Planning ahead

Call me crazy, but I've already been planning for the holiday season. Yes, Christmas will be upon us soon, in the mere blink of an eye! Don't miss out on the most important event of the season, the most memorable, the most fun and family friendly! Yes, I'm talking about Merry Tuba Christmas!
Make sure to check out your state's offerings HERE.
As for me and my family, we will be downtown at the Inner Harbor on December 6th. We are already looking forward to the music and the biker Santas. (What better way to hammer home the *truth* of Santa than to show your child more than 50 Santas in one location, many in odd themed Santa outfits... "Gas-mask Santa", anyone?)

Almost finished

We are finished for this year, at least. I think we did pretty well for our first real stucco job. While Jim and I did most of the work, even the kids had a hand in the finished product!

bounty

This year was hard for my garden. While we did enjoy eating fresh produce, there wasn't the usual over abundance. We had trouble with a fungus or mildew attacking many of our plants. I thought that potato bugs had eaten the blue potato plants - we didn't have any of them left in the garden. Oh well.
I dug up many sweet potatoes and looked to see if there were, perchance, any blue potatoes at all. There were! Yay! While it's not enough to get us through the winter if we have another great depression, we will enjoy quite a few good dinners from that harvest.








So far we have eaten blue mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, and a medley of roasted potatoes. Our favorite so far? Baked sweet potato chips! They are easy to make and delicious to boot.











Last night I scrubbed the largest sweet potato (it was a monster!), cut off the pointy end, and used this dangerous old tool to slice it up. (Do you remember the one Mom used? I have one made by the same company. Lots cheaper than buying a new, good quality mandolin!)











After tossing the slices with a little oil I put them in a single layer on the baking sheet. A little salt and pepper went on before they were popped into the oven while I fried up some tilapia.








And here they are, the finished product, just begging to be eaten. Well, they don't have to beg - they get eaten quickly at our house!

It's done!

Oh, did you think I meant the stucco? Or the basement? No, we still have miles to go on those... it's Jamie's quilt that is finally done. I had finished piecing the top wa-a-a-y back in February, and worked on hand-quilting it together all summer. I was able to put the binding on this week. After a quick turn in the washer and dryer it was happily received and put to immediate use.
Did you know that you are supposed to label your quilt once you have finished it? Giving it a name is also highly recommended... this one is "Yellow Katamari" (check out the Namco Katamari website if you need help to understand why!).

As to the basement - the carpet is gone. The painted floor is peeling, which means we must remove and repaint. That means we cannot put the sewing room back to normal yet. Which leads to me not knowing what to do with myself!

Ah, but the stucco job is nearing it's end. We have figured all the surfaces covered with at least one coat, some just need their texture coat. We did figure out how to do that, after much head-scratching and experimental applications. Hopefully we can get that done before the frosts come!

update on the Christmas lists

To add to the kids' wish lists:

Playstation 2 "Beautiful Katamari" or "We love Katamari"
David Macaulay's books: Mill Mosque Ship