MOCK THANKSGiViNG

" Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts. "

- Author Unknown

We are in Texas working our booth and visiting my family for a few days.

Last night after working all day, my mama whipped up a delicious mock Thanksgiving dinner. The food was tasty. I am going to have to get that chicken recipe. YUMO! No pseudo Thanksgiving meal can be complete with out the addition sweet potato delight. To thee I sing praises. AHHHHHH! It has become one of Kalin's favorite dishes. I am going to try it out this year at his mom and dad's house. It is destined to be a success. I love Thanksgiving. It is so nice to have family and friends all gathered together in celebration.


Anyway back to the dinner. Mama had the table fixed so pretty. Simple elegance is absolutely one of her specialities. She put Violet and me in charge of the non-alcoholic (Liz is on call so we kept wine off the menu) cocktails. The cranberries looked like little jewels floating amidst the sparking apple cider.


Mimi thought of everything - even a Happy Thanksgiving cake!! I think that this was a first for everyone, but Violet loved lighting the candles and singing "Happy Thanksgiving to you!"


Thank you Mimi! We all had a great time.

"Blessed are those who can give without remembering, and take without forgetting."

- Princess Elizabeth, Asquith Bibesco

While trying to still enjoy and acknowledge the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, despite stores like Wal-Mart etc putting their Christmas stuff out before Halloween and playing Christmas music in the store, I having been trying to keep Christmas gift giving in my mind. It always has a way of sneaking up on us, and I want to be able to slow down and enjoy all of its magical moments, without feeling overwhelmed. In the process I have found the neatest toy companies online. My favorites are Magic Cabin and Nova Natural Toys (where the inspiration for our good friend Berry Sue originated). Violet has gone through the catalogs and requested the fairy house. Kalin is working on his own version for her and I have decided to experiment with wet felting to craft some fairy dollies to go with it. I am very excited about this project and have several ideas I want to play with. I will keep you posted on the evolution of these little pixies.

Looking through these catalogs has been such a source of inspiration. I love all of the natural fibers and wood that are used in their products. I also love the simplicity - allowing the child to use their imagination in play.

It feels good to get a few of these Christmas purchases under my belt and feel the beginnings of the excitement that accompany the holiday season.

Violet and I have also mulled around a few joint handmade crafts ideas (no hints) and I think that they will be cute.

The little elves have to get cracking....

PRESSiNG LEAVES

"There is more to life than increasing its speed"
-Gandhi

In the midst of furiously packing for Texas, I had to slow down and take a minute. My pockets were full of leaves that I gathered while outside doing chores. I sandwiched them in between the layers of my lovely field gardener's press. I love it. It is portable enough that I can throw it in my bag when the mood strikes. It came with sheets of blotter paper which retain the color of the whatever medium I am pressing. I love it!!!!!

HAPPY NOVEMBER

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

- George Eliot

Well fall is definitely here in the Ozark mountains. The leaves are changing. Despite all of the rain that we had this year, the leaves were not as brilliant as years past. Even so, this time of year is my favorite and there are a lot of beautiful colors out there.














We have been gathering hickory nuts and persimmons. Kalin and Violet had a fun cracking the nuts open on the porch.




I made persimmon bread and it was great. I used Mama's famous (it really is around these parts, quite a requested item) pumpkin bread recipe, and substituted persimmon puree for the pumpkin. I also added walnuts to the batter. Yummy delicious. I am going to try to crank some out tonight to take home to the fam in Texas.



We leave in tomorrow afternoon for Houston, where we will work the TRF booth and then head to Fort Worth, after the weekend.



We have been harvesting the last of the tender veggies from the garden. It has frosted a few nights. We managed to cover the pepper bed and eek out that harvest a little longer. After much anticipation the multi-color sweet bell peppers that I planted finally started to change color. Wahoo! Unfortunately they will not all have a chance to all turn before the weather turns too cold and that bed is put to sleep. I can't tell you how much joy it brings me to pick and cook with these jewels. I will definitely grow them next year.



I also picked all of the basil and wizzed up some pesto.

We have also been pecking away at our house. We worked all day on Sunday and got a ton of blocks moved on our handy dandy pulley.





You can watch a video of the contraption in action here. It is exciting and really starting to shape up.




Well gotta go, I have a ton to pack. I will see some of you soon. Lots of Love to all!!!!!

HOLY PUMPKiNS BATMAN!!!!

Hey-How for Hallowe'en!
All the witches to be seen
Some in black, and some in green,
Hey-How for Hallowe'en!

-Traditional song

We had a festive Halloween this year. Kaley spent Halloween eve at our house and we watched Penelope...again. Halloween afternoon we made mini pizzas with pumpkin shaped cheese and bat shaped rice krispy treats. Of course, there was the prerequisite viewing of It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!



During all of these festivities I cranked out a pair of bat wings for "Violet the Fruit Bat." I wanted to make ears but ran out of time. She looked quite cute flapping around in her costume making her "eek, eek, eek" bat noises.

I set out the costume trunk so that Violet and Sam could so some early dressing up. Which produced two princesses:




Our plans to go to New Mexico were diverted so we decided to change up the whole Halloween routine. We changed our normal route from Leslie to Mountain View. It shaved about a hour and a half off of our overall driving time which allowed for even more Halloween merriment. We met at Katie's and trick or treated her neighborhood and then headed to Granny's. She had her house decorated so cute and was happy to see us. We hit some of the houses on her block and ended up at Tommy's pizza.


Family owned and operated, Tommy's is a fun place to dine with great pizza. They were all dressed up and encourage trick or treaters. Their treats? Pizza.

in the kitchen at Tommy's

Sean was dressed as Iron Man. He crafted his power hub out of a touch light and shower head. It looked great and was very inventive.


One of the guys dressed as a henchman, and the guy in the back doing the dishes was a ghoul. They were blaring The Who and cranking out slivers of pizza to all of the costumed customers. It was a fun way to end the evening.

Violet eating her yummy Tommy's "trick or treat"

Sam "the ninja" hangin' out at Tommy's

KNiT, PURL, KNiT, PURL

My sister and I have decided to take on a new knitting challenge. Socks. We decided to head on down to her local yarn store (along with Mimi, much to Violets delight) to get the scoop. Yarns Ewenique is a quaint shop that was filled with women (and men), clicking their sticks. They had a great array of yarns, books, and pure energy.

The ladies that helped us, recommended using two sets of needles and working on both socks at the same time. We picked up a couple of sets of Crystal Palace needles. I swear these are the Cadillac of needles. We decided to acquire our yarn at Jo-Anns for our test pair. You can bet as sure as I get this whole thing down I will be returning to Yarns Ewenique for some of that sumptuous hand painted yarn. Ohhh la la.

Last night we has our first session and got our stitches cast on and a few rows knit. I love sitting with her and knitting. I am going to miss her terribly.... gulp.

Today I was perusing my fav Soule Mama blog and she recommended this sock "recipe" which I will have to try out in the future. Check out her completed socks!!!

"Knitting is very conducive to thought. It is nice to knit a while, put down the needles, write a while, then take up the sock again. "

~Dorothy Day

HOCUS POCUS

" Oh fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts
were falling!When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!"

- John Greenleaf Whittier

Violet and I are in Fort Worth visiting my family. We came down to set up the Hollow Earth Swordworks Shoppe at the Texas Renaissance Festival , which opened last weekend. It opened last weekend. Kalin dropped us off and zoomed back to Arkansas to make more stock.

It is always so lovely to be here in the presence of my family. Violet has really been making connections with them which I cherish.



In the midst of the visit, we did a little spooky pumpkin carving out on my sister's patio. It was great fun. Violet and I read the Plumply, Dumply, Pumpkin, so that she could get some good ideas. I gave her a black jumbo crayon and let her design the Jack-O'Lantern face.






I cut the top off and let her scoop out the insides. She insisted on using her Aunt Lizzie's kitchen spoon because the insides where "ooey, yucky, slimy." I told her "Hey that used to be my favorite part. It is half of the fun." but was not having any of it. Oh well, to each they're own. Right!




Her pumpkin face turned out really good. We were all impressed. Elizabeth carved an awesome scull face on hers



Mel broke out the drill, and made a polka dotted Jack O'Lantern. She definitely gets the award for being most prepared with all of the proper tools. My favorite was the pointy potato peeler thing which was great for shading.

We topped the evening off with Penelope, one of my all time favorite movies.


Great fun girls!!!!!