It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

From the Kitchen:

For the past two days I've been busily baking. Really, yesterday I was in the kitchen from as soon as I hopped out of bed, till nearly two in the afternoon. I made pizza dough, and at least three different batches of cookies. I wish I had taken a picture, I had four huge plates piled with cookies. Sadly, I handed off about half of them before even thinking of it. This morning I got up and made banana bread (which I just pulled out of the oven. Perfect for a yummy afternoon snack, along with coffee, before going off to work.)

I'm listening to:

Cold December Night. I love this song. Really I do.

I'm thinking:

The other day I was thinking on words. Actually, this is something I think on quite a lot. If you know me you will know that words are something I love, and consequently they are something I talk a lot about. (Goodness, I even named my last blog Meaningful Words, and my first post was on how we should choose our words carefully, because each word means something.) I was thinking about this program which you can use to see what your say ten, fifteen, twenty most frequently used words were on various websites. It's interesting you know, seeing what words you use the most often. Are they nice words? Words that give you a nice happy feeling, even as they are, disconnected from each other and any sentence that they might have been put into. I was thinking about if you could gather all those words that you spoke as well as wrote, what words would they be? I know the sort of words I would want my vocabulary to be summed up with, the question is, whether I live up to that. I certainly hope my words are ones that are kind and meant to bring joy to those with whom I'm talking, and those words that I have spoken that do not live up to this goal, I hope that I might eliminate in future.

Anyhow, this is a word cloud of a collection of words on this blog.

One of my favorite things:

The week before Christmas. I just want it to last forever. I just want to stretch out these days in which we get to finish up on Christmas presents, baking Christmas cookies and making Christmas crafts. On which topic, here's a picture of my favorite Christmas craft of this year

 

Isn't it just lovely?

 

 

I'm creating:

 

A couple days ago I embroidered the facial features on my knit doll, and I'm just finishing up the red dress I made for her. I'll post a picture after I sew on the arms, as the arms really are necessary. I am a little nervous to actually sew them, because I've worked so hard on her and I don't want to mess her up. I've also named her Lorna, after Lorna Doone, so I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate her name onto a tag of some sort.

 

I'm hoping:

 

For snow. I hope it will snow. Please? Please let it snow?

 

I'm reading:

 

The Book Thief. I'm actually really impressed by this book so far. It's one of the best written books of a recent publishing date that I've read.

 

I'm wearing:

 

Sweat pants, a green t-shirt and a jacket of my Dad's that is immensely to large for me. Yes, it is noon. Yes, I do have to work soon. No, I shan't be dressed in such a manner very shortly. However, too large jackets are really warm and cozy. Jackets that fit just aren't this cozy. They're really not.

 

 



Muddy Roads and Books

Outside my window

Today is a day that verges along the edge of a boundary, a line, that separates Fall and Winter. Perhaps if I lived somewhere else I would definitely describe it as Fall weather; cloudy skies, green grass tipped with frost, muddy roads, but for us, it has a hinting of Winter. Not that Winter is even supposed to begin until the end of the month (doesn’t that seem rather silly to you? December seems such a wintery month to me, and yet Winter doesn’t even begin till the last few days.) When I look out my window what I really want to describe most is mud. Dark, chocolaty brown mud. I like mud. That is, I like mud when I slip on my extra tall boots (courtesy of last Christmas and my increasing need for boots) and trump about in a road of mud. Mud that squishes, squelches, and sticks to the bottom of the old boots.

 I’m reading

The Book Thief (so far I’m really enjoying it. I’m about ten chapters in I think, and it’s really well written and absorbing. I dislike how the book is broken up with these bolded sections between paragraphs, it’s rather jolting, but so far that’s my only complaint. Then again I’m still near the beginning)

Skipping Christmas (This is a reread. I recommend. It always makes me laugh.)

A Wodehouse story from my Just enough Jeeves story collection.

I’m  finding my list of books increasing by dozen as I’ve been going through Sarah’s book blogs, and really, I want to read anything she suggests. I have a great big long list of books to find now.

From the Kitchen

Cold coffee sitting on the tabletop.

A few plans for the rest of the week

I’ve been filling out a new address book, slowly but surely. Who knew it could take such a long time? I’m about half way through. I also need to finish filling out Christmas cards, but extra envelopes are necessary. Also, I would like to create some Christmas ornaments and things. That’s always such fun.

I’m creating

Well, I believe I covered what I’m creating in the prompt above, but I do also need to finish up my doll. I want to have it all ready to give to Ella on Christmas.

I’m listening to

Squealing children running up and down the stairs, thump, thump, thump.