Artsy Fartsy

Merry post-Christmas.  I’m alive, I’m tired, I’m good.  Christmas Eve traditions, Christmas day visiting and present opening, day-after Christmas traditions, and a cold I’m fighting off are keeping me busy.  That, and the fact that Luke ended up with THIS week off, not next are keeping me from keeping you all updated.  I only have a minute or two right now as Luke takes a shower so I wanted to say hi, and check out my Flickr photos for my Christmas in pictures.  I’ve uploaded a bunch and I’m in the midst of uploading more.  Go here to see them, or click on that bar on the right with the photos in it.  And be prepared for an onslaught of “look what I sewed” photos to come - Luke bought me a shiny, new (quiet) sewing machine for Christmas!!

Today I have to stop into work to deliver paychecks, then lock up my office and walk away for TWO. WEEKS. I can’t even believe that’s true.

The university closes for the week between Christmas and New Year’s so (shucks) I have to take those days off. Then I threw in three extra vacation days and made it a solid two weeks.

Of course the first week is already chock full of plans, but Luke will be working and I’ll be home most every evening, so I’ll be here to update you on my thrilling post-Christmas life.

The second week Luke will be home, and you may remember from our last vacation at home, it drives him nuts when I use the computer while he’s home, so I’ll have to sneak it and blog from my phone if I have to.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, a fantastic Christmas, and I’ll catch you all next week.

(Festive Christmas pictures, by the way, brought to you by my kitchen walls.)

Merry Christmas!!

Each year I seem to make one Christmas present that nearly kills me.  It’s usually a present for someone in my family, and it’s usually a much bigger project than I dreamed it would be.  One year Luke and I built a funky bookshelf for Cameron which still had glue drying on it as he unwrapped it.  Last year I was painting jungle animals on a rocking chair for Alex on Christmas Eve.  This year, it was the floorcloth.  The recipient of this lovely floorcloth doesn’t read this website and has somehow figured out how to go days at a time without even touching a computer.  I can’t imagine.  So anyhow, I feel pretty safe showing this off, figuring that he/she won’t see it.  But just in case, I’m not going to mention their name.  Is it you?  Maybe.  If you’re lucky.

I’ve been fascinated with floorcloths since I heard there was such a thing.  Its basically a thick sheet of canvas that’s painted on and covered with polyurethane so you can walk on it.  This canvas was made to be a floorcloth and has a sticky, grippy type backing on it to keep it from slipping.  I knew I wanted to make this Christmas present for a certain someone, and I looked for designs all through November trying to get inspired.  It was a little overwhelming.  I usually paint things that are smaller than 12″.  This baby is 8 1/2 feet by 5 feet.  I found this rug on Urban Outfitters that I liked, so I used it as inspiration for my own design.

Before I painted my design, the floorcloth needed to be primed and since I prefer the casual method to the “you must use specific brand X primer” method, I just used flat white ceiling paint.  Easy, cheap, rolled on nicely.  Four coats of ceiling paint rolled out on the floor using a long handled roller.  It went quickly.  I did it all down by the wood stove so the drying time was cut down drastically.   The over the course of two evenings and about six Christmas movies, I painted the circles using two different sized plates as my template.  Then five coats of acrylic polyurethane and I was almost done!  But then I needed to bind the darn thing.

Most websites suggested turning the canvas under and ironing it, then stitching it or using an adhesive to make a clean edge.  That sounded fine, but my canvas was a bit narrow to begin with and I didn’t want to loose any width by folding it under.  Instead, I thought it would look cool with a black border.  I looked everywhere for rug binding already made, but found only satin blanket binding or skinny quilt binding.  Rats!  Instead I bought some thick black cotton fabric and spent Monday evening making 36 feet of 3″ binding.  Not fun.  I hate to iron and this job was nothing but ironing.  I wanted to try using Stitch Witchery (I love that name) to attach the binding to the canvas, but was having inconsistent luck getting it to melt and stick.  Last night I spent two Christmas movies ripping out the Stitch Witchery and replacing it with industrial double-sided tape meant to hold down vinyl flooring.  Hopefully that means the binding isn’t going anywhere and I can finally wrap the darn thing and get on with Christmas!  There are still some smaller crafts I have to finish and this big lug has been taking up all of my time and worrying.  I do love it though, and want to make one for myself once the holiday rush is over.

The funny thing to me as I type this is that I can remember each movie I watched to pass the time as I worked.  Let’s see if I can list them all:  Sons of Mistletoe, Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus, A Christmas Story (three times), Jack Frost, Papa’s Angels, A Charlie Brown Christmas,  Holiday in Handcuffs (twice), Little Drummer Boy, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Snowglobe (twice, painfully), It’s a Wonderful Life, Deck the Halls, and A Year Without a Santa Claus.  Phew!  So that’s roughly… 25.5 hours to make this thing.  Boy, I hope he/she likes it.  And hopefully everyone in my family will be naughty next year so I can just buy their presents instead of making something so big.

This year, to thank the nice mail delivery person who has to drive up our long driveway to deliver over-sized mail, and the nice maintenance man at work who vacuums my office (you have to work here to appreciate how rare it is that I get my office vacuumed almost daily), and anyone else who has done something nice for me, I baked thank you cookies.

These are gingerbread cookies from my Gooseberry Patch cookie book, and they’re mostly made of butter which means they’re delicious. I cut out various sizes of circles, and then with a simple thinned down buttercream frosting, I piped out “thank you” or “thanks” and even a few “gracias” when I got tired of writing the same thing a hundred times over on the big ones. On the smaller ones I made snowflakes, which was way more fun. I also made a few batches of pumpkin butterscotch cookies, put them all in clear bags and tied them with silver ribbon. Ta-da! Delicious Christmas thanks.

I wish I could send one to each of you who reads this sometimes lame, sometimes boring, always chatty website every day. Thanks a bunch!

Since I’m sure there are a few people you still need last-minute gift ideas for, let me offer you this one: Blokus. My sister bought Blockus for my half-birthday (something everyone should celebrate) and it’s a ton of fun. We played it on Thanksgiving and we’ve all been talking about playing it again ever since. It looks simple, and in a way, it is. My five year-old nephew came very close to winning against three other adults last weekend (I came in last), but still, it’s fun for everyone. It’s much like Tetris, with the stacking of the blocks and all, but it flexes your spatial arrangement muscles, trying to figure out how to fit the pieces in to win. The object is to get rid of as many pieces as you can, you put one piece down on each turn, and you have to touch your pieces together at the corners only - not the sides, just the corners. It’s fun, easy to learn, and the whole family will love it. It’s a little pricey (in my book). I just picked up one at Barnes & Noble last night for $29.99. Amazon shows it for $24.99. It’s definitely worth every penny.

So yes, I’m still not bitter about the weather.  Unlike Amanda who is already planning her move to San Diego.  Give me two more weeks, though, and I’ll be packing my bags, too.  or now I’m happy.  It’s Christmastime.  We’re supposed to have snow.

I’m confident in my car, the two of us do well in the snow.  Having a reeeeeally long dirt driveway can be scary, especially now that I don’t have a tall 4-wheel drive SUV, but the Yaris does surprisingly well.

Molly and I went for a ride to the post office on Friday afternoon, but first we had to run around to show how happy we were that there was snow on the ground.  Well, one of us ran.  The other took pictures.

Zoom!

Zoom!

Zoom!

Time for a rest.  Phew!  Now how can you be grumpy about the snow when you see pictures like that?  Or like this one?

Aahhh… so pretty.  (Ave Maria just burst out of the Christmas playlist on my computer as I posted this picture.  Ha!)

Well, happy, happy, snow, snow.  For this week, at least.

She wants to go out so bad, but the snow’s up higher than her belly!

So hey, look at that, it’s snowing!  A lot!  When I woke up and saw that every school in Connecticut was closed, yet no flakes had fallen yet, I had a feeling it might be a big storm.  I considered working from home, but time sheets are due today and I’m nice like that.  I figured that my staff really should get paid for their work so I headed in to finish the time sheets.  No sooner had I gotten there when the snow started.  Luke called to ask when I was leaving and could I leave NOW because it was snowing hard at home.  It was barely snowing in West Hartford.

This is what it looked like as I left school at 11.

And this is what it looked like about two miles from my house.  Two hours later.  I crawled along with traffic into Bolton where route 6 traffic was not moving at all.  I decided to head home the back way through Coventry and avoid the traffic on route 6, and this is what I saw.  You really can’t appreciate the whiteness of the blowing snow and the farm field on either side of the road, nor can you tell that there’s about shin-deep snow on the road.  It’s amazing.  I forget how different the weather can be between Andover and West Hartford.  But I made it home, singing along to Christmas carols the whole way and generally enjoying how pretty it all was.

And to anyone reading who is researching the Yaris, I can attest to the fact that it rocks in the snow.  It’s small and light, but has a surprisingly wide stance for the size.  It powered through the deep snow, no problem.  And if you can get the 5-speed, do it!  The gears are set just right so it holds back when gingerly maneuvering down twisty hills, like the ones around my house.

So now we’re all home safe and warm.  Molly won’t stop staring out the window.  Either she’s in awe of the snow or she’s waiting to see the horses run by again.  Yesterday the neighbor’s horse and pony broke loose from their fence and ran wildly through the yard.  Molly nearly burst with excitement.  But anyhow, before I wrap this rambling post up, and before I forget, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!

This picture just cracks me up.  As I said on the Flickr description, I was tempted to Photoshop out the evil green eye effect from the flash, but with her crooked mouth and her angry glare, the eyes just seemed to fit.  I think someone’s on the naughty list…

A few weeks ago, I bought a six-pack of my favorite beer at a little package store around the corner from our house.  Or so I thought.  When I brought the beer into the house, there were only five beers in the six-pack holder.  That’s odd, I thought.  I vaguely remembered hearing something “clink” in the gravel in the driveway as Molly and I got out of Luke’s truck, so we went outside in the dark and searched the driveway.  We saw no sign of the missing beer.  My thought again was “that’s odd”.  Luke’s thought was “the store ripped us off”.  He thinks that a combination of me being oblivious and not noticing that my six-pack was indeed a five-pack, and the evil cashier who allowed us to pay for six, but receive five, was the reason for the missing bottle.  I swear on all that’s holy and brewed with hops and barley that there were six beers in my hand when I left the store.  Beyond that, in the three minute ride home and walk into the house, you’ve got me.  I’m still convinced that it’s going to show up.  I look for it in the driveway when I go out to work in the morning.  I keep checking under the seat in Luke’s truck.  I’m optimistic.  It’ll show up.

I thought of this story this morning because I added a lip gloss to the swirling vortex that is our gravel driveway.  I heard it fall, I know it fell, yet I can’t find it anywhere.   I was standing next to the car, there is a limited number of directions it could have gone, but still I can’t find it.   Under the car?  Next to the car?  Under the deck near the driveway?  In the flower bed?  Nope.  Gone.  It’s sort of scary.  Let this be a message to all of you, if you visit my house, please don’t fall in the driveway.  I may never see you again.  But wherever you end up, at least you’ll have a beer and a nice shade of lip gloss.

Phew!  I’m beat.  It’s been nonstop craziness since last Thursday night.  From events at work and the holiday sale, to my mom and dad’s b-day celebration, and Wicked at The Bushnell last night.  I’m exhausted.

Thanks to everyone who braved the sudden winter weather on Friday night to come out to the holiday sale.  The slippery roads kept a lot of people away, unfortunately, but there were a few die-hard shoppers who came out and we all had a great time.  If you weren’t able to make it and would like to buy some Christmas gifts, I’m hoping to update the Etsy shops this week with all the new inventory so you’ll be able to shop to your heart’s content.

Saturday we had a combined birthday celebration for my mom and dad at their house.  Their birthdays are only a few days apart and my dad doesn’t like the attention of a birthday celebration aimed directly at him, so we do a combined party each year.  Mom insisted on making dinner - a huge birthday rule breaker - but since whatever the birthday girl says goes, and she insisted she wanted to cook, technically it wasn’t breaking the rule.  I guess.  My sister made this carrot cake, which was FABULOUS. So fabulous I had it for breakfast this morning.  It has carrots in it, it must be healthy.  Right?

My grandmother, (the great-grandkids call her GG), even came out for the celebration.  in case you don’t remember, GG is ninety (can you believe it?) and horrified at the thought that her picture is on the internet, AGAIN.  Hi GG!

Then on Sunday night, I went out to see Wicked at The Bushnell with my mom, my sister, my aunt Holly, and my cousins, Mandi and Stacey.  Mom and Andrea had bought my ticket for my birthday, how nice are they?   My cousin said they got our seats in the front of the mezzanine, but I didn’t realize they got our seats in the loge!  That’s the best place in the mezzanine to see a show.  It was great and I’m glad I finally got to see it.  It’s been so long since I’ve been back to The Bushnell, it actually felt magical again.  When I worked there, the magic seemed to fade away and I didn’t feel that awe I used to feel coming to see a show.  That awe was definitely back last night and the hall looked beautiful.

So, wow.  Now it’s back to normal.  I have boring and ordinary things planned for the rest of the week - grocery shopping, keeping the wood stove going, making Christmas presents and sitting on my butt - it’s going to be hard to live up to all the excitement of this weekend.  I think I need a nap.