Gifts, gifts and more gifts!

and I'm having fun, fun and more fun! I'm having a very successful year so far in the gift-giving ideas department. This is not how it usually goes. I'm usually just so flustered and frustrated and no one helps when you ask what they want. But this year is totally different. I just wish I could share with you what I've got going becuase I'm so excited. I've really out done myself and I think people are going to be surprised. But I'm afraid the worldwide web is the wrong place to confide the great gift ideas I've come up with. I'll take photos and will be posting after the big day.

First and foremost, I've been consumed with what to do for Heidi's family over there in China but I think I have it taken care of. I'm going to try to get everything mailed off by Nov. 30th! That should be plenty of time to get to them. It has been quite amusing to watch me mentally weigh everything and imagine how well it will fit into the proper size flat-rate boxes. I sent off a "get excited for the Christmas season" package to them yesterday and for 1 DVD and a package of Hershey's kisses it cost $11 to mail. Should be interesting to see what the rest will total. It's OK Swapps! You guys are worth it! I did get an email last week about an airline special from Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Miami or Washington, DC to Beijing for $275 round trip if you flew by Dec. 13th. I was so excited. I was already planning what to pack. Then I went online and discovered that tickets from Salt Lake to those eastern cities were around $450! Besides the cost I'd have to fly SLC to the east coast then back across the country to Beijing and back the same way on the return trip. It seemed overwhelming so I'll just use the $275 on postage and my packages can make that grueling flight. When we go over in May I'm just going to fly DIRECT! I do think there is a layover in LA but that is atleast in the same direction as my final destination.

Last summer I signed up to be included in a fun online gift exchange called "Pink Christmas". I think about 150 others signed up too so alot of people are involved. Along with the gift exchange portion everyone was asked to donate $10 to a bone morrow transplant for the niece of the woman that organized this online exchange. I think the transplant was done in October and I'm hoping and praying that all has gone well and that Claire is going to be feeling better by Christmas. I'm sure lots of people donated more than the suggested $10 amount. I hope these funds were helpful to their family as well.


Each person that signed up filled out a questionaire with some information about each of us and then we were all randomly assigned someone to give a homemade gift to. We were all supposed to have these gifts completed by Thanksgiving and mailed off by the first of December. I knew immediately what it was that I wanted to make to give to my partner but I knew I had LOTS of time before I had to make it. Finally a couple weeks ago I got started and it has turned out so perfectly! I'm way pleased with it and can hardly wait to give it to her! I hope she'll like it as much as I liked making it for her. Along with her information from her questionaire answers I got her blog address and so I have been reading it for several months now and it has been alot of fun to "get to know her" even though she has absolutely no idea who I am or that I'm following her life via her blog.

Given the success of the above mentioned handmade gift, I have made 3 more similar to the one I made for Pink Christmas. I'm giving those to 3 special friends (in my real life!). I really love to make things by hand. It probably means more to me than it does to the receiver but that is what gets me excited about giving these gifts and even the ones that I don't make.

I'm always blown away by people that say they have all their gifts and shopping done by Halloween. I usually get my best ideas at the last minute. Well, this year the ideas are coming lots earlier and I'm having a lot of fun! I just hope I don't run out of steam before the big day!

Turkey delight

What a truly delightful Turkey-day we had this year! It was so low key and just enjoyable. I had invited a couple other extended families to come and join us but as it turned out our dinner was very small and intimate -- just Cam & LaRane & kids and my parents. It was the "odd year" so Katie and Clark went to Idaho -- we missed you guys! Since the dinner was at my house, I figured it was easiest for me to do the turkey, dressing, potatos and gravy. LaRane brought the yams & apples casserole and the salad and the pumpkin pies. My mom got the year off.

Have you ever brined your turkey? I have been doing this for the last couple years and it is definately worth the extra step. I did buy a frozen turkey -- about a 16 pounder. I started thawing it on Sunday so it would be ready to brine for 24 hours before cooking. I got out my big orange insulated beverage cooler (the kind that are used at sporting events) and lined it with 2 plastic garbage bags. Then I put a couple gallons of water in with 2 cups of salt and 1 cup of sugar and various other ingredients like a whole bulb of garlic, lots of celery stocks, a bunch of parsley and then submerged the bird and twist tied the bags and actually sat the cooler outside in the shade of the house during the day and in the garage over night because the temperature was below 38 degrees and because it would never have fit in my fridge. When I was ready to roast it in the oven, I just rinsed off the brine and patted it dry and did my usual stuffing and roasting and it was perfect -- very moist and flavorful.

It is always fun to get out the "good" china, crystal and sterling silverware... you know, the wedding presents that only get used on special occassions. I liked the way my table came together. I was trying to take photos of it before we sat down to eat and I liked this "artistic view" that I came up with.

I loved watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade... I love watching it while I'm preparing the dinner. And I have to admit that after the parade was done I immediately turned on Christmas music. Mentally, I'm ready to take on Christmas which was evidenced by the fact that I got up Friday morning (after sleeping in! NO black-Friday shopping for me!) and pulled out all the boxes of Christmas decorations from underneath the stairs. So between yesterday and today I have gotten everything dressed up and decked out for the next season except for the Christmas tree which I can't actually face until it is actually December! We even received our first Christmas card in the mail (thanks, Kristy!) and went to a very enjoyable Christmas music concert Friday night. So despite my negativity a few posts ago, I can honestly say I'm in the Holiday mood.

Quilt of the week

I gave this quilt to my father for Christmas back in 2000. It actually served as 2 gifts in one. I found the fabrics and the pattern in a kit at a local quilt shop and thought it would be the perfect birthday gift for my dad. His birthday was in August so I just wrapped up the kit and after he opened it I took it back and got started sewing away and got the quilt finished in time to give it to him for Christmas that year.

My father grew up on a farm in Tooele, Utah and they always had chickens. I guess for that reason he has always had a fondness for them. When I was growing up we lived in the more rural area of Holladay, Utah and dad had chickens there for a while -- we mostly had horses but we did have chickens too. About 10 years ago my dad started collecting various pieces of chicken and rooster "art". He set up a whole set of shelves just specifically to display his flock. My mom didn't exactly share his same affection so if you were to give dad a chicken as a gift it made him really happy and made my mom really not too happy. But I couldn't help myself when it came to this quilt.

The quote around the border has special meaning as well. My dad would always tease the grandkids by pretending to call the chickens to "come and get them". If they were doing something annoying, he'd say "chickens come and get ________ (insert annoying grandchild's name), Cock a doodle do!" For some reason this would always freak out the grandchild and they would stop doing whatever it was they weren't supposed to be doing and run to their parents for safety. After a while, all the grandkids caught on and it just became a funny, teasing, joking threat and soon everyone began calling the chickens to come and get him!

The quilt is machine pieced, hand appliqued and hand quilted for the most part. I actually never finished quilting in the border. Everytime I see it I think I should take it home and finish quilting the border but it hasn't happened yet. This is the second quilt I have made for him. The first one is blocks of different cowboy boots and hangs up at the family cabin.

Xeriscape...

or more literally... ZERO(maintenance)scape! Top photo ... before; lower photos... after! We live on a corner and this corner has been a perpetual challenge in the landscaping department. When we first moved here 14 years ago, I decided that I would plant only perrinal plants and flowers here since they come back every year unlike annuals. Well, for the first 4 or 5 years, this area was really beautiful. The flowers came back every year and they flourished and I loved it but............ then the more delicate flowers (columbines and lupines) started to disappear and the more hardly flowers (cosmos and asters) started to take over and it was looking less and less attractive. I even tried planting petunias and geraniums but nothing seemed to thrive there any more. I don't know if it was the tree roots were sapping all the nutrients and taking up all the soil or the heat intensity because this is a southeast corner. Not to mention that we live in a desert environment here. Anyway... I have been so frustruted for about the past 4 years and finally I'd had it!

Paul & I went to our local Parade of Homes this past summer and all the million $ homes had this gravel-kind of landscaping... TA DAH! The answer to my frustration! So for the past month or so we have been working on this little project and it finally got finished this past weekend and I LOVE IT! When I say "we've been working on it" I really mean some landscapers have been doing all the work... except we did have to pick out all the rocks. By the way, rocks are expensive! But we won't have to buy new ones every year! I think I'm going to like this new look. Maybe I'll look into fake grass next!