Kicking off my favorite time of year!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

It was a quiet day here, we are a thousand miles from family again this year, but we didn't let that stop us from doing the "dinner" thing.  We may take some flak for this, but I made a HAM instead of turkey this year.  Although I do love turkey, I don't like the smell of it cooking all day, and the only thing I detest more on that day than cleaning a bird carcass is the thought of wasting the bird carcass LOL, so I decided to avoid it all and do the ham :)  Tomorrow I will use the leftovers for a ham and bean soup that I can pressure can also if I have enough.

The night before the big dinner day we decided to forgo cooking and head to our favorite salad bar place for dinner.  When we got there it was sunny out, but when we left they had just done the illumination of Town Center, so that put me in a bit of a holiday mood, even though hubby was wearing shorts!  Yes, it was in the 70's again, yuck!

Lots of things to be thankful for this year, but I'm especially thankful for a child that will actually wear the sweater out to play that mom knit :)

I decided to try Cake Pops for the first time...

Not too bad for the first attempt!

I will admit to shopping ON Thanksgiving Day!!!!  I can see you cringing right now, but hey - it was a craft store so does that make it any better?  I didn't think so.  80% off an item I had been coveting for 6 months made it okay for me :)

One thing I found interesting was possibly a sign of the current economic times - I passed Target which opened in the evening and the parking lot was almost empty, but when I pulled into Michael's at 6 pm there were lots of cars and several more pulling in behind me.  I'd like to think that means more people are instead spending money on their crafts, hobbies, their own home and making gifts than in years before.  I know I don't have the cash for new tv's, gaming systems and the like, but I sure can find a few dollars for some yarn for a knitted gift :)  Funny thing too, everyone in there was pleasant and chatting with strangers instead of pushing and shoving!

Then it was time to dig out the Christmas Gear...

And decorate the tree!  It's never too early for military families to decorate.  Last year many of us military spouses had our Christmas stuff out after Halloween LOL, I think that may have had something to do with the fact that our spouses were on deployment and due to return just a couple of days before Christmas, we were just a bit excited :)  Remember last year here?  Hubby had to climb in the car and drive 1250 miles just hours after stepping foot on dry land!

Oh yeah... WHAT could have possibly had me out shopping on Thanksgiving night?  That white carousel below - reg price $40 - with the sale and coupons, I snatched it up for under $10!  I can't wait to stock it up with crafting nonsense :)

Today's agenda:  sending the kids outside to play with daddy, hot chocolate and pattern cutting for me!

Tina over at Our Rustic Roots asked the other day about crafty/sewing spaces, so I'm going to do a post later on about my space.  I meant to do a post about my sewing/crafting space saving setup last year but never got around to it, although I did do one on my yarn storage "hallway".  I even had the photos grouped on my old Mac's desktop but we all know what happened to that thing.  Maybe if everyone has time in the next few days they could post a few pics of their setup for whatever the wintertime hobby may be - large rooms, tiny rooms, kitchen table sewing, whatever space you have, show us how you set it up!  I know this time last year I was a freak show with my newfound obsession with my search for a sewing machine and learning how to sew, and creating a place for it all naturally became entwined with all that.  Besides looking at peoples' pantries, is there anything better than snooping at crafty spaces?  I think not.

Just when I thought I had reached the peak of stretching space...

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted - I've thought about it, but honestly I haven't had anything truly interesting to write about.  I've been swallowed up with my "tossing things" in the house phase.  Pretty boring stuff, unless you are me who is overjoyed to see each bag of stuff headed out the door to spaces other than these...


We've been really trying to get back in the groove of hubby being a regular full-time resident of the house now that deployment is over, but it's been hard, but not for the usual reasons of clashing in the house and disturbing the natural order of things, but instead it seems like I communicated with him more when he was on the ship lately!  He has been working 12-14 hour days every day since he's been back, he is gone by the time the kids are up for school, and home just in time to tuck them in at night.  I've been trying really hard to get back to cooking "real meals", but find that I have to just save him a plate to eat when he gets home.  The kids and I always sit down to a family meal, but sometimes the content & originality is lacking when I cook only for 2 little guys.  


The past week I have been trying to use the freezer stash of garden goodies every night from here until Spring so we can get an accurate amount to preserve for next year, since we need to account for hubby being home and eating the harvest too.  I grew less last year, but hubby will eat anything and everything that I can plant so I need to get creative again!


Some of the dinners this week were pretty basic one-dish meals, but all had garden veggies incorporated:

Good 'ol spaghetti & meat sauce, used ground turkey and the canned sauce and stewed tomatoes & frozen beans

Sausage & Frozen Bell Peppers with canned stewed tomatoes & pasta

my favorite usage of freezer stash or fresh:  Stir Fry!

How about the rest of you?  Are you finding you had enough preserved to last til Spring, or will you be increasing the amounts preserved for next year?  I definitely need more tomatoes put up!


Last night was hubby's night to cook, he makes amazing pizzas - I just wish he would clean up his mess afterwards!

 I hope the boys learn his crust recipe, it will serve them well later in life!

On to the only excitement of the week-  I made the long trip up to D.C. to IKEA on Friday to create my "craft space"!  It is very hard to describe the limited space I have in this house, but here's a reality for you to ponder... I only have 4 rooms in this house including the kitchen - and no garage!  Minus the kitchen, it's one room that houses both boys and all their toys, our bedroom that also serves as my office space and garage like storage behind a curtain for all our camping/hiking stuff, a living room that is also the dining room and music room, that leaves..... the hallway!  


FYI:  the below rack behind the bedroom door was my old "stash space"...I can't even really hang door units on the door since they are all french doors to have the place feel bigger than it is.

The hallway in the below pic also stores the washer/dryer behind the blue curtain on the left side as well as hubby's fishing gear up near the ceiling, see it LOL?  He used the recess at the end to build me some built in shelves for the few knick knack pictures I have.


Good thing I really love organizing and get a "high" off of being able to fit our lives into this small space.  While I would dearly love to have a permanent table to sew at, this will do pretty well since the dining table is right next to the craft storage area, and all of it is out in plain sight so I will actually be tempted to USE the sewing machine!  (Before I had to dig all this stuff out of underbed containers and trolley carts shoved into a closet).

Below, the big reveal... taking up only about 7-8 sq ft and going vertically, it houses my entire yarn stash, area for my sewing machine, supplies, etc.  Since it was IKEA, I sprung for the shelf lighting to highlight this area to do double duty as "art".  We even have mountain bikes hanging in the house and choose to highlight them rather than hide them.  It amuses a few people but we need to - no garage and hubby actually rides his bikes to work every day, rain or shine so they need to be accessible.  The reason I love IKEA so much is that it's one of the few stores that carry shallow units instead of the standard 11-12 inch deep shelves that would stick out into the hallway too far.  These cubes and shelves are only 7.5 " deep.  Also, if you notice my attic stairs have to pull down here, so I solved that by putting the units on casters and they are secured to the wall at the top with industrial velcro.  When I need to pull down the stairs, I simply wheel away the first unit and they will come down.   I can get away with the velcro because the high shelves are light and only store yarn.  Hubby just shook his head and smiled when I was done, he said it wasn't at all what he pictured from my talking about what I was going to do.  Not sure if that was a compliment or not LOL.

Below, a close up look at the shelves/wall.  I used a baking sheet divider to store random pieces of fabric, magnetic bars to hold things like scissors, tins of pins, etc.  Spice rack holds more notions, a plastic trash bag caddy holds partial skeins of yarn that are destined for a rug or some other small project.  I reused a metal chalkboard tray from the kids' room to hold my cutting mat and smaller felt quilt block design board I made last night (not pictured).  There is even a space the the left of my old machine to park my someday new machine!

I'm pretty darned excited about it all!  BUT.... this week is for ordering seeds, so the sewing will have to wait a bit longer.  We are scheduled to have a whole week of rainy, crummy weather, so it will be perfect for finishing up my seed ordering and bed plans - those catalogs sure bring a bright spot to a dreary day!