last post of the year

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. I had a fantastic day - got lots of lovely gifts!! I am a spoiled girl!!

look at all those patterns - that man loves me!!

a bracelet I asked for at the last possible moment!

Jim Shore

San Pascual saint of the kitchen and cooks

hadncarved box - picture is upside down!

opens to look like this - it was FULL of chocolate!!

LOVE these gifts!! I got some other things - immersion blender, grater attachment for my Kitchen Aid, Nessie ladle, 2016 calendars. Scott is great at gifts and I loved every one of them. I got to stitch all day and then Scott made prime rib, crispy rosemary potatoes and French onion soup - I love that man.
Ryder made it from Santa Fe. It's hard to get used to having an adult child at your house. He is so skinny - I don't like it. He has to be in Atlanta GA by the 5th to start school. I hope he gets more out of than he got out of Santa Fe.

I have three finishes to show you. I almost have a third Prairie Schooler Santa done. The fabric on the right is wonderful to look at - soft to touch. It's natural oatmeal floba turns out I hate stitching on it. You come up in one hole and the thread slides to the next hole. You can't sew stitch which slows down all the red of the coat. I am still doing two on this fabric - the one I'm almost done with is on it too. Fabric on the left is vintage country mocha and I like it much better.

 It's hard to stitch these when I have new patterns. Scott got me Glendon Place Tiramisu I already bought the thread pack (Dinky Dyes) now trying to pick a fabric. I have so many great patterns to do - which one which one?!?!?!?

Scott asked me to make a doily for the new sewing cabinet.  I am no longer fond of crochet. It seemed to take forever and I can see 2 errors. It is pretty though.

So my stitching year is - 32 finishes (one of those is the doily) only two of those were WIPS from years past. That's not a bad amount of finishes.
 I can't believe the weather we are having. We had one of our trees fall - it was a small one and fell across the road but still. I don't like the wind because I'm afraid of the big trees falling. I don't mind no shoveling though.

What is this ridiculousness???????

I am ready to start nursing school - scared and nervous but ready. I bought all the books and other items I needed. I had to get 7 immunizations - still have two more to go. The MMR hurts - A LOT - it hurt all the way down my arm ugh. I have to get another one on the 11th of January. I also had two blood draws and two TB tests. I'll be glad when this section is over. It's been pretty pokey.
Have you all made your resolutions? I have two - get healthy and do my best in nursing school. I am ready. Plans for New Years? We usually stay home and that is what we are doing this year too. I hope you all have a safe New Years  Eve. See you  in 2016!!!

Seasons Beatings!!

HA! We went to Bloomington Indiana for the Krampus parade. It was fabulous!! I found out about the parade last year - two days AFTER it happened grrr!! I had to wait a whole year!! It was worth the wait. If you don't know who Krampus is - he is  part of Alpine folklore dating back to the  1800s- he punishes children for being bad. He carries "Ruten" which are birch branches painted gold to beat children - they also touch the naughty children's faces leaving an ashen mark that attracts bad dreams. Krumpus can even carry children away in a sack. We went too early - I was worried about parking. That made time for antiquing - always fun!! They have a few booths set up where Scott bought a shirt and I got a bundle of Ruten. We also got stickers

Then we made our way to the parade route. The parade starts with St Nicholas and his angels. They hand out candy to those with Nice stickers.Scott got candy - well the angel gave he naughty kids candy too - Scott asked why be nice if everybody gets candy? See, he is the troublemaker.

 St Nicholas is behind the angel  - I never got a good picture of him.

Then the Krampus start arriving

 this truck has wood on it to make it look like a sled or box - there are children in the back. One of them cried out as they passed "this is not what I asked for for Christmas" and the Krampus growled loudly - it was pretty funny.

 look at those horns - scary!!

I got swatted several times - partly because Scott kept pushing me out into the street - he really should have been wearing the naughty sticker. Then one of them touched me - see my ashen mark. I really enjoyed the parade - Scott was getting tired of hearing about it. The costumes are fantastic. I'm already excited to go to the event next year!!
After the parade we ate at the Irish Lion - nope, I didn't take one picture. The food was fabulous though!! We will be going back! It was such a good night - we even got free parking!

I hope you haven't been bad enough to have the Krampus come for you.......

random ramblings

Wow I have been away awhile - my absence is due to 5 in laws for 6 days. Six days doesn't seem like much but there are the days leading up to and the days following full of preparation and clean up. I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. Ours was nice.

We had traditional foods - turkey, mash potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry salad, etc. We played games - it was good. We took them to see the West Baden Springs resort - I know going to see a hotel seems silly but it is really spectacular, The story is a good one too! They have it decorated for Christmas - beautiful!!

Scott's grandma - who just turned 95 really enjoyed seeing the hotel. We took them over to the winery and then the casino hotel.

There they had people singing Christmas songs - grandma enjoyed that too.

They had a 7 foot tall gingerbread house - made of real gingerbread baked right there at the hotel.

We ate at a place called The German Cafe - it was very tasty!!

 Scott had a little beer haha

 The apricot liqueur I made was a big hit - I gave the recipe to my in-laws and Scott's aunt Elaine. Aunt Elaine and Grandma left on Saturday - they live in Ohio. Scott's parents and nephew stayed until Monday - before they caught the flight back to Colorado we took them all over Indy - a quick car tour.
I have a finish - this Mosey N Me Santa.

What a pain in the butt this pattern was - I didn't enjoy stitching it as much as I thought I would. I didn't realize until it was done that there is some back stitch on the cover picture that isn't on the pattern - also I think the staff is darker on the cover. bah. Now I am making some Prairie Sampler Santas to make into little pillows for a bowl in my dining room.
Bon Appetite recently ran an article on cured egg yolks of course I had to try it - I only made two - and they have been done for days but I have not tried them. Crazy!!

 They say you grate it over anything that you would grate a hard cheese onto. Speaking of weird foods - we went to a Mexican market in Indy and they had rambutan - it's a tropical fruit and I had to try it. It's kind of like a gummy bear - very good. I looked up how to eat them on Wiki-how and it said the seed has traces of poison and should not be eaten but the Wikipedia page says you can eat it because the seed being poisonous is folklore - a little contradiction there. We didn't eat the seeds.

If I had known people would love my dyed undies story so much I would have posted it much sooner. I think everyone has an idea of how it would look but it's probably not what they really look like. The waistband and the stitching don't pick up the color.and they get a swirly effect on them - see... they turn out cute.

Scott decorated for Christmas this weekend.

We are waiting to decorate the tree until Ryder is here - should be here on the 20th. He will be going to Georgia to Savannah College of Art and Design in January. Scott hung up a quilt I made years ago - I never really liked it but that might be because we hung it on a white wall which made it too loud - in this setting it's actually not so bad.it even has matching chair backs!

Scott dug up some things I made years ago that we haven't put out in years. ( last year we didn't even decorate!)  Like these eggs Santas I made - funny. They are paper mache eggs with split pea noses!!

I hope you are having a lovely Christmas Holiday!! Thanks for stopping by