DING DONG, DING DONG. SPINSTER'S BELLS ARE RINGING.

I'm happy to report that as of late Friday night the annual Christmas Comes To Spinsters Corners Extravaganza is officially finished. (Thanks, of course, to a VERY patient Aunt Chrissy who trooped through the Hobby Lobby, the Michael's, and then finally the Targets for "something tall" to put on my mantle.)

(What do you call it when a sister wants to murder another sister? Spinster-cide?)

I'm pretty sure that I won't see Aunt Chrissy again until sometime in February. What she had hoped would be a fun and rewarding weekend turned into yet another episode of "Why the #&$* don't I just put her in a damn kennel and forget about it."

All she wanted to do was deliver some toys to the Toys for Tots collection going on over at the WNDU television studios. So on Friday night, Aunt Chrissy carefully selected a cart full of fabulous toys that would appeal to both boys and girls of all ages.

"I really want to do something in honor of Mom and Dad this year", she said. "So we're going to get up bright and early so that we can deliver some toys to the Marines over at WNDU. Pick me up at 8, and I'll treat you to a Starbucks on the way over."

Did you know that I'm not exactly what you would call a morning person?

Well, Aunt Chrissy found that out the hard way as we were driving away from the toy drop, all weepy and satisfied that at least a few additional kids would have some cool toys for the year, when...KA-SPLASH!!!! I spilled my Venti Cinnamon Dolce Latte all over the freakin' place.

(I thank you, dear sweet Jesus that I did it in MY car and NOT Aunt Chrissy's fancypants sports car.)

So the trip to deliver toys turned into a 45 minute trip to the Drive and Shine, where my little sister basically had to bribe the guy to open up and wash the damn car already, and oh, while you're at it, could you please see about cleaning up the big fat hairy mess that my incompetent idiot of a sister made all over the console because she's too stupid to know how to drink a cup of coffee and drive a car at the same time?

(It was 21 degrees outside and raining. The Drive and Shine guy was not amused.)

So then it was on to the Bob Evans for sustenance, and finally, the grocery store. Just when I thought I was going to have to find a nice warm blanket for my new dog house, Aunt Chrissy hands me a card and says "Here. Go shop for a senior citizen and get them some puzzle books or something."

(The grocery store has a tree at the entrance on which hang tags listing things that senior citizens from Real Services would like to have for the holidays.)

Do you know what the very best part of this little adventure was? Well, it was the fact that when I decided to do a "coffee themed" collection of items for my senior citizen, Aunt Chrissy didn't even bat an eyelash.

You have to love that about my little sister.

(Next time, remind me to tell you what she did when my fridge went out and the fix-it guy couldn't be here for a week and a half. Let's just say that there's a guy standing in the little fridge aisle of the Lowes saying to himself "Man. That little spinster isn't kidding around. She pretty much told me that I was going to get that little fridge off the shelf, pack it up onto a truck, and then deliver it to her big sister's house, and I was going to enjoy every minute of it." I wonder if she'd like to come work for us and get this place in shape?)

So needless to say, I am settled in to my finally decorated house, wondering what the hell I ever did to deserve such a good little guardian angel.

On the stitchy front, I started L'Hiver from Birds of a Feather on the 28ct. Barn Owl linen that the cart calls for. Sometime in the year 2047, it will look like this:

But for now, it looks like this:
You have to really pay attention when you stitch this, and we all know how much luck I have doing THAT particular little task when there are handsome men on the TeeVee. I finally had to switch to re-runs of The Real Housewives so that I could do more than three stitches at a time before getting distracted.

I'll leave you with a few pics of Chez Stewey. If you're tired of hearing about and reading about and looking at all of these bloody decorations, then I bid you adieu here, and you can go on about your fabulousness without having to look at them. If, on the other hand, you'd like to see what a month and a half of planning and one very exasperated little sister will get ya....enjoy:

WHO THE HECK IS DEBBY MUMM, AND WHY DO I HAVE HER DISHES?

Despite what Stewey might tell you, Chez Spinster is getting tarted up to within an inch of its life this year. (*) With grim determination, I have been heading out to the garage to open and then carefully inspect each and every one of my color-coordinated Target Holiday storage bins. If it doesn't come into the house...ka-blam! It goes to the Goodwill.

(I'm not kidding. I backed the car up and everything, and I even delivered a few loads while wearing my Santa hat and a festive grin.)

But I digress.....

In one of the Target Holiday storage bins (color-coordinated, don't you know), was a full set of Christmas dishes in its original packaging. From what I can tell, there is service for eight, along with a sugar/creamer set and a gravy boat.

While this might be a happy discovery for most people, I can only wonder as to the exact particulars of said dishes. When did I buy them? Why did I choose this particular pattern? Were they some crazy impulse buy that I threw into the Target shopping cart during some late night pre-holiday frenzy?

(I used to throw a BIG party each year on the first Saturday in December, and despite the fact that a few hundred people attended, I insisted that we use real glasses, plates, and cutlery. I think it was the second or third year when somebody clued me in to the fact that you can actually RENT these items, so there was no need whatsoever to frantically fish through a clearance bin for 475 matching napkins with embroidered reindeer on them.)

But back to the dishes.

I unpacked them and figured I might as well throw 'em into the dishwasher for good measure, and when Aunt Chrissy and Bosco come over for ham and scalloped potatoes this year we can have a semi-coordinated table. Woopie for me!

Thank you, from the bottom of my decorating-challenged little heart for all of your lovely comments about my tree. I took a good long look at it this morning while I was waiting for the refrigerator guy to get here, and I have to say that I am somehow quite tickled with the "whimsical askew-ed-ted-ness" of it all. So....until Stewey gets a job and earns enough money to hire David Tutera to come in and fix this place..."whimsical askew-ed-ted-ness" it shall be.

How's THAT for a holiday theme?

(*) Does anybody else find it totally nuts that Aunt Chrissy and I go to all of this trouble to decorate our houses so that the neighbors will think we're just normal little spinsters living happy little lives? You would think that the two of us hosted scores and scads of friends and relatives each year by the looks of all of the Christmas crap around here, but all of this festivity is so that we can stand in the street and sing "Joy To The World" in our best Clark Griswold voices when we finally get the lights to come on. (Aunt Chrissy does that every year, and every year it totally cracks me up.)

So that's the report for today, my dear stitchy friends! I hope that you have a wonderful weekend wherever you are and that your lights are shining brightly....

I'M BLAMING THIS ONE ON MY AUNT CHRISSY

My mo-ther can't come to the blog right now. I've sent her off to her room to think about what she's done. With good behavior and time served, I would anticipate that she will be released sometime next March, but with a very sturdy monitoring device in tow.

Every year it's the same thing. My Aunt Chrissy decorates her house for Christmas and we go over there to look at it, and on the drive home my mo-ther says "Stewey, I want our house to be equally as festive and lovely as your Aunt Chrissy's."

And every year we end up with some crazypants hot mess that can only be described as...well...a crapzypants hot mess.

My Aunt Chrissy's theme this year is so elegant I can't even begin to explain it. Peacock blue. Chocolate brown. Olive green. A tree that is at once so sublime, yet gorgeous that I just want to gaze upon it in wonder. A mantle that is the absolute epitome of elegance-ness. Decorations placed here and there throughout her beautiful house that make you want to sing carols and eat gingerbread cookies. Perfection, if you ask me. My Aunt Chrissy definitely knows how to decorate a house for Christmas. That's for d-a-m-n sure.

My mo-ther, on the other hand, decides that our theme this year will be "whimsical". Whimsical? Here? Not so much. I, for one, think that if RuPaul and Tim Burton had a love child, even he, she, or it would hate this disaster of a Christmas tree:

Even the damn squirrels can't believe that somebody would be nuts enough to put a white feather boa on a Christmas tree:

"A white feather boa? On a Christmas tree? Really?"

I, too, am left completely stumped as to why my mom thinks that a top hat is "jaunty" and lends a certain air of "whimsical-ness" to a Martha Stewart Bearclaw Mountain artificial Christmas tree. I ask you...does Martha strike you as the type of person who would decorate her Bearclaw Mountain artificial tree with a top hat OR a white feather boa?

I think not.

So today I am left with the realization that this year we will live in a home that looks like it was decorated by a crack addict with a Hobby Lobby gift card, and there's nothing I can do about it. I had hopes, I really did. I thought that my Aunt Chrissy's tree would give the old lady some inspiration to decorate in a fashion that would at once celebrate the season and light the cold winter nights without making me want to retch into my handkerchief. Alas, it is not to be.

I will remained miffed for the duration of the afternoon, and then I'm hoping that my Aunt Chrissy will come over with a strong sedative and some ideas as to how we might make this place a little more tolerable. (The sedative is for you-know-who, and once we get it into her vat of dietCoke and tuck her in, we should have five or six hours to undo the mess that took her a week and a half to make).

That's the report from Chez Stewey today, my dear friends. I hope that you won't rat me out to Santa Claus over my bad attitude....I could really use some new handkerchiefs.

Until we meet again, I remain your loyal and devoted friend,
Stewey

THE STITCHY STATE OF THE UNION

I'm doing my level best to procrastinate today, so moments ago I found myself at the kitchen table with a hot cup 'o joe and my stitchy notebooks.

(Now before I get too much further, I need to confess that the only reason I write in stitchy notebooks is because my little sister (and stitching sen-say) does it, and God knows I'm trying to be as cool as she is when it comes to "this thing of ours").

I started keeping track of my stitchy stuff sometime in 2008. Every time I start a new project, I write down all of the particulars of it so that I can go back someday to see if I used the linen that the chart called for, or if I changed anything about the design, and where/when I might have purchased the project. You know....yadda yadda yadda.

So today I went back and made some lists, and I am very happy to report that it's not as bad as I had originally thought:

24 projects have been "archived"
18 projects are "in progress"
and
46 projects have been finished!!

So there you have it, folks. I'm not a mathematician (I just play one on TeeVee), but I think the statistics are a lot better than I could have hoped for. All this time I thought that I had HUNDREDS of started projects languishing about up in the studio, but it turns out I only have 18!

Now before you point out that there are 24 projects that have also been started in that "archive" pile, may I just say that the fact that they are "archived" at all is actually progress for me. Rather than sit on the floor in front of that pile, wringing my hands and fretting over the fact that there are just so many of them, I just popped them all in a bin and promised myself that every now and then I'd take a peek to see if anything looked like it might blow my stitchy skirt up.

I'd say that this little development calls for a celebration, don't you? I'm thinking....Peppermint Latte from Starbucks, followed by a little nap with you-know-who as soon as I can wash all of the mud off his tummy.

Yup. Mr. Fussypants decided to act like a dog for once and chase a squirrel, but he miscalculated the boggy-ness of the grass and did a little slip 'n slide action when he lost his footing. I told him that he looked like a baseball player stealing third base, but he had no idea what the hell I was talking about and just peevishly wiped his little spectacles off instead. Methinks it's time to break out that Gingerbread Man body wash and call it a day.

AND THE SPINSTERS SAID "LET THERE BE TURKEY". AND IT WAS GOOD.

As you might know from reading this here blog, Aunt Chrissy and I are not big fans of turkey. It's not that we object to it per se, but our last few Thanksgiving feasts have been somewhat marred by bad turkey experiences.

Last year we roasted two turkey breasts that were rather, um, how shall I say this?...game-y. They were either very very fresh and from some kind of full-flavored free range big fat bird, or they had been at the bottom of our friendly neighborhood grocer's storage bin for ages.

But not this year, I tell ya. Nope. No way. No how.

The Rich Sisters are happy to report that they feasted on a Honey Baked Boneless Turkey Breast and that it was, quite possibly, the very best turkey they had ever tasted. And the fact that it arrived in a spanky little domed storage container -- fully sliced and ready to go, was even better.

(Aunt Chrissy is convinced that the only reason I liked it so much was because it tasted like ham, but I'm not convinced it's the only reason. I think it tasted so good because all I had to do was pull it out of the Big Gyrl Ice Box and set it on the boo-fey.)

So today finds me back in the throes of the November/December schlump-a-dink with respects to my stitching. I had a mild panic attack yesterday when I realized that I had spent the better part of eleven hours trying to find something to play with up in the studio, but as I read some old posts of mine, I see that this is an annual thing.

I also see that I swore I would just ride it out and not moan about it, so I promise to give that a try for at least the next day or so before I send out the s.o.s.

Our outside Christmas decorations are up and sparkling in the post-autumnal light and both Chez Spinster and Chez Little Spinster look swell. We did my house a week ago and Aunt Chrissy's place on Friday, but some rather nasty rain today prevents me from capturing it all on film. But both look nice. Trust me.

I'm off to the Happy Chair armed with the determination to get through some of the crap I've put on the recording contraption, so wish me luck that something fun to stitch will fall into my lap. Stewey is toasting his little buns in front of the fireplace today, so it looks like I'm on my own as far as supervision is concerned.

Now where did I put those safety scissors?

OH, HOW I LOVE A TREE

This beauty is called The Tree Speaks, and it's by Carriage House Samplings. I fell in love with the sentiment expressed thusly:

I am the beam that holds your house
I am the heat of your hearth on cold winter nights
I am the board of your table
the handle of your hoe
the door of your home
the wood of your cradle
the timber of your boat
My fruits quench your thirst
as you journey on
Come rest in my shade

Isn't that the coolest? According to the chart, the design was inspired by a verse called "Friend of Man, The Tree Speaks" that the designer's father-in-law admired on a plaque in his aunt's home in Pittsburgh.

Guess we all know what I'll be doing today....

Happy Weekend, everybody! Woo Hoo!

SHHHHH, DON'T TELL STEWEY (OR AUNT CHRISSY, FOR THAT MATTER)

I finished Prairie Schooler's Thanksgiving Comes Again late last night and immediately went into the "I have to frame this right this very second" mode. So I called Aunt Chrissy to get her thoughts on the subject, and after a few salty little swear words, she told me to get the ants out of my pants and just wait for the next big framing sale at the Michael's.

But this is me we're talking about.

So I started to creep around the house in search of a frame that would be suitable. I say "creep" because I didn't want the framed pieces that were already hanging on the wall to hear me coming.

First I looked at this wall of The Gallery:
Nope. Nothing there that would work. And besides....Stewey spent about nine hours trying to get all of these pieces lined up just so, and if I so much as moved one of them I'm pretty sure he'd kill me.

(Or pee on something important.)

Then I spied this wall and silently hollered to myself "Eureka!":See that empty space between the two house pictures? Well, well, well...what do we have here? I snatched the piece off the wall and had the back popped off before you could say "compulsive obsessive" and practically chortled with mad laughter.

Here's what it looked like "before":
And here's what it's going to look like "after":
Now please keep in mind that the frame is only perched on top of the finished piece and that there's a whole lotta ironing and straightening and whatnot that will have to go on. But isn't this just super swell?

I have an appointment this afternoon, and then I plan on coming home and hitting the studio to get this one stretched, pinned, laced, and framed before dinner.

Please don't be sad for the piece that is now frameless.....I won't do anything rash or stupid like use it as a birdcage liner or anything. Believe me when I tell you that it does indeed have sentimental value to this particular Spinster Stitcher. I think it was the very first piece that I ever stitched! Yup. When Aunt Chrissy taught me to stitch circa 2003 or so, I got it in my head that I was going to stitch houses (!) and only houses (!) for as long as we both shall live.

I got over THAT pretty quickly, thank goodness. Now, I'm not sure if I could even THINK about stitching a house without some very serious consideration and a cocktail.

Happy Futzingday, everybody! I hope that whatever you're Futzing is exactly what you want it to be!

A VISIT WITH MY AUNT CHRISSY, BY MASTER STEWEY ANGUS WILLOWSWAMP, HIS VERY LITTLE SELF

Last Friday afternoon, my stupid mo-ther decided to try her hand at matzo ball soup. While this wouldn't necessarily be something to write home about, it's what she did AFTER she made the soup that is so worthy of a few little words from yours truly.

She ate the entire pot of it and then called my Aunt Chrissy to tell her how positively delicious it was.

When she hung up the phone, I said "Mo-ther, don't you think that was rather rude? Did you stop for a moment to ponder whether or not my Aunt Chrissy might like to have some of that delicious soup? Wouldn't it have been a nice gesture to pack up a nice little basket full of soup and whatnot and take it over to her house so that she could have a lovely little supper after such a long full hard week of work?"

Apparently I should have kept my thoughts to myself, because before I knew what hit me, we were packing up the whole kitchen and some stitching and we headed over to Aunt Chrissy's for the entire evening.

(It's not that I don't love my Aunt Chrissy, and it's certainly not that I don't love her house....it's just that my visits are somewhat tarnished by the fact that my pesky little cousin Bosco happens to live there also, so this means that I have to be nice to him and feign some type of interest in whatever it is that he wants to play with. I usually hop up into my Aunt Chrissy's lap and then glare at the little bugger from her Happy Chair, but this time he seemed particularly dedicated to irritating the hell out of me, so I curled up and took a nice long nap instead.)

I'm sure you've figured it out by now, but my Aunt Chrissy is the real stitching celebrity in our whacky little family. She has been stitching for more years than we can even remember, and despite my mo-ther's best efforts to convince you that SHE is the cheese, the truth of the matter is that my mo-ther's stitching cannot hold a candle to that of my Aunt Chrissy.

(Might I also point out the fact that my Aunt Chrissy does her stitching quietly and without fanfare, and that she doesn't feel the need to telegraph her every mood, move, thought, or silly shenanigan to the whole entire world every fifteen minutes like SOMEBODY we know?)

The first thing I'd like to show you is the recently framed Halloween Rules that hangs just behind Aunt Chrissy's Happy Chair. This sucker is HUGE! I believe that it measures almost four feet in total height, and I can tell you that it makes quite a fantastic statement when you see it in real life:
The wall above the sofa is a particular favorite of mine because it incorporates stitching from Aunt Chrissy, my stupid mo-ther, and even a piece from my Grandma Sig (*). See the Van Gogh sunflower piece to the right of the floral canvas? That's a needlepoint picture that my Grandma stitched many many years ago. Aunt Chrissy recently restored it and it now hangs next to the piece that my mo-ther stitched called Strawberry Garden. All of the other pieces were stitched by my Aunt Chrissy:
This is another of my Grandma's pieces. She stitched this little girl holding her hat for Aunt Chrissy, and she stitched a little girl reading a book for my mo-ther. Aunt Chrissy recently restored this one also, and although you can't see the individual stitches very well from this picture, believe me when I tell you that they are perfection:
Now we move into Aunt Chrissy's formal living room. In this room are a lot of the furnishings that came from the Rich Sisters family home, and the big needlepoints over the piano are particular favorites. See the huge one in the middle? My Grandma Sig called that her "disaster picture" because she stitched it during the blizzard of 1977 when both my mom and my aunt had chicken pox and the mumps and their neighborhood in Lima, Ohio was snowed in for days and days and days. I suspect that this needlepoint picture is the only thing that kept my grandma from hopping on a sled and running away from home.
Aunt Chrissy's front foyer also showcases some of her lovely things, and she changes out the pillows on that chair according to the seasons.
Finally, I thought I'd show you another needlepoint picture that my Grandma Sig made. This one hangs above Bosco's water and food dishes. Can you imagine having something so lovely to look at while you're chomping your Puppy Chow? (The green border that you see on this one is actually a velvet ribbon.)
My Grandma Sig was a very interesting woman, and someday I'll tell you more about her. The (*) is because my mo-ther tells me that if Grandma knew that a nine pound Jack Russell terrier was calling her Grandma Sig, she'd probably get quite a chuckle out of that. Every time my mo-ther says something about "Stewey and Bosco's Grandma and Grandpa", she looks at their photographs and grins. (Is this what spinsters do when they are 45 and childless and their parents are both deceased?)

For the purposes of this post, though, I'm supposed to point out that all of Grandma's needlepoint was stitched on Penelope canvas using the "sewing method" and that she stitched in columns...she would start a thread at the bottom and then sew straight up the column, and then she would end the thread at the top. Then she'd do that over and over and over again until the entire piece was completed. She used Bucilla wool for her threads, and Mom and Aunt Chrissy can remember sitting on the floor with it coiled around their little hands while Grandma rolled it into a big ball. (I guess it came in big hanks.)

Some silly woman told my mom and Aunt Chrissy that there is no way these pieces could have come out as perfectly as they did using that method, but I can attest to the fact that every single solitary stitch is perfect, and from what Mom tells me, the canvases never warped or got crooked one little bit.

As for my Aunt Chrissy's stitching.....well let's just say that her techniques are all perfection. If you look at the back of something she's stitched (which I'm told you're not supposed to do), the stitches look as perfect as they do on the front. Apparently this has something to do with the fact that Aunt Chrissy is a very careful stitcher and that she has "perfect tension".

(My mo-ther's stitching, on the other hand is one big fat crock pot full of hot mess.)

So there you have it, folks. A little peek into my Aunt Chrissy's world. If she lets me, I'll tell you more about her in the future, and I'll try to sneek my camera over to snap some pics of some of the stuff she's working on now. Suffice it to say though...it's all gorgeous!

I hope that you're having a fabulous Tuesday! I remain your loving and devoted friend.

Stewey

PASS THE TYLENOL

I awoke Saturday morning to the grim realization that the pod of elves I'd hired to restore order around here had apparently gotten lost and was probably sipping Appletinis in a cozy bar someplace.

(Do elves even come in a pod? What do you call a group of elves. A gaggle? A herd?)

(Note to self: must look up the proper word for situations in which more than one elf is required.)

There is absolutely no plausible explanation for the mess that I can create as one single solitary spinster, so I am thoroughly convinced that a large party of frat boys comes into my house every night and has at it while I'm asleep.

(Spinsters and elves and frat boys...oh my!)

Anywhoose....I spent the better part of Saturday cleaning the garage to within an inch of its life, and yesterday got some crazypants idea that I could do the same thing inside.

Today I can't life my arms.

This, of course, is the explanation of why I didn't finish a ton of stitching over the weekend, but I'm thinking that this cold and rainy Monday will be the perfect opportunity to do so. I did manage to get all of the border finished on Friday night while Stewey and I were hanging out with Aunt Chrissy at her place.

(Which, by the way, always looks spectacular and never requires any elves at all.)

So here is the progress thus far on Prairie Schooler's Thanksgiving Comes Again:

I've received a ton of questions about my reactions and opinions regarding the outfits that the Notre Dame football team sported on Saturday evening. While most of the things that I have to say aren't fit for prime time TeeVee, I did want to say this to all of the Maryland fans who think that their outfits are hideous: Hello, dear Maryland fans who think your football outfits are hideous! Do you know what the best part of Saturday's game was? Well, it was the fact the you've finally managed to find an opponent whose outfits were more hideous than yours.

You're welcome.

Finally, can I just say this about the whole "Notre Dame is going to hell in a handbasket" thing? It's not about the helmets. Really. It's not. The helmets are just a simple (and tacky -- let's not forget tacky) representation of the decline of a place that I loved from the time that I was in utero. It's kinda like watching an aging movie star slap on too much bad cologne and a leisure suit and then go out and troll the bars for a twenty-something year old bombshell that has no intention of being seen with a smelly old dinosaur that once was somebody special.

I'll get over my heartbreak eventually, but in the meantime the ring stays off.

Now if we could just do something about that leprechaun tattoo....

SUPERSTITIOUS MUCH?

Am I the only person having a nervous breakdown over 11-11-11?

WELL THAT'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEE EVERY DAY

My dog can't come to the blog right now. He's on the back patio conducting a seminar on proper table etiquette for a group of fascinated squirrels. I wasn't sure what was happening at first, but then I caught the following:

STEWEY: Good morning, Gentlemen. I'd like to take a moment of your time to talk about a pressing matter and how it relates to our future co-existence in this little space of ours. You see, my afternoon napping spot is right there inside those windows, and I am subjected to your boorish behavior and constant chattering and munching and whatnot, and I simply cannot abide by it any longer. Your manners are ghastly, gentlemen! Just ghastly!

(With that, he dons his reading glasses, whips out a little clipboard, and starts lecturing).

STEWEY: Napkins are to be placed thusly in one's lap (demonstrating). Then, after all of your fellow dining companions have been served, and only then, may one begin to enjoy their meal. Mouths are to remain closed while chewing, and conversation should remain light and without controversy until the final course is served and the ladies retire to the parlor for tea and the gentlemen to the study for brandy. It isn't that hard, really. You just need to act in a rather civilized fashion and not as though you are accustomed to sniffing your hindparts while dangling from a tree branch. (He wrinkles his nose in derision.)

SQUIRREL #1: What the *(#&$() is THAT?

SQUIRREL #2: It looks like a freakin' dog to me, but what the #*$()#N is it wearing?

SQUIRREL #3: Did the big lady bring more bird food?

SQUIRREL #1: Wait a minute....I think the dog is sayin' something to us.

SQUIRREL #2: Table manners? What the $*#()##&) are table manners? And who the $*#() is Miss Post?

SQUIRREL #3: Move over. I'm trying to eat.

Aunt Chrissy will be here shortly so that we can go vote, and then I assume that I will come home to a miffed little Jack Russell terrier who wants to bitch about the neighbors until I promise that we'll move. It's taken me a while, but I've finally learned that when he gets in one of his "moods", I just need to let it go.

Here's the progress on the Prairie Schooler:
So that, my dear friends is all there is to report from CrazyTowne today. I did manage to try a very very small piece of the Turtle Pie last night after dinner, and I must say...it was simply dee-lish!

And speaking of dee-lish....The Future Mr. Spinster Stitcher, Jeffrey Dean Morgan His Very Self was indeed on the TeeVee last night and I was indeed planted smack dab in front of it making kissy noises at him until it was time for a cold compress and bed. Damn, but that that boy knows how to blow my skirt up.

Woo Hooooooo!

WELL, SLAP MY MOMMA. (NO, SERIOUSLY. SOMEBODY NEEDS TO SLAP MY MOMMA.)

She was left to her own devices. Against all better judgement and against all federal, state, and local authorities, my stupid mo-ther was allowed to spend time in the kitchen yesterday -- concocting God knows what until it was time to haul her off to bed.

It all started with packages of Jello pudding TURTLE flavor. TURTLE flavored pudding! Why, in the name of all that is holy, do we need TURTLE flavored pudding?!

She futzed and grunted and stirred and whipped, and after a few hours I heard her tell my Aunt Chrissy "OMG! You will not BEE-LEEVE what I just made!!!! I just made a TURTLE PUDDING pie with homemade toffee!!"

Apparently, the recipe called for caramel ice cream topping, and since she ate all of that on the ride home from the grocery store last week, she had to make it from scratch. (Or, in this case, from a recipe that she saw on the Ina a few weeks ago.) Butter, brown sugar, cream, and vanilla. Bring to a boil. Let is rest. Vwa-la.

Then she spread that in the bottom of a graham cracker pie crust, topped it with the TURTLE flavored pudding, and then piped whipped cream all over the top of it.

(Gag orders issued by the courts prevent me from describing what happened next, but let's just say that I'm not sure I'm ever going to get the stains out of the front of her old lady sweatshirt.)

Aside from all of those shenanigans, she did manage to hang her Prairie Moon piece in The Gallery. (OK. It's only the hallway that leads from the laundry room, but we need all the help we can get trying to sophisticate up this place, so a "Gallery" it 'tis.)

I don't know if you will be able to see the frame, but it has lovely highlights that match the color of the linen:

There was also a bit of stitching on the Prairie Schooler piece, and I would guess that it was the pie next to the word "doorway" that prompted the whole TURTLE pudding experiment:
Other than that, it was a rather un-eventful weekend. Mom and Aunt Chrissy ran errands on Saturday and came home giggling about going to the Rural King for trash cans and bird food. You would have thought that they had discovered Mars or something the way they were going on about it. From what I know, the Rural King is simply a store where you can buy everything from tractor parts to marshmallows, so I'm not sure why they were surprised at the availability of cheap bird food and trash cans in which to store it.

That's about it for a Monday. I'll let you know how long the TURTLE pudding pie lasts.

With love from your pal,
Stewey

P.S. I've just been informed that TURTLE pudding does not, in fact, taste of actual turtles. So with respects to all of the above....well...nevermind.

OH. DUH. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A BARN.

Did you ever sit in your Happy Chair muttering to yourself "Well, this is a whacky little house with whacky little windows and a whacky little roof" only to discover that you were, in fact, stitching a barn? Such was life here at Chez Spinster last night as I worked on the Prairie Schooler piece.
See that building on the right? It's a barn. You would have thought that the hayloft would have given it away, but this is me we're talking about.

I'm not sure if it's just me, or if the colors of Autumn have been much lovelier this year. I find myself stopping whatever I'm doing during the course of a day (which isn't much, trust me) to take pictures of trees.
This beauty is directly across the street from my front window, and it has been nice to watch it change these last few weeks. ('Scuse the little bald lilac in the foreground, please.)

And I know that I've already mentioned it, but Aunt Chrissy really outdid herself this year with the decorations. This, I think, is my very favorite part of them:
At night, the front porch light is so pretty on the different colors. Sometimes I stand out there in the front yard gazing upon it while you-know-who is examining every single freakin blade of grass.

That would be it for this particular Friday, my dears. We're off to the Michael's to pick up our framing pieces! Woo Hoo! Stay tuned for pics on Monday!

NOT MUCH DOO-IN ON A THURSDAY

I'm not sure if I've ever stitched one of these Prairie Schooler pieces, but I can tell you that I sure am enjoying this one! As I was pondering and pondering yesterday, I realized that I don't have one single solitary piece of stitching for Thanksgiving. So up to the studio I went, and after futzing around with a lovely piece of Weeks Dye Works 30ct. Straw linen, methinks I've got something that will keep me occupied for the next few days.

Your comments about me and my silly little blog are so appreciated! Don't encourage me, though, or I might go off and do something productive. We can't have THAT now, can we?

Happy Thursday!

A VERY BRIEF FUTZINGDAY REPORT FROM MASTER STEWEY ANGUS WILLOWSWAMP, HIS VERY LITTLE SELF

Chello, my very dearest stitchy friends,

I see from your comments that you are somewhat interested in my choice of costume for Halloween. While I'm bemused that you would be interested in such a thing, I'm rather surprised that you would think that the selection was limited to just one ensemble. Haven't you noticed the trend lately in which multiple gowns and/or getups are donned for big celebrations?

(I'm speaking, of course, about the fact that Ms. Kardashian wore no less than four different outfits during the six and half minutes that she was, in fact, married.)

The plan was that I would start the night with my favorite costume....that of a Pan Am flight attendant. I had then hoped to transition into something from the Real Housewives of Hoosierville, followed by a cute little number that I like to call "GaGa meets Midler meets a ladybug", but alas, my plans were foiled before I was able to perch the smart little pillbox on top of my head.

My stupid mo-ther went face first into the bowl of Butterfingers, and within minutes had to be rescued with a vat of diet Coke, a cool compress, and the promise that I would remain at home to attend to the doorbell. I don't know why I was surprised at this little development, especially since she seems to do this every year (and on alternate Thursdays). So rather than sporting my little costumes and parading about the neighborhood, I was left to supervise what can only be described as a case of acute candy intoxication.

I know that the old lady promised that this would (henceforth and so on) be a stitching blog, but I'm afraid that I don't have anything to show you from last night's efforts. I saw the needle poke a canvas work piece a few times, but within minutes, the snoring and drool started and it was all I could do to get her stupid teeth brushed and pajamas on and then tumble her into the big girl sleigh bed. Sheesh. I'm living with a toddler.

Stay tuned, though. My Aunt Chrissy took the bull by the horns yesterday and headed over to the Hobby Lobby to buy out their Christmas decoration aisle. From the looks of it, we might have a proper tree this year, and I couldn't be more excited about it!

Thank you for tuning in. I promise that there will be stitching to share tomorrow. Looks like the old lady just hit the Happy Chair with the remote and a few nice new projects....so stay tuned!

Until then, I remain....

Your loving pal,
Stewey

INTO THE NIGHT FEE NEE

Into The Night
Shepherd's Bush
32ct. Murky Pond
(all of the threads came in the kit)

BOO Y'ALL!

Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. She returns to her STITCHING blog to actually talk about STITCHING. Will wonders never cease?

The borders are now complete on Turning Leaves and it's on to the fun parts of filling in the sections. I think that once I plant myself in the chair and get to it, this will be a lot of fun and will go very quickly:
Stewey reminded me that Trick or Treating Time is just around the corner, and that it might be a good idea to pull something from the ol' stash appropros to all things Halloween. So Into The Night by Shepherd's Bush it 'tis:
(Don't you just love the fact that the sheep is wearing a cape? I mean, come on, if you have to be a sheep, why not accessorize your witch's hat with a jaunty little cape, no?)

I think there's about a day and a half more to go, and then this one will be ready for the framer. If I'm good and don't find too many other things to do today, this one just might be at the top of the pile.

Finally, I will leave you with a pic of Stewey waiting for the fesitivites to begin. He's rather excited about the prospects of examining all of the costumes this year, but I told him that if he so much as THINKS about lifting a leg, there will be h-e-double hockey sticks to pay.
Don't you just love the Fall? Makes me want to send you all bouquets of sharpened pencils....

A LETTER TO MY FRIENDS FROM THE SPINSTER STITCHER (AS DICTATED TO ST. JOSEPH COUNTY SHERIFF JOE GUNSABLAZING)

My very dearest friends both near and far,

As you might know, I have been "recently engaged elsewhere" due to some unfortunate circumstances that were blown completely out of proportion by the local media. For the record, I was NOT imitating the University of Notre Dame Athletic Director when I took that podium and demanded air time. I was simply exercising my right as an American, and, dare I say it, as an alumna of all things Blue and Gold over there on campus, and my arrest and the grounds surrounding it remain a mystery to me. I'm innocent, I tell ya! Innocent!

I think that the following transcript will adequately explain all of the hulla-ballew:

"Thank you for coming to my press conference. Before we begin, I would like to announce that this will be a short statement only and will not be followed by a Q&A. I have a limited amount of time before the authorities break the lock on that door and place me into custody, so listen up.

For the record:

I do not know the first darn thing about the game of football. Professional, college, European (in which case I think we Yanks call it soccer), or otherwise.

I was an original member of the Notre Dame class of 1988 that won the National Championship at the Fiesta Bowl in January of 1989. My diploma says that I graduated in 1989, but that's because my mom died and I took a year off. (So give a girl a break).

Here's what I would like to say:

We had an opportunity here at Notre Dame and we blew it. The world of collegiate athletics changed dramatically, and rather than leading the revolution and controlling what were sure to be unsavory aspects of all of it, we caved and decided to continue talking out of both sides of our mouths.

It's not 1989 anymore. College football has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise that drives a machine of sports marketing, television contracts, game day hype, and imprinted merchandising to levels of hysteria not previously thought of. The athletes are exposed to pressures unimaginable, and we're re-writing the meaning of the word amateur at a staggering pace.

It used to be a privilege to come to Notre Dame. You could poll any member of our football program and ask them "Why Notre Dame?" and the answers invariably went something like "I've loved Notre Dame from the time I was three years old" or "My dad brought me to a game when I was in grade school and I fell in love with the place" or "I wanted to know that when I graduated I would have received an excellent education and that for the rest of my life I could say that I played for the "Irish".

Now, we listen as the color commentator discusses the attributes of a player and lists all of the schools that he considered, and that he didn't even know about Notre Dame until the coaches were able to poach him from elsewhere. Our legends appear on Sports Center and do their best to maintain their love of the place, but after a few minutes, they too concede the fact that the guild is most definitely off the lily.

The opportunity that we had was one of integrity. And character. And principles. We had a chance to tell the world that college football might have changed, but the core of who we were was going to remain true and strong and that we weren't going to lower our standards or change our practices or dance the dance anymore.

Our players would live on campus. They would attend class, go to practice, eat in the dining hall with their fellow classmates, and then go to study hall. They would be gentlemen and scholars and team rules would be followed or their scholarship would be given to somebody else. When we won, we would win as a team. When we lost, we would stand firm, know that we had left everything on the field, congratulate our opponents, and then stand together. We would cut our hair and tuck in our shirts and not show our armpit hair. We would link arms with our brothers and sing the Alma Mater appropriately and with great fervor, and when it came time for interviews we would use words like "honor", "respect", and "heart".

The moment the world told us that nobody would watch, we would point to the hundreds of thousands of subway alums who built this school, and to the thousands of alumni who wanted the pride back and who wanted to feel like they were a part of a family again.

We'd tell all of the donors who threatened to pull their millions "Thank you, but we'll find somebody else who wants their name on a building" and then we'd be happy with the second largest endowment in the country and the fact that we hit a fundraising goal years ahead of schedule and that we raised a billion dollars more that we had hoped for.

If we won, we won, and if we lost, we lost. And if we happened to hit the lottery and actually field a really great team that was able to capture the National Championship once again, then we'd make a movie about it and hope that the poor saps who cried during "Rudy" would love this one too. In short, we'd be happy to be Notre Dame, and when our kids chanted "We are...ND", we'd all know what that meant and how no amount of loud rock and roll music would ever take the place of devoted fans cheering their little hearts out and then raising a mitten clad fist in the air as the Irish took the field, and that the biggest Jumbotron in the world would never -- ever -- capture the feeling of sitting in a football stadium looked over by You-Know-Who His Very Self and His mother a few steps away.

Alas, it seems that we chickened out in the face of the almighty dollar, and we hired a man who decided to single-handedly throw tradition and history into the dustbin while puffing his chest and blaming the players for "not buying in" to his way of thinking. He took it upon himself to pit brother against brother...teammate against teammate....and when we won, he addressed the adoring throngs in a smart shirt and tie and espoused his methodology and brilliance and proclaimed that he was "re-building" a program that was, in fact, the very foundation of the sport. When we lost, though, he appeared in his coaching fatigues, looking put upon, and declared that the mental state of a prized quarterback that HE had just set up to fail "was not something he had to worry about", but rather something that the player (who, by the way, had already been humiliated enough for this lifetime) had to handle.

The list of reasons as to why this particular gentleman is not my cup of tea is long, and I realize now as I stand here that nobody in their right mind actually cares what a portly spinster from Mishawaka has to say about all of this mess, so simply allow me to say that henceforth and furthermore I shall refrain from all things negative with respects to my beloved Notre Dame, and I will, eventually, consider drinking the Kool-Aide once again.

But I'm never going to like this guy and you can't make me."

So with that, my dear friends, I leave the stage of commenting and bitching about stuff I don't understand, and I'll leave the game day analysis to those who are paid big bucks to do so. In the meantime, does anybody know a good lawyer?

COACH STEWART, I PRESUME? (*)

My mom can't come to the blog right now. Aunt Chrissy and I are trying to scrape up enough bail money to spring her out of the pokey. I'm not sure what the formal charges are exactly, but methinks this weekend's mishaps might have something to do with this:

In a normal household, that picture would mean that my mo-ther was upset about the Notre Dame vs. USC game and that she went out and did something completely stupid.

But this is MY mo-ther we're talking about.

I think that the following conversation between Mo-ther and Aunt Chrissy will explain everything nicely, but you should know that it immediately preceded my mo-ther running out of here with her hair on fire screaming something about making national TeeVee by running out onto the field so as to smack the coach in the face with her lace handkerchief and then hollering "Shame, sir! Have you no shame?":

(I haven't seen her since.)

MO-THER: WHAT THE &$#!!* IS THIS $@(#*%#()@!! DOING NOW???!!!

AUNT CHRISSY: Uh-huh. (She mentally tells herself that this is going to be a very long night.)

MO-THER: OK. LET'S FORGET ABOUT THE FACT THAT I SIMPLY CANNOT STAND THIS GUY. AND LET'S FORGET THE FACT THAT HE ALREADY HAS ABOUT A BILLION AND A HALF STRIKES AGAINST HIMSELF IN MY BOOK. AND LET'S ALSO FORGET THE FACT THAT I AM ASHAMED, I TELL YOU, ASHAMED !!!! THAT MY ALMA MATER COULD BE SO ABSOLUTELY FREAKING STUPIDLY DUMB AS TO HIRE THIS (BLEEPITY BLEEPITY BLEEPITY BLEEP) IN THE FIRST FREAKIN PLACE! BUT NOW HE CHANGES THE HELMETS?!!!!!!! THE HELMETS???!!!!!!!

(Aunt Chrissy thinks about trying to get a word in edgewise, but decides to just hang up and watch the game instead.) (My mo-ther doesn't even realize that she's screaming into a phone that is emitting a dial tone.)

(In the interest of not screaming at all of you, my very dear and faithful readers, can we just agree that the following rant was hollered in a very very loud voice and that my mo-ther's fat face was so red and sweaty as she was hollering all of it that I thought about calling the paramedics?)

MO-THER: The Notre Dame football helmets were iconic. As a matter of fact, part of that iconography was the fact that gold powder from the actual Dome was added to the paint every Friday night so that the players would run out onto the field with Our Lady's protection and support right there on their very heads.

(I think she made that last part up, but I'm pretty sure that you can indeed fact-check the powder part.)

MO-THER: To change the helmets is a direct offense against me, my fellow alumni, and all of the fans and family that have loved Notre Dame for years and years. To spit in the face of tradition is at once arrogant and and an egregious violation of the trust that is placed in the coach as a keeper of the history and lifeblood of a program so rich with collegiate athletic lore. And besides all of that....THEY LOOK LIKE THEY'RE WEARING LAST YEAR'S CHRISTMAS BALLS ON THEIR HEADS!!! WHAT'S NEXT? A STRIPPER POLE ON TOP OF THE DOME SO THAT THE BVM CAN TWIRL AROUND IN HER NEW G-STRING???!!!!! NO WONDER THE PLAYERS ARE FALLING DOWN AND ARE TURNING THE BALL OVER MORE THAN A NURSING HOME FULL OF RETIRED BALLERINAS!!!! THE SHINE FROM THEIR FREAKIN HELMETS IS BLINDING THEM AND RENDERING THEM COMPLETELY STUPID!!!!!

(OK. I admit. I've changed some of the words around because a) I can't even remember all of the cuss words that were flying out of the old lady's mouth, and b) you've come here to read about stitching and could probably give two hoots about football helmets. Apparently, though, this is about much more than football helmets, and I suspect that my mom will try to explain it all to you in a later post.) (Provided, of course that Aunt Chrissy and I cough up enough cash to get her out of that orange jumpsuit.)

Suffice it to say, though, that Saturday night was not at all pleasant here in Spinster's Corners, and I would imagine that the watching of anything remotely related to Notre Dame is hereby embargoed.


OK. Enough of that.

The Prairie Moon piece is now getting framed. Mom forgot to take a picture of it before she took off like a bat out of you-know-where, but I'll make sure that she shows y'all what it looks like once it's hung on the wall. (I just hope she didn't screw up the frame selection like she normally does.)

So we're on to a new project. This is Laura J. Perin's Turning Leaves and my Aunt Chrissy did a color conversion for it since Mom didn't have a lot of the called-for colors and we all know how patient she is when waiting for supplies to arrive. (Don't you just love the way Aunt Chrissy knows the absolutely perfect thing to buy for my mom to get her off the roof?) (Now if she could just figure out a way to get that damn megaphone out of her hands, we'd be all set.)

I hope that things in your neck of the woods are a lot....quieter. I'm going to enjoy some lovely Fall colors today and see if I can't absorb a little Vitamin D while I'm at it. I'll keep you posted on the whole bail money thing, but let's just say that if it took another...oh, I don't know...seven or eight days for us to come up with it, would that be so wrong?

Cheerio!

Your beloved pal,
Stewey

(*) As to the title of this post, it relates to Mom's question:

HOW MANY 50% OFF COUPONS FROM THE MICHAELS DO YOU THINK IT TOOK TO BUY ALL OF THE MARTHA STEWART CRAFT GLITTER THAT THIS JACKASS USED TO CHANGE THE COLOR OF THE NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL HELMETS?!!!

OCTOBER BREAK

When I was in college, my very favorite time of the academic year was October Break.

(And yes, in case you were wondering...I really did manage to go to college and then get a diploma and everything.)

(I'm pretty sure that the clerk that was responsible for handling the paperwork had a head cold that day and didn't pay attention to the fact that I am dumber than a bag of doorknobs and never should have been rewarded ANY kind of diploma, but alas, there it is framed on the wall.)

(Additionally, I'm pretty sure that if I don't stop my bitching about Notre Dame fairly soon, somebody from that clerk's office is going to show up on my doorstep and say "Hey, numbnuts. We screwed up in the first place in giving you the damn thing, and you griping about us isn't really telling us that you wanted it to begin with, so hand it over and we'll give it to some poor schmuck who would have given their left arm to attend our fair university.")

But I regress.

October Break was the perfect time to catch up on all of the stuff that you wanted to do to get ready for school (like purchase textbooks), as well as an opportunity to carefully plan and think about what you wanted to do for the holidays (like fly to Phoenix and sit on the couch). The weather was gorgeous...cool and crisp, yet sunny, and you were able to finally break out the big sweaters that covered a multitude of sins.

So I'm going to take a little October Break this week. Instead of purchasing textbooks, I'm going to take a look at all of the stuff that I wrote down on my to do list back in August, and instead of thinking about Phoenix for the holidays, I'm going to head out to the garage to sort through my Christmas decorations.

As for the big sweaters...let's just say that the present day big sweaters are a lot bigger than the past day big sweaters because my multitude of sins grew exponentially. Who knew?

So talk among yourselves, kids and don't do anything fun without me! I'll be back next week, provided I don't get trapped under anything heavy out there in the garage. Woo Hoo!

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE......OCTOBER?

"Thine is the Trick and the Treat"
Prairie Moon
32 ct. "Camofudge" linen with Crescent Colours Blackbird

Life is just one big fat metaphor, isn't it? This morning I read that we normally have at least 18 days of fog here in Hoosierville during the month of October, and I said to myself "October? Why are they talking about October already?" And then I looked outside and realized that I seem to be trapped in a dense fog of my very own.

Phooey.

Thank you for your well wishes for my tiny little brain. Aunt Chrissy has been suffering with similar complaints for much longer, yet you never hear a peep outta' her. Hmmmm. Perhaps there is a finite amount of kvetching that is distributed to each family, and I am responsible for the Rich Sister quota? If so, methinks we're in good shape for a while. (I'm pretty sure these bloody headaches are sinus and/or barometric pressure related, so if I disappear you'll know that a weather front has moved into Indiana. Or, I have a stuffy nose.)

So here we are, knee deep into the autumnal season, and I am still stitching the same piece that I started way back when. No complaints, mind you, but what happened to that spinster who used to have 20 or 30 projects stuffed into the basket? Where did all of my obsessive compulsive stitchy tendencies go? Why am I perfectly content to work on the same project for weeks and weeks at a time without all of the "chicken running around without a head" drama that is my norm?

What happened, I ask you?! What happened?

I'm guessing that the reason why I'm not flitting from thing to thing is that I have finally matured and am now a full-fledged adult stitcher who doesn't need the constant stimuli of eighty billion new things scattered around her in haphazard fashion. I've finally come into my own and am now perfectly happy to enjoy the process of selecting, stitching, and then finishing a project before moving on to the next one. I have grown. I have learned. I have reached a higher level of stitching consciousness.

Yeah, that's it.

The truth of the matter is that I'm too freakin' lazy to get off of my very big fat heiney to go up the stairs to the studio to get "The Basket". I haven't had a day of futzing or pawing or organizing or fretting in weeks! What's up with that? Could it be that my inherent lack of motion has FINALLY paid off and I can now justify never getting out of the Happy Chair again? Holey Schmoley! Finally! The excuse that I've been looking for!

So that's the new theme here in Chez CrazyAss Spinster with an Equally CrazyAss Little Dog. I'm spending 23 1/2 hours a day in an inert fashion NOT because I have the metabolism of a sea barnacle....I'm exercising discipline and stick-to-it-tive-ness with respects to my hobby.

Oh, I feel so much better now.

We're heading into the weekend armed with plans to go to the Snite Museum of Art over at ND to view an Andy Warhol exhibit. Aunt Chrissy has always loved all things Warhol, and since she asked me if we could do this, we're going to make a sissy day of it. If all goes well, we'll see the exhibit and then follow it up with a lovely dinner someplace.

With any luck, I'll be back in the Happy Chair by 8 o'clock.

Have a lovely weekend, my perfectly wonderful stitchy friends! Do something that I wouldn't do and then tell me all about it! Woo Hoo!

BLECH

It's raining and for some reason I've decided to poke myself in the eye with a knitting needle. Repeatedly.

At least that's what it feels like.

When you add this sad little fact to the news that I am failing Oprah's Lifeclass, I'm not sure why the heck I got out of the big girl sleigh bed this morning.

Oh. That's right. I have a nine pound bundle of love dressed up as a shorty Jack Russell terrier who insists on tea and toast at 8am each and every day or there is total h-e-double-hockeysticks to pay.

Damn dog.

Don't cry for me, Argentina. Once my silly brain figures out that it's Fall outside and not a too-ma, all will be well once again. Just pass the Excedrin Migraine and a few frosty dietCokes and I'll be back in the proverbial saddle again.

So what have you been up to?

I WONDER IF SHE MAKES HOUSE CALLS?

I finished the witch mo-teef last night and marveled at her tiny little waist. What do you suppose her secret is? Do you think that once she hops off the broomstick, she heads straight for Pilates? Is it a magic potion? A cream? A hex that she puts on everybody so that they will see her as a tiny little blonde triathlete instead of a zaftig brunette spinster in desperate need of an eyebrow wax?

Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it doesn't include grilled pierogi and kielbasa chased with a vat of dietCoke and half a rootbeer bundt cake.

Ugh.

Off to the laundry room! If I'm going to be miserable, I might as well do it in comfortable clothes.

Happy Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving/10-10 Holiday all!

GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES AND TOMATO SOUP

I know this will come as a major surprise to all of you, but I can be pretty obsessive about stuff.

(Stop that snickering, please.)

(Oh. And Aunt Chrissy? If you keep rolling your eyes that hard, eventually they'll stick that way, and then where will you be?)

This week has been all about the grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. And because I'm really trying to reduce my size from that of a small condominium to that of a normally-sized spinster, I have only allowed myself to eat said grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup once so far this month.

(I know it's only the 7th, but I'm pacing myself, K?)

So today I woke up and started thinking about grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and nothing else has been accomplished.

(Would it BE so wrong to eat lunch at 7:30 in the morning, I ask you? Would it?)

Tomorrow, just because I can, I'm going to make another root beer bundt cake, and I might even preceed the damn thing with grilled pierogi and kielbasa for good measure.

(Somebody pass the Tums and defibrilator paddles, please.)

So here's the recipes (that I finally fished out of the recipe basket that is just begging to be categorized, re-organized, and finalized this winter). Both of these recipes are from the July/August issue of Food Network Magazine, so please put the little "c' thingie after this in your head so that I won't get sued for copyright violations. Tank you beddy mutch.

GRILLED PIEROGI AND KIELBASA

• 1 pound kielbasa cut into 4 pieces
• 2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large white onion
• 1 pound frozen potato and cheddar pierogi (do not thaw)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped parsley

1. Preheat a grill to medium. Grill the kielbasa, turning, until marked, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a baking sheet or platter.
2. Meanwhile, whisk the mustard and vinegar in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until smooth.
3. Toss the onion and pierogi with the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill, covered, until the pierogi thaw and the onion begins to soften, about 5 minutes. Turn the pierogi and onion and continue to grill, covered, until the pierogi are cooked through and the onion is tender, 4 to 6 more minutes. Transfer to the baking sheet or platter.
4. Slice the kielbasa into pieces and add to the bowl with the mustard dressing. Roughly chop the onion and add to the bowl along with the pierogi and parsley. Season with salt and pepper.

(Please note that I doubled this recipe and then proceeded to eat enough of it to feel the effects for days. Moderation, people. Trust me.)

Now here's the recipe for the root beer bundt (or boondt, if you're the mom in My Big Fat Greek Wedding):

CLAUDIA'S ROOT BEER BUNDT CAKE

• 1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 2 1/2 cups root beer
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch
• 3 large eggs, beaten
  
• 2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a 12-cup bundt pan, tap out the excess flour.
2. Heat 2 cups root beer, the cocoa powder, chocolate, and 1 stick butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until the butter melts. Add the granulated and brown sugars and whick until dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool.
3. Combine 2 cups flour, the baking soda, allspice, and 1 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Whisk the eggs into the root beer mixture, then gently fold in the dry ingredients (the batter will be slightly lumpy).
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean, 55 minutes to 1 hour, rotating the pan halfway through. Transfer to a rack. Gently poke the cake all over with a skewer and pour 1/4 cup root beer over the cake; let cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then invert the cake onto a serving plate and let cool completely.
5. Meanwhile, make the glaze. Whisk the remaining 1/4 cup root beer, a pinch of salt, the confectioners' sugar and vanilla in a bowl until smooth. Drizzle over the cake.

Geeze, Louise, if I made a nice little green salad with pecans and cranberries, and opened a lovely little Merlot, this would be a perfect autumnal meal, n'est pai? I could even serve it at the dining room table, amidst Aunt Chrissy's beautiful Fall decorations and perhaps use cloth napkins and the good china!

Alas, I suspect that I'll open a nice little diet Coke instead and will eat this in my underpants while screaming at Air Force to beat the crap out of Notre Dame. (I'm almost back in the fold and will probably revert to cheering for my Irish by the end of the season, but for now I'm still mad at them and reserve the right to wish for them to lose. I know it's not very alumna-ish of me, but until they get their heads out of their heineys over there, I'm rooting for the other guy.) So there.

Happy, happy weekend to all! Do something I wouldn't do and then tell me all about it! Woo Hoo!

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

A conversation overheard moments ago in the friendly confines of Chez Spinster:

MO-THER: Stewey, dear. It's time that we started planning your costume for Halloween.

STEWEY: There will be no planning necessary, Mo-ther. I have already decided upon my costume for this year, as well as started the procurement of necessary materials to make said costume.

MO-THER: Oh, wonderful! What are you going to be? A ghost? A witch? A cowboy? Maybe a comic book super hero? I could even envision you as a ladybug or a pirate, or maybe even a Power Ranger? How about a Ninja Turtle?

(The little dog snorts in disgust and walks out of the room muttering to himself. When he returns, the mo-ther strongly suspects that he has watered the master closet contents.)

MO-THER: How about a hotdog? You know, with a bun on either side and condiments across your back? I think it's more of a dachshund type of thing, but you could probably pull it off with your figure. A fireman? Policeman? Army Ranger? You could do anything in the military category, provided you didn't insist on a gun. I don't like guns. Guns would not be something that I would approve of for your costume, just so you know.

STEWEY: I'm going to be a PanAm flight attendant.

MO-THER: (sound of crickets chirping while she blinks in disbelief, slack jawed)

End scene.

So here's the lousy progress on the Prairie Moon. Sorry about the limited view due to the q-snaps, but it took me about four days to get the damn things on there, so I'm not taking them off now!

Happy Wednesday, everybody!