Put It In A Bubble

Have you guys ever seen the episode of Dharma & Greg where they cleanse their kharma by telling each other secrets that they had been keeping? It's hysterical. After telling something, they 'put it in a bubble' and blow the bubble away. Kittyn and I have been trying to do that for YEARS. Not that we keep secrets, but the thought of taking something that bothers you, purging it, then sending it away where it can no longer haunt you is pretty wonderful.

Instead of New Year's Resolutions (all capital letters makes it look a bit ominous, no?), I'm trying to walk away from my wallowing hole, and to walk toward the things that I want. More like being the change and less like hoping for the best... hopefully...

At any rate, 2011 went out with a whimper. We almost made it to New Mexico to ring in the year with my already vacationing parents. The almost part is that on the morning we should have left, Lily Ruth woke up with a fever. We stayed home. As lovely as a weekend in a snowy cabin would have been, traveling with a sick toddler would have nullified all loveliness. Of course, not even a fever can nullify Lily Ruth's loveliness:

Instead, we cuddled our darling one, puttered around the house and assembled my new bookcase. That's right - new bookcase! I made my first trip to Ikea, ya'll. It's ah-maze-ing. Seriously - it's a maze. A beautiful, complicated, desirable maze. In addition to the bookcase that was our ONLY reason for going, we ended up with a Lazy Susan for the dining room table, 100 tea lights, 2 big candles, a set of brightly colored bowls and a set of coordinating utensils for Lily Ruth, Swedish ginger cookies and sparkling pear soda. It's almost impossible not to buy this stuff. Those Swedes are good at placement.

We did manage to make a beautiful holiday centerpiece using Don's childhood holiday place-mat, my very first Christmas tree, a bunch of tin ornaments and a slew of glass balls:

We also started using our chiminea again. Start as you mean to go on, right? I love that thing. Sitting outside next to a fire is definitely on my list of  Really Great Things. The first night, we had some friends over, and the boys got a bit excited about burning things - I was afraid that the poor chiminea was going to explode:

The next time, I lit a small fire for just Lily Ruth and I (her daddy was out of town) before dinner. It seemed a bit wasteful, but I pretty much couldn't help myself - it made me so happy!

So, that's how 2011 ended and 2012 began. Not too shabby. I still have a backlog of things to share (like even more Lily Ruth pictures and a felt ornament tutorial), but today I'm making masquerade masks with a friend for our company holiday party! Gotta run. tellyourmamaisaidhi ;-)