Knot Sew Crafty

Happy Winter Solstice

Tasty or Tedious?

Poor Miss Willa is home sick from school today, which is really cramping my blogging/holiday-planning style!  Sweet girl is lying on the couch, drinking orange juice, and watching a Spongebob marathon.

Here are some Tasties and Tediouses that are helping me get through the day.

Tasty

--This holiday greeting from the Weepies.

--Jeff Bridges.  Every day should have some Jeff Bridges in it.

--SAD lights.  Mine is from here, and worth every penny.

--Loving New Moon Magazine. (Haven't seen New Moon, so I can't judge.)

--Do yeux Teux Deux?  It's free, and very easy to use.  I feel more organized already.

--The Times Online list of 50 Great Design Blogs.  Congratulations to everyone who made the list--especially Sweet Paul and The City Sage!

--Michael Symon's new cookbook.  

--This post.

--In my next life, I'd like to be as brilliant as Alexander Stadler.  I'd settle for having the brilliance contained in his left pinky toe.

Tedious

--This is not good.  I don't want to be overrun by bugs!

--The boring selection of available Hanukkah songs.  How about some musical Jews getting together and making some Hanukkah classics?

--The fact that our lot size is too small for us to have chickens!

**I recommend things because I like them, not because anyone sends them to me for free.  Someone sent me a free book once, and I said that I liked it because I did.  Sadly, that did not encourage anyone else to send me free stuff.  I do like free stuff.  Really I do.  Now, you should know that if you happen to buy something from Amazon that you get to from a link on this blog, I may possibly receive an teensy percentage of the purchase price, or something like that.  Nobody has ever done it, so I don't really know how it works.

Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah is a holiday full of joy and light and hope and gratitude, not to mention  latkes, donuts and gelt!  If you don't know the basic story of Hanukkah, here are two video versions of the story:

December

Each year, I'm surprised by December,

Its frenzy I never remember,

With festivities galore,

And cranky folks at the store,

My nerves, they are burnt to an ember.

Makes me feel like throwing my hands in the air and screaming, as Frank Costanza would, "Serenity Now!"

 

The First Real Snow of the Year

turned a dreary day into a fantastic evening!

Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe

Let's check in and see how my Monday list went:

Today I Will:

approach my home-keeping with good cheer and love--was quite grumpy on Monday, for unknown reasons probably related to the state of the world, as well as the mess in my kitchen. Failed to find any joy in taking care of my house.  Did find seventy-three cents under couch cushions.

set up my Fly Lady  plan--registered on the Fly Lady website.  Also, gathered materials that I thought I would need to implement Fly Lady plan.  Baby steps, right?

organize my "command center" (a cabinet in the laundry room)--didn't even touch it.

scrub--nope

vacuum--did a little bit of dust-busting.  I'm not sure that counts.

mop--mop broke before I could get going.

make a meal plan--found this very hard to do because if I'm not hungry, I don't want to think about food, and, if I am hungry, I just want to eat and not spend time planning.

bake healthy cookies--leafed through many cookbooks, looking for the ideal recipe.  Found several contenders, but nothing that called out to be baked immediately.

patch Willa's jeans--did this yesterday morning.  Feel slightly guilty about using iron-on patch, instead of doing a handmade applique.

finish crocheting Bea's blanket--realized that I don't have the blue yarn to finish it the way that I want.  Spent too much time debating changing plan vs. going to unpleasant art supply store to look for blue wool.

Things That I Did Instead:

thought about doing some creative writing.

made coffee to drink while writing.

created excellent playlist of songs to listen to while writing.

perused homesteading blogs in preparation for thinking about planting a garden in the Spring.

looked at seed catalogs and dreamed about fabulous plants that I will grow in theoretical garden.

thought about how I would document garden on blog.

thought about how it would be nice to have a new banner for blog.

looked at crafty/gardening blogs to get ideas for new banner.

called Auntie J. to discuss possible new banner ideas, as well as latest celebrity gossip.

helped with homework, even though I'm opposed to homework for elementary schoolers.

played board games with kids, even though I'm opposed to board games.  Just kidding...sort-of.

and that's about it.

Every Other Day

Every other day, every other day,

Every other day of the week is fine, yeah

But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes

You can find me cryin' all of the time

The Mamas and The Papas 

Oh Monday morning, time of new beginning, time of crushing responsibilities.  

On the one hand, it's so great to send my kids off to the schools that they love and have the house to myself for a few hours.  On the other hand, I've got to get back to the business of taking care of said house, and the little family that lives within it.

Today, I plan to:

approach my home-keeping with good cheer and love

set up my Fly Lady  plan

organize my "command center" (a cabinet in the laundry room)

scrub

vacuum

mop

make a meal plan

bake healthy cookies

patch Willa's jeans

finish crocheting Bea's blanket

I'd better leave it at that for today--I wouldn't want to strain myself this early in the week, now would I?

I'm Thankful For Gonzo

I am thankful for the Muppets, for Bohemian Rhapsody, and for whoever thought to put them together!

 Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody

 

Thanksgiving

 

Isn't this picture a little too melancholy and creepy for Thanksgiving?  What on earth is in that cauldron?

I hope you all have a lovely day, and that your families behave themselves!

You Are Getting Sleepy...

I have been so wiped out this week that I haven't done one constructive thing and not even any destructive things either!  I thought that I'd be sidelined a bit by the gallbladder surgery, but I imagined myself making pithy comments on my beloved blogs, crocheting up a storm, reading loads of books, or at least watching some guilty-pleasure tv.  I haven't had the attention span to do any of these things.  Bea did read me the entirety of Danny the Champion of the World, and I've been strangely obsessed with the cake decorating competition shows on the Food Network, but that's about it.  

Here's hoping that I'm more functional next week, so that we can start some holiday crafting!  

**One quick Tasty item--new favorite football player name=Golden Tate of Notre Dame.  (All-time favorite=Lawyer Milloy, of course!)