blog #039 >> Happy Boxing Day part 7: Thanks!

What I got for Christmas:
And it was a lot... and I'm sorry, I didn't get pictures of everything, but I'm thankful for everything!

blog #038 >> Happy Boxing Day part 6: The Five Days of Christmas

Christmas!

So eventful, I'll blog about it later.

But while you're waiting for me to write about it you can see what my sister has to say... oh, and you need to watch the video of my niece Miss. Maggie singing. It's very cute!
http://leingangs.blogspot.com/2007/12/christmas-eve.html

blog #037 >> Happy Boxing Day part 5: Timber!

Just a couple of days after I had decorated... well at night really... around 2am... I heard a, "CRASH!" come from the living room... something had fallen. Grogally I wandered from my nice warm bed to see what it was. I was thinking, "I bet it was the wooded card tree. I didn't do a very good job hanging that up. I never was very good with nails." Well, it was a tree but not the card tree it was THE TREE! It fallen completely over: pulled the cord off the wall which knocked the fence from on top of the bookshelf off, it hit the desk, the water spilled out, ruined the gift box I had under the tree, the star got knocked off and about a third of the ordements fell off.
But fortunately I only broke four of them. It was a mess.
Of course I couldn't leave it till morning with all the water leaking out. So as quickly as I could I picked it up and tried to straighten it in it's stand. (I'll add here that I did not put it in the stand to begin with because I knew it would tip if I had.) Well, I was convinced in my foggy mind that the reason it fell was because the screws had dug into the tree trunk. So, I thought, "If I just put some pennies in between the tree trunk and the screws they won't dig in and I can tighten them enough that it will be stable. To say the least, any idea I have at 2am probably isn't the brightest. Well with one had holding up the tree I tried my best to place these little pennies with my other hand in between the screws and the tree. I'd get up to two, and one would fall in I'd tighten the screws and loosen the screws, and when I finally got up to three of the pennies in... I lost my grip and they all fell in. So at this point I decided it needed to wait until morning. I tightened and straightened it as best I could. Then I mopped the water out of the carpet and used the hand vac. (because it is quiet) to vacume up all the broken ordements. (I did get one small shard in my hand.) Then I hung the tree skirt up in the kitchen to dry. And lastly, took all the rest of the ordenments off the tree just in case it fell again. And finally around 4am I when back to bed.
I didn't sleep well to say the least. It's hard to sleep when you know you're going to just get up in about 3 hours and I drempt all night of it falling again.
The next day my dad and mom came over during my lunch break to help me fix it. My dad is always great in an emergency. I think he really likes the excitement. He'd always drive me to work in heavy ice and snow just because he liked to drive in the snow. And I actually think he likes it when the car breaks down and he has to come and get me. Anyhow, I garentee there is no way that tree is falling down again. He weighed the tree stand down with lumps of coal and wired the top of the tree to the ceiling. And my mom helped with the rest of the de-decorating and re-decorating.
...but how am I going to get it down now?

blog #036 >> Happy Boxing Day part 4: Christmas Crafts

As always, I like to make some of my gifts. I would have blogged about this one sooner, but you never know who might be watching.



This year I made some monogrammed towels for my dad's "new" 60's boat that he's been restoring this winter. The boat's name is Lone Star so of course it needs to say that in the towels that hang in the cabin. But unfortunately I didn't realize how long it took to monogram that many letters into a towel by hand. I guess that's why monograms are usually one or two letters. Oh well, they look great so far even if I had to wrap up the half finished towel and thread.






My other crafty gift of the year was this stuffed Police Box for the neighbors whom I watch Dr. Who with. If you don't really "get" what it is, than sorry, I'm not explaining it. I had to work on it during the office Christmas party, and I got really tired of people asking, "What is that?" And then trying my best to explain exactly why Dr. Who needs a police box, and that it's not really a police box but actually a time machine/spaceship that he needs to travel through space and time. So, if anyone in that office ever had any doubt about how dorky I really am, they know now. But at least I have comfort in knowing that there where others in the office who took one look at it and said, "Hey, you're making a T.A.R.D.I.S. Cool! Watching old British men run from robots shaped like giant salt shakers, now that's quality television." So at least I know I'm not alone.

blog #035 >> Happy Boxing Day part 3: gnocchi: fun to say, good to eat

I also made gnocchi (potato dumplings) from scratch for the first time ever this month. Well, I used instant mashed potatoes to make them fluffier, so maybe that doesn't entirely count. But they were amazing! Something I will definitely make again. I got the recipe from http://allrecipes.com/ my favorite site for recipes. I even made an olive oil garlic sauce with fresh basil to go with it.... mmmm..... When I took them to work the next day I was nearly mauled by hungry co-workers.

blog #034 >> Happy Boxing Day part 2: old felt skirt

Here's a picture of the new skirt I got.
It's still really stained, and it's been attacked by moths. But I still like it.
I'll see if I can get a better photo of it later.

blog #033 >> Happy Boxing Day part 1: full house

Oh my!
How I've gotten behind on my blogging!
I got so involved with Christmas I forgot to write about it. But now to celebrate Boxing Day, I'm going to finally post about all those things I took pictures of... and forgot to take pictures of. And then I'm going to get pictures of the things I forgot to take pictures of.
Here are the pictures of my cheery home:


I took these pictures on the day of my open house. Well, before everyone came, after they got here I was too busy to take pictures. Everyone came whom I invited and I think the words "full house" would better describe it. Maggie got to play dress-up with all my old hats and jewelry. (I'll try to get a picture of her.) I apologize to everyone who had to sit on the floor! But at least I didn't run out of tea and cookies. Thank you everyone who brought cookies, they were all delicious. I had about six-dozen left over. I ate cookies for dinner that night and breakfast the next morning. Carrie the cranberry muffins were perfect for that! And I took a plate of cookies to each of the neighbors to apologize for the noise. Although they all laughed and said they didn't even notice it. I like my neighbors. And I hope everyone liked my house, I loved having everyone over.