (b) with the hip injury I was certainly not moving a lot. That caused a pretty nasty weight gain. Now, I'm not a waif. I never have been, and I've not been obsessive about my weight. I'm pretty strong, and I have good (or HAD) muscle tone. Could I be thinner? Yeah, my cardiologist would like that, but I was active and  ate mostly clean, so he wasn't too fussed about it. 

But at my last check up he was not a happy camper. I don't know if that's what lit the lightbulb for me, or it's (which is where I'm tending to land on this issue) the anniversary of the last time I saw my sister alive that's hitting me between the eyeballs. 

I have to do something to re-create a sensible balance. I'm committing myself to introducing more plant-based meals into my cooking rota. Hubby is a definite carnivore, and that's fine. Dude never sits still...he's always doing something. So that's good on him. But for me, I find meat to be "heavy." I always have, apparently. I asked my mom to make sure I wasn't imagining it. 

So yeah, this is definitely a First World problem. I have a house to live in, I have food in the fridge, I have good health insurance. And I also have long-Covid. Which pretty much sucks. 

I really saw something disturbing on the socials recently. As you may have heard, Celine Dion said she has "Stiff Person Syndrome," and some people have linked that to the fact that she took the Covid vaccines (as did I - and I had Covid before we had vaccines...). 

The fact that these people are all, "She took the poison so she's paying the price"? That is inhumane. Unkind. Scurrilous unless you know for sure whether that's true, and reading it off a list of "side effects" doesn't count unless you know her medical history. I mean, honestly, I thought she was quite frail after her husband died. Who knows what she's been through?

And it's none of our business. 

Why can't people be kinder?

Knitting On...

I'm knitting apace with the baby blanket. I've got about a foot on the needles. It's 33" long, so I've got another couple feet to go. 

I'm enjoying how this is feeling. It's very squishy, and honestly, is going to be one warm blankie for the kid! 

I'm anxious to get on to the Baby Surprise Jacket, but a bit apprehensive, too. I mean, I've seen a lot of "genius, so easy" as well as a lot of, "OMG, I'm so confused!" And knitting on a deadline doesn't help that. I did see a version where they seamed up the front and made the neck wider - making it a jumper or pullover. That's an option. 

Anyway, it's going to be an experience. 

So my friend D sent me a note and said, "I have these socks..." They're adorable: red heels, cuffs and toes, and a grey background, with a motif of candy canes. I don't do color-work like that. I love the design, and I love the other colorwork socks I've seen, but frankly - self-patterning sock yarn is my jam. 

She said the sweetest thing: "You're a better knitter than you think you are..." That's quite a vote of confidence since she's such a great knitter herself. 

I'm also kind of getting my knitting mojo back, so I'm anxious to get knitting on some other stuff; finishing up Long Sands, finishing up at least another pair of socks. Perhaps starting something from my stash. I have a couple projects set aside: a nice beret, a cowl, and a vest. And maybe those colorwork socks that D wants me to try. 

The Baking...

First up was a Poppy Seed cake, which I put in a Bundt pan. I've sliced and double-wrapped it so that I can add the slices to the cookie trays. 

CPS Butter Cookies were next. I scrape in 2 vanilla beans, and I add 2 tsp. of vanilla (which is a tad more than they call for. These are family favorites, especially since I've added the vanilla bean. Those were a last-minute addition to the list - so Baking Kid told me there would be a vegan option. I just said go ahead and do them, and I'll keep mine for the cookie trays we're giving away. 

If we don't tell the carnivores that the baking is vegan, 90% of the time, they can't tell... 

These are great cookies if you're tired of shortbread. See, even though they ARE basically shortbread, they're somehow fluffier and not as dense as shortbread can be. One year, I dipped them in chocolate as a "half & half" cookie. 

It was gilding the lily and we didn't need to do that. The vote was to "do what you did before," and skip the chocolate. Heck, even I decided that doing that was a bridge too far... 

Next was Jewish Honey Cookies. This was a recent addition - as in, I only started adding these to the Cookie List a few years ago. They were an unexpected hit. 

But there are caveats. Apparently, the recipe should not be doubled...It's a dairy free recipe, and uses oil. I doubled it one year and the cookies sucked. Don't ask. I don't know. I figured it was easy enough to do them one batch at a time, since one batch makes about 36 cookies. 

(We make A LOT of cookies.) And -- I discovered that putting two pans at a time in my oven caused some issues. It looks like my oven may need a recalibration. 

To my eyes, the far left batch (I did 9 to a pan, because they do spread) is the darkest. That was at the full 12 minutes. The middle batch went in when the first pan was about 5 minutes in. And then the last pan was slightly too pale. 

This is one we'll do another batch of, so I have another shot at getting it right. 

The remaining cookies need chilling before baking, so we'll work on those in the coming days. As Hubby said, "It's only December 10." I have to have a large chunk of them done by the 3rd Wednesday, for a gathering, but I find that I can stand and bake, and manage to hobble my way from one end of the kitchen counter to the other, so it's not hurting me to do that. 

And he's a good baker - we work well together. 

Quick kitchen hack: Stick a chopstick in your sugar and flour canisters. Give them a stir before you use them. I rarely sift flour, but recently, I've been toying with stirring the flour a bit to sort of "fluff" it a bit. I've noticed that it not only makes the bread lighter, but it also helps the cookies rise a bit better. 

The chopstick also helps as a handy leveler - when you're dipping your dry measuring cup in there, you don't have to reach for a butter knife or spatula - you have your nifty chopstick which will help you without giving you another utensil to wash. 

The Ornaments...

The batch of ornaments this year was small. I hadn't realized that till I looked at the spreadsheet. Yes, I do have a spreadsheet - I need it to keep track of 18 years of ornaments per kid. 

And after the holidays, I'll have to order another 18 for the May Baby. 

The Joy and the Christmas Tree will go to Montana for the last of the Montana Kids... I think there's only a year or two left for one of them. 

The rest stay here in Illinois. 

Fun fact: I used to be able to pick these up at a local craft store. Gradually, they became harder and harder to find. One year, I ended up with these really crappy "ornament" looking things. No character at all. I had to really fiddle with them to give them some personality. 

But then I was lucky enough to find a website where they had the actual ornaments I was used to seeing. Some, of course, were no longer available (like a lot of the Santas, surprisingly). But I made do with what I could find, and each kid gets their own theme. 

It used to be more random when I had better access to the wider variety. 

Nice thing is: the kids don't care. I see my siblings' kids putting theirs up and it's really heartwarming. Makes me feel like this little thing mattered. 

The Tree...

This year, we did what we usually do: Tree on Table. It's the only safe way to have a tree with two dogs who masquerade as bulls in a china shop! 

Way back, my husky Topaz would sleep under the tree, and she was so graceful (even though she was huge) that she could get under and out of it without disturbing anything. 

Quinn & Raisa? Nope. Just easier to put a small tree on the table. Sometimes we do my Grandma's ceramic tree (my mom made it for her years ago). Sometimes we do the 4-footer. 

This year, Hubby found a different tree topper, and so we're kind of really bright. We have both colored and white lights on it, and mostly the Hallmark Frosty Friends ornaments on it. I've been collecting those for years. Since they first came out, actually. 

As you can see, too, we have them surrounding the tree. We haven't quite chosen a nativity set yet. That's another foray into the basement. 

I also got some Xmas cards out. Yeah, we send them. Shorter list, though. 

Random Picture...

My happy place. With my mixer. I have several happy places, to be honest: with a book, knitting, on my yoga mat, in my garden. But this time of year, I really do like to make time to spend in the kitchen. Whether it's baking or cooking, it's just a place where I can tune out the rest of the crap happening. 

I feel like I use an entirely different part of my brain in the kitchen. Even without a lot of sense of taste & smell, I can still cook. 

Recently, however, my good old Kitchen Aid has been making some oddball noises. Don't die on me now! First Kid has my avocado-green smaller Kitchen Aid from the 70s. That's when they were all metal. 

Now, they're not. We've already done "open heart surgery" on it once. I'm not sure what more we can do if it decides to crap out. Other than buy a new machine, which I don't know that I want to do. And if we do, it's likely to be another Kitchen Aid, because we have accessories for this one, like the grinder and pasta maker. 

But lately, nothing lasts like it used to, so I shouldn't be surprised. 

What's YOUR happy place? What does it feel like, sound like, look like? And if you've never thought about it, maybe it's time to do so!

Snapped Strings...

Funny how things you chat about sometimes come to reality. And that reality can really bite you in the rear end.

I'm playing Silent Night for Midnight Mass. I've been practicing and last week tried a sound check. The amp didn't work. Rats.

So I asked my guitar teacher, and he said, "Change your battery." The pickup in my Seagull Artist guitar uses a 9-V battery and I hadn't changed it in a while. To be truthful, I don't actually play it as much in this church as I did in my other church; so it's not "powered up" a lot. 

All strung up

But ok, I'll change the battery. To do that, I have to reach into the sound hole, pull out the little pocket where the battery lives and then re-tune the guitar, because in order to get to the innards, the strings have to be loosened to the point of being able to move them out of the way. This was an aftermarket installation of the pickup, so it's not one of those nifty ones that has a little door on the top of the guitar. You can see the red & black cables in the sound hole. The pocket for the battery is up on top near the neck. Come to think of it, my Seagull 25th Anniversary also needs to have a "cavity search" but the battery there is along the middle, where I can reach it easier. I'm playing the Artist because it's got a "bigger" sound. If I wanted the "biggest" sound, I'd play my Martin, but it's not amplified, and this church doesn't have a good sound set-up where I could swing a mic around. And besides, my Seagulls are better guitars. 

I had just said to Jeff, my teacher, "Yeah, I know I need to change strings, but I don't want to do that before Christmas." No, he agreed -- it would not be the best idea, because new strings take a while to "settle in" and stretch to where they can hold a tuning for a while. 

Yeah, you know what's coming. I re-tuned and snapped the high E string. Well crap. However, I have strings, so I didn't have to go run to the store (thankfully). I figured I'd just change that high E string. Which I did. Then I continued tuning.

And snapped the low E string. Which is pretty hard to do, I gotta say. But hey, I managed just fine. Double-crap. TRIPLE-crap. 

Because, unless you're under a stump somewhere, Christmas Eve is THREE DAYS AWAY. I mean, I'm counting all the way UP to the Mass, which is at 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve. And you have to subtract the 2 hours I'll be at Mass on Sunday, plus the "several" hours I'll be gone on Christmas Eve between my mom's party, an open house and Midnight Mass. 

On the other hand...that gets me out of staying at the open house for long. "I have to go home to get my guitar ready for church." Yeah, that works for me!

Muttering nasty things about strings and batteries, I removed all of the old strings. As long as I had the strings off, I figured I might as well clean the fret board and polish it up. I do that once a year anyway. 

We're all re-tuned now and I've got the guitar sitting in the living room. I'm playing it every 10-15 minutes or so, and re-tuning. I'll be doing that for the next few days. I'm taking this guitar to church so that we can do one more sound check and a quick rehearsal with the choir. But all day today, as much as I can tomorrow and all day Monday... playing every 10 minutes or so. I have to balance it with other things, so my fingers don't get messed up. 

I'm just not happy. Even if I use the other guitar, I still have to change THAT battery. Risking, because of the older strings, another snapping issue. 

I just sigh. It'll all work out, right? I have faith. And sore fingers.

Knitting...

The sweater is taking shape. I'm almost at the second buttonhole, and the yoke is definitely looking "yoke-ish." It's a garter-stitch design where the garter stitch comes right to the top of your bust. By design. It has 3 pretty good-sized buttons (7/8") and there are design notes that recommend that even if you THINK you want to make it longer at the yoke, you probably shouldn't, because the garter stitch, for those of us carrying a bigger load up-front, won't lay right. Especially with those larger buttons. You can lengthen it at the body, which I might do, if I find that I want it a bit longer. There's nothing much to show, because I'm just going back and forth, and it looks just a little bigger than what I showed you the other day. 

I'm going to see if Kid #2's friend can make me some glass buttons. That would be cool. It's a hand-wash item, so I don't worry too much about the buttons. They don't have to be a shank-style button. They can be flat. 

I'm also considering perhaps polymer clay buttons, but I have to do some research as to how you handle the hand-washing with those. 

Cookies...

First Tray of the Season

The first tray went out. To Jeff, my guitar teacher. He looked like a kid at Christmas, you know! He took off the wrapping and before I could tell him what was what, he popped about 3 of the Pineapple Crescents into his mouth. He loves those. As well as the Cranberry White Chocolate Chip cookies. He also liked the Santa's Whiskers. And while he didn't taste the potica, he did kind of drool a little. 

I love it when people like my baking. By the way, if you want a nice cookie tray, snag those small "fruit platters" you get from the deli. I have been saving those from various events. They're scalloped, they're red. They're the perfect size for a good cookie tray. 

I have a metal one for my mom's party: it's got a snowman on it. I probably have a zillion Christmas themed trays and containers, but believe me, they will get used. 

On the tray, in no particular order, are the following: potica; pineapple crescents; snickerdoodles; biscotti; carrot-pineapple bread; one MONSTER M & M cookie; triple chocolate cookies; Yin/Yan peanut butter & chocolate cookies, and Aunt Mary's oatmeal cookies; oh, and carrot cookies. Oh, and cranberry white-chocolate-chip cookies.

I had no room for: kolaches, cream cheese mint candies, carrot-poppy bread. 

Kid #2 is making Rolo cookies and chocolate banana bread. I have bananas that need to go. Well, I may get that banana bread in the oven; he's at his brother's house, so time could fly before he gets back. We are not (sorry, Kid #1) making Snow on the Mountain cookies. As it is, my mom may grab a tray from me for her hairdresser, which is fine with me. 

And I have an open house that our hostess is calling "Christmas Leftover Open House" -- some of these goodies will go there for sure. Out of my house, not on my hips. 

Tea...

Instead of pigging out on Christmas cookies (which would be very easy because I tend to stress-eat), I'm drinking LOTS of tea. Right now, in my cup, I have Organic India's Tulsi Tea. It's a combination of 3 different types of basil. The Holy Basil is a plant common in almost every Indian household. It's a powerful antioxidant and it tastes good, too. I usually drink one or two of these a day. And it's got no caffeine, so it's good any time. 

Their Honey Chamomile is good too. I like the fact that they're a fair trade company, and I use several of their supplements as well. That's my shameless plug for the day. 

Target...

Oh my. Tar-jayyyyy is in trouble. Upwards of 40 million people have had their data swiped. Between Black Friday and about mid-December. 

I asked Hubby to check our online statements. I'm not incapable, but he watches them about every other day, so he's in the habit. I'm not. So far, I haven't heard that we've been hacked; and today's Trib said that credit card companies were emailing affected customers. I did alert Kid #2, because he shops there. 

Of course, people are trying to file lawsuits. And some are saying that Target "didn't respond quickly enough." Maybe. But maybe they just didn't monitor it as well as they should have. Yes, they should have been at least 5 times as vigilant, particularly in this vulnerable economy. 

But hackers are so crafty lately -- I can't imagine being in a big business and having to deal with this stuff. 

Random Picture...

2013 Frosty Friends

One of our ornaments on the little tree. I have collected Frosty Friends since they were first issued. This one is the 2013 one. One of these days, I'm going to take all of those and put them on a huge wreath - that way, I can hang it for a Christmas decoration and not have to pick and choose which ornaments get on the tree. Actually, I have enough of those to completely cover one tree. If they had a tree-topper, I'd get that and just have a Frosty Friends tree. But we do like all of the ornaments we have on the tree. Very few are just the "packaged" ones in sets. Most of them, we've either been given or we've picked very deliberately. 

This may be all the "nice" snow we see. We have a winter storm watch, but so far it's just icy. Well, I shouldn't say "just" - I hate ice. Lucky for me, I truly do not have to go anywhere today. I can stay home and knit and practice. 

And knit some more and practice some more.