Gravel from the Fishbowl

Tinting mason jars Saturday afternoon left my hands a bit more colorful than usual. I love using mason jars for storing stuff. I use them for their original purpose of canning. I make jellies and jams and pickles and salsa and other goodies. I use them to store dried good as well, marshmallows don’t get crushed and smushed in them. Bags of dried beans slide all over the cabinets and shelves, so I open them and pour them in a jar. If I’m not going to use them right away I vacuum seal it.

I love to throw pencils and pens in one on my desk or paperclips and rubberbands in them too. They ar perfect for most anything, especially the wide mouth jars.
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Ginger and spice and everything nice that’s what pepparkakor’s made of.

I love ginger desserts. (Note: I don’t like ginger in my entrees, just my desserts.) I love gingerbread! I love ginger snaps! I love ginger ale! (Ginger beer is good, but I don’t like it too strong.) But what I love most with ginger is pepparkakor! My December and Christmas are not complete without it, more specifically, Nyåkers Pepparkakor. One could even say I luuuurve it! (Brad, that was for you!)

I thought Bairno’s first Christmas I was going to have some serious withdrawals. The poor boy was days/weeks old and his little nursing tummy could not handle all the ginger and clove I was ingesting so I had to stop cold turkey and let everyone else eat my beloved Nyåkers Pepparkakor. It was oh.so.hard. Now he loves it as much as I do. Seriously, I have never seen another person’s eyes light up like they do when he takes a bite. Well, except my own. He is his mother’s boy!
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There is nothing specifically Christmassy about these most delicious cookies except for the fact that I only bake these in December and January. In this day and age we can buy pecans anytime, but fresh pecans are harvested in late fall. I remember my grandmother and my mother making these every year.

These are quite delicious and oh so delicate! These are not for the faint of heart as the recipe starts with a cup of melted butter.
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This year I really wanted to return to the olden days of C7 lights. This seemed to be a decision met with making no one happy but myself. We all compromised. I wanted the old lights, you now the old painted ones. That was nixed by RevMrKnowTea who said they get too hot and would be dangerous. Pooey, I say. That room could use the extra heat and our house never burned down while using them when I was a child. The children, ah the children. Half wanted bright white lights the other half wanted multi-colored lights.

Compromise! Well, I got the C7 lights (the yucky plastic faceted ones – see next sentence). RevMrKnowTea got the newer LED cool ones. The children got lights that can be either white or multi-colored. So we bought these sets that are cool touch, faceted, plastic, multi-colored or white C7 light sets. I guess we all win!
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I skipped December 6 & 7 of the December Photo Project. (update: I added a photo I took on the 6th.) Our lives were a bit overwhelmed by a friends passing. He fell asleep and went to celebrate in heaven. We were all affected by the loss, but none more than our oldest son. He lost a leader, a mentor, a friend, a scout master. My son was deeply saddened by the loss he felt, but greater still the pain his friend feels in losing a father.

Our local Christmas parade was this evening. Oh, how cold I was walking behind the old firetruck as my Star Scout and his little brother the Wolf cub rode up top with the rest of the Troop. Our 7 year old wolf cub is a bit of a mascot to the older boys in the Boy Scout Troop. They treat him so sweetly.
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