A few nice comments on yesterday's post about the awesome chairs and cabinets Mr. H made reminded me that I failed to blog about what he made me for my birthday (in February. oops).
Nice, huh? The situation in Threadville had been getting precarious and he created the perfect solution. And I'm on thread buying restriction for a while (although, ironically, I have not a single spool of plain white that I can find right now).
Another view of the laser engraving. Thanks, Mr. H!
And now I'd like to change topics. This being my blog and all :) Mr. H should really start his own blog for all his stuff. Oh, wait, he did. And I am supposed to be updating it. Oops!
But we're still changing topics because I need advice and hope you might be in an advice giving mood.
Question #1: Nothing like ruining Christmas surprises but since I have already mentioned I am making vanilla to give as a gift, I want to include a mini vanilla-oriented recipe book. Any ideas of what to include? It seems so easy but I'm having a hard time. If what I come up with isn't too copyright infringementy I'll post it here to download so bring on the ideas--even for just types of food if not actual recipes. Pudding? Ice cream?
Question #2: (this got out of control long. I think in typing it I've come up with my own answer but welcome your input) Biscuit's birthday. Past parties have included about 10-12 kids plus their adults. A mix of our friends, her friends, neighborhood kids etc. And I've been sorta overwhelmed. This year I was going to keep it to a very clear, small group of 6 children plus their adults: 3 cousins, 2 very close friends who are kids of our very close friends, one best friend from school. Okay, perfect. But! now the 2 very close friends can't make it and I'm not sure yet about the school friend. So.... Do I go with a super small party with more adults than kids? Do I invite 1 or 2 more girls from her class? (there are only about 12 kids in her class right now, if we did all the girls, that would be about 7 girls but one girl is a twin whose brother is in the class so we'd have to invite him and I don't want to invite all the boys too and "just girls" seemed an easy, if arbitrary, delineation but we can't exactly leave a three year old twin brother out). Also, two classmates for sure have older siblings that would need to be invited. BUT, if we open it up to many kids, then we should definitely invite the neighbor or it would start to get weird. Biscuit seems relatively unopinionated. I asked her tonight and she randomly requested to invite two boy classmates about whom the only thing I've heard is that one bit her earlier in the summer. Hmmm. Can we get away with 2 more girls from the class without including all? Does it help that we'd invite ones who were there last year, not those that just started? Ack!
Ok, that's it. I'll get back to the ceramic pendant post tomorrow!
we use the age = the number of kids invited. when they turn 3, 3 child guests.
Posted by: PatP | September 23, 2009 at 03:54 PM
1. The trouble is that vanilla generally ISN'T the primary thing. I don't think I'd do a cookbook (reminds me a little of those recipes on the baking soda box, where it's for chocolate chip cookies but it has 1 teaspoon of baking soda so it's a baking soda recipe), but I don't know what I'd do instead. A little book about the differences between different kinds of beans, like on that vanilla bean site?
2. OMG. This is why I don't do kid parties---or, the two times I HAVE done them, NO ADULTS. Too overwhelming.
Posted by: Swistle | September 23, 2009 at 04:22 PM
1b. Oh, but I meant to say that if you DO do a cookbook, I like your ideas: vanilla pudding, vanilla ice cream, vanilla shortbread cookies, ANYTHING that has the word vanilla in the title.
Posted by: Swistle | September 23, 2009 at 04:24 PM