It’s not too late! Order your French Bulldog holiday cards now!
These adorable Frenchies celebrate the season in the most endearing ways and are waiting to be sent to your friends and family. Who wouldn’t love finding this cutie in their mailbox?
Fast, easy checkout in my ETsy shop, opened in 2018. Select Priority Mail for the speediest delivery.
Check them out and see if these adorable – and affordable – French Bulldog Christmas cards aren’t perfect for you.
It starts with something quite simple, same as every year … with the arrival of the Dollar Store Christmas plates and the German Christmas mugs. This year, you will see something different, in addition. Mmmmmm … a sfogliatelle!
It took great restraint to wait until I could take this photograph and not consume the pastry right away, but I made it. Only after I had, indeed, eaten most of it and looked at the photos I took, did I realize that it appears that the sfogliatelle has landed on and crushed the gingerbread man! Ooops. Sorry, Gingie!
So we see I am occasionally a sorry excuse for a vegan, even if I am trying. But who could resist that flaky pastry and ricotta cheese? And really, what kind of person would I be if, having purchased some office supplies at Staples, I failed to help support the Italian bakery just 5 doors down? So rather than suffer the guilt of ignoring this veritable mecca of delights, I bought a sfogliatelle.
Rather a nice way to start off the holidays, don’t you think? Salute!
Is there one small spot in your home that makes you happy? Perhaps more than one? This is one of the spots in my home.
It’s a collection of items that all make me feel happy, calm, and grateful. An oak washstand I bought in Brooklyn on Atlantic Avenue back when I lived in Park Slope; a rather poorly matted, (by me), and framed photo of my Mom and Dad when they were married; a rusted crow sitting atop a real piece of branch; a couple candles and some fall leaves in a heavy opalescent dark brown pitcher …
I change these items around regularly, but for now, this is what speaks to me of Fall. Warm, simple, woodsy. Home. I am grateful to have these small reminders of where I’ve been in life and with whom, what holds memories for me, and how blessed I’ve been in so many ways.
Happy Thanksgiving.
“The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It’s not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It’s encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way.”
― Carlos Barrios, Mayan elder and Aiq’ij of the Eagle Clan
Life today pulls us in so many directions; sometimes it seems the stress just keeps coming, doesn’t it? And sometimes, we have to stop the world, get off and just do something nice for ourselves.
With a window of time in front of me Sunday, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the myriad of things I should be/could be doing. My list, as I’m sure is the case with your own, was endless. Know what I did? (In case the photos hadn’t given me away.) I baked. For me. That’s right. Not for someone else, not to take to an event, not to bring to someone else’s house … just for me. Something I almost never do.
Just out of the oven …
I know, shame on me. I picked up a recipe I’d clipped recently from one of the magazines my neighbor and I swap with one another regularly, (like getting free subscriptions for both of us!) Muffins are easy and make me happy during the week, too.
Cooling off
The recipe I chose was from Cooking Light called Jammin’ Oat Muffins – made with steel cut, quick-cooking oats, (I only use McCann’s Irish, non-GMO oats), low fat milk and canola oil, both organic – all good choices. How did they come out? I’d say they were better than OK, but not ones I’d bake again. You know … so many recipes, so little time. I only save recipes now if they are fabulous and I would definitely make them again.
The muffins were a tad heavier than I would have liked. In this photo, I wanted to also show off these gorgeous, kind-of-jacquard autumn placemats I found, too.
But the most important thing was I put a stop to the overwhelming demands in my head and did something nice for myself. That, in fact, made them taste even better. The moral of the story is … don’t forget to take a little time doing whatever it is that makes you happy and be nice to yourself.
Before 150+ little trick or treaters come scurrying through our neighborhood and knocking at our doors, here’s something I had to share.
Our local, (county), newspaper is to be commended for their coverage of all the goings-on in our towns, much of which is positive. Yeah, there’s a bit of the usual murder and mayhem, but they can’t hold a candle in that department to every other newspaper around. In the positive vein, they always feature a Kids’ Page in which they ask local schoolchildren a question and feature their answers.
This week, the question was the kids’ most creative costume for Halloween, and if this one doesn’t take all — written by Julia, a 3rd grader, (that’s 8 years old):
“WOW. You look great. My favorite Halloween costume was a fairy. It was blue and had sparkly fairy wings. I wore it when I was little and I wore it for a lot of great Halloweens. I got a boatload of candy. That was a great time of my life.”
What more could I possibly say after that?
except … Happy Halloween!
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