The Lull Continues

Knitting and reading and taking pictures. What better things are there to do in this world anyway? Have to love the lull.

I just finished reading "The Righteous Men" by Sam Bourne. It is the first book of his that I have read and it was pretty good, fiction but based on the teachings of the Hasidic faith. Of course, there was the usual murder and mayhem as the theme of the book.

Last night I started "Life is a Campaign" by Chris Matthews.

So far it is pretty light weight but I'll let you know when I

get more into it.

And the knitting. With very little TV to watch now that has slowed down significantly. But I did finish the afghan for Nick for Christmas and was quite happy with it.

I have also finished the fronts of two baby sweaters and am now working on the two backs at the same time on the same needles. It will be a lot more fun when I get to the sleeves.

And today's event-- (Tara Brant is the mother of the soon-to-be one year old twins.)

Sylvia's Toys

Saturday, December 29, 2007

The lull between Christmas and New Year's. It always seems like the quietest time of the year. Not ready to put away the Christmas stuff although one of my friend's "waited" until the morning of December 26 to put away his tree and decorations. Not time to commit to those new year's do-better-resolves yet although they are tumbling around in your head. Just a nothing time. It is sort of like when you were a kid and played with all of your toys from Santa Christmas morning and then didn't have anything to do.

Ms. Sylvia got two toys for Christmas. A nice quiet tug rope that she carries around the house, putting it in a different room a couple of times a day. Another that she throws around and squeaks until we almost choke her.

At last-my arm is complete. Excellent!

Christmas Tradition #2

December 27, 2007


Cut-out Christmas cookies. You know the kind-bells and wreaths and trees and Santas and Santas-in his sleigh and Santas-in-the-chimney and wreaths and balls and stockings and snowflakes, etc, etc, etc. You can find cutters in any shape you want, any shape. Making the cookies isn't so bad, pretty routine. But then you have to roll them and try to keep them all the same thickness and try to keep them from breaking. Then you have to transfer them to the cookie sheet to bake and try to keep them from breaking. Then you have to transfer them to the rack to cool and try to keep them from breaking. Then you let them cool. And then, when they are all done and cooled you still have to make the icing and ice them-and try to keep them from breaking.


I always made these cookies when the kids were little. After all, those are what kids think of when they thing of Christmas cookies and you certainly couldn't leave any other kind for Santa, could you? I think I stopped making them very soon after Santa stopped coming to our house. A few years ago there was some grumbling in the troops about why there never seems to any of those "real cookies" any more so, with the same attitude, I started making them again maybe three years ago.


This year Liz was off from work all of Christmas week and made the mistake of coming into the kitchen and saying, "What can I do to help you?" Bless her heart. She made all of them and then actually found someone who was excited about decorating them.

They even monogrammed a couple of them-good elves that they were.

And what was Mrs. Claus and Ms. Sylvia doing while the elves were making cookies?

Christmas tradition #1

December 26, 2007

December 26. The day I always want Christmas to be over, the tree down, the decorations down, the food gone. Everything. Sort of sounds bah humbug.

Christmas traditions are probably the ones that people hang on to the longest, long after they have given up all others. I often think that my kids' generation is giving up so many cultural and religious traditions as we all become more unicultural, some of it being dictated by the necessity of being politically correct. My home is filled with things that mean something to me, from my family or the kids' father's family. I keep thinking I am going to walk around and photograph all of them and put them in a file somewhere, explaining who, what, when, where.

Then there are the traditions that one thinks they should have but they don't. Two examples come to my mind immediately and this year strengthened all of my reasoning about why I don't observe them.

The gingerbread house. I always always thought that was something I should make but the time involved seemed daunting. I also am not a big fan of dry, hard as rock cookies so it seemed a terrible waste of baking. I couldn't separate it being a food from it really only being a decoration.

When he was here for Thanksgiving, Liz's friend Rich was lamenting that he always wanted a gingerbread house but never had one. Um, Rich, you are Jewish. Nevertheless, when I was grocery shopping about three days later, there is was. A gingerbread house kit. Everything already made. All you do is put it together. The perfect Christmas gift for Rich.

So I bought it and Liz called Rich to tell him he had to come over to get his gift. My only involvement in this project was taking pictures. First picture looks so cute, doesn't it?

These two pictures are the real deal, why I never ever will make a gingerbread house.

This is where the gingerbread houses belong-in the New York Botanical Gardens with the two elves inside.

Christmas 2007

I realized that I have been taking so many pictures lately and no one ever sees them, not even the people who are in the pictures. I talked to my kids about it and they sent me here to try my hand at blogging and getting my pictures out there. Then, on top of that, I got two great Christmas gifts which tie into all of this. I got a one year membership to the New York Botanical Gardens and a digital SLR photography course from the New York Institute of Photography. So now I will have lots of photographs to share and you can watch my photos get better hopefully. You will have to look at some of the ones I have taken over the last few weeks in the beginning but hopefully I will be able to share with you the Botanical Gardens as well as so many other things ahead. Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I am going to enjoy taking them and putting them out there.