Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Archives for December 2011

Etsy Uno: Champagne Week

   Another fabulous gimmick, this time connected to the hand made marketplace Etsy. What fun!! Bitty Bird has invited other bloggers to join her in a Tuesday morning game of Etsy Uno, whereby players explore the luscious handmade wares of cool-chick type artisans there then do a little light-hearted game of relationships.

   A note on Etsy: It’s cool you guys. It’s right up my imagination alley. It’s so great, even if some people say that by now it’s reached the “mainstream” status. I don’t care. I’m not quite hip enough to be deliberately ironic, anyway. I just know what I like. 
   You can find a treasure there no matter what your style or price range. You can also find a thousand years’ worth of crafty inspiration. So if you’re not already a regular haunter of Etsy, please consider scheduling a few vacation days just to look around on there.
   
   Okay.

   This is my first time linking up, so I’ll share her instructions here. Thanks Bitty Bird!

This is how you play:
  1. I give you a prompt. This week, the prompt is CHAMPAGNE.
  2. Pick one item on Etsy that relates to the prompt and add the photo to your blog post. You must give photo credit to the Etsy seller by linking back to the item in their shop. The purpose of this game is to show love to the talented artisans behind the Etsy shop and promote their original handmade products! Never, ever take a photo without giving credit where it is due.
  3. The second item must share something in common with the first one, and subsequent choices must share something in common with the item immediately before it– use your imagination. That’s what makes this like the game “Uno”! List 5-10 items and explain or describe how one relates to the other. You never know where you might end up!
  4. If you want to play, copy and paste these instructions to your blog post, and make sure to grab an Etsy Uno button from www.bittybird.net to promote the game: and tell your friends! Link up your Etsy Uno post at the bottom of my post every Tuesday morning, beginning at 5AM CST.
  5. If you have the time, please take an opportunity to send a note to the Etsy sellers you found in order to let them know their product was recognized on your blog.  Remember, the point is to support and encourage the hardworking artisans that inspire us every day!
 1…2…3… GO!

Champagne beige tutu skirt full length for women.
Tutus Chic Boutique is the artist behind this frothy dream.
I need to own this you guys.
Would you look at it? 

I would totally wear this dress while feeding hay to the big animals, 
while collecting eggs from the chickens (assuming they ever lay eggs again),
and while going on afternoon dog walks, all the time reciting French poetry.

I would wear this vintage-feel skirt to harvest sweet basil, clip roses,
observe Oklahoma sunrises, and sniff the wild honeysuckle vines.
I might even clean up now and then and wear it to dinner with Handsome.

It costs $235 plus shipping and I am positive is worth every penny.
Rustic and Country Chic Vintage Inspired Tulle Rose with Burlap Accent Wedding Decor
   Weekend in the Country is the Texas Etsy shop where I found this charming gem. It is a tulle and burlap rosette listed as a wedding favor, and I think it would be just lovely as such. I can also imagine it being used in almost any kind of home decor, because of its natural colors and two different textures, and it’s only $5!
   I might have enough left over after buying my every day tulle prairie skirt to scoop up the remains of this supply! Really pretty.
Burlap Table Cover
Paula and Erica from New Jersey are offering this simple but sumptuous table skirt.


I also must own this, you guys.
Not maybe, not “wouldn’t that be nice???”
I need this table skirt as soon as possible.

   At $140, this is not unreasonable. And it appears to have a nice deep hem, tight gathers, and is made of a heavy burlap which is not easy to work with at home, so I know they will get many buyers.
Rainbow Party Ruffle table cloth
Oh, I’m sorry, did that surprise your eyes a little bit? 
After all of the soothing earth tones this is a bit much, eh?

The UNO connection, of course, is the fabulous ruffling.
Not just one tightly gathered skirt like in the burlap creation 
but up to S-I-X colorful tiers of the happy stuff.

   Strut Your Stuff is an Etsy shop belonging to a woman named Morgan from Colorado. As if this rainbow ruffled table skirt isn’t enough, she also crafts pieces of “wearable art” for children. Really cute, cheerful little shirts and ruffled pants. If you have a little girl in your life who is fun to dress up, check Morgan’s shop! Her prices are more affordable than most boutiques, too.

I have to insert here that this table skirt is the inspiration 
for an apron I’ll be working on in January.

Ruffle Apron - Vintage Type - Size Adult
More Than a Memory is selling these striking aprons!


She is from Anchorage, Alaska, 
but I have no idea of her opinion on Sarah Palin.

   The ruffles are always cute and I love her fabric combination, but the hip rosette is what makes it extra sweet to my eyes. I also love that she has serged the edges, not hemmed them. 
********************
   So there we have five handmade items from the Etsy corner of the universe, all connected by different threads. Cheers to every artisan who strikes out to make something tangible out of his or her imagination. You make the world more beautiful!
   And thanks, Bitty Bird, for hostessing such a different sort of link up party! It was fun having an excuse to look around Etsy, and I know that my very important mission led me to different shops than I might normally find.
bitty bird.

Quick Post of Jubilation

   I have a lot to celebrate right now 
but only a few minutes to share it.

  • I traded happy texts with my first born today, for about an hour. It’s a really good thing we were texting and not talking on the phone, because I was so happy I couldn’t stop crying. My hands were shaking too, but I could steady them enough to type.
  • I am enjoying a lot of success in the sewing room this week. Feeling very blessed with both intrinsic joy and a steady stream of orders.
  • Our animals are particularly healthy, silly acting, and fully entertaining. I mean, sometimes Pacino is a little too loud when we are trying to have a quiet conversation, but that will never really change. The horses are sweet, fat cuddlers. The buffalo is just the gentlest snorting fluffy head you will ever see. And the geese and chickens are getting along this week. Dog walks have been a daily bright spot, too. xoxo
  • My little sister will be staying at the farm starting Christmas Eve, and I could NOT be happier. She is the shiz-nay. She has taken a little slice of Oklahoma with her to Los Angeles, making it a cool place after all. And I hope she knows I intend to blog lots of details about her visit.
  • After that we are hosting M Half and her Hubs, and that will be wonderful for a thousand reasons! I always enjoy our time together!
  • A much anticipated movie is now in theaters, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I thought it opened Thursday and may or may not have been dropping hints to you-know-who. We just found out it is already open, though, so his romantic opening-night surprise intentions are blasted. I still think we’ll go. I read the books and loved ’em. Can’t wait to see this and then the Swedish film and debate it all. Mostly, though, there’s the small matter of Daniel Craig on the big screen.
  • Our Charlie Brown tree hasn’t fallen down in almost a week.
  • I looked around myself this week and noticed how much romance plays a part in our happiness. Between the two of us here, in so many of our close friends’ relationships, and in a general appetite for living, a way of soaking up the universe, romance is in our daily fabric. And I love it. I feel very lucky to live this way and wish it for so many others, including my two beautiful daughters (but not quite yet, pretty please).
  • The sea monkeys are growing and thriving and in a pretty good mood. They have all been named now, and so a drama series will soon begin.
  • We have a kitchen full of oranges and apples. This is good.
  • I love my new coffee machine,. So much. So very, very much.
  • I have a lunch date on Thursday with two of this world’s sweetest, prettiest, funniest, most talented, most loving girls ever created. 
  • I have a Netflix date with Handsome right now. Gotta scoot.
Siiiimply
Haaaaving
a Wonderful Christmastime!
xoxoxo

Karma Has a Mic and it’s Switched On

   This morning we had a pared down Christmas service at church. Lots of family circumstances are different this year, and not just in our little corner of the world. Seems like every household is enduring something difficult that, collectively, has changed the landscape of our church. Without quite enough people to put on our traditional Nativity production, we gathered today for preaching, cookies and juice, and singing. Lots and lots of singing.
   We sang so many songs.

   At the top o’ the mornin’ my husband was called up to the pulpit to sing some traditional tear-jerkers with his Uncle David, a fellow preacher. This duo was intended to, well, elicit those much anticipated holiday blubberings.  You know, hearing the old songs in reverent, baritone voices,  feeling those decades-old holiday memories swirl around us, and getting all caught up in the salt water magic. Help us purge the pain by candlelight.

   But guess who was not ready to cry Christmas tears? Who was, instead, ready to break it down Elvis style?

   My Handsome. 

   He sauntered up to the microphone and openly referred to his mother, our organist and Pastor’s wife, as “Little Lady.” He shimmied his voice and curled his upper lip at every opportunity. He cheerfully complained about every key in which she played said organ, completely interrupting the flow of the service. But somehow this festive anarchy drummed up smiles instead of sneers. Tendrils of laughter began to smoke up from the congregation, everyone relaxed, and pretty soon my guy was in full on Christmas Elvis mode.
   For the record, lots of people were laughing. 
Let’s establish that early on.

   But an old friend, Beatrice, who was seated with her fiancee behind me was laughing a lot. Way more than me, just so you know, although I was laughing too.

   Eventually we were kind of laughing with inappropriate volume and energy for a church service. A Christmas church service. A Christmas church service that was supposed to be sad, or at least somber. It was wrong, but I could not stop.

   And you know how a good belly laugh takes on a life of its own? Well, that definitely happened, and on top of that, Handsome’s inner comic totally fed off of our unbridled goofiness. My friend Beatrice and I may or may not have crossed the line from “entertained” to just plain “rude,” but let’s not judge.

   The point is that about halfway through the singing, the Little Lady called Beatrice and me up to the microphone.

   To sing.

   Neither of us is a singer by nature, so we froze like startled fainting goats. We even let out those pitiful little terrified moans before our stiff little goat legs sprang up into the air.

   Unwilling to suffer the consequences of not only interrupting service but then rebelling against the sense of singing teamwork, Beatrice and I righted our goat selves from shock and tiptoed reluctantly to the pulpit. 

   Handsome, the guilty instigator but crowd-approved victim of heckling, was way too happy to thrust microphones into our mortified faces. And he was still Elvissing! S-E-R-I-O-U-S-L-Y.


   My giggling came to a screeching halt and my face was hot like lava. Hot like Elvis. Hot like not heaven. We proceeded to fake like we were singing until we realized nobody else was singing with us, just watching. We were busted lip syncing to nothing, relying on the guys to smooth out our nonexistent tones. 


   Let me just say that if I am wrong here 
and Beatrice was in fact singing, 
she was as quiet as a butterfly. 
A scared, mute, sleeping butterfly.

   We were on the hook for way more than one song and the microphones were not leaving, so verse by verse I tried to muster up a Christmas groove. I probably sounded like a donkey going through prepubescent voice changes, but I pressed out every word. Beatrice gradually sang too but physically retreated inch by inch away from the mic.

   Her backwards scooting became so pronounced that eventually Uncle David exclaimed on it loud and clear, “If you push us back anymore we’ll be off the platform!” Laughter exploded at this point, and that might have been the final song. Our punishment was evidently fulfilled.

   I am not sure if there is a clear lesson to be learned here, but the anatomy of karma cannot be overlooked. I will say that the mood was lightened and brightened far past our gloomy expectations for today.

   And for me it was worth it.

Wishing you some MERRY for your Christmas…
And cheers to living with no regrets.
xoxoxo

Fridays are for Cooking

   I have visited two wonderful grocery stores in two days and have finished all of my truly important household chores for the week. I have scoured our calendar and my recipe collections for fabulous ideas and excuses to enjoy them. And tomorrow I have exactly ZERO reasons to leave the farm. To paint the picture a little better, let me say that I have a pantry and refrigerator packed with delicious ingredients and a Friday, in a clean house, all to myself.
   It’s almost like Christmas.
   Wait…
   Okay. So, there are at last count nine incredibly tasty dishes on the Lazy W horizon this weekend. 
   Tomorrow Handsome is taking the ole stand-by apple tart to an office food day. The fine ladies up there organize nearly a month of festivity every December, including Dirty Santa games and “Days of Christmas” food days. YUM and FUN. Everyone up there works so hard; no one deserves an extended party more!
  The apple tart is from Edie’s Life in Grace blog, which is a beautiful place to land for a thousand reasons.  The only thing I do differently is skip the glaze. We like it on the crispier side of life, and the glaze makes it less crisp. I can make this in my sleep now, Handsome requests it so often. 5 apples, 4 cups flour, 3 sticks butter, 2 cups sugar, spices. Bam.
   Then for a Christmas party we’re attending Saturday night I’ll make our fave chocolate fudge cake and a big batch of roasted olive dip. Maybe I’ll try to nail down that olive dip recipe and a few photos in case anyone’s interested. It is purely addictive. Salty, creamy, tangy, garlic-ish, olive-ish, and mouthwatering whether warm or cold. Addictive.
   For dinner Friday night I’m trying a toned-down Lazy W version of Giada’s minestrone soup. Naturally this calls for crusty bread and green salad. Please, if we are truly friends, do NOT warn my husband of this menu plan. Let him be surprised. I promise to tone it down. Way, way down. And I promise to have a back up plan like Fettuccine Alfredo. I have a feeling if he balks at the soup, it will be divine enough for me to finish all by myself. I’m a good sport like that.
 Also a batch each of these browned butter cookies and some chocolate-chip walnut biscotti. It seems we are a week away from Christmas and I have lots of shopping still to do, so having cookie dough ready in the freezer will be nice.
   Three quickly deteriorating bananas tell me we’ll also have banana bread in the oven tomorrow. And a special young man at church keeps reminding me to bring peanut butter cookies. 

 
   My Grandpa Stubbs once told me over the phone how to make the world’s easiest and most delicious peanut butter cookies! You can do this in a snap anytime, and I have the sneaking suspicion that being flour free will tickle some fancies. Here ya go:

Mix together with a wooden spoon 
1 cup of PB, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 egg. 
Scoop up the shiny, grainy dough by about a tablespoon at a time
 and roll each ball in a bowl of sugar. 
Dip a fork in the sugar and criss-cross each ball of dough. 
Bake for about 20 minutes at around 350 degrees. 
Cool on pan for a minute
then on a wire rack completely.
Dunk in milk.
   I will not even need Scentsy tomorrow, you guys. It’s gonna smell so good in here. I plan to finish the outdoor chores super early, take a shower, and put on some good music. By lunchtime this place should be aromaticizing. Lilting with fragrance and warmth. 
   If and when you do need Scentsy, though, my gorgeous and dry-witted cousin Jen just started peddling the heavenly stuff! You can order online here and I think if you order by December 19th you can count on Christmas delivery!

   Is it healthy to be this excited about a cooking day? If I finish when I expect to, there will just enough Friday left for me to finish a really special sewing project for an old friend. Then the frivolous, calorie-laden weekend will begin!
Three Cheers for P-90x!
xoxoxo

 

Wonderfully Disheveled

   The morning sun gleams through the east window, gilding the remains of last night’s dinner party. Furniture sits in odd places, having been scooted into spontaneous pairings for old friends to whisper secrets and for new friends to get acquainted. The fireplace is void of flames now but overflowing with warm ashes. On the wood floor I notice errant napkins, crumbs, and beautiful smudges from spilled drinks. I walk through the glorious chaos to the kitchen, where the only clean spot is what space has been cleared for morning coffee, which waits for me hot and fragrant and loyal.

   After a party I am always tempted to leave things in diarray for a while, so we can visually soak up the treasured vibrations of friendship and love. Sometimes I am more anxious to get photos of the aftermath than of the event’s set up. I cannot agree that a good party ever leaves a home spotless, whether hosted for children or adults. The mess is a small trophy for me.
   Since daily life goes on, the cleaning must ensure. But I don’t think of it as removing something dirty or righting some wrong done to my home. Instead, while touching each item I try to gently press the good memories into our surroundings. While pacing through the affected rooms, collecting dirty dinner plates and drinking glasses, scooting couches and chairs back to their every day positions, and fluffing up plants, I imprint into our domestic conscience the laughter and energy of every one of our beloved friends and family members. As I wipe clean the smudged tables I am actually polishing them with the smiles we traded the night before.
   We feel so lucky to be surrounded by good friends. They make us wonderfully disheveled.
The writer’s prompt this Tuesday 
was to discuss “Cleaning House” in 300 words or less, 
without offering up Heloisian tutorials..
This is what came to mind.