Under a Blue Moon

100th post

Who knew I had so much to yak about?

I just received a lovely package from a friend that knows I like to drink tea. She sent me a sampler set from the Chado Tea Room. I think this is a little hint to get out of my winey keemun rut and start being more adventuresome. It includes all kinds of tea; green, black, white, mates, rooibos. I’ve been intrigued with white teas so I think I’ll start with them.

Another fabulous source for tea is Savoure in Eugene, Oregon. Their Evening in Paris is as pretty as it is tasty, with bits of blue and yellow flower petals mixed in with the black tea.

I love the tin and tiny containers the tea comes in. I actually use the exact type of thing for my beads and crystals. I love having everything organized so.

It reminds me a little bit of the wine tasting kit Kevin Kline’s character made in the movie "French Kiss." Of course that was a wooden box but still – everything in it’s place and properly labeled. That’s probably what appeals to me so much.

Slow start or right on schedule?

I thought by now I’d at least have one tree up – but this weekend was more about sitting by the fire and reading (and doing the afore mentioned candy cane dippage). We did get the decorations down from the attic and put up our outdoor decorations. Mama tree and her baby (ignore the cord attaching the two, baby tree is still very much attached to mama’s apron strings).

I bought those two trees at the grocery store the week after Christmas a couple of years ago. They were blowing out all their Christmas decor so they were a steal. They twinkle very appealingly too – not an off/on sort of twinkling – REAL twinkling.

Next weekend one of the trees will go up in the house and the mantels will be decorated. Thanksgiving came a little earlier this year so it seems like everyone has their decorations all up already. Last night I was asked ‘if it was even worth it to decorate this late in the game." ~ I had to remind them it was ONLY December 3rd.

I was trying to place the outdoor trees so they are visible from the street, as you come down the driveway and from the house. Oh, and there has to be a power source somewhat nearby. Unfortunately the only room you can see them from is our bedroom but it sure is pretty driving up to the house. You can see our neighbor has their lights up already.

So next weekend I’ll have more pictures to post. Until then ~ be glad these people aren’t your neighbors (audio warning – if you are at work…).

Marthaness

This year I vowed to simplify my gift-giving and to incorporate more home made treats. I bought Martha Stewart’s Holiday Handmade Gifts magazine to help inspire and guide me to this end. It is a treasure trove of beautiful photographs and great homemade gift ideas.

One of the easier (ha!) ones is dipped peppermint sticks. The idea is simple. Take peppermint sticks, dip one end of the stick in melted white chocolate then dip in white nonpareils. Package up in a clear cellophane bag with cute label.

I’m envisioning bestowing adorable gifts of dipped peppermint sticks and some gourmet hot chocolate to all my friends and family.

Right.

So first off I can’t find plain old peppermint sticks – just candy canes. Which would be fine if I could only find PEPPERMINT candy canes. I’m finding garish green and pink and orange ones in various fruit flavors but no peppermint. I ask Rick to stop on his way home from work and he picks up three boxes of lovely red and white striped canes only to realize once they are home they are strawberry flavor. I wonder if Santa knows about this.

Finally I find regular old candy canes. No joke – had to go to four different stores before I could find them. My first batch of white chocolate chips seized up because I went a little too far in the heating up process. I had already eaten almost half the bag so I don’t have a lot to work with in the first place. I try again and manage to get the chocolate to the right consistency. I dip the canes in the chocolate then in the sprinkles. It is a huge drippy, lumpy mess and they look dreadful. Nothing like Martha’s.

So the first three are duds. I finally work out a system of dipping, then wiping off most of the chocolate, then pouring the sprinkles on. This seems to work a little better. Still not the pristine results Martha shows in her magazine.

At this point I’m guessing Martha has minions doing all the work and they are actually using Elmer’s glue instead of melted chocolate in some kind of food staging trickery.

Seriously, if you have the magazine look at page 8. There’s no way those babies are dipped in melted chocolate. If you happen to get one of these packages from me it must mean I love you very much. Because I’m not doing any more of them.

It’s on to Peppermint bark now.

Cozy

After the last post I thought I should do something a little cozier. A perfect evening, just sitting by the fire with a stack of books and a sleeping husband on one love seat and a sleeping kitty snuggled up next to me on the other.

This week I ended up taking the train home because my youngest needed my car this weekend. It’s about a four hour trip from the bay area (only just over two if I drive it). Once I get to Sacramento I get on a bus that takes me the rest of the way to the Rocklin train station where Rick is there to meet me. I’ve taken the train about half a dozen times now. The train ride itself is nice. I always take books or magazines to read or I plug in my laptop and do some work. The bus ride part isn’t all that interesting but it’s just the last half hour of the trip so it is tolerable.

It’s generally night by the time I get to the Rocklin train station and most of the other people on the bus get off at the stop before mine. Every single time the bus driver drops me off in a slightly different location. It’s always near the train station but it could be on the corner, or behind the station or across the street. I don’t really know my way around Rocklin so when I get off the bus nothing ever looks familiar to me. I have to pull out my cellphone and call Rick and ask him if he can see me and then I start describing landmarks around me. So if you are ever in Rocklin some evening and see a crazy looking woman loaded down with bags, slowly turning around in circles and waving her arms in the air – well, it’s just me.

This particular time there were about four police cars waiting for our bus so it was easy to spot me. The bus driver knows how many people are expected to transfer from the train in Sacramento so he waits a reasonable time to make sure everyone gets on. Well we are waiting a little longer than normal but finally the last guy gets on the bus. He look like a fairly well-groomed, Caucasian guy in his late 20’s or early 30’s. And he is drunk. I can smell it on him as he walks past me.

Things are pretty calm until we get to Roseville and he gets off the bus. Then he starts yelling that he forgot his bag on the bus. I remember when he got on he wasn’t carrying anything. He gets back on the bus and looks for his bag. Gets off the bus with the bus driver who looks in the luggage compartment – no bag. Then the guy starts yelling about how cold it is here in Auburn. The bus driver tells him he is in Roseville and to get back on the damn bus. He does and sits towards the back. People start moving to the front to get away from him.

THEN he starts talking like he is Flip Wilson doing his Geraldine impression.

He gets up and starts roaming around the bus looking for his bag (which I am sure he left at the Sacramento train station). The bus driver yells at him to sit down. Then he starts yelling at the bus driver that someone at the Roseville stop must have stolen his bag. Finally the guy sitting next to me calls the police and tells them we are five minutes from the Rocklin train and they might want to meet us there.

Which they did – there must not be much going on in Rocklin on a Wednesday night because I think all of Rocklin’s finest were there waiting for us. I got off the bus as quickly as I could.

It’s so very nice to be home.

Brrrrr

It was frosty cold last night. It was 30 degrees when I took these pictures. That’s pretty cold for us in No. California, at least in November. The frosted flowers were so pretty, sparkling in the sunlight this morning. They almost look like they have been sugared.

For some reason our garden doesn’t want to go to sleep yet. I have tons of flowers blooming. Our azaleas started blooming last month (several months early), I still have roses and even the impatiens are still going gangbusters although they were looking rather dispirited this morning. I think after last night they are all going to snug in for the winter.

One thing I vow to do this Winter is to keep on top of the bird feeders. I’ve been so busy that weeks go by and the feeders just hang there, empty.

I actually enjoy filling the feeders so it’s a not a chore to me. Time just manages to get away and the poor, neglected birds stop coming around as much. We rigged up this great pully system for one of the larger feeders up in one of the oak trees. Belle thinks we put the feeders up to lure birds for her to catch so we have to be clever in where we place the feeders. High enough and out of reach for the kitty but not so hard for us to refill them.

I usually just buy black sunflower seeds for the larger birds and nyjer seed for the finches. But this year I think I’ll do suet too. I did it one year but was so repulsed by it – trying to unwrap it and put it in the wire holder – I felt like I was smeared in lard from head to toe. Then someone told me to freeze it first – makes it much easier to handle.

We had to modify the finch feeder. There used to be a Japanese maple tree right next the deck. I was looking at the window and noticed that the feeder seemed to be moving up one of the branches. A squirrel had gotten ahold of it and was dragging it away to his lair! So we wired a rock to the bottom of it to make it heavier. I like how the rock looks, all green and mossy.

I have a pretty birdcage out on the deck too but I keep the door open. I dislike birds in cages – I know I’m projecting but I always think that they must feel like they are in jail. The little yellow bird in my cage could fly away if she wanted. Well, if she was real she could. I even want my faux birds to be free to come and go.

Flor de Fuxico

I posted the two pictures in yesterday’s post on YoYo’s on Flickr and got a comment from a gentleman in Brazil telling me that in his country they are called Fuxico. So I did a search and found a crafty blogger from Brazil with this really cute, floral rendition (scroll down the page until you get to her March 10th posting). She even has easy to understand visual instructions (a plus since I know about six words of Spanish, most of them unprintable).

I think Fuxico must refer to folded and gathered fabric. My search came up with both the floral version and the YoYo version. I even found a Fuxico Brazilian bikini for you more adventuresome types.

Fuxico comes from the word ‘fuxicar’ which means to gossip – what you do when you are sitting around with your girlfriends, making these.

I whipped up the blue and red one in about five minutes (I wish I had paid better attention to the order of my fabrics – I wouldn’t have had the same print side by side). I think a vintage button would make a better center and I also think they look cuter when the petals are all the same color. Look at this version with a crocheted center – further proof I need to learn how to crochet.

I’m enamored with these little gossipy blossoms but I’ll stick with my YoYo’s for now. I’m already committed, seeing as how I have seven of them done (not a lot of progress was made today, as you can see).

« Previous Page