Sick Day and Other Stuff

Hazel woke up with an upset stomach and so we've spent the day snuggled up watching her favorite movies and sipping "Nonee" as She calls it. Chocolate milk to you and me. I love her little made up names for things. I love that I speak her little sweet language.

The days around here have been fairly lazy of late. I do some cleaning here and there but mostly find myself sitting under the warmth of my laptop or playing fun games with The Bee. I try and recall at the end of H's usual naptime what I've done. Most of the time I've looked at pictures of stuff online. Crafts, recipes, home decorating stuff, endless flickr pages. Fun but not really getting stuff done. I've gotta get on top of that.

I'll leave you with a quote that I got from I have no idea where. It's something that runs through my mind at certain times in my life. Today it seems to be yelling at me:

"Don't just live the life you've been given, make the life you want."

until then, n

Thanksgiving

Being away from home, family and friends this year for Thanksgiving wasn't something I was looking forward to. I'm a person who is very grounded by the traditions of family and so being away from those for basically the first time in my life was hard. We had planned a large sit down meal with John's work family. Lots of other people in the same boat as we are this time of year. We all brought amazing food (more than I expected) and ate until we could barely move. It was lovely.

For my dish I made something very near to my heart. A definite family tradition. Every year of my life my Grandma Anne would make homemade noodles in broth to go along with our dinner. When she passed away I thought I'd never taste another noodle in my life but then I discovered my Aunt Bev made them too. Every year. So this year, being far from the comforts we are used to, I wanted to make noodles even if I was the only person who would eat them. I was nervous because pastry making isn't my strong suit but I bravely set out wed night to mix, roll and cut a giant batch. It felt so great to cut noodles by the light of the Christmas tree just like I remember doing with my own Grandma when I was little.

So now I've got to focus on Christmas and honestly I don't know where to start. I've got the tree up and the wreath on the front door. I've not purchased one gift or written one card. I wonder, dear readers, have you ever been away from wherever you call home for Christmas? How did you still manage to make it feel not gloomy? Or did you? I'd love some ideas.

Redecorating

So I decided to do a little redecorating of my space here. I plan to TRY and be more involved here in the coming months. I often get bogged down in the day to day "stuff" and feel I don't have anything of value to share or show but maybe, just maybe, I can change that mindset.

Some of the things you see here currently are temporary. That's what happens when you stay up way to late playing with details and lose all your photo light for the day. Oh well.

Hopefully more here soon. I've got holiday crafts, holiday foods and I'm sure something else will come up to share with you soon.

Until then,
n