All About Gingerbreads: Part 1

Gingerbread house creation is a big time Thanksgiving tradition in my family (my dad's side, that is). I have a significant amount of information to share on the subject, and in the spirit of Thanksgiving I've decided to dedicate the entire week of posting to:

All About Gingerbreads

Today’s installment? Overview and History

What started as an activity for all the kids the day of Thanksgiving (I mean, what else is there to do on that day, besides eat a lot and watch the Lions lose?) has become an event that all of the cousins (not to mention aunts and uncles) look forward to every year. My mom thinks I was about 10 or 11 when we started this, and if that is the case we have around 15 years of experience making these guys.

Early on, we started planning this an event for the evening of Thanksgiving. This timing is crucial. My family is large, but most cousins eat the traditional meal with the other side of the family. But the evening of Thanksgiving is a time that everyone is free from other family commitments and doesn't generally have other plans. Everyone brings an already constructed house, as well as an assortment of candy for decorating. Then we sit around a big table for an hour or two and all decorate together. It is a BLAST. Not only do we all get to see each other, but we have a fun activity to work on. I love it.

In the early years, we constructed our houses from graham crackers, often using a 6-pack carton (minus the beers, of course) as a base. Others simply bought a gingerbread kit from the store to decorate. Still others (namely, my uncle Dan) constructed forms out of wood and covered them with graham crackers. He’s made some VERY cool projects, including the Michigan Stadium and a battery-operated windmill. I hear that he is working on a “California-themed” project, as his daughter now lives there.

My mom has also gotten fancy in the last couple of years and has started to actually bake gingerbread. She starts out by searching the internet for a pattern, and then constructs a prototype out of cardboard. Once she works out the kinks of the design, she takes apart the prototype to use the pieces for cutting out the dough. You can see her creation from last year on the back - right. She has a new design picked out for this year, while I plan to use the cute Craftsman style she went with last year.

Tomorrow's installment will cover the dough. Stay tuned!

Handmade Advent Calendars

We have a great store in town that sells a lot of handmade funky/vintage style products. My friend, Kendra, sells her amazingly cute kids clothes, hair ties, and headbands there.

What I didn't know was that they also hold crafty workshops in a back room. Kendra found out about such a class to make Advent Calendars and invited me and a couple other friends along. I had no idea what to expect, beyond Kendra's assurance that they were VERY CUTE.

I was totally impressed. First, stepping into the back room at Lola Rue was like walking into crafty paradise. Glitter, paint, and ribbon galore -- MMM. The base of our craft, I soon realized, was simply a baking sheet painted white. We were also given a blank calendar and glue, as well as free reign on the workshop. We went to town, searching through stacks of paper, baskets of stickers, and boxes of stamps. We dug through boxes of little "treasures," finding buttons, old board game pieces, spools, and bells to use for numbers 1 - 25. Add some glue, magnets, paint, and glitter, and voila - a darling Advent calendar.

Here is my friend Tracy with her masterpiece:


And here is my art project! I'm totally excited to find a place to hang this up for the season!


Update! My friend Kendra sent me a picture of her creation. I love that they're all different and all extremely cute.

Welcome Brody Jay

Yay! Another beautiful, healthy baby to report. Our friends Patrick and Erin welcomed Brody Jay into their family last week. I've already had the privilege of meeting this precious guy, and I can assure you he is perfect and darling. 

Now if I could only convince his Mama to start a blog of her own... 

What I REALLY Need Overnight

I was on my way to a meeting for work, a good 3-4 hours away from home, when I decided that I should stay the night in a hotel.  I had previously scheduled another meeting for the next morning, and by staying overnight near meeting location #2 I could save myself a good 6-7 hours of driving over a 12 hour period.

I mean, who really wants to get home at 10:00pm, then turn around at 5:00 the next morning and head back the same direction?  I don't know how I didn't realize that earlier and plan accordingly.   A night in a hotel was definitely my best bet for this trip.

But of course, since I failed to plan ahead, I didn't pack a single overnight item.  I sat there in my car for awhile thinking, what is the least amount of stuff I can buy to be able to pull this off?

So along with the help of my mom, I came up with a shopping list.  But first, we ran through the inventory of what I already had or could get for free. 

1. A toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap can always be found at a hotel.  Check, check, and check.

2. A spare stick of deodorant and some chapstick/lipstick reside in my car 100% of the time.  Check, check.

3. I have some mascara in my laptop bag.  Check.

4. I can sleep in contacts for one night.  No saline needed.

5. Pants and shoes can be worn again, no problem.  Shirts can be washed in a sink, hung out to dry, and ironed the next morning.  Not my first choice, but do-able.

Which leaves me with my true overnight needs:

1. Clean underwear

2. A shirt to sleep in

Not bad, huh?

And once I found that shirt dresses were on sale at Target, I switched my plan to sleeping in the shirt I was wearing and grabbing a new, fresh dress (+ tights) for the meeting tomorrow.  

The customers will probably appreciate it.

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

Last weekend we headed to campus with our friends Jim and Amber and shot some pictures for upcoming Christmas cards.

We all-but-froze to death, but got some great shots. We'll only use one for our card, but I'm glad we were able to capture some scenes from the beautiful IU campus before we're out of here.

I haven't included our "official" picture, but these are our runners-up:

Sample Gates


Check out the "IU" in the bench.


We had a get a shot or two by one of the red clocks!





Quick let me take off my coat and you can shoot a picture of us in our Christmas-colored sweaters!

Questions

I have been thinking about my last post and have some questions to pose to you all...

1. For all you Mac lovers out there, why do love your Mac so much?  

I have to admit I haven't laid eyes on our's yet.  I've been out of town all week and Josh purchased it while I've been gone.

We bought it because:

A. We've heard good things

B. They're cool

C. They have great capabilities for pictures, videos, etc.

D. We've enjoyed trying them out at various Mac stores

E. We hate our Dell laptop (which was dying a slow, painful death) and wanted a change

So what do you love about your Mac?  The ease of using it?  The webcam (for all you Skypers)? Some special program I need to discover?  

2. For you Kelley MBA folks (or anyone else on a limited budget), what is on your wish list? 

I'm a Mac

We’ve officially joined the ranks of the ever-growing, uber-passionate, extremely vocal mass of Mac owners. We’ve had one on our wish list for awhile now, especially since using our Dell laptop starting making us want to ram sharp objects into our eyes. 

When your computer starts failing to recognize it when you plug in a USB, you’ve got problems.

I’ve been a Mac owner in the past. My college laptop, the one I named Julie, was a Mac. She was awesome, but after 4 faithful college years I had to let her go. She was slow and tired there toward the end.  But she was cool, and Macs have just gotten cooler since then.

Most people in grad school have a running list of items they'd like to purchase after that special security blanket (the job offer) arrives. This could include golf clubs, iPhones, purses, or clothes.  And usually a nice dinner or two at some of Bloomington's snazzy restaurants.  For us, a computer!  And maybe a nice dinner at some point, too. ;)

And because I can't resist posting one of these, enjoy.  Every time a new one comes out Josh and I look at each other and say, "wow those are SO good."