Time for a change

We've been doing lots of cleaning and organizing around our house the past few weeks, and I finally decided it was time to clean up the blog, as well.

If you are reading on your phone, via e-mail, facebook or your reader, click on over today and say, "Hello" to my new look for winter. I took some photos of the family today and got inspired to dress the blog in the same calm colors.

Remember how the blog looked this morning?

I cleared out some things on the sidebars, too. And I finally added my blog roll back on the right. It was getting so long and unruly last year that I just deleted it completely. For now, I have only listed my friends in real life who have blogs I read. I also only listed people who post on a regular basis. If I forgot you, PLEASE let me know!

Would you do me a favor and let me know if anything is not working for you with the new design? Thanks for stopping! Merry Christmas!

The menu

I don't get out much. My idea of "me time" these days is sitting in the dentist's chair being lulled into a mindless state by the steady hum of the drill.

My idea of a quality meal is when I add a side dish of a flavored rice packet to the chicken and mushroom soup mixture in the crock pot.

And a quality conversation usually involves topics like, "What would you like to be when you grow up?"

So, I have to say that going out to dinner with my husband's boss last night was a rare treat. I had to focus all of my brain power to keep up with the conversation on politics, sports and all of the famous people he somehow knows.

And my stomach still hasn't quite regained full functioning ability after the shock of the culinary extravaganza that was put before us. So, yes. To prove just how uncultured I have become, I will now write a blog post about what I ate for dinner. I hope you will be just a tiny bit impressed. (If you aren't, I will have to pull from my long-lost brain cells some forgotten fact about all of the governors of Illinois and how many have been imprisoned, as I did last night.)

I have to say this combination of food at The Gage would have to go in my Top 10 list of the most unusual meals I have ever consumed.

FIRST (SNACKS)

House Poutine: Elk Ragout, Curd Cheese, Chips

Gage N-17 "Fondue": Butter Kaase, Spinach, Toast

Braised Swan Creek Goat: Ricotta Gnocchi, Fall Vegetables

SECOND

Smoke Haddock Brandade: Grilled Miche

THIRD

Three Rivers Greens: Dried Cherries, Pistachio, Blue Cheese, Sweet Sherry Vinaigrette

FOURTH

(I went with the house special. I was on the fence until my husband's boss declared, "When in Rome..." And since it was more expensive than the 16 oz. steak, I decided it MUST be worth trying.)

Roasted Saddle of Elk: Rutabaga, Aged Goat Cheese, Juniper-Cherry Reduction

SIDES

Organic Greens and Duck

Roasted Woodland Mushrooms

Brussels Sprouts, Brie, Applewood Bacon

DESSERT

Baked Chocolate Parfait: Whipped Pumpkin, Fried Chocolate Truffle, Cocoa Nibs

And now, to somehow speed up the digestion process so I can go out to my staff Christmas lunch in an hour. (I need a nap.)

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Let them eat cake

We are having a cookie exchange tomorrow at our home school co-op. I decided that would be a good opportunity to make cake. You know. Since there might be a lot of cookies already.

OK. I might as well tell the truth. I LOVE CAKE BALLS.

This is my fourth attempt at making cake balls, and now that I'm starting to get the hang of it, I look for opportunities to make them. Maybe we'll have a pie-baking contest soon, and I can take some cake balls to that, too.

Anyway.

People always ask me what the heck a cake ball is, so here's the deal. (I'm sure you are all done with your duct-tape projects by now, and you are just DYING for another tutorial.)

1. Bake a cake. (Any cake mix will work just fine.) I made three types of cake for the ones pictured above: strawberry covered in chocolate, vanilla covered in white chocolate, and chocolate cake covered in chocolate.

2. Dump the baked cake into a bowl and crumble it into smithereens. Mix in about three-fourths of a can of frosting.

3. Stir it around until the whole thing sticks together like one big ball.

4. Take a small scoop and form the cake into balls. Put them on a pan covered in wax paper. Put the pan in the freezer for about 20 minutes or until you are ready for the next step.

5. I should have mentioned at the beginning that you will need some Candy Melt chocolate. (Wilton makes this.) I'm assuming you don't have this on hand, so I'm sorry I didn't say something earlier. This is only my second tutorial. You can buy the chocolate in almost as many colors as you can buy duct tape. They even have it in some swirly colors that slightly resemble the tie-dye duct tape. I'm not making this up.

6. Melt the chocolate according to the package directions. (Didn't that sound official?)

7. Add a big spoonful of Crisco to make the chocolate just a little bit thinner.

8. Dip the cake ball in the chocolate and turn it over with a spoon until it's completely covered.

9. Place on a tray lined with wax paper.

10. Sprinkle it with sprinkles. Or sugar it with colored sugar. Or swirl the top with swirls of chocolate. Whatever you prefer. Just do it QUICK! Since the cake balls were in the freezer, the chocolate will set up very quickly.

For a million super cute designs for every holiday and season, visit bakerella.com. She has some amazing ideas.

Here are some other cake balls I made around Halloween. Don't you just want to bite their heads off?

So, there you go. Merry Christmas and Happy Halloween. Whatever the holiday, it's always the perfect time for cake.

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How to make a duct tape handbag

I'm addicted. Or should I say, I'm stuck? I will admit it. I'm not ashamed. I've gone crazy over duct tape.

After I made that bag on Sunday, I decided I should try my hand at weaving duct tape. I remembered reading this post over on Jenny's blog. By accident, I ended up making my entire bag with one huge piece of duct tape "fabric", and I came up with this:

Cute, huh? Well, I couldn't possibly stop there. I had promised my 6-year-old daughter that bag was for her. But...

Don't you think it would look better on me?

So, I started again. This time, I measured first. And after posting some photos on Facebook and getting lots of requests for instructions, I decided to photograph the process.

Here goes: My first duct tape handbag tutorial. I'm sure it won't be the last.

1. Select the color of tape you would like for the inside of the bag. Stick your strips of duct tape directly on the table. The edge of each new strip should overlap the previous strip.

2. Select the main color you would like for the outside of the bag. You will make another set of strips the same length as those for the inside. However, this time, you want to lay the strips right next to each other without overlapping the edges.

3. Now you are going to take coordinating colors and weave them through the first set of strips. Just pull the tape back and lay a new piece of tape down perpendicular to the first set of strips.

4. Continue doing this until you have weaved a full piece of duct tape.

5. You are going to pull the first piece of fabric — the one for the inside — off the table and lay it down sticky side up.

6. Now, pull the second piece of duct tape fabric off the table.

7. Hold it in a U shape so the sticky side doesn't stick to itself. I learned that if duct tape gets stuck to the OUTSIDE of duct tape, it is super easy to remove. However, if the two sticky sides get stuck, you will NEVER get them apart. (I mean never, as in... not in a million years with even the strongest two people on the planet pulling in opposite directions.)

8. When you have the second piece of duct tape fabric in place over the first piece, lay it down and try to smooth out the wrinkles. Once it's in place, that's it. No turning back. So, just do your best and take deep breaths.

9. Trim the edges to make them straight.

10. OK. This is where I got fancy. I folded my piece of duct tape "fabric" so the bag had a bottom, sides and a flap. I can't really explain how I did this. And it kind of depends on how large you want your bag to be. If you look at Jenny's tutorial, she explains another way to do it where you make separate pieces of duct tape fabric for the back, front and sides.

11. I folded the sides sort of like I was wrapping a gift.

12. Next, just tape up the sides and tape some trim around the top. The great thing about duct tape is that if you make a mistake, you can just tape over it. And if you don't like something, it's pretty easy to pull off and start over.

13. After that, I made the strap. Just tear off a really long piece of tape and fold it in on itself. Then tear off another piece of tape and stick it over the top, folding again around the back of the first piece of tape. Does that make sense?

14. Use tape to stick on the strap from the inside.

14. I added a little piece of velcro to close it, and DONE! I would say the whole project only took me about an hour!

Now, if you'll excuse me... I need to go make a duct tape cellphone purse.

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Busy, busy, terribly busy

A friend I haven't talked to in a while sent me an e-mail recently. "You are so busy," she said.

I asked another friend how she had been doing lately, and she responded with one word: "Busy."

It's no secret that we are a generation that seems busier than ever before. And yet, I cringe when someone tells me I'm "busy." I really dislike that word. I don't like hearing it from others, and I don't like it when someone uses it to describe me. I'm actually trying to eliminate it from my vocabulary.

Here's the thing.

Every person on this planet has the same 24 hours in a day. Each one of us decides how we will use those hours. We are all equal in this regard.

Now, some people might have jobs that require them to work more hours than others. Some people have more children who demand more of their time.

But for the most part, we all choose how we will spend the hours in our day. Some of us choose to sign up for activities for our kids. Others choose to work outside the home or inside the home. Some people choose to work more hours than they really have to. Many people choose to exercise or keep their homes really clean or pursue a hobby.

And there is nothing wrong with any of those choices.

But that's just it. Whatever it is that people choose, it really is a choice.

So, when people say they are busy, they are actually stating a priority. They are saying, "I don't have time to do that because I have chosen to make other things a priority in my life."

If someone repeatedly says she is too busy to spend time with someone, she is stating a priority. When someone tells me that I'm too busy, that person isn't allowing me to state my priority. He or she has decided for me that I'm not willing to make time for... whatever.

Now, there are definitely times of life when things get crazy. Fall seems to be a time when all of the activities start up again and suddenly, it feels like we don't have time for anything that is just relaxing and fun. The same thing can happen around the holidays.

It seems like we often forget that we need to schedule some "margin" into our lives. This is the white space where we have time to sit on the floor with the kids or sit outside in the sun or be available when someone drops by. Those moments of margin can be the relaxed times when some of the best conversations can happen.

So, yes. I do have a lot of responsibilities in my life right now. But believe it or not, I actually feel like I have quite a bit of margin. To me, I feel busy when I am constantly running from one thing to the next. We certainly have our seasons of crazy.

But busy? No, thanks.

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Just ducky

Or maybe I should say, "Just duct-y."

I'm not sure what's proper anymore. All I can tell you is this post is going to be covered in duck tape... er, duct tape.

Last summer, I was sitting around being pregnant when I read this awesome blog post by my make-believe, bloggy friend, Jenny. "What?!" I said to my pregnant self. "I have got to try that!"

But being rather tired for the next three months, I didn't try it. Instead, I told my homeschool friends about the awesomeness that can be achieved with colored duct tape.

Fast forward to Friday when my 10-year-old showed me a project from one of his final duct tape classes at co-op. Another mom had heard about the wonders of duct-taping things — other than things that needed to be repaired — and my son had become a bit addicted to the stuff.

He has been duct-taping everything he can get his hands on the past few months. He's made a notebook holder, a wallet, a bag, a cup holder, flip-flops, a belt and more swords and daggers than you can imagine.

When I saw the super cute bags the girls in the class had made, I couldn't stop thinking about it either. Yes, it's true. Bags might be the one fashion item that I love almost as much as boots... and necklaces.

To say I couldn't sleep the next night because I was so busy thinking about how I was going to turn a bag I have into a duck-tape bag would sound ridiculous. So, I won't include that part.

However, my son and I made a date to go duck tape shopping right after church. We spent two hours in the freezing cold running in and out of stores before we could find all of the colors we wanted. Of course, I was searching for those colors. It was two awesome hours of shopping, eating candy bars, drinking Sierra Mist and laughing as my 10-year-old talked non-stop about his life.

We went to Target, Meijer, two different Michaels and a Jo-Ann's to come up with this:

My project?

I started with this bag:

And turned it into this:

The electric Sanctuary bag. You want one, don't you?

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1

Our baby is 1 today.

I can't believe it. I can't believe what a sweet blessing this year has been. This first year has been so full of challenges, excitement, joy, laughter and even total entertainment since she joined our family.

She has been such a gift in so many ways. From that moment on April 6, 2009, when I realized my dream of having a fourth child was really going to be a reality, to the ultrasound when I realized our daughter was getting a sister, to Dec. 1, 2009, when she demanded to come out early and we got to see her beautiful little face.

From those first moments of life, she let us know she wasn't afraid to speak up for herself. She cried at the top of her lungs for more than an hour after she was born. My husband and I just looked at each other and laughed. "Wow! Isn't the fourth child supposed to be easy going and quiet?"

She eventually calmed down, and we got to know the little sweetheart that she is.

She loves to be snuggled. She is full of so much joy that she makes everyone around her smile.

Now, when she enters a room, she holds out one hand and says, "HAH! HAH! HAH!" as loud as she can until everyone around her is motioning back and greeting her in the same way.

She has loved music from as early as I can remember. Music has always soothed her. Now, she definitely has her favorite songs. Most of them are by TobyMac. She starts bobbing her head and shaking her shoulders as soon as she hears the beat.

She is spoiled rotten by her brothers and sister. She was an early crawler, an early sitter and an early stander. But walking? She has taken a step or two, but who needs to walk when you have five perfectly good people to carry you around the house? She holds out her hands and climbs up legs until someone picks her up. Then she grins with that knowing look as she is toted around from room to room.

Her siblings adore her. They race up to her crib as soon as they hear that she is awake. They argue over who gets to carry her downstairs or hold her. In a house that is so busy, she does not like to be left out. She cries if she detects the older kids might be going somewhere without her.

And go she does. I'm not sure if she is flexible by nature or because she has to be to survive. We try to stick to her schedule, but she often has to adjust to the activities of three older siblings. She goes with the flow and usually does so with a smile... or by taking a nap.

All of the kids have had a favorite blankie and she is no exception. Hers is a super soft white blanket. As soon as she sees it, her thumbs goes in her mouth and she makes her sleepy sound: "Oiy, oiy, oiy."

She has been a Houdini from the beginning, wriggling her way out of bouncy seats and high chairs. She races up stairs and shouts at us from between the stair rails.

As the fourth born myself, I have been so afraid that she would be ignored or overlooked. Instead, the five of us can be entertained for hours just watching her crawl around the room, empty baskets and squeal with delight.

"What would we do without her?" we ask ourselves.

Happy Birthday, sweet 1-year-old!

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