Weather Mild, Patterns Wild

Bit of crazy pattern mixing never hurt anyone. I swear, I'm as off-kilter as this photo!

 I'm just barely getting myself dressed these days. We've been having some very late nights (or more accurately, early mornings) with the kid's asthma (which never strikes during business hours) and I'm functioning on much less beauty sleep than I require. Add to that my own autoimmune stuff where my body decides this would be a great time for a flare...and let's just say, thank god for Prednisone! For both of us. Cheap and er...cheerful, it does what it is supposed to. The side effects are unpleasant, but not unbearable. I did manage to wash my hair today, but I was too tired to style it. Big combs to the rescue. At some point I'd like to give myself a haircut, but not until I'm better rested.
 Danny made some beautiful raisin swirl bread in a trial run for the fair. The raisins are plumped overnight in brandy, and there's grated lemon rind and mace in the dough. I can't eat it, but just smelling it toasting is a lovely experience. I might be biased, but I think this is a prize-winning raisin bread.
These honey-spice biscuits are for the fair-they need a few weeks to age in a tin. The beekeepers sponsor a baking contest for cakes, breads, etc. The prizes are large quantities (like 3 lb. jars) of local honey. Last year, Danny won for cakes so this year he's trying for other categories as well. The beehive cake tin is being put to use-I mean, if there is a time to bake a beehive shaped cake this probably it, right? It smells like Christmas at our house-maybe I should bring out the artificial tree to get in the mood. If you're thinking these look like lebkuchen, you're right. They omit the molasses in favour of more honey, and the spices are reduced but they're basically the same thing. Danny used sultanas instead of almonds to decorate them. The glaze is a pain, but it dries to the thin, white coating that serves to hold the fruit in place and preserve the moisture in the biscuit. They must be aged though-sometimes with a slice of apple in the tin, or they would be inedible. They're my least favourite baking task at the holidays, so I'm glad Danny has mastered them-one less thing to do in December!
I found this cigar-box purse a few weeks ago for a couple dollars. The wine theme is carried through to the handle made with a cork. I think it is awful, so I'm going to re-do the front and back when I get a chance, but I'll keep the cork handle as that's sort of cute. I'm more of a gin woman myself??
I get more wear from this parachute material skirt than I expected to. Who knew that purple, green, and blue would go with everything, including an ugly cigar box purse?

Outfit Particulars:

Skirt-Goodwill
Blouse-Goodwill
Jacket-Goodwill
Shoes-Goodwill
Handbag-New Life Thrift
Brooch-Hand-Me-Ups
Earrings-Sequels
Bracelet-New Life Thrift

I'm off to figure out how to work the new electric kettle I bought. It came with a thick booklet of instructions. That's so intimidating. I thought by my age I knew how to boil water-I wasn't expecting 50 pages of instructions. Hopefully some of that is the same thing in other languages-if not, I'm returning it as that's more thinking than I'm prepared to do for a hot water.

Hope your week is going well.







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