although it's been said many times many ways

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

i wish you all a season full of joy and holiday treats. nuts and bolts in particular go nicely with joy.

x

for christmas this year we're giving cavities

it's the festive thing to do!

to make these indulgent delights mix graham wafers into melted butter, press firmly into a glass baking dish, layer with chocolate chips walnuts and coconut, blanket in condensed milk, decorate with hershey's kisses then bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

if you need any more specifics just email me. i'll respond when i come out of my sugar coma.

it's hard to take pictures of your new dress by yourself

we stopped at urban outfitters on the way to a christmas party to get in from the cold and ogle the merchandise and this dress saw me right away and waved it's little peaked sleeve and the rest is history.

it's so flowy and sweet! i want to take it on a date and offer it a bon-bon.

i feel it's important for a girl to have a new frock for the holidays. or at the very least one of those paper plate hats with streamers on top.

the sunrise sure looks prettier when it's your first day of holidays

hurry up and meet me, jer!

i'm so excited for christmas and our second honeymoon!

because you have one more day to go but mostly because you're my husband and i love you i am going to make you a special dinner of roast vegetables tonight! let's even use napkins.

x

well since you asked so nicely

if it's sunday and you're walking down the road with jeremy and a sign says this to you, you always should listen to the sign.

the best way to spread christmas cheer is singing loud for all to here

i think i might even love elf as much as labyrinth which is crazy sounding i know but it's so good!! every time i watch it i find it funnier and funnier and it makes me feel real nice inside.

cotton headed ninny muggins!

i love the narwhal part and the mail room part and i love all the parts with santa. and the part where he's waving at the guy trying to hail a cab makes me laugh for ten minutes.

i recommend watching it over the holidays two times with some pop tarts covered in maple syrup.

i'm learning to play the harmonica

so far i can play:

oh susanna
michael row the boat ashore
amazing grace
kumbaya
and the rose by better midler

i don't yet hold it like you're supposed to and sometimes i put my fingers over the holes so it's easier for the air to get where it's going but i think i'm getting better and the downstairs neighbours haven't complained so success all around!

you can listen to my sweet stylings here. get ready for a duet with jer on his ukulele in the new year and concert listings shortly after that.

we love your visits

to celebrate the season, enjoy a cold pint in a warm pub with your husband and jared.

serve generously with a side of sweet potato fries.

joyful and triumphant

the time for holiday parties has arrived! we had my work one thursday night and chad and ryan's last night and one with jenn cairns at our house on sunday and the line between each blurs together like a perfectly whipped meringue.

I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS.

i love santa claus and baked goods and skipping around the house singing little drummer boy. i love wrapping jeremy's christmas presents and thinking about him opening them and how hard it will be keeping the contents a secret until after the bow comes off.

it was secret santa at work all week and my favourite part was confessing to my secret santa that it was me who hung the christmas balls from the ceiling over her desk. i had to use a ladder.

i snagged someone's baby at the thursday party realizing after doing so that i didn't really know the mom and didn't really ask permission but it was cool cause everyone was passing around food and drinks and adorable babes in red jumpers.

it's just that kind of season.

x

not the kind of bark a tree wears

cranberry pistachio bark is easy to make and lovely to look at.

wrapped in parchment paper and adorned with a bow it makes a perfect holiday gift for jared to take back home to chicago or eat on the plane before he lands.

make sure you sample at least two pieces for quality control.

sunday school

did you know that stars are actually suns or that our sun is a star or however you want to look at it but basically stars aren't twinkling little things with people fishing off the side of them they are massive and so far away and could quite possibly have little earths and other planets revolving around them as we do our star/sun.

betelgeuse is one of the biggest stars we know of and if earth is a raisin and our sun is a grape than this thing is the giant apple tourist attraction at that pie place off the highway - it's MASSIVE.

it's actually shrunk in size 15% since the early nineties which is probably because it's millions of years old and didn't drink enough milk in its youth.

betelgeuse can be seen in the night sky on the right shoulder of the constellation orion, one of the most easily recognizable star systems from almost anywhere in the world. especially easy to recognize in the planetarium at the science centre when the guy uses his red laser pointer.

why is space so amazing? clearly i am someone who is awed by items big and small but space has always been the kicker for me. i love to think about the sheer size of it and my small size in comparison and how important i am despite my almost inconsequential measurements.

betelgeuse could die in our lifetime causing an explosion visible even in daylight. i hope i'm alerted in advance so there's time to throw a goodbye party.

shine on you crazy star! shine on until you explode and i can have people over to celebrate it.

x

the art of mushroom caving

sometimes when you inspect something ordinary you notice all the extraordinary things about it and are humbled by how it's slipped past you all this time.

like the inside of a mushroom.

it looks like a cave, so perfectly hallowed out, with a ceiling of stalactites and a column in the middle to keep it all in shape. i imagine tiny explorers finding hieroglyphics carved into the spongy walls that say things like 'i was here' but in squares and triangles instead of letters.

i'd like to put a note inside a mushroom, something profound and vague, so it should be found by a tiny explorer and studied by tiny theorists for years to come.

where did this mushroom message come from? what is meant by it and what does it mean for our civilization of tiny people who value the exploration of the inside of mushroom caves?

sometimes i think the most important thing in life, is to have something bigger than ourselves to ponder on.

lunchables shmunchables

one of the tasty benefits of being mrs sorrell is a lunch sized ramekin of mushroom pot pie!

i took this to work and warmed it in the microwave and paraded it around on a little office tour.

give a wave, pot pie! now a bow! and when that's all through i'll eat you up, every last crumb, and wish there was more at the end.

lily got me this christmas card four years ago

BA HA HA HA HA, TODDY!!

it gets me every time.

i spy with my little i

yesterday morning we saw a giant hawk sitting on top of a cable antenna and i thought to myself, see, this is why it's good to look up and down and all around when you're walking places. you catch all the good stuff!

sometimes eye level just doesn't cut the mustard.

a tale.

jeremy is making black bean stir-fry and watching battlestar galactica and i am writing to you and sewing a christmas gift. i can hear the water in the sink and jeremy turning on the oven. i think he just poured something.

last night we decorated my little plastic tree and i made about three courses of nibbly items. before that a jazz show over beers and food in baskets. before that a cup of coffee. before that it's saturday morning and i'm in bed thinking i love the weekend.

and i love how red wine tastes as the weather gets colder. full of warmth and deliciousness just like sunday evenings.

mmmmmuffins

who is wild about muffins? I AM!

i got this book for fifty cents from the used place that's such a steal and i already made the apple carrot ones and they're pretty tasty!

we eat them on our big walk to the subway in the mornings and i wave mine around shouting that i made it.

you should make some too! i'll even give you the recipe.

xo

gingerbread magnet in good spirits after release from 11 months in storage.

it happened again

yesterday i bought jeremy a christmas gift in the hopes that i would make it home before he would and find a drawer and put it there and wait until just before christmas to take it out and wrap it up and put it under the tree.

i got on the subway and i looked for a spot but the spot i found was crowded so i looked for another then someone poked my arm and so i looked and it was jeremy.

right beside me on the train.

i believe in love and i believe in fate and i believe that jeremy and i are forever linked by both. i also believe that he did not snoop at my left hand side as i held his present close the whole way home.

i like to draw pictures from samurai jack

it's a new hobby as of last night.

oh hey december! what's up?

there aren't normally flowers in december are there?

it's raining out now which is odd for this time of year. i wonder if tomorrow will be an ice rink outside and everyone will take the day off work to skate around to the charlie brown christmas music.

there's some new things around here to report on - this baby for one. we actually already love her after only a three hour visit. some sales pitch!

she tooted the whole time i held her and it made me love her more.

just like what jeremy says about me. xx

look at her she's amazing.

also this picture is new! it's our honeymoon crown and it's signed by the artists and we're very proud of our first work of art.

it reminds me of our honeymoon. which is a lovely thing to be remindered of.

woah, now they are definately in love.

his hands are hooked right into her perm - you just can't fake that kind of emotion.

nice to meet you, madelyn!

robynn had her baby today! we're aunt and uncle to a little girl!

woah, brand new babies just blow my mind with their brand newness like she's only 7 hours old right now. she doesn't even know about morning time. or what her home looks like. or that there's a cute row of dresses in the closet there waiting for her to wear them.

welcome little sweetie! when you're old enough we'll keep you home from school one day and jer will make you those giant pancakes like the ones from uncle buck.

a thousand words paints a picture

that bread song was my favourite when i was 5. the song that says if a picture paints a thousand words then why can't i paint you? yeah i loved that one.

my mom sang it to me and i used to imagine scenes for all the dramatic lyrics like the part in the end when they talk about the stars going out in the sky one by one i'd imagine the world ending and floating out in space really peacefully holding hands.

i made this picture using 1000 words and then erasered out space to look like my aforementioned imaginings.

just in time for the christmas shopping season, it goes on sale to the public next week.