on to the library

November 26, 2007 – 9:15 am

The decorating is proceeding well. We’d be farther ahead if we hadn’t taken a week to visit those precious grandbabies, but one has to have priorities, doesn’t one?

The downstairs is done except for the library (which functions as our family room) and the downstairs bath. The lights on the 9′ library tree had to be taken off and redone. They were too messy to leave on the tree. Lighting that tree takes about 6 hours. Today we will put the beads, ribbon, and ornaments on it, decorate the counter of the TV cabinet, and do the smaller “Three Kings” tree in the corner. Pictures will be posted later today.

The tree in the downstairs bath is an easy one and won’t take long to decorate. Then we move upstairs. Our bedroom is done, the two baths are done, DD#2’s tree is done, DD#3’s tree just needs the rest of the ornaments, and the tree in the scrapbook room is done. So it’s picking up, cleaning up, and doing the finishing touches on those rooms and we have DD#1’s tree to decorate.

I want all the decorating to be done by Wednesday evening. I need Thursday and Friday for the last minute cookies / candies, and Saturday morning is reserved for decorating the sugar cookies. That will take about three hours. The schedule is tight, but we do have enough time to get it all done.

Two young people from church are coming to help this week. One to clean the yard, rake leaves, pick up trash, limbs, whatever. And the other to clean the entire house on Thursday. It’s wonderful to have their help! Some of my friends from church will also come during the week to lend a hand where ever we need the help. There is always a job I can delegate, so their help is also fully appreciated. And a big thanks goes to my sister Genny who decided to stay an extra two days to help today and tomorrow. Yeah! 🙂

I will check in later with pictures of our progress. Stay tuned! ~~Rhonda

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Saturday decorating

November 24, 2007 – 9:57 pm

Today we managed to get the lights on the living room tree and put up the red beads and the popcorn and cranberry strings. This is a nine foot tree on an 18″ high box DH made. The ceilings in the living room are 12′.

living room tree

We made the popcorn and cranberries strings last Sunday/Monday.

living room tree

dining room tree

We finished the “snow” tree in the dining room. DD helped put the shredded artificial snow on the tree. I made the snowball ornaments several years age.

We also put up the snowflake ornaments in the kitchen.

snowflake garland

I stamped and sewed felt ornaments for DD#2’s tree.

felt ornaments

felt ornaments

I’ll post the final picture tomorrow. I need to get some sleep! ~~Rhonda

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::waving hi::

November 24, 2007 – 1:52 pm

Just want to let you know I plan to post this evening. We are knee-deep in decorating and I can’t take time right now. My sister is here this weekend to help. I am taking pictures and will post some of those later when I need a “sit-down” job.  TTYL!  ~~Rhonda

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a new do

November 20, 2007 – 2:22 pm

I had my hair cut last night. It has looked like this for as long as I can remember:

old hair

New do:

new hair

new hair

🙂 ~~Rhonda

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popcorn and cranberries

November 19, 2007 – 6:51 am

We made popcorn and cranberry strings this weekend. It’s a family tradition. My mom always made them for our trees as I was growing up, and we have always had them on our living room tree for the 30 years of our marriage. After a long day of decorating, stringing popcorn and cranberries is a great sit-down-and-rest-your-feet-while-you-watch-a-movie job.

six bags of cranberries

It takes six bags of cranberries to make enough strings to decorate the 9′ living room tree.

almost done

We make the strings about as long as this table. They are easy to carry into the living room and attach one section at a time. We leave a 4-6″ tail on each end and tie those together when the string goes on the tree. I like to hang them with ornament hooks to give the loops a nice scalloped definition.

Here’s a hint for stringing popcorn and cranberries – the popcorn will string more easily if it is a day or two old. Freshly popped corn can certainly be used, but it breaks more easily. We use loose popcorn, not microwave popcorn, for the strings. It takes a lot. DH popped three large bowls full and we used it all. I like to use Orville Redenbacher’s white popping corn. It pops large and has a clean white color. Can’t always find that, though (like this year), so we used Orville’s yellow popping corn.

We use regular white or ivory sewing thread and a regular hand sewing needle for stringing. We double the thread and tie a knot 4-6″ from the end. We start with a cranberry and thread through it twice to keep it from slipping off the end. And we finish the section with a popcorn, but do not tie that end with a knot. Be sure to lay your strings out with the knotted end at the same end of the table, so you can easily pick up the popcorn end to prevent the popcorn and cranberries from slipping off the string.

I am often asked if we save the strings from year to year. No, we don’t. The cranberries turn into craisins and the popcorn shrinks, too. By the end of the season, some of the strings are showing gaps. In the past, I have tried setting them outside for the birds, but they have never shown interest in eating them.

~~Rhonda

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busy weekend

November 19, 2007 – 6:33 am

We accomplished a lot this weekend. On Saturday, we did everything in the living room except the tree. DH put up the garlands over the arches and windows. We set up the nativity, decorated the fireplace mantel and groomed and rearranged the plants.

garland over windows

We also did a lot in the dining room.

When they come out of storage, the trees have to be fluffed and the lights worked over to be sure they are functioning properly. Once that’s done, we can decorate. This tree is decorated with snowball ornaments I made several years ago.

Sunday morning I made meatballs before church and put them in the crock pot with spaghetti sauce. Made the house smell good when we got back from church. It also made a quick dinner so we could get to the decorating.

I got this recipe from a board I frequent for recipe ideas. It makes easy meatballs.

1 pound leanest ground beef – I use 93% fat free ground round as that is what is available here.

1 box Stove Top Savory Herb stuffing dry mix

2 egg whites

1 cup beef broth

Mix all ingredients together well. Shape into meatballs and bake in a 350*F oven for 20-25 minutes. Yummy. They are even better after they have simmered in spaghetti sauce for an hour or two.

After dinner, we worked on the garland on the staircase. When we were ready to put the lights on they didn’t work. ::sigh:: I use tiny rice lights on the staircase, so will have to go to Hobby Lobby to find replacements. We are in a small town (< 5000) and to get anything at all out of the ordinary we have to go an hour away. A trip we don’t like to make very often. I keep a running list and when we do go, I have several stores to stop at. I’ll have to make a trip soon.

We worked on the tree for the office / music room. The lights needed a lot of work. I do leave lights on most the trees during storage, which works fine, but sometimes there is a string that isn’t good. DH is able to fix most strings with our Lightkeeper Pro, which is indispensable during the holidays and has saved us a great deal of money. It repairs strings that won’t light. If you use a lot of lights, you need to find one of these.

http://lightkeeperpro.com/

One string of small lights on this particular tree was not repairable and had to be replaced. And there were a lot of burned out bulbs to replace. This tree also has bubble lights on it. I keep the bubble light wires on the tree for storage and store the light bulbs themselves in boxes. We had to count the bubble lights several times to be sure we weren’t leaving any empty sockets on the tree. All the work with the lights took a while. I am hoping to get the tree decorated today.

~~Rhonda

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bedtime

November 17, 2007 – 11:12 pm

It’s getting late. My sister has headed to bed. We worked hard today getting a lot of Christmas decorating done. AND I mowed the entire yard one last time for the season. It was a beautiful day out. Mowing takes about an hour and 30 minutes. Genny worked on decorating the mailbox while I mowed. I’ll post a picture of it tomorrow. Looks great!

We finished the living room except for the tree. The dining room is almost done. And we have worked our way through four bags of cranberries this evening making popcorn and cranberry strings for the living room tree. It takes six bags to make enough for the 9′ tree.

Pictures tomorrow. 🙂 Thanks for checking in to see how we’re doing.  ~~Rhonda

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the biscotti is delicious!

November 17, 2007 – 8:11 am

The house smelled SO good while the biscotti was baking and the final result was as delicious as the smell. The dough contains melted butter and veggie oil, so it has a different look than most cookie doughs. Shinier and denser.

biscotti dough

The recipe called for broken chocolate-covered toffee bars which I didn’t have. I used Heath toffee bits and mini chocolate chips. It also has chopped pecans in it.

sticky dough

The dough was a bit sticky, but not hard to handle.

ready to bake

I’ve never made biscotti before, so I wasn’t sure how to shape the logs. The recipe instructions were to make two logs “about 8 x 3 inches.” That was clearly too small. Mine turned out maybe 12-13″ long. Next time I will make three smaller logs instead.

preparing to rebake

First baking done. The dough spread a lot more than I had anticipated. As I began to slice the logs, I realized the pieces would be too big for the open house, so I ended up slicing the logs down the middle as well as across. Perfect size for the party. I have found guests prefer smaller cookies so they can try more varieties. 🙂

finished product

Finished with first, second and third bakings.

packed for the freezer

Ready for the freezer. There was extra room in the container with the chocolate mint shortbread, so I put the biscotti in ziplock freezer bags and set them on waxed paper over the shortbread. Hopefully, they won’t pick up the mint flavor.

The cookies are delicious! I will post the recipe soon.

Today, my sister is here to help decorate. I won’t have much computer time, so may not be able to check in until tomorrow afternoon. I’ll take pics and post them tomorrow.

This is the first time I’ve managed to make a post with multiple photos. I’m learning. I keep sending short emails to DS, asking “how do I….?” Thanks, Daniel!

~~Rhonda

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biscotti and cake today

November 16, 2007 – 8:41 am

Last night I worked on more invites. Watched The Two Towers while doing that. This AM I’m planning to make Toffee Bar Crunch Biscotti and Holiday Petit Fours. I’ve not made biscotti before but want to try it for the open house. I’ll let you know how it comes out.

My sister Genny is coming this weekend to help with decorating. Should get here late this evening. She is a great help every year. We’ll see how many trees we can finish!

~~Rhonda

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kitchen garland – going up!

November 15, 2007 – 3:51 pm

kitchen garland - going up!

Last night DH put the garland up in the kitchen. Standing on the counter is the only way to do it. The next step is to add the snowflakes.

We’ve had some frosts, so the geraniums came in. Not sure where they are going to end up, but they are so pretty right now that I hate to move them out of the kitchen.

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