Hope and Sugared Cranberries

Christmas cheer is in full swing, even here in the desert.  The stockings are hung by our chimney with care, our tree gives a soft glow every evening, and our little fireplace dances.  The temperatures have dropped down to freezing -- my Boston-bred husband couldn't even stay out long tonight.  But it makes it all seem much more cozy and festive.

We've been doing a little advent reading every night, just to remember the magic and wonder of Christmas before it slips away.  I love the idea of advent, of waiting, hoping, anticipating.  Advent - "coming."  He is coming.  The whole world sparkles with it this time of year.

I've been thinking about hope a lot lately, which is appropriate since on the first week of advent we light the hope candle.  When we feel disappointed, broken, lost, bored - hope gives us reason to sing.  Someday, somehow, things will be made right.

I took a drive this week into Phoenix to pick up something I purchased on Instagram.  Honestly, it opened a whole new world to me, new neighborhoods, new people, new adventures to be had.  And just like that, another candle lit, another little light of hope that life can flourish here in the desert.

A new addition to our gallery wall (and I am in LOVE with it).  "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." - Hebrews 6:19

In the spirit of making Christmas feel all the more Christmasy, I made some sugared cranberries this week.  If you're looking to get a lot of bang for your Christmas buck, this is the project for you.  These are SO easy to make, are completely addicting (and also probably fairly bad for you), and look  festive and beautiful on the table.  

The original recipe for these is from Cooking Light.  But it's easy enough that I can write it from memory after making it once.  All you need is:

2 cups sugar

2 cups water

2 cups fresh cranberries (I got mine from Trader Joe's)

3/4 cup superfine sugar (or regular sugar that you ran through

Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.  Heat on medium, stirring every so often, until all the sugar is dissolved.  Bring it to a simmer, but not to a boil, then remove it from the heat.  

Pour in the cranberries and stir to coat.  Pour the whole mixture into a large bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight (or 8 hours, or in my case, about 24 hours because I didn't get around to the next part until then).

Drain the cranberries.  Bonus: save the water and use it as a holiday sweetener in cocktails, coffee, etc!  Easy and delicious cranberry simple syrup.

Pour the superfine sugar onto a plate and roll the cranberries through it a few at a time.  Place them on a baking sheet to dry at room temperature for about an hour.  

Then pour into a pretty bowl and enjoy!  If you can keep from eating them all first.  They have a perfect, crisp little pop when you bit into them, and a delightful combination of sweet and tart.  I can't get enough.

In fact, I think I'll go have a few now.  

With New Eyes

Jonathan and I spent Thanksgiving this year on a last-minute trip back to Boston, to visit his family.  As we drove down the main street of his town, I found myself seeing things with new eyes.  It's one of my favorite things to do when things start to seem ordinary--to remember what it all looked like the first time I saw it, before everything got dusty and average in my mind.

I remember the first time I was in Norwood.  I mentioned it a few posts back, how we drove at midnight down the silent streets, lit up in an array of white Christmas lights, a little town, its little square, very quaint and New England.  When I first saw it, it was beautiful.  There's the big Catholic church in the square next to old bars and ice cream shops.  The local bridal shop where I tried on the bridesmaid dress for my sister-in-law's wedding.  The breakfast diner that Jonathan has been frequenting since he was two (the same waitress still works there). When we were first dating, he used to love to drive me past his old high school, so proud that they were renovating it.  We spent a few minutes one starry night trespassing on the football field where he used to play drums in the band.  It is small town America to me, and nothing like where I grew up.  To be real, it's suburbia--it's not like there's one dirt road and a stoplight.  But something about that New England spirit is sowed deep in the ground there, somewhere between the Dunkin' Donuts and the Friendly's, past the little cape-style houses, down the commuter rail tracks behind the middle school.  

I joke that my husband is the definition of a townie, but it's something I love about him.  It took a lot of courage for him to move across the country on this adventure, and he's paid for it in homesickness already.  But it has been worth it, and does make it all the sweeter when we can go back to the frigid air and familiar sights of home.  We can see things in a new way because we've missed them for a few months.  

All that to say, I want to remember to look at things with fresh eyes more this season, especially with Christmas approaching.  Can I remember what a lit Christmas tree looked like to me when I was a little girl, still full of easy joy and belief?  Can I choose to remember what I loved about my job when I first started working there, before the drudgery set in?   Driving around Tempe, this place can seem like Anywhere, USA.  But if I choose to really look, I see the palm trees.  They were one of the first things I remember marveling at when we landed here.  And it reminds me that this is an extraordinary place full of beauty and new life.  Seeing with new eyes is more than just imagination.  It's choosing to remember what is still bright and beautiful about the world in front of me.

Choose to see something with new eyes today--and enjoy!

This post is part of:

with Chatting at the Sky

Saying "Yes"

I've embarked on a little personal project lately that I like to call "Saying 'Yes'."

I didn't intend for it to be a project really, it just began happening.  I have eased into life here, and it feels like the long sigh, like sinking onto the couch after a hard day.  Things have slowed down considerably.  We are comfortable.  I go to work and come home, fairly predictably.  I spend a few delightful, introverted hours doing whatever I want to do, then start dinner.  Jonathan comes home.  We eat, hang out, go to bed.
It's not a complicated life.

I'm happy living it, but I do realize life is about more than being content in my easy routine.  Life might actually be, in large part, about loving people.  So I've been trying to say "Yes."

Yes I will grab coffee with you.  I love grabbing coffee with people.  But sometimes, when I've been on the phone all day and I stayed late at work and tripped over a curb on the way out, a book and a quiet house sounds much more appealing.  Those times lately, I've been reminding myself that I never regret time spent with friends. At the end of the day, I don't sit down and wish I had spent more time with just me.  Because in this season, in this stage of life, there is plenty of time for just me.  I'm thanking God.  I will enjoy it while it lasts.

Also, yes, I will say hello.  At some point this week I realized that my routine is so consistent that I walk by the mailman almost every day on my home from work.  We live right by the mailboxes, and there he stands most days around 3:45, filling a hundred holes with grocery ads and electric bills.  And I thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice to be the kind of person who says hello to the mailman?  Doesn't the mailman matter?  I want be aware of opportunities to show people that I see them, instead of letting my routine blind me to people around me who are probably really great.
Yesterday, I saw someone I recognized in a coffee shop, and my half hour of waiting was much better spent chatting with her than getting lost in a book (though, as mentioned, I get lost in books plenty these days and have no regrets about that).

And finally, yes, I will bring my husband Starbucks at work, because I know he's working really hard.  And maybe Starbucks for his employees too, because they're there and he's stuck with them and I really do like them.  Coffee (or tea) is always a good way to tell someone you like them, I think.

It's a small way I'm trying to live a more intentional life right now.  One day, I'm sure, there will be a time when my project is to say "no," when I'm overworked and tired and need to give attention to the people closest to me.  But today I may be too comfortable, and so today, when I can, I'll be saying "Yes."

Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch

I've never appreciated a weekend like I do now that Jonathan and I are both working normal full time jobs.  I love getting off of work at 3:30 and having time to come home, rest, work out, clean the house, and cook dinner before the husband gets home.  In Boston we were both working irregular hours, so I never knew week to week how many nights we would both be home for dinner.  It is so much easier to plan grocery shopping and life in general knowing that we'll both be home every night.  And like I said, the weekends.  In Boston we were both frequently working Saturdays.  Now we spend our weekends watching football (so much football) and doing things around the house.

Today's project was inspired by Pinterest, that perfectionist's paradise, that utopia of picture perfect weddings and baked goods and home decorating.  I love Pinterest because I feel sometimes I just need a little inspiration to be able to come up with something on my own.



I saw these prints on Pinterest a while back and love them because they reminded me of the song "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch," by The Four Tops. And I love the simplicity of this kind of print. Partly because it's playful and fun, and partly because I feel like I can easily reproduce it.

A simple, fun, and easy addition.  I picture a lot of this happening in our kitchen in the coming days (now if only I can find Jonathan one of these stylin' suits!):

Weekend Projects: DIY Headboard

This is our bed.

At least, it was our bed last week.  And this is our bedroom, not sugar coated, complete with dirty laundry in the corner and sad, bare, we-just-moved-in wall.  Yes, this home, and the people in it, are most definitely a work in progress.

If you follow me on Pinterest, you may know I've been dreaming of headboards lately.  I am so very tired of this ho hum bed.  In our last apartment, I hung some lace curtains to give the illusion of a window.  They were the same lace curtains that covered the window behind the bed in our beautiful, light-filled Cambridge apartment.  They were given to us by our friends, who masterfully decorated our apartment while we were away on our honeymoon.  I could still cry thinking about it.

So after all my Pinterest searching, I decided I could probably manage to build a headboard.  I love making things and fixing things, so it was a fun (and easy!) weekend project for me.  

Step One: Measure.  This is based on taste.  I wanted my headboard to be medium height and classically shaped--nothing fancy.  My measurements were five feet across and three feet high. 

Step Two: Take a trip to the fabric store.  Choose something you love.  But then again, if you find after everything that you don't love it, it is easy to change.  Besides buying enough fabric to wrap around the wood, you'll also need batting.  Most tutorials suggest using both one or two inch foam and batting, but after hearing the price per yard of foam, I decided I didn't need that much padding.  I bought two packages of twin-sized, high loft, polyester quilt batting.

Step Three: Buy some wood.  Most tutorials suggest plywood, but the helpful man at the home supply store recommended Oriented Strand Board (OSB).  My extensive construction knowledge tells me that the two materials are basically the same.  But OSB is less than half the price.  That was an easy decision for me.  I went with half inch plywood.  I've seen people use quarter inch as well, which seems pretty thin to me, but may be a better, lighter choice if you are planning on hanging your headboard on the wall.

Step Four: Iron.  I was tempted to skip this step.  Ironing is one of my least favorite things, and my mom could surely tell you that I've been much more likely in my lifetime to wear something wrinkled than to pull out the ironing board.  Having such an impeccably well-dressed husband has somewhat reformed me.  He seriously cares about wrinkles.  And though he does most of his ironing himself (what a man!), I find myself more and more satisfied with a crisp shirt.  And a crisp headboard.  So I ironed.

Step Five: Lay out the fabric, face down, and cover with the two layers of batting (followed by the foam, if you are so inclined).  

My kitchen fit perfectly.  I should have included step Four and a Half: get down on hands and knees with a spray bottle and clean the kitchen floor.

Step Six: Add the board.  If you are using a patterned fabric, like me, take some time to make sure the pattern is going to lay on the headboard straight.  

Step Seven: Wrap and staple, making sure the batting comes all the way to the back of the board.  This is fairly simple and fun.  I did have to cut off a lot of my batting to reduce the bulk on the back of the headboard.

Step Eight: Install!  Hanging is an option, as is screwing the board into the bed frame.  For now, I opted to rest the headboard on the box spring.  It may not be the most professional installation, but after a long morning of DIYing, it was the quickest option, and it has held up so far.

The finished product!

I like the bedroom so much better now!  It's no Crate and Barrel, but it's a step forward at least.

To end my day of home renovation, I hung a mirror that I bought for $2 at a yard sale recently.

And I added a little color to the bathroom by hanging this enormous lion painting that I won in a drawing at work last week.  Its previous home was the Phoenix clinic, which was recently redecorated.

As the cherry on top of the weekend, we finally bought a couch.  I was happy with my two little dream Ikea chairs, which I bought off Craigslist last year.  But now that we have a real couch, I have to say, it does feel much more homey.   

And thus ends my home improvement weekend!  I think I need a day off.  What should my next project be?

Fabric

In pursuit of finishing the first DIY of this new apartment, I recently made a trip to the fabric store.  I distinctly remember being dragged to Hancock Fabrics as a girl, lamenting all the way the sheer boredom that awaited me there.  My mom and Mawmaw would spend what seemed like hours carefully choosing fabric for a quilt or some other project.  I would roam the aisles, touching every suede and fleece, leafing through boxes of tissuey patterns, ogling the rainbow display of thread.
A few years ago, the fabric store went out of business.  My mom took advantage of their blowout closing sale by grabbing up a whole dresser full of just-in-case fabric.  Just in case some project presented itself.  Despite my early disdain of trips to the fabric store, when Hancock's closed it felt like they were boarding up my childhood.

During my first week of work I discovered I loved mini peppermint patties.  I took it as a sign that I have officially become old.  Peppermint patties are what my grandma eats, and I have never, ever wanted one--until now.  I sit in my cubicle and savor their cool dark chocolate in between phone calls.

This trip to the fabric store was the second recent sign that I have become the epitome of an adult.
I suddenly love going to the fabric store.

Rows upon rows of bright fabrics, waiting to be transformed into something.  Baby quilts, halloween costumes, upholstered chairs, kitschy sewing projects - the possibilities!

In the end, I narrowed my fabric choices down to about ten, with the help of a phone call to Mom and about an hour of wandering, wide eyed, through racks upon racks of chevrons, toiles, and soft velvets.

Those who know me well will breathe a sigh of relief that the above print was never in the running for this DIY.  

I did eventually choose a print, upon returning the next day with my husband.  He was, by the way, extremely reluctant to spend more than ten minutes in that store, and clearly does not share my appreciation for textiles.

Stay tuned for the DIY!

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South Mountain

I drove a friend to his home the other day in Phoenix.
The sun was setting, and we drove straight like an arrow to the West, with a blinding ball of light before us, just at the horizon.  As we drove, I couldn't believe how the landscape changed, from flat, populated Tempe, past the highway, beyond the strip malls and fast food joints, until South Mountain suddenly rose up to the left, out of the desert.
It's a short, long hill that snakes its way parallel to Baseline Road.  In the past, I've laughed at little hills called mountains, but South Mountain is not to be laughed it.  Maybe it was the time of day, that golden hour, but there was a regality and a silent dignity that rose from the ground in that place, and it shut my mouth.
The road rose up and down abruptly, narrowing out as we wound our way through the neighborhood, a cluster of adobe-tan houses like a little village at the base of the hill.
I couldn't help but be breathless.  On one side, a desert wilderness, and a trailhead leading up the mountain.  On the other, the lights of Phoenix twinkling as the darkness crept in, the flat land sparkling its defiant eye toward the hills beneath me.

There is beauty everywhere.

As time barrels on into October, I find myself missing that Boston fall less and less.  There may not be golden orange leaves raining to the ground, but the air in the mornings here is crisp and fresh, and you can tell a new season is coming.  If I want, I can wear a sweater, even if it may live up to its name.  I had a pumpkin spice latte despite the 80 degree temperatures.  And you know what?  It was still delicious.
For now we are enjoying our little apartment and finally starting to clear out the boxes and add some personality.  I have a big DIY planned within the next week or two -- something I've been dying to do since we moved in.  More on that to come!