Browsing the archives for the Small Town category.

Making Your Home a Haven Recap

Churchy, Crafty, Kids, Marriage, Small Town

In this post, I am participating in Making Your Home a Haven, and Marriage Mondays.

I skipped a Marriage Monday post last week and there was so much I wanted to say about the challenge being over and what I’ll be doing in the coming weeks! I am very happy to read recently on Courtney’s blog that she has a December challenge coming up to remind us to stay close to the true meaning of Christmas during that incredibly busy time!

Lighting my kitchen candle every morning has reminded me to start each day with kindness and saying a little prayer for peace every time I saw it burning throughout the day has kept me focused. I keep burning my candle and I will get a new one when this one is gone and will continue this practice. It’s been a quick and simple reminder to be kind to those around me and to make my home the haven I have always aimed for it to be.

I’m looking forward to the December challenge because it’s coming at a time when I have decided to make myself sleep 7 or 8 hours a night. I usually get about 5 hours, sometimes 4 and last week I was going on about 3 hours a night – every night. Why do I do this to myself? I have a long history of wanting to do so much that I fill my plate till it’s overflowing and there is no time for sleep. Many of my friends could argue that I manage my time well, but just like the cute girl in a size 5 dress, I think I can do so much better. πŸ˜‰

Yesterday, I plunked down and made a schedule of all the things that need to get done for my sister’s birthday weekend here in the woods, and whatever I couldn’t fit in the schedule (that obviously included my regular life stuff), I dropped. I still want to try those things (like making croissants from scratch) but I can do that for next month’s girl’s weekend. Usually, I’d just cram those other things into the wee hours of the morning, but I am refusing to let myself get stressed out by things that should be fun. So now I know what I’m going to do for her birthday weekend, I know when I’m going to do it all and I know that there is time to get it done without losing my head. And last night? I got 7 hours of sleep AND I got the garbage out on time this morning!

Plus, we just moved from the biggest, busiest city in the country to a cute house in cottage country so shouldn’t my life be more laid back? Which also goes back to the Making Your Home a Haven challenge, a laid back house is always a more inviting house. I have always been a pretty laid back parent – with very clear lines drawn in the sand, but I need to learn to be a lot more laid back with myself. I have found that the flurry of Christmas knitting has actually helped me a lot in this, and actually the last time I felt nice and laid back was when I was at the end of my pregnancy with Wee One #3, and my husband was terrified that I was going to go into labor early like I had with our first two kids, so I was stuck in the house. So I knitted for three months – and it was wonderful!

It slows me down because knitting isn’t something you can rush! You can get faster over time (we call my sister a ‘turbo knitter’) but it is a process that just takes as long as it takes and there isn’t much you can do about it. So now, I get my chores done early, usually before the kids have even gotten on the school bus in the morning, get in a blog post, get in a workout and then off to the living room I go with the littlest one to watch Christmas shows and knit!

Tomorrow I’m posting about Snickerdoodle cupcakes and cookies!

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Happy Birthday to Me!

Domestic, Marriage, Small Town

Last weekend, four of my dearest friends made the two hour journey (one of them had a 5 hour journey) to my house in the woods to help me celebrate my birthday.

Backing up a bit, when I was preparing for my ladies (and Andrew) to come up for the weekend, I naturally went on a baking spree, and so I needed birthday items, like sprinkles and candy melts. I literally asked for a handful of 3 colours of candy melts, 3 colours of sprinkles and about 1/2 lb of milk chocolate. My husband drove into town to get the gear I needed and came back with what can only be described as an avalanche of sprinkles and candy melts and other amazing things I didn’t even ask for. That’s love people, that’s love.

 

I had asked for the candy melts and sprinkles to make cupcake pops. I’ve made cake balls many, many times before but these are so much more festive! I used the Bakerella Cupcake Bites Made Easy post as my guide. They really are so easy, all you need is some chocolate, a candy cup mold (like the bottom of a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup), candy melts in different colours, some sprinkles in different colours and Smarties. Ready?

First, of course, make your cake. I used the Stir and Bake Chocolate Cake I posted a couple of weeks ago. While the cake is baking, make your chocolate cups. Just melt the chocolate over a double boiler (a lot of people use the microwave with great success), and pour it into the mold. Be sure to coat the sides well!

Once the cake has baked and cooled, cut off any crispy edges so you’re just left with the soft cakey part and then smush it up!

Leave the chocolate to dry on the counter for a bit, and once it’s lost it’s shiny gloss, pop it in the fridge for a few hours.

Now add a few dollops of buttercream or cream cheese icing and mix it up. The ratio is different depending on what recipes you use for the cake and for the icing. We’ve been over the whole store bought things before. I know it’s so much easier to use a boxed cake mix and a tub of frosting but my Granny has drilled in to me that I should just do it from scratch. I swear it doesn’t take that much longer at all!

 

Once you’ve got the right consistency, roll your mixture into cake balls and put those in the fridge as well. Make sure you roll them big enough (or small enough depending on your mold) to sit comfortably in your chocolate cups!

When your chocolate cups are ready, and you’ve popped them out of their molds, melt some of your candy melts down to use as glue to hold the cake balls in the chocolate cups.

Bakerella squished the cake balls right into the melted chocolate in the mold before it even went in the fridge. Which is genius. I, however, did not do that so I had to glue them in. Next time, I will do that.

Now holding the cupcake pop by the chocolate cup, dip it in the candy melts and add your sprinkles and Smartie to it while it’s still wet! These are a lot of fun to make because you can literally use whatever sort of toppings you want depending on the occasion!

 

The purple ones are a replica of the ones in Bakerella’s tutorial, the blue ones just also felt really festive. The pink ones were a little birthday treat to me because my favourite colour combo is black and pink (obviously). These are hands down the best birthday treat I’ve made.

I made extras and let the kids decorate a bunch on their own. They were really creative with it and made a wonderful mess in the kitchen!

Keeping with the theme of treats I love that look a lot harder to make than they really are, I also made Leek Rings. They really should be eaten fresh, so I made them as I knew everyone was coming over. I went with leeks instead of onions because we all prefer them, and they’re just a little different than what you’d expect. So people were arriving as I was making these, and no lie, they were eating them right out of the collinder! Very few of the leek rings even made it to a plate.

 

Very simple to make!! You can cut your leeks (or onions) thin and have a lot or cut them thicker to make a bigger snack out of them. If you cut them as thin as I did, you can just pop them in your mouth in one or two bites. Which may not be a good thing!

Leek Rings
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup cold water
2 tablespoons oil
2 teaspoons steak seasoning (!!)

Heat up a wok (or frying pan or whatever) 1/2 full of canola oil, use a fork to dip the

leek/onion in the batter, shake it off a bit and pluink it in the oil. Let it cook for just a few seconds if you want it a golden brown, then flip it, cook it for another few seconds and move it to a paper towel-lined collinder. If you like them crispier, just leave them in longer – but not too long, these babies cook fast!

I could eat and eat and eat these. They were so good it’s a little alarming. I would gain so much weight if I made these all the time, but boy do I ever want to make these all the time! I will save them as treats for when I have visitors (which isn’t that often out here in the woods)!

One more treat and I’ll let you get on with your day. This was my birthday cake. I was having some serious oven issues and my sister looooves cheesecake, so I whipped up this Chocolate Elegance Cake from Kraft. Amazing, and again, so simple!!

 

Chocolate Elegance Cake – from Kraft

1 1/2 packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups Cool Whip
6 ounces chocolate chips
1 package jello chocolate instant pudding (4 servings)
1/2 cup milk

This cake is made upside down in a loaf pan, set in the fridge, covered in chocolate and set in the fridge again. Then your friends come over and eat it all!

Beat the cream cheese and the sugar till blended, then stir in 1 1/2 cups of the Cool Whip. Spread 2 cups of this mixture onto the bottom of a 8 x 4 loaf pan lined with plastic wrap.

Melt 3 ounces of the chocolate chips, and add to the rest of the cream cheese mixture along with the pudding mix and milk. Beat till blended and spread over the first layer in the pan. Pop this in the fridge for about 4 hours.

Once the cake as set, melt the rest of the chocolate (3 ounces) and Cool Whip (1 cup) together, let it cool a bit. Now invert your cake onto the platter you’re using and take off the plastic wrap. Spread the glaze you just made over the cake and immediately top with either sprinkles or nuts or whatever you like. Put it back in the fridge for another half hour or so, till the glaze is set.

This cake was amazing, and I later thought about tinting the first layer to a bright colour, or making several layers like that one and tinting them all different colours!

I made one more treat for my birthday party, but I can’t tell you about it yet because it’s a Daring Baker’s challenge and we’re not unleashing it until tomorrow. Trust me though, it’s good! Once you read how to do it, you’ll be wondering why you don’t make it yourself all the time!!

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Socks of Kindness & Shifting Sands Scarf

Crafty, Kids, Small Town

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! πŸ˜›

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!!

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A Typical Day….because you asked.

Crafty, Domestic, Healthy, Kids, Marriage, Naughty, Nerdy, Small Town

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? πŸ˜› 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. πŸ˜›

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? πŸ˜‰ 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. πŸ˜‰ 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!

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Window Shopping Wednesday, Part 6

Nerdy, Small Town, Window Shopping

Living out in the middle of nowhere has made me more grateful for my friends than ever before. Some of them I’d see literally every weekend, some even more often than that (hi Gill!) and some friends about once a month. Now that I’ve moved a couple of hours away and some of those friends have moved even further (hi Talea, hi Brigitte!), we are all about texting and emailing and talking on the phone – and letters!! That’s right, good old fashioned letter writing! Talea mailed one a few days ago and texted me that I’d be getting it ‘when the pony express made it’s way through town’. So, naturally, I’m now on the hunt for stationary and fun letter writing gear!

I found this neat organizer that looks perfect for stamps, a pen, post cards and an address book or note book. I have found that while a letter writing box or area at home is great, you really need all your gear on you and quickly accessible when you want to send post cards on road trips.

My husband is always off to the next town after we pick up post cards, so if I want the post mark to match the town on the card, I have to get that sucker in a mailbox and fast!! This little number just jumped to the top of my wish list!

This sweet Etsy shop is probably for scrapbooking, but I can only see the endless possibilities for other paper crafts! Cards and stationary galore! Super cute papers!

I am also in love with the clip art.

Now that I have a bean field out my back window, this clip art is so fitting it hurts!

These wee notebooks are too cute to not post, though I’m not totally sure what I’d put in them. Maybe a nice, long, catch-up style letter? Or maybe they could be shared, long distance journals (!), now there’s something I haven’t done since junior high!

 

it occurs to me that I have no actually posted any stationary! Maybe next week I’ll have some to post. For now, I’m loving these finds and maybe I’ll spend part of this week making some stationary for my friends!! I will keep you posted!

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Cookie Packages and Christmas Twinkleberries

Crafty, Domestic, Kids, Small Town

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. πŸ™

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)!

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Snazzy Sugar Cookies – Daring Baker Challenge Sept 2010

Domestic, Kids, Small Town

In this post, I’m participating in The Daring Kitchen, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, and Tuesdays at the Table

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of β€œWhat the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

This was my first official Daring Baker challenge and I was so excited to do it, and now I am so excited to show it off!! The theme for this challenge was ‘September’, it was pretty easy for me to figure out which way to go with that when I am surrounded by these beautiful September colours! The first photo was taken in my backyard (it’s part of the view from my kitchen window), the second photo was taken in my front yard. With these colours as daily inspiration, I used brown, green, orange and red on my cookies.

I’m jumping ahead here, I actually baked them on Sunday afternoon and spent wee one #3’s nap on Monday decorating them. I prepared them exactly as Mandy instructed. Sugar cookies are pretty basic, but it’s the most basic recipes that are the easiest to mess up. In this case, whatever you do, DO NOT overmix! As soon as you’re combined, stop.

 

This recipe was a total winner and was explained so well, I can’t wait to make more. And more and more and more. Amazing. Kneading the dough into three balls and then rolling between parchment paper to reduce both chilling time, and the necessity to re-roll was genius. I have made a zillion sugar cookies, and these are by far the best.

Also, this is just the second time I’ve used my Granny’s rolling pin. It’s so weird and sometimes feels so wrong that I reference her so much more since she’s passed than I did when she was alive. It makes me feel both like a terrible granddaughter, and somehow really connected to her. Ever since we traded city for country I’ve been thinking of her a lot – she was certainty an old fashioned country girl making the city work for her. Anyhoo, her rolling pin is very, very heavy – it’s marble with wooden handles and I love, love, love it. In this case specifically, where I’m rolling out soft dough on parchment paper, it makes the job come together in a snap.

 

I really think the rolling, chilling, cutting, chilling, baking procedure makes the cookies hold their shape so well and make them so easy to handle. Which doesn’t matter much if you’re just going to eat them plain. However, if you’re, oh I don’t know, about to attack them with a kilo of royal icing, it would be so nice if they were sturdy cookies that didn’t fall apart when handling!

Ahem. Excuse my baggies, I need new piping bags desperately. My birthday is less than a month away and pretty much everyone knows I’d love a refresh of my baking gear. πŸ˜‰

Decorating these cookies was so much fun! Wee one #1 was at school, wee one #2 was home from school with a cold (as much as she wanted to go the poor thing) so she was in the other room playing Mario Kart and wee one #3 was blissfully napping. A quiet, (mostly) uninterrupted stretch of time?? Really? I took it! LOL

 

I had intended to also pipe out our initials (we planned when we named everyone to not repeat any initials!) but I got so wrapped up in the magic of dragging a toothpick through the icing, I had attacked all three dozen! Next time I make these, that’s the plan, but in brighter colours I think.

These cookies are destined to be in our neighbour’s tummies tomorrow afternoon. As I mentioned earlier, I have been here for 3 weeks and have only met two neighbours, so I will rectify that situation after wee one #1 gets home from school. Hmm. Maybe we should give some to the school bus driver as well!

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Good Morning Girls & My Wonderful, Sleeping Husband

Churchy, Domestic, Kids, Marriage, Small Town

In this post, I’m participating in Marriage Mondays.

This morning I had what I often refer to as a ‘God moment’. To my non-Christian readers, I am not about to start thumping my Bible no worries, and to my Christian readers I’m not trying to play down a connection to God by being flippant about it. It’s just that as connected as I feel throughout the day, there are some moments when I just feel like he’s working overtime for me, you know?

In our new neighbourhood, garbage pickup is at 7am, and really most of the time it’s more like 6:45am. No one in this area can leave the garbage out the night before because the foxes will get to it and make an awful mess. So, everyone around here must drag their tired behinds out of bed in the dark to get the garbage out in time to be collected. Small price to pay for living somewhere so beautiful and peaceful.

Anyhoo, this morning as my alarm went off my husband nudged me to get up at 6:20, and I said (much grumpier than I should have) ‘I have another alarm going off in 10 minutes, I’ll get up then’. He replied that I should just get it over with and do it now. Very grumpily I sat up and was filled with contempt for my still sleeping, snuggled under the covers husband. I recognized the feeling and after seeking out (and finding!!) a Good Morning Girls group to be a part of- I could not let myself be annoyed with my dear, sweet husband. So I asked God to help me be thankful I woke up on time for the garbage truck, thankful that I have a healthy, wonderful husband in bed beside me, thankful I’d have time to read a bit in my Bible and reply to some Good Morning Girls and even hammer out his blog post. What a reminder for me on Marriage Monday!!

So why do I put out the garbage? Why doesn’t he do it? I’ve always been able to get by on less sleep and I have no idea how. When I was a teenager, I’d happily sleep for 12 hours if I didn’t have work or school! Now my usual is 5 or 6 hours a night with the occasional 8 hour night. Maybe in a different season of life when my kids are older I will get more sleep, but for now in order to do what I want to do (which includes spending time at night with my honey), that’s the sleep I get, and I’m happy to have it.

And right on cue, this little wee one has woken up and wants to start her day! I will do my best to keep this feeling of thankfulness in my heart today. Thank you Good Morning Girls!

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The City Mice Move to the Country

Churchy, Kids, Marriage, Small Town

Where have I been for the last six weeks? I was moving out of my cute old house in the city and into my lovely new house in the middle of nowhere. Well, not nowhere really – cottage country. Most of our new neighbours are seasonal, though there are a few other tough cookies who live here year round. ‘Cottage country’ in Ontario can mean different things, depending on where you are. In our little town (so small the population is actually added to the population of all the other towns that make up the county – and it’s still just about as many people as our old neighbourhood in Toronto), there are two pockets. One is very ‘small town’ where the houses all look the way you’d expect them to look in a 50s flick, you can walk to the post office, grocery and church. The other pocket (our pocket) is lake front, where all the snazzy cottages are, we are removed from the actual town by a nice long road no one would ever bother driving down.

I will post more photos in the coming days, but for now here is the outside of our sweet country house.

The feeling in this little pocket is very neighbourhoody, everyone is super polite and goes for bike rides in the afternoon and walks after dinner – really, so many people here do this! Our house specifically is surrounded by trees and off the main road by a tiny bit so it’s not even visible when driving by, but it’s easy to spot once you know it’s there. When we’re waiting for the school bus in the mornings, and when the littlest one and I are waiting for the other two to hop off the bus in the afternoons, we have to walk to the end of the driveway, and that’s when we see most of our neighbours. It’s so quaint it hardly even seems real somedays!

This week, I’m baking up this month’s Daring Baker challenge and I will bring some to a few of our closest neighbours to formally introduce ourselves. We haven’t even been to church yet!! When I deliver cookies on our street, I will take photos of the water and the view from our driveway!

We have, however, been to the Meet the Staff BBQ at the wee one’s school and it was a lot of fun. The entire school has 41 kids. Unless you’re from a town as tiny as this one, that number should be alarming. I am amazed at the way this school functions, I love it. First of all, it has a gym about a big as the one I grew up with and my school had 800 kids in it! The student population is divided into three ‘spirit teams’ and each member of each team racks up points by being a ‘good person’! I almost fell over when this was explained to me, essentially the staff at school ‘catches’ the kids being good and gives them points for it, (helping out a smaller kid without anyone asking you to, picking up after yourself, bringing in a litterless lunch…) The team with the most points each term gets a special treat, and the one with the most points overall wins a special class party in June. So sweet!

This is wee one #2’s class room. She is one of 6 students in this class (!), it’s a split JK/SK and her teacher is adorable! Hilariously, she reminds me of me because she’s silly but hyper organized. Remind you of anyone? πŸ˜‰

Wee one #1 has the biggest class in the whole school – 15 kids! I am extremely happy about this class size for him because the one on one time is unmatched! It’s the same as many standard tutoring places.

All that matters to me about the school really is that it’s safe, we all feel comfortable and the kids are happy – and boy are the kids happy. I feel so blessed that we went from what we all felt was a good school situation to an even better school situation! Phew! I was so nervous for them I could hardly think about anything else. I was nervous about getting involved with the parent council as well, since you never really know what the other moms are going to be like but they’re all so warm and inviting. I just have to get my criminal background check done this week and bring it in!

I’ve said this since our second or third day here – I feel certain that we are supposed to be here. Everything about this house feels right and while of course there are things for all of us to adjust to, those things are minor in comparison to all the good around us.

Sidebar; I’ve been sending letters and cards to my friends and (hooray) a few of them are being amazing at writing back! I think everyone knows how much I love mail (postcards, letters & packages, no bills please) so I’m very, very happy to the amassing a collection of letters and postcards (my friend Jade Van Rando went on a road trip across Canada this summer with her fiancee, and they sent me a postcard from every province and Gill & Andrew went to Ireland recently and sent a really cute one!) Soon, I will need a cute box to keep them all in. <3 I have also been looking for a group to join on Good Morning Girls, fingers crossed I found one this evening! Essentially, these groups are formed from like minded women to check in with each other about their Bible study and prayer. I am very fortunate that three very close girlfriends, my sister and I send group emails to each other all the time, but there are only two of us who are churchy and that sort of convo doesn’t come up much in our emails. πŸ˜› If you’d like to join / help form a group like this, let me know!

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