Browned Butter Cookie

So, thanks to Houseful of Nicholes, I'm popping in real quick to actually blog.

I know, I know. Please don't pass out from shock.

Anyway, I'm back again this year to play along with #HousefulOfCookies once again this year.

My teen baking!

Now, last year, I made my lovely star Christmas tree. I was so proud of that tree and it's something I love to make. Last year, I entered the Christmas season with energy and vigor and excitement.

This year, has been a bit different. This year I've been feeling not well. There's a lot going on - which is also why I haven't been blogging. I usually bake dozens and dozens of cookies each holiday season. This year I've hardly baked at all. It's hard to balance energy levels, health issues, and trying to do-do-do. I just can't do it all. Or even half.

Mmm ... melted butter

So in an effort to scale back a bit, this year, we went with a simple cookie. Simple because I wanted to contribute to #HousefulOfCookies and because I needed to at least make some cookies this year. It's simple, but so good. And it's got lots of butter. And I love butter.

My 14 year old was my helper. And by helper I mean she basically did almost all the work and I snapped pictures. I told my husband the student has surpassed the teacher. So we are both feeling proud - I like an excellent teacher, and her as an excellent baker.

We (she) produced some excellent cookies. We made some with the fork, and she played with the cookie stamps for quite a few. Experimentation is good and she's never used them before. I might add, she did pretty darn good with them too, but can still work on technique a bit. Still, I didn't even know cookie stamps existed when I was 14!

It was a nice night and the longest part was waiting for the butter to cool down!





Browned Butter Cookies

What you need:
1 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups and a pinch more of flour
Decorating sugar (optional)
Cookie Stamps (optional)

What to do:
1. Preheat your oven to 350F

2. Melt your butter over medium-high heat. Watch it closely. Allow it to melt and then after a few moments, the butter will start to foam and turn a lovely yellow color.

3. Remove pan from heat and refrigerate for 30ish minutes.

4. In a bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

5. Slowly add in the flower into the mixture and mix until it is well blended.

6. Rub some flour on your hands and roll the dough into 1-inch balls (a small cookie scoop is perfect for this).

7. Roll the balls into decorating sugar (this is optional. I like it both ways - without sugar, it makes for a great cookie to dip in tea or coffee!)

8. Place on cookie sheet and use a fork to flatten them. (Like how you do for peanut butter cookies?)

*OPTIONAL STEP 8. Do not do step 7. Place balls on cookie sheet and use a cookie stamp to flatten them. Add decorating sugar if so desired.

9. Bake 11-14 minutes, or until golden brown (note: they will bake a bit faster without the decorating sugar)

10. Let cool. Eat. Enjoy.

Yield 3-4 dozen

Want more cookie recipes? Look no further than here:
12/1 –Natasha Nicholes – Jan Hagel Dutch Shortbread Cookies 
12/2 – Maple Mellows – Rosie Discovers
12/3 – Partridge in A Pear Tree Pie Cookies – All Dressed Up With Nothing to Drink
12/4 – Chewy Chocolate Cookies with Coffee Glaze – Mama Harris’ Kitchen 
12/5 – Snickerdoodle & Peanut Butter Cake Cookies – Crafty Life
12/6 – German Chocolate Shortbread Cookies – Chewsy Lovers
12/7 – Fruitcake Cookies – So Rae, Me
12/8 – Cake Mix Christmas Cookies – A Real Urban Mom 
12/9 – Snow On the Mountain Cookies – Kitchen Stories Etc.
12/10 – Melt In Your Mouth Nutella Butter Cookies P Thirty 1 
12/11 – The Queso
12/12 – Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies – Hysterical Mom 
12/13 – Chewy Gingerbread Cookies – FoodPlus
12/14- Glazed Lemon Butter Cookies – Mixed Blessings Blog
12/15 – Banana Pina Colada Freestyle Cookies – Socamom  & Gingerbread Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies – Just A Splash of Diva
12/16 –Chocolate Truffles – Houseful Of Nicholes
12/17 – Snowball Cookies – Mixed Prints Life
12/18  Mommy & Me Blessed Macarons – Blessed be the Tie 
12/19 – Eggnog Cookies – Fab Haute Mama

It's the night after Christmas

Another Christmas has come and gone.

I swear, we spend weeks preparing, and then poof! It's here. And over. And you've barely had time to take it all in!

That's not to say I don't enjoy the preparing. And I love the actual two days - Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

Our family was positively spoiled this year: both by ourselves and from others.

But I probably won't remember the specifics of this. We are spoiled every year. Every year the husband and I say that we went over the top for each other, for our kids. We have never had to have the experience of going without at Christmas or of feeling sad because we can't get our kids "enough." We've never had a Christmas where there is no where to go to celebrate the holiday with. And we've never had a Christmas apart (though it was close one year).

In ten years I might forget that this was the year I splurged and got my husband the new computer items he wanted (but would never want to spend the money on himself like that). I will probably forget that this was the year I got tons of baking supplies that I hope to use so many times that maybe in ten years they will already be replaced. I might forget that my son got a lot of dinosaur things - which he still loves and is so excited for. I might forget that I managed to somehow pick out make-up that the 16 year old actually likes. And I might forget that the 13 year old was most excited about getting a set of bed sheets with chickens printed on them.

What I hope to remember is that we baked a lot of cookies, but even better: we shared a lot of cookies. I hope I remember that my mom took me shopping and paid for cookie baking supplies so it would be one less thing for me to have to budget for the month (for while we don't go without, we also don't have unlimited spending) and that it felt like she handed me a million dollars instead of flour, sugar, butter, and some other things.

I hope I remember getting to rock our baby cousin to sleep at the Christmas Eve party. I haven't rocked a baby to sleep in a while, and her and I tucked away in a quiet room and I stole lots of baby kisses.

I hope I remember my 10 year old coming down stairs at 10:30 at night because he was just too excited to sleep! And Christmas is awesome and he just didn't know how he'd ever sleep! So we cuddled on the couch, flipped on The Christmas Story marathon and watched some tv together. And it was so sweet because at 10 he doesn't cuddle with me very often anymore. And we certainly don't get many moments where it's just the two of us.

I hope I remember the look on my mom's face as we all opened what she gave us. While what she gave us was awesome, her face of seeing us get it was priceless. For her the joy of Christmas is in seeing what happiness she can bring to others, and this year, that seemed to shine brighter than ever. Maybe it's always shone so bright, and this year is just the first year I saw it so much. But it was awesome. And I want to be like her.

I hope I remember how excited granny was that Santa brought her a present and filled her stocking too. We did this last year, but it seemed more fun this year. And I suppose it's probably been a while since granny has unpacked a stocking, but the simplest stocking stuffers made her smile.

I hope I remember that even though I didn't decorate every square inch of this house as planned - because we were having work on the house done, we couldn't decorate - that it was still a wonderful Christmas.

I hope I remember all the smiles I got to see. And all the hugs I was given and got to give. I hope I remember the happy tears - while just a few here and there - that I cried. And saw others cry, because even though things aren't perfect, and there is illness and sickness and some wish list items not purchased or received and some family isn't close enough to hug and some family members are (we like to wish) celebrating with us in Heaven, that despite the imperfections and heartbreak that exist in this world, that Christmas is still an amazing, wonderful time. And that the happiness and joy of the season seem to fill the cracks, if only for a small bit of time as you sit around the tree with your loved ones (the ones that were chosen and the ones that family ties you to). For a few moments, you look around and see smiles, and hear laughter. And sometimes there are tears in the eyes - sometimes happy tears, sometimes sad tears. But for a few moments, it's all okay.

I know we're supposed to carry the spirit of the season all year round. That's a lot of pressure though. Heck, I barely survived my great gingerbread-house-melt-down of 2015 (though I did) because it's hard to be happy and upbeat all the time. Life is just not built that way.

But for a few magical moments on Christmas, it all seems to fade away and just take a break. I am surrounded by the love of family and friends. I'm surrounded by smiles. I'm surrounded by squeals of delight.

It truly is a most wonderful time of the year for me.

I hope your holiday season was wonderful as well, even if not perfect, regardless of whatever holiday you celebrate (or don't) this time of year.

Holiday Crafting

A quick craft I made today*

A few weeks ago I decided that for next Christmas (yes, that would be in 2016), I wanted to try to have completely handmade decorations.

I know. I know.

I can buy stuff at lots of stores. I can even get a lot of it discounted. It's not that we need more things. It's that I like making things. And to be surrounded by lots of decorations during the holidays that I or the kids made? That would be a wonderful treat!

Even though I want this next year - after all I do need to sleep between now and December 25 of this year, I wanted to start making things this year as I was able to.

So. Early this morning (which is code for not really even that early for most of the rest of the world but early for me!) I woke up, got my daughter, got my not-daughter-who-is-here-so-often-she's-like-another-child and we headed over to Jo-Ann's.

I'll admit, I was kind of scared. I didn't know what sort of crowd we'd be facing. I wasn't sure how many people there would be. And I didn't know how well the store would handle all the millions of people I envisioned would be there.

Thankfully, it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be - thought definitely a lot busier than normal! And apparently, the store has done this before, because they were ready.

Before we went in the store, we joked around and made a "game plan". Our game plan was basically grab a ticket for the fabric cutting counter pretty quickly to walking in, then shop. That way if the line was really long, we wouldn't wait as long! Then we did a team hand stack and we were ready to head into the store. Right when the doors opened.

But it wasn't that bad. People seemed to be in good moods. Most everyone seemed to expect there would be lines and waiting and lots of people, so no one was getting upset that it wasn't going faster. Most people seemed to know exactly what they want and there didn't seem to be a lot of just wandering around and seeing what there was (which is how I usually spend half my time in any craft store!). Despite lots of people, it seemed good to me. None of those images I've seen on tv of crazy crowds pushing and shoving and running and grabbing things out of people's carts!

I saved quite a bit of money between coupons and sales. And I've come home with many, many items so I can (hopefully) make lots and lots of fun things to decorate the house with. 

I'm excited about this. I don't know how far I'll get or how much I'll actually make. Or what I'll do with the things we already own.

But I do like making things. And I don't make hardly anything for our home, so I'm glad I will finally get a chance to do something crafty for our house!

*I saw this on pinterest. It was made slightly differently because they cut the letters out of vinyl and put it on the glass. I printed the words on a white paper ( a script font at size 100). I taped that to the back of a shadow box and put in three different sized silver bells inside the shadow box. It literally took me about 5 minutes! If I did it again, I'd move the words up higher so I could get more bells in. I'm also looking at that black frame and wondering if there's some way I can jazz it up. But I think what I will do is try to layer in decorations around it and leave the frame alone!

12 Days of Cookies: Cut-out Cookie Tree

A bit ago, my friend Natasha of Houseful of Nicholes asked who wanted to participate in the 12 Days of Cookies, and inside I was like oh yes I do want to join in because how fun is this, but on-line I was like yeah, if you need someone I'll do it. Because I'm all casual like that!

Instantly, I knew what I was going to make: a Christmas Tree.

I did this quite a few years ago and thought it was really pretty cute and it looks harder to make than it is. And if you can make yummy cookies that impress people, well, why not?

Last time I made the cookies, I printed a star graphic and then enlarged it a few sizes and shrunk it a few sizes. I carefully cut out all the stars, placed them on the rolled out cut-out cookie dough, and used a knife to cut them out. It is truly how I planned to do it this time as well. But as luck would have it, on Friday I accidentally came across a holiday sale and I found a set of 10 star cookie cutters on sale for one whole dollar. Yep I snapped those cookie cutters up and thought the universe must be looking out for me! (though if you don't have a set, you try the print, shrink/enlarge, cut method too).

I told the kids what I was planning to do and instantly I had quite a few helpers - in my house, the kids love to roll out dough and decorate cookies. The mixing, baking, cooling part? That's not much fun so it gets left for me, which I don't mind at all!

So I mixed the best cut-out cookie dough I know. The recipe came from my friend Melodee and ever since she shared it with me, I've never used another! After mixing, I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and placed it in the fridge. This dough, I've found, works best when it's just slightly cold. If it's too cold, it cracks and if it's too warm it's too sticky. I find just under an hour in the fridge is perfect and if it has to stay in longer, I just let it sit at room temperature until it softens.

Anyway, I pulled it out of the fridge and had some kids very eager to roll it out! I handed them some dough, a rolling pin, and a stack of cookie cutters. Be careful cutting them out, I warned, we need two cookie of each size so you have to pay attention!

So we carefully cut them out, placed on the cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and I was in charge of baking them. Which is good, because these cookies go from done to burned very quickly. I don't even leave them on the pan when I take them out of the oven - I move them to cooling racks right away!

Somehow, we managed to get two of all sizes (and three of one, but we'll call the extra a test cookie to make sure they were yummy!)

Now truthfully, this is where I stop for the day. After the cookies are cooled, I put them in a storage container and stop for the day. Yes, a two day cookie - not because they need to be, but because it's better for me to do it that way! If you don't have two days, do it in one. If you only have smaller chunks of time, split it up!

Day two of cookies is frosting day! Another thing the kids like to do. I whip up the frosting, fill bags, and let them go. We used a royal icing and outline the cookie and then fill it in. The kids do a great job at this because even if they don't, we just spread the frosting out a little bit with a spatula and call it a day!

Then it's time to let the cookies sit so the frosting gets hard. Alright, another confession, we never wait quite long enough because we are eager to move on to the next step, and it's okay! Because the next step is the most fun.

Starting withe largest size cookie, put a dollop of frosting in the middle, and stack on the cookie that is the same size. Turn it so that the points of the star are not right on top of each other. Put a dollop of frosting and place the next larges cookie on top. Dollop of frosting, cookie, lather, rinse, repeat, until all the cookies are placed.

Now step back. You have a gorgeous cut-out cookie Christmas tree. That isn't any more wok than traditional cut-out cookies. In fact, it's probably a bit of less work because you don't need to decorate them fancy - just top with green icing and you are good to go!

We also made one extra of the tiniest star and decorated it with sprinkles so it could be our tree topper! It looks lovely I think. And every one will be oohing and aahing over your cookies!

Cut-Out Cookies


1 cup butter
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 t baking soda
1 t cream of tartar
1/2 t salt

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix in rest of ingredients.
Flatten into a disc and chill for at least one hour.
Bake 6-8 minutes at 400 degrees.

*You'll need to double the recipe to make a tree the size of mine


Royal Icing
2 pounds powdered sugar
5 Tablespoon meringue powder
1/2-3/4 cups water
2-3 teaspoon of vanilla
Food coloring (if desired)


Mix the vanilla into half the water.
Put the sugar and meringue powder into a mixing bowl and mix it at low speed.
Slowly add the water/vanilla mix.
Then add as much of the water as you need to get the frosting to a honey-like consistency.
Add food coloring (if desired).
Continue to mix for a few minutes, until it can form soft peaks.

I find this is a bit thinner than other recipes, but I like it that way much better! I even sometimes add a bit more water to thin it out just a bit more.

Bake. Frost. Eat. Enjoy =)

Traditions

Our 2015 pick!

For the last 5ish years or so, my oldest child and I have set out to make a lot (and I mean a lot!) of cookies at the holiday time.

But we don't just make cookies, each year, we head out and pick a new cookie magazine to get our recipes from, along with a few standard ones we make each year (like chocolate chip!).

We bake most of the cookies together. Sometimes the other children help. Sometimes my oldest can't be helping. Sometimes I rest and let her mix and stir and roll and cut.

But at the end of a few days work, we have a lot of cookies to eat, and share, and give and distribute. Mostly we bring them to parties. We send some over to neighbors. We send some to work with my husband.


It is a lot of work. We spend a bit of money on baking supplies. But it is all fun. And it's our tradition.

Today, we headed out to the book store, and we picked out magazine for this year. And I can't wait to dive in head first. We'll flip trough it a few times. We'll make a list of the all the ones we want to make. We'll cross a few off the list as we usually pick out about 6 recipes too many. We decide which ones to double, or maybe even triple, and which ones to make just once.

Then it's the shopping list. A massive list of all the things we need: sugar, vanilla, flour, eggs, butter, nuts, extracts of all kind, chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips ... the list is long.

Shopping comes next. We send husband to get some things. We go together to get the rest.

And then the baking.

Last year we had to readjust around her school schedule. This year we will do the same. This year, we will try to bake some cookies early and freeze them. Or mix the dough up and freeze it. Anything to make the task - however fun it is - a bit less daunting. And easier on my back.

This is our tradition. Our thing.

It's not exclusive. We share it with whoever wants to share it with us.

But it's still ours.

Someday I imagine going to her house, and seeing the magazine her and her child picked out and getting a chance to help them mix and stir and roll and cut and back. {note: these are my dreams. I don't know if they her dreams, and I certainly won't push them on her if she chooses to do something else.}

But this is the start of the holiday season for us. And I can't wait to see (and taste) how cookie baking goes this year! 

Happy Halloween!

Way back in September (which feels ages ago) someone asked how others would handle Pinktober. I proudly declared that this year, I wanted October to be about Halloween and fall again.

So I set out to do that. I made really big plans. I pinned like a billion things on pinterest.

Then I was like, um, Brandie, step away from the pinterest, and just do Halloween the way you are going to do it.

So I did Halloween just the way that I was able to around these parts. We'll probably do similar next year, but maybe with some more decorations inside!

But, I loved our pumpkins on the front porch. There were also some other decorations out there that I didn't get pictures of. And we had fun posters on the front door.

The ghosts that lined our driveway were just milk jugs with cheap electric lights from the dollar store in them. We live at the end of a dead end street and we noticed last year not everyone walked all the way down the street, so I wanted to do something that was visible to trick-or-treaters as they came down the street. We still didn't get a lot of them because it was raining. Boo for rain.

There was a lot of baking this October. I got my hands on a lot of apples. So I made apple cake. And apple bread. And apple sauce. I also baked a fair amount of bread. (Side note: I made the most beautiful loaf of bread I've ever made last month. It was so lovely.) And the kitchen often smelled lovely.

We carved pumpkins - last minute, but we did it! Everyone is old enough to do their own now, which is great. I roasted the pumpkin seeds. Okay, I roasted them poorly. I'm not sure how to master it, because I swear I do it right, but they never taste great. Next year, I'll let them dry more and cook them a bit longer and try again.

The two kids who went out, had fun costumes. The girl was a sock monkey. The boy was a ninja. I had originally planned to make him a minecraft person. I even made the costume.

Trust me when I say, it was ugly. No, really, it was. And he wouldn't tell me - he said he liked it and wanted to wear it. So I explained to him that sometimes we fail. And that's okay. If we fail, we go to plan b and our plan b was to go buy a costume the day before Halloween. At which, he admitted he didn't like the costume, but didn't want to hurt my feelings, and so off to plan b and it turned out perfect!

All in all, we had a great Halloween. It was perfect for us and I think even with the not tasty pumpkin seeds and plan b with the costume, it was a great season. I can't wait to do expand it a bit next year!

Hope you all had a good Halloween season too!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

If you live where I live, your day today is going to be cold and rainy. Not the ideal trick-or-treat weather, but I'll be toasty and warm inside since I'll make the husband take Mister Man out around the neighborhood! ;-)

But after he gets done, I think we'll curl up on the couch and watch some Halloween movies.

We have already decided to stream Monster Squad on Netflix tonight. I remember watching it with my cousin when I was maybe young middle school? So we'll watch it tonight, and while watching it with me isn't nearly as cool as watching with you cool cousin, he's just happy I'm letting him watch it!

Netflix has lots of fun Halloween choices - from The Nightmare Before Christmas (which is my oldest child's favorite) to Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest, there's lots of ways to keep the kids entertained tonight after walking around in the cold, rain to get all that candy!

Though to be honest, after the kids go to bed, I'll probably keep on working my way through NCIS. I'm in love with Gibbs and Abby and Tony and Ziva! And the oldest is going to watch scary movies with a close friend all night.

Which sounds like a good way to end the night to me!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Happy Early Mother's Day To Me!

my teas from around the world

Please note: this is a sponsored post. I am being compensated for sharing this information with you, but as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own!

The year is flying by quickly and Mother's Day is quickly approaching - the end of this week!

This year I got an early Mother's Day gift thanks to the folks at UncommonGoods. They approached me and offered to send my a gift in exchange for this post (but as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own). So I headed over to the site and looked at some of the gift guides that they have already curated for mothers.

I browsed this list, then I browsed this list. And I hemmed and I hawed. The adorable bowls to hold yarn to knit really called out to me, but at the end of the day, I picked this lovely tea set. Both of my daughters love to drink tea and we often make a cup for ourselves and then a cup for each other. So in the spirit of Mother's Day and to be able to share with 2/3rds of the reason I am a mother, I decided to pick a tea set for UncommonGoods to send me. I was so impress by this company, that ON MY OWN (to clarify, the mug was not a gift to me from UncommonGoods, I purchased it myself), I purchased this healing stone mug in red for myself.

our two cups steeping

My packages arrived just a few days later and we opened it up and whipped up some tea right away! I let the oldest pick the first tea and she went with the Genmaicha from Japan. We were a little worried it would be stronger than what we were used to it, but it was perfect. I put a bit of honey in mine and was in love. Definitely going to the top of my tea list.

 Last night, after freezing for my daughter's softball game, I came home and whipped up another cup of tea for us. This time we went with the Butterfly of Taiwan. I thought it would help warm me up. Plus, the tube conveniently told me it was a good bedtime tea, so I whipped up a cup, and once again: so good. I'm so glad I picked this tea set for us all to enjoy!

My new mug with a perfectly steeped cup of tea

I am in love with this company and so glad I learned about them. Right away when I went visited the UncommonGoods website, I was struck by how much good the company is trying to do. First of all, half of everything they sell is made by hand. That is amazing. And you all know, how much I love things made by hand. There are so many talented artisans working with UncommonGoods to sell their wares. Which I think is just fabulous!

I was also impressed by their responsibility to the environment. Many products are made from recycled materials. Nothing they sell has harmed animals (which is the thing that excited the vegetarian and deep animal lover in our house the most!).

And then, when you check-out, you get to give a dollar to one of the four organizations that UncommonGoods supports. But, no, you don't give a dollar, the company gives a dollar. Nothing is added to your total. When I purchased my mug, I picked to donate to Women For Women International. You can also donate to RAINN, American Forests, and City Harvest.

my new mug with my new tea. They taste better together!

So, I bought a mug and was able to support an artisan here in the states and support Women for Women International and felt pretty good about myself. Plus, I got a beautiful mug that I'm positive makes my tea taste even better!

It's possible I'm so in love with UncommonGoods that I might want to work for them now myself. Well as I don't live in New York, I can't work there, but I can pretend that I do by visiting their blog and learn about the people who do work for them. Or take some virtual studio tours with some of the artisans who sell to them. And the whole time dream of having my own lovely studio to knit and sew and craft in (because if I'm going to dream, I should dream big, right?).

Anyway, if it seems like Mother's Day is sneaking up on you, head on over to UncommonGoods and browse this gift guide or this gift guide. I'm sure you will find some pretty beautiful things for the mother in your life! As long as you buy by Thursday, May 10, you can get it by Mother's Day!

The tradition continues!

Once again, we took midnight pictures for new year's!

I started doing this when my now 15 year old was just an infant and have kept it up. I believe I have a picture of all three kids every single year. And so far no one has been away from us for the new year, though I hope that the first year they are away, they will snap a picture (or have a friend) for their silly old mom who does that kind of thing.

 The 15yo, who doesn't appreciate getting her picture taken very much!

(and yes, I have a better one but she doesn't want me sharing so I respect that!)

 It is officially the new year. The TV says so. 

And yes, I take a picture of the tv almost every year too.

Mostly, so when I look back, I remember LOL!

 Miss 12. All happy and sparkly!

 The Husband. Whom I love!

 Happy, smiley 9yo. 

He was just happy to be up until midnight!

The husband took the camera and got a picture with me.

This is about as good as it gets these days!

Happy New Year's everyone!

What I'm Streaming December

*As a reminder, I am part of the Netflix Streamteam. I am being compensated for sharing with you, but as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Happy New Year's Eve!

If you are going out tonight because you have fantastic plans, enjoy.

As for me and my family, we'll be home, lounging in pajamas and relaxing! Not that I'd mind a night out, but I also am very okay with just hanging out at home!

I'm sure some of our night will be spent watching some Netflix. I totally
want to see the King Julien countdown - because my son already watched every episode of King Julien! Yes, it just came out, but he LOVED it! He told me he's going to let me make a video of him telling the world why he likes it and I can share it here. We haven't done it yet, but I do plan to!

As for me, I had some pretty sleepless nights a few weeks ago thanks to the steroids I was on. I was warned that they would make me not want to sleep and oh boy did they ever! So I spent my nights streaming Marco Polo.

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it and do hope a season 2 comes out.

The story had me hooked. Though, there is probably hardly any historical accuracy in the show, that's not what I was watching it for so I was okay with it. I liked many of the characters in the show too - not limited to Polo's character.

I will, however, never say Genghis Khan the same again (I'll pronounce the first G as a J, like they did on the show because that's how I roll). But I fell in love with the scenery for sure. I'd like to go ride horses around in those hills - it was lovely.

In honor of watching the show, when the husband and I sat down recently to play some Civilization V, I selected the Mongols as my team, and so far it's working out for me. The husband and I are kicking butt in the game! LOL! 

Of course, now that I've watched it all, I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of every episode of Friends in January and then the big one in February: House of Cards. Is there a way I can just get a copy of House of Cards now? I promise I won't tell anyone a single spoiler!

In addition to what I've been watching, I've also done a fair bit of reading. I have officially started the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. Someone sat down and wrote down all the books referenced in the show - which I love the show and saw so many people watching it since it came to Netflix and it inspired me to start reading. I had read 38 books prior to even learning about the challenge, but in December managed to read 2 more. I'm hoping to get another 30 done by the end of 2015, which I know means 10 years to complete the list, but I'm okay with that!

I'm also bringing others into my madness and I started a group for other people who wanted to maybe do the challenge, or some of it, or just want to talk books! We'll see how it goes this year.

With that said, I want to say Happy New Year to everyone! I hope that your 2014 ends very well and that your 2015 is a good year!

On holidays, gifts, and cancer

our mantle

So. It's December.

The month of Christmas.

Christmas is a big deal in this house.

It is my goal each year to give my family the perfect Christmas.

Several years ago, a perfect Christmas looked a lot different than it does this year.

For a few years I made the pajamas the kids would wear for Christmas morning. I tried to also make everyone at least one handmade gift. I baked dozens and dozens of cookies. Every inch of my house was decorated. We strung popcorn on thread and put it around the tree. Gingerbread houses were made. Crafts were done. Ornaments were made.

All of this equated to me not sleeping much during December. It left me stressed and frazzled and overwhelmed. There were probably enough tears to water our Christmas tree.

It was fun. But it was a lot of work. And at the end of the day, the perfect Christmas, probably wasn't so perfect for those in my family who were dealing with the fall-out of me being tired, stressed, and fretting when things didn't turn out completely perfect.

Sigh.

I'm tired just thinking about it frankly.

It took cancer to realize that maybe it was time to streamline things and focus on the parts I wanted and let go of the ones that were stressing me too much.

White Christmas and knitting

The Christmas of 2011 left me pretty much unable to do, oh, everything. That year my husband, bless him, was in charge of Christmas. I was sick, dealing with an infection for most of the month that wasn't actually diagnosed until December 23 in which I underwent emergency surgery. I had already been in the hospital earlier in the month. I was tired, in pain, and spent a lot of time in bed. I don't think I participated in Christmas hardly at all to be honest.

And I hated it. Except I was too tired to hate it as much as I should have.

2012 was better. Except I still feeling tired, run down, exhausted. I was dealing with the iron issues and bleeding and anemia. I didn't spend most of the month in bed, but I spent my fair share of time napping.

Last year was a lot better. Still exhausted, but able to shop and bake and do things.

It was good.

This year will be good too.  I'm still exhausted, still dealing with some chronic pain, but I'm here and I can be present.

That is a present in itself.

And I've learned to cut back. Because you know what? The couple years where I wasn't able to really do much (not by choice), an amazing thing happened .... the sun still rose, and the kids still had a good Christmas, and so did I (well, provided I divorce the holiday from the medical things going on).

We buy pajamas now. I make almost no gifts - just a couple as I can. I will still bake an obscene amount of cookies - because that is important to me to keep it on the list.

But I'm also spending a fair amount of time hanging out on the couch watching Christmas movies. We've watched White Christmas, Muppets Christmas Carol, Santa Paws 1 and 2, and some other movies. It's been lovely.

We are hosting Christmas Eve and bless my husband, he set-up for a cleaning service to come get the house cleaned. We pretty much never have anyone else come clean, so this is awesome.

I'm doing Christmas cards this year ... which I haven't done in a while. They are pricey and a lot of money. But I got them on-sale, they are postcard cards, and they will double as "we've moved" cards (which I never sent out).

Our gorgeous tree!

This might be the most relaxed about Christmas that I've felt since being a child.

It is lovely.

Because in 20 years I don't want to look back and think about how stressed I was this time of the year, I want to remember being happy, despite anything else going on in our life, whatever that may be.

But don't mistake me. Getting sick may have allowed me to step back and see that there is more to the perfect Christmas than I what I previously thought, but there is not one ounce of me that will ever. And I mean EVER. I will never call cancer a gift.

I know, I can my hear my husband in my head "Never say never. Or always." but no, I can say never here. Cancer was not a gift. That is, as I've said before, not to say some good things came out of that time period - new appreciations, new friends, new relationships, and changing how things were done to make it better. There were good moments, good things, but none of that will ever make me think of cancer as a gift.

I've got a lot of gifts in my life. Mostly a fabulous family and some awesome friends, who are there whether everything I give is handmade, or lovingly picked out from a store. I have good memories with my kids, some beautiful holiday moments. Those are my gifts. And I plan to appreciate them as much as possible this holiday season.