muppets do queen

There are no words...

three

My sweet little girl turns three today.

I'm so glad we opted for the squiggly, squirmy little black ball of fur instead of the quiet, shy version that was her sister. We thought we were nuts at the time for making the choice we made, but I can't imagine life without her.

made

I'm working on two things at the moment...ornaments for the Christmas season here at the shop, and keeping myself sane while working on said ornaments. Yeesh! All of these ideas sound so good in the beginning and yet actually sitting down and executing them is a royal pain in the rear.

Anyway, I bought a ton of these little ceramic birds and wasn't sure what to do with them. Stumbled upon the "make your own ornament" section at my local Michael's store and immediately a light went on in my brain. So, after making a gigantic mess with the mossy stuff, breaking a few birds and balls, and throwing out more curse words than I'd care to mention, I finished them all. 16 are ready to go in the shop. Some of the balls have green moss, some have brown. Some also have little holly berries in the bottom on top of the moss. Some balls are topped with red velvet ribbon, some with green or gold silk. Suggestions? Comments?


Sorry for the crappy photos but these buggers were nearly impossible to photograph!

update

Just wanted to give an update on Jeremie's condition for those of you waiting to hear, and I also wanted to provide an update on next week's fundraiser and raffle.

Jeremie is currently stable enough to have been taken out of the intensive care unit and moved onto another floor. He's awake and off of the ventilator but his pneumonia is still there and rearing its ugly head. Please continue to keep him in your thoughts and prayers. He's still not in the clear yet, but he's doing much better than he was. Thanks so much for all of your support.

As for the raffle, we have some items still coming in, so I think we're set for a great opportunity for those of you attending. We'll be giving away amazing pottery from local potters, jewelry from local and national artists, handbags from a few different ladies, a few paintings all done by local artists, some hand knits, two gift certificates for tattoos from local tattoo parlors, a gift certificate for a piercing, food giveaways, and more! Come on out and take a chance! You won't be disappointed, I assure you. And thank you so, so very much to everyone who contributed! I can't thank you enough.

If there's anyone else who might be interested in donating an item, it's not too late! Thanks!

weekend recap

Yes, my weekend recap comes to you on Thursday, but hey, that's how I roll. My weekend generally starts on Saturday night and ends on Monday night. It takes me a little effort to get it together once the week starts again.

Saturday:

Watched Miguel Cotto get his hiney handed to him.


Also got my Freddie Roach fix. Yes, I have a little thing for Freddie.


Enjoyed the second fire of the season.


Sunday:

Found this weird feather configuration.



And of course, the most important part of the weekend...

PIEROGIES!!!

Learned the basic rules.


Boiled some taters.


Kneaded some dough.


Learned the secret behind Gram's kick ass potato filling.


Also learned exactly how much butter goes into the sauerkraut pierogi. Hint: this isn't all of it.


Boiled up the mother load. We had ten dozen all together.


And ate. Lots.


I just want to say that I will remember this forever. Four generations of women gathered together in a small kitchen, learning family traditions that would have otherwise gone forgotten. Thanks, Gram!

ask and ye shall receive

Remember this post from just a few days ago?

My wish came true. Heading to the big city next month to catch the late show at the Mercury Lounge.

Welcome back, Mr. Bachmann. Welcome back.

torrid love affair

It's happened. I am in love with my neti pot. Go out and get one. Today.

help, please

I've hesitated to write about this situation until now, but it's time.

My brother-in-law is in the hospital and has been for close to three weeks now. I haven't said anything up until this point on the old blog here mostly because he's a very private person and I didn't want to blab his personal business all over the internet. So...yes, he's in the intensive care unit in a local hospital with apparent bacterial pneumonia and he's in pretty rough shape. He's on a ventilator and being kept in a medically induced coma. He's being fed through a tube and kept quiet while the doctors try to figure out how to make him better. He's very young (under 30) and normally a strong, burly person. This just took everything out of him.

As you know already, my sister and her husband have two small children, and I'm sure you can imagine the kind of financial toll this situation can put on any young family. We'd like to help out as much as we can, so family and friends have joined together to arrange a fundraiser for them. If you're in the area, please join us on November 28th. All other details are included in the flyer below. You could always call me or e-mail me if you have any questions.

I'm taking the reins on a raffle to be held at the benefit and I'm looking for people to help out with this. If you're an artist, crafter, jeweler, business owner, etc. and you'd like to make a donation, that would be AMAZING!!! We'll take any item you'd like to donate and gift certificates, movie passes, vouchers, etc. are all welcome also.

Thank you so much in advance! Hope to see you there!

basic day to day needs

Oh, Mr. Eric Bachmann, please come back for another run. I'd give my left arm at this point. And the left one is the good one.

guess what iiiiiiiiii got?

Dave and Kate gave me a sweet birthday gift. I know I shouldn't be surprised because, duh, they always give amazing gifts, even when they shouldn't. Ahem. You'll have to check with them, but I'm pretty sure I actually squealed like a toddler when I opened it. Kate Etsy-stalked me and found it in my faves. It's now hanging proudly in my kitchen. If you want one of your own, go here.

Haven't had a chance to get a good photo of it, but Sandy also gave me an awesome gift...a really cool photo of a dead bird which I adore and quickly installed in the living room. It might sound all weird or morbid to hang a photo of a dead bird in one's living room, but the colors in this print are fantastic and the photo is beautiful.

Thanks, guys. You're the best! But you shouldn't have.

tried and true

If your household is anything like mine, you get a small ton of junk mail in your mailbox weekly. I took a tip from an old friend a while back and started taking steps toward revenge. Since then, any time I get a piece of mail that includes a postage-paid return envelope, I simply write a note back to the company letting them know that I'm not interested in whatever it is they're trying to sell me, stuff it in the return envelope, and make them pay to have their own tree-killing garbage sent right back to them. You don't have to pay a cent! Sometimes it takes more than one attempt (Discover clearly doesn't get it), but our junk mail load is minuscule compared to what we used to get. I also recently learned that my incredibly awesome father-in-law does this too, only he stuffs various other things into the envelope to add weight, making the companies spend even more money to get their crap back. Give it a shot! It works.


Oh, and P.S....some of my notes aren't always this nice. Like I said, Discover clearly doesn't get it.

grandmas

Last night I remembered a conversation I'd had with Nabua a while back about old traditions and how people seem to have forgotten about how things used to be done. We as people are so anxious to find the quicker, easier (and nowadays, cheaper) method and we're forgetting more and more about doing things the old fashioned way. Tradition is so important, at least to me, and it makes me sad to think of all the things that will phase out of daily living as technology improves and people get lazier.

Nabua and I were talking about cooking at the time, but I guess the same can be said about everything from art and craft to business, farming, etc. After watching one of the Craft in America episodes on PBS, I realized that the single most important thing I absorbed was a comment made about forgotten trade. I can't recall for sure, but I'm pretty sure they were talking about blacksmithing. The episode focused on young men learning, from a very old and well known blacksmith, Philip Simmons, the traditional ways of bending iron. Today most factories do things by machine, taking the artist out of the picture completely. The young apprentices stressed the importance of learning traditional methods because if people stop using them, or, more importantly if people stop wanting to learn how to do things the old fashioned way, the old way will die out and the tradition will come to a dead halt. It's incredibly important that this never happens.

Nabua had talked quite a bit about the things she's learned from her mother and father, both of whom are no longer living. She encouraged me to learn as much as I can from the older generations, namely my grandmother, because once she's gone there will be no one to teach me the things that she knows. Even if they tried they could never teach me in the same way that only she can.

My grandmother taught me how to sew. She taught me a few dance moves. She taught me how to jump rope, the proper etiquette for sledding, how to flip your eyelids inside out, and the art of telling a dirty joke like a lady. She told me endless stories about my ancestors, always stressing the importance of family and history. And the one thing I've always wanted to learn from her but never have is her method for making pierogies. When Nabua stressed the importance of learning from my grandmother, pierogies were the first thing that popped into my head. That may seem incredibly corny to you, but no one makes pierogies like Gram can. When we lost Aunt Peg earlier this year and her son passed out a laminated copy of a photo tutorial of Aunt Peg making her famous apple pie, it dawned on me that Tommy was thinking the same thing I was...pass these traditions on so people will remember. I'll keep that recipe forever.

This post was originally supposed to be about Alton Brown. But as I was driving into work this morning and thinking about one particular Good Eats episode, I realized that this post wasn't just about Alton, it was about me, too. When I arrived at the shop, I called my grandmother up and made a date to come to her house and learn how to make pierogies. I plan to document the process like Tommy did with Aunt Peg's apple pie and pass it down the line when the time is right.

The Good Eats episode I planned to talk about today features Alton teaching us, the viewers, about biscuit making, both the old and new methods. Alton stood side by side in his kitchen with his grandmother, or Ma Mae, as he calls her, and demonstrates old tradition versus a new way of doing things. This episode really meant something to me, and I hope you'll enjoy it too! She seemed like a feisty woman, and Alton frequently mentions in interviews that the Ma Mae episodes were his favorite because it gave him the opportunity to learn from her before she passed away.



This is the second half of the episode featuring Ma Mae, but if you'd like to watch the first half too, go here.

so unbelievably proud!

We found out recently that our dear friend Dave was selected out of many, many entries to participate in an art exhibit in Thailand and we couldn't possibly be more proud! Such an amazing opportunity! Dave's wife, Kate, sent a link my way to a review of the show and an image of one of Dave's paintings is attached. Congrats, dude!

Check it!

Oh, Augusten

He's done it again:

Haven't cracked it open yet, but this weekend...oh, it's on. I thank god for this man. I really, really do.