CHRISTMAS (ALMOST) COMES TO SPINSTERS' CORNERS

Aunt Chrissy and I were whirlwinds of stitchy/bakey/Christmasy activity this weekend, so I'm stumbling around the house today wondering what day it is.

For me, it's just not Christmas until the Greek cookies are made. These damn cookies are the bain of my existence, but every year for the last 23 years I have hauled out the recipe and had a go. The official name is "koulrakia" (or something like that), but they are basically a lovely tea cookie that you're supposed to twist. It's the twisting that always kills me. For some reason, I just can't seem to get them to look right, and every year I tell myself that it's a good thing they taste so good because they sure aren't very pretty to look at:

The whole mess started when Aunt Chrissy announced that she wanted to do holiday baking, so I fretted and fretted and fretted all night Friday and finally came up with a system that was sure to make our entire baking experience perfectly perfect in every way:

I set up "zones" in the kitchen. Dry ingredients, wet ingredients, spices, freshly washed dishes, baking sheets, etc. It wasn't a very well thought out plan, though, since a full six minutes into the day I was sitting at the table with a dietCoke watching Aunt Chrissy take control while listening to her mumble something about assisted living facilities and checking to see what new med we could try to keep me out of her hair for awhile.

We ended up making biscotti, two coffee cakes, and the Greek cookies. I also wanted to make some Italian cookies that Dad loved, but alas, the time got away from us and it was time to settle in for some stitching.

On Friday night I worked on the Raymond Crawford:
And on Saturday and Sunday I played around with the Prairie Schooler Santas on canvas:

I'm not sure what I'm going to work on this week, but methinks it will still be in the canvas category. I seem to be in that frame of mind lately.

Stewey and Bosco were quite happy with the weekend snow, and when I checked on them (because it was just too darn quiet), here's what I came upon:

I confess that I was shocked to see that Stewey allowed Bosco access to his perch. Normally whenever Bosco gets within a ten foot radius of wherever Stewey happens to be at the moment there's hell to pay. I suspect that my "If you don't shape up, mister, Santa Claus will drive right by this house this year" finally hit home and he's minding his p's and q's so that he will get a ZhuZhu. Damn dog.

That's the Monday report from here in Hoosierville. I hope that y'all had a fabulous weekend and that the week ahead is fun fun fun fun fun.