Posie Gets Cozy

Snow Show

She's not sure. You can tell by the hesitating paw.

The dogwood tree in the backyard: a bouquet of frosted flakes.

The light turned violet.

Everything sounded so different, clear and soft. Way off in the distance, I could hear children playing outside.

In the front yard, Christmas lights made a real-life snow village. The reindeer on my neighbor's flag leapt joyfully.

Streetlights gave the plum tree high drama.

Houselights gave the hydrangea a golden glow.

It really did feel like a movie set. It's almost all gone this morning. But it was utterly wonderful while it lasted.

I was just making some snow buds tea when I looked out the kitchen window, and there they were:

Snow buds, for reals!

[Squeals!]

I did not know that tea could conjure miracle snow!!!

Oh, snow. I LOVE YOU MAN!

An hour later: Still totally coming down — everything is white now [cue Snoopy happy dance!].

Wishing You

* * * Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and the happiest of holidays from all of us here at Paulson Place! Thank you for being such a sweet, fun, generous, and happy part of our little corner of the world. * * *

With much love and best wishes for a truly peaceful new year,
sincerely yours,
Alicia & Andy (and the Cee and the Vee and the Bee)
xoxoxo

Ready to Bake My Gingerbreads, Etc.

For my neighbors, from Nigella's recipe for Gingerbread with Lemon Icing. Or possible this recipe which I made a few years ago. It's the week of Christmas. I can hardly believe it's here already.

Thank you for all of your generous comments about the little gray grannies! They have been calming me at night this past week, as I try to get everything Christmassy done and proof my book dummy at the same time (agh — brain frazzle). Alas, I don't have time to work on the pattern (I keep changing the details) and gather specific yarn color details (other than the yarn links in the granny post) right now though I do promise I will when things slow down.

For inspiration, please admire these beautiful blankets that have been wowing me so much: Yvonne's gorgeous grannies, Lucy's super colorful hexagons (her crocheting truly blows my mind, that girl is amazing), and these by the lovely lovely Moonstitches: the granny inspired by Nanny (McPhee) and her lovely hexie. And the hexie love Flickr group which will get you going in all sorts of directions. It's all just so pretty and makes me so happy.

Off to chop ginger with one hand and mark proofs with the other. . . . xo

Sleepy Saturday

Sleepover morning. Waiting for breakfast. Silverpond's Lemoncello Cinnamon Dream and Silverpond's Dark Country Blizzard (we fancy-named our pretend corgis). Vanilla waffles cooking. Crocheting rabbits and little gray grannies as we talk. Rain and clouds. Tired Clover at our feet. Uncle Andy in a Santa hat. Sufjan Stevens always on. I love our winter sleepovers so much.

I love them.

Little Gray Grannies

Uh oh. I sense another crochet freak-out coming on. I hooked up one little blossom in a few minutes the other night just for fun and now . . . now look. A creeper. 

I don't have time for the Siren call of cashmerino and baby alpaca right now. Must. Walk. Away. Run. Though it's really tempting to succumb, especially as it is cold, dreary, dark, and rainy outside.

Details to come, I promise.

Blue, Snow, and Straw

Believe it or not, I wrapped almost all of my presents the day after Thanksgiving, so they are loooong gone now — so glad. I tried to pick up my mail at my P.O. box a couple of days ago, and there was too much mail so they left me a slip saying I had to bring it to a postal clerk to pick it up. The line of people waiting to ship things was literally out the door, so I left all the mail there!

My wrapping plan was inspired by the doily article in last December's Martha Stewart Living. Pretty pretty pretty pretty. These lacy garlands are so beautiful, and the candleholders that look like snowy eyelet. If I can't have real snow, paper snowishness will have to do. I got my blue paper and doilies at a dollar store, and the eyelet tags and monogram stickers are from the Martha Stewart stuff at Michaels. I glued the doilies on with Yes! paste because I couldn't find the spray adhesive, but the spray adhesive would work great and be about a million times faster and less messy.

I was happy with them. I love it when things that are typically thought of as dusty and old-fashioned can be used in fresh ways. Ya know? The folks at Martha have been so very good at doing that.

Oh, and almost forgot — the snowflakey design on my windows? That is window film. I put it up a couple of years ago on several of the windows in our house that don't have very nice views (our neighbor's house is very close to ours on the east side of the house, and one of our kitchen windows looks directly out onto our garbage cans). I absolutely love it. Easy to do and perfectly pretty, though a bit pricey. But I plan to keep it there forever, so there's that.

Winter Stills

Andy's mom has been visiting us since Thursday and we are having a truly wonderful time.

We have been busy and I haven't been taking many photos, but these quiet places were asking me [whispering to me] to see them.

As they [quietly] often do.

Hearty Winter Squash

Is so good. I usually cube it and roast it with olive oil and a little brown sugar. How do you do it?

Raviolis? Souffle? Pancakes? Soup?

Any recipe suggestions heartily appreciated!

Update: These are AWESOME. Thank you guys. I will let you know what I make!