Walkies!

There's nothing like a good walk to push aside the winter doldrums. Monday we made our first official outing of the year with the boys, getting in a little over a mile. We were hampered only by a couple of leftover piles of snow blocking access to the crosswalks. Tuesday, thanks to some pretty warm temperatures, there was little snow left. So we did the whole two miles. The dogs were happy to get outside. And we all had a good time. We met two new puppies, Roscoe and Bella, and checked out all the houses that got new siding over the fall and winter. It felt so good to stretch our legs outside!

Winter blues

It looks like we won't be grilling for awhile . . . .

Adventures in Furniture Building

With Jim out of commission temporarily, I took on the challenge of assembling the new bookcase I picked up on sale at my favorite home decor emporium, Target. How hard could it be? After all, the only tools they said I needed were a hammer and a philipshead screwdriver.

Step one: sort out all your parts. Note that I have the instructions at the ready.

I love the way they sorted and labeled the hardware.

So far, so good.

Almost done . . .

TA DA!

That wasn't so hard. In fact, it took less time to put the bookcase together than it did to complete this blog! The bookcase is now tucked into a corner in my office, and the office is one step closer to getting organized.

Cookies

What's Christmas without cookies? Especially in our family! The first two batches, made earlier this month, are long gone. So Sarah and I made a double batch of peanut butter blossoms. We then rolled and cut spice cookies made from Grandma Kunde's recipe, which has now been handed down three generations. It is an intimidating recipe. Just to give you some perspective: a whole batch calls for 8- 10 pounds of flour. I usually make half a batch, which results in a lump of dough the size of a small bowling ball. You don't roll and cut the entire batch at one time (unless you've been working out). Today we made a mere 11 dozen: that's 132 of them (yes -- I did count!) These, plus the date-nut pinwheels I made last night, are more than enough for two people who are supposed to be watching what they eat.

Peanut butter blossoms. Less than half an hour after I took this picture, the pile was decimated by the non-bakers in the family sneaking by and grabbing samples.

These spice cookies used up only a third of the half-batch of cookie dough I mixed. (There really are 132 cookies in this pile).

Watch out for that ice!

Jim's camera is out of commission (temporarily, we hope) so I thought I'd document our latest storm. It could have been a lot worse. Unlike the last ice storm we had, the trees were not so full that they were bent to the ground.

This is the view from the front door.
One of the hemlocks.

This is ice, not snow. I had to walk across this to get the next picture.

It was worth the trek.

Holiday entertaining

Last Wednesday I hosted the Strongsville Women’s League Holiday Party. Usually we have this event in a restaurant, but it’s always been cramped quarters with no room to mingle or socialize. So I volunteered our house. I figured if we could handle a wedding for 65 people, surely half that number would be no problem? There was one small problem: I had less than a week to get all my Christmas stuff set up, including the village, which sometimes takes two or three evenings. The stars must have all been in the right alignment this year: everything went up without a hitch. Although I did sacrifice one tree (in the family room). It would have been too crowded. The weather, which is always iffy this time of year in NE Ohio, cooperated too. We had 27 people show up and for awhile they all assembled in the kitchen! The food was wonderful, and everyone had a good time.

That's me making punch.
How do you fit 25 people into one kitchen . . .

One of our traditions is a partnership with the Strongsville Food Bank to help provide gifts for the children of families who rely on the food bank throughout the year. These are just a portion of the gifts we collected that night.

Christmas decorations

Since Jim has the outside Christmas decorations covered (check out his blog), here's a tour of the inside stuff.
There's the "bird tree" on the second floor . . .
The tree (note the new location)

Angels watching over the living room . . .

Christmas trees in the den

Santas and the dogs . . .

And finally, the village. This is the the first year I did not have to lug (okay, Jim did not have to lug) a piece of plywood into place on the buffet to make more room for this ever-growing collection. We simply pulled the kitchen cart next to the buffet, added books to make the transition, and voila! Why didn’t we think of that years ago? Of course, now what do we carve the Christmas turkey on?