Is Christmas knitting ever NOT under pressure? I mean really? I could have my knitting list ready to go in March and probably still not start knitting for it until October. Though, in my defense, I have been doing a lot of birthday knitting for the past couple of years and this year there is a whole lot of Christmas baking – that is a whole other delicious post though, for now I’m staying on topic!

I posted about my first completed Christmas gift of year last month, and I love how they turned out. I casted on immediately for the next project in line (Shifting Sands scarf) but I started it an an awful, awful peachy pink colour. I was proud of myself for going through my yarn stash and making use of it. It’s a gift for one of the teachers I never even see (really, I don’t see anyone thanks to this whole ‘kids take the school bus because we live in the woods’ thing) so the colour didn’t really matter to me.

However, when knitting on it during my birthday weekend, everyone protested that it was ugly. Gill said she wouldn’t bother knitting something that wasn’t pretty, Talea said it was mean to give an ugly colour scarf to anyone and my sister said that the yarn I was using wrecked the pattern. They were all right. Behold – a lovely version of the same scarf. This scarf is being gifted to the kids’ principal. 🙂 So that’s two down, eleventy billion to go!

It’s a nice pattern to knit up, and would look nice with a yarn that has a little colour variation to it. The pattern in a four row repeat, and every other row is just purling anyway, so it’s a pretty quick knit – depending on how quickly you can cable! I have only used a cable needle a few times, I usually just use a short wooden DPN (wooden because it’s least likely to slip out).

These socks I adore. Love, love, love them! Talea made these last summer and I fell in love with them. I queued them right away, but didn’t actually start on them till now. Then, throwing caution to the wind, as I pretty much always do with socks, I casted on with my facourite DPNs and they were amazingly small. Normally this would be cause for alarm and I’d rip it back and start over on larger needles, you know like a sane person would. However, I do not have time for sanity. 😛

Luckily, my children appreciate hand knits and one of them has a size 3 foot and loves green! They’re growing up watching me knit daily and witnessing my friends knit every time they come over. Especially wee one #1, he’s the most thankful for pretty much anything that someone has taken the time to make, I’d imagine mostly because he’s pretty crafty himself.

These socks will be his, when I was unpacking my Knit Picks order he mentioned that he really liked the colour and he thought it was neat that he loves edamame so much and that’s the name of the colour!

Once these are done (halfway done the leg on the second sock right now), I’ll do some face cloths for one of my husband’s aunts. After a two week scarf and two pairs of socks, I need something a little faster to keep my knitting mojo happening!

I originally saw these little cuties on Bakerella, of course. I’m a little obsessed, can you tell? Then, just as with everything else that happens on the internet, they started popping up everywhere. I neeeeded to make these. This week has been a blur of black and orange, a frenzy of Halloween activity that I have loved every moment of! I will post some of the Halloween treats I’ve made this week tomorrow (along with my entry for the Craftster Fall Cooking Challenge). So with all the ghoulish cooking and baking going on around here, cute little brownie burgers were a nice change of pace in the kitchen. I made an extra tray and let the kids have at it with way more buttercream frosting than any three children should have access to. 😉

It’s pretty straightforward, and I’m including recipes! I made my standard vanilla cake in a mini cupcake pan for the buns, then I cut the tops off! Don’t overfill the cups too much because you don’t want too much of a muffin top! I then made classic buttercream and tinted it red for ketchup, green for lettuce, yellow for mustard and left some white for onions. Get creative with it! If you typically put hot peppers on your burgers, tint some orange too!

Standard Vanilla Cake – from Elliot Bakes a Cake

Separate the eggs into two small bowls. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

Cream the butter, add the sugar. Stir until smooth. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the butter and sugar. Add the milk and vanilla next and stir.

Then add the flour mix, a little at a time. Mix till smooth. Beat the egg whites till stiff peaks form, then fold into the batter.

If you’re using it for these mini cupcakes, assume they’ll be fast, like 15 minutes or less. If you’re making bigger cupcakes or a cake, add more time.

The brownies were my standard cocoa brownies (found here with chocolate chips added to them). I found that since they are so moist, I had to pop them in the freezer for a bit for them to be easier to cut – I still have yet to pick up a small circle cutter so I used a shot glass.

The sugar cookies here are the same I made last month for the Daring Baker challenge. So simple and so fast!!

Basic Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup + 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups + 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 cup caster sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla. DO NOT OVERMIX. Beat in egg till well combined and not a second longer. 😛

Add flour and mix till a sticky dough forms. Kneed into a ball and divide into 2 or 3 balls. Roll out each ball between two sheets of parchment paper for about half an hour. Preheat to 350, then take it out, peel off the first layer or parchment paper and slice it into strips like french fries!

These babies cook fast, especially if you made thin fries! Check on them after 5 minutes but they may take up to 8 or 10 minutes.

And now, let’s sidebar into kiddie art, shall we?

Later that afternoon, wee one #2 wanted to into the new finger paints my husband picked up, and with wee one #3 sleeping, away we went!

This first one was made with blow painting, which is just plopping a bit on watery paint on the paper and blowing it around with a straw to make different shapes. We added eyes because she told me it’s a friendly monster.

Then we did some thumbprint snowmen on the left and handprint flowers on the right. The hand prints were the most fun because they were the messiest, of course!!

That’s right people, I’m knitting again. And not just picking up a sad sock from last fall and doing a few rows, I am finally back to my ‘knit a pair of socks in a little over a week while baking from scratch and keeping a clean house’ self. Phew. My poor husband lost his June Clever there for a while and it must have been a little scary. Trust me, I was more nervous than he’ll ever be and maybe one day I’ll post about that. For now, however, the domestic goddess is back at it. Let’s talk about socks, shall we?

Wee one #2 started senior kindergarten this year and her teacher is bananas. Bananas in the same way that I am bananas, so I’m really looking forward to this year at school. I really wanted to make her something extra sweet for Christmas, and as any knitter will tell you I’m already behind when it comes to Christmas knitting. I have a queue on Ravelry as long as my leg (maybe longer actually), and this pattern, Socks of Kindness struck me as something she’d really like. Simple but cute.

It’s a 12 row pattern repeat, and really knits up quickly. I mentioned on Ravelry already that it’s a great pattern for getting your knitting mojo back if you lose it because it’s simple enough to knit up without thinking too much, but it’s got some substance to it so it’s not a horribly boring knit. This is also the first time I managed a short row heel! It was easier than I thought it’d be, after a few failed attempts last year it worked this time for some reason. I like the look of this heel better, though it’s less ‘fun’ to knit than the heel flap I usually knit.

I am aware that it is a little nutty to be knitting socks for my kid’s teacher (teachers actually, I’m knitting up a pair for wee one #1’s teacher too…) but I want them to know that I appreciate the one on one teaching that comes from being in this tiny town. So much one on one time also means they’ll get to know my kids in ways that none of their former teachers in Toronto ever could and that deserves something a little extra, right? Oh, so glad you agree! 😛

I just cast on for the Shifting Sands scarf last night and I had to rip it back – twice. I have no idea why, but I always seem to forget how to cable when I start a new cabling project. I always realize after I’ve knitted a couple of rows and it looks off. One day, I’ll get it on the first row! So, not much progress, but I’ve got one Christmas gift off my list and I’m starting on another.

This afternoon, I’m cooking up my Daring Cook challenge and some treats for my birthday weekend this weekend. I killed my oven on Thanksgiving (sooooo lucky that it was *after* I was done all my baking), so I’m doing stove top, no bake and bread machine baking. That’s right, in the bread machine!

My actual birthday is next weekend, but my ladies (and Andrew) are coming up tomorrow to help me celebrate and I could not possibly be more excited. I’m Greek, I show both love and excitement with food. Get ready!!

For what it’s worth (and because I’ve been asked), this is my basic schedule since we moved about 6 weeks ago. I’ve included the other stuff too, just to give you an idea of how I work around everything else.

Our mornings are prepped the night before, (because as I’m sure you know, chopping celery and washing lettuce goes a lot faster at 9pm than it does at 7am). So clothes are already picked out and school bags are already packed and ready on each kid’s hook by the front door. I know my neurosis is showing again, but this takes maybe 20 minutes after the kids are in bed to accomplish and I save myself all kinds of headaches in the morning – and frees up that time to get other things out of the way.

I brush my hair and throw some makeup on while I’m still in my PJs right after I’ve brushed my teeth – otherwise it just might not happen! Then I just grab whatever I put out for myself the night before and wake the kids – then they separate into their bathrooms for teeth brushing and face washing (that sentence made me sound a lot snobbier than I really am, we just happen to have two bathrooms very close together). I’ve changed the baby and brushed her teeth at this point and she’s likely on my hip in the kitchen making oatmeal with me while the other two get dressed in whatever was pulled for them the night before.

While they’re eating breakfast, I take their (mostly made) lunches from the fridge, add whatever is left to add and put them in their bags. Now, I have time to make the beds, pick up laundry, give each bathroom a tidy and wash the breakfast dishes before we even have to go outside for the school bus.

Once the older two are on the bus (to keep time in perspective, I usually get up around 6:30ish and the school bus rolls up around 8:30), wee one #3 and I go back inside and do a quick tidy of the home office so it’s ready for my husband when he gets up. Then, for no more than an hour, I set to work on all the chores for whatever room is assigned to that day:

Mondays – office & kitchen
Tuesdays – living room & dining room
Wednesdays – bathrooms & hall
Thursdays – kids’ rooms
Fridays – our room, laundry room & entrance
Saturdays – outside & garage

Each room gets a total once over every week, so it’s always super clean. Aside from the occasional ‘how did that end up on the ceiling fan’ chocolate milk mishaps, nothing too damaging happens over the course of a week. It’s when we leave things for months on end and then notice how gross it is, but by then everything has been left that long and it’s all gross!

So after giving the area(s) of the day an hour of cleaning time, it’s about 9:30. 9:30 and the house is clean (I don’t do laundry in the day because we’re on time of use meters in Ontario for our hydro consumption, so I save my family a lot of money by only doing laundry (and cooking) at off peak times).

This frees up the next hour to working out. I know. Roll your eyes at me harder, why don’t you? 😛 I’ll type out my workout routines for another post – some days it’s stability ball exercises, some days it’s resistance bands and there are usually free weights in there too. And cardio. As a rule is goes like this; Mon, Wed & Fri are abs & arms days with PSX cardio. Tues, Thu & Sat are butt & legs days with strippersize (ooh la la) and on Sundays I try to do ‘fat burning yoga’. My friend Gill is the fitness queen, and I try to make her proud, this schedule may seem crazy and you may assume I am super fit, but really this routine is nothing compared to hers and I am just borderline healthy, not yet fit. Ask me where the toddler is. You know you’re thinking it. She’s right beside me trying to work out – it’s hilarious! Of course. Then, once you add in changing in and out of my workout gear, drinking about a liter or more of water and having a very fast (and very hilarious) shower after, where I very carefully avoid getting my face and hair wet – and try to keep wee one #3 from stepping in with me, it’s about 11am.

That’s typically when I sit at my computer and check out my favorite forums and read some of my favorite blogs (while sucking on a protein shake, no less). I check in with my girlfriends via email around this time and then as I’m making lunch I generally call my Dad. I’ll be 30 next week and I still feel the need to check in with him, and let’s be honest – I totally call him Daddy. Ahem. I’m a grown up, shut up. 😛

I feed the littlest one and then cart her off to her room for a nap between 12:30 and 1pm. This is where parenting controversy comes in. When I put her down with her water and her blanket, I sit in the room with her (on wee one #2’s bed) and I knit until she sleeps. Will she always need me there? Am I warping her for life? I don’t know, but I did this with the other two and all is well, so I’m not messing with a good thing. Sometimes, she’s out cold within 15 minutes and on those days I’ll sit there and knit for another 15 or so. Other days it might take half and hour or even 45 minutes. I just keep knitting, happily while she lays there watching me till she drifts off. I’m out of there by 2 for sure, usually a lot earlier.

Wee one #2 is in SK, and in this district that means she’s in school 3 days a week. So if she’s home, we’ll get crafty together for an hour and a half at this time. Usually painting or coloring or something involving pipe cleaners or glue and googily eyes. If she’s at school, I’ll use this time to work on the blog or call a long distance friend or reply to pen pals. Yes, pen pals. <3 The magic ‘nap must end time’ at this house on a week day is 3:20, because we have to be at the end of the driveway for the school bus drop off just before 4.

Once they’re off the bus, they run around and play in the front yard, if no one has homework we take the 5 minute walk to the lake and maybe collect rocks, or just throw them in the water.

Once we’re inside (always by 5) it’s that whirlwind of supper prep and homework. I am a homework helping kind of mom. I never do it FOR him, but I always check answers and insist sloppy homework is redone. If supper is ready before homework is done, we take a break and it’s finished up while I do dishes and clean the kitchen after supper. Now it’s about 6 or 6:30ish. All homework is finished up or kept at if there is lots and school bags are prepped for the next day. All papers signed, all books put away, and they’re hung on the kids hook by the door.

Wee one #1 will either read or practice his guitar or maybe watch a movie with Dad or wee one #2. Bath time for the younger two is at 7, I wash them and then read to them till 7:30, then it’s teeth brushing and PJ time for them. They’re both in bed having their last story read by 8. I sit there again and knit till #3 is sleeping, which usually happens around 8:30. Then I remind wee one #1 that it’s time for a shower, he gathers up his school stuff if he hasn’t already, puts it on his hook and is in the shower by 8:45.

While he showers, I prep lunches for the next day, take another look at the calendar to see if there’s anything important going on and once the oldest comes back to the kitchen to get a glass of water and say goodnight, I’m off to the laundry room to pop in the only load of dirty clothes (sheets and towels are done on Saturdays). Then I’m in the office with my husband to update the family photo site with the day’s photos and then I close my laptop, watch old movies with the husband and knit my face off till around midnight. Then I have a shower, get primed for the next day and go to bed, usually somewhere around 1am – unless my husband comes with me and then who knows how late I’m up? 😉 I pop the wet clothes in the dryer before I got to bed because we have this indoor dryer vent thing to help heat the house at night. Anything that saves on hydro make us happy around here. 😉 Saturday and Sunday are typically the days I do the most baking, though I can be found in the kitchen instead of knitting doing supper for the next day if I’m excited enough about it. Food nerd alert!

Nothing fantastically glamorous, but I love it. Things we used to do weekly (like date nights, Saturday night parties and Sunday suppers at my aunt’s house) are now monthly things because we moved to the woods, but the trade off has been amazing! My girlfriends will come up in two separate groups about once a month, and we’ve already had a handful of random visitors make the drive, and a few on their way!

What I like most about this schedule is that if we make last minute plans or someone wants to come for the weekend on little notice, it’s not a big deal to skip a day because it’s always done!

I have been itching to sew, but there is knitting to finish up and some random bloggy stuff to attend to first, so for now, I will just drool over fabrics and patterns. <3

I had six more images in this post, but I took them down because I they were crowding these patterns! I want to order every pattern from this shop and sew them all for my girls. Anyone want to come keep my house as impossibly clean as my husband has come to expect? That’ll teach me. 😉

I have an overwhelming urge to sew up some cute dresses from gnome fabrics!!

When I baked and decorated the snazzy sugar cookies earlier this week for the Daring Baker challenge last month, I mentioned they were destined for our neighbour’s tummies, since we were going to package them up and give them out when we walk around introducing ourselves. We live in a seasonal area, and as we discovered this week, we are one of just five houses that are occupied all year! Most of our neighbours are long gone back to their regular lives and we wont see them again till next summer. Pfft. Amatures.

Our little treasures were only recieved by three of our neighbours, one was away for the weekend, and one I only found out later lives here all year (I thought she had cleared out with everyone else, whoops)!

The people we met and chatted with were all genuinely surprised that anyone would come and say hello, let alone bring a treat, which was sweet because they were all really warm and inviting. Of course, we are already friendly wiith the people next door, they are wonderful neighbours and I am sad to say they are trying to sell their house. 🙁

We will likely be driving into town for trick or treating, so the kids have houses to visit! We’ll bake up something cute and wish our handful of neighbours a spooky night though!

Even though it’s not even Halloween, I have started on Christmas knitting. As any serious knitter will tell you (hi Mom!) I am very late for this. So late actually, that before I could get started on I had to finish a Christmas project from last year! Behold the three Twinkleberry socks it took me almost a year to knit!

It’s not that it’s a hard pattern or that I had issue, it’s just that I wasn’t knitting. Life hit me hard and I was doing everything but knitting. Why are there three? What’s Christmasy about them? My bestie Miss Talea, bought me this yarn for my birthday last October. It’s called Starry Night, because it has flecks of real silver in it (!), I totally adore it. I also knew that she was leaving Toronto for Ottawa and the way my husband was talking it looked like I was leaving Toronto for the middle of nowhere (hey look, here I am), so I really needed to make soemthing special from this yarn.

I had read in a Martha Stewart Living magazine almost 10 years ago an idea to knit up little Christmas stockingsa for kids and hang them on the inside of their bedroom doors on Christmas eve! When the kids get up they have a wee snack, a few small toys and mom and dad can throw back a coffee or two before the kids bust the doors down and make a run for the living room.

Making something I’ll use every Christnmas eve forever was a wonderful way to know that Talea will be with me in some fashion every year no matter what – though she will hopefully be here for real too! The yarn is perfect for this project too because it’s all twinkly and pretty – and the pattern was chosen solely for it’s name – Twinkleberry! So sweet – and finally finished. Actually, almost! I need to find some pretty silver or blue ribbon to make a loop to hang them from.

Finally free from the shame for a year long knitting project that should not have taken more than a couple of weeks, I casted on just three days ago these lovlies, Socks of Kindness. They are knitting up so incredibly fast it’s bananas! The pattern is a snap and I’m already on the heel. I can only knit for a few hours a day with all the wee ones and other obligations so this is surprising!

Now I’m off to learn how to make a short row heel (hooray for You Tube)!

The first time I sat down to write this post, it opened with ‘my granny died 10 days ago’, and that was three weeks ago. I’m still not sure if I want to write about her just yet, but I do know that I want to write and I also know that I wont post anything else until I write about her because I can’t just ignore that she’s gone.

She was 87. 87! That is seriously old and she didn’t squander those years either. I don’t know if I can put it to words in a way that would do justice to her life, but I don’t want to cop out before I’ve started so I’m going to try. Just know that she was a force to be reckoned with.

Even her quick bio is a little awesome to me. She was born in 1923 – think about that for a minute! The town in Saskatchewan that she grew up in had a population of 600 – she even rode a horse to school and that horse’s name was…wait for it…Maude. If I was reading this blog and I didn’t know my family I might not believe that, but it’s true. Her mother died when she was a young girl and she moved with her sisters and brother to Winnipeg where she did most of the cooking and baking for the whole family. She joined the army at 18, was stationed in Montreal and eventually met my Grandfather as a result – he was also in the army and Montreal was his hometown.

After marrying my Grandfather, they had four children. My Uncle Bob was born in a hospital in Montreal in 1947, my father was born in a hospital in Toronto in 1949, and by 1952 my grandparents had moved to the middle of nowhere, on the northern tip of Lake Superior where my Granny gave birth to my Uncle Glenn in a cabin in the woods with no running water or electricity. A few years later they had moved back to Toronto and my Granny gave birth one more time, to my Aunt Wendy, at home in their apartment – so quietly that no one else in the building knew she had a baby!

Grandpa, Uncle Bob, Grandma and Daddy, 1950

She waitressesed her way through her 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, (with a brief break in her late 20s when they lived in nowhere land), and worked hard until she she retired. And even then, she was still up at dawn every single day. When my mother went back to work after I was born, she and my Grandpa not only took care of me and walked me back and forth to school but she taught me real life skills and lessons I may not otherwise know (I can make all the tricky stuff in the kitchen because of her). The very first pie she taught me to bake was Lemon Meringue, how convenient that would turn out to be one of my future husband’s favourite pies! We made a lot of bread, muffins and cakes and HEAPS and HEAPS of cookies. Man, she loved to bake cookies. To me pie represents what I think cookies must have represented to her – the ultimate domestic staple. I’ll even add bread to that catagory, if my house smells like either it just feels so right.

When my aunt and uncle bought a neighbourhood restaurant, she baked all the pies, tarts, muffins and other treats from scratch. Every inch the typical Granny in this way, she’d always go to bed by 10, when everyone else was still having fun and get up while it was still dark to do her baking before the rest of the house even woke up!

There are so many things about her that I aim to emulate, she hosted Sunday supper every weekend without fail from 1975 till the weekend before she passed (though to be fair, my aunt did all the actual work in the last few years because my Granny couldn’t). What a wonderful legacy! There are 35 years of weekly memories created because she wanted to be sure we all stayed connected to each other. It worked. We have always been, for better or worse, one of the tightest families I’ve ever met.

Grandma and Baby May, 1980

Rando facts that I find endearing:
-she loooooved Glenn Miller (so much that she and my Grandpa named one of my uncles after him) and Christmas music (year round)
-she hated wee one #3’s name when we picked it before she was born, and then she kept forgetting it after (but never forgot the names of the other two wee ones)
-from the time I was wee until I got married, we would go to Fabricland together and pick out patterns for dresses or skirts and heaps and heaps of placemats and napkins, I loved it
-she always buttered both crackers and bread before putting peanut butter on and when asked would always say ‘you can’t just put peanut butter directly onto the bread/dry cracker‘, and give a stink eye like you had 10 heads
-when I was a teenager, she’d send me to the store with way too much money and let me keep the change

I thought this would be easier but tears are trying to break through and it’s biting. I am so thankful for the time I had with her, but I am also so bummed with myself that I had even more opportunity to hang out with her that I didn’t take. It’s easy to say that I have a busy life, but it’s not right to use that as an excuse.

Grandma and 4 Year-Old May, 1984.

My eldest uncle passed this March, which I have no doubt had a serious effect on my Granny’s health, and I felt the same way after his funeral. So I’ve been proactive about it I think. I make sure I check in with my folks everyday and my aunts and uncles hear from me weekly. More importantly, I go hang out and insist they visit us as well. It’s important that I stay in touch, of course, but it’s just as important that my kids nurture the bonds they have with every member of our family. For that, naturally, we need face time. <3

If you’re not obsessed with Lost, this post can still be useful – I made the Classic Snowball Cake, which is something I think all domestic goddesses should know how to make. 😉 I have been hooked on Lost for a couple of years, I started watching all the episodes in order after the show had already been on the air for 3 or 4 seasons. Being able to watch so much of the show at once, it was pretty easy to develop an unhealthy obsession. I owed my friend Romi a birthday fete and she’s just as crazy for Lost as I am (and arguably more die hard, as she’s been loyal since ep 1, season 1), so I ran with it and her 2*th birthday was all about Lost. 😀

The Dharma labels are all courtesy of Max Pictures, who clearly also has a serious love for the show. Dharma chocolate bars were necessary, as Miss Romi loves chocolate. She’s also fond of red wine, so we needed to Dharamize that as well. We all had personalized boarding passes from Oceanic flight 815, except ours were all leaving Sydney and arriving in Toronto – don’t worry, we know the level of geeky we’ve risen to. What’s with the Dharma evaporated milk? Well, I am a baker you know, I always have to have this sort of thing on hand…

Instead of talking about the cake first, I’m going to go on about the icing, because the construction of the cake itself will likely steal the show. It’s one of those very simple, but very good (good in this instance refers to deliciousness, not good as in ‘good for you’, just to be clear) quick recipe from Kraft. It is just five horribly indulgent ingredients and takes maybe five minutes to pull together.

The cake itself is actually a plain chocolate cake, the recipe used a devil’s food cake mix but you can use your favourite chocolate cake recipe of course! For the snowball effect, the cake is made in an oven safe glass bowl.

Essentially, you whip up a chocolate cake and pour the batter into an oven safe bowl. Mix the cream cheese, egg and sugar, and put that on top of the cake batter. It’ll sink a bit as it bakes. Mine was still visible after it baked, so next time I will knock it down a bit. My concern was that knocking the bowl would make it sink too far but that doesn’t seem likely now.

The video was helpful when putting this cake together, the only thing I didn’t do the same was sprinkle coconut on top because my sister hates coconut with the burning passion of 1000 suns, and naturally she was on the guest list. The candles are sparkly and have wee stars on them, because grown ups or not, birthdays are for being a little silly. Which is also why there are mini M&Ms on top!

The texture of this cake was amazing, I used my usual chocolate cake which is already pretty fantastic, but made so much better with this cream cheesy center! It’s not overpowering and just sweet enough. It’s two years in a row that I’ve made a cake with both vanilla and chocolate in it. We call it our ‘racial harmony’ cakes. 😉

I also made Salsa Roll Ups, another quickie from Kraft. I end up with a very long ‘must try’ list after trolling that site for too long. I also made turkey-chicken meat balls, but I’ll save that recipe (courtesy of my Dad) for another post.

Mix the cream cheese with the salsa and spread onto the tortillas, then sprinkle on shredded cheese. Roll up the tortilla tightly.

Cut the logs into whatever length works for you, you may have to use toothpicks to keep the rolls secure.

So happy 2*th birthday, Romi!! I’m already plotting next year’s cake (and theme, hmmm). <3

In the spirit of new blog friends, and good friends starting new blogs, I’m posting a rando ’50 Things’ list of stuff about me that isn’t too obvious. Consider it the intro I never wrote. I’d love to read your 50 things!

1. I got married when I was 19 and my husband was 21, and we just celebrated 10 years of marriage!

2. Our first child took us by surprise, it took four years of trying to have our second, and we patiently waited for our third (who arrived 3 years later).

3. I am a very good long distance friend. So many dear friends have left our amazing city for adventures in other countries and then settled there. I’ve also made some wonderful friends online over the years that are scattered all over the place.

4. My husband is a hard core computer geek and he works from home 100% of the time. I shudder to admit how many computers we have in the house – all actually doing something I swear.

5. I go to a big Sunday dinner at my 87 year old Grandmother’s house every Sunday where I get to see my parents, my sister, my aunt and my uncle.

6. Every weekend I host a knitting/board game night with my girlfriends and my sister, there are 5 ‘regulars’ and another 10 or so that are in and out from one week to the next.

7. I was born on University Avenue and am an unapologetic Toronto snob.

8. I am still very close with the two first friends I ever made in kindergarten.

9. I am firmly planted in 1996. Soundgarden is still my favourite band, Party of Five never gets old and I still say ‘duh’ and ‘rad’ like they never went out. However, I do not wear plaid flannel shirts or babydoll dresses with no stockings and mary janes like I did in 1996 – there are limits.

10. When I was 24, I was freaked out about turning 30. Now, I’m 29 and totally fine with it.

11. I am way more religious than I ever let on. Partly because it’s really none of your business and partly because I can’t help but feel people will look at me differently, even though I’m still just me.

12. I am still totally head over heels for my husband, and we are so into each other life is still spicy! Yes really.

13. I got hooked on fitness and nutrition after my third wee one was born. I work out 6 days a week and allow myself one cheater meal a week (but not on my off day lol).

14. I am the opposite of a helicopter parent. I really think it’s important for kids to do kid things like playing in the dirt and sneezing on each other and making messes and splashing in the tub (with the curtain or shower doors closed!)

15. I have 9 tattoos (both shoulders, back of my neck, side of my neck, right breast (scandal), right leg, left big toe and both wrists). Somehow, I don’t look like a biker. 😉

16. I am a 50s housewife to the bone. I own a closet full of cute dresses and only 2 pairs of pants. I cook almost all meals from scratch, handle the kids on my own, keep the house impossibly tidy and fetch my husband coffee. Sometimes with pearls on!

17. Ever since I got pregnant with my first wee one, I’ve been reading books on parenting and I have learned so much. I also read heaps of classic fiction and my friend Romi has got me into new fiction – which I also love.

18. I learned to knit 6 years ago and I loooove it. I feel like I hardly knit anymore, but I still do. My preferred thing to knit is socks and small creatures. I taught a bunch of my girlfriends how to knit a few years ago and now one of them knits way more than I do.

19. I’ve been off and on with blogging a lot, but lately I’m so in love with it I can’t picture stepping away again. I think I just needed to find my groove.

20. I got hit with awful postpartum anxiety and it lasted a year. I am terrified of it happening again, so no more wee ones. Otherwise? I’d have two (hundred) more. I recently feel like I’m coming to be ok with this and really, if I had a fourth would I have a fifth? Where is the line? I live in a major city!

21. I call my Dad at least once a day, sometimes more. He gives good advice, has great recipe ideas and is really good at listening. I refuse to believe that one day he wont be there, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

22. I am more addicted to my BlackBerry than I care to admit. But it tends to keep me off my actual computer during the day.

23. I aspire to be an amazing gardener, but I’m not very good and mostly just resent my flower beds for allowing weeds to sprout. I’ve also been known to say ‘I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself’ (yes, I stole that from a tshirt).

24. I won a beauty pageant when I was 8. My mother was terrified of pageant moms and didn’t encourage me to go to to the next level – which I am so thankful for!

25. I quit smoking over 2 years ago!

26. I have dyed my hair every colour possible in the last 14 years. Currently, it is black with blonde chunks. Yes, I am ‘that’ girl. I even sometimes rock the guido poof!

27. When people say ‘and Becky was all like, OMG, I know!’, they’re talking about me.

28. I have broken my right ankle 5 times, all my fingers and toes at least once, and my left arm once.

29. I took pre-law in university and honestly thought I’d be able to put my kids in child care and go off to law school and be a lawyer. Maybe when they’re all grown.

30. I’ve given birth three times. First and third were natural, second time I had an epi and later wished I hadn’t.

31. My husband and I have a monthly date night, even though we hang out every night.

32. My three favourite magazines are Martha Stewart Living, Cosmo and Today’s Parent. Which is actually a pretty good layout of my life. 😉

33. I caught chicken pox from my sister when I was 14. It sucked.

34. I love really, really bad television. Like Bromance and Paris Hilton’s new BFF. I know it’s awful but I can’t help it.

35. I could play Mario Kart everyday and I played an 8 hour game of Mario Party last year.

36. My husband and I are huge on movies and watch at least a few every week.

37. I have a serious crush on Anderson Cooper.

38. I once dropped a butcher knife in the top of my right foot and I had to *pull it out*. Yuck.

39. I used to hate cars and never wanted to learn to drive or buy one. Then my husband got his license and a car last year and now we go on road trips all the time and I loooove having a car.

40. It is eerie how quickly and easily I adapt to new situations and circumstances.

41. Our favourite date night activity is going to the drive in <3 42. I wear makeup every day, even if I stay home all day. 43. I used to drink 3 + cans of pop a day. This year, I quit! 44. I have alarmingly ugly 70s tile in my kitchen and I embrace it. My dear friend Brigitte made me an apron from matching fabric. Bless! 45. I keep a 'quote book' file on my BlackBerry to record all the hilarity that goes on with my girlfriends, my husband and our kids. The funniest quote is too graphic to even put here! 46. My bestie, aka my girl soul mate, aka Talea moved 5 hours away almost 5 months ago and we both feel like we lost a limb. We text and Facebook message each other like we’re 17.

47. I really love red wine. I didn’t at all until a few years ago when the above-mentioned Talea got me hooked. Now, it’s all I drink, aside from theme drinks for parties, of course. Thanks for turning me into a wino!

48. I’m awesome at Monopoly and suck serious ass at charades.

49. I have drank my coffee black since I was 14.

50. Technically, I was a teen mom. My oldest was 3 months old when I turned 20.

Handmade Nation

Let’s start with your shop, Paper Boat Boutique and Gallery. What
was behind your plan to open a shop devoted to independent crafts?

Paper Boat opened in June of 2005 as a result of myself and my business partner Kim Kisiolek realizing there was no brick and mortar space in Milwaukee that specialized specifically in indie designers. I had made a lot of connections online through my business at the time Flying Fish Design as well as through coordinating Art vs. Craft (Milwaukee’s indie craft fair), so it was a fluid step to get things going on a retail level.

Tell me about your shop! What sort of items do you carry, is there
an online counterpart?

Paper Boat works directly with makers who produce their work in house or have it manufactured on a small scale. We carry stationary, jewelry, household items, clothing, books, plush and art objects. We also have a small gallery space that has hosted shows by Jill Bliss, Jenny Hart, Katy Horan and Monica Canilao to name a few. We are looking forward to the solo show with Lisa Congdon (of Rare Device) this December! We don’t have an on-line shop because the whole point is for the Milwaukee public to be able to come in and interact with the work, most of the makers have their work available online and we direct people to their sites if necessary.

The bi-annual craft festival you put together, Art vs Craft, seems
like more than your average craft show. What do you feel makes it
different?

We receive over 3 times as many applications as spaces for Art vs. Craft and this allows us to hand pick the vendors that we feel are bringing the most innovative, quality, unique work to the event. Every year we have returning vendors new people apply as well.

Do you have help putting the show together? Plug your friends!

Art vs. Craft is coordinated by myself and Kim Kisiolek. There are a handful of amazing volunteers that help the day before and day of to make the event run smoothly.

What sparked the concept of Handmade Nation, the documentary?

As a maker I found myself immersed in the emerging indie craft community. In 2003 I participated in the first Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago and was blow away at the amount of people who where vending as well as there to support the makers. At that time I knew there was something big going on, it took 3 years to realize that this “scene” was a huge movement that needed to be documented. So, with my DIY spirt I took it upon myself to begin documenting what was going on around me.

You travelled 19,000 miles to talk with indie crafters all over
America, how long did that take and how did you go about it?

We began shooting in June of 2006. Initially it was myself and the Director of Photography Micaela O’Herlihy who traveled around. At the time Micaela was a full time working artist and also a single mother so we scheduled our shoot dates over weekends around craft fairs happening indifferent cities so we could get the most footage out of a trip possible. There were a few instances where Micaela couldn’t make the trip and I had my friend Drew Rosas step in and shoot. The actual logistics of producing the documentary were pretty easy since I had all the connections already made for the most part. People were happy to meet with me and be a part of the project. We ended up interviewing over 80 individuals over the course of 2 years.

Being an indie crafter yourself, what new things did you learn
during your journey?

I learned that I was not the only one struggling with balancing my artistic life with trying to make a living. I learned that I wasn’t the only one who was battling not being able to keep up with production of my goods once there was a demand, and I learned that there was much more amazing work being produced that I could ever document.

At what point in planning the documentary did you decide to make a book from the idea as well?

In 2007 after we released the 8 minute clip on youtube I received way more attention toward the film then I ever expected. I received hoards of emails about people who wanted to be a part of the project, wanted to support the project as well as three emails from publishers who were interested in the possibility of a book, one of which was Princeton Architectural Press. I was familiar with their books and a big fan of their aesthetic. At that point I realized I needed help and asked friend and artist Cortney Heimerl to join on as co-author and pitch a proposal. Princeton gave us the go-ahead and the rest is history (fun fact: our book has been out less than a month and is already in it’s third printing!).

What is the difference between the book and the movie?

The book starts off with a time line of the indie craft community fantastically illustrated by Kate Bingaman-Burt. The is broken up into regions for the chapters which are divided by essays by community members. There are 24 makers featured in the book with a page of text for each and then 3-6 pages of images of their work, studio space, process, etc. The book gave us the ability to feature in depth more people than we can in the film. The film features 13 “featurettes” on specific people with a ton of smaller interviews and cameo’s from community members.

I have to ask about the Handmade Nation stitch pattern being
released by Sublime Stitching. How did that hook up come about and can you tell me about the designer?

I am so excited about the Sublime Stitching pattern we did. We are so lucky to have Jenny Hart and her company Sublime Stitching as a part of the indie craft community and she has been overly supportive of the documentary and book. We talked awhile back about doing a pattern with her company and it just madesense for our book illustrator/telegraphist Kate Bingaman-Burt to design it. Kate is an amazing designer now based out of Portland, OR who has a fascinating website called www.obsessiveconsumption.com where she illustrates and documents her daily purchases. I suggest checking it out. Kate and I have continued to work together on many projects after the book was complete and I look forward to working with her more in the future. The Handmade Nation / Sublime Stitching patterns went live this month and will be up until they sell out, they are a limited edition and a percentage of the sales go towards the expenses of the film.