Swedish Vignette

In honor of the Professor's roots, I create a Swedish Christmas display every December. Recently, I have been building it on top of a fairly high glass door cabinet in our dining room. This year, we had to turn the cabinet around, with the glass against the wall, to keep little hands from banging on (and breaking) the glass.

I start with a base of greens: usually a pine garland swirled around the top of the cabinet. Then I add a holly garland, twisting it in and out of the pine. Next I poke in a few picks with berries or apples, and a few small red ornaments. What I'm aiming for is bits of bright red to add color contrast.

Then I add my painted Swedish wood pieces which I have been collecting for 30 years. The most important piece is the red Dala horse. Some of my small pieces are a Santa Lucia girl, a lady in traditional Swedish costume, and little tomten.

In the back I stand my large Advent candelabra as well as my set of his and her costumed candelabras.The two stacked wood apples are part of a set of five nesting apples. They are not Swedish - they are Chinese! But they fit perfectly in color and style with the Swedish things. I got them many years ago in San Francisco's China Town, before I was even old enough to go to school.

Oh, I almost forgot: underneath it all is a Swedish runner with a tomten design.

I'm linking to Rhoda's vignette party. Go join the fun!

Decorating for Christmas

I somehow ended up on the church decorations committee this year. With our music director AND our decorations gal leaving this year, everyone was at a loss as to how to go about decorating the church. One brave elder stepped forward to sort of direct things, and two other ladies and I stepped forward to actually do the work.

First we spent several hours digging through the attic to find what was available. Then we spent another afternoon evaluating all the bits and pieces and deciding what we could use and what we wouldn't use. Then we gave ourselves the day last Saturday to get it all out and up.

Here are some of the decorations we did.

The atrium wall

The Narthex table:

In the sanctuary:

8 arched windows:

Between the windows:

In front:

A hard-to-decorate side wall:

It only took 11 hours to finish the job.

Free in November

Here is what we were able to get free this month. Listed next to each item is the retail price:
9 spools Reach dental floss: $17.31
2 flu vaccines: $60
14 cans Carnation evap milk: $16.66
6 bags Vigo rice: $7.74
8 bags Mahatma rice: $9.52
Birds Eye veggies: $2.27
8 boxes Muellers pasta: $10.32
Levolor top down/bottom up pleated shade: $985
46" Samsung LCD hi def TV: $1300
19" round glass table topper: $30
Haircut for the Professor: $18
Martha Stewart Living subscription: $59.88
2 little gold birds (Hallmark): $10
2 rolls gift wrap: $6
2 gift decorations: $4

Total: $2,536.70

A Late Season Estate Sale

We hit an Estate Sale on Friday and I got this pan half off since they were getting ready to close for the day.

Then I found it listed on the Nordicware site: it's a $36 pan!

Homemade Doughnuts

These are yummy! (Even though they aren't doughnuts.)

We started out with doughnuts today, but we gobbled them up before I could get a picture. That was at 5:00 this afternoon, right before dinner. You can't believe it? Neither can I; we NEVER do something like that. But there's a story behind it...

This afternoon I was in a baking mood so I decided to make doughnuts. I mixed the dough and put it aside to raise. But it just sat there doing nothing for, like, an hour and a half. I thought maybe the yeast had gone bad, so I mixed a little in some water to see if it would bubble.

Meantime, we had assorted messes made all over the kitchen. I cleaned and mopped and then I saw my yeast bubbling away. I was about to mix that yeast into my stubborn dough, but it had cheered up when I wasn't looking and the dough was puffing up just fine all on its own. So I proceeded with the doughnuts. After I finished frying them and shaking them in cinnamon sugar, I called the family to come and eat hot doughnuts (wishing we had cider too). Then I noticed the time - oh well, dessert before dinner isn't going to kill anyone.

After the dinner dishes were done, I saw my cup of yeast again. I didn't want to waste it, so I added flour and all that stuff to it. It got puffy really fast so I had to quickly decide what to do with it. Browsing my bread cookbook, I saw a recipe for "Lemon Puff Pillow Buns". Odd name but yummy ingredients: they are filled with a sweetened cream cheese filling.

The fam wasn't too excited about the PINK sugar sprinkled on top. I wanted yellow, but there is no yellow in my pantry.

Work in Progress

Finally, finally! We are getting concrete poured along the side of the house today. This is a concrete pad inside our little utility yard, and a sidewalk connecting that to the driveway.

I have wanted this done for something like 17 1/2 years. That's all. The pour date was set back two days because of rain, then finally they came today. Soon after they poured and smoothed the pad, it started to rain, and then to hail! They quickly pulled plastic sheeting over all the wet stuff, but they weren't quick enough because we have dings in the surface in several places.

Before

After

October Freebies

Here's what I got FREE in October:
3 pair socks: $7
Neilmed nasal dock: $9.99
Sucrets: $4.99
8 rolls Bounty paper towels: $9.99
2 bottles Gain laundry detergent: $29.98
candy corn: 99 c
single serve Simply Lemonade: $1.02
2 toothbrushes: $2
Schick Hydro 5 razor: $10.47
All Small and Mighty: $7.49
Chestal: $6.29
Cold Buster warming syrup: $8.99
4 ct Bodi Heat: $3.99
3 ct Oscillococcinum: $6.99
4 pk Bath tissue: $2.49
Taco Bell Orange Swirl Fruitista: $2.29
5 Athenos Hummus: $14.95
2 Dannon Greek yogurt: $2.38

Total $132.29