Dragging Towards the New Year

I was a busy baking bee in the days leading up to Christmas.  I wanted to make goodie plates for my friends as well as try a couple new recipes.  The result was:

Peanut butter fudge and Italian knot cookies.....

Banana breads and cranberry breads...

Gingerbread cookies...

Rice krispie treats....

And for Christmas Day, snickerdoodle blondies.

Took a few closeup pics of the ornaments too.  They look so pretty with the lights.

These next 2 ornaments were made by me when I was about 9 or 10.  I have 6 of them.

Part of the Putz village.  A few years ago I dyed those trees pink and added the glittery snow.

I am so glad I got this multicoloured tinsel tree.  I'm not sure where I picked it up but I'm gonna guess Fred Meyer, out in WA.  It's sooo pretty and sparkly.  I want to keep it out year round.

I lined up the reflection of the deck rail lights on the driftwood thing.

Christmas Eve was rainy which was awesome.  I got all my errands done early and had time to do some food prep for the next day and update the family photo album.  We got Chinese takeout for lunch/dinner but unfortunately it didn't set well with either of us.  Needless to say it'll be awhile before we will get Chinese again!!  

Christmas Day was cold and clear.  We visited my mom in the morning then headed home to finish all the food prep for the kids' visit that afternoon.  Russell got us all scratch tickets but only 2 of those were $10 winners unfortunately.

Some of the food stuffs.  I forgot to take a pic of the deli platter I made with the meats and cheeses. A few years ago we ordered them from Stop & Shop and were shocked at how little stuff was provided for the prices.  It's cheaper to do these myself.  It's more time consuming, but it's fun. 

Happy with his shrimp and the horseradish/ketchup sauce he makes.

My amazing and awesome stepkids and girlfriend.  

Sagieboo

The day went by really fast.  The kids left around 3 or so and we just hung out and grazed on the leftovers.  Now it's time to take everything down and put it away till next year.  Everything looks so pretty, colourful and glittery but it's time to get the house back to normal.  Hoping to have everything cleaned up by the end of the week.

Looking forward to seeing 2016 end. It was mentally and emotionally exhausting.  George Michael dying on Christmas Day was a terrible surprise.  This year took a lot of great people.  Some expected due to age, but the others weren't.  We are hoping for a quiet New Years Eve.  We're just gonna hunker down at home and order a pizza, and go to bed early.  Our days of staying up to midnight are long over!  

I'm hoping 2017 will be a better year.  Happy New Year everyone.  See ya on the flipside. 

Bigfoot Bundt Cake

I've been wanting to try a Bigfoot bundt cake ever since I got the cookie cutter.  I actually got the cutter just for this project.  HERE is a link to the recipe and instructions, although I didn't use their recipe.  I just skimmed the instructions, got the gist, and winged it.  

Mistake #1 was the size of the cutter. It was too tall for the bundt pan.  

Mistake #2 was that I didn't want to make chocolate cake.  I made brownies instead.  I was only able to get 6 Sasquatches from the pan.

Placing them in the pan was a bit of a pain, to keep them from tipping over as you added the cake batter.  I even put batter in the bottom and stuck their heads in and they still wanted to fall over. 

Sadly, all the legs melted and broke off within minutes of going in the oven.  That's probably why I should've used cake instead of brownies.

Well at least it flipped out easily.

The icing is just confectioners sugar mixed with milk and vanilla extract.

First slice, total failure.  Delicious, but a failure.

But then....TA DA!  I finally got a slice with the design, even if the legs were gone.

This is another one that I'm glad I tried, but won't be revisiting.  Bigfoot will be in cookie form from now on, and bundt cake will be bundt cake, and never the twain shall meet.

Decorations and Cookies

This year flew by, and December was no exception.  I was very remiss in not getting any pictures of Christmas lights in town and in our neighbourhood.  Oh and speaking of lights, my totally awesome psychedelic spotlight died after just a few weeks and I had to take it back.  But they were sold out so I got my money back.  I was sooooo bummed.  Anyways, I didn't take hardly any pics and the ones I did take, I neglected to post until now. 

I shot this pic of a neighbour's house with the laser lights, but I didn't feel like dragging my tripod out so this is what I got.  It's not too bad actually.

Sunrise on Dec. 17th

I had to go to the Cape Codder Resort in Hyannis for an appointment and I was pleasantly surprised at how beautifully decorated it was.  This glass sculpture was created by McDermott Glass Studios in Sandwich.  Clearly influenced by Dale Chihuly's work!  You can't see it but there are lights that change colour inside.  

I love Christmas train villages!!!!!!

This Santa sleigh rotated around in the air.

If I hadn't had an appointment, I would have been roaming around shooting more photos.  I think they said Santa comes in on weekends or something and I guess that's where he sits.

I love gingerbread cookies but it seems that no one else does, so I made a batch for me.  I got a couple new cookie cutters this year:  Seattle Seahawks logo and a Sasquatch.  The Hawks cutter is going to take some practice. 

 I love the Sasquatch one! I'm going to have to make a batch of just Bigfoot.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas.

Cold, Grey Bucket of Suck

We continue to have snow dumped on us in vast quantities on an almost daily basis.  Still no access to the deck except that square in front of the door and what I walked on to try and get the snow off the roof.  I have an ice dam up there that will not budge. 

I really miss covered parking and so does my poor car.  The wiper blades are up because it's just easier to clean the windshield after storms when they aren't frozen to it.  We are getting storm after storm, every other day.  It's soul-sucking, it really is.

No access to the front yard either.  Dogs have no choice but to go in the driveway, which is turning a gross shade of yellow and brown, even though I shovel the brown out of the way.

Snow piled against the pole and my neighbour's house.  They used to come down on weekends but they haven't been around since before the blizzard a few weeks ago.

The town of Bourne seems to find it amusing to come along after driveways have been plowed and bury the end of your driveway again.  The DPW got an earful from me after the blizzard.  Luckily we have a reliable plow guy who will come by and clear the end after Bourne buries it.  This is looking down to the end of the street.  So much yuck.

Have to keep the path to the shed clear in case the power goes out.  My back, neck, shoulders and arms are in so much pain....I don't think they'll ever feel better again.  I manage to get out to get errands done about once a week, but backing into the drive has proved difficult.  I got my car good and stuck in a snowbank on Sunday.  I sat in it and cried and cried before crawling out the passenger side and digging the wheels out.  We also try to get groceries for my mom between storms too, since she's completely snowbound.  Her driveway is a skating rink.

Since I'm housebound, I'm trying to do what I can to stave off despair.  I'd bought a bunch of candles before the blizzard.  Fortunately we didn't lose power.  We've continued to have high winds with the snow storms so I decided why not decorate some of them.  If we're gonna lose power, at least I can make it pretty.  

This is a confetti ball project I saw on Pinterest and then checked out the Crafty Chica tutorial HERE. I found it a lot more time consuming than the artist showed.  First of all, I used white glue, as she recommended.  I usually use clear floor wax to make stuff stick on the inside, but I tried that first and the sequins didn't stick well with it.  Cleaned out the ball and poured the glue in and started sprinkling sequins, multicoloured mylar confetti and glitter for filler.  The glue was clearly going to need some help to dry, so I baked it in the oven on 200 for 45 minutes.  Didn't work. I set it in the sunny south facing window for hours (which still gets warm sun even in the cold) every day that we had sun.  It's been 3 weeks and the bottom still hasn't completely dried. 

It also took a really long time to find a picture that looked good on the ball too.  I cut out pics of butterflies and flowers, and none of them looked good at all.  I opted for this angel that I mod podged onto the ball.  Then used glitter puff paint and clear rhinestones around the edge.  See how the glue is still white down the bottom?

My friend Fernanda asked me if I could stitch a kit she bought.  I said sure, so she sent me the kit, cloth and floss.  I started it but with my back hurting, I've had to put it aside b/c I can't hunch over the craft table.  There are a lot of colour changes and mixed threads that require a solid surface rather than my recliner arms.

This one's much easier to do while sitting with the heating pad.  Well till I get to the beads anyway.

The weather has also been quite conducive to comfort food.  I made a quinoa cheesy bread and a broccoli, mushroom, onion and 3-cheese quiche.  DELISH!

Finally got around to getting a bundt pan.  It's been my intent to make Russell a pineapple upside down bundt cake for his bday, and it occurred to me that it's coming up a bit fast.  So I wanted to give it a whirl.  I used a cinnamon swirl recipe found HERE.  I was afraid that the cake would come out of the pan in pieces but it came out pretty good!

It cooled for a couple hours before I made the glaze.

The only thing I'd do different is increase the cinnamon sugar in the center.  Other than that, it's wicked good!

I really hope this snowy nightmare ends soon.