wayfaringwordhack | Entries tagged with holidays

I am happy to say I'm thoroughly enjoying doing Advent activities with the kids. I know we are making sweet memories when they excitedly declare, "This has to be a new tradition, Mom!"*

The other day, we painted cookies for our neighbors and postman, something I haven't had the spoons to do since I was pregnant with Ti'Loup. I had only done it once before, and this time everyone got to participate. My husband said it would be wonderful if, years down the line, the kids all wanted the cookie cutters that have become emblematic to our family holidays, like my friend

asakiyume shared about her fondness for her family's angel cookie cutter (her family tradition of painting cookies was where I first heard of it; I won't link to her post since she's in the process of making some entries private, and I might end up with a dead link🙃).

Here are some of our creations. No natural dyes this time. We experimented with juice from preserved cherries, but it wasn't very nice.

We still have no idea when the family will be reunited in Lebanon, but our busyness is making the time pass in an agreeable way, and for that I am thankful. J is keeping busy, too, even taking up pottery lessons, which he has wanted to do for years. Contrary to when we lived in Egypt and were separated for the summer, he's finding the time is passing pretty quickly and he isn't miserable without us. 😂

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*I introduced mint steamers to our hot beverages this year, which are usually hot cocoa and hot apple cider, and the kids want them on the rota. Just an aside, in case I haven't said this before: The French do not believe in peppermint flavored candy canes, much to my dismay come Christmas time for the past 20-plus years I have been living here. So this year I cracked and bought some off Amazon.

The kids say Christmas Bark and Peppermint Bark making (OK, eating!) have to be new traditions, too, in addition to cookies. In non-food related traditions, they also want to do Time's Up Christmas Version (we make up our own prompts and play, kind of like Fishbowl) every year.

For the past couple of weeks, I have repeatedly found myself telling people, "This separation from J is really hard on the kids," making it sound like I am dealing just fine and would be OK with all this living apart, spouse-in-potentially-dangerous situation* if not for the little ones. But then I forced myself to look deeper at how I am actually coping and:

I have been baking. A lot. <--at least one of you knows that is one of my stress/coping mechanisms. I was going to make a list, but who needs that?;

I have been snacking between meals. <--I haven't don't this in years. My body is not happy with me;

I have a hard time overcoming lethargy to do anything creative, both writing and art endeavors are currently sputtering and fizzling;

I have resorted to playing a mindless video game on Ti'Loup's iPad.

I could probably list a few more telltales that, yeah, I too wish this situation would resolve and our family could go back to normal. And then I feel enormous amounts of guilt because I am primarily concerned about my family and not all the Lebanese and others who are suffering so. I know that this is natural in a way--I know I can't do anything under my own power to bring about peace--but it still smarts that my empathy level is clocking in so firmly at "numb."

I also hate the planning we are having to do concerning J's vacation time next year. We are trying to spread out his days so that he can come home every two months or so. It is sad to think this conflict could be going on all next year and trying to decide when we can go back, and should J keep the big flat just for himself, and...and...and...???

Despite the stress (struggling to find the right label), I would not say I am depressed. I am still finding enormous amounts of joy in my surroundings, drinking in the beauty of autumn in our little corner of the French countryside. I am having fun reading and discussing things with the kids. I love our family game time and watching my kiddos' joie de vivre.

With the holidays coming up and the desire to make sure it is a beautiful, meaningful time for the kids (they aren't taking it well that J will not be able to come home for Christmas, nor can we fly to Beirut for the holidays because--hey, ho! who has $7,000 lying around to spend on airfare), I need to get more energy and oomph...but without passing through Guiltyland.

And all that is why I have posted a thousand times in my mind but never written up an entry for DW. But, it is life, and I do want to document it.

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*There have been several strikes in both areas we frequent as a family and near to J's work. It is unnerving.

About to sit down to a feast with the kiddos. So grateful for all we have and those we know.

May you all have a blessed day.

There may come a day when plein air painting holds no surprises for me, a day when I go out fully prepared to face what may, a day when I have an utterly enchanting experience, one with the canvas, paint, and environs. Will you be surprised if I tell you today was not that day? No, I didn't think so.

Let's start from the very beginning. I forgot to bring painting clothes on our holiday.* The only thing I don't mind getting paint on--and let's face it, my messy self often gets bedraggled and paint smeared whilst arting so this is a real concern--are my pajama shorts and matching tank top. Because we're staying in a hotel located in the middle of olive groves, I set out nonplussed in my PJs, even though I ran across a farmer yesterday on my morning scouting walk.

I should have, however, taken the time to equip myself with better footwear. In the Lebanese heat, I spend 3/4 of the year in flipflops. But these tall thistles I painted the other day are not the only poky plants around.

Lebanon abounds with flora intent on protecting itself from heat and herbivores. Stepping off the rutted dirt track was an invitation to laceration. On the track were thousands of ants, stocking up on thistle seeds, so I had to be careful of where I set up my easel.

Lebanese hunters like to shoot birds. Small birds. So at the crack of dawn, the first notes of birdsong barely begin when they are overcome by the gung-ho, echoing volley of huntsmen taking down their prey...or at least seeding the countryside with spent ammunition.** Ah, country living.

Wouldn't you know that this morning, when I was out just before dawn, it was overcast? There have not been clouds over the mountains in the east since we arrived. There I was, ready to use the first rays to pick my perfect spot, and not a sunbeam was to be seen. All that effort of early rising and preparation and no light.

Not to be daunted, I put a song on my phone and set up where my photos from the previous day showed would be a likely spot. Not sure anyone else would know this song, but you might like the lyrics. It begins like this:

"Fear Is A Liar" (Zach Williams)

When he told you you're not good enough
When he told you you're not right
When he told you you're not strong enough
To put up a good fight
When he told you you're not worthy
When he told you you're not loved
When he told you you're not beautiful
That you'll never be enough

Fear he is a liar
He will take your breath
Stop you in your steps
Fear he is a liar
He will rob your rest
Steal your happiness
Cast your fear in the fire
Cause fear he is a liar...

So before I could get myself bummed about what might not go right, I gave that song a couple of listens and set to work.

The sun finally did come out; I didn't get shot; I only got bitten by one ant; and I got a painting in before breakfast. Well, almost in. I needed to step away from it and touch up a couple of things afterwards back at the room.

This is the limited color temperature palette of Yellow Ochre, Titanium White, French Ultramarine Blue, and Ivory Black on a repurposed oil painting paper. I think it is A4 (21x27cm) so not very big but big enough for this beginner.

It is muddy. It is begging for color. But it was an exercise in Getting Out There and Getting it Done. It was a challenge in observation and a crash course in What to Paint First. All in all, another fun time with the paint.

I used the remainder of what was on my palette to finish up a palette knife painting I had begun a couple of days before (also trying to use up the paint from scene in the first photo above). I don't know how I feel about palette knife painting (this being my first attempt at a landscape with it), but I do know I should have started with something simpler.

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*For my birthday, we are spending a week in the hills about an hour and half north of Beirut, not too far from sea or mountains. Will share pics later.

** This is maddening because it is not food they are after, but sport. 90% of the species they shoot here are protected in France. There are just some things that I refuse to write off as "acceptable cultural differences" and killing for fun is one of them.

Wow. Where did the summer go? It has been such a blessing to be back in France for the past 2.5 months, in our own home,* and I can't believe it's almost over. The kids can't either, and I'm a bit disturbed to say that they're not excited to go back to Lebanon because they love it so much here. (Ti'Loup is getting a little excited, so that is something.)

I myself feel so torn about being here, living this kind of neither-here-nor-there experience. I knew I wouldn't be able to invest in things like having a garden and raising chickens again, but I didn't count on the feeling of not stretching into and filling the corners of our home because we won't be here that long.**. The sense of temporary looms over everything I do. Why clean out all the cobwebs and wash the windows when I know that they will just be there again/dirty when I get back next time? I know the value of doing those things, but I have so many other, more-pressing-to-my-mind (read: interesting or fun) things to do.

And my involvement in my art class (which was "officially" on break for the summer but still very active) took up a lot of time and energy. I participated in the July challenge and did 10 paintings, all done with water-soluble oils in a limited palette to continue working on the idea of color temperature. I'll share a link to a collage. All except the last one used a mix of Titanium White, French Ultramarine Blue, Ivory Black, and either Yellow Ochre or Cadmium Orange as the warm color. The last one had Prussian Blue instead of the ultramarine. I painted the last three en plein air, which was way more fun than I thought it would be. I have ordered myself an easel for outdoor painting to take back to Lebanon and hope it arrives in time.

We have plans to come back here for Christmas, even though it will be a very short stay, and next year, I think we will wait until the end of June to return in hopes that I might miss the allergy season and actually enjoy the first month back. That way we'll save on tissue paper and allergy meds. LOL. I also don't plan on doing any more art courses during that time (though who can say what will arise), so maybe I will have more spoons to take care of house and garden. And maybe the tendinitis I have been suffering from for the past two years will be well and fully healed; not being able to use my left arm fully (and I, being a lefty) was also a major cause of me not doing much, including driving places.

We did do a lot more cultural stuff than usual, though, really trying to be "tourists," and if I were a better blogger, I'd upload some photos to illustrate all this [please refer to the (-Time) portion of my subject line].

In Clermont, we went to the Henri LeCoq museum (natural history) a couple of times and hung out in the beautiful park of the same name, and once visited Bargouin Museum (archeology; and usually textile, but that part was closed. ARGH. That's the reason we went, and it was supposed to still be open). We also spent two days at a science festival called Nuées Ardentes at the foot of the Puy de Dôme that had concerts and theater as well as all the science exhibits.

We went to Carcassonne to visit family and see the famous Bastille Day firework display over the fortified city.

We got summer passes to Vulcania, where the kids rode the little rollercoaster countless times (makes me wish I could take them to an amusement park with serious rollercoasters) and saw a show with birds of prey and Vulcania's pyrotechnic show, which we had never stayed for before. Vulcania also has a new planetarium, which was the reason I sprung for the very-expensive passes, and we caught all the shows.

We also went back to the Fête du Pain,*** but the weather and my head (budding migraine) wasn't on our side, so we didn't stay long. On the social scene, we attended two birthday parties and had friends come over to hang out with us, as well as hosting an apéritif dinatoire for 30 of our neighbors.

All in all, it has been a very eventful, fun summer.

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*I have been back in France during summer for long stretches of time spent in other people's houses, and it is NOT the same. :P
** I cringe every time I say "not long" knowing that three months of vacation is an extreme luxury, but it is relative to the amount of time needed to accomplish certain things.
***Hilariously, it was another friend from that "hour away" group who let me know the festival was going on again this year. Guess I didn't learn how to pay attention to local goings-on.

I made a galette des rois yesterday. And all the filling leaked out. Ugh. Since I had invited G over to eat it with us, I had to make another, pronto. This one turned out much better and very tasty.

Not my prettiest, but probably my puffiest. :D

With my leftover puff pastry (homemade, thank you very much), I made a much smaller version for J to take to work on Friday to share with his colleague.

And because I am on snack duty at church this Saturday, I think I will make a giant one, capable of serving many people. In France whenever you attend a "fête des voeux" with a larger gathering, the galette is rectangular instead of the traditional round form, so that is what I will do... There is a lot of butter in my future.

A little anecdote: The link above goes to an entry about the second galettes I made, back when we lived in Egypt. That means the first time I made a galette des rois was almost 10 years ago. That is just crazy. I have no sense--despite having kids that are a growing and constant witness to the passage of time--that that much has passed. I have a better picture of the above pictured cake, but this one was taken out on our terrace, reminding me of photographing this one out on our teeny tiny balcony in our first Egyptian flat. :P

The frangipani icon is for you,

asakiyume , in reference to our long-long ago convo on the other post. :P

I wish you a Happy New Year on this 17th (!) anniversary of the day I started my blog. I cannot believe that much time has passed since I started this thing. It really blows my mind when I think back on sitting in our guestroom/computer room in Sancerre making my first post ever at the bequest of online friends.

That was way before we started our little family and the subsequent tradition of a photo in bed on New Year's morning.

Because the light has blown out the background window, you might have a hard time seeing that those are clementines, growing within reach of our hands. Breakfast in bed!

I think I am going to like this place. ;)

This move was pretty exhausting. We were unloading our last things from the old flat at 11:50p.m. We then piled into the car and drove up the hill to a bonfire celebration put on by our friends to bring in the New Year. We pulled up at exactly midnight. After a brief chat, we came back to our new home and fell into bed. The alarm woke Julien and me so we could go back and clean the old flat before turning over this keys.

That is done, and we are ready for a new chapter. May 2023 be a more settled year.

Merry Christmas, friends. I hope your day is/has been a blessed one.

We had a lovely time with friends here in our village, and we will likely make it a tradition if we are in the country for Christmas again (already we are planning to be back in France next year...)

We have a week to move apartments. Provided we can get the keys to the new place and the owners get it cleaned up in a timely manner, it should be fairly easy to do. The only iffy thing is moving stuff over that could easily be taken. There will be a cleaning crew there and possibly tradespeople, whom we don't know, so we would prefer to be better safe than sorry with our belongings.

But the move is happening. SO! For Christmas, I got tulip and hyacinth bulbs to plant in the garden. :D. J got a frangipani (Plumeria) tree, and he has bought loppers and a saw. I can't wait to start working in the garden.

To celebrate the move to a place we (ardently hope) is to be our home for the next 3-4 years, I painted J something we can hang on our walls (we always suspected our current address was not going to be a longterm abode, so I never did anything like decorating to make it feel like ours).

( art )

I was going to write more but was so tired I decided to zone out doing art instead.

Again, Merry Christmas wherever you are.

Happy Easter, one and all.

This is my artistic endeavor for the week, hand-painted goose* eggs:

I did them with gouache for the kids of some of our homeschooling friends. I am not an expert in emptying eggs, so I didn't do a great job with the holes. Nevertheless, the kids were delightfully delighted with them, so all is well. :)

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Our goose Polly is sitting on three eggs. I did not want to hatch more than that. Indeed, I do not even know if the eggs are fertilized. Diggory had to go in the freezer yesterday. :( He was attacking the boys, even pinched Ti'Loup so hard and would not let go, that Ti'Loup, in his panicked and valiant attempt to free himself, literally dragged Diggory over the fence because the gander would not let him go. Yes, Diggory reached through the fence to get Ti'loup. One inch lower and Ti'Loup would have been singing higher. :-/

...take and post a lot of photos.

Just scrolling through, looking for a photo I posted during our Mayotte days of our coconut grater--which I couldn't find--keenly reminded me of that.

I must do better. For my sake, for the sake of my kids.

Like these New Year's Eve photos from a year ago (2019):

Neither J nor I have ever been big News Year's Eve celebrators, so it is rare that we do anything special. On NYE, J was in bed by 22h00, but the kids were still awake and excited. We went up to their room and read lots of stories, and Ti'Loup longingly expressed a wish to set off fireworks (prompted by Bobby's 5th birthday with his Grandpa Bob in the book Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie dePaola).

"We have sparklers," I said. "This is a special occasion; let's use them."*

Which, as you can imagine, was met with great enthusiasm. Except by J, who did not want to get out of bed to come sparkle in the New Year with us. :P The kids danced in the snow in front of the house with their sparklers, then we went to the cross that is set up at the entrance to our hamlet and said a prayer for the New Year. We are blessed to be alive, to be together, to be healthy, to have shelter, to have grace:

( More Family Fun and Traditions under the cut )
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* I have never found sparklers for sale in France (OK, I haven't looked super hard), so I have hoarded these from Egypt.

** A silver lining to losing old friends is that, by moving along, we have made new friends

*** For those who don't know, Farmer Boy was born with a squint. He had surgery a couple of years ago, but he still needs to wear a patch 3hrs/day on his right eye to make the left one work more.

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends.

I am grateful that many of our dishes had ingredients grown here in our own garden. I am grateful we got to eat outside. I am thankful for my family's good health.

What are you grateful for this year?

Trying to copy-paste this entry from LJ. For me, the images are working; can you please let me know if it is the same for you, dear friends.

Happy Holidays, everyone. I guess I'm posting too late to legitmately wish you all a Merry Christmas, so general holiday greetings it is.

In this season, I gifted myself with grace.

Instead of making sure that supper was ready exactly on time, I took a moment to admire this ~~chaffinch~~ bullfinch (thanks

nipernaadiagain) at sunset:

and walk to the top of the pasture to photograph this cloud that was doing its best to make a local volcano look like the scientists are wrong in saying it is extinct:

Instead of worrying about mess, I let the kids do their own thing and prepare Sprout's created recipe for "rollashines."*

Instead of baking another batch of cookies, I took a walk with the family in the Christmas Eve fog:

I hope you are all being gracious and kind to yourselves this holiday season. See you next year, if not sooner.

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* Sprout invented rollashines (kind of a stovetop cookies with wildly variable ingredients and amounts, or shall we say "highly personalizable) when she was two or three. I still have the paper where she drew the many shapes a rollashine can be take, even what she calls "Chinese rollashines" for some reason. :P Junebug, now to be known as Farmer Boy, at his request, loves making them, too.

Sheesh. Almost let another Sunday slip past me.

These past two weeks were crazy busy with the pageant, making costumes and working on the painting that I have to do onstage, and with writing. It takes a lot of prep work to pull off something that is A) big and B) painted live. Not something I really want to repeat in the near future.

We had a dress rehearsal yesterday, and all went well. This week, i have to adjust some costumes and tweak a few things for the painting. One more dress rehearsal on Saturday, followed by two shows, and then this will be finished.

And what comes next? Christmas. :P

NaNo will end in a couple of days, and I can ease up on the word goal. I don't, however, want to stop writing, unless of course I finish the story. I am writing towards the climax now.

asakiyume has some lovely painted cookies, and she shared the recipe with me in the comments of this post (do click through, even if you don't plan on making any cookies, to admire more angels). I made a batch to take to a Christmas party today* (um, many cookies did not make it because we had to, um, well, eat them. For research purposes, you understand. Oh, and I gave a few to my housekeeper in her Christmas gift bag).

I wanted to experiment with natural dye and a red-and-white color scheme so used lingonberry (similiar to cranberries but smaller) juice. I think two things went "wrong."

First off, I perhaps made the icing a bit too thin. Not from a taste standpoint because, being made from powdered sugar, the icing was already sweet enough, but maybe the icing would have held up better to the juice? I dunno know.

The second problem, then, was the juice was too acidic and ate through the icing, making it hard for me to do detail. Instead of painting smoothly *on* the icing, I found that the colors pooled a bit under the surface. You can't tell in the photos, but looking across the cookies, you can see where the glossy surface of the icing has been disolved. Maybe beet juice next time?

Still they are pretty, I think, and I had a lot of fun doing them.

Sprout helped, but she ate all of her creations (except the unfrosted tree you can barely glimpse with the brightest red touches). My favorite was when she painted big swatches of red across a hedgehog, adopted a squeaky voice, and said, "Oh, I'm bleeding!" before she gobbled it up. :P

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*It isn't late for Christmas parties because here in Egypt we get the fun of having celebrations from the Western-assigned 25 December Christmas day until the Coptic Christmas on January 7.

A bit of a mixed bag today. Lots of emotions, not all good.

This morning we all went to the store and bought food to give to those in need, then J went this afternoon and bought lots kids clothes, blankets, socks, and hats. We went to a roundabout where we know some families sleep and handed out the stuff. After everything but two bags of food had been given, another lady came running and tried to make someone share with her. The sharing did not happen, so I gave her the remaining two bags. She wanted us to give her more, but we had nothing else. Then two other men showed up, and J tried to explain that we had given everything out and they should divide it amongst themselves. We drove off with some still begging and others sitting on their goods. Don't know what they decided, how it was settled, but it left us feeling bad.* :(

Sprout was asking hard questions today, like: How do you make yourself die when your family dies so you don't have to live lonely? :-/

On a brighter side, I bought a new sketchbook to motivate me to finally get some work done on the kids book I started last year and to organize my thoughts/ideas better since my doodles were scattered all over the place in my other drawing pad. I did two studies this afternoon and hoped to do a third, but I feel a bit beat up and am carrying stress in my lower back. I think the wiser thing to do is to go to bed.

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* I've been repeating to myself that the giving is not about me and was never meant to make me feel good about myself or what-have-you. I believe one should give a gift without any kind of strings or expectations projected onto the receiver. But I do feel that we weren't responsible givers in that we didn't try to spread things out a bit make to make sure more people got help. Knowing that people live in such desperation that they will fight to get or keep anything makes me feel totally hopeless to help in a meaningful way.

This might be the case for a lot of people with artificial trees, but each year, my hands are black from dust after setting up the tree. Pre-move, I had decided that this year, I would rinse the tree in the bathtub before we decorated it. But then we got a garden.

Because of the street-cat problem we have (they mark everything in our yard! ARGH!), I set up the tree on the front end of our bike before hosing it off.

This is my normal mode of transportation with the kids: They both sit up in the carrier frame where the tree is. Let me tell you, this bike is heavy, and cycling around 30kgs of kids is not easy. :P I don't know how much longer I can do it.

If you look closely, you can see brakes along the handlebars. They don't work. The peddle in the up position in this photo is actually almost exactly in line with the footbrake. Very tricky to get used to, especially since you have to hike your leg pretty high to use it.

We had a small family dinner tonight of skillet-roasted turkey breast on a bed of onion and sweet potato, cornbread dressing, fruit relish (because I couldn't find cranberries or even my usual sub, here in Egypt, of lingonberries), walnut and dried cherry sourdough loaf, and pumpkin pie.

And among numerous, numerous, numerous other things, I'm very grateful for the nice big oven I had to cook it all in.

Hope all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving are having a wonderful day full of scrumptious food, community, laughter, and gratitude.

I keep saying I'll take photos of what I'm doing so that I can make a decent snippet post, but we've taken other pictures of late, which I'll include under a cut.

On the creative front, I've been crocheting a sweater for Junebug. Given the shortness and mildness of Egyptian winters, I'm making for 18-24 mo, but I don't know if it will be big enough next year. I've also been doing some sketches, working on a suitable style for a picture book idea I have. And baking: galettes, pizzas, bread. Baking counts, right?

So photos:
( family time )

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* Sprout was 14 mo in the photos in the link; Junebug is 10 mo. :)

For the second time, I've made a galette des rois (kings' cake) for Epiphany (which is also the Coptic Christmas Eve); acutally I made two. Last year, my puff pastry puffed only moderately; this year, lots of puff--oh glorious flaky layers!*--but both of the galettes leaked, losing quite a bit of filling. Thankfully, I had put in a lot of frangipane. Another thing for me to be thankful for is that these galettes des rois can be cooked at very high temperatures, seeing as how my oven doesn't like to cook anything under 200 degrees C / 400 F.

galette des rois

Next year will be my year! But, I just might make another one in a couple of days to see if I can get it right. ~~I want to eat more!~~ I want to make more pretty designs on the top.

We invited some French friends over to enjoy them with us, and their youngest daughter got la fève. I had made a crown for her but forgot to take a picture. If you go to this Wikipedia page and scroll down to the section about the French king cake, it'll tell you about the tradition.

For this year or next, for my own record, here is a list of sites and videos I used to study the recipe and techniques:

Recette pour pate

Recette technique de la pâte feuilletée par Chef Philippe (video and recipe; butter trick since "beurre de tourage" is not readily available to lay bakers: Put softened butter on baking paper or plastic wrap and, using a rolling pin, flatten it into a 20X20 cm square, about 1.5 cm thick. Put back in fridge to firm up a bit.)

Recette façon grand chef : la galette des rois (YouTube video about how to put the galette together and make the frangipane. This link writes out the recipe for the frangipane and provides slightly different instructions than the one I usually use for the puff pastry, adding 100 grams of melted butter to the détrempe. Might make it too rich for J. :P)

Pour chiqueter la galette

Some notes:
- Make sure to work the détrempe well so as not to have lumps in it that will cause the dough to crack upon rolling it out (yeah, learned that one the hard way).
- Re frangipane: Equal parts butter/sugar/almond powder didn't work for me. Way too sweet. Scale back on the sugar. Did not use a recipe that called for a thickener like cornstarch and the frangipane was fine. For two cakes, I did 250 each of b/s/ap and four eggs and had plenty left over.
- Do NOT crowd the border with filling; otherwise, a good seal will be impossible.
- Start the pastry the eve (at least) of baking day to save time and headaches. Dough keeps 2-3 days in fridge.
- By following the two-washes-with-egg procedure in the "grand chef" video, my galettes were shiny and did not need to be brushed with syrup. I brushed them anyhow, but maybe it would be better not to to cut back on sweetness

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* The angle doesn't do the cakes justice, making them look flatter than they were. :P

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The Wayfaring Wordhack

Valises in Lebanon

Entries tagged with holidays

Enjoying Advent

All the Things

Happy Thanksgiving

Plein air adventures while on holiday

(-Time)+(-Energy)+(Things to Do)=?

Tis the Season for Les Galettes

Happy New Year 2023

Merry Christmas and a Move for the New Year

Happy Easter

I used to...

A New Year's Beginnings

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Joyeux Fêtes

Snippet Sunday

Painted Christmas cookies

Starting off the new year

O Christmas Tree

Thankful