A Place Like This......

Happy Friday Anticipation

 Friday's are Happy Day's in Jaime Ridler's Next Chapter Book Club.

As you know, it's been a tough week. All of my children have been sick with a stomach/cold type virus, which has left this house flat on it's back.

As terrible as this sounds there were many happy moments involved such as watching our favorite movies, playing some favorite games, napping, reading books and just plain quiet.

Nothing can bring the kiddos out of a health down spiral quicker than our local weatherman's traditional threat of snow. This year, I must say, that Matt Hinkin has been right on the money. Everytime he has said" snow", it's snowed. So maybe in all of this snow happiness I need to stop carrying around the weatherman luggage of winter's past and give him two thumbs up.

Today at 3 pm, and we're holding you to that Matt, it will start snowing. It will not stop until 4 pm tomorrow afternoon. It's too bad the kids are sick and they won't be able to enjoy it.......Are you kidding?

Coughs have been stifled,vick's bottles put away,kleenex properly stored,the question "How ya feelin?" answered with ,"So much better".

 
 

The pantry has been stocked, fire wood stacked,mittens and gloves found, thermals folded, the hat basket put out, boots on the shelves, sleds in the garage and coats on the hooks. Now all we need is some snow.And to that I say,"Bring it On!.  Happy Weekend to all.

 
   

The dreaded bug

Greetings. I just wanted to drop a very quick note to say that three children are sick and I'm running around with bowls,crackers, liquids, answering the phone and taking complaints. I hope to be  back later today with much good news plus a Jump Into a Book post. If for some reason those good intentions don't happen. Have a very great and healthy day.

Cheers,

Valarie 

Creative Book Exchange

Happy Monday everyone! It was the perfect weekend to get a lot of crafting done. It was raining, windy, dark, and gray. Along with crafting I took occasional breaks to see a couple of movies. Leap Year was so sweet and the film shots in Ireland left me wanting to get on the next plane.

Over the weekend I received a wonderful book from my Creative Book Exchange partner Heather. "A is for Apron" is the perfect book for me. There are so many inspiring creations in this book and I'm happy to get a few aprons started from my fabric stash.

 
   

Julia, from Adirondack Mama, hosted a book exchange based on the types of crafting and creating we love to do. Thank you Heather for such a great book and thank you Julia for hosting such a fun swap.

Knowing that Heather really liked fiber I sent her three books that I think are right up her alley. Enjoy!

Now I'm off to do a little crafting, cooking , and writing, but before I go I just wanted to let everyone know there's a couple of new posts over at Jump into a Book.

Early Morning

Eventhough it's been raining, I decided that this year I wouldn't lose my blueberry bushes to the privet hedge. So out I trod over soggy land to start digging out my wonderful little friends.....the blueberry bushes.

This morning greeted me with mild temperatures, a lovely fog, and the threat of rain. I'm just going to have to embrace the saying,"There isn't bad weather only bad clothing."

I'm going out friends.....be back tomorrow.

  

The Un-Rainy Day

Over the weekend it finally warmed up. Now we were back into the 40's and it felt down right balmy. On Sunday it rained off and on all day but this didn't detour one active boy. He was out in galloshes for most of the day,coming in every now and then to get something to eat.

"Hey mom! Tomorrow if it's raining why don't we have a picnic. We could make soup and put it in a thermos.Bring cheese sandwiches and drink hot tea. Then we could play in the stream." This was expressed with much enthusiasm by an almost 11 year old boy.

Sounded great to me.

I knew the minute I woke up yesterday that there was going to be a problem with the above mentioned plan.

 
  

Yes, sunshine and all the warmth that a good sun shining brings.

"Sorry buddy.  We will have to have our rainy day picnic another day."

"It's ok mom. We can just go for an unrainy day walk instead."

And so we did.

Knut's Day

Yesterday was Knut's Day. I would first like to thank all of my friends who called yesterday after they heard about it on NPR. So what's Knut's Day? It is also known in Sweden as tjgodedagknut. Which means it's been 20 days since christmas eve.,when swede's celebrate Jul.

One last time around the tree we go.....

all the lights out of the windows must leave.

trees must be thrown out.

Any cookies, candies, desserts, and anyother holiday food must be finished and eaten.

and finally we chase Jul right out of the front door with loud singing, sweeping, and ribbon chasing.

 

It's over and now we are getting ready for this season........SEMLOR!!!!!

A huge thank you to Per Svangren for the use of some photos.;)

Along the Enchanted Way

Rarely there comes such an unexpected moment that it captures you heart and soul. Such was the case when I was surfing the net over the last few snowy days and encountered an experience of a book that had me searching for more.

During the holidays in my inbox was an email from Toast with a little gift, a man by the name of William Blacker reading from his book about his adventures in Romania. I'm a die-hard nomad at heart. These days of being snowed in have left me with an extreme case of wanderlust. William, I hope he doesn't mind if we're on a first name basis from here, was just what I needed.

In 1989 as the Berlin wall fell, William Blacker drove East into the unknown of Eastern Europe, and then he drove a little further east until he found himself in the middle of winter, in the midst of village life in Romania.

"Snow lay heavy on the ground....the trees beside the road were white with frost, and I had entered a country frozen in time." William Blacker

Along the enchanted way, William meets a group of German speaking villages who have been there for over 500 hundred years, actually they are speaking Saxon.... as in Anglo-Saxon.

 From there he lives a good but hard and humble life with an old couple who live as their ancestors have for the last several centuries.

 
  

If meeting the Middle Ages in the 20th century isn't exciting enough for you then a little gypsy camp life outta shake things up a bit.

After meeting two gypsy sisters, Willaim lands himself in yet another culture within a culture. Singing and dancing in the middle of the night, smashing windows, stolen altars, knife fights, and a little romance add yet another dimentsion to this ancient modern tale.

Why is William sharing this story with us? Because Romania is changing and he wanted to hold it the way he lived it.

 

You can live the experience of this book here as well as purchase it from Toast. Amazon UK also has the book available.

Our photos today are William Blacker's. Enjoy!

Hung Up to Dry

We had been warned all week by our friendly weather people that snow was coming, "1-5 inches" they said and bitterly cold too.

  
The rest of my long weekend was history.

Into warm clothes.

 
 
 

Out of wet ones.

Bake something

and so it went for three whole days. That was my weekend, how was yours? 

There was an incredible highlight in the weekend however, when I cut out about a thousand felt circles. Why you ask? Well that's a secret for another day .....

A Little Nutty

While visiting friends over the holidays, I tasted some really incredible almonds which had been roasted at home in nothing more than a conventional oven. I had to try this for myself and now I can attest that these are so easy to do.

Take three cups of raw almonds.

Place them in a bowl which can hold 5 cups of water. 

In a pot place 5 cups of water,1/2 cup of kosher salt, and 2 tablespoons of honey.

Place the pot on the stove and heat the honey/salt mixture until both the salt and honey have dissolved. Pour it over the almonds and let sit for one hour.

Drain the water off the almonds. Dry the almonds inbetween two pieces of paper-towel.

Heat the oven to 500 degrees. Place the almonds on a foil lined cookie sheet.

Once the oven is heated, turn it off and place the cookie sheet in the oven. Turn on the top broiler.

Every couple of minutes turn the almonds over with a spatula. The almonds will start popping. It takes anywhere from 6 to 10 minutes to roast the almonds. Do not let them burn. There is nothing worse than burnt almonds. Once you notice they are browning it is time to pull them out. Once out they will be gooey. Cool completely for a nice crunchy nut. Enjoy!

The Pregnant Project

I hadn't intended to start anything when I walked down the basement stairs. Nope I didn't. My only thought was to block the newly knitted sweater I had just finished for "O".

But what to my wandering eye did appear but an old worn out carpet with the looks of wood under there.

 

So I pulled and I pulled, with the cat's help of course, all those 40 year staples to uncover "Oak Floor Treads". Do you know how many times I've walked down those stairs in 9 years?

  

The old belfry of a brain is churning now. I can't let stairs of this beauty just sit in an old room full of books ......and hence began the partial basement remodel.

So I packed up the books and cleared out the room with extreme joy in my little heart !

 

Later that day......

Handyman Marshal and little"O" started tearing things out.

Pulled down the ceiling and discovered that we have a 10 foot ceiling in the basement. Amazing!!! I thought the drop ceiling was hiding all of the electrical and plumbing but not so. That is hid somewhere else and now I will have a 10 foot ceiling!......in my basement!!!!! It will be the tallest ceiling in the whole house.

   

In three weeks my little remodel will be done, with the cat's help of course, and I will have a beautiful,cozy place to read,write, and keep my ever growing book collection. I promise to keep you posted.