Diary of a Mad Fabri-Holic

Candy Kisses and Quilty Hugs

God bless blogs.  Seriously.  While clicking and following links, how many of you have stumbled upon something wonderful that has totally changed your life?

Okay, so, maybe my latest discovery isn't life altering, but it's making me pretty happy.  While over at Not Martha the other day, I saw this.   And so, while out shopping for Princess Girl's Xmas gift, the one she told Santa she just had to have, I got me some Candy Cane Kisses.  I agree with many of the blog reviews that I have stumbled upon- and who on earth knew there were so many blog reviews of candy out there?  They could use tiny bits of candy cane in them.  Aside from that, these are darn good.  I'm trying to put together a recipe w/chocolate cookies with these perched on top.  Like peanut butter cookies with regular kisses?  Anyone got an easy, yummy chocolate cookie recipe out there?

Strange as it may seem, I had a wonderful feel good moment after The Hubby and his brother cleaned out their dad's house last week.  Many years back, I made Tom a quilt.  It was about as manly as I get:

Blue, and with snowmen (from my esteemed YBR period).  Such lovely batiks these were, and backed with a nice soft flannel to boot.  When the guys were cleaning, I asked them to keep an eye out for the quilt.  I couldn't bear the thought of it getting accidentally tossed or sent to a thrift store.  (On an aside, don't handmade quilts/afghans, etc in thrift stores make you so sad?  At some point, they were full of so much love, and then they got sent off to the dingy corners of an ARC to die...)  And it turns out- Tom had this quilt right by his favorite chair.  I'm going to comfort myself by thinking that even as he was so secretly sick at the end of his life, maybe my quilt gave him some warmth and comfort.

And isn't that why we make them in the first place?

What took ya so long?

Well, it's about darn time- for me that is!  I started a lovely, sweet, half log cabin type quilt for train boy.  Back before he was born.  Did I mention- he's darn near 2 and a half now (next week or so...)  Yup.  And I had the quilt top done- and even had it sent out to the LQS to be quilted, and had it back.  A quilted top.  I tried something new for me- organization- and cut the binding strips the same time I cut the top.  So, in theory, they were ready to go.  Well, I haven't found them yet, even after 3 stash reorgs in the last 2.5 years... I don't really like binding- machine sewing on the strips always sees me poking myself with pins and getting grouchy.  So, I used the missing strips as my excuse- it would be wasteful to cut new ones, right?  Oh well- I stopped making excuses and cut new binding last Saturday.  And last night, I finished sewing it on!!!!  A finished sweet baby boy quilt, for my wild toddler man who likes nothing in this world so much as trains.  Oh well.  It's done, at least.  And crossed off that ugly UFO list.  As always, click on the images for a larger view...    

Aside from this guilt relieving finish, yesterday brought some other treats.  A package in the mail from an old friend, who now lives in Germany. She knows just how much I adore a certain type of candy bar not easily available in the US, so look what she sent me:

I haven't made any wonky houses like so many other Mavericks, so, I put the candy into a house shape for the photo.  Does that count?

We also had dinner out- at a Turkish restaurant.  This is a big deal- it's my favorite cuisine, and yet not so common in CO.  In fact, in 5 years here, this is the first time we've found any- it's a new restaurant.  I had my favorite- Iskender Kabob, which, if you ever get the chance, you should devour!!!

Off to work now, and then, tonight, I MUST complete my bra for the embellished bra challenge.  Nothing like a deadline...

Simply lovely family day...

Today, Train Boy let me sleep in.  Until 9am.  This NEVER happens.  EVER.  I feel awful, but I'm singing the praises of the cold that wore him out.  It felt so luxurious to still be in bed at 9am!  Normally, I've been going strong for at least 2 hours by then...  Ahhhh!

Since The Hubby didn't have to be at work until 4pm, we took advantage of the family time.  We hit the mall (ugh- crazy holiday madness) because I desperately needed new jeans.  Sadly, I had to buy a size bigger than I would have liked, but the jeans look great, so I guess I'll suck it up. And maybe try to lose that 20 pounds I've been griping about all year.  After the brief mall interlude, we went to a Holiday Powwow.  For those of you not familiar with American Indian culture, a powwow is a celebration that spans tribes, includes fantastic music and dancing, generally vendors selling cool arts and crafts, and fry bread.  I am a ho for fry bread.  For lunch we had Navajo Tacos, also called Indian Tacos.  Then, we sped across town to a funky fashion show, $5 at the door to benefit another lovely charity (the Denver Rescue Mission).  Okay, this wasn't as much fun for the kids, and the space was small and really packed, meaning Train Boy's stroller was, um, not very welcome.  BUT I had a blast, and isn't that what life is all about?  I kept looking at all the awesome goods thinking, damn, wish I could do that, hey maybe I COULD do that!  I tried on an awesome one-of-a-kind top, but, that annoying 20 pounds meant it was not to be.  But, I got myself some new earrings and The Hubby finished his Xmas shopping for me with a spectacular necklace and also some cute earrings.  In true Princess Girl form, she asked Daddy to get her a necklace as well, and turned on full force pouting when she was told "no".  Quite the little Diva I am raising.  Oi, what's in store for the teenage years???

Then, we came home, the kids napped, and The Hubby replaced the blinds- in our NEW WINDOWS!  Yup, that's right, the ice is gone.  The house is comfortable.  I can even open the blinds in the sewing room without a cold breeze blasting through.  It's so wonderful.  17 windows put in in less than 9 hours...  While he did that, I finished the bowl for my FIL. 

And last night, with new thread, I finished the BIL bowl. I even added funfur to the edge for embellishment- it was thinner than I would have liked and next time, I'll do a few layers instead of just one.   I realize this is becoming the all-bowl-all-the-time blog, and tomorrow I promise an actual quilt- or maybe our quilted stockings, at any rate!

Tonight's ornament is brand-spanking new- we got it at the powwow today.  It's wonderfully handcrafted, and inside the ornament is a kachina/katsina doll.  Kachinas are traditionally Hopi, and the Hopi ones are not supposed to be sold as they are of great religious significance.  However, other tribes have taken to carving them and selling them...  Sort of like a Catholic marketing Star of David merchandise...  Anyway, we added this to our tree today:

Boo, baby, boo!

We did in fact survive the party, but I am now suffering from post-party ennui.  I build things up so much in my head, and then am generally let down after they occur.  Not fun, for me or anyone close to me.  I cooked Saturday night and basically all day Sunday.  Wanna see the fruits of my labors?  (Not pictured: the punch, the eye ball pizzas, the chili, and the witch's hat up close).   I was mostly very satisfied with the food, but of course none of it looked as good as it did in the cookbooks.  Oh well- for me, this was a GREAT job! And typepad is giving me grief about photo placement, so forgive where some of the images may turn up in this post.




As you can see, I went a wee bit overboard on the theme thing.  But, all the "real" food disappeared.  Thanks, Tiff, for sharing that chili recipe. So easy, and so yummy.  I grossly underestimated the desire for punch, and we ran out way too fast.  BAD HOSTESS.  I also forgot that chili is difficult at best to eat from paper plates, but a lovely husband (not mine) smartly suggested using the punch paper cups!  The sugary goodness was mostly left behind, and I admit that makes me sad.  What was wrong with the Monster Munch, Candy Corn Fudge, and Pumpkin Cookies??  Sigh.  Well, I fed them to my co-workers as well as the kids' classmates yesterday, and THEY all seemed happy.

The Hubby and I sported our Ward and June Cleaver ensembles. It was fun.  The best costume of the night, in my humble opinion, went to Amelie.  And I'm not just sucking up as I want her to help me learn how to knit ;-)  I adore that movie, and the fact that a gnome came to visit my party was great!

I'm also sad because as always, I didn't really get to talk to any of my guests beyond meaningless "hello/goodbye/put your coats here" stuff.  I hope they had fun.  As always, they split. Playgroup A, playgroup B, and school friends self-segregated. I am lousy at the "Jane, I'd like you to meet Beth.  Your kids are the same age, and you are both avid sumo wrestling fans" type intros, so that would be my fault.  The kids seemed to have a blast, though.

And I'm still nursing some seriously damaged feelings about a friend who seems to have drifted from me.  It's always hard when a friendship changes, and I used to be very close to this gal, but it seems like we just can't connect anymore.  This is the same person that I threw a birthday party for a while back, only at the last possible minute, and by me accidentally running into her at the grocery store, I found out she wasn't coming.  She then decided not to come to my Halloween party because we had too many other guests and it was going to be too chaotic for her.  I sort of get that, but at the same time, it was a very special night for me, and I'd spent basically a month planning for it, and it WAS fun.  But there is a bitter sting left by this one thing.  I'm working on getting over it.  Working really hard.

On a quilting note, now that the party and Halloween in general are behind us, I can get back to some serious quilting.  Since I started up the UFO group on Flickr, I have realized that I am a bad, bad quilter.  I have lots of begun-but-undone projects lurking around.  It's really bad right now as I just did that massive stash cleaning project, and found all the stuff that had been packed up in boxes. I try to blame the kids for this problem, as I never seem to have time to quilt these days, but really, it's my fault.  I tend to take a class, start the project, and never finish.  A large part of that is simply and truly time, but I need to get better about finishing projects before moving on to new ones.  I sense a New Year's resolution in my future!  And, I admit, I indulged in the Equilter post-Halloween sale to stock up on some great goodies.  Tonya, I got some of your faces fabric.  Can't wait to use it.  Wait- I am so contradicting myself here.  Hmm, can we see how I got into my UFO predicament??  and- exciting- my box of 3 quilts got to Bonnie for quilting!  Can't wait to see what magic she works on them!

Okay, off to get some actual work done now.  Hope everyone had a fun a Halloween as we did.  Did I mention- this was out first ever time having DECENT weather for trick or treating since the kids were born?  Amazing!

The calm before the storm... (and stash Sunday #5, a wee bit early)

Here at Chez Fabri-Holic, we're preparing for a teeny tiny Halloween party tomorrow night.  70 or so of our closest friends (half of them under 6) will be joining us to celebrate what is my favorite holiday of the year.  I'm a bit crabby as one good friend backed out at the nearly last minute since we apparently are TOO festive for her, but oh well.  I'll suck it up, and enjoy the other 65 people!

I am hoping that it will be fantastic.  Here's the menacing menu: Candy Corn Fudge,  Garden Garbage, Skele-Jello, Pumpkin Cheese ball, Un-Eye-Pealing Pizzas, Monster Munch, the aforementioned Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies, Spider-mole, Chilling Chili, Nasty Nacho Dip, and a few other surprises.  The house is decorated like you wouldn't believe.  We even have a motorized ghost to greet people!  (I am hoping we don't send any of our younger guests screaming into the night!)  I am bummed that Princess Girl's good buddy somehow managed to blow out my favorite light set outside- the bloodshot eyeballs.  Hopefully we can fix them before the party.  The pumpkins are all carved save one (see previous post).  The inside of the house is looking good, though since we discovered one of our cats likes to eat that fake spiderweb stuff, we had to hold off on decorating until the last minute.  I've made some of the recipes already.  The house looks decent.  The favors are packaged up, by age, and then by gender!  The monsters are nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of candy corn dance through their heads. So, I should be ready.  I think.  I hope!  Pray for me tomorrow?  Send me some strong Martha vibes!!!

Since I am guessing I'll be a bit too pre-occupied before the party, and exhausted after the party, here's my Stash Sunday- the last in my Halloween series.   I got the last 3/4 yards of this from Equilter.  I LOVE it, and will certainly find something cool to do with it.  Ideally, before next Halloween.

Happy Haunting, Friends!

Somedays, you should just stay in bed. This is one of them.

Okay, before I go off on a long self-pitying whine about why my life sucks today, here is the pumpkin cookie recipe that I've gotten some requests for:

4 cups unsifted flour
2 cups quick or old fashioned oats, uncooked
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups butter or margarine, softened
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin
1 cup real semi-sweet chocolate chips (can substitute raisins)
assorted icings or peanut butter
assorted candies, raisins or nuts 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. Cream butter; gradually add sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Alternate additions of dry ingredients and pumpkin, mixing well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips. For each cookie, drop ¼ cup dough onto lightly greased cookie sheet- you can use more dough to form a stem. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes (until cookies are firm and lightly brown). Remove from cookie sheets; cool on racks. Decorate using icing or peanut butter to affix assorted candies, raisins, or nuts. Yield: about 32 large cookies.  **I find that 1/4 cup of dough makes a huge cookie that is too big to eat, and i like to eat. i try to use more like an 1/8. 

These are the halloween cookies of my childhood, and I still love em today.  When I have put faces on mine, I'll post a pic.

Why my life sucks today:

1) Tried to make some of the recipes for my "menacing menu" for our annual halloween bash this weekend.  I need pineapple preserves for one of them, and can't find them anywhere. (Anyone have a suggestion?)   Also, substituted semisweet chocolate for almond bark in one recipe, and while it tastes delicious, it looks really gross.  So I have to start again.
2) Fell down the stairs.  Caught myself before splitting open my skull, yea!  When I grabbed the banister to keep from falling, something in my wrist popped and now hurts like hell.
3) Dropped the kids off at their overpriced daycare.  Went to pay bill,and noticed it was $200 more this month than last month.  WTF??  Tuition only goes up in August.  We had this problem last month- bill was $200 higher than pervious month.  Due to error on their part that their accountant "couldn't identify". This woman is as qualified to be the school accountant as Harriet Meirs is to serve on the Supreme Court...  This month, she's telling me that the amount she told me during last month's phone call was wrong.  She's trying to make it my fault, too- but when the accountant tells me what to pay, that's what I pay. So it turns out she told me the wrong amount (under by $100) last month, so this month we owe that extra $100 from last month, plus the new extra $100- that she claims is not extra because it was always there, she just added wrong.  the best part?  the past due amount on the current bill says $0.00.  So how was I supposed to know anything was past due?  Ah, yes, my psychic powers!   I am ready to storm her office and sit there until she can figure out why she keeps screwing up MY bill.  We are one of the poorest families at the school- kids on partial scholarship and everything.  Some of the families there actually have nannies AND pay for daycare.  I struggle to pay a sitter every now and then to see my hubby. 

Okay, I'm done. Let's try to accentuate some positive, maybe that will make me feel better.
1) Stash Sunday is really taking off!  Lots of people are opening their stashes and sharing cool things- very very cool!
2) I started another Flickr group that's getting some good action, all about all our UFOs.  Have a UFO languishing? Share it here.
3) My house looks awewsome for halloween!  We went all out this year. Bodies in the yard, eyeballs on the walk, skeletons and witches to greet people, bats, spiders, and other spooky stuff inside, and of course, the meancing menu for the party!  And tonight, The Hubby is going to use this stencil to carve my pumpkin into an Elvis Pumpkin.
4) My Stitch-It Kit came in the mail yesterday.
5)  I bought a great new necklace.
6) I have a new bible for decorating. Tonya, it may interest you especially since once upon a time you asked me what I do with my thrift store treasrues.  I plan to make my guestroom into Graceland, and my kitchen is now officially known as a Kitschen.
7)  Took the best picture ever of Princess Girl!
8) We have a "buddy system" at work where everyone gets paired off, and you and your buddy just make sure to be extra nice to one another.  On Monday, my buddy treated me to a Halloween candy feast by decorating my desk with stickers and yummies and a pretty candle.  (If I worked in a different place, I would find the buddy thing to be super lame, but it actually does seem to be a good teambuilding thing here!)

Okay, I'm off to attempt to cheer myself up.  And to find $200 extra for the daycare bill (gee, I wouldn't have bought that cool new necklace if I knew about the $200!!)

Space Cadet

Man, was I in a bad mood today.  I'm going to blame PMS, but it might also be the fact that I had been taking Zoloft (helps me control those inconvenient panic attacks while flying) and as I am not flying anytime in the near future, I stopped taking it last week...  I've been mean to everyone.  A co-worker really rubbed me the wrong way.  I yelled at The Hubby for no good reason (sorry, sweetie).  In an attempt to appease the beast that was mommy, my family agreed to go out to dinner at the kids' favorite place.  It's mommy's favorite place, too, at least when we go out as a family.  See, my charming little Train Boy can't sit at a table for more than 15 minutes without breaking into adorable little tantrums, so... buffets work.  Sigh.  My favorite Train Boy dining out experiences: the time he threw a fork and actually hit another table while waiting for his pancakes AND the time he dropped and shattered a plate while waiting for his shrimp at the "kid friendly" restaurant suggested to us by the South Carolina Aquarium.  I'd like to say this: if a place has linen napkins, no crayons, and no freaking kid's menu, it's not kid friendly.  And the folks at the Aquarium info desk should know that.  Anyway! 

After dinner, I decided I needed some time to myself, so... I helped The Hubby get the kids to bed, and then quickly cut and pieced this top for Train Boy:

As you can see from the close-up, it's space themed.  And- all the fabric is from the STASH!  Yippee.  It's leftover from two projects- his wall quilt with appliqued space stuff, and his curtains.  He already has the pillowcase, now he'll have a matching bed set.  GOOD MOMMY!  (Princess girl already has a completely matching room- curtains, wall hanging quilt, bed quilt, and pillowcase.  Damn, I'm good...)

Now I'm taking myself to bed, in a significantly better mood.  Tomorrow will be a better day, esp. as I feel a sick day coming on.  Shhhh... Actually, I am due for my once every 4 month menstrual migraine to hit tomorrow, so my sick day is probably going to be legitimate.  Sigh.

Party! Party! Party!

Oh, was I a lucky girl tonight.  Yours truly attended a very fancy fundraising cocktail party for her homeless shelter.  As we were super lucky, and the party was thrown FOR us, I didn't really even have to work.  I did, however, have a few cosmos from the hosted bar!  Yippee for pink drinks!  But, I haven't told you the best bit.  The party was at the brand new Ellie Caulkins Opera House.  We had the fortune of being the first event in there, after the official opening gala.  The lobby area is stunning- our Mayor called it a "hipster opera house"- so true!  The art is fantastic, and the framed costumes are stunning in and of themselves.  I got to pig out at dinner- raost beef, salmon, lamb chops, mini twice baked potatoes, garlic rosemary butter sauteed mushrooms, and dessert.  Holy Petit-four, Batman!  Swans stuffed with whipped cream and strawberries, petit fours of all flavors, delicious bite sized chocolates of all sorts of combinations (hats off to the one with a wee bit o' strawberry inside- again, hooray for pink food!).  I am so stuffed, I probably shouldn't eat anything for about 5 days.  Oddest moment of the night: the Very Reverend of the church throwing us the bash asked me how dinner was, and of course I raved.  He laughingly suggested i take some home in my pockets.  i pointed out- cocktal ensemble has no pockets.  So the Very Reverend gestures to indicate that I should take it home in my bra.  Ya know, those desserts were so goos, I probably should have :-)

The highlight of the evening, aside from the company of one of my best friends in lieu of The Hubby (at work as always) was the tour of the opera house itself.  We truly had an all access tour, that included us on the stage!  Sleeping Beauty- ballet- is scheduled in there ASAP, and we were able to check out her bed.  Then, we explored the nose bleed seats (where your humble narrator will be sitting, if she can even afford those!)  Oh my- my wonderful boss was on the stage, and from the 4th level, we were able to converse with her.  How cool is that?  Acoustics are out of this world.  i think i will sheel out the $16 a ticket for some cheap seats to take princess girl to the ballet ASAP.

Oh, and in case you are curious, the fundraiser was a huge success, and homeless women and children are a little bit better off.  Also- total wonderful bit of the night- several of our clients came to the party, and seemed to have a wonderful time.  I was thrilled that they could share such a neat experience.

Tomorrow, back to the quilts.