Consolidating yet again

I've already consolidated my TwoTadpoles.wordpress blog here, and now I'm adding the Project 365 one too.  Simplify, simplify...that's going to be my motto from now on.  :)

So here's my photo of the day:

We put up our holiday decorations this weekend.  This is our tree in its new LED glory!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Holiday reflections

The holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, revolve around the idea of family. Having dh's brother's family in town yesterday (they were here to visit dh's dad, not us specifically) reminded me of what my dear friend, D, always said: friends are sometimes tons better than family. D has horrific stories to prove it in her case.

Family, both blood and by marriage, has people that you love as much as you love yourself, but it can also have people that you'd never go out of your way to be friends with if you met them in some other situation in life.

Anyway, that is my round-about way of saying to the friends I've made online through blogging, as well as my good friends in real life, that I adore and cherish all of you, as much as, and in some cases, more so than, some of my family members! :)

I'll be posting again before January 1st, but would like to take a break for a bit, so in the meantime, I want to wish all of you a Happy Hanukkah, Happy Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy Islamic New Year - whichever holiday you celebrate!

I don't have cute videos for all the holidays, but wanted to leave you with a clever one I saw at The Artist's Magazine blog:



"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim

Happy December!

We actually have snow flurries (or flow snurries, as we like to call it) today...yikes, it really is December! We're happy to say good-bye to November, though; it was crazy busy. We finished processing our chickens...yay! And dh packaged up his sauerkraut for the season. Dh's family has made 'kraut for probably a century. It's a grand tradition. This year's batch was especially tasty as the cabbages turned out nice and sweet.

We got our tree and decorations up yesterday. It may seem early, but given how much work goes into it, I want to have it up for the entire month. And, of course, the beginning of December means National Novel Writing Month is over. I'm still working on the novel itself, but I broke 50K words (as I mentioned earlier), and here's proof: I'm currently at 53,531 words and counting.

This month, I plan to blog about holiday related themes, e.g. giving, both charitable and for family and friends, spending, and continuing to showcase craft ideas from other bloggers.

As well, I'll be posting about making bread - no, I haven't forgotten my promise to you, Sangeeth (Let Us All Cook)! :) Dh wanted me to hold off making naan until he cooks an Indian meal, so I'm going to, instead, blog about making a very easy bread starter from the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg.

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"

Well, not really, but Elizabeth of Gracefruit asked that I share my holiday cookies recipes in her post, The Dreaded C Word. So here they are, my Christmas cookies that are total crowd pleasers. (Note: photo above does not show the cookies in the recipes below)

Whipped Shortbread

2 C unsalted butter, softened
1 C icing sugar
3 C all-purpose flour

1) Beat butter until creamy
2) Blend in icing sugar
3) Add flour and beat for 10 minutes
4) Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet
5) Bake at 325 F (um, sorry, not sure what the conversion is for C) for 20 minutes
6) Cool cookies on rack

Makes about 72 cookies

~~~~~~~~~~
Chocolate-Almond Bites

2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa
2 sticks (1 C) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 C toasted almonds, finely chopped

1) Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a baking sheet. Onto a sheet of waxed paper, sift flour with cocoa. In a large bowl, with electric mixer on high, beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt until pale and creamy. Beat in flour mixture, then almonds.

2) Shape heaping teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and arrange on baking sheet. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until firm. Cool briefly on the sheet before transferring to a rack. Store in an airtight container up to 5 days.

Enjoy!

"Happiness depends upon ourselves." ~ Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)