Howdy – do! I haven’t posted anything in absolute ages – and most of my excuses had to do with being busy and crazy and heaps of laundry and everything else . . . but today those excuses don’t apply. As a matter of fact, I’m actually in danger of starting to get a touch bored. Today my cousin Brooke is babysitting the kids and I’ve come into town with Ben. The Christ Church library has asked him to write something about their Hebrew collection for a publication of theirs, so he had to come down and look through the collection of 16th century Hebrew manuscripts. I came along for the ride and also for the coffee and croissant that we’ll grab together afterwards.

So here I sit, in the upper gallery of the Christ Church library. This is where they keep the rare manuscripts, and you can only really come in by appointment. The lady who oversees this library told us once that they have another huge collection somewhere else with 10,000 volumes that is completely un-cataloged and they have no idea what’s in it. She pulls things out for displays occasionally, and regularly finds things like first edition Copernicus . . . you know, trifling things like that. Read More

Thanks to all the scads of you who entered! Just for the fun of the thing we got a charming porter at Christ Church to officiate for us on the drawing. And hooray for Tonya!

In answer to a couple questions in the comment section, I just need to get a few things off my chest. I’m sensing that there are some misperceptions roaming about that need to get nipped in the bud.

So first of all, by way of background information, I have and have always had, a terrible urge to make things. It really is something I can’t help, and I frequently get myself in WAY over my head in ridiculous projects. For me, this itching inside to make something, anything, is like a beach ball that you’re sitting on under water. You can keep it down for just so long and then suddenly and without warning it comes rocketing out and you find yourself, oh say, making a mosaic on your kitchen floor or tearing the moldy upholstery off of a chair that you found in a hedge and trying to reupholster it in a matelasse bedspread that you have stuffed in the top shelf of your hall closet because you knew it would come in handy one day. But first you have to dye the bedspread because it’s the wrong color and one thing leads to another and suddenly you realize instead of getting the sheets washed you’re actually dying a bedspread in the washer, and that you forgot to put the roast in the oven at 3:00 like you were supposed to . . . . and the bathroom didn’t get scrubbed because you were so busy spritzing down the chair frame with the mold killer that you were supposed to be spritzing in the shower . . . Read More

Alright ladies – if you haven’t yet ordered a Skirty to put in your daughter’s Christmas stocking then you’re starting to cut it a little close. Order it now and you still have time to get it there before Christmas.

Because sometimes, even when they’re sitting like ladies, they could still use a Skirty!
Pop over to amorettidesigns.com and you can cross that one off your list.

Bad news, team. I’m about to get pompous. Yea, lo, even to the point of posting a picture about it.
Here’s what happened. I decided to make fudge for friends this Christmas. Nothing extravagant in that – pretty run of the mill I’d say. But the reason I decided on fudge is that they don’t have the same Christmas fudge traditions over here in this old and jolly country. They have something they call fudge . . . . and no doubt to them it IS fudge. But it doesn’t necessarily involve chocolate – and I’ve heard from those who know these things that it can even come in strawberry flavor. And no, it’s not that brown sugar fudge stuff (which I always think is a disappointment to be
perfectly honest) – it’s more like a soft toffee with lots of cream in it that you can cut into squares. It’s awfully good and I could eat way too much of that stuff. But as far as festive food goes . . . they eat mince pies here at all of the moments where we Americans would just say it with fudge.

Then I happened to see in the grocery store a jar of “marshmallow fluff” (don’t blame me – that’s what it was called) and I thought to myself, “Self: You should make some fudge to give out as Christmas treats.” There are all of the plain old reasons that you always give fudge at Christmas – it’s good and it’s fattening. But this time there was the added bonus that I would be giving something unusual – a feature that doesn’t usually show up when Read More