Karla's Cottage

Merry Christmas!

I hope the weather isn’t ruining your holiday plans.  It’s quite a huge storm!  


I’m wishing you warmth, togetherness, and joy.

Glass ornaments as mini carafes

We had our annual holiday bookclub dinner at the cottage last week.  

As I usually do, I set the table with a hodge podge of mismatched pieces, but with kind of a theme.  And I tried a cute trick I’d seen at another party, using a clear glass ball as a mini carafe.

The way I’d seen it done was at a wine tasting and they used small, plastic ornaments. I really don’t know if those are food safe.  So, I bought the big glass ones (at Hobby Lobby on clearance for 60% off), washed them well, and glued on roses that I’d painted onto old sheet music.

At our party, I make the food and friends bring the wine, so I couldn’t pre-fill the balls with wine like the previous way I’d seen them used.  So I decided to use them for water, sitting on a glass of ice. 

Before everyone arrived, I poured one into a cup, to see if it really was a good idea or was just messy.  

Well, so so.

I had over filled the balls, and when pouring the water over the ice I realized that there was just too much in them.  And no where to set the balls down except right back on top of the glass, or they would roll away and flood the table.  

Oops!

 I quickly poured some water out of each ball, leaving just the right amount for the glass.  Ha, I’m glad I checked!

After dinner, the ornaments were party favors to take home.  


I should’ve made everyone take food home too, I made way, way too much.  As usual. I ended up putting this pie in the freezer for when the family comes home for Christmas.  And I served some of the cupcakes at another party. Oh, and I did manage to take care of the rest of the extra cupcakes.  

Somebody had to, right?

A few days after the book club bash, I was hosting a craft day get together.  And the day after that, Sugarwings was supposed to have a cocoa party, but it was cancelled due to an ear infection, poor kid.

Typically, I like to have all of my parties in the same week, so I only have to clean the house once.  And as I take plates out of the dishwasher, I reset the table so it’s ready to go for the next event. The cottage has a festive feel all week when it is party time.  

For the craft day party, I did use wine in the Christmas balls.

Which, come to think of it, probably makes them harder to rinse out if they are meant to be keepsakes. I am not sure if I’ll do this party trick again or not.  I enjoyed it, and thought it made the table festive.  I hope the guests enjoyed it too.

 

It was a happy Halloween

At this point, Halloween is long past, withering away in its crypt.

Due to my inability to use my blog, I didn’t get to share the holiday, so I’ll post some highlights now.  As I upload these pictures, I am sitting in the glow of my Christmas tree.

But that doesn’t mean much.  Around here, the flip is fast.  Almost, but not quite like at Disney, where over night on October 31st, the entire park is transformed from one holiday into the other.

We go through more of a Nightmare Before Christmas scenario, where they are jumbled together for a couple days during the switcheroo.

Sugarwings loves the spooky decor and does not want it touched if she is with us. But I needed help with getting the big tree put together and Rich was going out of town.  My choices were to ask him to help before he left and have the tree set up, with all the heavy boxes of decorations piled up around the pumpkin and bat filled house or do it myself later.

Of course, I asked for the help!  So we had a messy mix of two overlapping decor styles. 

I used to wait til thanksgiving weekend to deck the halls.  Our motto was, “You Must Respect the Bird” and wait for that holiday to pass before enjoying twinkle lights.  But not any more.  I have changed it to “You Must Respect the Pumpkin” and don’t even let the jack-o-lanterns start to moulder before I fill the house with joy and light fro the trees. 

But no, we don’t totally gloss over Thanksgiving.  I de-skull and un-spookify the table, but leave the pumpkins out on it till after the turkey has been consumed.  The pumpkins either light up or have glitter, so I am happy with the compromise.

Sugarwings still trick or treats, and since my mind is already on gingerbread and garlands, I asked her to save some candy for building our gingie cottages.

As much as I love spring time weather, and the heat of summer, this has to be my favorite time of year.  I dread the coming of cold weather, but love all the hustle and bustle that comes around when the leaves drop and snow starts to fall.

Ugh, did I really just say that!?  Snow and falling leaves can be truly despicable (and way too cold).

But I do love the transition into Christmas, so if I have to put up with a chill to get to be surrounded by twinkle lights, we’ll, I guess I’ll just deal with it.  

Family reunion centerpiece ideas

The night before our Downey Dinner, we hosted a Cousins’ Night and Sissy offered up her brand new, not even moved into home for the get together.  I was the first person to ever use the oven!

The meal that night was Taco on a Plate, and cousins brought sides and desserts.  For the reunion, the hosts provide fried chicken, mashed potatoes, drinks, the rest is pitch in.  This is the pie I made for my personal contribution, and Sissy let me borrow her home to do make it in.

Oh my gosh, we had the BEST foods!

And lots of it.

After we eat there are photos of each individual family, and other group shots.

I’d made this sign to hang on the wall above photos, but when Kathleen’s group couldn’t all fit under it, I suggested they held the letters.  Look how cute little Y is.  She looks proud of herself for helping.

While on our sister trip to Florida this spring, we made photo flowers for centerpieces and Bobbie added sticks to use as stems.  I brought hand painted pots with oasis and moss in them, but we soon realized that with our big group, there were too many blooming pictures for a handful of pots.  Bobbie supplied canning jars with tea lights and I tossed some moss into those too.

There wasn’t a lot we could do to the venue without investing too much time or money.  I thought the flowers added a personal touch.  Plus, it gets everyone mingling and going from table to table so that they can “pick” a bouquet of relatives to take home.  

The tables were covered in white plastic and I used a sharpie to draw vines and write quotes about families.

Here are some that I used:

“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” —Mother Teresa

“Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.” – Irina Shayk

“I sustain myself with the love of family.”―Maya Angelou

"In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, bridge to our future."— Alex Haley

“We are family / I got all my sisters with me.”- Sister Sledge

Rainbows and Fire Dancing for Pride Night

On Randy and Kevin’s night to cook for the family reunion, they wanted a Pride Night theme.

They had rainbow everything to go with the grilled chicken and salads.  I don’t know why I didn’t get more pictures, it was quite the festival and the decorations were bright and fun.

Our Hippie Chick brought rainbow, glitter face paint and many partiers got all sparkled up. 

There was even a fire dancing show.

Featuring our professionals.

And crowd members could take a quick lesson too.

There was a great view from the balcony.  These two were on the lighting committee and did a spectacular job with it.

The night ended with a few 1am stragglers sticking their forks directly into the rainbow cake.  

We had different events throughout the weekend, but I think pride night was the best.

I am going to leave all of those lights strung across the courtyard, and possibly add more as I find them at garage sales for a very pretty reminder.  Thanks, Guncles!

A reunion

It has been so busy around here.  This could be the first time since I started my blog that I did not have a spare moment to post anything for this long.

I was busy getting ready for our Nathan, Neibaur, Nichols family reunion and while making up beds for 20, yes, 20 people, to sleep at our home and preparing to feed about 30, we saw our peaches were ready to harvest.  And those beauties couldn’t wait, we needed to get them done before everyone arrived.

Then we realized the honey also needed to be gathered.  Luckily the Guncles came early to the reunion and helped out.

I figured that I’d have time during the get together to do a couple of posts, but I was much, much busier than I had expected to be.  

Truly, I don’t know if I have ever been busier.  I was up by six every morning and then stayed up late for our parties.  We had a dance party, a Pride Night fire show, karaoke, boating, ax throwing, BB gun competition, tie dying shirts, plus all of the cooking. 

So much cooking!

Individual families took turns with meals.  Did I mention there were lots of meals?  Three big ones each day along with snacks and desserts.

It was all quite special. 


And fancy.

I’d set up tables outside, but we were in a heat wave, so seating for 30 was squeezed into the cottage.

We made it work.

There were plenty of hugs too.  My dogs were happy to have extra people around for lots of petting.

In their opinion, there is never enough petting.  A crew of twenty sets of hands almost satisfied them, though.

Now that the festivities have ended, I hope to get caught up soon.  But first, we will be disassembling all the extra beds and putting the house back together.  

And before that?  We have to deal with a issue I am calling Adventures in Sewage..

See the waterfall?  Well, actually, there were a few waterfalls.

It  required a weekend, emergency plumber.  We thought the clog that caused the flooding was fixed and all was well.

Uhm, not quite.  Adventures in Sewage, Part Two, was a second clog that caused an even bigger flood.

Wish us luck, this one is a bit more complicated.  We will be tackling it tomorrow, and then, the resting up will begin.  And I need that rest.  I think that the weekend finale of fighting floods put me over the edge.  

Happy 4th of July!

It was a festive weekend at Good Juju, and every month I am enjoying the venue more and more.  I even got into the spirit of the holiday and put together a mini, red, white, and blue display to fit in with all of the other patriotic arrangements around the mall.

My itsy bitsy wagon with a couple red and blue doodads in it wasn’t much compared to the rest of the mall’s July tones.  There were varieties of these colors used throughout the mall.

And Uncle Sam on stilts even came by to say hello to us.  

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the place, and then I’ll be headed outside to watch the colors in the sky.

We live right by the I70 overpass and every year, I walk up to the bridge to watch all of the neighbor’s fireworks being set off.

It’s a pretty low key way to celebrate, but it’s a tradition I look forward to.  Sugarwings and I have been doing this since she was tiny.

As I get older, holiday traditions mean more and more to me.  

I hope you are enjoying yours this weekend too.

A special celebration in the country

Isn’t this deliciousness just beautiful?  Well, EVERYTHING at Julie’s house was.  Don’t ask me why I didn’t take more pictures, because I just don’t know. 

I am kicking myself that I can’t share it all, every detail was more special than the one before.

From the moment we pulled into the drive.

The food, the displays, the home tour, the company, the gifts, well, on and on.  What a delightful day. We gathered to celebrate Tami’s birthday and her buddies, Nora and Julie hosted this delectable day of friendship.

Julie not only has a perfectly edited and designed farmhouse filled with vintage treasures, she has a she shed.  

And an event barn.  

And a pond.

And well thought collections.

And gorgeous landscaping.

Do you know what I had?  A camera that I barely used.

Here is a little bit of the event barn.

They host weddings and other parties there.  

We sat in the barn for our bird nest craft. Nora provided silver vessels to choose from and moss to form a nest.

That’s it on the photos for the day.  Take my word for it, absolutely everything was wonderful.  

Peeps Day

We had a little get together for a Peeps craft day at the cottage.  Angie brought a cookie display that was so pretty, it had to immediately become the center piece for our luncheon.

Sadly, three people had other things come up and couldn’t make it.  Beth offered to bring a salad at the last minute so I wouldn’t have find a side dish for the quiche and homemade bread I’d prepared, which was very helpful of her.

She always makes the best salads, too.

I’d tried my hand at making brioche bread, and while it’s a lot of extra work compared to the kind I typically whip up, I think it is way worth it.  But- there is almost a whole stick of butter in it opposed to the tablespoon of heart healthy oil I usually use, so maybe I won’t make a habit of this decadent bread that feels more like a pastry than a slice of bread.

The remainder of the loaf home was sent with the gal pals, thinking I would save myself from all that butter.  But then, Nora left some of her cream pie tarts, Angie left cookies, and well, here I am having both for breakfast and feeling pretty happy to have them.

Lunch was only a little part of the day, the main event for me is always the projects.

We had vintage album mats and little girls images to make Easter wall hangings.  This one is mine, and since I’d previously made a yellow daffodil one, I wanted a different style, but this might be too dark to be springy.  I also don’t like the green pattern in the brown wallpaper and might peel up the girl to add another layer beneath her.  Maybe some blue ledger paper…

This one is Nora’s next to her cute picnic basket that came full of tarts and fruity, sparkly wine. 

(It did not leave full)

Everyone got a hand drawn placemat.  Well, since only half of the group could come, they each got two.

I might make a habit of these.  When I host real events, not just get togethers, I usually draw on tablecloths.  But lately, instead of plastic table cloths that tickle your legs, and are pretty flimsy anyway, I’ve been covering my work tables in poster board and using large scrap book paper as place markers.

While these quick cartoons aren’t exactly major pieces of art, they are a little different.  Plus, I really like drawing, so, yep, I think it might become something I’ll be doing more of.

Although the square size isn’t ideal for dining room placemats, a rectangle would be better.  

Once we finished our Easter pictures, everyone had something else they’d brought to do.  I made some little people to use on something else some day.  Just because I love making little people.  It reminds me of all the hours of playing I spent with paper dolls as a kid.

After the last couple of years that we have had, days like this mean more to me than ever.  It was the best!

 

 

 

Ryan’s birthday

Today is Ryan’s birthday.  He always loved that day.  He didn’t expect much, or ask for anything, he was a guy of simple pleasures.

He often took his week’s vacation from work around this date, just to relax.

Our family does a big dinner for the birthday person, not always on the exact date, but when we can all get the same day free.  Many years, it would just be myself and Ryan, sometimes Sugarwings too on January 27.  So he and I would get a double celebration, once with the group, and another with just us.

 It seems like there was always snow on those evenings.  Bitter cold nights, that neither of us liked to face, but we were glad we did.  It seemed to be Jayhawks basketball time too, which neither of us like. And with his sensory disorder, the loud games were upsetting.  So we’d find a quiet restaurant with no tv blaring a game, or people shouting for their team. It was often Mexican food, and we would eat too many chips and guacamole, drink Diet Cokes, laugh, and plan what show we would watch when we got home. 

Simple evenings with my buddy, having fun, just being together. 


 Grief is a odd thing.  How it can morph from joyful memories to deep despair, shoot out at you with no warning with unexpected jolts of pain, or of sweetly remembered pleasant thoughts.

Grief is also layered when you lose a child.  I miss my companion of the later years, my friend.  My guac and Diet Coke buddy who I watched my favorite shows with, critiquing, laughing, and guessing about the plots throughout.

 He and I could talk for hours about nothing and be entertained. 

But then there are the flashes of his childhood that come after me with a fury.  When I remember that the tiny baby I held in my arms was dead.  That the silly little boy who loved to dance would never dance again.