in the kitchen

Things I have made in the kitchen in the past 48 hours:

-lemon-rosemary roasted chicken
-roasted vegetables
-chicken noodle soup
-buttermilk biscuits
-raspberry scones
-jam thumbprints
-chocolate-coconut pinwheel cookies
-rum logs
-sugar cookies
-cranberry bread loaves
-homemade sesame crackers
-spinach-ham dip

-and that's hardly anything compared to what's cookin' over the weekend. Mercy, THE CALORIC CONSUMPTION!

As I shuffle about stirring things & cleaning up behind myself, I think of how extremely grateful I am for our new kitchen. Talk about a Christmas present!

little projects.

(View from the top o' the spiral staircase:)

Ta-da! The new bathroom is done! (* disclaimer: no pics of the new bathroom ensue.)

-except for painting some trim, cleaning the dusty shower stall, installing the towel racks, and oh yeah. Also, thawing the pipes.

Enclosed in a very well-insulated wall, they froze because there was no heat in that wall. The insulation kept the household heat out entirely.

-or something like that. I'm never sure I get the story right.

But my guys are on the job, pulling the pantry out from the wall, making holes in sheet- rock, opening boxes of plumbing, and indulging in the merriment of the season. See?

I did my part & whipped up a batch o' corn muffins. Then I put a pot o' chili on the stove to simmer.
Then I tossed my self onto the couch to enjoy the Christmas decor.

such a pretty thing

One of my birthday gifts was this beautiful vase.

I admired it unabashedly last summer when we were in Cape Cod. We stopped at a pottery maker's where we saw many lovely unaffordable things -one of which was this vase.

It hardly seems right that I should own such a pretty thing. Happy Birthday to me.

wayyyyyy too much scrabble.

En route to Watertown, I spotted this roadside sign & immediately began counting the scrabble points.

Put down the laptop & step awayyy from the online scrabble.....

doings

We found ourselves in the unique predicament of having two brand new toilets in the kitchen last night. One gets installed in the new downstairs bath; the other is a replacement for the upstairs bath.Oh yes, folks. Don't they look funny side by side?

#1 Son sat on one while we were cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and barked, "Could I just have little PRIVACY???"

Hubby had lugged them inside and requested that their plastic wrapping be removed & the seats installed. They ended up in the kitchen because there was really no other place for them, seeing that the back hall was full of tools. Also, the family room floor was covered with electrical do-dads because #1 Son and Clever Boy Tommy were finishing up some sound system wiring.

(Note to inner-self: Embrace the clutter.)

Do you know anyone else that EVER raced toilets in their kitchen? No?

I didn't think so.

Did I mention that we put up and decorated our tree? Yes, all on the same evening.


Awesome.

beginning to look a lot like you. know. what.

The house smelled like Christmas this morning. It might have had something to do with the apple-cinnamon muffins that #1 Daughter was bedecking the halls with.

In between batches, she was polishing the antique silver that I brought home from Saturday's auction.
I love the clink of real silverware. I also love that two wooden trays of assorted silver only cost me $7.50.

Our dining room hutch is not curved; my camera only makes it look that way.
We have just begun to make it feel Christmas-y here at our old stone home: armfuls of fresh greens and a few home-spun touches is all we need.


-all that, plus a few gold globes.