Between 31.5 and 32 I want to...

Today I am 31 and 1/2 years old...six months from 32.
In the next 6 months before I turn 32, I want to:

Learn the words to the song "I'll Fly Away" by heart
Learn to knit
Get my seeds started in the greenhouse and in the ground on time
Plant even more sunflowers than last summer
Keep my home neat and organized
Read six books (or more!)
Find (or possibly start) a local book club
Continue to work out 5 out of 7 days each week.Continue to weigh myself on Monday mornings and watch that number go down!
Master a really good creme brulee recipe (now that I've gotton my "creme brulee toes" wet!)
Make bread from scratch (at least) twice a week
Sign up on time to be a vendor for one really busy farmer's market
Try one new recipe every other week (at least)
Continue to sell my handmade items in local shops
Make 2 new friends

By the way, this is my 200th post...wow! That went fast! I am thinking that after New Years I'll have a celebratory give-a-way...stay tuned for that! For now I'm still up to my eyeballs in preparations and gift-making for Christmas. We are heading down to California tomorrow morning in fact for a short but sweet visit to my family. I still have a few more things I am working on for that - yikes! Hope your week is treating you well so far!

Weekending

The weekend was full of many great moments.

The first snow of the season began to fall on Sunday morning.A family dinner party to renew friendships with the lost and found.

Their little chicken feet prints in the snow made me smile.

The hens continue to lay, though four eggs a day is now more typical than six, I blame the cold.
Snow makes pretty things prettier and ugly things a bit mroe attractive.
Feels so good to get packages taped up and off to the post office.

Delicious wood fire oven pizza on an afternoon date with the husband.

Zumba on Saturday morning, making for my 6th day of working out in a row!

Cozy, romantic, accomplished, contemplative, accomplished, grateful, relaxed, tired, intrigued...yep, it was a good December weekend!

Cozy

This is such a cozy time of year.

Goal: Creme Brulee

One of my goals for 2009 was to learn to make my favorite desert at home.

Last year I'd asked for (and received) a creme brulee torch for Christmas.

It stayed in it's box until just recently. I don't know why it took me so long, forgetfulness, intimidation, low priority?

It's a great thing that I finally got around to trying it all out.

It turned out pretty good.
I have a few ideas for how to tweak what I did next time to make it even better.I used the yolks of eggs that had been laid the same day by my hens in the custard mixture, it doesn't get more fresh than that, it made me proud to do that.
It was easy to separate the yolks from the whites because
the yolks from my hens eggs are firm and they don't break easily.

Next time I have a yearly goal like this set, I hope I don't wait so long to reach it!

Another Birthday Banner

A dear friend from college saw the custom birthday pennant banner I sold this past summer. Her little boy is coming up on his 2nd birthday in January, so she asked me to make a banner for his birthday party. Of course I agreed, I love it that she wants to have a reusable decoration.

It's a simple process, cutting all the pieces then starching and ironing.

She asked that the colors in the banner be primary colors. I had some fabric with patterns in primary colors in my stash, but I ended up picking up a few more small pieces.

The nice thing was that I already had the letters cut out, I'd cut them way back in the summertime when I had a booth at the fair. I used a stiff felt for the letters, red on top and the bottom layer is light blue and has pinking shear edges.

All of the pennants were then sewn to ribbon with orange toned stripes (her favorite color is orange). I like how it turned out...the colors look great together, very cheerful. I am going to have to eventually get around to making one to keep and use on birthdays around here. I truly love that it can be reused over and over.

Cold But Cozy

It was very cold when I went out to the Jeepster yesterday morning to drive to Zumba. It's a good thing the sun has been shining brightly through the windows of our house. Temperatures have been in the teens at night and the twenties during the day...brrrrr!

Naps

Cold weather means napping......lots of napping. And really, having your arm hugged by your sleeping kitty is just sweet.
I love it when they are sleeping so hard that they twitch and make little dreaming noises.