Holiday Tee Time

Overlooking the golf course from the tea room at Pelican Hill

The Laguna Beach area has several very posh resorts, and all of them offer a number of festive and reasonably priced, if not free, events for us local, not-so-posh peons. Last weekend we stopped in for the tree lighting ceremony at the Ritz Carlton, and my mom and I went to Holiday Tea at the Pelican Hill resort. The St. Regis Monarch Beach resort and the Montage resort also hosted tree lighting ceremonies and wine tastings. As we swayed to Beach Boy cover bands (nary a holiday carol to be heard at the Ritz), sipped hot cocoa, and pretended to be cold, I tried not to compare the highly orchestrated tree lighting ceremonies at these blandly elegant resorts to those in cities with souls, like Chicago and Boston. Similarly, it felt a little odd to be reveling in a full holiday tea service while overlooking a very green golf course. It's my seventh December in warm climate, but I haven't stopped dreaming of a white Christmas.

I'm not a complete Grinch, though. I give the resorts credit for trying, and I have to admit that the views, while not Christmas-y, are breathtaking. And it's 13 degrees back in my hometown as I write this. Brrr! I like cold weather but I'm not crazy. Maybe a white Christmas is overrated?

Blechh Friday

Ah, Black Friday. The day on which greediness, materialism, and bad manners are rewarded. Women lace up their running shoes in preparation of mowing down anything standing in the way of a $15 savings, men forego Thanksgiving with their families to camp out in front of Best Buy--a friend really did see people lined up in front of Best Buy on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving--and sales personnel are forced to report to work before their turkey dinner is digested. I self-righteously declared a Black Friday Black-Out this year, vowing to spend not one cent on this disgusting excuse for a holiday tradition.

The day dawned innocently enough. I had no plans for shopping, but we did have a tree to decorate. But after "thoroughly" searching the attic for the Christmas lights, the Wrangler reported that we must have thrown them away last year. (The fact that it didn't seem odd or out of character for us to inexplicably throw away perfectly good Christmas lights is, in itself, evidence that we are in no position to judge Black Friday shoppers.) I felt no compunction heading over to CVS for lights. CVS is not Target, I reasoned, unreasonably. I further assured myself that it is not 4AM, I'm not looking to score a mad deal on lights, I do not plan on shoving old ladies out of my way, and I will not fight anyone for a parking spot. I am not a crazy Black Friday shopper. I am a calm, rational consumer with a legitimate reason for buying something.

I found some cool snowflake tree lights and bought the last two boxes. Upon our return home, we were dismayed to find that we had purchased enough lights for exactly one spin 'round the tree. To make a long story short, three trips to two different CVS stores and NINE boxes of lights later, we had enough of those blasted snowflake tree lights to barely cover the Christmas tree. We mustered half-hearted applause during our tree lighting. I guess multiple trips to the store to drop $100+ on lights will usurp some of your yuletide anticipation.

Later that day, I climbed up into the attic to put away the turkey roaster. And what was the very first thing I saw at the top of the steps? A large box clearly marked "Christmas Tree Lights." I simply do not know how the box escaped the Wrangler's purview. This is the dude who spotted a $20 bill in a pile of leaves, people. From a moving car.

Even more disconcerting: somewhere out there, Black Friday shoppers are wrapping their $39 ipads and $79 flat-screen TVs. Yeah, I sure showed them!

Thanksgiving Eve

Tonight I baked two loaves of bread (one for the stuffing, one for the table), roasted and pureed four sugar pumpkins for pie, and made a 1/2 gallon of homemade vanilla ice cream. The theme this year is Thanksgiving on the Farm. For the first time, I won't be opening cans of green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and fried onions for the green been casserole. Nope, I'll be using fresh organic green beans, mushrooms, chicken stock, and my own caramelized onions. I'm roasting and creaming corn for the scalloped corn casserole. I'm making the stuffing from scratch, right down to the fresh sage, thyme, and rosemary from the spice garden. The only remnant of my Minnesota upbringing that will grace the table is the Jello salad. I'm using fresh fruit instead of canned fruit cocktail, and yogurt instead of Cool Whip, but I just can't think of an acceptable substitute for the Jello itself.

So, here I sit on the night before Thanksgiving, feeling ambitious and inexplicably smug. But check in with me 'round this time tomorrow. I'll either report that Thanksgiving on the Farm (a) was amazing and not really any more time-consuming than my old way of doing things, (b) was significantly more time-consuming but well worth the extra work, or (c) was a colossal disaster and a waste of time and ingredients. I guess we will see if I can kick the cans.

Cake Pops

Cupcakes and tart yogurt are so two thousand and late. We've moved onto cake pops--delicious, decadent, decorated tiny balls of cake on a stick. No more agonizing when faced with chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, and pumpkin cupcakes. With cake pops, you can have all four flavors and not feel too guilty.

I bought Bakerella's Cake Pops book last week and ambitiously signed up to bring homemade cake pops to the holiday party at the barn. This is the kind of thing I have to do in order to get some follow through around here. Without my commitment in ink on the sign-up sheet, chances are good that the Cake Pops book would join my artisan gelato books on the dusty shelf.

And so, tomorrow I am off to Michaels craft store in search of paper sticks and styrofoam holders. Do note that, in a most excellent move, I perfectly timed this endeavor to my mom's visit over the holiday weekend. Mom...help!!!

'Round the Ranch

Dash getting his nails trimmed. To keep that scruffy little jerk from biting us, we have to set down a jar of peanut butter and let him have at it.

Here at the ranch we're gearing up for the holidays. The weather admittedly has been pleasant, with low 70s during the day and cozy-ish low 60s at night. Things have been busy but banal--just a blend of pets, PT, riding, yoga, and lawyering. I'll have more time for some cowgirl ingenuity once I shed the thrice-weekly PT from the mix. I spent last weekend playing the semi-perfect homemaker: baking bread, roasting butternut squash, dutifully doing laundry (but then getting banned by the Wrangler from any such future endeavor; apparently my signature dumping of clean clothes from the dryer into a five-foot heap on the guest bed causes wrinkles--wrinkles that can't be remedied because we don't own an iron), scouring a holiday bazaar for Thanksgiving decorations, wrapping presents, designing the family Christmas card, ordering our Noble fir from Oregon (which will be chopped down this weekend and, like last year, fedexed to us in an astonishing display of environmental unfriendliness...but hey, a girl's gotta have some vices...), and lining up festive plans for holiday shows, teas, and tree lightings. It's a wonderful time of year!

Head of the Class

Now that I can sit comfortably and use my arm again, I'm back on the workshop circuit. This month and next I'm taking a series of Backyard Skills classes through the local Ecology Center. First up: a pine needle basket weaving class. Although I have to raise an eyebrow at the class description's proclamation that weaving with natural materials "awakens us to the intricate and inextricable web of life we are all woven into" and "opens our hearts to feel gratitude for the gifts of the earth" (uh...okay...), I do think it's cool that we'll be making something useful with locally harvested pine needles. Next up is a beeswax candle making class whose description simply mentions that beeswax candles burn clean and much longer than candles derived from petroleum. Nothing about the "intricate and inextricable web of life" here, thankfully.

"Hey, do you want to take a couple classes with me?" I asked the Wrangler.

"What kind of classes?" He sounded cautious. The poor man never knows what I might have up my sleeve, and he has learned the hard way. The yoga for dogs class comes to mind.

"A pine needle basket weaving class and a beeswax candle making class." I braced myself for a "no-thanks-go-with-a-girlfriend" type of response. I was pleasantly surprised when he promptly agreed.

"Sure. Sounds like the kind of classes I took in college."

Ah. I sometimes forget that my artist husband is open to a fairly wide range of creative experiences. Since he's game for so many things, we've done a fair amount of crafty-type activities together, like the watercolor tide pool class and the marine mammal sculpture class.

This here is one lucky cowgirl.

Doll Face

I try to keep upbeat on this blog, but October found me feeling a bit blue. It was the everyday stress from work and other responsibilties--you know, life--combined with the tedious recovery from the accident, dealing with my new fear of riding, and longing for a real autumn. To literally add insult to injury, I'm virtually and virtuously viceless these days. I'm doing whatever I can to avoid breaking any more bones the next time I fall off my horse (and, assuredly, there will be a next time). So I've sworn off soda, sweets, caffeine, red meat, and anything else bad for me and taken up the dreaded yoga. Clearly, something had to give.

I thought long and hard about what I needed to do to snap out of my indulgent despair. I looked at Chanel bags (too la-de-dah). I considered a vacation (too temporary). I thought about a new car (too expensive). I signed up for an SLR photography class (too complicated--the Wrangler ended up going in my stead). Then, magically, last week at Border's an extraordinary book fell off the shelf and into my hands: Storey's Guide To Raising Miniature Livestock.

I've previously mentioned my plan to one day add some babydoll sheep to the family. Well, friends, that day has come. I am on the list to acquire two Olde English Babydoll Southdown sheep after lambing season this coming spring. As the Old English Babydoll Sheep Registry states, these minature sheep "are outstanding pets who produce wool that is a hand spinner's delight." They provide organic weeding and make excellent companions. Their gentle nature "makes them a joy to own," and their "wooly teddy bear face will always give you a smile." They generally are 18 to 24 inches tall and weigh about 70-150 pounds.

I guess it's official: there's a lot of work to be done and things to be figured out between now and May when the new furry friends arrive. The spring in my step is back.