Winter-Fresh

We don't shop for fruit.

Or vegetables.

In fact, I never know what I'm going to get each week in our CSA produce share.  But I like it that way.  It adds more adventure to my kitchen-life.

In fact, it's been so long since I had any stickers on my apples that I sliced right through a sticker on an apple from work and nearly ate it up.. oh, to have produce straight from the source.

During the winter, the CSA share we have is gathered from only the east coast (during the spring/summer/early fall it's all New England goodies).  This isn't "dogmatically" local, of course, but we much prefer getting our greens and fruit from, say, Virginia or Florida during the winter, rather than from California or Mexico.

Now, naturally we have a lot of citrus coming in our shares during the winter.  Hey, if I was a box of food from Florida, I'd probably contain a lot of citrus too!  Grapefruit is very common--which is great for me, having been born in Florida myself.  I've always liked grapefruit--at least, I liked it enough to douse it in sugar and cut the wedges out with Momma's grapefruit spoons--and the plethora of these citrus in my boxes has forced me to be a bit more creative. After all, I can only handle so much sugar (anymore).  And I don't have any serrated grapefruit spoons anyway :(

So it's forced me to get creative.  We sometimes get four or six a week, which is more than even T and I can eat for breakfast.  Then I had an idea..

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[there's more snow on the way this weekend!]

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Christmas to Me

To me, Christmas is a time of creativity.  It always has been.  From my earliest memories, Momma was always cooking, baking, gifting, sewing, painting, and decorating.  She loved the holidays. 

Momma's nativity sets, for example, took countless hours of hard, detailed work from start to finish.  She even poured the ceramics herself, and had them fired.  Then there was the basecoat (which we kiddies got to help with--how hard can it be to paint something all one color? (turns out it's rather tricky, to get it not-lumpy and goopy)), which was sealed, then the antiquing, sealing, colored antiquing, more sealing, and finally, the painted details, which Momma mostly did.  

It was just stunning to see her finished sets arranged just so at the parish holiday bazaar.  I wonder how many of her sets are scattered through our home town--how many lovely pieces of Love and talent and dedication adorn the homes of our friends at Christmastime.  

And still, nothing puts me more in a Christmas mood than getting my full box of paints and paint brushes out and, stroke by stroke, bringing clay or ceramic pieces to life.  

Snow Day

Kris Kringle has been working on some ornaments this month.  Each one stitched by hand.  Each one emerging slowly from pattern pieces and teeny tiny stitches.  Each making an appearance on sometime close to Sunday morning.  A labor of love, though, no matter when they are finished.

They tell a story of a snowy afternoon... coming home from the library.

Wrapped in a warm wool coat..

Three gray buttons keep the cold out.

There's a note in my pocket from someone special..

filled with love.. 

As I passed out of the city, I think I saw a polar bear watching me..

Happy Weekend

I really need one this week.. hope yours is wonder-full!

Teal Wool

in skirt form

pattern from a wrap-around jean skirt I've had for years, which isn't dressy enough for the workplace.

warm. cozy. stylish. adjustable (to wear on the hips or at the natural waist).

buttons. pockets.

I like it :)