Notes from A Cottage Industry

Weekly words to live by.

Weekly words to live by.

All is calm, all is bright.

My favorite time of day during the Christmas season is the evening.

(Well, anytime after the sun sets, which seems to be before 5:00 pm this time of year, as we head to winter solstice!)

My home is all aglow with twinkle lights, and a nice fire going. (Ehem...you may notice it was quite a raging fire when I snapped this photo.....some really dry old cut up leftover fence boards, and maybe one too many of my homemade firestarters....)

**sigh**

Just makes me feel all cozy and safe, and optimistic that the good people in the world are gonna win in the end.

I mean, everything looks better (including me...) when the lights are low and there aren't the remains of a pizza from a half hour ago on the coffee table. Also, with the days being shorter, and the grey skies of the beautiful Pacific Northwest, it just feels right to have little twinkle lights in nearly every room of the house.

(**Ugh. The tree in my bedroom is not a massive glaring bundle of lights, I just can't seem to figure out how to improve my iPhone photography skills in dark rooms.)

Once New Years passes, and we get January behind us, I am ready for sunshine, and light and bright, inside and out. For now though, I am loving the totally romantic ambiance that Christmas lights (and frazier fir wax melts) bring to my home.

Weekly words to live by.

Looking good isn't necessarily the most important thing.

In our world of instagram Joanna Gaines farmhouse kitchens, I find myself lusting after the kitchenaid mixers sitting on the counters of everyone's kitchens. They are now available in so many colors that I cannot keep up, and each new color is more fabulous than the last.

Alas, I will never own one.

You see, once upon a time, way back in the dark ages, before Al Gore invented the internet, it was nineteen eighty something, and I decided to take a Wilton cake decorating class at my nearby JC Penneys. (I thought I might save a few pennies making my kids birthday cakes after a rather hideous fiasco for one of my girls second birthday...) That class changed my life, and before I knew it, I was taking orders, and decorating cakes while my little babies took their naps.

(Gawd! I miss those days!)

Anyway.

One thing lead to another, and after quite literally burning up my hand mixer, I decided I needed to get a real mixer. After some research, and seeing a friend's incredible machine, I bought a Bosch mixer. (It could knead dough, and all sorts of aah-mazing stuff!) The mixer cost a small fortune by our tight family budget standard and, if I remember correctly, I had to make payments on it.

Clearly, it turned out to be one of my finest investments, as we are sitting here at the dawn of 2019, and, although the mixing bowl has yellowed something awful over time, my good ol' Bosch is going strong.

Dammit.

No, really, I love it. It makes the best cookie dough.

Seriously.

(I think it's something about those wire mounted-over-the-middle-thing-ies that just blends ingredients like no other.) Each  and every time I pull it out of the cupboard, I am reminded of when I first turned into a baker, and how I loved doing my kids birthday cakes.

And about how, on two separate occasions, two different children of mine, ate the roses off of someone's wedding cakes, and I had to whip up more frosting, and then I feel all warm and happy inside.

(Did I already say how much I miss those days?)

So, back to my Bosch.

It's just that....it never was a pretty machine, not even when it was new. My heart skips a little beat each time I look at those photos of white-subway-tile-backsplash-farmhouse-kitchens-with-gleaming-yummy-colored-Kitchenaid mixers. I would never showcase my Bosch mixer on my kitchen counter the way you can with a pretty aqua (or red, or stainless...or white!) Kitchenaid. Instead, my trusty Bosch sits tucked away inside my cupboard in between baking adventures. 

I am quite sure my Bosch mixer will outlive me, and I am better than good with that. I love the way it works, and I wouldn't trade it for any other mixer. Looking good isn't the most important thing, after all. 

The busiest time of the year.

December, that is.

Not only do we have the Christmas season, (which for me mentally begins every Thanksgiving evening, after the day with family eating way too much, and I am home, in my jammies) but my family also has three birthdays in December, and with my booth at Camas Antiques, some paper goodies at The French Door, and my etsy shop, well....it gets to be a little on the coo-coo-for-cocoa-puffs side of life.

I'm not complaining, mind you. I love me some Christmas time. It's the glittery-est time of the year, by a long shot. It's just the same challenge I always have; too many fun events/ideas for crafts/cookie recipes I want to try/whatever, and not enough time. 

That's how I fell off the daily blog wagon again. (That's my story and I'm stickin' to it, dang it. It is starting to look like organization will never be one of my top skill sets.)

Happy December, everyone!

Weekly words to live by.