A year later

A year later
Originally uploaded by craft room

A year ago I was pregnant.
The sex of the baby was a surprise. The due date was no where near. And Mom and I went out for Ice cream.

That's not all we did that day. !

Monday is coming

On the eve of "going back to work" day, (for Rob, not me) we are watching "Julie/Julia". The perfect antidote to "Food Inc."
And I am working on a decoration for Amelia's First Birthday. Actual CRAFTING. Wonderful!

Spritz Cookies

My mother made Spritz cookies every year for Christmas.
This year, I thought I would continue that tradition. I have had the press for years but have never actually DONE it.

I have a new respect for my Mom, and the tradition. These are fiddly little cookies!

First you make the dough. Then divide it up, and add the food coloring for the different shapes. Then refrigerate it.
Later, you come back, preheat the oven, and begin pressing out the cookies. If the dough is too cold, it does not come out of the metal tube. If it is too warm, it comes out fast, and kind of ‘breaks’ the shape that you want.
Then, once you have coaxed the dough down onto the sheet, and begged it to stay there, then you can decorate. ! Little sprinkles running everywhere, onto the cookies, off the cookies, down the sheet, onto the floor. It wouldn’t really be Christmas without colored sugar crackling underfoot, would it?

In the end, I learned how. And the results are oh, so tasty! I think I’ll do it again next year. And Amelia will be old enough to help shake sugar onto the floor. (oh, she was probably old enough to do that this year. )

Happy New Year

2009 is a year that many people are happy to see end.
It was a tumultuous year. But rather than catalog the horrors, (which, here to for shall be referred to as "transitions") we will focus on the good, glass over-flowing, wonder that 2009 brought.
All the cliches and all the emotions are all true. Amplified.
We had a baby.
Nothing will ever be the same.

Now that we have seen the year turn to 2010, I will have to begin to temper my comments. I will have to be graceful with my joy, and monitor my gushing, for fear of sounding like a Grandmother instead of a mother. But in the end, she is the best thing ever to land on the planet earth. No one is happier to see her in the morning. Even if she was up 1/2 the night. Her little angel face is a survival mechanism, honed over thousands of years.
Here we go, into a new decade.
We leave "the year she was born". And enter "the year she turned one".
Is that what kids are? The way you tell time?
Happy New Year! Happy New Decade! Happy "year one".

baby jesus on the race track

baby jesus on the race track
Originally uploaded by craft room

We have a little wooden nativity set that was a gift when she was born. Rob likes to organize it at night, after she is asleep. Last night, we could not fined the baby jesus. We made all kinds of jokes about the baby jesus being lost.
Amelia also has a wooden track and wooden cars that flip flop on the track. Clack, clack clack they go down.
She has been working on her technique so about 30 – 40% of the time she can get the little car in the track and Clack clack clack swoosh it goes.

Last night we found the little wooden baby Jesus on the car track. We cracked up. Why not? It’s a little chunk of wood, same as the cars, really. So why shouldn’t the baby jesus race down the track?

Merry Christmas.

Happy Halloween

Here is a little shot of little Dorothy, the Scare Crow, and Toto.

Considering Dream Jobs

Dream Jobs.

I am reflecting on what my next job might be.
What will evolve?

Today, while pondering this weighty question, I was struck by not one, but two dream jobs.

First:
There is a new show called “Man Shops Globe”. The furniture and accessories/props buyer for Anthropology takes a film crew along through Clignancourt (the Paris flea market) and the markets in Provence…
I don’t think I could write a better job description than that one. !!
"man shops globe"



Next:
A conversation at the grocery store revealed a surprise. I was at Whole foods Market talking about staying current with the local clients, and their preferences. The super friendly woman told me about a guy called “the forager”. His job is to hunt around for local products to be stocked in the store. Seriously – finding and tasting local tamales, local muffins, local chocolate. And all of it has to meet the healthy standards that Whole Foods adheres to (so no corn syrup, preservatives… etc) What could be better than THAT?


As glorious as those both sound, I have to contrast that to the job I have now. I waited about 40 years to have this job. I was not at all certain I would “get” this job. The hours are miserable. And the pay is worse. But it is by far the best job I’ve ever had. It’s the absolute last word in “dream jobs”: Mom.