2015 is here

I'm amazed at how fast 2014 passed. It was a year of ups and downs but it was, on balance, generally a pretty okay kind of year. As part of our rambunctious New Year's Eve of eating take out Thai food and watching season 9 of Supernatural on blu ray, Jeff and I started a new tradition. We've decided from here on, we're going to do a yearly journal entry for our year in review, focusing on the highlights of the year past, and jotting down some aspirations (not resolutions) for the year to come. We are then going to write down 5 positive things that happen to us everyday.

I think it will be a fun thing to look back on, even if we become a bit spotty in the reporting. I can be a dweller, the anxiety and OCD makes me mull and dissect negative happenings until I fall into a pit of despair. If I'm going to dwell, it may as well be on the positive things in our lives.

So, before we move forward, here are some of the highlights from 2014.

Seeing the always amazing Kathleen Edwards at the Dead of Winter festival. While she may now be a Quitter, her performance that night was beautiful and personal and she was wearing the most beautiful snugly looking sweater that almost had me jumping on stage just to hug her.

Visiting the Buckle Ark and practising my newly learnt crochet skills under the helpful eye of a bestie that I see far too little of...if only there were secret passages between our craft rooms!

Our Ottawa weekend for Folk Fest. The National were awesome, but The War on Drugs were one of the very best outdoor shows I have ever seen.

Hiking Duncan's Cove on Remembrance Day. It was spectacular, the weather was amazing, and the stillness of mind that it induced was well needed.

Christmas break hike - Kearney Lake

Christmas break hike - Crystal Crescent 

This Christmas break has been a good one too. Though Jeff and I would probably choose a different time of year for our annual vacation, he is required to take the time by his employer. We've been lucky enough to have had some beautiful weather, perfect for spoiling Finnegan with some extended off-leash walks.

Today, Jeff returns to work, and Monday I do the same. 2015 will begin in earnest, and every night we will reflect on the good in our lives.

Happy New Year from Fin and Batty!

Christmas Countdown - food

People have lots of options on the meaning of Christmas. Some put the Christ in it, some are driven by intense consumerism. There's love and peace and joy and friends and family...but the fastest way to most people's hearts is through their stomachs. Food is a uniting force. And I like to cook. Thus, Christmas is food. For me it is entertaining and feeding my family and friends, filling their tummies with food and their hearts with love.

So, the Christmas Menu (all gluten and dairy free)

Breakfast- coffee and cranberry-cardamom bread.

Brunch- avocados on toast with lobster bathed in a lemon-wine cream sauce with poached eggs and bacon.

Snacks- mocha-hazelnut naniamo bars, butter tart squares, rum balls, shortbread etcetera.

 

Dinner- coconut and butternut squash soup, herb and honey roasted turkey with sherry gravey, herbed mashed potatoes, bacony kale, maple sausage and chestnut stuffing, sweet and sour carrots.

Dessert- really? You're still hungry? Good thing there are plenty more sweets.

Oye. Couch. Blanket. Finnegan. Zzzzzzzzzzz

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, best of the season. (Ps, drop me a line if you want a recipe!)

Xoxo

S.

Christmas Countdown: Decorating

My day job has been creeping into my evenings and weekends as I traipse across our fair country and back (and forth and back) again.  This type of thing tends to limit the extra time I want to spend in front of a computer.  It also tends to put a bit of a damper on my energy levels...hence the somewhat spotty blog posting of late.  But, our household enthusiasm for Christmas is starting to give me a jolt, and between trips, I've been busily preparing for the jolliest of times.

Jeff and I are both pretty nuts for the holidays.  Jeff's holiday muse is Clark Griswold.  He's about half-way through putting them up.  The weather has been pretty wicked here, so lights are not as far along this year as usual.  And me, well, I take the indoors to a whole new level of granny chic-bohemian-crazy gypsy-kitschiness. 

The towels are exchanged for Christmas towels, the photos are exchanged for holiday themed 'art', garlands are hung in each doorway and decorations are stuffed in every nook and cranny.

I love my reindeer.  They're the first ones up and the last ones down every year.

This year I decorated our upstairs tree with the ornaments I've been creating for my Etsy shop.  It's a fun little tree.

Downstairs, our tree is stuffed with ornament that have taken many years to collect.  Like the rest of the decor in the house, the only 'theme' is, OH! PRETTY!.

Finnegan and Bastet tend to roll with these changes.  Bastet likes to curl up under the Christmas tree and pretend she's out doors.  Finnegan just tends to ignore it, unless he is being decorated as well.  Poor little wiener.   

Ummm, yeah, so could you just stick to the trees?  Thanks.