I found this recipe, that I had apparently clipped from a newspaper, taped in the back of one of my cookbooks. I don't recall it's origins but I did really enjoy making the cookies. Oh, & the furbabies in my house didn't have a problem taste testing them for you. They have been munched & approved! *I should note that this is only one of the recipes I'm making this year. As one of the dogs in our family is allergic to corn & this recipe contains cornmeal. If you've got a similar issue try the Apple Cinnamon Cookies!*

What you'll need:
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup margarine
1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. beef bouillon
1/2 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 egg
2 cups whole wheat flour

What you'll do:
Combine oats, margarine & water in a bowl & allow to stand 10 minutes.
Combine cornmeal, sugar, bouillon, milk, cheese, & egg with the oat mixture & mix well.
Begin mixing in the flour 1 cup at a time until you have a stiff dough.
Knead dough on a lightly floured surface, just until it's smooth & no longer sticky.
Allow to sit for 10-20 minutes. (I always seem to forget this part, but it gives the flour a chance to hydrate & makes it roll out easier.)
Roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness, & use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out your cookies.
Place them 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet (or two!)
Bake at 325 degrees for 35-45 minutes.
Cool completely before storing.
The article suggest storing them in a loosely covered container. I leave them out for a nice long while to harden a bit & dry out even more & then store them in a plastic container or bag in the freezer. If my kiddos were going to be eating them right away I'd just have them out on the counter in their cookie jar, but since these are Christmas gifts I keep them in the freezer until I'm ready to package them up & give them out.

Dog tested, mother approved!
Happy Holidays to all the furbabies out there!

About this time last year I went to a concert that changed my life.
It was a Mercy Me Christmas concert, a great show with a great band, set to be a great date night. What I didn't expect that was during the intermission we would be given the opportunity to not only change someone else's life, but our own as well.

We were introduced to Compassion International through the lead singer of Mercy Me. He spoke about the children his own family sponsors & how much you could impact the world of someone on the other side of the globe just by sharing your own overflow. When I raised my hand to ask for a packet I thought "I'll just take a look...". I thought I'd see what kind of a commitment this might be, & see if it would be something we'd consider. I was handed two envelopes upside down & without looking passed one down the row to a friend of mine who had also raised her hand. When I flipped over our envelope I knew I wanted to sponsor the little girl who's picture stared up at me. Her unsmiling face, her little soldier stance, spoke volumes. I said to my husband "If I decide I no longer want a Kindle for Christmas can we be her sponsor?" I hadn't even opened the packet yet.  I read her name, Buni...How do you pronounce it I wondered...Buh nee? Buh nigh? Boo nigh? Boo nee? They don't give you a phonetics lesson in the packet. Maybe one day I'll get to hear her say it & know for sure. She's nine, from India, and she's my girl. D simply said, "I think we should." I love that man.

For the past year we've been having the sponsor money automatically deducted from our bank account. And, honestly I could easily spend more than that $38 dollars in Starbucks coffee in a month. I certainly spend more than that on a single new outfit, a single pair of shoes, or a date night with my husband. Forty dollars can be gone in a flash in my hot little hand. Why not send it somewhere I could change a life? That one aspect of this sponsorship is a good thing. Helping someone who needs it. The thing that I love most about it though is that that is only one part of what it means to get to sponor a child. I also get to write Buni letters, send her gifts, & recieve letters from her in return. Buni's letters carry fantastic little drawings of houses & flowers & talk about how she loves to dance & loves language class at school. It's the relationship you form with your special kiddo that makes being a sponsor so darn wonderful. It's the finding out that they will mean as much to you as you do to them that is the real blessing! Want to find your own blessing?

Last week my mom & I took alittle trip down to the Compassion Headquarters in Colorado Springs. We got to take a tour of their facility & find out just where the money & letters I send goes. I got to see where envelopes are opened, the distribution center, & learn about how Compassion works behind the scenes, partnering with local churches, to fund Child Development Centers.

I got a greater understanding of how Compassion doesn't just pour money into an economy, but into a single child in a well-rounded, holistic way to stop the cycle of poverty it's self. I learned that they were so successful in Korea that  the country annonced in the 1990's they no longer needed the support, but would like to instead partner with Compassion to sponsor children in other countries. Compassion is able to impact these kids' lives in every area of need: health, education, environmental, social, economic & spiritual...they change the cousre of their lives!

I got to see examples of what life might be like for these kids. The shacks they live in, the trash heaps they scavenge in, the disturbing, heart breaking conditions. See the little truck on the table in the picture below? It's made from a bug spray can found in a dump. And, this one room shack barely large enough for a camp cot is home for a family of 5 or 6 most times.

But, I also got to see what a typical Child Development Center looks like. With actual toys, clean clothes, shoes, toothbrushes & clean water. I got to look through a case file like those kept on each child in the program & see how that little girl progressed. And, I got to see all the art work hung in the halls of Compassion's facility. Artwork full of color, joy, & hope from kids all over the world! Kids who have amazing talents, who have dreams, who laugh & play & get hungry & tired just like every other kid on the planet. It was totally inspirational, & totally strengthened my resolve to be Buni's sponsor until she graduates, God willing. This year has gone by so fast, & as Christmas approaches I'm so thankful for that concert, that envelope, & that little girl.

I also got to see my mom decide to become a sponsor herself. I was so grateful in that moment that Buni was chosen for me & I didn't have the enormous task of trying to choose from the multitude of children who need sponors. In the end my mom found two little guys to love, & nearly brought our tour guide to tears because she was the first person she'd ever had ask to sponsor a kid right there on the spot. I feel like a proud Aunt (a little too old to feel like a sister!) & am already finding stickers & little things for her to send her kiddos too. They're 5 year old boys, any suggestions?

On Friday we finally got a few things fixed around here.
The water line issue we've been dealing with for, like, six months is fixed. And, a new roof on both our house & shed is finished. All in one very noisey, somewhat anxious day.

The roof replacement has gone pretty smoothly. Considering, we had to work with the insurance company who did agree to pay for it. Mostly. We upgraded our shingles so they did not pay for that part of it. We also changed the color. It used to be a white-ish shingle that was chosen by the grandparents who used to own our house. Now, it's a warm red/brown, & goes nicely with our red/brown fancy front door & our cream colored siding. I can show you a photo of the shed that was finished quick & easy by one guy on the crew...

The shed it's self is in need of a new coat of paint, which we do ourselves about every other year. So, that'll get taken care of much easier than the rest of it did. :)

The water line issue has been much more of a struggle.
After trying to dig it out ourselves, digging in the right spot, thinking it was the wrong spot when we couldn't find it, hiring someone to locate it, finding out it ran under our house, finding out it was completely broken in half, & we'd have to dig a trench down the side of our house to put a whole new line in...{Deep breath} We hired a crew, called for locates, had them start, ended up running into an unmarked pipe, had our excavator go on a 2 week hunting trip & then not return phone calls, finally hired a new excavator, found another unmarked conduit, recalled for locates...FINALLY, Friday, he dug, he replaced, he backfilled, it's FINISHED!

Our front yard looked like this...

Imagine that trench all down the side of our house, under a section of removed fence, halfway across the back of the house & into our house. I do mean into our house. They removed concrete from the laundry room floor & dug down to connect the two holes to run the line. Luckily, the hole in the laundry room wasn't horrible & my hubby, who works with concrete, easily replaced the floor.  It is now curing so we can rehook our washer & dryer sometime later this week. Go me, who got all the laundry done early in the week to help that not be a big problem.

He back filled & tried to make our yard look as good as possible after all the trauma it underwent. Needless to say any grass is gone, & the garden that ran the whole length of the side of our house is gone. It is all just one big raw dirt scar. An issue that will not even begin to get resolved until Spring. We just don't have a budget or energy to worry about landscaping at this point. The saddest part of all this is that while our backyard never really had grass - & so raw dirt over what was mainly weeds is not a big deal - our garden, that my SIL put in many years ago, was really pretty great.  I know that both my SIL, MIL, & our family will gladly help us rebuild, so even though we're starting with a clean slate, we'll have lots of help. However, neither the hubs or myself have any love for yard work. None. At all. Now, we've got oh so very much of it. A little joke from God, I think. Just smile. It really is funny. :)

The good news is our $100+ water bill will be back to a nice low amount, & we'll be kept warm & dry by our new roof. We also have a chance to totally xeriscape our yard, a blessing here in Colorado. Our family rallied to help us get all of this accomplished. My SIL the construction-needs-guru knows people who know people & really organized the whole mess for us. All I had to do is be home to unlock the door, & suffer through 1 day of noise. Mostly because the roofers showed up unannounced a few days early. But, in 1 day all our immediate issues were solved & we're back to a little less stress just in time to be very, very, very thankful.

And, we are THANKFUL, indeed. :)

Another little Chirstmas something getting whipped up around here...

Another little something for gifting getting checked off the list...

This one might have to be given early so it can be used & enjoyed. I think we might have to forgo that year of waiting between gifting & using for the recipient. If I was getting a quilted tree skirt for Chirstmas I wouldn't want to have to wait a whole year to be able to use it!

Plus, it's going to a place where I'll get to enjoy it too, visitation rights, as it were. And, that's pretty great since I'm kinda loving it! Yay!

{Our Creative Spaces}

I have an issue with labels.
That removing them & changing them can be so difficult!
Not people labels. Although, I think the same is also true for those kind. 
 Jar labels.

    It's no secret that I like to reuse jars. I also like to label them. For things like rice, lentils, couscous, flax...staples in my pantry, I'm not terribly concerned about needing to wash those jars very much. Those jars are always in use for the same products. The turn over rate for those items is also high, so nothing is going bad before it is used up & replaced with the exact same item. Therefore, my scrapbook paper labels that are glued on work just fine. No worries about having to peal & replace.

    My issue comes into play when I want to use the jars for gift giving. I'd like to make it easy for the jars to be reused. Either by me (because so many of the people I send food gifts to send back the containers even though I don't always expect them to) or by the person I've gifted. It's to tedious to remove glued on labels!

    So, I came up with a crafty solution while using up some scrap yarn - I could just make knit cozies to pretty up the jars! And then, it occurred to me I could sew on a label! You remove the sleeve, you remove the label. You can then throw the jar in the dishwasher & reuse it. Reusing the sleeve, or changing it out with a different one. I love simple crafty solutions!

    The first one I knit alittle too wide/tall for the jar. It fit, but as you can see above, it covered every bit of the glass. Since I don't frog things unless I think I absolutely have to, I just knit the rest of them a bit more to the size I liked. I found some scrap pieces of canvas & some cute cotton scraps to cut wonky labels from. I didn't do anything to finish the edges, I like the fraying, organic feel of them just simply layered & stitched on with some embroidery floss.

    Now, the plan is to put granola, trail mix, or candied nuts in the jars with bird themed labels, & dog cookies in the dog labeled jars. I even found a new beefy, cheesy dog cookie recipe to use this year. Which I'll share when I get around to actually making them. :) I also like the idea of getting scraps of fruit themed fabric to label jam, jelly, pie filling, or dessert topping. I could get other dessert themed fabric for chocolate or salted carmel sauce, hot cocoa mix, cookies in a jar... the possibilities are numerous! I love being able to put all those recycled jars to good use!

    Are there any food items you give as gifts? For Christmas, I make specialty popcorn every year, & now the dog cookies are a tradition. My sister-in-law bakes special candy cane cookies, & her husband makes beef jerky in a variety of flavors. Our family loves gifts of food, all year long it's my favorite thing to give! I so enjoy spending a day baking & then filling up containers to give 'just because'. There's a lot of love involved in homemade food gifts, don't you think?

I cast on a new project yesterday!

Something lacy from Friendship Shawls. One more something for gifting slowly getting ticked off the list. Lace requires me to talk outloud to myself. A lot. There is a 14 row repeat for the end panels that requires some concentration. Hopefully, when I get to the two row center section repeat it'll be smooth sailing. Maybe I won't have to concentrate quite so hard & can relax a bit.

{Our Creative Spaces}

Do you know anything about Boro quilts?
I didn't until Nova posted about them.
It's a way of patching that is common in Japanese peasant quilts. Boro literally meaning 'rags'. In Japan it would have been a shameful thing to have a Boro quilt, all pieced & sewn over & over. A sign you couldn't afford anything better or new.  However, they are getting some attention for their artistic measure recently. And, I'm enjoying the utilitarian turned art aspect of the whole thing.

The down side in my wanting to play with this idea is that if you Google 'Boro Quilts" & look at images you will notice my fabrics are way off. I didn't have a collection of linens & work related textiles to choose from, so I used my own form of rags - scraps. Which really, is fine, not traditional, but fine. After all, art is about interpretation, and boro is about using what you have. So, I did.

I also used up scrap bits of thread, er, embroidery floss. And, I played with some different stitches after a while because I got kinda bored. Yes, there is a reason I do not like hand-quilting! Even, I dare say, as an experiment, for play, for art & fun, on such a small scale. (It's only a little larger than a piece of printer paper.)

I did enjoy my little impromptu art project. It might even end up as a gift to a friend I think might enjoy it, & the idea of Boro history behind it. I also think I'd like to play with it again sometime & see if I can get closer to tradition with my fabric choices. I'm sure the hubs has some old shirts I can cut up somewhere! Or, better yet, I can put out a call to all my crafty friends (you, sweet readers, are definitely included) that I am in need of some linen, beige & blue scraps. And, the more scrappy, more ragged, the better! 

There is art in every little bit of life, all you have to do is look with fresh eyes!

Despite my need to get an actual dowl to hang this guy from, is it too soon to start decorating for Christmas??

Mamacita & I saw this fun winter themed panel hanging in one of our favorite local quilt stores. They'd quilted it as is, added buttons & hung it up in all it's quickie project greatness. We snapped one up on the spot to reprodeuce it for Mom's house. Sometimes you can let your fabric do all the work. Love that.

Since we had another snowy day yeasterday I thought maybe I could get away with hanging it up...I mean, after you complete a project who really wants to put it away for just a month? That is, assuming you would start your Christmas decorating after Thanksgiving. But, maybe you start way before Thanksgiving & extend your Christmas cheer way past New Year's to really spend as much time steeped in holiday decor as possible. I'm not saying I do this...I'm just saying it can happen...and it might start with one small step...like, say, hanging up a just-finished quilted wallhanging...

We found some fun bird, snowflake, & pinecone buttons to enhance out festive quilt. And it went together super fast. I'm already on the hunt for another fun panel to make something similar for my house.

Have you ever used fabric panels in projects? Do you use them whole or cut out pieces for a larger project?
Oh, and when do you start decorating for Chirstmas in your home? Is it too soon?

{Our Creative Spaces}