snow, again,

well we just finished snowstorm George. Not too bad, a few more inches of white fluffy stuff. My brother says he just plowed 8 of our 2-4 inches.
When the outside gets cold and snowy, the poor indoor cats react sooooooooooooooo badly.
lets see, nap in the laundry basket?






nap in the big chair?

It's a rough rough life.................

Snowstorm Eli

Now we survived Snowstorm Eli...............

Eli was wonderful, we got more snow, but lots and lots of wind, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay below zero wind chills, but we also got to stay inside and ......

Bake cookies! These are my girls favorites. The dough is a sort of shortbread dough and then we put jelly in the centers. So easy to make too, I just cut them with my spatula and Viola! Cookies!

And another table runner! Isn't the candy fabric yummy looking?

Oddly enough, the red and white striped print kind of kicked my butt! I cut it out three times before I got all the strips with the stripes going the same way! say that three times real fast.

And make another bag..................

And get out the Christmas things and finish (almost) decorating. Here are some of our vintage Christmas ornaments. Aren't the boxes wonderful? Some are from my parents collection and some are from Jim's grandmother. I found the Really neat Christmas cards at a local vintage store. That is one cool place to go. It is literally packed with all kinds of "stuff". Some is great and some totally tacky. Items are hanging from the ceiling, walls, shelves, stacked on the floor........... it sort of gives me ADD to walk around, but it's fun! I'm figuring out how to display the new pretties. I put the ornaments in bowls or hang them from ribbons on the windows and lights, we don't usually put them on the tree since they are pretty fragile. I think I'll pin the cards up with mini clothespins. Maybe from a different curtain............

Another snow day in northeast Wisconsin

Yup another snow day for us.

Here in northeast Wisconsin, the weatherpeople name the major snowstorms. I'm not certain of the criteria, but this is "Snowstorm Dawn" which means that this is storm number 4................ and winter doesn't actually start until next week.

We are so lucky to have such a gorgeous white Christmas here though, so I'm not complaining. In fact I'm going to sew and bake cookies today. Tomorrow I'll be whining when I have to drive through it all to get daughter number 2 from college on the other side of the state.

I love snow.......... but it's best viewed from either snowshoes or the INSIDE of my sewing room window!

Like this~

I've been trying to get some tablerunners and table toppers finished up before Christmas. I still need to do the center quilting on some.............

and hand sew the binding on this one.

I bit the bullet and machine stitched the bindings on the others. I never do that, but I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out, and since they will get used (hopefully) it might be a good idea to have them sturdier anyway.

Sorry, Flori, -- Officer in Charge of Coffee-- this one isn't for you! I got a request for a brown table topper for someone (else) who loves coffee. I like this one so much I may have to make another for myself! and maybe one for Flori.........

More Holiday Baking

It's holiday baking time. Is anyone out there making fruitcake?



I have developed a GREAT fruitcake recipe. You are SURE to love it.

First you replace the yucky candied fruit with.........


Chocolate.

Then you replace the cake part with................

More chocolate

and perhaps it's best served with some steaming..............

Hot chocolate?

Perhaps to cut the sweetness you may want to serve it with some chocolate ice cream?

You know that there is only one fruit cake in the entire world right? People have been re gifting it for years since no one really knows what to do with it, and for heavens sake you can't EAT it!

For Kim

Kim asked what mold I use for the houses. It's shown at left here. I love it! It's cast iron and weighs a ton but it bakes to perfection.

The molds say "John Wright Company" on them. I highly recommend having two of them as one only makes a half of a house and the baking goes much faster when you can bake a whole house at once.

Also here is the recipe for the houses. Note these are not for eating- you would break a tooth! The dough is very nice and sturdy, almost like clay. No eggs, and no leavening agent so it bakes just the way you roll it or press it in the mold. Also note the "icing cement" uses egg whites so it really shouldn't be eaten either.

3/4 cup shortening

3/4 cup dark molasses

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup cold water

4 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

3/4 tsp salt

cream shortening, molasses, sugar, and water together. Add flour and spices.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so, until the parts seem done. This will make a lovely aroma in your house so you may want to make real gingerbread cookies for actual eating!

Icing Cement

2 large egg whites

1 tsp cream of tarter

beat until stiff peaks form

add about 3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar.

Make sure the cement for assembling the houses is good and stiff. For decorating it can be a bit softer, and to make icicles you can add a bit of water to a small portion of the icing.

Snow Day!!!

Snow day today! I think it would have been much easier if the T.V stations had listed the schools that weren't closed instead of the ones that were. Or, lets be reasonable, just close everything down and everyone stay home! yeah!
We got about 8 inches. Not bad. See the snow cap on our grill? Guess we should have gotten it in the garage sooner huh? ;-)




A few days ago, a sweet package arrived from Gizmo girl! she sent animals for the gingerbread farm!!
Here they are Giz, all snug at their new home.

What do you think? Maybe next year we need horses huh? and a cow or two?



Since it was an unexpected (sort of) day off I mixed up my traditional Christmas bread. It's based on German Stollen. I like to braid the dough to make the loaves prettier than just rolling it out and folding into a half circle sort of arrangement.
Here we have the eggs, milk, butter, and dried fruit! I add dried pineapple and any other nice yummy fruit we find. So, not exactly traditional, but "our tradition".


Here is the dough raised nicely on the radiator. There are some benefits to living in a 100 year old farmhouse! Radiators are surely one of them. They dry mittens and boots, and make cozy spots for cats to sleep too.

A big loaf and 3 smaller loaves for giving to friends.

Two big loaves for friends with families. I freeze these and then thaw them out and drizzle them with white icing before we gift them.

Two more large loaves. I made a REALLY big batch since I had the time today!

One of these will be ready for Christmas morning when we get home from church. We have this with juice and coffee while we open presents.

One for us to test out first............. We have to make sure it's safe for friends. Right?

Final (??) Gingerbread house installment!

The last ( I think) of the gingerbread houses! Here is my coffee shop house. This one is for the Officer in Charge of Coffee! Yup Flori, that's your house. Right now it's living at my favorite coffee shop. You know, the one that did NOT fire my daughter for having TWO jobs to make ends meet!

Here is the view of the back............. You must get the full effect of all the beans!

This next one is a sort of farm one for Gizmo! No animals yet, sigh.

It could be the north pole and the barn area could be for the reindeer. I haven't decided that much yet...
This is the side view..

and here is the front, with the barn area. I did sneak Santa in by the door of the house, hope that's okay Giz.

And the back of these two buildings...........

Since this picture was taken one of the cats stole a doorknob! obviously they don't like Cinnamon red hots, because I did find it on the floor!

Between all the houses, and the 6 to 8 inches of snow outside we are feeling pretty festive around here! Must be time to go bake some more cookies??

Gingerbread Houses, Again!

Ginger bread house parts! My plan for Black Friday was to get these little guys built and I managed it! Even with a " quick trip to Hobby Lobby". Yikes, I had NO plans to go shopping, I NEVER go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, as in NEVER. Then daughter number 2 talked "daddy" into helping her with a Christmas gift. What does that have to do with ME going out on Friday??? Mr. sweet and pathetic looked at me and said, "do you want to come with me?"
Any sane person would have said "Wow, those eyes would look big on a cow!" ;-) but no, pushover Mare said okay. Actually by the time we went out it wasn't bad.
Here we have the gingerbread party in full swing!

Here is daughter number 1 with a little cousin.

See some candy you'd like? The girls did too!




daughter number 2 with 2 smaller cousins.

It's fun to see what everyone comes up with...






Ben, boyfriend of daughter number 3 showing his awesome candy cane styles.






Daughter number 3 with a cousin.....

There is some hot spiced cider in the crock pot behind her if you are chilly!

Showing off! Each one cuter than the next, oh, the houses are cute too aren't they? ;-)

I won! I won! I won!

Look what came in the mail today! A package for me! One that I didn't win on eBay!!!

Wow! I won the little quilt that Jan at It's the cat's house, I just live here. was giving away!!! I can't believe it! I'm sooooo lucky!!

Here is the back with the cute label!

Here is the front! Isn't it pretty??? So fall like, I just love it!

And here is it's new home, on one of my sewing machines. I don't even want to put anything on it and hide any bit of it!

Thank you Jan I LOVE IT!!!

It's not all gingerbread

In case you thought all I was doing was baking gingerbread, I'll show some of the Christmas totes I've been whipping up!

Some are spoken for all ready, but they sure did put me in a holiday mood!! I still have to get a shot of my favorite bag, it's got gingerbread cookies (did you think I could go that long without??) on the outside. It was perfect for doing a bit of Christmas shopping. And of course by Christmas shopping I mean for gingerbread house supplies...... more to come................

Making Progress... or Parts is Parts

The simple beginnings............. My house recipe is more like gingerbread clay, there are no eggs and no leavening agents so it bakes up nicely as walls. Very stiff dough, very sturdy houses! I would not, however, recommend eating it, which is why I'll have to make some molasses cookies also!

Here we have my forms. Each form makes a half of a house, one side wall, one end wall, and one half of the roof. I only had one form last year so it took quite some time to bake the houses for my four nieces, the three daughters that were home, one boyfriend who came along, and a couple for me to play with.

However, last year after the party, my sister in law snuck my form down off the wall and went online to find where to order another one for me, then at Christmas time my nieces presented it to me. Fabulous!!! I can bake a WHOLE house at one time!!!

Here are some of my parts.......... Watch this space for updates! Today I am off work ( yeah!!!) and Jim promised to take me supply shopping since he and Miss V ate the pretzels and gumdrops I had stored!!