Pink Posie Handmade

I am not going to be able to make the TWD Cheesecake today. And I know I said I wouldn't be blogging, but plans have changed. What was originally going to be a leisurely week at my house. Turned into house sitting at my parent's house.
They live in the middle of nowhere...
...surrounded by corn fields
...and wide open spaces (did i just hear someone belt out some Dixie Chicks?)
...and lots of animals. LOTS. horses and dogs and cats Oh my!

So I will be reading and knitting, (one hat done!) and just chillaxin'.

I will be back next week, with stories about my winter break that will put hair on your chest. I don't know if that is true, but maybe I am enticing you to come back and visit my blog next week. :)

Happy New Year and Auld Lang Syne your little hearts out...

****disclaimer: this is not a picture of my tree... I have a tree similar to this, but this was my inspiration. I'm not that cool.****This is my tree, but it's taken from last year, with my Marius under the tree.

I am taking a break from my regular TWD posting. I'm not a huge fan of butterscotch pudding, and I will be baking other things for Christmas. I won't be making the cheese cake next week either. So I will see you all in January!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

I know I said I wouldn't be blogging for 2 weeks, unless something totally amazing happened. Well something totally awesome and amazing did happen! Today I received a package from my secret Elfster pal. Tuesdays With Dorie did a card exchange through Elfster and I happily decided to join in the fun. Well.... The nicest thing happened today, I received a very cool care package, and not only is it just special because I got a flippin' rad package it was from one of my FAVORITE foodie bloggers, Michelle!!!! THANKS MICHELLE! Check out her amazing cooking\baking abilities at Sweet Sensations.
Oh did she give me the goodies! Christmas Sugar Cookie Set, Fun Socks, Christmas Pot Scrubbers (she must have seen my dishes piled high!) and a really yummy smelling lotion\bath\body set!! I feel like I just have won the lottery! Awwww!!! And the really funny thing was, when she posted that she sent her Elfter package, I thought to myself, Wouldn't it be so cool if she was sending it to me…

Today is the last day of school, for the kids and for the staff. We all need a break, from each other mostly. A true benefit of working at a school is that you get these ridiculously awesome breaks. For two weeks I will be doing whatever my little heart desires. Okay maybe not WHATEVER, because if that were the case I would be on plane to Cambodia with my cousin Kelly. (I miss you already!)
I will however be doing a lot of local activities, family gatherings, friendly competitions over Wii, reunions with old friends, and going to see Irving Berlin's White Christmas Holiday Show!
There will also be sleeping in, reading (maybe I will finally read Harry Potter, maybe), cooking, baking and just taking a break.
I want to spend as much time with my family and friends and also take time to breathe.
But most importantly I want to really sit and reflect on what this time of year means. What is Christmas and the profound effect it has had on my life. I don't want it to pass by in a flurry o…

(those don't look like buttery jam cookies to me!)
Oooooops!!!! Have you ever got something so stuck in your head that no matter how many times you see the real thing, the thought that got stuck in your head wins!? This week for TWD I was supposed to make Buttery Jam Cookies. But instead i had it in my head for weeks that i needed to make Thumbprint cookies! I even sat at work reading the TWD website where it says BUTTERY JAM COOKIES and i still thought I was supposed to make Thumbprints. Der!
And on top of that, I thought I would be all inventive and make chocolate thumbprints with vanilla filling and Andes mints crumbled on top. I set to work, tweaking Dorie's recipe, omitting nuts and upping the flour and adding cocoa powder. Whoo whee, yum-a-riffic!
And while i took a break and headed over to the TWD website to just browse, there it was staring me in the face BUTTERY JAM COOKIES. For real? How did I mess that up? But then I thought, NO problemo, i can still make the buttery j…

This weekend was all about the cookies. Shannon came over Saturday night to bake cookies, so Sunday we would have cookies for Kelly's Cookie exchange and gift wrapping party.
Shannon and i totally cut corners and bought a tub of sugar cookie dough instead of making homemade sugar cookies. But we had fun decorating and pigging out on really bad junk food. It wasn't my idea to buy squirt cheese in a can!
Here are some of our creations:



Sunday afternoon we packed up our cookies and headed to my cousin Kelly's house for her party. We had oh so much fun with some of our swell friends, wrapping SoS Megan's presents,
gorging ourselves on delish goodies and me showing Heather of the EO my special moves to Last Christmas by George Micheal.
Kelly's place was festive as always, sans tree... you didn't even need one my dear! Loved it all!
I still can't believe she leaves this week to be with our beloved Erin in Cambodia! This will be the 2nd time in 31 Christmases that i ha…

I can't take credit for that title... that would be Heather of the EO. She sent me an email with a link to one my favorite performances by my boyfriend Jason. Thanks Heather.

Just to clarify, this is not my Grandma's sugar cookie recipe. This is Dorie's Grandma's Sugar Cookie recipe. This is a great recipe. Taste just like store bought sugar cookies. mmmmm.
Anyway, I had fun with these. I made cookie cutter shapes and then circle ones. All using the icing, sprinkles and glitter gel from a recent care package from my aunt Lori. Thanks Auntie Lori!
What is better than making your own icing, well using Wilton's finest. I really love their stuff. I used to take cake decorating classes at my local Micheal's craft store. There I would spend ooodles of my dollars on cake decorating equipment to make a cake that looked like this:

and this:

And funnily enough, when i made that cake I ended up giving it to a girl for her birthday, who not too long after that my then boyfriend would end up marrying. So she really did get to have her cake and eat it too. See, I can joke about it now, so it's all good. Back to the sugar cookies. They were super easy …

Tonight I said goodbye to my cat Marius. After watching him deteriorate so rapidly, I knew that it was time to let him go. He was my sweet baby and I already miss him so much. But he had 16 good years. Including wandering the farm, knocking up every cat in a 5 mile radius, and surviving a coyote attack! He was the amazing Marius. Named after none other than the character from Les Miserables. It's really strange sitting here and not hearing the tinkling of his collar and id tag moving throughout the house. I keep expecting him to walk in any moment. sigh....
I really miss him. :(

Kyle of the other half of K and\or K aka Waiting for a Little Vlachster, sent me a text today saying he was at a food demonstration with cool foodie awesome person extraordinaire Andrew Zimmern! If you have ever watched Bizarre Foods on the Travel Chanel, you will know who I am talking about. Andrew Z. is a local celebrity. I got to see him once with Kelly, he was at a movie premiere we were at. It's neat to feel so connected to someone so kinda famous.
Here is a picture that Kyle snapped of Mr. Z... Love the ginormous cucumber. It resembles his head! Twins!

Yes... I am bored with blogging. Does everyone go through a blogging slump? I just feel like I have nothing mildly interesting to say anymore. Or maybe it is interesting, but I am just too bored to write it down.
Does anyone else feel that way?
I really like blogging though... So I don't want to stop completely, but I don't want to write just to write either. I'm not going to stop blogging, Im just being honest in saying I'm bored with it.
In the mean time I will write 3 good things that have happened recently.

1. I got a new car! Toyota Camry baby! It's a spectacularly wonderful car that I got for a steal! I feel like i won the lottery!

2. I cleaned my kitchen! Okay maybe that is not a big deal, but I hate doing dishes, so sometimes they pile up. But i spent yesterday cleaning and now i feel all fresh and clean and sparkly and ready for Holiday Baking Madness

3. I am wearing a sweater I haven't worn in about 4 years! I gained some of my childhood baby fat back a few…

I woke up singing that song. Remember that show from the 80's, Out of This World? I woke up singing the theme song. Maybe because there are moments when I would like to freeze time like alien Evie Ethel Garland did. This past week i think having freeze power would've come in quite handy. Really though wouldn't you get bored with that power? What could you do besides push people over and steal things? If I could have a super power I would erase people's memories. That way whenever i said something inappropriate or weird or potentially offensive, I could just rewind and erase! Viola! What would be your super power of choice?

Awhile back I held a contest. Guess the number of bags it would take to get up all the leaves in my backyard. Well, after leaving one big pile on my patio because I'm too lazy to rake the rest, I have a total number of bags. 23.
Heather of the EO guessed on the dot. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
This is a perfect day for Heather to win something. Today her little baby boy goes into surgery to have a shunt put in to drain excess fluid on his brain. You can read her wonderful blog here.
And also please pray for little baby Asher... And for the family. I can't even imagine just how scary this is for them. I have got to personally know Heather over this past year and she has been a wonderful and kind friend. And I have also got to know her two little sweet boys... And I just want them to be healthy and happy.
Sending out the love, prayers and lots of peace to you today Heather!
Big Hugs!

I know, I know the name Linzer Sables sounds so frou frou shi shi, but really these were really easy easy. And although I do not like roll-out cookies, because they are more time consuming, these ones didn't seem to bad. I chose to use ground almonds for the nut. I thought that it might give the cookies a more lighter taste then ground walnuts. Rolling it out was a breeze and into the freezer the disks went.
So while waiting for my dough to get nice and chilled, I watched Gossip Girl, and knitted a scarf and read Twilight! Oh i know, some are saying 'bout time! while others (ahem, kristina p) are saying "Oh great, not another convert!" But tonight at book club all we talked about was Twilight... Only a few had read the book we were supposed to be reading, because they were all obsessing over Twilight!!! Including our token male who acts all cool like, its just an "alright" book, but has now devoured each book from what i have heard! whatevs... I am now readi…