Loving: Keep Calm and Carry Yarn poster

Now that's the one I should have gotten! Check out Jenniegee's shop.

Le pouf

I am so excited about this guy. It's my first pouf!



As you can see, the dogs are less excited.

Technically it's my second pouf. I started by making a giant one so big you could use it as a footstool or sit on it. They look funny together.



But I am much happier with the second one, which is slightly less lumpy and has no seam on the side. It took a while to figure out the pattern based on the yarn I have and the size I wanted. But now I want to make millions of them.

If you are interested in the little one, it's now in my Etsy shop.

Craft show this weekend!

It's so nice to know that in the depths of winter, during the post-Christmas slump (when sales always come to a screeching halt), our local community is still supportive of us makers.

Saturday I will be selling my wares at the Living Room coffee shop, the most adorable place in Valley Junction. Stop by, if you get a chance! You can see some of my new goodies in the Etsy display to the left.

Million dollar cookie, take 2

I got the urge to bake something last night, and I thought it might be a good time to see if I could improve on the peanut butter ball cookies I was not quite happy with last time I made them.

So, apart from the fact that they are a peanut butter cookie stuffed with a sweetened ball of peanut butter, I pretty much changed everything.

This time I used my own recipe for peanut blossom dough instead of the pre-packaged stuff. I skipped the cinnamon and the peanuts in the recipe, and substituted raw sugar for the regular sugar that you roll the cookies in. And finally, I made them bigger. Because life is too short for tiny cookies.

The result was fantastic! So much better than the first time I made them. And I still got 24 cookies out of the recipe so it didn't take me very long to bake them all, and my kitchen isn't overrun with cookies this morning.



So here is my adjusted recipe. Give it a try.

Peanut butter ball cookies, my way

1 3/4 cup sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the peanut butter balls:
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 cup raw sugar for rolling
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Blend up your dry ingredients in one bowl (I like to use a whisk for this). In a separate bowl cream the peanut butter and butter, then add both sugars, the egg and vanilla. Slowly blend the dry ingredients into the wet, until your dough forms a ball. Stick this in the fridge while you roll the peanut butter balls.

Combine the peanut butter and confectioners sugar in a bowl until it forms a ball. Divide this ball in half, then half again. You will need to get 6 balls out of each of these pieces. Roll all 24 balls and set them out on a plate or cookie sheet.

Now divide your cookie dough into 24 parts the same way. Flatten each ball into a disk and place a peanut butter ball on top. Fold the excess dough around the ball and roll the whole thing into a neat ball. Roll this in raw sugar and place on a lined cookie sheet. When you have 6 balls on a sheet, flatten each one out with the bottom of a glass that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Bake for 12 minutes. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.

Loving: A shelf for my Pyrex bowls

Finally, I have a place to show off my collection of vintage Pyrex bowls besides the dusty top of the refrigerator. We bought this expedit shelf from IKEA while we were in Minneapolis. We also got the desk attachment because Mike has had a hard time working in the living room without a dog clamped to each arm on the couch. Now I am wishing my office desk was so nice!

You can also see my keep calm poster in the background. Love it.

Back to bed

The dogs are not allowed to sleep with us anymore due to their bed-hogging problem. But every morning that I'm working at home, Sadie hops in bed after I get up and stays there until, well, whenever she feels like getting up. I think she just wants to have the warmest spot in the house.

My first yurt

Our long weekend on the north shore was wonderful, and of course, complete with all kinds of weather events on our drive. With our habit of going in January we've been snowed in not once but twice with the same set of friends in Minneapolis on our attempts home. Another time we drove back with such a load of boxes from IKEA that a fender bender probably would have severed my head. This time it was 30+ degrees the whole time (it was 30 below last year) and rainy, of all things. The temperature varied enough to give us both freezing rain on the way up and snow on the way back, but we made it safe and sound.



Anyway, we got to meet some of the locals this time, and they were so much fun. The only store within 10 miles of the cabin is a little grocery and restaurant that just happens to grind their own grains for the homemade bread and pizza they make. Our server was a girl about our age who had just moved up there from Minneapolis. And then we met this couple, Gary and Nannette, who told us that they lived a few miles down the road in a yurt. And we could come check it out anytime. Oh hell yes.

Our friend Brigid had just been telling us about how her husband, Aaron, dreams of living in a yurt in Montana, but she just can't get on board. So since they joined us the next day, we all decided to check one out in the flesh. I'm sorry I don't have photos, but maybe this Wikipedia entry will give you some idea of what it looks like. It's basically one big, round room with a high ceiling. I have to say, having seen the tight quarters, I can't imagine living there myself. But the place was plenty warm inside, and they even had a full kitchen and high-speed internet. I don't think Aaron's ready to give up on his dream quite yet.

Unfortunately we saw a lot of these.



And I spent a lot of time watching Mike do this.



We are making a video for our wedding website featuring a lot of north shore spots. It's going to be newsreel-y and ridiculous and fun.

The rest of the weekend we spent finalizing some details on the wedding, and eating. Oh my, the eating. I am madly in love with the cinnamon bread from that store I was telling you about. I ate almost a whole loaf myself.



Then we checked out a few other restaurants in Grand Marais, and everything we ate was just incredibly good. You don't expect to go to a town of 1,300 (even a touristy one) and find menus that have more local, organic and vegetarian options than some of the biggest restaurants in our city of 200,000. But that's what we found. I gotta tell ya, I'm getting a really soft spot in my heart for this place. But it doesn't take much more than good food to put me over the edge.